by Cyn Balog
“I’m trying to start a new trend,” I pant. “Hair shaped like the Seven Wonders of the World. I think the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would really bring out the color in your eyes.”
Billy now has us—me and all the way overexcited people in his cult—doing “ricochet kicks” on one leg, which I manage to do for half a second before I lose my balance and fall against a wall. The entire building shakes.
“What was that?” my mom calls.
“Earthquake,” I mumble from the puddle of sweat I’ve collapsed into in the center of my room. “Run for cover. Save yourself.”
Evie is still looking at the atrocity over my eyes. She keeps her hair long, like this platinum waterfall, so even if a seagull came and pooped on her head, it would work for her. “Good luck with that.”
I roll over and look at her. “That guy—Rick. He’s a total tool. You’ll want to stay away from him.”
She nods in agreement. “Oh, totally. What a jerk.”
Ten bucks says she didn’t even hear me and is wondering which of her Barbie-sized outfits would be best to make him drool on the first day of school. Something with a bare midriff, I bet. Evie likes to show off her belly button. I probably would, too, if I had such a cute one and not something big and foreboding that looks like the mouth of hell.
Afterward, at dinner, to keep my mind off the delectable array of epicurean delights (har-har) before me, I read the entertainment section of the newspaper. It seems that all the September television premieres feature teen characters who are thinner than waxed paper. The obligatory “fat best friend” is probably no bigger than a size six. I have half a stick of fish and some frozen green beans. I try to tell myself that I’m full, despite Stomach’s telling everyone at the table otherwise.
“What’s wrong?” my mother asks, reaching over to feel my forehead, which is still sticky with sweat from my date with Billy. “You sick?”
Evie grins and bats her eyelashes. “Lovesick! She’s thinking about Wish.”
I think about poking her with my fork, but since she’s so skinny, I’d probably pierce a major organ.
“Your hair looks great. Melinda did a fantastic job,” my mother, who I never realized was blind until this moment, says. She, however, has spent most of her life in a hairnet, and it doesn’t even faze her to run errands, go shopping, even meet with friends wearing it.
“Ma. I have a point on my forehead. I can impale people on it.”
She eyes it critically. “Wash it out. It might surprise you.”
Evie nods.
“If I don’t accidentally slit my wrists when I reach up to touch it,” I mutter, holding a green bean between my fingers and squeezing it. “That would be a surprise.”
My mother waves me away. “So does Wish need us to pick him up from Philly on Monday?”
I shake my head. “He couldn’t get a flight. He’s coming in Tuesday.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good. I need you at the bakery to train the winter help,” she says, to my delight. I just love training new employees on the last weekend of summer vacation. “He’s missing the first day of school?”
I shrug. “Guess so.”
“Well, that’s a bummer.”
I’m thinking it’s not. The jokes are always worst the first day of school. That’s when everyone is really giving each other the once-over, to see the tans, the new clothes, the monumental fatness, whatever. Maybe I can get all the teasing over with on Tuesday so that when Wish comes in, he won’t hear any of it.
Of course, he’s not an idiot. You don’t have to be on the honor roll to notice that nobody writes on my Facebook wall, and when they do, it’s usually some unkind remark about my butt that I have to scramble to delete. But people were making fun of me long before I packed on the pounds. I can’t help flashing back to one summer night, when I was surrounded by crystal chandeliers, brass fixtures shinier than the sun, and horribly gaudy velvet flowered wallpaper. The restroom of Cellarton Country Club. It was the club’s summer banquet, four years ago, right before Wish moved away. He’d invited me because his parents were dragging him and he hated those things, and for once they’d said he could bring a guest. Maybe they felt guilty about the impending divorce or thought that having an outsider there would help keep things civil.
It was a mistake from the beginning. First the car on the ride over was as deathly quiet as the bakery on a winter afternoon. Then, about an hour into it, while Wish was getting me a drink, I felt like everyone was staring at me, so I decided to go to the ladies’ room. While I was in the restroom, doing my business, a gaggle of giggling girls came in to reapply their lip gloss or whatever gaggles of girls do when they go to the bathroom together. I remember that I didn’t have any nice shoes, so I had to wear these embarrassing, scuffed-up sandals that were closer to brown than the original white. I’m not really sure who the girls were, but I heard them whisper the word “trash” and it sounded like someone was moving furniture outside my stall. The next thing I knew, they left and turned the lights out. And there I was, in this unfamiliar, pitch-black bathroom with my panties around my knees. I quickly stood up and fumbled for the latch, but when I unlocked it, the door would not budge. Something was on the other side. I tried to get out, but I was stuck. At first I prayed that someone other than Wish, someone I didn’t know, would come for me, because it was so embarrassing. As the minutes wore on, though, I started praying that anyone would save me. Eventually, Wish did. He heard me screaming and braved the ladies’ restroom for me. The most horrible thing was that when he opened the door, most of my dress was tucked into my pink panties with the word “peace” on them. I still cringe whenever I think of that, of Wish seeing me that way. But he didn’t laugh or anything; he just told his mom I needed to leave and they took me straight home. I can still remember him apologizing over and over again. “I’m sorry, so sorry, Dough. They’re not usually like that.” And I thought, Okay, maybe they’re not. When I started at Cellarton Junior High, I was fully prepared to give them another chance.
But the truth was they were usually like that. To me, at least.
My mother shakes the table a little. The ice in my glass of Diet Coke clinks and some of it spills onto the plastic checked tablecloth, nudging me from the memory. “Don’t get down. It’s just one more day,” she says.
I reach across the table and sigh, “And this is just one more fish stick,” and practically swallow the whole thing without chewing.
6
EVIE HAS BEEN AT BAND CAMP all weekend. A lot of people think band camp is lame, but she’s on the band front, which is the small subset of band that is right up there with the cheerleaders. That’s probably because they wear skintight leotards with butt-cheek-baring skirts, which makes them just about everything the football players are looking for in their girlfriends. Granted, Evie has talent. She twirls a baton and has been able to do so since she was six. The first time I picked one up, I knocked myself unconscious. But Evie is a natural. And she loves twirling so much that this morning, Labor Day, the final day of camp, she jazz-kicked her way into the store for a carton of OJ and a couple of donuts, even though it was only six. She was wearing short shorts and a T-shirt and had a bag slung over her shoulder and was shivering in excitement (or perhaps because it was a bit nippy and her shorts went all the way up her butt crack) as she waited for her best friend Becca’s mom to pick her up. She even practiced some tosses and moves she learned at cheerleading camp this summer, just to make sure she “still had it” or something. The old ladies in the store smiled at her, then growled at me for not getting their Danishes fast enough.
It’s ironic that it’s Labor Day, because what have I been doing for my last day of freedom before my junior year? Working. Working like crazy. Because of Evie’s extracurriculars, I’ve been picking up the slack at the bakery the entire weekend. I know there are child labor laws that prevent this, but there must be a loophole in there that says if the child belongs to you—i.e., you pushed said child out yo
ur hoohah—you may disregard any regulations designed to prevent said child from collapsing in exhaustion.
Here it is, the day before school starts, and I look like a zombie. A zombie who has eaten half the junior class, but a zombie nonetheless. Yeah, Billy totally let me down. I’ve been working out with him and his cult every night for an hour, and I’ve gained three pounds! And with my triangle hair, I’m sure to make everyone jealous tomorrow.
When Wish sees me, that will really make my life complete.
My mother comes in from the back, looking seriously put out. She has her hands on her hips and there’s flour dotted in her hair. “They’re not here yet?”
I shrug. “Who?”
She looks at me, clearly disappointed that I don’t breathe this business the way she does. “The winter help.”
I check the clock. It’s one exactly. “What time were they supposed to be here?”
She puckers her lips. “One.”
“It’s one right now.”
“So. If they walk through the door right now, or anytime later, that means they’re officially late. And what kind of example does that set, if they can’t even show up on time on the first day of work?”
Knowing the type of people my mom has gotten to be the winter help for the past few years, I think the woman probably got her walker stuck in a crack on the sidewalk or lost her direction because of Alzheimer’s. We have to get new help year after year, because our winter help always dies from old age over the summer. It’s not my mom’s fault; those are the only people around during the winter, because this island becomes a graveyard. All the rich people with kids usually move to their winter homes on the mainland, so I end up taking the short bus to school.
The bell on the door jingles. Standing in the doorframe, his head directly in front of the Fresh Baked Bread! sign, is a kid with so many tattoos on his arms I can’t even be sure he has skin. He’s darting his chin back and forth as if watching a tennis match, and he looks a little lost, not like he wants a cruller. His hands are clenched over a paper bag, and he’s wearing army fatigue pants and a rumpled, sleeveless tie-dyed shirt. I turn to my mom and mouth, “Is that him?”
She gives me a worried look and nods.
“He, um, looks like an escaped convict,” I whisper.
She tightens her lips and says, “They promised me he didn’t do anything bad,” and before I can ask her who she meant by “they,” and what she meant by “bad,” she’s giving him her famous fake smile. “Chris?”
Oh, no. My mom hired a criminal. She must have killed off all the old people on the island, and this was her only option.
He nods and gives a slow, easy smile, one that means he either wants to rip her head off or buy a puppy. I can’t tell which, because his eyes are completely covered by a mass of black pseudodreads. “Christian,” he mutters.
She turns businesslike. “I’m Tammy Reilly. This is my daughter Gwen. She’ll give you a feel for your duties.”
I expect him to get hung up on the space below my boobs, where all my fat is, but he doesn’t. He just gives an almost imperceptible nod and looks around the room. He even inspects the far corners of the ceiling, maybe looking for pink elephants or whatever, and that’s when his hair flips back and I get a look at his eyes. They’re bleary. I think he’s high, but I don’t bring this to my mother’s attention, because I can’t speak.
My mother is going to make me work with a criminal.
“So,” I hear her say, “if you need anything, just call. I’ll be upstairs working on the ledger.”
Correction: My mother is going to make me work with a criminal alone.
By the time my vocal cords start to thaw, I hear the screen door out back close and my mom’s feet shuffle up the rickety staircase to our apartment.
She’s left me alone with a criminal.
I take a step backward and clap my hands together to keep them from shaking. “So!” I say, as if I have some idea what to follow that with.
I don’t.
He stands there for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then he holds out his paper bag and shrugs, as if to say, “What should I do with this?”
“Um, yeah, you can put that back here,” I say, motioning into the back room. “And I should get you an apron.”
Though I’ve walked through the door to the back room—where we keep trays of extra food to restock the shelves, boxes and bags and supplies, and the lockers for employees—a million times, I somehow end up tripping over my feet. I figure one of my no-name Keds knockoffs must be untied, but no, they’re both fine. I am just an idiot.
I open a locker for him and then pull a clean apron from the stack. I usually feel all sweaty when I meet people. Maybe it’s because I’m usually all sweaty. It’s one of the reasons I don’t go to the beach, and it’s why antiperspirant is my best friend. But now the sweat is cascading off my forehead like Niagara Falls.
“Um, I guess I’ll show you how to use the cash register first,” I say, wondering if that’s a good idea. He can just knock me over, steal the money, and be gone. Well, maybe not knock me over, but the rest would be pretty easy, since I’m not sure I can use my Tae Bo moves for real-life situations. However, since I just cleaned out the register and there’s probably no more than fifty dollars in it, I figure it’s no major sacrifice.
I give him the rundown, something I’ve done with all our employees. He doesn’t ask a thousand stupid questions, not like the old ladies I’m used to training. He just nods, and when I ask, “Got it?” he gives me a smile. Not a nice, cheery one, though. That would have put me at ease. This one is decidedly Joker-like. Creepy.
As I’m explaining our pricing for cookies and how to use the scale to weigh them, I realize he’s not paying attention. He’s looking out the window. I follow his line of vision, expecting to see a girl in a bikini or something, but I see nothing. There’s a house across the street that’s being gutted, and a huge Dumpster outside, filled with broken glass glinting in the sunlight, but that’s about it. I raise my voice. “And a full pound will fit in one of these boxes. Okay?”
His nod is barely there.
“I’m not really good at math, so I keep a pencil and paper nearby, or sometimes I do the calculation on the box or bag itself. But if you’re good at math, you can just do the calculations in your head.” I realize I am babbling too much, and too happily. “Um. Are you good at math?”
He shrugs.
I wish he would talk a little more. I mean, is he practicing for mime school? Still, I’m sure, despite his freaky appearance, there are lots of things we have in common. A month from now, I’ll probably look back at this and laugh at myself for thinking this guy was the scariest person I’d ever met.
I hope.
All right, I give up. I have more important things to do with my life than deal with the Freaky Silent Type. Like sleep. “Yeah. Well, the price list is on the wall behind the register. If you need anything, we’re upstairs. Just pick up the phone and dial one. Okay?”
I’m about to turn around when I realize that the entire lower half of his face (which is all I can see) has turned a little red. Is he blushing or choking on a piece of gum? Then his mouth opens and he says, in a tiny, fragile voice, “May I have a cupcake?”
May I have a cupcake? It’s so childish, like something I’d expect a preschooler to say. Or Oliver. I can’t help it: I burst out laughing.
He tilts his head to the side, obviously wondering if I’m having a convulsion.
“I’m sorry. Yeah. You can. And there’s milk and juice in the fridge case. Help yourself.”
He reaches into the case and pulls out a chocolate-frosted cupcake. Then he shoves the entire thing into his mouth, and in one swallow, it’s gone. I can almost see the outline of it traveling down his throat, like a mouse being devoured by a snake. I gag. “Um, you can have another. Human bites, though, this time. Don’t want to have to call 911 on your ass.”
I laugh—it’s almost a snort, but I catch myself
in time—and realize that the whole “calling 911 on your ass” thing is entirely too cool for the normal Dough Reilly to say. I usually sound stiff, like a walking dictionary. I think I’m feeling emboldened by his goofy “Can I have some more, sir?” impersonation.
He takes a second one and is still chewing when he opens his mouth and says, “Thanks.”
Seeing that he has kind of green teeth—and what’s that? A pimple on his chin?—gives me even more courage. He’s not scary at all, just a regular pussycat. I’ll definitely be laughing this off by next month. “So, you’re not from around here,” I say, leaning over the counter.
He shakes his head and swallows, then goes over to the fridge. I expect him to expand on that, but he doesn’t. He just looks out the window again, toward the Dumpster.
I figure I can have a conversation with myself, then. I’m used to being my own company. “I knew that. We don’t get many new faces around here.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m from out west.”
Wow, first time he offered up information about himself. However, considering that we’re on an island on the East Coast and just about all of the United States is out west, I can’t say this is very revealing. “Cool. You mean, like, California?”
He shrugs. Scintillating conversation.
Still, he’s a pussycat. A cupcake-loving little pussycat, I remind myself as I start to consolidate the donuts onto as few trays as possible, which really does not need to be done. “Anyway, you can do this, if you want,” I motion to the trays. “Then put the trays in the back. The bakers wash the morning ones, but you’ll have to wash all the rest after we close. It helps to keep things neat.”
Suddenly, I’m aware that he’s completely invaded my personal space, because I can feel his breath on my ear. I stand stick straight and swallow. “Does it matter where a person comes from,” he hisses, “when they’re never going back?”
Then he moves away and plucks another cupcake from the tray. I take a deep breath, and the guy goes right back to being Mr. Scary.