by Dahlia Adler
“The customer is always right, you know,” Blonde #2 informs me.
“Right about what? I didn’t question anything.”
Before anyone can say another word, a hand on my arm pulls me back.
“Thanks for covering me,” Freckles says loudly. “I’ll take it from here. What can I get you guys?” He pulls out a pad, which I know will thrill them, and retreat back behind the counter, forcing myself not to give those irritating girls the dirty looks they totally deserve.
I go back to refilling ketchup bottles, pouring fountain sodas, and giving out menus to people who sit at the counter while I wait for Freckles to return with the order. When he does, I expect him to be upset at me, but he seems anything but.
“Sorry about that,” he says before handing off the order to the cook. “Some people in this town really rely on the experience of being waited on to feel big or whatever.”
“How do you have the patience for that?”
He shrugs. “I’m used to it. And it’s not personal. Besides, if I ever want to run my own place, I have to be able to deal with all types.”
He says it all so matter-of-factly, like such an…adult. Boom—I’m over it. Boom—they’re the whiny, needy, insecure babies, and I’m just tolerating them. Boom—I have a real vision for my future and I’m doing everything I can to make it happen, even if it sucks sometimes.
It is by far the hottest I have ever found Freckles—Steve. The hottest I have ever found Steve.
“What?”
I blink, realizing I’ve been staring. “What do you mean, what?”
“You were kind of…gawking at me. Did that sound pathetic or something?”
“No! No, of course not. On the contrary—” I’m cut off by the ding of the bell and the shout of an order number. Steve gives me a brief apologetic smile before dashing off for the food, which he expertly balances on bent arms I realize only now are bulging with muscles. I abandon my tasks for a moment to watch him drop off the food, but then Hector calls out another order and I retrieve it. Thankfully, it’s only two plates, which I can handle.
The next hour is a total madhouse, and my waitressing skills are definitely not standing up to the pressure. Steve has to utter the words, “I’m so sorry, of course that’s on us,” multiple times throughout the hour, but he never once loses his cool, never once snaps at me or anyone else. He’s like a miraculously unflappable machine.
Finally, the crowd starts to thin out as people head to the movie theater or whatever basement they’ll be making out in, and we catch our breath behind the counter. Well, I catch my breath. Steve is totally chill. He offers me to fill me a cup of the watered-down liquid Joe passes off as Diet Coke, but I decline. After a couple of hours in this place, I never want to eat or drink anything here again. He has no such issue, though, and pours himself a cup of orange soda.
“So,” he says, taking a sip, “what were you gonna say?”
“When?”
“Oh. Uh. Never mind.”
I rack my brain for what he might be talking about, but it’s totally fried from the last hour of memorizing orders and table numbers. And then, suddenly, it hits me—he still wants the answer to why I was “gawking” at him. Just when I thought he couldn’t melt my heart any more that night…
“You’re a good guy, Steve. That’s what I was going to say.”
“Oh. Okay.” The tips of his ears turn red, and he puts down his cup and starts to wipe down the counter. It’s not exactly the reaction I expect. But maybe I misread him. Maybe he’s not actually into me, or maybe he was, but I’ve ruined his night, and now he isn’t anymore. Maybe—
“The good guys never get the girl,” he says suddenly, his hand pausing on the counter. “Why is that?”
“That’s not true,” I say automatically, even though thinking about it, he has a point. It took me until right this minute to realize just how much I might be interested in Freckles—Steve—as more than a friend. It took me no time at all to decide I was going to hook up with Jamie, and he was an A-hole. “Well, maybe sometimes it’s true.”
“Always,” he mutters, moving the rag over the countertop again.
I reach out and hold his hand still, then turn his chin in my direction. “Trust me,” I say. “Sometimes, the good guy does get the girl.”
And then I rise on my toes and kiss him. He rears back almost instantly—clearly I’ve caught him off guard—but then the rag drops to the counter and he pulls me around the corner to the stockroom and his arms find their way around my waist. He tastes like sunshine and orange soda. I actually manage to forget that we’re at the diner until an obnoxious voice from behind Steve says, “Wow, I guess I really wasn’t needed here tonight.”
We jump apart to see—and smell—Mitch Macklin, who’s in full rock star mode in ripped jeans, a (fake) leather jacket, and a cloud of pot smoke. I hadn’t realized it was raining, but his usually spiky hair is dripping.
He grins. “I thought you might need help with the end of the shift and closing. I felt bad when I saw Forrester at the bar and realized she hadn’t taken over for me, but apparently you found even better help.”
“Reagan was at the bar?” I can’t keep the shock out of my voice.
Mitch shrugs. “Just for a song or two. She was with some brown guy who looked like he was gonna punch me when I asked her if she wanted me to autograph her boob. They never card at that place.”
“You’re out early,” Steve observes.
“We were just the opening act. So do you want help or not?”
“Yes, we do,” I say, because the smell of pot on top of the smell of grease is just too much and I desperately need a shower. I turn to Steve. “Wanna hang out after you clean up?”
“Definitely.” His grin is so huge that I can’t help kissing him again, just a little peck. “I’ll come by after work. Well, after I’ve showered.”
“Perfect.” I untie my apron and thrust it at Mitch. “Thanks for the experience, guys. The place is all yours.”
As I walk out to the car, bracing myself for the rain, I swear I can feel both guys’ eyes watching me leave, and I can’t help thinking it’s only the beginning of a darn good night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REAGAN
“Welcome to the place where dreams go to die,” I tell Dev as I park in the lot of the trailer park he’s been begging to see since we left CCC. Usually doing so kicks up a cloud of dust, but it’s raining so hard that we’re parked on one hundred percent mud. The park is rarely beautiful, but now in the cold, rainy winter, with the trees bare except for some tacky colored lights and the sparse grass a matted mess, I don’t think it’s ever looked uglier. “Home sweet home.”
He looks out the window with an expression of wonderment, but he tones it down when he catches me watching him. “It’s got character,” he says, cracking a grin, and I laugh because there’s certainly no denying that. “Are your parents home?”
The lights are off and the truck is nowhere to be found, so I take that as a no. “I don’t think so. Did you want to meet them?”
“Well, I am in my parents-meeting best,” he replied, gesturing down at the scarlet hoodie he’s wearing over a Hulk tee. “Man, are they gonna be sorry they missed me.”
“Definitely,” I say, though trying to imagine Dev and my mother interacting is hilarious.
“So do I get to see the inside?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Do you seriously want to see the inside?”
“Are you kidding? Would I pass up the chance to see where Reagan Forrester eats breakfast?”
“When I do eat breakfast, it’s at Joe’s,” I point out, “and you already saw that this morning.”
“Well, where you eat dinner then.”
It’s not worth explaining that “dinner” in the Forrester home means my mom makes something for my dad that uses up, like, seventy-five percent of our food stamps; she eats veritable rabbit food under the pretense she’s on a glamorous diet; and I eat from whatever cans were
on sale that week and then nibble on the scraps of my dad’s food when he pretends he’s too full to finish it. So instead I say, “Fine, you asked for it. But make sure you take your shoes off when we get inside. It’s very fancy.”
He quirks an eyebrow, obviously unsure if I’m kidding. I just roll my eyes, yank my keys out of the ignition, and get out of the car. For once, I’m grateful for the rain, since it means no one’s sitting around outside to hassle us on our way in.
We dash to the trailer and I let us in as quickly as possible, but with no awning over the front door, we’re both somewhat damp by the time we enter. I call out for my parents to confirm they’re not home, and there’s no response but the fervent pounding of raindrops on the roof. I sigh in relief, and then gesture around. “Well, this is it!”
He looks around, and I wonder what he’s taking in first—the ratty flowered couches? The chipped countertop in the kitchen that lines one wall? The peeling “tiles” on the floor? “This is one hell of a party house,” he says with a grin.
It’s such an unexpected statement that I snort with laughter, which makes Dev look inordinately proud of himself. I take him on a brief tour, ending in my bedroom, which is just the bunk beds, my little nightstand, and a little desk with a lone bookshelf over it. I’ve never really added much of a personal touch to it—it seemed pointless when I was spending my whole life counting down the minutes until I could leave it for good—and I’m suddenly aware of how soulless and boring that probably makes me look.
“I pictured you having at least some posters or something,” he says, basically echoing my thoughts as he walks over to look at the books on my shelf, as I knew he would. That one’s entirely used books and library loans for my English class this semester, and he seems to realize it because he shifts over to my nightstand to look at the little stack there. When he smiles, I know he’s spotted a certain something on the top. “However, I do highly approve of the fact that you proudly display Lord of the Rings.”
I’d come across it at Vic’s house, and she didn’t so much as blink when telling me I could borrow it indefinitely. Just thinking of her makes my stomach twinge. I hate that we fought. It’s not like I’m gonna call her while Dev’s here, though, so for now, I push it out of my brain. “Well, naturally. What collection of literary masterpieces is complete without it?”
“My thoughts exactly,” he says seriously. He scans the titles for another few seconds and then asks, “Top or bottom?”
“Excuse me?” I choke.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Forrester,” he says, jerking a thumb toward the bunk beds. “Top or bottom?”
“To be fair, you were talking about bed,” I point out before walking over and sitting down on the bottom bed. “And the answer’s bottom, except when my grandma used to come over, and then I used to have to sleep on the top and I was terrified I was going to fall down and die.”
“Valid fear.” He comes and sits down next to me, and now we’re both on my bed, and I want to stop being conscious of that fact but I can’t. “Are you still afraid of the top?”
I shrug, knowing the answer’s yes and that he knows the answer is yes, but feeling too stupid to say it out loud.
“I just don’t see the point,” I say, and at least that much is true.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” He hops up from the bottom bunk and climbs up. The temperature on the bottom bunk drops a few degrees when he leaves, and I watch his long, skinny legs propel him to the bed above me. An instant later, he’s out of sight, and then one sneaker after the other crashes to the chipped floor below.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “Didn’t want to get the bed dirty. It’s pretty comfy up here, you know.”
“It’s comfy down here too,” I retort, stretching out on the bed as if to prove my point, even though he can’t see me.
“Then we’ll both be comfy together,” he says, and my mind instantly flashes to what it would be like if we curled up on the same bed, instead of one beneath the other, feet and worlds apart. It’s a dangerous thought, and I banish it from my mind immediately.
“So how are you enjoying your first mobile home experience?”
“So far, so good. It’s not what I pictured.”
“What’d you picture?” I pick up the threadbare turtle I sleep with at night and start picking at the loose threads.
“I thought mobile homes were more…ya know, mobile.”
“Like those RVs you see on TV where pressing a button makes them extend out on the sides?”
He laughs. “I guess. Yeah. I thought we’d be able to drive this thing up to Mount Rushmore or something.”
“Well, it can easily be transported to Mount Rushmore on a flatbed, so that’s something.” I close my eyes. “A trip up to Mount Rushmore sounds pretty great right about now, though.”
“Doesn’t it?” He shifts and the bed creaks. “Wouldn’t mind getting away from everything for a little bit.”
“Everything?”
“Well, maybe not everything. You can come. Rest of the world is required to stay behind, though.”
I hate how much my entire body warms up at his words. I hate these suggestions of a future that doesn’t exist.
“College isn’t enough of an escape for you?” I ask tartly, refusing to entertain the other conversation.
The pounding of the raindrops on the tin roof is near deafening in the minute of silence that follows.
Finally, he says, “I don’t view college the same way you do. It’s not an escape for me. It’s just the next step. I’m excited to go, but…”
“But you don’t have anything to escape, because you live such a damn charmed life?” I mean to say it sweetly, and wince as it comes out sounding harsh and accusatory.
He doesn’t let himself be baited. “It’s obviously not perfect, but I’m not unhappy,” he says simply, and it’s so confident, so self-aware, that it makes me want to kick the top bunk from underneath. “Look, Rae, I know you’ve been dealt a shitty hand—”
“You don’t know a damn thing about it.” My tone is acid now, and the worst part is it’s my own fault, because I know he’d listen if I talked. The same way Vic would. I’m the one who won’t open up. But he doesn’t rage back with that.
Instead he says, “Then tell me.”
So I do. I tell him what dinner really is at the Forrester house. I tell him how much I live in panic of my GPA dropping because of scholarships, and what a constant battle it is to keep it up because I spend nights and weekends working at Joe’s only to end up paying for stupid shit like my mother’s manicures. I tell him about the weeks I move in with Vic just so I can get my work done. About how my father’s job means he barely exists but he can’t manage to put any money away. How my mother and I have not hugged for any reason other than to put on a show for neighbors in as long as I can remember.
He’s quiet for another minute, and then he sighs. “This kills me. If you were my mother’s daughter, she’d be all over you every minute of every day, and she would love you—how hard you work and how disciplined you are.” I can’t help but notice this would only be true if I were his mother’s daughter, and not his girlfriend, but I don’t ask if that would still hold true for the latter. I wonder if she loves Sara for this, if she imagines her that way.
“Vic’s mother is wonderful to me,” I say, pushing the thoughts about Dev’s mother and Sara out of my head, “but that doesn’t improve my home life any.” I pause. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but I hate being this…this thing that needs to be rescued, but as long as I’m here, that’s all I’ll be. I just want to rescue myself. And I’m so, so close, I can taste it.”
“Does it taste like frat house beer and nausea-inducing scrambled eggs?”
“Mmm, you know? It totally does.”
“Sounds like delicious salvation.”
“I’m hoping it will be.” How can it not be?
“And why can’t it taste like that at
KU again?”
I stiffen. The KU conversation again. “Because I’m not a KU girl,” I say.
“Why not? Is this a Western Kansas thing? You guys are only allowed to go to K-State, and we’re only allowed to go to KU?”
I know he’s trying to lighten me up, but I’m not having it. “I’m just not.”
“But you could be.”
“No,” I say icily, “I could not be. Because I’m not interested in going.”
“I still don’t understand why not.”
“You wouldn’t.” I flop over so I’m lying on my stomach. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
“You’re scared. I get that. But I don’t get why. You’re dying to get out of this place. So don’t you want to escape to the best place you possibly can?”
“Just stop it, okay? I’m not going to KU because you think I should go to KU.”
“Fuck what I think!” he blurts, surprising me enough that I flip back over and sit up straight in my bed. “It’s not for me. I think you, Reagan Forrester, would shine at KU. I think you would make a fantastic Jayhawk. I think you would love the libraries, and the variety of classes, and being in a bigger city—”
“I’m not ready!” I cut him off, unable to listen to any more, because I want to be who he’s describing. I want to love all of those things, but I am terrified. I can barely handle life in Charytan; I don’t know how I could possibly handle a school twice its size. And Fitz… “I can’t…I just can’t do all that.”
He sighs. “You have no idea what you’re capable of, Rae. No idea what you can handle. And you won’t even let yourself try. You carry so much of your family’s burden and you think you can’t handle going to a class with a few extra kids in it? You think you can’t handle a heavy course load when you’ve got a 4.0 and a job? Reagan, there is no one on earth better equipped for KU than you are.”
His words make sense, but they don’t push the fear away, or shrink the knot of anxiety that grows in the pit of my stomach whenever I think about what going away really means. When I’m silent for a full minute, he asks, “Can you come up here? I’d really rather have this conversation face-to-face.”