by Sarah Dessen
“Okay, okay.” Opal took a deep breath. “Seriously, this is ridiculous. I’m so slaphappy I can’t see straight. We have to finish like—oh my God! Mclean, what happened to your nose?”
I shut the fridge to see them both staring at me. It was a little more noticeable in profile, I guessed. “I collided with my locker. I’m fine.”
“Are you?” my dad asked as I came over, sitting down beside him. He reached to touch the bump and I flinched. “That looks pretty serious.”
“It was a lot worse earlier,” I told him. “The swelling’s gone way down.”
“It looks like someone punched you,” my dad said.
“Nope. Just a clumsy chain reaction.” I took a sip of my drink. He was still watching me. “Dad. I’m fine.”
Across the table, Opal smiled. “She’s a tough girl, Gus. Stop fretting.”
My dad made a face at her, then looked down at a stack of papers in front of him, rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay, so here’s the thing. I know Chuckles pretty well,” he said. “He likes formulas and numbers, everythingaid out neatly on a spreadsheet. That’s why he uses this evaluation system. It’s totally cut and dry.”
“Maybe so, but it leaves no room for the human side of things,” Opal said. “Now, I’m the first to admit we don’t have the most capable staff. . . .”
I glanced at the yellow legal pad that was by his elbow. On it was a list of names, each one with a number beside it. Scribblings and notes filled the margins, along with scratch-outs and smudges.
“But,” she added quickly, “but, I think our people do add a flavor and personality to the Luna Blu experience that cannot be quantified on a piece of paper.”
My dad looked at her. “Today at lunch,” he said, his voice flat, “Leo sent out a chicken sandwich with yogurt on it instead of sour cream.”
Opal bit her lip. “Well,” she said after a moment, “in the Middle East, yogurt is a popular sandwich condiment.”
“But we’re not in the Middle East.”
“It’s a mistake!” she said, throwing up her hands. “People make them. Nobody’s perfect.”
“Which is a fine philosophy in a preschool,” my dad replied. “But in a working, profitable restaurant, we need to aim for better.”
She looked down at her hands. “So you’re saying we fire Leo.”
My dad pulled the legal pad closer, squinting at it. “If we go by Chuckles’s formula, yes. By the numbers, he and everyone else we’ve got listed here in the top spots should go.”
Opal groaned, pushing back from the table. “But they’re not numbers. They’re people. Good people.”
“Who don’t know the difference between yogurt and sour cream.” She rolled her eyes, and he added, “Opal, this is my job. If something—or someone—isn’t working, then we have to make changes.”
“Like the rolls.”
He sighed. “They were a cost suck, took up too much prep time, and gave us no return. It could be argued, in fact, that they lost us money.”
“But I liked them,” she said softly.
“I did, too.”
Opal looked up at him, surprised. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you loved the pickles!”
My dad shook his head. I said, “He hates pickles. All kinds.”
“But especially fried,” he added. When Opal just stared at him, mouth open, he added, “It’s not about my personal feelings, though. It’s about what’s best for the restaurant. You’ve got to take emotion out of it.”
She considered this as I got up, putting my now-empty glass in the sink. Then she said, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I could never do what you do.”
“Meaning what?” my dad asked.
“This,” she said, pointing at the pad on the table between them. “Coming into a place and making tons of .s that piss everyone off, firing people. Not to mention putting in all this time and work into something, only to move right on to the next place when it’s done.”
“It’s a job,” he pointed out.
“I get that.” She picked up a napkin, shredding the edge. “But how do you not get invested? In the place, and everyone in it?”
I turned off the water. I wanted to hear the answer.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “it’s not always so easy. But I had a restaurant of my own for many years. I was beyond invested, and that was hard, too. Harder, actually.”
“Tell me about it,” Opal said. “I’ve loved Luna Blu since I was a teenager. It’s, like, where my heart is.”
“Which is why,” he told her, “you want it to be the best it can possibly be. Even if that means making some tough decisions.”
We were all quiet for a moment. Then Opal folded the napkin, placing it neatly in front of her. Then she looked up at my dad and said, “I really hate it when you’re right.”
“I know,” he told her. “I get that a lot.”
She sighed, pushing off her chair and getting to her feet. “So tomorrow, when we meet with corporate, we’ll give them these numbers . . .”
“. . . and go from there,” my dad said.
Opal gathered up her purse and keys. “I feel like I’m going to death row,” she said, wrapping a scarf around her neck. “How am I supposed to look these people in the face, knowing they will most likely be unemployed next week?”
“It’s not easy being the boss,” my dad said.
“No kidding,” she replied. “I wish I had some rolls to drown my sorrows in. Carbohydrates are great for guilt.”
“Really,” my dad said. “Are you ever going to let that go?”
She smiled, pulling her purse over one shoulder. “Nope,” she said. “Bye, Mclean. Feel better.”
“Thanks,” I replied. And then my dad and I both watched as she walked across the living room to the front door, pushing it open. Halfway down the walk, she stopped, adjusting her scarf. She looked up at the gray sky for a moment, then squared her shoulders and started walking again.
I looked at my dad. He said, “She’s really something.”
“Everybody is.” I wiped down the counter, then turned back, only to find him still sitting there, continuing to watch Opal as she crossed the street and started down the alley. “So what do you think? Is everyone really going to get fired?”
“No telling,” my dad replied, gathering up some of the papers on the table. “Depends on myriad factors, everything from Chuckles’s stock portfolio to how benevolent he’s feeling. What she doesn’t realize, though, is that people getting fired isn’t the worst-case scenario.”
“No? ”
He shook his head. “The building itself is worth a lot more than the restaurant right now. Chuckles could decide to just sell, wash his hand the whole thing, and move on.”
I looked back at Opal, barely visible now. “You think he’d do that?”
“He might. We’ll find out tomorrow, I guess.”
I turned back to the sink, pulling off a paper towel and drying my hands. My dad came over, kissing the top of my head as he picked up his phone, and started down the hallway.
Once the bedroom door was shut behind him, I went over to the table, glancing down at the pad with the names and numbers on it. Tracey was a four, Leo a three. Jason was a nine, whatever that meant. If only you could really use a failproof system to know who was worth keeping and who needed to be thrown away. It would make it so much easier to move through the world, picking and choosing what connections to make, or whether to make any at all.
Later that night, I was in my room, trying to do some Western Civ homework, when I heard a knock on our kitchen door. I walked down the dark hallway to see Dave standing under the porch light. He had on jeans and a long-sleeved plaid shirt and was carrying a steaming saucepan in his hands, a pot holder around the handle.
“Chicken soup,” he said when I opened the door. “Great for bar-fight injuries. Got a bowl?”
I stepped back and he came inside, walking straight
to the stove and putting the pot down. “You cook?”
“I used to,” he replied. “It was either that or stick to my mom’s menu, and sometimes I wanted, you know, meat and dairy. But it’s been a while. Hopefully, this won’t kill us.”
I got out two bowls and two spoons. “That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
“Maybe, but look at it this way,” he said. “You already got punched in the face today. What do you have to lose?”
“You know,” I said, sitting down at the table, “I didn’t really get punched.”
“Yeah, I know.” He started pouring soup into one of the bowls. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t kind of flattered that the whole school thinks you might have because of me.”
“Well, I’m glad I can help with your self-esteem.”
He stuck a spoon in one bowl, then handed it to me. “I know it’s got to be humiliating for you. I figured the least I could do is make you some soup. Plus, I felt bad about earlier.”
I took the soup, then looked up at him. “About what?”
He shrugged. “That stuff I said about you coming to help with the model. When you didn’t show, I realized I sounded like a jerk.”
“Why?” I told him.
“I said I was a lover, not a fighter.” He sighed, sitting down across from me. “It doesn’t get more jerky than that.”
“Oh, sure it does.”
He smiled. “Look, seriously, though. Because of skipping grades and hanging out with prodigies . . . my social skills aren’t exactly great. Sometimes I say stupid stuff.”
“You don’t have to skip grades for that,” I told him. “I’ve got a B-plus average and I do it all the time.”
“B-plus?” He looked horrified. “Really?”
I made a face, then I leaned over the bowl, which was steaming. The last thing I’d really eaten was half of that soggy burrito, hours ago, and I realized suddenly I was starving. I ate a spoonful. The soup was thick, with egg noodles, chicken, and carrots, and was, in fact, just what I needed.
“Wow,” I said as he sat down across from me with his own bowl. “This is great.”
He ate a spoonful, then thought for a second. “It’s not bad. Needs more thyme, though. Where are your spices?”
He was already getting up, heading to the cabinets, when I said, “Actually—”
“In here?” he asked, already reaching for the one closest to the stove.
“—we don’t really—”
Before I could finish, though, it had already happened: he’d opened the door, exposing the empty space behind it. He paused, then reached for the next one. Also empty. As was the one adjacent. Finally, he discovered the cabinet that held our full array of housewares, which I organized the same way in every house when we moved in. A handful of spices—salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic salt—sat on the bottom shelf, with silverware in a plastic organizer beside it. On the shelf above, there were four plates, four bowls, three coffee mugs, and six glasses. And finally, up top, one frying pan, two saucepans, and a mixing bowl.
“Wait,” he said, moving over to the next cabinet and opening it. Empty. “Is this . . . What’s going on here? Are you, like, survivalists or something?”
“No,” I said, embarrassed, although I wasn’t sure why. I actually prided myself on keeping it minimal: it made moving easy. “We just don’t spread out much.”
He opened another cabinet, revealing the bare wall behind it. “Mclean,” he said, “you have a basically empty kitchen.”
“We have everything we need,” I countered. He just looked at me. “Except thyme. Look, my dad works at a restaurant. We don’t cook much.”
“You don’t even have baking pans,” he said, still opening things and exposing empty spaces. “What if you need to roast or broil something?”
“I buy a foil pan,” I told him. He just looked at me. “What? Do you know what a pain it is to pack glass pans? They always chip, if not break altogether.”
He came back to the table, taking his seat. Behind him, a few of the cabinets were still open, like gaping mouths. “No offense,” he said, “but that’s just plain sad.”
“Why?” I asked. “It’s organized.”
“It’s paltry,” he replied. “And totally temporary. Like you’re only here for a week or something.”
I ate another spoonful of soup. “Come on.”
“Seriously.” He looked at the cabinets again. “Is it like this all over the house? Like, if I open the drawers in your bedroom, I’ll see you have only two pairs of pants?”
“You’re not opening my drawers,” I told him. “And no. But if you really care, we used to have more stuff. Each time we moved, though, I realized how little we were using of it. So I scaled back. And then I scaled back a little more.”
He just looked at me as I stirred my bowl, moving the carrots around. “How many times have you moved?”
“Not that many,” I said. He did not look convinced, so I added, “I’ve been living with Dad for almost two years . . . and I guess this is the fourth place. Or something.”
“Four towns in two years?” he said.
“Well, of course it sounds bad when you say it like that,” I said.
For a moment, neither of us said anything. The only sound was our spoons clinking. I really wanted to get up and shut the open cabinets, but for some reason I felt like it would be admitting something. I stayed where I was.
“What I mean is, it must be hard,” he said finally, glancing up at me. “Always being the new kid.”
“Not necessarily.” I tucked one leg up underneath me. “There’s something kind of freeing about it, actually.”
“Really.”
“Sure,” I said. “When you move a lot, you don’t have a lot of entanglements. There’s not really time to get all caught up in things. It’s simpler.”
He thought about this for a second. “True. But if you never really make friends, you probably don’t have anyone to be your two a.m. Which would kind of suck.”
I just looked at him as he stirred his soup, carrots spinning in the liquid. “Your what?”
“Two a.m.” He swallowed, then said, “You know. The person you can call at two a.m. and, no matter what, you can count on them. Even if they’re asleep or it’s cold or you need to be bailed out jail . . . they’ll come for you. It’s, like, the highest level of friendship.”
“Oh. Right.” I looked down at the table. “Well, I guess I can see the value in that.”
We were quiet for a moment. Then Dave said, “At the same time, though, I can understand the whole blank-page thing. You don’t have to constantly be explaining yourself.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Nobody knows you were ever friends with Gerv the Perv. Or part of a vicious, girl-fight-inducing love triangle.”
“Or that your parents had an awful divorce.” I looked at him. “Sorry. But that’s kind of where you were going, right?”
It hadn’t been. At least not on purpose. “My point is that all the moving has been just what me and my dad needed. It’s been a good thing for both of us.”
“Being temporary,” he said.
“Getting a fresh start,” I countered. “Or four.”
Another silence fell. I could hear the fridge humming behind me. Weird how some things you’re never aware of until there’s nothing else to notice.
“So you think you’ll move from here again, soon? ” he asked finally. “When six months is up?”
“Don’t know,” I replied. “Sometimes we stay longer or shorter than that. It’s really up to the company my dad works for. And next year . . .”
I trailed off, realizing only once I’d started this sentence that I didn’t really want to get into it. But I could feel Dave watching me, waiting.
“There’s college, and all that,” I finished. “So this one already kind of has an end date, regardless. At least for me.”
We looked at each other for a moment. He was a smart guy, probably the smartest
I’d ever met. So it didn’t take long, only a beat or so, for him to get what I was saying.
“Right.” He put his spoon down in his now-empty bowl. “Well, at least you’ll be ready for the dorm. You’ve got living simply down.”
I smiled, looking at the cabinets. “I do, don’t I?”
“Yeah. Maybe I should take some lessons. Might come in handy when I’m packing for our road trip this summer.”
“The road trip?” I asked. “Does that mean it’s back on? Your parents gave the okay?”
“Not exactly. But they’re warming up to the idea a bit.” He pushed his bowl to the side. “Mostly because I said I’d spend the second half of the summer at Brain Camp, which is what they want me to do. It’s all about compromise. But if it means I get to go to Texas with Ellis and Riley, it’s all good.”
“So Heather wasn’t invited?”
He smiled. “Good assumption, but actually she was in until recently. She, uh, kind of wrecked her car and got her license pulled for points. Her dad’s making her pay back all the debt and for a new policy before she can drive again, so all her money went to that.”
“Was this the guardhouse incident?” I asked.
“It was.” He sighed. “I swear, she is the worst driver. She doesn’t look when she merges.”
“So I hear.” I looked down at my bowl, pushing a stray carrot around. “So what’s in Texas?”
“Austin, mostly. Ellis’s brother lives there, and he’s always talking about how good the music scene is, all the cool stuff there is to do. Plus, it’s far enough that we can stop a bunch of other places along the way.”
“You’re excited,” I said.
“Well, unlike some people, I’m not exactly well traveled. And everyone likes a road trip, right?”
I nodded, thinking of my mom and me, driving to North Reddemane and the Poseidon. I knew he thought my life was weird, and the truth was, I didn’t expect him to understand where I was coming from. How could he, when he’d lived in the same place his entire life, with the same people around him, his history and past always inescapable, inevitable? I wasn’t saying my way was necessarily best. But neither was never having any change. And given the choice between these two options, I knew the life I was living was the better one for me. I might not have had spices, but I wasn’t lugging useless, chipped glass pans around with me either. So to speak.