by Anna Birch
“Okay, so I propose a series of nudes,” I say. “I call Montevallo and line up a few classes. I show up for class—and then what? Nothing works anymore. It’s like my brain doesn’t know how to—”
“Connect your eyes to your hands?” Griffin dumps half a cannister of sugar into his coffee, then stirs it with a tiny brown stirrer.
“No, it’s more like … I don’t know how to care anymore. And when I don’t care, I don’t know how to produce anything.” I’m aware of how it sounds—like I’m just not willing. Griffin and Cheshire are the only ones I can tell that it feels like a slow death to try.
Iliana reappears, her arms loaded with plates: one tiny, unimpressive plate of pancakes in front of me and an entire constellation in front of Griffin. “Does that look right to you?”
Griffin studies each plate, snaps a slice of bacon in half, and takes a bite. Iliana’s brows hike up into her hairline and she crosses her arms. I don’t know why he’s testing her like this, when she would absolutely be the type to spit in his food.
Finally, Griffin shrugs with an air of resignation: “It’s fine.”
“It’s fine?” Iliana huffs. “That bacon is perfect. I fucking put it in the deep fryer, for crying out loud—”
“It’s fine.” Griffin takes another bite. “Fine, fine, fine.”
Iliana’s face goes red.
With an UGH! that rattles the windows, she turns on her heel and directs her attention to a gaggle of older ladies shaking empty mugs at her from two tables away.
“Look,” Griffin says, shoving a fork into his hash browns. “All I’m saying is, fake it ’til you make it. You know what you would say, so just … say it.”
“And then what?” With one finger I push a half-melted rectangle of butter around the top of my pancake. The syrup is warm in the bottle, and it soaks into the stack of pancakes as I pour.
“I really think if you take the pressure off yourself to come up with something and start going through the motions, it’ll click again.” Griffin speaks around the load of hash browns in his mouth. “Sort of like muscle memory, but for your brain.”
Maybe Griffin’s right.
Maybe this is what Dusk was trying to say during our therapy session, what she’s been saying about Ocoee all along.
I should quit thinking about not being able to do it and just … do it.
Get out of my own way.
“Maybe you’re right,” I say. “I’m gonna do it.”
Griffin lifts his half-empty coffee mug in a toast. I lift mine, and we clink them together with a little-too-loud Prost!
I’d forgotten what relief feels like.
I let it wash over me and take a massive celebratory bite of my pancakes.
CHAPTER 9
ILIANA
Username: Curious-in-Cheshire
Last online: 20m ago
All I can do is eat.
Dry toast scratches its way down my throat, followed by chocolate milk straight from the carton. Next, a fistful of the deep-fried, crisp-but-not-burnt bacon that Griffin barely touched.
What does Rhodes think she’s about, coming here? Bringing Griffin with her, talking about her Capstone project, fucking clinking their coffee mugs together? What kind of after-school specials has she been watching that she thinks this is the way people act in real life?
I couldn’t listen like I wanted to.
The only thing good about the old ladies at my other table—the Bridge Club Biddies, as Sylvia has called them since forever—is that they like me enough to tip well, but my God do I have to work for it: endless cups of coffee, even though Sylvia started charging after the second cup because of them a decade ago. Details about my personal life, how school is going, who I’m dating (a concept that I don’t even attempt to broach with them, so the answer has been “focusing on my studies” for the two years I’ve worked here, in spite of two relationships with girls and one nightmare of a fling with a boy while I was still figuring everything out).
Today, their antics are costing me something far more important: information.
“Slow down. Jesus.” Sarah is all eyes and sisterly concern.
She drops the inventory book onto the red-tiled floor and hops up onto the counter to my left. Our legs are short, and they dangle side by side, toes inches from the floor, and she takes the half-consumed carton of chocolate milk from my hands.
“Nudes.” I cringe through a large swallow. “Breathy. Nudes. It’s like she called June Baker herself and asked what she wanted.”
“To be fair, she’s medaled with stuff like that in the Ocoee Arts Festival for three years. She took the Young Adult Achievement Award for a hand study last year, remember?”
I scoff. “She’s dialing it in.”
“She’s playing to her audience,” Sarah says, frowning. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Ugh! Why are you defending her?!” I snatch the carton back from her and pour another three gulps down my throat. “What even is this?! Did you guys make up?”
“What! No? I don’t know,” Sarah says.
I don’t believe a word of it, coming from her.
The slump in her shoulders screams otherwise.
“It’s just, like”—her voice is soft—“you can hate her all you want, but there’s nothing wrong with picking what you know someone else will like.”
She pauses for a moment, turns to check her red lipstick in one of the pots hanging around our heads, and makes a face at herself.
“It’s smart,” she says finally.
“It’s cheap! It’s dialing it in! It’s—”
“A strategy you didn’t think of,” Sarah says. “Admit it: You’re pissed you didn’t think of it first.”
“And you’re not?” I turn the chocolate milk carton up one more time, but it’s empty. It flies past the trash can and hits the back door instead.
Sarah shrugs. “I think I’m just … I dunno. Going about it differently.”
“Strategy,” I say.
Sarah nods. “Strategy.”
After spending so much of my time at the Conservatory being compared to Rhodes’s pristine, well-developed artistic style, it feels like this is one more way something is going to be weighted for Rhodes to win: Her style is everything women like June Baker and the Bridge Club Biddies love. It’s art for people who think they love art more than they really do, the kind of stuff people buy prints of and hang in their mahogany-cased studies because it makes them feel smart.
Sarah’s phone dings from her back pocket.
She retrieves it and glances at the screen.
“Rhodes wants the check,” she says.
My face goes hot. Immediately, everything is so much worse than it already is. Everything feels like a test with Rhodes, an opportunity for me to fail and for her to judge my right to be a resident of this planet accordingly.
“What does it say?” I snatch the phone from Sarah’s hands.
ring.ram 5:52p: can you ask iliana for our check please
ring.ram 5:52p: Griffin has to get back for AP review
There’s nothing really to be upset about.
Still, it feels like criticism.
I’ll be reading into it for the rest of evening.
“You take it.” I thrust the check into Sarah’s hands. “You need to go, like, talk to her or something anyway, right?”
“No way. Griffin’s been weird with me ever since the art installation.” She places it in my hands as if it’s made of glass.
“No, he’s been weird with you ever since you went all Swimfan on him last summer.”
Sarah’s crush on Griffin last year is just another one of those myriad uncomfortable things we never really talk about.
Griffin was surrounded by ballet girls in their perfect buns, leotards, and frilly little tutu things. It’s completely lost on me why Sarah ever thought her shredded, acid-washed denim and oversize flannel would be his type—and apparently, it’s lost on Sarah, too, with the way sh
e conveniently forgets she was ever blowing up his phone at all hours of the night or constantly trying to get him alone.
“You can have my tip,” I say.
“No.” She hops down from the counter and resumes her spot on the floor by boxes of cornstarch lined up like little soldiers. “That’ll cost you more than three bucks.”
“You can have my tips for the rest of the afternoon,” I say.
This one hurts. I need my tips today to pay my phone bill. I still owe Mom for my car insurance, and I used the last of my birthday money on gas last week.
Sarah ponders this for a moment.
She takes up her pen and runs her eyes over the rows of numbers she’s already logged. “Nope. You can’t afford me.”
“She is your roommate, Sarah—”
“Negative, Ghost Rider. Pattern’s full.”
“God. You’re lucky I’m literally the only person in the entire school that’s seen Top Gun.” I check my teeth in the microwave door for bacon, clean up my lipstick with two fingers, and fluff my hair through my hairnet.
The scene I walk out to shouldn’t piss me off: The Bridge Club Biddies have stopped at Rhodes and Griffin’s table, all six of them fawning and tut-tutting over them the way they usually fawn and tut-tut over me.
Rhodes and Griffin remind me of Von Trapps, soaking up all of the attention and sending loaded glances at each other when they think the ladies aren’t looking. They’re the kind of beautiful, well-groomed children that are used to this sort of thing—Daddy’s bosses patting them on the head and Mommy’s Daughters of the American Revolution board-member besties asking them out-of-touch questions about their interests.
“These two say they go to the Conservatory, too,” the Smallest Old Biddy says to me as I approach. She’s grasping a set of keys that belong to a Reagan-era Cadillac parked in a disability access parking spot she doesn’t have a permit for. “Do you know each other?”
“Yep.” I slap the ticket on the table between Rhodes and Griffin.
The ladies make eyes at each other. “She says she’s doing the Capstone scholarship contest, too. Isn’t that wonderful, to have a friend in all that competition?”
“It’s a dream,” I say.
Rhodes’s eyes follow from the Smallest Old Biddy back to me, but her expression is completely impassible. Griffin’s more interested in his fingernails than anything else, his permanent state since he’s been back at school. Rhodes has grasped for eye contact every time I’ve looked in her direction, and Griffin won’t look at me at all.
With a wink, Another Old Biddy in a floral-print sweater set hands me a ten-dollar bill. “This should cover their ticket, right?”
“This is fine.” I stuff it into my apron and snatch the ticket out of Rhodes’s hands.
The old lady’s so pleased with herself, flushed pink and eyeing Rhodes and Griffin like they’re a pair of squishy babies instead of asshole teens. I’ve known this crowd long enough to know that they don’t have very much money—and the money they do have is tied up in overpriced independent living apartments, and doctor’s appointments, and prescriptions for the kind of medication that keeps your heart beating and reminds your lungs to work.
Rhodes opens her mouth, and I cut her the nastiest look I can manage.
Don’t be shitty once, Rhodes. Say “thank you.”
“That—that wasn’t necessary—” She stumbles through it.
I can’t believe that’s the best this spoiled, precious child can do.
“Oh, of course not.” The old lady pats Rhodes on the shoulder, oblivious. “Few things in life are. Let someone spoil you a little, eh?”
The physical contact causes Rhodes to jump out of her skin.
“They’ve got plenty of experience with that,” I say.
“Mmm?” The women are migrating toward the front door now. “Bye, girls! Hold my change for next time, Iliana. Maybe buy yourself something nice, yeah?”
“Thank you,” I say, waving them out the door.
When they’re gone, I whirl on Rhodes and claim every inch of my height that I can. But she’s now standing behind me—when did she stand up?—and there’s a single moment where my breasts are pressed against the soft plane of her stomach.
Vanilla cake–scented dry shampoo, coffee, and maple syrup bloom from her hair, her breath, her skin. I don’t know what I expected her to smell like, but it wasn’t that.
I take one sizeable step back.
“Look, I’ve had it with today,” I say. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I’m absolutely vibrating—my hair, my hands, my words.
It’s a violation of my personal space for her to even be here, much less standing six inches in front of me.
Rhodes gestures to the table filled with empty plates. “We were hungry. This is a restaurant. You do the math.”
“You know what you were doing.” My face is immediately hot—I regret it the minute I say it.
I can’t ever—ever—show my cards with her.
It’s as if when I let her see what I’m thinking, or how I feel, or what makes me tick, she knows precisely how to weaponize it. Getting upset at all gives Rhodes the upper hand, but I can’t slow myself down.
Griffin gently, carefully, moves toward the door and waves Rhodes on to follow. This version of him is such a far cry from the cocky, hubristic jerk who gave me the runaround just less than an hour ago.
Rhodes doesn’t move. She stands with squared shoulders, dark hair spilling over them in pretty waves, tall and strong. In an instant, the balance has shifted: Where I was looming over her only moments before, she now claims every extra inch she carries over the top of my head.
“Really? And what’s that?” She stares down her nose at me.
“You’re messing with me,” I say. “Now that you’re doing the Capstone, you want to spook me.”
The minute I say it, I hear the paranoia in my words.
I want to cram everything I’ve said back into my mouth and run for the kitchen, but it’s too late now.
“Oh, that’s it,” she says. Her smile is slow, but eventually it spreads to take up her whole face. “You think I came here to intimidate you.”
“That’s not—”
“Iliana, come on,” Griffin says, crossing his arms. “Why would Rhodes need to come here to mess with your head? She medaled at Ocoee three years in a row. All she’s gotta do is show up and they’re going to give it to her. You know that.”
Rhodes smiles at this. It doesn’t reach her eyes, but there’s color in her cheeks. She doesn’t look like a ghost haunting the place for once.
“Breathy nudes? Are you serious?” I thrust my hands onto my hips. “Can you do anything else?”
“And what are you turning in?” Rhodes’s smile vanishes. “I’d poke a little fun at you, too, except the only consistent thing about you is your inconsistency. What is it this week, pottery? Fiberwork? You might actually have a chance if you worked on something for longer than five minutes.”
“You know that’s not true—” I’m angry enough that my vision is crackling at the edges, and I shove shaking hands into the pockets of my apron. Rhodes doesn’t miss this, and she playacts perfect concern.
“You’re nervous.” She steps a little closer and touches my hair through my hairnet. I swat her hand away. “This has to be your first show, right? The first time is really sweet, if you can get past yourself.”
I don’t know what to make of this.
It’s so unlike her.
She knows she has me in a corner, and she’s drunk on it.
I step back to put more space between us. “You haven’t finished a project in months, Rhodes Ingram. Months. You know why I’m not nervous: because you don’t threaten me anymore.”
“Yeah, this is exactly what not being threatened looks like.” Rhodes runs a finger along my cheekbone, then the edge of my jaw, before booping my nose. Her hands aren’t as soft as I thought they’d be—even the tips of her fi
ngers bear the mark of a skilled artist.
I feel it in my thighs.
I don’t know what to think, where to put my limbs, where to put my body.
“I hate you, Rhodes Ingram.”
It’s the best I can do, and it falls out of me limp. It’s something I’ve thought forever, held close to my chest and nurtured like first love, but it loses its power the minute I speak it.
“Iliana—” Sarah materializes out of nowhere.
I didn’t hear the kitchen doors slap back into their casing behind us, just like I didn’t hear the other patrons standing around the counter to watch our conversation unfold as if it’s free entertainment. Sarah and Rhodes make awkward half smiles at each other but say nothing otherwise.
“The customers are complaining. Gonna call Sylvia—come on.” She’s tugging me back toward the kitchen, and I let her pull me away. “Switch with me. You run inventory, and I’ll take the next couple of tables…”
Griffin and Rhodes haven’t said anything to each other or anyone else. They only stand together, tall and dark-haired, flipping between more of the same loaded eye contact and watching us with expressions I don’t understand.
“You know what?” I dig my heels into the linoleum and put out an arm for Sarah. Rhodes is waiting, watching, passive. I want to slap a reaction out of her.
“Capstone is the end of the road,” I say. “Only the best is going to win, and it’s going to be me—I swear to God, Rhodes, you’re going to regret the day you met me.”
“You’re wrong,” she says, moving for the door. She walks past Griffin, and he follows. “I’m not going to regret the day I met you. I’m going to win the Capstone, and I’m going to Alabama College of Art and Design.” She pulls the door open, and her grin is enough to light the entire city. “And I’ll forget you ever existed.”
And with that, she and Griffin are out the door and into the chilly evening.
It isn’t until I’m in the privacy of the kitchen, with Sarah working the diner floor, that I allow myself to splinter into a thousand pieces.
CHAPTER 10
RHODES
Username: I-Kissed-Alice