“Well,” Melissa said, giving Andrea a scolding glance, “only since, you know, the order.”
I wondered what they were talking about as I scanned the specials on the light board.
SPINACH ARTICHOKE DIP WITH TOAST POINTS . . . $4.99
EGG SALAD–CHICKEN SALAD–TUNA SALAD COMBO ON BED OF LETTUCE . . . $8.50
PIMENTO CHEESE SANDWICH ON PUMPERNICKEL . . . $6.50
GRILLED ASPARAGUS WITH LEMON AIOLI . . . $3.99
I was starting to see a theme here. A certain ingredient that all the specials contained.
Then I remembered something I’d noticed that morning as I’d rushed from the dining room to the kitchen and back again. In my frantic state it had barely registered, but now that I had a moment to think, it finally clicked.
Just inside the swinging doors that led to the kitchen was a tall, chrome shelving unit. The top and bottom shelves were filled with various dinery items—spare salt and pepper shakers, red and yellow squirt bottles, a big glass jar of pickle relish, and several stacks of napkins.
But by far the predominant feature on the shelves, placed square at eye level, was the mayonnaise—jar after mammoth plastic jar of it. The industrial-size mayo containers were stacked three deep and covered two entire shelves.
Suddenly I realized why Josh had thought I had mayo-on-the-face paranoia the first day I met him.
And why he’d asked about my celery-chopping abilities.
“Melissa,” I said, “what is the secret ingredient in the cinnamon streusel coffee cake?”
Melissa hung her head.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Mayonnaise?”
Melissa nodded.
“I had a little ordering snafu,” she admitted, looking a little weary. “There was . . . an extra zero.”
Andrea shook her head and gave a little snort of laughter.
“The supplier wouldn’t take them back,” Melissa went on, “and even though the jars are sealed, there is an expiration date on them. So . . .”
“When life hands you mayo?” I prompted.
“Make lots and lots of tuna salad,” Melissa finished. “And dips and cake and old-fashioned Jell-O molds . . . Well, it’s actually kind of interesting how many uses there are for mayonnaise when pressed to the wall. It’s great for moisturizing your hair. You can even use it to polish piano keys.”
Melanie had wandered out to pour herself a cup of coffee during the lull.
“The only problem,” she interjected, “is now we’re so sick of mayonnaise, we can’t eat it. Ugh, I dream about mayo. Sometimes I just want to throw it out! But little Miss Waste-Not-Want-Not over there won’t let me.”
Melissa glared at her sister defensively.
“It’s immoral to throw away perfectly good food,” she said.
“It’s a condiment,” Melanie said. “It barely counts as food.”
“Hey!” I said. “What about donating it to a soup kitchen or shelter? It wouldn’t go to waste there.”
“Did it!” Ginny said as she swung around the counter to fill a few plastic cups with ice. “We gave ’em so much mayo, they said to please stop. They couldn’t take any more.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s a lot of mayo.”
Melanie swung her arm over Melissa’s shoulders and looked mock-sorrowful.
“It is our burden to bear,” she said. “And our shame.”
I laughed out loud.
“Oh!” Melissa scoffed. “It could have happened to anyone.”
“Sure it could, sweetie pie,” Ginny said. “Don’t you listen to Melanie.”
Melanie scowled and gave Ginny a fake punch on the arm as Ginny strolled over to a customer sitting at a two-top near the counter.
“What can I get you, sir?” she asked the man.
“I’ll have the club sandwich,” he replied.
Andrea and I shrieked at the same time, “Want mayo with that?” Then we both laughed so hard that tears streamed down our faces.
The man looked very confused.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Ginny said to him, giving us a glare. “I’ll get right on that. And while I do, Chelsea’s going to get you a free iced tea.”
I hopped off my stool and hurried to do what Ginny ordered, a big slaphappy grin on my face.
I needed that jolt of lightness to get me through the lunch rush, which was almost more hectic than the breakfast one. My section was full of people in work clothes, needing to eat fast and run back to their jobs.
I couldn’t help but notice that Josh was not one of them. But I didn’t have time to think about it. Or about Granly or about anything really, except the constant rhythm of taking orders, delivering food, checking in on customers, then checking them out. There was only, “We don’t serve fries, only chips.” And, “The soup of the day is spring vegetable.” And “Of course you can have extra mayo on that.”
I realized that maybe that was what I liked most about this job. It was a vacation from my vacation—the one that left me way too much time to brood about . . . everything, especially what might be going on on the other side of that wall that separated Mel & Mel’s from Dog Ear.
Melissa scheduled me for the two-to-eight p.m. shift the next day, and put me down in the schedule for four afternoon shifts a week.
“We’re more of a breakfast and lunch place,” she told me, “so you can slow down and learn the ropes a bit.”
I got to town at one fifteen the next day. But not because I wanted to get to work early.
I was going to Dog Ear.
At the corner of Main and Althorp, I paused—and hyperventilated a bit. Clutching my stomach, I ducked onto Althorp, which was really more of an alley than a street—skinny, one-way, and mostly stocked with service entrances to the stores on Main.
I smoothed down my poofy A-line skirt, adjusted the straps of my blue camisole, and tried to calm down.
What’s the big deal? I asked myself. I’m just stopping in. I’ll talk to Josh, pick out some books, and be on my way.
What’s more, I’d done a mirror check right before I’d left the cottage, so I knew there was nothing on my face.
I gave my head a little shake, smoothed down the puff of frizz that the head shake had unleashed, and walked purposefully around the corner.
When I went into Dog Ear, Stella was behind the counter.
“Hi there!” she said, fluttering her fingers at me. “C’mon in. It’s Nutter Butters today.”
I grinned at her. The prospect of dribbling peanut buttery crumbs into a book that I had just bought made me giddy. I decided to look for a book first, and Josh second.
I was headed to the YA section when I got distracted by a chirpy voice coming out of the kids’ area. I peeked over the white picket fence at a mom-ish-looking woman perched on a tiny chair. She was reading to a small crowd of toddlers who alternated between listening raptly and pointing at the pictures to shout out things like, “It’s a duck!”
“Cute,” I whispered to myself.
I was just heading back to the YA section, when I froze.
Between the kids’ play area and the YA aisle, there was an aisle filled with picture books. Sitting on the floor of that aisle, shelving a stack of them, was Josh.
He was looking right at me.
“Hi,” I stage-whispered. I didn’t want to disturb the story hour.
He waved and smiled.
Which made me feel both flustered and floaty. Suddenly the thought of delaying talking to Josh in favor of shopping for books seemed really ridiculous.
After walking down the aisle, I lowered myself to the floor, trying to simultaneously be graceful and not give Josh a glimpse of my underwear. He was holding a copy of Where the Wild Things Are but seemed to have forgotten all about it. Instead he just stared at me.
Then we did that thing where he smiled and I smiled back and he smiled harder and so did I, and boy was I glad nobody else could see us right then. It comforted me to know that we were equally dorky.
&nbs
p; “Listen,” I said when I finally remembered that I’d actually come here to tell him something. “I was going to buy a book and then thank you. But now I’m thanking you first.”
Josh smiled bigger. “You’re not broke anymore?”
“No!” I said. “Look at this!”
I opened my purse and pulled out a rolled-up wad of money. It was fifty-two dollars in one-dollar bills—my final tip count from the previous day.
“That’s, like, five paperbacks right there,” I said.
“So, I guess you got the job?” Josh asked.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that,” I said. “They started me right away. And I’m going back today for the dinner shift! So, uh, that’s why I wanted to thank you—for telling me about it and giving me those pointers.”
He didn’t have to know how badly I’d mangled the whole calico cat/Cubs part of my interview.
“You’re welcome,” Josh said.
There was a moment of smiley silence, except for the voice of the reader starting a new book: “ ‘One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and—pop!—out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.’ ”
“So,” I said, because we couldn’t just sit there grinning at each other for minutes on end (could we?). “I guess we’ll be working next door to each other.”
That’s when Josh’s smile faded and his face seemed to go a little pale.
And that look in his eyes—was that panic?
I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. Suddenly Josh and I were right back to the first day we’d met, when he’d started out sweet and flirty, then turned on me. Now he was doing it again. He’d told me about the Mel & Mel’s job, and yet here he was, freaking out because I’d taken the Mel & Mel’s job! Was he realizing he doesn’t like me after all? Again?
“I’ve gotta go,” I blurted.
Even though I have half an hour until my shift starts. Which I’m now going to have to kill somewhere else. What am I supposed to do, go buy fifty-two dollars’ worth of fudge?
“You’re leaving?” Josh said. His voice cracked a little as he said it, and he cringed.
“Yes, I’m leaving,” I said frostily.
But my outfit seemed to have another idea. As I tried to get up, I realized I’d sat down on the hem of my skirt. I was pinned down!
I took a deep, long-suffering breath and started yanking my skirt out from under me. Never had my vintage habit so betrayed me! I was totally going to switch to miniskirts after this.
“ ‘On Wednesday,’ ” the mom read, “ ‘he ate through three plums, but he was still hungry.’ ”
“Yah!” I grunted, finally freeing myself. I smoothed the poofy skirt down, then planted my hands on the floor to push myself to my feet.
But before I got very far, Josh planted his hands on me! On my shoulders anyway. I fell back to the floor.
“Oof!” I grunted, giving him a WHAT are you doing? glare.
From the stunned look on his face, it seemed Josh was asking himself the same question.
But then his fingers tightened on my shoulders and he answered the question for both of us by leaning in—and kissing me!
It was just one kiss. By the clock it probably only lasted a few seconds. But in my head (not to mention the rest of me) that kiss—Josh kissing me—seemed to go on and on. I felt a tingly jolt in my lips. Josh’s palms felt incredibly warm on my shoulders, and my arms and legs went rubbery.
No, that wasn’t the right word for it. I felt melty.
I couldn’t believe it.
Whenever I read a romantic book (and I’d read a lot of them), I’d get to the part where she “melted beneath his touch” or “melted into his arms” and roll my eyes.
That’s just a goofy thing writers write, I’d told myself. Nobody really melts when a boy kisses her.
Now I knew. The melting really did happen—if you kissed the right boy. For the first time in my life, I seemed to be doing just that.
And I was doing it with a chirpy mom reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar literally six feet away. Not to mention all those little kids. This was . . . weird!
Also wonderful.
And very, very surprising.
That’s surely what Josh saw in my face when we finally pulled away from each other. That and a whole lot of hot-and-bothered hair frizz.
“Um . . . ,” I said.
“Um . . . ,” he said.
“So I gotta . . . ,” I said, pointing in the general direction of the door. Kissing Josh seemed to have rendered me half-mute.
Josh only nodded. I guess he was fully mute.
As I drifted to my feet, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a good or bad thing. Maybe another girl (my sister, Abbie, for instance) would have come out and asked him if it was a good or bad thing. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
For one thing, there was the half-muteness.
For another, I couldn’t look Josh in the eyes. Not after his lips had just been on my lips and he’d just seen my face more close-up than I’d seen it myself. It was so embarrassing!
Also amazing.
I turned and headed out of the picture book aisle, trying not to wobble as I walked. I forgot about book shopping entirely and reported to work twenty minutes early. This earned me completely unintentional brownie points, as well as the privilege of chopping up some celery for Melanie while I waited for my shift to begin.
Once it did, it took a while for my tables to fill up, which was a good thing. I was ridiculously distracted from a job I hadn’t even begun to master yet.
Okay, the first question, I thought as I laid napkins and flatware on my tables, is why! Why did Josh kiss me? Does he really like me? Or maybe kissing me was an accident, somehow. I mean, it doesn’t get less sexy than The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
And besides, I know he regretted telling me to go for the job next door. I could see it in his eyes. So why—Oop! Party of six in my section.
I hurried over to scoop up menus as three middle-aged couples settled themselves into my section’s biggest table. I handed the menus out, then managed to get their drink orders correct—even if I did hand the wrong drinks to each customer, down to the very last person.
“I’m sorry!” I said as they laughed and passed their drinks around the table until each one found the person who’d ordered it. “It’s only my second day.”
“In that case,” said one of the customers, a jolly-looking guy with thinning hair and a big grin, just the kind of guy my dad would love to regale with one-liners, “I’ll have a chef salad with ham instead of turkey. And egg whites only, no yolks. Dressing on the side. And I’d like extra dressing.”
“Okaaaay,” I said, sticking my tongue in the corner of my mouth as I furiously scribbled the complicated order.
“Now the extra dressing,” the man instructed, “I want on the salad. Oh, and I’d like ham instead of turkey.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, “didn’t you just say turkey instead of ham?”
And doesn’t a chef salad have both turkey and ham? I wondered frantically.
“Sweetie,” said the woman across the table from the man, “he’s messing with you! He does this every time we go to a restaurant.”
Then she scowled at her husband.
“John!” she scolded. “You’re scaring the girl to death.”
“All right, then,” the man said, grinning at me. “I’ll have a burger. With everything.”
I squinted at him. “Really?” I said skeptically.
“Really, sweetie,” his wife said. “John! Stop!”
He chuckled and crossed his arms over his big belly as if to say, My work here is done.
Old people amused themselves in really weird ways.
Then again, young people could be kind of weird too. For instance, some of them planted out-of-the-blue kisses on unsuspecting girls during completely inappropriate children’s story hours.
I swooped back to the kiss—to the unexpected yet wonderful kiss and the imp
rint of Josh’s hands on my shoulders that I swore I could still feel—and completely missed the next two orders.
“I’m sorry,” I said as John’s wife said something about an extra plate. “Can you repeat that?”
I saw the customers exchange a look and shift in their seats.
It’s going to be a long afternoon, they telegraphed to each other.
You don’t know the half of it, people, I thought.
By the end of my shift, I was beyond exhausted. If Melissa thought two-to-eight was the easy shift, then she was a superhero. My feet ached and my arms were sore from lugging heavy trays. I had a greasy spot on my camisole from a salad dressing spill. I was starving, but I also had no desire to even look at food.
I was also just as bewildered by the Kiss as I’d been six hours earlier. In my few minutes of free time that afternoon, I’d sent Emma three urgent NEED ADVICE texts, but her phone must have been turned off. Her mean teachers at the Intensive apparently loved to snap cell phones in half if they dared to ring during class. The ballet world was so weird.
Of course, everything was seeming weird to me at that moment—customers who left tips entirely in nickels, Melanie making a gross blue and red cake in honor of the Cubs . . . Weirdest of all, of course, was Josh acting all phobic one moment, then planting the best kiss of my life on me the next.
I went to the little office off the kitchen to take off my apron and get ready to leave. I considered calling a couple other friends from back home to get their take on the Kiss, but I was too tired to explain all the backstory to them. Then I thought about talking to Hannah. With her I could speak in sisters’ shorthand. Then she’d probably do that thing where she reads between the lines of what I tell her and informs me of what I’m really saying. Usually I find that excruciatingly annoying, but in this case I actually kind of craved it.
You’ve got two sisters who’ve just been through all this, Hannah and Abbie had told me before the lantern party.
I hated when they were right, but they were right. I decided to talk to Hannah right after I got home.
As I walked through the dining room, waving good-bye to Melissa, I pulled the rubber band out of my messy ponytail and held it between my front teeth. I pushed through the front door backward as I used both hands to smooth my hair back so I could make a new, neater pony.
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