* * *
Forty-five minutes later, slathered in SPF 30 and wearing a plain tank top with black capris, Zoey perched on a polka-dot beach towel beside Isa and Lacey. She still felt awkward about her lack of style in front of the other girls in their trendy two-pieces and sundresses. But her self-consciousness was starting to fade a little now. Mostly, she just felt uncomfortable because she still had her period and didn’t feel like learning how to use a tampon so she could wear a bathing suit. Besides, her bathing suit probably didn’t fit anymore. She hadn’t gone swimming in over a year. And sure the ocean looked all fun and friendly, but Zoey was still afraid of the dangers you couldn’t see from the shore: sharks, jellyfish, flesh-eating bacteria. She shivered despite the heat just thinking about it, and took a deep breath to clear her head. At least she’d met some kids to hang out with. Isa seemed genuinely nice. And Lacey might be a snob, Zoey thought, but at least she hadn’t looked Zoey’s outfit up and down today or crinkled her nose like Zoey’s wardrobe wasn’t up to her standards.
The Devil’s Arithmetic was on their summer required reading list, so Isa and Lacey had both brought a copy. Lacey squinted behind giant sunglasses and cradled her phone close to reduce the sun’s glare on her Kindle app. Zoey had brought a yellowed paperback copy of A Wrinkle in Time that she’d found on the childhood bookshelf in Mami’s old room. But sweating under the bright sun, Zoey couldn’t concentrate on the words in front of her. José was usually the one who reminded Dad to enroll her in a new school. But soon he wouldn’t be here to do that anymore. And she didn’t even know whether she’d go to the same middle school as Isa and Lacey, or if Dad would swoop in and really take her to Manhattan by summer’s end. The uncertainty made her stomach hurt. Lost in thought, Zoey pretended to read but watched the waves over the pages of her book instead, wondering why Dad hadn’t texted her back. In the distance, a water skier in a bright orange vest wiped out on a turn. Zoey winced, remembering her own water tubing wipeout. The sleek white boat raced ahead, yanking the fumbling skier along until he finally managed to signal for the boat to slow down.
“The degree of that turn was way off,” Isa commented, pursing her lips.
“Huh?” Zoey shot Isa a questioning look.
“The water skier,” she answered quickly. “His knees weren’t bent enough to make the turn. That’s why he fell.” Isa hugged her own knees to her chest. “I love water skiing. It’s just like bowling.”
Zoey was sure she’d heard wrong. “You water ski in the ocean. You bowl indoors. How are they the same?”
“Glad you asked,” Isa said eagerly. She put her book down and grabbed a long string of seaweed from the sand.
“Becaaaaauuuuuse they’re both about using angles, degrees, distance, and physics to achieve your goal! Say these are bowling pins,” Isa said, drawing a triangle made out of ten dots in the sand. “To get a strike, you want to hit the space between the pin closest to you and the one closest behind it on the right at an angle of six degrees.…” Isa kept talking, but Zoey couldn’t keep up. Isa was obviously a math whiz.
“You’re making me wish I brought a protractor to the beach,” Zoey joked when Isa came up for air.
“Oh. I bring mine everywhere!” Isa fished through her bag, tossing makeup, sunblock, and a graphing calculator on the sand.
Lacey groaned.
“Noooo. Put all that stuff away, Isa. Come on, save it for your high school teachers. This is summer break!” Lacey flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head, rolling her eyes and scrunching her nose.
“High school teachers?” Zoey asked Isa.
“Genius here took geometry with the ninth grade last year,” Lacey answered for Isa, still wrinkling her nose like Isa being smart was just as unappealing as Zoey’s lackluster sense of style. She put her sunglasses on and lay back on her paisley pink towel.
Isa’s bottom lip quivered. She bit it and stuffed her giant protractor and graphing calculator back into her purse, then crossed her arms over her chest and stared hard at the ocean. The girls lapsed into awkward silence. Lacey went back to reading on her phone, but clearly guilt was eating at her because Zoey kept catching her looking up.
“GEEZ, I didn’t mean to insult your big brain. Sorry, Isa,” Lacey said finally.
“What are you talking about?” Isa asked, turning a page primly in her library book. The plastic cover rustled as she smoothed it on her giant green towel, which was patterned with cheerfully bright lemons and watermelons. “Everything’s fine.”
“Ugh, stoooooop. Don’t be like that,” Lacey said, flipping her glasses back to the top of her head to eye Isa more closely. Isa ignored her, pretending to read.
“I’m sorry. How about I go get us fries?” Lacey said, poking Isa in the arm.
Isa shrugged a shoulder.
Lacey groaned loud enough for the twenty-something couple snoozing beneath their umbrella behind them to glance up in alarm.
“How about fries and chocolate shakes for all of us? I really am sorry,” Lacey said, sounding contrite. This time, Zoey detected a note of real remorse in Lacey’s tone.
Isa grinned. “All right, you’re forgiven. And you don’t have to buy me a milkshake,” Isa said, then she giggled to herself like she’d just thought of a joke no one else was in on yet. Her braces gleamed in the sun. “But, I mean, I won’t stop you either. Like, if you really waaant a chocolate shake and you don’t want to drink alone, I don’t mind having one too.…” She trailed off sweetly, still smiling.
“Haha, okay, I get it,” Lacey said, grinning back. “Zoey, do you want one too?” she asked, getting up.
Zoey was surprised by the offer. “Um, no thanks,” she said. Lacey shrugged before walking off to buy the shakes. When she was out of earshot, Zoey turned toward Isa. Before she could say anything though, Isa’s phone started ringing.
Cupping the screen to reduce the sun’s glare, Isa squinted at the caller ID and rolled her eyes.
“Hola, Mami,” she answered, then paused while her mom talked.
“I told you I was going to the beach with Lacey and Zoey.” She paused again. “Zoey. I told you already about her—my new friend.” Isa flashed a smile at Zoey and continued chatting seamlessly in Spanglish. “Yes, la que tiene the grandpa who owns the bowling center. Gonzo’s. Gonzo’s!” Isa glared up at the cloudless blue sky in exasperation. “Gonzo’s!” she shouted again, earning a mean look from the forty-something-ish woman sunbathing nearby. “No—you can’t talk. Don’t call me again. I’ll be home by seven. Don’t call—”
Isa took the phone off her ear and exhaled in frustration.
“Is everything okay?” Zoey asked.
“My mom can get on my last nerve sometimes. It’s not just that she’s overprotective. But she can’t hear me over the twins’ screaming, so I have to repeat everything a thousand times, and then she hangs up on me and calls me back again so we can repeat the same conversation a thousand more times.” Isa locked her phone and tossed it on her towel. “Sorry,” she half-smiled at Zoey.
“No worries,” Zoey said, trying to stomp down on the envious little voice inside that wished her mother could bug her like Isa’s. “Who are the twins?”
“My brother and sister. They’re two years old and double trouble delicious, but they take all my mom’s attention. Ever since they were born, it’s like she’s always running after them. But then she’ll suddenly remember she’s supposed to worry about me too, and when she has one of those moments she just totally freaks out if she can’t get ahold of me, so I can’t ever forget to take my phone or leave the ringer off or my mother will send in the marines.”
“It’s sweet that she loves you so much though,” Zoey couldn’t resist pointing out.
“You’re right,” Isa said, sighing. Zoey watched her pick up her phone and text a quick GIF of a cat saying “I love you” to her mom. Zoey realized that was yet another one of the many things she missed about Mami—frequent, spontaneous affection. Saying “I love you
” without a big reason. Sure, Dad and José told Zoey they loved her all the time—but more out of habit than anything else—when they said good night, or hung up the rare phone call.
“Were you going to say something before my mom called?” Isa asked.
“Oh yeah,” Zoey said, remembering Isa’s tiff with Lacey. “I wanted to tell you that being smart is a good thing. You should be really proud! Man, I wish my dad were a little better at math, like you. Then maybe he wouldn’t lose money on his dreams, and we wouldn’t have to move around so much.”
Isa nodded, blushing slightly. “My dream is to work for NASA. Figure out how to sustain human population growth by colonizing Mars.”
“Wow,” Zoey said, supremely impressed. “That’s… like, a lot of wow.”
Isa laughed and started reapplying sunblock. “What’s your dream?”
Zoey opened her mouth to answer, then closed it when she realized she didn’t know what to say.
What did she want to study in college? What did she want to do when she grew up? Did she want to get married and have kids someday? Did she want to travel the world? Drink tea in London? Find her great-grandparents’ old house in Cuba?
All Zoey had were question marks. She shrugged at Isa.
“I guess I should figure that out one of these days.”
6
Later that afternoon, after Zoey had said goodbye to Isa and Lacey and left the beach, she ventured farther down the boardwalk to locate the sandwich shop Isa had described. If the owners were as nice as Isa said, maybe they’d consider partnering with Poppy. She had to try. And fortunately, finding the restaurant turned out to be super easy.
Apparently, the Triple Threat Chicken Café was the most happening spot on the boardwalk. White holiday lights threaded through a thatched roof twinkled above the café’s packed outdoor tables. Dance music blasted from outdoor speakers. Oldies. Salsa. Hip-hop. The music was as eclectic as the decor. The closer Zoey walked, the more intrigued she was by a line of life-size statues that formed a sort of entryway into the café. The statues were all cartoonish-looking chickens—frozen in different states of performance art. One chicken wore a tutu, its feet lifted in a delicate pirouette. Another sported a long white wig. Glasses slid down its beak, and the chicken looked as if it were about to deliver the key monologue in a Shakespeare play. Zoey’s favorite chicken statue, though, had two feet of blue hair, wore head-to-toe sequins, and clutched a guitar in one wing and a microphone in the other. It looked like the lead singer in a band. And the way the other chickens were arranged around it made them look like they were boogieing to its jam.
Forget a bake sale, thought Zoey. Maybe what Poppy needed to get people’s attention were dancing chickens. They made you want to stay and party and have fun. Bopping slightly to the beat of the hit song spilling from the ceiling speakers, Zoey pushed the door open and bumped into someone’s shoulder.
“Sorry!” she exclaimed, losing her footing and starting to fall. A strong arm instantly caught her, stopping her from crashing through the glass.
“Careful there!” José said, letting go of Zoey’s middle and shaking his head at her clumsiness.
“What are you doing here?” Zoey asked. She’d thought he was back at Gonzo’s, still trying to fix the pinball machine.
José’s lips drew together into a thin line, and he didn’t answer right away. Zoey shot him a questioning glance, but José just stood there awkwardly next to a revolving case full of pies. Zoey’s mouth watered, noticing a fudge cake dusted in chocolate sprinkles and drizzled in raspberry sauce. Her stomach grumbled. She should’ve taken up Lacey on that milkshake. Oh well. Maybe José would spring for a piece of cake. Or Zoey could buy herself a slice, she thought, remembering she had her bake sale cash on her. José jammed his hands in his pockets, and Zoey realized he wasn’t eating or ordering or even playing on his phone. Just… standing there.
“What are you doing here?” Zoey asked again.
José put his hands in his pockets. “Hanging out.”
Zoey squinted at him. Obviously, José wasn’t telling her something. She glanced around the restaurant, pleased to find more dancing chicken statues inside. These were dressed like rock stars from different musical eras: A seventies disco queen held court beside the deli. A nineties boy band silently serenaded the kitchen doors. And a chicken statue bearing a suspicious resemblance to a current pop star took up residence by the restrooms. The café’s plush red booths brimmed with customers.
Then Zoey noticed the girl with the long curly hair that José had been talking to the other day by the pinball machine, whizzing from table to table with a tray full of water glasses and soda cans.
“Ohhh. I get why you’re ‘hanging out’ here.” Zoey raised her eyebrows knowingly at her brother, making air quotes.
José’s cheeks burned red.
“Hi there! You must be Zoey, José’s sister,” the girl said, pausing in front of them. “I’m Toni-Ann.”
Zoey stared. “You’re Toni-Ann? Oh my gosh! That’s so funny.”
“Zoey!” José’s eyes widened in embarrassment.
“Oh,” Zoey said quickly. “No. I don’t mean you’re funny because of anything José said. Like, he hasn’t said anything about you! Not yet anyway,” Zoey reassured.
“Zoey!” José barked again, glaring at her.
“Um, what I mean is, my friend Isa Levine suggested that I come here and talk to you,” Zoey explained, desperate to clarify. “She said your restaurant makes the best sandwiches in the world, and that more people would probably come to our grandpa’s bowling alley if they knew they could buy your food there. I tried running a bake sale today, but snacks weren’t enough to get Poppy more customers.”
José looked like he hoped the checkered floor would open up and swallow him whole.
“I think we need to get serious,” Zoey said, pressing on. “I think we need chicken.”
“Chicken has been known to save the day,” Toni-Ann said, flashing a warm smile at José. “It sounds like a win-win for both our restaurant and the bowling alley. What do you think, José?”
José exhaled and smiled back. “I think so too,” he said.
Zoey felt hope burst inside her like confetti. She had a good feeling about Toni-Ann. “Would you please talk to Poppy about partnering? He’ll probably take you more seriously than me.”
“Sure,” Toni-Ann said. “I have to run it by my parents first, but I’m sure they’ll be on board. Then I’ll try to stop by within the next week or so to talk to your Poppy. Does that work?”
“Perfect.” Zoey beamed. She felt lighter than she had since moving to the Jersey Shore.
“Okay, well, it’s getting close to dinner. You don’t want to ruin your appetite,” José said, putting a hand on Zoey’s shoulder and lightly spinning her toward the door. An egg-shaped clock above the dessert display ticked six o’clock.
“Aren’t you coming?” Zoey asked, wiggling away from José and crossing her arms over her chest. “Poppy’s making your favorite dinner tonight, arroz con pollo and yucca con mojo, remember?”
“I, ah, I thought I might stay and keep Toni-Ann company a little while longer,” José said.
A family of seven walked in just then. The youngest two looked like identical twins. One ran straight to the pile of menus and knocked over the entire stack. The other climbed into a booth for two and immediately tried to pick up a knife. Toni-Ann snatched some crayons and paper mats from the hostess stand and dashed over to help the parents and usher them to a bigger table.
“I don’t get off for another couple of hours,” she called over her shoulder to José. “Go eat with your sister. Pick me up later. We can check out the movie with that superhero dude who travels through time to save Earth or whatever.”
“You’re literally the only human who hasn’t seen this series. Get excited. I’m about to introduce you to the finest in cinematic artistry,” José said.
“Robots exploding?” Toni-Ann squ
inted skeptically.
“Like I said, the finest in cinematic artistry.”
“Mmm, ’kay. See you at nine.”
Toni-Ann’s smile was as big as José’s when she turned back to take the next table’s orders.
* * *
“So Toni-Ann, huh?” Zoey elbowed José in the ribs as they walked home in the early twilight. “She seems nice.”
“She is,” José agreed.
“And pretty. She has excellent fashion sense,” Zoey tossed it out there. She was a big fan of the scarlet beaded maxidress Toni-Ann wore beneath her blue uniform apron emblazoned with the café’s logo. “Maybe she can take me shopping sometime,” she added.
“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Toni-Ann and I just met.” José looked uncomfortable.
“So? She’s nice. She’s pretty. She has excellent fashion sense. And she wants to help us save Poppy’s bowling alley.”
“Yeah, okay, she seems really great,” José admitted, in such a quiet, almost reverent voice that Zoey’s own heart soared. It was the same tone Dad used to talk about Mami. Zoey had never heard José talk about his old girlfriends that way. Maybe Toni-Ann was The One. Zoey’s mind raced with possibilities. Maybe her brother was falling so head-over-heels in love with Toni-Ann that he wouldn’t go to college in Florida after all. Maybe he’d decide to stay!
“I’m glad you have a new girlfriend. I like seeing you happy,” Zoey said, choosing her words carefully. She didn’t want to freak José out.
“She’s not my girlfriend, Zo.”
“Not yet,” Zoey pointed out.
José grunted—which Zoey interpreted to mean he did, in fact, hope Toni-Ann would become his girlfriend.
“New subject,” he said. “Josh Hernandez texted me today.”
“Josh Hernandez?”
“My new roommate at UF.”
“Oh.” Zoey had a funny feeling José was about to stomp on her heart like a piece of litter on the ground. “What’d he want?”
The Dream Weaver Page 6