“That’s her, right?” Daniel asks.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Wow!” Lola says. “Y’all look so similar!”
I think I’m supposed to glow with pleasure at that, but instead it only makes my muscles tense. There’s no doubt that Mom and I look alike. On the weekends, when she wears her favorite old jeans and concert T-shirts, we’ll occasionally get asked if we’re sisters—in the way that people actually think it, not in the gross-old-man-trying-to-compliment-a-woman-for-not-being-old kind of way. But I don’t glow with pleasure. I only twist my fingers together. What is she doing at Once Upon? Did I do something wrong? She wouldn’t yell at me here, would she?
I’m frozen, rooted in place, but I can feel the weird looks that Daniel and Lola are boring into the back of my head. Okay, a normal person would go up and greet their mother. Okay. “Um, I’ll see you guys later,” I tell them, then force one lead foot up and then the next until I make it over to Mom.
She registers me when I’m a few feet away, and then she does the strangest thing. She smiles. A little bit of an uncomfortable smile, but still. It’s the effort that counts, right?
“Hey, Mom,” I say. “What’s, um, why are you here?”
She seems to look just past me as she pushes her hair behind her ears, like she can’t quite meet my eyes. “I saw Barbra in the driveway,” she answers. “I thought I’d give you a ride home. You get off soon, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” The smallest bit of tension releases from my shoulders. “Yeah, in ten minutes.”
“Great!” Mom clasps her hands together. Her wedding ring glints under the store lights, an heirloom from Mama’s grandmother. “I’ll meet you here when you’re ready.”
“Great.” I’m not sure what to say next so I just add, “Thanks,” and leave with a quick wave. A wave?
Nine minutes later, I’m in the break room gathering my things. Jake walks in, and I chirp, “Oh, good!”
He tilts his head with an inquisitive smile. “Shoshanna Greenberg, are you happy to see me?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I laugh. “My mom is going to drive me home, so I don’t need a ride today. Thank your mom for me, though!”
“Hey, that’s a good sign, right?” he asks. “That your mom is here?”
I tug on my tote bag. “I think so?”
“Hope so. Just let us know if you need a ride. Anytime.”
“Thanks, Jake.” I pause. “It’s weird we’re friends now.”
He laughs. “Yeah.”
“I like it though,” I nervously admit.
His eyes seem to soften at my words, which makes my stomach flip. “Me too.”
I give him a quick smile and then, cheeks warming, slip by him and out the break room door.
* * *
The car ride home is awkward. Conversation is surface level—I swear at one point we keep the weather chat going for a straight five minutes. I pick at my nails and stare out the window as we get closer to home. Christmas decorations line the streets, houses decked out in twinkling lights, yards covered with Santas and reindeers and fake snow. It looks like a storybook, cozy and warm. I pull my coat tighter around me.
We get home and step inside to the smell of roasted garlic. “I made soup!” Mama calls out from the kitchen. “Thought we could all have dinner together.”
“Thank you, Alex,” Mom calls back.
We slip off our shoes and shrug out of our jackets before heading into the kitchen. Mama finishes seasoning the soup, while Mom takes dishes from the cabinet. I grab spoons and napkins and help set the table, and soon we’re all sitting with bowls of tomato soup and garlic bread. The scene is so domestic, so normal, I feel disoriented.
“Tastes great,” I lie after taking a sip. Not because it tastes bad but because I feel too apprehensive for things like taste buds to work. To be honest, the soup tastes like anxiety.
Mama smiles at me. The sleeves of her thermal shirt are pushed up to her elbows, and she’s still wearing a gingham apron. “Thanks, darling.”
“So.” Mom clears her throat and attempts a smile as well. She pulls her hair back into her after-work bun, a messy affair with serious Albert Einstein vibes. “Shoshanna, your mama and I wanted to have a chat with you. We…” She scratches her ear, then puts her hand down, then picks it back up to fiddle with her soup soon. “We want to apologize.”
I was about to take a bite of garlic bread, but now my mouth feels too dry. An apology? I was expecting a lot of things, but I wasn’t expecting that. “Um. You do?”
“Yes.” Mama takes in a little breath as she looks at me. “Sweetheart, we weren’t being mature either. We shouldn’t have been fighting like that. And we certainly shouldn’t have made it feel like you needed to fix anything. You’re our daughter. We love you. We take care of you. You can take care of us when we’re old and wrinkled. Well—” She laughs. “More wrinkled than now.”
“Oh.” Moisture pricks at my eyes as the words settle in. “So… you’re okay, then? You’re going to stop fighting?”
They exchange a look, and my quick relief fades. Mama gives a small nod before Mom replies, “We’re sorry for the screaming and for missing Latkepalooza. That was unfair of us. But we don’t know if—” Her voice breaks a little. She clears her throat and stirs her soup. “Your mama and I have some issues we need to talk about. We found a therapist, and we’re going to attend sessions with her after the New Year. We’ll just have to see if… if this is still working.”
This, as in their marriage.
There’s a long silence. I feel like we’re all trying not to cry.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Mama leans across the table and squeezes my hand. “Shoshanna, we love you. No matter what happens between us, we love you. And we’ll be better about the fighting, and we’re sorry we missed Latkepalooza. We understand why you did what you did, but you have to promise us there’s not going to be a repeat incident. We were really worried.”
“We know you wanted to help,” Mom says. “But there’s a difference between asking to help and interfering. If something we’re doing is affecting you negatively, talk to us about it. Don’t keep it to yourself and then try to fix it behind our backs. Because that probably won’t end well. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say, and then look down at my soup. This conversation has been so short, steam still rises off of the surface—and yet—everything has changed.
“We love you,” Mom says.
“We’ll always love you,” Mama agrees.
The way they keep repeating those words makes it feel like they’re breaking up with me. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to wait and see if my life is going to be flipped inside out. I stir my soup and say, “I love you too.”
Chapter Eleven
If my life were a movie, this is the point where I would make a grand romantic gesture. I’d run through the airport. I’d confess my love on the Jumbotron at a baseball game. I’d sprinkle a hundred rose petals on the bed.
But my life isn’t a movie. And it’s not baseball season, and Geraldine and Cheyenne would probably find it weird if I sprinkled rose petals on their beds. So instead I ask them to meet me at the mall half an hour before work, and surprisingly, thankfully, they agree. I walk up to them with penance in hand—the chocolate chip banana bread muffins I made last night after my moms retreated to their bedroom.
My stomach churns as I sit at the table across from my friends and place the bag down. The food court is empty, and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. “Hi,” I say softly.
Cheyenne’s sweater is bubblegum pink. Geraldine’s nails are coated in moss-green polish. My palms are sweating like a block of ice in a sauna.
I nudge the bag forward. Cheyenne takes it and inspects with a small smile. Geraldine tugs on her shirtsleeve. My hands squeeze so tight, my knuckles turn white. I want my friends back. I also vaguely want to barf.
In the ninth grade, we all went to a Halloween party
together. Cheyenne got an invite from a friend on the yearbook staff. She was the only freshman on the staff because, like everything else, she had a natural knack for Photoshop. Geraldine got an invite from the girls on her softball team. And I got an invite as the plus one for my two best friends.
It was a real Halloween party. Full of upperclassmen, loud, thumping music, a barely lit basement, and flavored vodka in cups of off-brand Coke. No scary-movie marathons. And definitely no trick-or-treating. I dressed up as Hermione, regular Hermione, not a gross sexpot version. Cheyenne dressed as Tahani from The Good Place, all five feet eight inches of her looking glorious in an elegant ball gown her mom wore to some black-tie gala years before. And Geraldine dressed as Rosa Díaz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine with an on-point impression. She rocked the hell out of that leather jacket, while my Hogwarts robe was obviously intended for someone six inches taller.
The second we walked into the party, I felt out of place—too young, too short, hair too frizzy even for Granger. I didn’t belong. I didn’t fit. The one thing I had going for me was the ability to crack a good joke, but it’s hard to impress with faultless wordplay when the music is so loud it makes you regret the fact that you have ears. But Cheyenne grabbed one of my hands and Geraldine grabbed the other, and they shepherded me through the crowd, flitting us from one group to the next, and by the end of the night I’d played my first round of beer pong (with La Croix), joined a rambunctious game of Truth or Dare, and made approximately fifty new friends.
Except I didn’t need those fifty new friends. Not really. Because that night I realized I already had the two best friends in the world.
What if my mistake was too big? What if I lose them?
“Um.” I look down at my lap and squeeze my hands harder, nails digging into my palms. I’m not actually Hermione Granger. There’s no time turner to go back and fix my screwup. I have to apologize and hope we can move forward. My pulse jumps as I begin to apologize. “I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong. And I won’t do anything like that again. I won’t interfere. And I e-mailed Lucille Tifton last night and explained the entire situation. She hasn’t responded yet, but hopefully she will. And—” I swallow hard, blood thrumming in my veins. “I really miss you guys, and I hope you can forgive me. I messed up, and I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. Please.”
I wait for a long, painful stretched-out pause. I wait for anger or cool dismissal.
But when I look up, I find Cheyenne’s eyes are soft. She leans across the table and takes my hand with a quick squeeze. “Shosh, we don’t hate you.”
My voice wobbles. “You don’t?”
“Of course not,” Geraldine says. “You messed up. But, like, people mess up. And you apologized. And also we love you.”
They’re both looking at me with concern now, eyes tender, and before I can stop it, I break into tears. Because of course I freaking do. I furiously wipe them away as my cheeks burn. “Sorry,” I say, only crying harder as I continue, “I know it’s not an excuse, but my moms have been fighting lately, and I was so stressed out, and I just wanted to fix everything. For them and for you. Because you’re amazing, and I wanted to show you that, but I went about it the wrong way. I know that now. And I was just so scared I was going to lose you guys. I love you both so much. And I thought you hated me.”
And then, the weirdest thing happens: Cheyenne’s eyes water, and tears start running down her face, and then Geraldine starts crying too, and Cheyenne is saying, “What are you even talking about? We love you so much,” and Geraldine is saying, “Oh my god, this eyeliner isn’t waterproof. We love you, Shoshanna. Forever.”
And they tell me how much they love me and that they’re there for me no matter what, and I fill them in about everything with my moms and how I’m scared they might get divorced, and there’s nothing I can do, and we’re all crying, hard, and then suddenly we’re all laughing, even harder, and we’re making an enormous spectacle of ourselves as employees slowly make their way into the mall to find three teenage girls having simultaneous breakdowns in the middle of an empty food court.
“Shosh.” Geraldine manages to speak coherently first. “You are freaking hilarious and smart and kind. What you did was wrong, but I know it came from a good place. I know how lucky I am to have you as a friend.” She rubs her nose. “Geez, does anyone have a tissue?”
Cheyenne passes her a napkin and then says, “I hope these muffins taste good with snot.”
“Adds that umami flavor,” I say, and we all break into laughter again. Eventually, we lean back into our chairs in slap-happy exhaustion. I feel such immense relief. “In the future, I promise to only offer help, not to interfere. Okay?”
“Okay,” Geraldine agrees.
“And we can help you, too, you know,” Cheyenne adds. “Like with rides—RIP Barbra—or with the bookselling competition or whatever.”
“Thanks,” I say.
And then—an idea sparks.
Cheyenne could help with the competition. A smile draws to my lips. “Cheyenne, my best friend.”
“Yeah?”
“Daughter of Santa…”
“Oh. Oh, definitely not.” She shakes her head, picking up on what I’m after. “No way.”
“You said any favor!”
“What is it?” Geraldine asks.
“Please not this,” Cheyenne says.
“Definitely this.” I put my hand on her shoulder and stare into her beautiful brown eyes. “I could use a Christmas miracle.”
Cheyenne sighs. “Oy vey.”
* * *
The copy machine in the stock room is one step from deceased. I’m pretty sure it’s been here for longer than Once Upon, a remnant from the VHS media store that lived here before us. Take that, technology. Books outliving you once again! Huzzah!
Printing a hundred fliers on this dinosaur machine is a slow and painful task, and the stock room is freezer-section-of-the-grocery-store cold. I jump from foot to foot while I wait and scroll through a Time Stands Still fanfic and text with Cheyenne and Geraldine, making plans for New Year’s Eve, which, other than Christmas, is the first time in weeks we’ll all be off work at the same time. I’m smiling throughout the whole conversation. Who knew having a breakdown in a food court could be so good for your serotonin levels? I guess it was silly of me to think they’d just stop being my friends, but that’s the thing about feelings, whether they’re silly or not, they are totally freaking real.
The last flyer prints, and I hug the warm stack close to my chest. Mmm, toasty. Then I open the stock room door and bump straight into a solid form. A very solid form covered in flannel.
“Hey there,” Jake says. “Morning.”
I rock back on my heels and look up at his easy grin. My skin flushes. Darn it. Did he get even more attractive overnight? Do people have attractiveness growth spurts like height growth spurts? “Hi,” I squeak out.
“What are those?” His eyes are on my flyers.
I bite back a smile and lower the papers so they’re down by my thigh. “Nothing important. Hey, can I grab a ride to work again tomorrow? Only if it’s not a problem.”
“Sure,” he answers, then, “as long as you tell me what those papers are for.”
“Jake, are you blackmailing me? With a ride? From your mother?”
He fake winces. “Not a good look?”
“Not a great one!”
He laughs and then ducks his head forward in a nod. “Of course you can have a ride tomorrow, Shoshanna.”
“Thanks.” I tug on my Star of David necklace. “Also, there are muffins in the break room. No judging my baking skills, though. We aren’t all professionals.”
“I’m sure they’ll be delicious.”
Say “delicious” again. I squelch that thought, then rush past him without a goodbye and head toward the front of the store. And the awkward-exit award goes to…
The aisles hum with content customers. They browse the shelves, thumb through books, and chat with the
ir shopping companions. One girl even sits on the floor, nose tucked into a novel, a stack of five more sitting on the floor next to her. God, I love people who love books.
“Someone’s on a mission,” Daniel comments as I near the front doors. He’s straightening our small display of Funko Pops, something I rarely spend my hard-earned money on, with the exception of once succumbing to the cuteness of Baby Groot.
I am on a mission with these flyers, so I’m tempted to shout out a quick response and leave, but I pause because I miss Daniel. Most of the year, my workday consists of puttering around the store with him, picking out new favorite covers, talking about our writing, setting up carefully curated tables on increasingly niche topics. My favorite table this summer was titled “Books that Start with Murder and end with a ‘W.’ ” The display did well, too! But this holiday season has been hectic as heck. Nonstop bookselling and customer wrangling and no time for murder displays. But there should always be some time for my work husband.
I stop next to Daniel and help him with the Funko Pops, straightening a line of Captain Marvels. “I am on a mission,” I say. “I’m trying to win the bonus.”
“You and Jake still at it?” He puts Shuri and Nakia next to each other. Marvel is seriously dominating the Funko Pop game. “Give him a chance, Shosh. He’s a cool guy. Even Arjun likes him. I saw them playing checkers in the break room yesterday.”
I let the mental image of Arjun playing checkers wash over me for a second before replying, “I’ll have you know that we are friends now. The burned bridged has been repaired, and we are two peas in a pod.”
“Okay, sure. So why the rush? And what are those papers?”
I narrow my eyes and inspect Daniel. Can I trust him? He and Jake have gotten chummy pretty darn fast. “Just some flyers,” I say, keeping it vague to be safe. “Trying to bring in more customers.”
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