by Eileen Cook
“I wanted to give you something.” He slid an envelope across the counter.
I picked it up. “What is it?”
“It’s a letter of reference.” He took a sip and then put the mug right back down. “I know you don’t have any college plans, but you never know. Plans change.”
I swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“There’s one in there from Detective Jay too. I kept copies of both in your file, so if you lose them, just let me know.”
“I probably won’t need them,” I said. “This place doesn’t require a lot of formal references.”
Mr. Lester looked around. “Nah. I imagine not. But you won’t stay here. You’ll be on to bigger and better things.”
“How do you know?” Maybe I hoped he was psychic.
He smiled. “Just do. Things often have a way of working themselves out the way they’re meant to.” He pushed away from the counter. “One other thing I happen to know is that there is someone outside who wants to talk to you.”
I looked past him out the big plate-glass window. Drew stood by her VW Bug in the parking lot. “Can’t help yourself, huh?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The peacemaker role comes as part of the job.”
I stood at the counter fidgeting with one of the ketchup bottles, my fingernail making half-moon impressions in the paper label.
“Friends come and go,” Mr. Lester said. “But I have to tell you, keeping the bridge open so they can return is never a bad idea.” He gave me a half salute and headed out, tucking a few dollars under the saucer of his mug.
Part of me had hoped I’d be able to simply ignore Drew until she moved away. I sighed and peeled off my apron. “Tyrone, mind if I knock off early?” I yelled to the back.
He popped his head out. “You never do much work around here anyway; you might as well go.”
I stepped outside into the cool evening air. I hated that she was seeing me in my stained uniform with sensible old-lady waitress shoes. I had a vision she’d come back from New York months from now and I’d have to replay this whole scene over. She’d keep getting more chic and fashionable, and I’d stay exactly the same.
Drew and I stood in the parking lot. There was a long quiet pause. If she thought I was going to talk first, she was nuts.
“You must be feeling better,” Drew finally said.
At first I wasn’t sure what she meant and then I realized she was talking about missing classes again yesterday. “I wasn’t really sick the past couple of days,” I admitted.
I heard her take a deep breath. “I heard the news about Paige’s dad getting arrested,” she said finally. “Everyone at school is talking about it.”
I inspected my fingernails. They looked horrible.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Drew said in a rush. “I never should have said the stuff I did at my house. I feel terrible.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I hate that things are like this between us.” Drew bit her lip.
“Me too.” I searched my feelings, but all my anger at Drew was gone. There wasn’t even sadness really, just regret.
Drew took a deep breath. “You still thinking about New York?”
“I’m not going,” I said. “You were right. I could have saved the money, at least more than I did.”
“Maybe if you save up for a year, we could get a place together then.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I kicked at a loose stone with my shoe. “To be honest, I think I need to figure out what I want to do before I make any big plans.”
Drew nodded. “You could still come visit. We could go to the top of the Empire State Building and take that cruise out to see the Statue of Liberty.”
I smiled. “That would be pretty awesome,” I said. “You can show me around, give me the local’s view so I can skip the touristy stuff.”
Drew tapped her foot on the ground. “You want to come over to my place tonight? We’re going to order pizza.”
I wondered what her mom thought of that idea. “I would, but I need a shower.” I tugged on my uniform. “Then I really need to study.”
“We could study together after school this week,” Drew offered. “Ice cream and cramming.”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
Drew relaxed and smiled. “I’d really like that.”
“Me too.” We stood there awkwardly. It was like a first date, where you’re trying to figure out if you’ll kiss or not. It was never going to be the same between us, but maybe it could still be all right.
Forty-Eight
I trailed after the hostess through the maze of tables. One of the large glossy shopping bags I was carrying whacked into the back of an elderly woman who turned around to glare. As I passed her, I noted that rich people smelled different. Crisp and clean, like laundry on the line or fresh apples.
“Sorry,” I whispered. It seemed like the kind of restaurant that called for lowered voices. I’d seen places like this on TV, but before this moment, the fanciest restaurant I’d ever eaten in was an Applebee’s.
“Here you go.” The bracelets on the hostess’s arm clinked musically as she pulled out a chair and held it. I slowly lowered my butt to the cushioned seat, and she pushed it in before quickly rushing to help my mom. She handed each of us a huge embossed leather menu.
I waited until she walked away. “This place is expensive,” I said, stating the obvious. “We don’t have to do anything fancy,” I said. “You already got me the dress and stuff for graduation.”
Mom smiled at me over the top of the menu. “This is a celebration. You don’t graduate every day.”
“I haven’t graduated yet,” I pointed out.
“I’m pretty sure you’ll make it through the final week.” She winked. When the waitress came by, Mom ordered a glass of champagne for herself and a sparkling apple juice for me.
My finger trailed down the list of items on the menu. There were almost too many—my brain was swimming in choices. “I’m not sure what to get.”
She smiled. “Don’t be nervous. We got this. I’m going to get the salmon,” Mom said snapping the menu shut. “I like how they say it’s on a bed of roasted vegetables, like it’s sleeping.” She giggled. “All tucked in with a blanket of ginger sauce.”
“I might get the pasta.” My glance kept falling on the cost of each item.
Mom poked my menu. “Don’t you want the steak? You can be a vegetarian when the options aren’t so good.”
“Are you sure?” The filet was the most expensive thing on the menu.
“Now, I know it’s not on a bed of anything, but it still sounds pretty fancy. We’re celebrating. Go for it.” She wiggled in her seat like she was dancing.
We put in our orders and then Mom raised her glass. “To us,” she said.
I clinked mine to hers. There wasn’t a drop of booze in the sparkling cider, but it still felt as if the bubbles were going to my head. The waitress had left a tiny tray with olives, fancy nuts, and dried fruit that I picked at.
“I have some good news too. A bit extra to celebrate,” Mom said. She squirmed in her seat, and I realized she was ready to explode with excitement. She’d never been able to keep a secret; her inner ten-year-old was a big blabber.
“What is it?” I poked her shin under the table with my sandal. “Tell me.”
Mom tucked her hair behind her ears and sat up straighter. “As of this morning, ten thirty to be precise, I am pleased to announce that I signed a book deal.”
I nearly aspirated the olive that had been in my mouth. I coughed the half-chewed chunks into my hand and wiped them onto the linen napkin. “What?”
She smirked, smug that she’d surprised me with her announcement. “You heard me. I signed a book deal. The publisher wants to call it A Psychic Solution. How cool is that? The agent woman set the whole thing up. I haven’t even written a word of it yet, and they’re still giving me half the money upfront.” She lowered her voice. “It’s almost as much as I make in a year at the Stop
and Shop.”
“Mom, that’s awesome. You’re going to be an author.”
“Pretty fancy for a girl who didn’t even finish high school.” She buffed her nails on her shoulder and laughed. Her face was flushed.
“I guess you better get used to eating in places like this,” I said.
She picked at the bread they’d brought. “Maybe.” She lowered her voice. “To be honest, I think most of the time I’d prefer Chick-fil-A.”
“You shouldn’t eat there,” I started to say.
“I know, they’re racist. You tell me all the time.”
“Homophobic,” I said. “That’s just as bad.”
“Could be, but they do make a good sandwich.” She looked to the table next to us to see which knife the woman used to butter her bread and copied her.
“I’m really proud of you, Mom.” I realized I was. It was like she was transforming into someone completely new, or was it possible that I was finally seeing her for who she could be if she only had a chance?
She lifted her glass again. “Here’s to the Thorn girls moving onward and upward.” We toasted that and then came up with increasingly silly toasts until the waitress brought out our plates. She placed them down carefully as if they were works of art instead of food. I had the urge to applaud.
I felt a bit guilty about eating a cow, but vowed I’d go back to lentils tomorrow. It was like what we were eating came from a different planet from the food that filled our fridge. I’d be stupid to pass up this opportunity.
Our plates were whisked away, and our waitress brought a stiff parchment sheet decorated with calligraphy script. “Our dessert selections,” she declared.
“I’m stuffed,” I said. “If I eat one more thing, my pants are going to split.”
“They have cheesecake with blueberries,” Mom said, consulting the sheet.
“Well . . . maybe we could share,” I said.
Mom laughed and requested two forks. “I have something for you.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny box that she’d tied with a red ribbon. She saw my raised eyebrows. “Consider it an early graduation gift.”
I carefully untied the bow and opened the box. Inside there was a magazine picture folded up into tiny eighths so it would fit inside. I opened it and realized it was a shot of the New York skyline. I looked up, uncertain.
“I was going to put in a check, but you can’t cash it until I get the book money, which won’t be for a couple months.” She smiled. “This was the best idea I could come up with for the meantime.”
“What do you mean?”
Her smile grew wider. “I’m going to give you the money to go to New York. Enough to cover your half of an apartment for two or three months. That should give you time to settle in, find a job, and figure out what you’d like to do.”
I traced the lines where the picture was folded. “Mom, are you sure?”
She reached over and touched the back of my hand. “I know I haven’t always done a great job at this mom thing, but I was only a kid when you were born. It took me a while to figure things out. Now I can do this for you, and I really want to.”
My lower lip shook. I pushed the box back toward her. “It’s your money.”
“I want you to have all the chances I never had. You go off to the big city and knock ’em dead, kiddo.” She tossed back the last of her champagne. “And when you want, you can come visit me to talk over your options.” She paused. “But you won’t be visiting me here.”
I wiped my eyes to get rid of the tears that were threatening to fall. “You’re leaving too?”
“No reason not to. I can write that book anywhere.” She glanced over at me as if disclosing a secret. “You were right when you said I stayed here because it was safe. I was too scared to change things, but I’m not anymore. I think we’ll both do better with a fresh start.”
“Florida?” I guessed. My mom had always talked about the Sunshine State as if it were the Promised Land.
“Miami. I even checked out possible apartments on the Web.”
I sat across from her, shocked. An idea flitted through my head like a hummingbird. “Starting over in a new place isn’t going to be easy,” I pointed out. “You won’t know anyone, and it will take a while to figure out where you’re going, what grocery store you like, all that kind of stuff.”
Her lips pinched. “Yeah.” She took a deep breath.
I nodded. “It might be better if you went with someone.”
She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “I got nobody.”
“You got me,” I said. Maybe Miami was exactly what I needed, a new place, a fresh start.
Mom’s eyes welled up as we stared at each other across the table. “Are you saying you want to come too?”
Her reaction made a tiny explosion of happiness in my chest like fireworks. “I only picked New York because of Drew. Miami could be pretty cool.”
Mom put down her fork. “Are you sure? I’d love to have you, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to take care of me. That’s not your job.”
“We’ll take care of each other. I’d like to go.” As the words left my mouth I realized they were true. I held out a warning finger. “No borrowing my bathing suit if yours is wet.”
Mom’s smile nearly split her face in two. “Deal. I’m predicting there’s nothing but up for the Thorn family.”
I laughed. “Is that an official prediction?”
“You can take that one to the bank.”
Forty-Nine
The number of people feeling overly emotional as we stood in the back of the gym the following Saturday waiting for the music to start surprised me. A bunch of them were hugging and vowing that they’d always be the very best of friends. They hung on to each other as if we were about to go in and face a firing squad, rather than a graduation ceremony. Despite the fact I’d been counting down the days I had left in school since grade eight, suddenly I started to feel connected to all of them too. I’d miss them in a weird way.
Drew rushed over as soon as she saw me. “You look really nice.”
As if anyone was going to look attractive in a neon blue fire-retardant gown. “Thanks,” I said.
“Let’s get a picture.” We threw our arms around each other, and she held her phone out to grab a selfie of the two of us. We’d taken more pictures together in the past week than we had in years. It was like both of us wanted to document that there had been a time when we’d been the very best of friends. Drew had found a roommate service in New York and was talking to a bunch of people online. She was going to be okay. We both were.
“Are you going to come over after this?”
“Not sure. There’s still a lot to do.” Mom and I were leaving first thing tomorrow morning for Florida, and I still had packing to do. I had no interest in celebrating the past. What I cared about was ahead of me. It was a good feeling.
We’d sold or given away our furniture. We’d been bunking down in sleeping bags for the past couple of nights. We were only taking what we could fit in the car.
Ms. Clark, our biology teacher, was trying to get everyone else into the tidy alphabetical line that we’d practiced. She had sweat stains under each arm and sounded like we were getting on her last nerve. She clapped her hands and tried to herd us into order. I checked to make sure no one was looking right at me and picked my thong out of my rear. It was hot and sticky, and I wished I’d worn shorts instead of a dress.
“People, you need to be in line now. Please make sure you are in the right place. Remember, the alphabet is going backward for this.” Ms. Clark checked her watch again. “We’re starting,” she said for the third or fourth time.
Almost nobody paid her the slightest attention. What was she going to do, give us detention?
“You’ll call me when you guys get to Florida?” Drew asked.
“Of course.” I poked her in the ribs. “You still going to come visit?”
“When I want a break from all the sn
ow in NYC, you won’t be able to keep me away.”
The band burst into Pomp and Circumstance, and that got everyone moving. Drew hugged me before darting away. We shuffled into place with only a bit of jockeying to figure out where we were supposed to be and began marching in. I glanced around as soon as I was in the gym and spotted my mom. It wasn’t hard. She was waving madly from the bleachers like she was trying to direct aircraft. I smiled and waved back. This was it.
“Commencement means beginning,” Martina Lopez, our class valedictorian, said. I rolled my eyes. I’d hoped for more originality from someone who was a straight-A student and could swear in four languages. I closed my eyes and let myself drift while she talked.
“Our future is no longer a distant thing, something to talk about, to dream about—the future is here. We walked into this room as students, and we walk out as citizens of the world, ready to take on our destiny.”
I wondered what her destiny would be. She was scary smart; she could do anything. I’d given Martina a tarot reading once, but I couldn’t remember what she’d wanted to know anymore.
“At a time when we have everything before us, we should take time to remember those we’ve lost. Many of us struggled with the recent death of our classmate and friend Paige Bonnet. But she would be the first to tell us not to be sad, but instead to use what happened to her to motivate us to reach for our dreams.”
I shifted in my seat and refused to turn around. Our class had decided to leave her seat empty for the ceremony as a tribute. I had the irrational feeling that if I turned, I would see her sitting there, staring back at me. Blood dripping in bright red drops onto the gym floor.
“. . . Paige is a reminder that we never know how much time we have left.”
Please don’t say carpe diem, I thought.
“We need to seize all opportunities before us. Carpe diem!”
I stared down at my lap and realized I was picking at my cuticles. There was a tiny dot of blood on my gown. It looked almost black. Like the pupil of an eye looking out.
“Paige was the center of our social orbit, a star, and she’ll always be missed.” Martina said.