Meant to Be

by Julie Halpern

  “You should use a spoon with that,” Uncle Jim advises me.

  “Wrong. It’s a vegetable. I use a fork.”

  “It’s a creamed vegetable; therefore it is a liquid.”

  “How can you have created it and be so completely wrong? If I eat it with a spoon it becomes a soup. I don’t like creamed soups,” I note.

  “You are a complicated woman. I can call you that now because you’re eighteen.”

  At the mention of my age, I brace myself for the first family interrogation of my MTB.

  “And you know what that means.…” Uncle Jim stands up and pads to the counter. He turns to produce the miraculous cake. A glowing 18 candle sits in the center.

  “So purty,” I marvel.

  Mom and Uncle Jim sing “Happy Birthday” and root for me to make a wish. I hastily throw this winner together, “I wish I find love, and that it has nothing to do with a Name on my chest.” Of course, I wish this in my head, because everyone knows saying a wish aloud means it won’t come true. Plus, it’s a pretty goobery wish.

  I manage to blow out all two candles (Love, here I come!), and I slice into the cake with my deceased grandma Lil’s cake cutter. I never met the woman, but I feel connected to her through various utensils my mom hoarded after her death. In addition, Grandma Lil was once a Ballyhoo Girl at long-gone Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago. I inherited her carny genes.

  I dole out the checkered cake slices, avoiding cutting into the portion with my name on it. I feel like there should be a superstition around eating one’s name. Just as there should be one involving eating one’s face on a photo cake.

  My mom, Uncle Jim, and I have our way with the cake, until only my name and the number eighteen remain. A questioning silence fills the chocolate-scented air, and I know my mom and Uncle Jim are dying to ask about my MTB. How could they not be? That’s all this world cares about anymore. Finding your one true love, prepackaged and served up expressly for you.

  Forks clink. Dishes scrape. Segments of drying creamed vegetables congeal audibly. It’s deafening. I can’t take the pressure, and I burst out, “Hendrix Cutter!”

  My mom drops her fork in shock. Uncle Jim looks at me, annoyed, holding his hand to his chest. “What the hell was that?” he asks.

  “His name is Hendrix Cutter. Okay?” I enunciate.

  “Whose name?” my mom questions, a look of bewilderment on her face at what I now recognize was a completely random outburst.

  “Never mind,” I grumble, standing to hastily collect the dishes.

  “Did that doctor correctly diagnose you with Tourette’s after all?” Uncle Jim asks.

  “No! It was a sensory issue. I was six,” I defend myself.

  “Then why would you blurt out a name like Hendrix Cutter? I may have to steal that for one of my books, by the way.”

  I sigh loudly, angry at myself for bringing up a conversation that clearly I was the only one having. “Hendrix Cutter is my MTB. The Name on my chest? My eighteenth birthday?” I speak in questions, as though my mom and Uncle Jim need reminding what MTBs are.

  “Oh,” is all my mom says.

  “Hendrix Cutter, huh?” Uncle Jim rolls the syllables around. “Interesting Name. Have you started looking for him yet?” My mom shoots daggers at Uncle Jim, but says nothing.

  “No,” I quickly assert. “God, no. I don’t want to know who he is. I don’t want to meet him.” I glance at my mom, to assure her.

  But as the words leave my mouth, my brain does the most annoying thing. It tells me that I’m not speaking 100 percent truth. That, although minuscule, there is a part of me that wants to know something—anything—about Hendrix Cutter.

  Which is why I better fall in love with someone else damn quick.

  CHAPTER 12

  Opening day at Haunted Hollow is complete madness. It’s like kids have discovered the joy of summer freedom for the first time, exploding with sugar from cotton candy and ice cream and licorice yards. Parents are thrilled to have other adults to talk to while they push their children onto rides. I’m crazy busy, ushering kids into boats, checking safety harnesses, yelling for them to sit down, the occasional E-Stop when something is dropped into the water. It’s fun, electric almost, to be around so much youthful energy. Not like I’m old, but turning eighteen truly makes me feel like I’ve lost that childhood sense of innocence. More so than getting my period. More so than losing my virginity. More so than trying my first cigarette and promptly throwing up into a Sonic’s drive-through garbage can.

  Kids don’t know how good they have it. Say you’re a second grader, and you have a crush on a boy so you name your little ceramic Dalmatian Mikey after him (speaking hypothetically, of course). You toddle after Mikey (the boy, not the ceramic Dalmatian) on the playground, leave notes on his desk, sit next to him at the lunch table. It’s all very sweet. Fast forward to junior high. Your first slow dance with Danny Eastman, Frankenstein-style. He cops a feel of your butt, and you manage to rest your head on his shoulder before a teacher ix-nays the situation. Adorbs. Next up: sophomore year. You’re making out with Corey O’Dell in the front seat of his car (the backseat was the undesirable home to his pet husky’s favorite blanket and the piles of magnetic hair that came with it). You didn’t think that much about the future then. About the potential and the what if? It was all about the moment and good feelings and keeping curfews so all those delicious things could happen again.

  Now it feels like all of that was just a dead end.

  How can something considered pure romance by a significant chunk of our population feel completely stifling to me?

  I’m going to say it right now: I want to have a meaningless summer fling. Like I’ve read about in older books and watched in movies made more than six years ago. Like in Before Sunrise, where an American boy and a French girl spend one dreamy night together in Vienna. In the end they plan to meet up again in six months. If that movie were made today, would they even bother hooking up at all? Has it become fruitless to try and connect with someone because their name isn’t the one scribbled on your chest?

  As much happiness as I felt most of the day, I feel disheartened. Because when Luke Jacobs smiles at me from his booth and my insides tug on one another with the need to be near him, I can only think about Scarlett Dresden and how damn lucky she is.

  * * *

  After work, I hang at Lish’s house as she prepares for Travis’s arrival. If not for the MTB factor, would her parents really let a guy she barely knows from the Internet stay at her house for a summer? It’s mind-boggling the trust people put in this thing.

  Subconsciously I run my fingers over the bumpy script on my chest. It’s so strange. Through my shirt it feels like a loop-de-loop scar, which I suppose it is. But actual scars are usually the result of something traumatic. The scar should be the end result of the trauma, not the beginning.

  Hendrix Cutter. Hendrix Cutter. Hendrix Cutter.

  The Name skitters across my brain. My willpower not to look him up online has dropped a notch in the past couple of days. Seeing Luke again is bringing up all kinds of confusion. He certainly is flirty. And lovely. And fun to be around. But he is not the Name on my chest. Does he even remember our lip lockage behind the Wheel of Torture? What if he does that all the time, and I was the nearest female body with whom to smash faces? Does he think about us on random occasions while he’s trying to fall asleep with his hand in his undies, too?

  Lish manages to distract me. “I have narrowed it down to seven outfits. I shall now highlight the merits of each outfit, while you write down your score, ice-skating style.” Lish gestures to the clothing neatly splayed across her double bed. I grip the dry-erase board and marker she handed me upon my arrival.

  “Ice-skating scoring is ridiculously complicated now. I would have no idea how to average all my categories together,” I say.

  “What categories?”

  “Fit, maturity level, color scheme, appropriateness, flava…” I drone.
/>   “Flavor? Like what it tastes like?” Lish raises a seductive eyebrow.

  “Um, no. Flava. With an a at the end. It’s a word the kids used to use. I’m bringing it back.”

  “How about you just score them from one to ten?” Lish suggests.

  “If you want to sell yourself short on my classically trained outfit judging, then one to ten is fine by me.”

  “Seeing as you’re still wearing a fluorescent orange t-shirt from your place of employment, one to ten should be sufficient.”

  “You can borrow it if you want. This thing’s got flava for days.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t know how Travis feels about that color orange. Or any color for that matter. What if he’s color blind? This is so exciting! So many questions.” Lish practically squees as she shivers in delighted anticipation. And I’m happy for her. I think. I’ve been happy for her in the past when she’s gone out with guys she’s liked. But this is beyond like. This is straight-up old-fashioned setup with a new-jack twist. What if Travis is a serial killer? Seriously, what if the magical force that brought on the Naming is maniacally evil?

  I don’t even know what to believe about why or how the Names are here: religion, magic, chemistry. It’s all so arbitrary and abstract. And it still doesn’t explain a damn thing.

  Not that any of this matters to Lish. She looks adorable in every outfit she tries on, glowing with impending servitude—not quite what I mean, but what do I mean exactly? “Hey, Lish? I understand that you’re excited to meet Travis and get to know him, but what exactly do you see as the final frontier of this summer?” I ask.

  “Well, marriage, natch. Eventually. Not at the end of the summer or anything. But the goal is, you know, forever.”

  The word forever rings in my head with a cavernous echo, a flashing neon sign. My skin bristles at this prospect. For Lish. For me. I want to run out of her house screaming, steal a car, and drive across the nearest border to escape this insanity. But it would be no use because it is everywhere. Every state. Every country. Every continent. I could hide in a bubble kingdom on the bottom of the ocean and the Naming would still find me. It already has.

  And it seems to be taking my best friend.

  CHAPTER 13

  I didn’t bother telling Lish about the happenings—or nonhappenings—with Luke. One of my favorite qualities of Lish is how comically judgmental she can be about the smallest things—toenail shape, nose-hair volume, the distance between piercings in earlobes. And yet it is this same trait that’s preventing me from talking to my best friend about a guy I like. Because now the potential is there for judgment, size grande. If Lish firmly believes Hendrix Cutter is my meant-to-be-forever, tie-me-to-his-wall-with-a-chain-and-throw-away-the-key soul mate, then liking anyone else will seem to her like cheating. Ballistic is a gentle way to describe her reaction to my dad and Florence Hildebrand (I had to talk her down from a road trip. Destination: egg his new house).

  Besides, Luke only seems vaguely interested in me on the occasions we’ve been near enough to talk and make physical contact, but our Empties are the big black cloud in the possibility of our lust-filled summer.

  Or so I thought.

  Following our opening weekend, Monday is far less crowded. Luke and I even manage to throw up our handy-dandy signs at each other, once for me to take a pee break and once to signify lunch together. The morning passes slowly, with short enough lines that I allow several kids to remain in their boats over multiple go-arounds. The temperature is annoyingly chilly for a summer day, and the clouds aren’t helping the matter. I snuggle into my Haunted Hollow hoodie. While the awning offers shade on hot and sunny days, on cooler ones it feels like it drops the temperature another ten degrees. Or maybe it’s all the standing still I’m doing. I’m dreaming of the leftover pizza I packed for lunch when I feel a tap on my left shoulder. It’s Keely from Games, here to take over during my break. The nice thing about Keely being my lunch replacement, aside from the obvious saving me from the brink of starvation, is that it means Keely won’t be at lunch with me and Luke. It’s no fun having drool on cold pizza.

  I leave Keely with the controls and head over to pick up Luke. Keith, a second-season concessions worker, chats with him. “Hey, hey, Aggy. How goes it?”

  Keith just finished his junior year at Luke’s high school, and I’ve never gotten a very good read on him. He seems nice enough, and I was nearly prepared to hook up with him last summer. There were times when he climbed his fingers up my back, a spot where I’m incredibly ticklish, and I recall one day where we held hands underneath the lunch table. All very innocent and leading nowhere, but I would have been open to it. Besides, last summer I could have been with anyone I wanted and not worried about whether or not we had a future together.

  I want so badly to live this summer the same way.

  And why can’t I? Hendrix Cutter isn’t here to stop me. Why is that? Maybe Hendrix Cutter is sleeping with an entire cheerleading squad, laughing in the face of Empties. God, I hope my MTB wouldn’t sleep with an entire cheerleading squad. Not that he can’t sleep with whomever he wants, but really—cheerleaders? I’d prefer he sleep with the girls’ hockey team. Or the Science Olympiad.

  Ugh. At least get out of my brain, Hendrix Cutter, if I can’t get you off my body!

  That sounds pervy no matter how you slice it.

  “Catch you later, Keith,” Luke says as he drapes his arm over my shoulder. It feels very marking-his-territory to do it in front of Keith. I’m glad he doesn’t pee on me. For various reasons.

  I consider reaching my right hand up to hold Luke’s hand on my shoulder, but I decide against it. I’m so confused by the message he’s sending that I don’t want to encourage the hope that’s growing in the pit of my stomach.

  Or maybe that’s hunger.

  I wish I knew what Luke is thinking. What if Luke wants to shun the constraints of Empties altogether, combine our Haunted Hollow earnings, and run away to Australia together at the end of the summer? What if Scarlett Dresden has already made contact, and he’s merely biding his time until she gets here? What if he’s just resting his arm on my shoulder because I’m the perfect height for an armrest?

  We enter the employee cafeteria, and Luke walks to the counter to buy a hot lunch. I place my pizza in the microwave because, as much as I love cold pizza, I’m too chilled to eat it. I damn myself for not wearing jeans today, but I hate those days when I put on jeans in the morning, the temperature rises, and by the time the afternoon arrives I’ve got sweat rings under my fluorescent orange armpits and a fine line trickling down my butt crack.

  When we’ve retrieved our food, Luke and I meet at a table for two in a far corner of the cafeteria.

  I really do love the way his longer hair frames his face. I love it even more when he tucks it behind his ears to eat his salad.

  “You’re putting me to shame with your salad,” I note, blowing on the overheated pizza slice in my hand.

  “I have chicken tenders, too.” He nods his fork to the fried chicken strips on his tray.

  “What’s the difference between chicken tenders and chicken fingers?”

  He considers. “The meat inside? Tenders sounds tasty, while fingers sounds like you’re eating a body part.”

  “Which you are,” I point out.

  “True, but not that one. Chickens don’t really have fingers, right? And there’s no meat on the ones they do have.”

  “Okay. So what’s a nugget, then?”

  “Is that a trademark? Like technically a McDonald’s thing only? Or can any small ball of fried chicken be called a nugget?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to do some research. And then there’s the mysterious popcorn chicken.…”

  “Definitely add that to your study. Take notes, and write a full report for me tomorrow,” Luke assigns.

  “Will I be graded on this?” I ask.

  “Pass/fail.” He laughs. “Speaking of research,” Luke awkwardly segues, “have you loo
ked up your MTB online? What was his name? Morrison?”

  I’m not thrilled to have a conversation with Luke about my Empty, although I do enjoy that he attempted to remember his name. “Hendrix.” I look to the side coyly, acknowledging the uniqueness of the name.

  “Right. Like Jimi.” Luke dips a chicken tender in mustard.

  “I guess. I mean, I’d assume. Maybe his parents were big music fans.” I have tried not to think too much on the origin of the name Hendrix Cutter, yet here I am having that exact conversation with a guy who could make most girls forget they even have an Empty. “And, no, I haven’t looked him up.”

  “Not at all? Not even, like, a Google search?”

  “No. I don’t want to know who he is because I don’t want my love life to be dictated by some bizarre skin irritation,” I spit out a tad too aggressively.

  Luke breathes out a laugh through his nose as he chews. “It is pretty weird, isn’t it? My mom looked up mine.”

  “Scarlett,” I say, and immediately kick myself for remembering her first name. And her last name. But at least I only acknowledged the first.

  “Yeah. There aren’t many. The one closest to my age, at least according to Facebook, lives in Idaho. Mom says she’s cute,” he says tentatively. Just what I want to hear. “But…” I like hearing that more. “I didn’t want to see her just because her name is scratched into my chest.” My eyes scrutinize his chest, clearly defined through his orange t-shirt, but no sign of Scarlett’s name. God, I hate that name.

  “How would I even meet her without making the effort to travel to Idaho? Or for her to come to me. It’s not like I’ve heard from her.” Do I detect a hint of disappointment? “If we’re so ‘meant to be’ why don’t we live near each other? Seems like a lot of work for someone I don’t know. I’m going to college in Wisconsin.” Luke rocks back in his chair, running his hand through his hair. Brown strands fall over his eyes. I note they’re gray today.

  I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to meet her, that he, we all, have a choice. But he goes first. “Agatha, it’s probably our last summer here, and I have no idea what the future holds.”