Dumplin'

by Julie Murphy

  I open my mouth to say no, but nothing comes out. Ron’s always been so kind to me, and I think I owe it to him to at least pretend that I’ll think about it. “I’ll let you know by the end of the week. I’m going to have to think on it.”

  He holds his hands up. “Fair enough. Fair enough.” He pulls his wallet from his back pocket. “I’ll take a cup of chili.”

  I only see a few more customers for the rest of the night, which gives me far too much time to think. At first, I’m logical. You don’t make nearly as much money as you used to at Harpy’s and your car’s stuck in the shop. At least Harpy’s is busy enough to make the time go by faster.

  Then I remember how lonely these last few weeks have felt. Millie, Hannah, Amanda, and Mitch, too, are okay—great even. But they’re no Ellen. The thought of going back to Harpy’s feels like comfort food. And not just because of Bo. I miss Marcus and Ron, too.

  Bo was the reason I quit. The reason why I couldn’t bear to work there anymore. But now that anger I’ve trained myself to feel seems false. Like a pretense of what I thought it should be. And it’s pretty obvious he’s over me, too. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard whispers about him and Bekah. And if I don’t think about what it felt like to kiss him, then I can tell myself that they’re cute together. That they match. And maybe the burning that could only be jealousy will go away.

  Before leaving work, I scrub everything down and refill the already stuffed condiment bar. I’m still thinking, I tell myself. I haven’t made up my mind. I say good night to Alejandro and get in my mom’s car.

  Rather than turning left out of the Chili Bowl, my foot presses against the gas pedal, almost flying across the street and into the parking lot of Harpy’s. I have crossed the line in the sand.

  The dining room doors are locked, but I bang on them anyway.

  Marcus turns the lock and lets me in. “Whoa. Hey! What’s going on, Will? You smell like onions.”

  Bo watches me from behind the counter with wide eyes and a twitching jaw.

  I can’t look away. “Ron in his office?” I ask Marcus.

  If Marcus would look up from the lock instead of fiddling with his huge ring of keys, he’d see everything that happened between Bo and me because in this moment it is so obvious. So open. So public. It’s all right there, splayed out like an open-heart surgery.

  “Yeah, I think so.” He locks the door behind me, finally. “But you still haven’t said what you’re doing here.”

  I don’t answer him. The butterflies in my stomach carry me through the break room and to Ron’s office. I knock on the open door.

  Lydia is sitting in front of his desk on a crate. She turns at the sound of me. “Oh, thank Christ. The prodigal cashier has returned.” She stands and takes her pack of cigarettes from his desk. “I’ll leave you to it.” And once her back is turned to him, she gives me the tiniest smile as she closes the door.

  Without bothering to sit, I turn to Ron. “I want a raise. And I’m going to need a couple days off for . . . for this thing I have.”

  Without hesitating, Ron says, “I can do a seventy-five cent raise. And I’ll work with you on your schedule. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t expect that to be so simple. “Well, then it’s a deal.”

  “You’re back?”

  I nod. “I’m back.”

  “That chili was really bad. I tried to eat it, but Lydia kept gagging every time she walked by my office. I think she was kidding, but still.”

  “It’s pretty horrible.”

  He chuckles. “I’m glad to have you back.” He stands and walks me through the kitchen to the front. We pass Bo and his eyes follow us all the way to the door. “Are you okay to start on Monday?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He holds his hand out for me to shake, and I do.

  I walk to my car as Bo’s gaze follows me; the feeling of it starts as a ball of heat in my chest and spreads like a sunrise.

  FORTY

  I gave Alejandro my notice, and he kind of looked at me like, What took you so long? He promised me that I’d always have a job at the Chili Bowl and asked me to give Ellen his number. I slipped the folded scrap of paper in my pocket and swore to forget about it. I was all nerves when I told Mitch I was going back to Harpy’s, but he shrugged it off and kept playing his video game. It occurred to me then that he had no reason to be upset. For the first time, not telling him about my history with Bo felt like a lie.

  My first night back at Harpy’s is quiet. Marcus berates me with endless questions about the Chili Bowl, like, “Who makes the chili?” or “Is it true you guys don’t wash the pots?”

  Bo keeps to himself in the kitchen, but we play a game of Catch Me If You Can with our eyes over the heat lamp counters. When Bo’s on his break, Marcus leans over and says, “He almost got fired a couple weeks after you left.”

  “What?” The way Ron made it seem, he couldn’t afford to fire anyone, so I can’t imagine what Bo could’ve done that was bad enough to get fired.

  “Ron had Bo up on the front counter while he worked the kitchen, which was a bad idea to begin with, and these guys from his old school came in, and Bo refused to serve them. Just flat-out told them they weren’t welcome. The dudes made a big deal about it. Even their parents made a big deal about it, and basically the only way Bo could keep his job was if Ron only kept him in the kitchen.”

  “Whoa.”

  “He’s one crazy dude. I feel like he’s either going to murder everyone or be, like, a movie star. There’s no in between for that guy.”

  I like that about Bo. You were either for him or against him.

  Marcus goes off on a tangent about different schools that his girlfriend, Tiffanie, is looking at and how he’s going to a community college near whatever school she chooses. He doesn’t really pause to ask me a question or get my take on any of it, but he seems to take comfort in talking without someone lecturing him on why he shouldn’t be planning his life around a girl. I don’t know. Maybe Tiffanie and Marcus will go off to school and graduate and get married and live happily ever after. But I don’t want to be the asshole he worked with at a fast-food restaurant who planted a seed of doubt in his head.

  After cleanup, I take my bag out of my locker and find a red sucker there. I try not to smile as I slide it into my purse.

  Bo says nothing. He doesn’t even make eye contact with me. But as we’re all walking out the door, I unwrap the sucker and pop it in my mouth.

  It’s a cherry-flavored olive branch.

  When I get home from work, I find my mom on her knees with Lacey Sanders standing on a step stool in a formal gown and Bekah Cotter on my couch, tapping away on her cell phone.

  “Hi, Dumplin’,” says Mom through the straight pins between her teeth. “Lacey, how’s this hemline, dear? You can’t go any higher on those heels, you hear?”

  Lacey smacks her gum and blows a bubble. “Roger that.”

  Lots of things happen around pageant season, but Mom altering dresses in the middle of our living room is not one of them. There’s also the fact that with Bekah sitting here in my house, my brain is going into high-alert mode like one of Mitch’s video games. Red letters flash above Bekah’s head. TARGET. TARGET.

  I feel weird going upstairs with all of them down here, so I sit on the couch and lightly click my tongue until Riot comes out of hiding.

  Bekah glances up from her phone and turns to me. “Oh, hey. You work at Harpy’s. You must know Bo.” She doesn’t even know to be threatened by me because why would she?

  Lacey spins around and I see the terror on my mother’s face. “Lacey, honey, you have got to stay still.”

  “Sorry, Miss D.” She blows another bubble.

  I glance down at my uniform. “Well, I did over the summer, and I just started back there again today. Why?” My tone is sharp, but Bekah doesn’t seem to notice.

  “He’s a strange one,” says Lacey.

  “He’s my escort,
” says Bekah. “For the pageant. Well, I haven’t asked him. But he’s going to be. I think.”

  “Hey,” says Lacey. “He might be quiet”—as shit, she mouths—“but at least he’ll look good in a tux. Maybe he’ll let you twirl his baton?”

  I could barf. On her shoes.

  “Girls!” my mother shrieks.

  Bekah grins. “We went to Sadie Hawkins together,” she says by way of explanation.

  Against his protests, I tuck Riot beneath my arm and stand to go upstairs. “Nice dress, Lacey.”

  I sit on my bed, still dressed in my uniform and compose texts to Ellen that I’ll never send. I check for messages from Tim I might have accidentally missed. Anytime I see him at school, I look for some kind of meaningful eye contact, but the best he’s given me is a curt headshake.

  After a while, my mom knocks on the door and enters without waiting for my permission.

  “I’m doing some alterations this year for extra cash.” She pulls the elastic out of her hair and combs her fingers through.

  “You could have told me.” Bekah Cotter. On my couch. I’m not even safe in my own house. But then I notice the deep circles beneath my mom’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She nods. “You missed Ellen. She was here with her mom.”

  “She was here?” My eyes are immediately thick with tears waiting to spill.

  “Only gettin’ her hem fixed. You know that girl. Can buy a darn formal straight off the rack and it fits like a dream.”

  “Yeah.” I don’t even know what she’s wearing for the pageant. Or what her talent will be. Or if she’s started on her prop for the opening number.

  “What’s going on with the two of you anyway?”

  “Me and El?” I shrug. “Just having a difference of opinion, I guess.”

  “Y’all will figure things out. Me and Luce always did.” She comes in a little further and sits at the foot of my bed. I try to picture the last time I saw her perched there, but nothing comes to mind and it’s like one of those memories you tell yourself is real, but it’s not. You just wanted it to be. “Have you thought any about your wardrobe for the pageant?”

  “Uh, no. Not really.” I bite down on the skin around my thumbnail. “Mom, do you miss her?”

  “Miss who?”

  It kills me that she doesn’t instinctively know. “Lucy.”

  “Luce,” she says and it comes out like breath. “Yeah. Of course. All the time.”

  We’re both quiet for a moment.

  “The year I won Miss Teen, she stayed up all night sewing sequins on my dress. I bought the thing at a consignment shop. I told her no one would notice a few missing sequins, but she wouldn’t have any of it. ‘The difference between winning and losing is all in the details,’ she said.”

  So much of my memory is filled with their arguments that I sometimes forget that more than anything else, they loved each other.

  She stands up. “The dresses from Cindy’s are pretty pricey and she’d have to order something for you, but maybe we can put something together ourselves.”

  I want to appreciate this, that she can take off her former Miss Teen Blue Bonnet hat and be my mom. But it doesn’t feel like enough.

  “Sometimes,” I say, “I think I can’t miss Lucy any more than I already do, but then something like dress shopping comes up, and I remember all the things she won’t be here to see.”

  For the first time in a very long time, my mom says nothing. I never realized how much was lacking from my relationship with her until Lucy wasn’t here to fill in the gaps. It’s the two of us now, fumbling around in the dark.

  FORTY-ONE

  It’s homecoming, which means school is a total joke. The day’s schedule is full of pep rallies, contests, and alumni tours. When I sit down for second period next to Mitch, there’s a huge blue, yellow, and white mum spread out across my desk. Long, glittery ribbons hang from a cluster of fake chrysanthemums, and hot glued to that are two miniature stuffed teddy bears. One in a football uniform and the other in a pink dress and a tiara. Mums are like good food. The best kind is homemade.

  “Oh.” I suck in a breath.

  “You don’t like it?” asks Mitch. He wears a small version of my mum around his arm. His hair is combed and his jersey is tucked into his jeans. “My mom can go overboard, and well, I can’t really—”

  I sink down into my chair. “No, it’s not that,” I tell him. “I love it. No one’s ever given me a mum before. Thank you. Really.”

  “But?”

  I sigh. “I have to work tonight.”

  He smiles, but the rest of his face is heavy with disappointment. “I guess you can’t get out of that, huh?”

  “I wish I could.” I really do. “But I just started back, and I’m going to have to take off time for the pageant, too.”

  He squeezes my hand. “It’s cool. At least tomorrow’s Halloween.”

  For a moment, I’m distracted as Ellen and Callie file into the classroom, laughing back and forth about the costumes they have planned for tomorrow night. I hated dressing up with her. She’d always try to put together some couples costume that suited both of us, but no matter how hard she tried, it never quite worked. She doesn’t even look in my direction.

  There are lots of things I can’t remember. Like, the periodic table. My mother’s birthday. Or my locker combination at work.

  But if there’s one thing I can’t forget, it’s those words we spat at each other.

  Maybe we’re outgrowing each other. Holding each other back. I miss out on lots of things because of you.

  I hate it. I hate that she thinks she’s better off without me. Like I’m this sad, fat girl stepping on her heels.

  I know I should apologize.

  But maybe she should, too.

  I wear the mum all day long. It’s so big I have to wear it around my neck. Hannah and Amanda make fun of me. Millie thinks it’s adorable. But by the end of the day, my neck is sore and my shoulders are hunched from the weight of it.

  For Halloween, Ron asks us to wear costumes because the elementary school PTA is hosting a trunk-or-treat party in our parking lot. Like I told Mitch on our Most Awkward Date Ever, Halloween isn’t my thing. Outside of school parties, my mom never really took me anywhere for Halloween. Well, except to church “harvest parties,” which were just covers for Halloween parties. Besides, we were only able to dress up as biblical characters. If you’re a guy, that’s not a big deal, but if you’re a girl all you’ve got is Eve (leaf bikini, anyone?), Esther, the Virgin Mary, or a prostitute. Plus, all that’s in my costume arsenal is the Betty half of Betty and Wilma from the Flintstones costumes that El and I wore a few years ago.

  Ron’s dressed in all black like Zorro with a plastic sword tied to his hip. “Well, I figured none of y’all would come dressed.” He drops a cardboard box down on the counter. “I borrowed some hats and whatnot from the church drama department.”

  Marcus picks a devil headband from the top and holds it up for inspection. “What is this, some leftover from last year’s Hell House?”

  Ron takes the devil horns from him and drops them back in the box. “Let’s maybe stick to the less controversial stuff. And the candy is for the kids only. No teenagers.” He walks outside to the popcorn machine on the sidewalk where he’ll be handing out complimentary bags of popcorn.

  Bo takes the blue-and-white-striped conductor hat and then reaches over my shoulder to grab a lollipop from the bowl of candy. Despite Ron’s request, Marcus goes for the devil horns, and I reach for the sequined flapper headband with a big white feather.

  Besides the rare kids’ meal, it’s pretty quiet. I get bored enough to clean out the employee fridge. When I’m done, I find Callie and her boyfriend, Bryce, standing in front of the counter. Bryce is wearing jeans and a T-shirt cut to look like a Peter Pan tunic, while Callie is supposed to be some kind of warped version of Wendy Darling in a sexy blue nighty.

  “What are you doing here?” Each word c
omes out like acid.

  “Whoa,” says Callie. “Someone’s attitude is turned up to ten.”

  The bell above the door chimes and the situation goes from bad to worse. Ellen is dressed like Tinker Bell, and really, besides being one of the tallest girls I know, she makes the perfect Tink. Tim is dressed as Hook. Unlike Bryce, he’s actually committed to his costume.

  I hate it. I hate their dumb coordinated costumes. And I hate the way El looks like I’m violating her by breathing the same air.

  Tim’s eyes go wide for a second while El studies the floor. I try not to gasp. He did this. He made this happen. I would’ve preferred he not bring Callie and Bryce, but this is my chance. I’ve got to take it.

  Ellen looks up. “I didn’t think you worked here anymore.” That’s all she has to say. After all these weeks of silence, that’s all she’s got.

  “I came back.” Despite our audience, this moment feels starkly personal. “Hi, Tim.”

  He nods in my direction, and does nothing more to acknowledge me. I want to call him a traitor, but it’s obvious whose side he’s on.

  “Let’s go,” says El.

  “That’s it? I haven’t talked to you in weeks and that’s it?” I can sense Marcus and Bo watching now, too.

  Callie turns to Ellen. “You don’t owe her anything.”

  El’s eyes don’t move. “I’m doing pretty good on my own, so, yeah, I guess that’s it.”

  The four of them leave and, as they do, Tim shrugs in my direction.

  Marcus and Bo know better than to ask me what’s going on.

  Marcus spends his break in the parking lot as he travels from trunk to trunk with a paper Harpy’s bag.

  “Like the feather,” says Bo from the kitchen as he points to my hair.

  I forgot I was wearing this thing. All I’ve been able to think about is Ellen. I can’t believe that happened. This part of me kept holding on to the hope that we would break the silence somehow—and it would be fine. But it’s not. I touch my hand to the feather, letting the edges tickle my fingertips. “Yeah. Thanks.”