Layoverland

by Gabby Noone

  I turn around and there she is, dumping the remains of my burger into the trash and then skipping to catch up to me like some kind of pink velour puppy.

  Jenna may be a pain in my butt, but I can already tell: she’s loyal. Trusting. Possibly too trusting. If I were her mother, I’d be in a constant state of panic that she’d get into a white van with an old guy who offered her candy, or, maybe more realistically, that she’d be catfished by an old guy posing as a male model online.

  14

  “Anything!” Jenna exclaims, fists clenched with excitement and eyes bright. “I’ll help you with anything.”

  I stop and look around the food court dramatically like I’m about to drop some classified information.

  “So that guy you noticed a few minutes ago?” I say quietly.

  “Yeah,” she says, smiling.

  “He tried to bribe me into getting his lottery number called.”

  “No way!” She gasps. “How?”

  “Flirting,” I say. “How else do guys like him get what they want? They think they can charm their way into anything.”

  “So annoying,” she says emphatically.

  “It’s not just annoying, Jenna. Here, it’s a punishable offense.”

  “Oh. Wow!”

  “So here’s what I need you to do,” I say, putting my arm around her shoulders and whispering into her ear. “When he loops back around on that little jog of his, I’m going to invite him to eat with us. You’ll be there to witness the conversation. Because I have a feeling he’s going to pull something on me again, and I want you there to back up my claim that he’s trying to game the system.”

  “Oh my god,” Jenna breathes. “A witness! So official.”

  “I want you to ask me if I know of any hacks to get a number drawn. Not your number, of course. I don’t want you getting in trouble. Just mention it . . . in a theoretical way. Let’s make him feel like it’s a safe space to bring up rigging the lottery. Does that make sense?”

  “Wait, you want him to try to bribe you again?” Jenna asks, squinting. “Even though it’s against the rules?”

  “Well, no, of course not. As someone who obeys and respects the rules, obviously, I don’t want that to happen. I just . . . Look, Jenna, I just need you to do as I say. So will you be my official witness or not?”

  She swallows and nods furiously.

  “I knew I could count on you,” I say, patting her on the back.

  Across the sea of tables, I spot Caleb coming around for another lap, this time at a slower pace. He eventually pauses at the salad counter and looks over its offerings like they’re actually appetizing.

  Of course he does.

  “Okay,” I mumble to Jenna. “It’s go time.”

  “Hey! Caleb!” I call. He looks around at the gaggles of lunch eaters, then his eyes settle on me.

  “Bea,” he says, smiling and walking over.

  “Have you scoped out which one’s the cool table yet?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” He looks toward a group of three white-haired men in leather biker outfits. “But they rejected me.”

  I plan to put on my fakest friendly smile, but somehow it comes without even trying.

  “That’s too bad,” I say. “My new roommate, Jenna, and I were about to eat. Maybe you could join us and we can be the second-coolest table?

  “Oh, hi,” he says, noticing Jenna next to me. “I’m Caleb.”

  “I know,” she says, scowling.

  I turn my face so only she can see it and widen my eyes at her.

  “I mean,” she says, with an unconvincing half smile, “hi.”

  “Why don’t you find us a place to sit, Jenna?” I ask. “While we go grab some food.”

  “Sure. I’ll do that,” she answers, walking backward with her tray, continuing to watch Caleb with eyes like a hawk, and bumping into a chair. “Ow!”

  Caleb twists his head toward her with concern.

  “Is she okay?” he asks me.

  “I’m fine,” Jenna blurts, continuing to walk backward.

  “She’s fine,” I repeat with a wave of my hand. “So, Caleb, it’s my first time dining around these parts. I’ve only had a chance to experience the stunning breakfast buffet. What’s good here?”

  He gives me a skeptical glance. Around these parts? Who even am I?

  “Okay, let me be more specific,” I elaborate. “What can I eat here that won’t make me want to sever off my own tongue with a knife so I never have to experience flavors again?”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” Caleb says with a grin. “Honestly? I got a salad last night and it was . . . edible.”

  “What? No! How?”

  “My theory is that because Jell-O salad was a real thing on Earth, my brain can actually process what I’m eating, as opposed to like . . .”

  He looks around and his eyes settle on a woman struggling to pick up a Jell-O–encrusted sub sandwich without it sliding from her fingers.

  “. . . that.”

  “You make a good point,” I say.

  Even though I think Caleb’s logic is totally unreasonable and there is no way Jell-O salad makes sense as a concept, I follow him to the counter and plop a yellow dome filled with slices of tomato and cucumbers and carrots and topped with a tiny jiggly dot of ranch dressing onto my tray.

  I’m about to turn away when I notice a familiar-looking man with bleached-blond spiky hair mopping the floor behind the counter. Barf bag guy from the plane! Instead of a Hawaiian shirt, he’s now decked out in orange coveralls.

  “Not so fun cleaning up someone else’s mess, is it?” I ask, calling over the counter. The man pauses and stares at me for a moment, then turns back, mopping even harder. I take this as a good omen. Karma is real. Consequences exist. My plan to get Caleb in trouble will go well.

  When Caleb and I get to the table where Jenna sits, her steely resolve has disappeared. Her eyes are closed, one hand hovers over her mouth, and the other holds a fork in midair.

  “Jenna?” I ask, placing my tray down next to her. “Are you okay?”

  She shakes her head once but doesn’t open her eyes.

  “Jenna!” I repeat louder, tapping her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” she says, opening her eyes as if she’s waking up from a coma. “I got overwhelmed because . . . it’s just . . .”

  She takes a ragged breath and moans. Caleb gives me a panicked look.

  “The food!” she exclaims at last. “It’s . . . so . . . GOOD!”

  “What?” Caleb and I both blurt.

  Jenna forks a meatball and eats it in one bite.

  “Chemo,” she says through a full mouth. “I had to get chemo for the last few years. It stopped me from having a real appetite. But now my appetite is back! This rules!”

  Caleb relaxes in his chair and gives her a sad smile.

  “That’s great,” he says. “Hey, if you think this food is good, just imagine what it will be like when we get to Heaven.”

  “Speaking of—” I say.

  “Do you think they’ll have breadsticks in Heaven?” Jenna asks him, interrupting me with an urgent look in her eyes. “That’s my favorite food. The endless breadsticks from Olive Garden.”

  “Um. Sure,” he reassures her. “There will probably be endless everything.”

  “Even Cinnabon?” she presses, sucking up a clump of noodles.

  “I’m guessing yes,” Caleb answers.

  “Subway?” she asks through a full mouth, so it sounds more like “Shoveway.”

  “Hmm. Probably not, if I’m being honest. God would probably consider their sandwiches an abomination.”

  Jenna frowns at this and swallows hard.

  “But you know,” he pipes up, noticing her face, “some people believe that Heaven will just be a manifestation of al
l your individual desires, so if that means Subway for you . . . then yes.”

  “Wow,” Jenna says, staring off dreamily. “I love that!”

  No wonder Jenna seems so happy to be here; her idea of Heaven is a fully loaded mall food court.

  I clear my throat and stare her down.

  “What food are you hoping to find in Heaven, Bea?” Caleb asks me with amused eyes.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really given it much thought,” I say without breaking eye contact with Jenna. “I’ve been too busy working since I got here.”

  “Oh!” Jenna exclaims, scraping the remains of her meal off the plate and practically licking it clean. “I feel like there was something I was going to ask you about that, Bea. Your job . . . memories . . . lottery? Yes! That was it. So, what’s the deal with the lottery?”

  She tries to wink at me, but just ends up blinking both eyes.

  “What about it?” I ask her in a strained voice.

  “Like, why do I have to wait around for my number to be called randomly? They should be called in order of who arrives first! Don’t you agree, Caleb?”

  “Sure.” He shrugs. “But if it worked like that, we might be stuck here even longer.”

  “True,” she says. “I just wish there was something I could do to get my number moved to the top. Don’t you?”

  Jenna looks at him, then me, as if I’m supposed to hand her a treat for asking this question.

  “Yeah, but there’s nothing you, or any of us, can do,” he says, glancing at me and smiling crookedly. “I was frustrated about that too. But then I realized the nice thing about a lottery is that it lets everyone wake up with the hope that today’s the day they move on and, if not, maybe tomorrow. Sometimes that little bit of hope, even if it’s false, is all you need to get through the day.”

  Not only did Caleb listen to and absorb what I said yesterday, but now he’s trying to put his own inspirational spin on it? What kind of psychopath just does that?

  “Hm,” Jenna says. “You know, that’s a really positive way to look at things, Caleb. I really respect that, as a positive person myself.”

  I throw my fork down on my tray in defeat. Both of them stare at me.

  “Well, I think it’s time for me to have dessert,” Jenna continues, pushing her chair back. “You guys want anything?”

  Caleb stares down at the sculpture of a salad he’s barely touched.

  “No, thanks. I think I’m gonna go check out one of those newsstands. Have you guys been? I’m hoping they have some books. There’s probably only, like, James Patterson paperbacks, but it could be worth a shot.”

  “Oh, I love James Patterson!” Jenna says. “My mom and I are obsessed with his Women’s Murder Club series. Or . . . were, I guess.”

  Her face falls and tears begin to pool at the corners of her eyes.

  Caleb makes panicked eye contact with me.

  “Sorry, Jenna,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, no. It’s okay,” she says, sniffling. “How would you have known James Patterson would be such an emotional trigger for me? I didn’t even realize until now.”

  She hugs herself and looks self-consciously around the cafeteria.

  “Hey, if it makes you feel any better,” Caleb says, leaning forward, “I miss my mom too.”

  Jenna tries to give him a grateful smile, but instead she lets out a ragged sob. She sits back and closes her eyes, her chest still heaving.

  Welcome to the No Moms Club, I want to scream out to them. I’ve been a member since 2004; every Disney character has been since forever.

  “It’s probably a good time for you to go check out that newsstand,” I say quietly to Caleb.

  “Yeah.” He nods gravely, picking up his tray.

  He waves goodbye and walks away.

  “Bea, I just have to say,” Jenna says after a few minutes, her breath becoming steadier. “Caleb seems like a very nice young man. I don’t know how you got such a bad first impression of him.”

  “He was probably just on his best behavior because you were here.”

  “No. I told you,” she says, sitting up and wiping her face with a napkin, “I have a gift for seeing the best in people.”

  “Well, I have the gift of an amazing bullshit detector and I think both of you are full of it.”

  15

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Taylor Fields stage-whispered as I arrived late to second-period American history class.

  “Is that something people actually say in real life?” I asked, handing my pass to Ms. Walsh. “I thought only stereotypical mean girls without personalities said that in movies, but I mean, if the shoe fits . . .”

  “Beatrice,” Ms. Walsh intervened. “Please take a seat.”

  Taylor Fields had always annoyed me. Every day, with the exception of mornings she’d walk in fifteen minutes late to school with Starbucks in hand, she would sit down in front of me, and her jeans would gape in the back, exposing an infinity symbol that had the words LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE. interwoven through it. It made me want to never do those three things again. But Taylor went from annoying to just plain enemy status a few weeks before this particular day.

  I was also blessed enough to be in the same health class as she was. “Health class” being a generous descriptor of the one period a week our gym teacher would play us VHS tapes made before we were born that outlined information we probably should’ve been taught as soon as we’d hit puberty, not during our junior year of high school.

  “Any questions or concerns?” Mr. Scruggs, a shy guy in his mid-twenties who clearly possessed way more knowledge of kickball etiquette than he did of the female reproductive system, had uncomfortably asked us after our viewing of Birth Control: The Final Frontier.

  “Yeah, um,” Taylor said, raising her hand and speaking without being called on. “I just want to say that I think anyone who takes birth control is a hypocrite. It’s just unnatural.”

  Those were the words that came out of her mouth when I decided her life was definitely too easy and I should do something to make it harder. It was my moral imperative.

  “It’s not unnatural, Taylor!” I blurted out without raising my hand. “It’s modern medicine. It changes and saves people’s lives.”

  “It doesn’t save lives,” she said, turning toward me. “It kills them. Birth control kills babies, Beatrice.”

  She said my name with an exaggerated uh sound in the middle (Be-uh-trice) and flipped her long blond hair that had been curling-ironed meticulously to look like effortless beachy waves.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Did you not absorb any of the thrilling information provided in that high-quality short film we just endured?” I said. “The hormones in the pill stop ovulation. No ovulation means there’s no egg hanging around for sperm to fertilize. No egg equals no pregnancy. Pay attention, please.”

  “Ladies,” Mr. Scruggs piped up, his voice breaking. “Please. While I’m, uh, ninety percent sure what you just described is true, Beatrice, I do want to remind everyone here that Northwood School District officially endorses abstinence. Uhhh . . .”

  He frantically reached for a pamphlet on his desk.

  “That’s so irresponsible,” I cried. “This is how girls my age end up having kids when they’re not prepared for them.”

  “Oh, you mean like your mom?” Taylor asked.

  A chorus of “Oooooh!” came from a row of boys in the back of the classroom.

  “You know what? Yeah, I do mean my mom,” I said, leaning over Taylor’s shoulder. “If someone taught my parents how to correctly use birth control when they were our age, then I wouldn’t be stuck here in this room with you and your signature scent that smells like fried hair and desperation.”

  “Beatrice,” Mr. Scruggs said. “C’mon. Keep it civilized.”

 
“I’m not going to keep it civilized if she’s just going to keep saying this nonsense. She clearly needs to go home and google some basic facts about the human body, because you’re obviously not going to teach them!”

  Mr. Scruggs nervously eyed the rest of the room, practically begging for someone who was not me or Taylor to participate in the discussion. Or maybe he was just silently praying for the ceiling to cave in on us all.

  Mercifully, the bell rang before it could go any further, but I knew I wasn’t going to leave the argument in the classroom.

  The plan was simple: I’d find Taylor Fields’s most morally reprehensible posts on social media and send them to the manager of our local Chili’s, where she was employed part-time as a hostess.

  It sounds stupid, and it was, but Taylor wielded the little power she did have to act like she was the queen of our local Tex-Mex establishment. When people she didn’t like, or the parents of people she didn’t like, came in to eat, she’d purposely seat them right near the bathrooms. She’d get all of her friends free, illegal tequila shots by flirting with the middle-aged bartender. Also, most disturbingly of all, she was obsessed with bringing her Chili’s leftovers in for lunch, flaunting her to-go bag of cold Southwestern egg rolls like we should all be jealous.

  But when I went home and scrolled back several years through her Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, I was surprised by the lack of offensive content. Based on her track record of comments, I expected to at least find some misguided screeds about how “all lives matter.” I knew I should have been relieved that there was one less person spewing harmful crap on the Internet, but part of me wanted something to physically point to in order to prove she was bad. Maybe she kept it all in private accounts, but I doubted she was that savvy. Then I realized, though, there were some pretty stupid thoughts she found worthy of documenting for the world to see:

  HMU if u wanna get SCHWASTED tonight at chili’s y’all!!!

  Ugh no one order the awesome blossom, p sure the secret dipping sauce is made of the cook’s u kno what

  Ugh my boss is always up my ass and i’m like welcome to Chili’s bitch!!! Crawl inside.