My eyes are cloudy by the time I climb behind the wheel.
Sitting in your car fighting tears on the first day of work is the equivalent of sitting on a school toilet with your lunch tray on your lap and your legs folded under you so no one can see your feet beneath the door.
Pathetic.
I pull out my phone and call Lacey. It’s the middle of the day so she’s probably working, but I take the chance, hoping she picks up.
She doesn’t.
My phone still out, I call the only other person I can imagine being free and willing to talk right now.
Whenever your heart desires, he said.
“Eden?”
“Hey, Will,” I say, breathing out slowly into the phone.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. It’s just, you know, my first day of work,” I say.
“How’s it going?”
“Meh,” I say. I tell him about backing into Jenn to start the day. Then finishing off the morning by skipping out of the staff room and coming to my car to have a bawling session.
“I just don’t feel like I fit in here, you know?” I tell him. “Or anywhere.”
It stings. My mind whirs back to school, to Camp Rowan, to the safety of having Lacey by my side. What if I never fit in anywhere again? What if Lacey was the piece of me that made it possible to jump between groups of people, my adapter?
“I wish I was there,” Will says.
“Do you miss it?” I ask, voice soft. Being alive, being human, being here.
“That’s not what I mean,” he says, not answering my question. “I mean I wish I could be there. With you.”
A small shiver runs down my back.
Maybe it’s the thought of Will, real live Will with the big hair and wide, flashy grin, maybe it’s the thought of him wanting to be with me, when he could be anywhere else in the world.
“Maybe you can be.”
“I’m listening,” Will says.
“What if you go back in with me? For the rest of my shift?” I ask, perking up at the thought. “I could just leave you on the whole time. We won’t be able to talk, obviously, but you’d be there.”
It’s pathetic, but for some reason this thought is the most comforting one I’ve had all day. I don’t have to go back into More for Less alone.
Will will be with me.
AFTER LUNCH, I follow Kennie’s lead and bring my cell phone with me to the till. The whole time I’m working, bagging groceries, ringing up people’s purchases, Will is on the line in the pocket of my jeans.
I’m self-conscious at first, imagining the real-life Will beside me, watching me flub my way through my first day of work. But before long, I relax.
I imagine he works here too, our elbows touching as we stand side by side, just the way they did in bio lab.
At the end of the day, I climb into my car, relieved to have survived.
“Will?” I say into the phone.
“That was impressive,” he says. “You already have the hang of it.”
I snort. “Yeah, right. I almost gave that woman twenty dollars in change instead of twenty cents.”
“I didn’t say you were perfect,” he says, and we both laugh.
The rest of the week is more of the same. I keep Will on throughout the day, then talk to him in my car at lunch.
Kennie, who is still required to supervise me, and I fall into a routine of scanning and bagging groceries, switching out a few times a day. Whatever it is that made Kennie seem above everything the first day is clearly noticeable to everyone, because by our second shift, both Jenn and Shelby show up to work with their polo shirts knotted on the side like Kennie’s. To my knowledge, Kennie never comments on it, but I get the sense not much escapes her notice.
Not only is Kennie beloved by all the other employees at the store, she is clearly unafraid of being caught breaking James’s no-phone rule, because her phone is glued to her side or hand all day as she juggles appointment after appointment. It’s like she’s working two full-time jobs, running her social life and doing the cash register. Three jobs, if you count having to mentor me.
If she minds this, though, she never shows it, frequently complimenting me on my work or asking me to do some mental math for her so she knows what to schedule when.
“So, um, how many people are you dating?” I finally ask on Thursday morning, before lunch.
“A few,” she says dismissively. “But these aren’t all dates. This is the first time I’ve been home since the fall—I’m in grad school—so I’m catching up with people. If I don’t write it down, I’ll forget. And I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, you know?”
“Oh, definitely,” I say, as though I too am juggling an astronomical social calendar. In actuality, the last person who texted me was my dad, and I haven’t heard from my best friend since our blowup a week and a half ago.
What would my life be like if it hadn’t been just Lacey and me, us against the world, for so long? What if I’d spent high school making more friends, taking chances on people, people like Will?
I’m catapulted back to all the times Will would casually sling his arm over my shoulder, all the times he would touch me when it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
He was here, within reach, and I never did anything about it. Not until the night he died.
How different would my life be if I had been braver?
A few minutes before lunch break, Kennie looks at me and asks, “Hey, what do you do for lunch, Sheridan?”
I shrug nonchalantly. “Usually I leave.” For my car.
Every day.
“You should hang out sometime,” she says, and I promise to, though I am actually getting pretty comfortable with the whole lunch-in-the-car arrangement. I usually sit in there and listen to music, eat my lunch and talk to Will, which is pretty good for passing the time.
As soon as my shift ends on Friday, a sense of relief washes over me. I survived the first week without any major catastrophes.
After retrieving it from my locker in the staff room, I pull my messenger bag across my body, return Cate’s wave and weave around people as I make my way out. I squint at the sun as I step outside and dig around the bottom of my bag for my keys.
I pull out my phone from my pocket.
“God, how bored must you be? I must be the worst of everyone you talk to.”
It’s something I’ve thought a little about, Will talking to other people. I know what he told me before, about not sharing data between the people he talks to. I know he talks to his mother. But does he talk to any of his friends? And does my being on the line with him all the time prevent them from reaching him? I ask him about it.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he says. “It’s like going on a website. Multiple people can be on at the same time.”
“So are they?” I ask, intrigued. “Like, are you talking to someone else right now?”
“You know I can’t tell you that,” Will says, his voice gentle, and I feel a little scolded. “I can tell you, though, that I was riveted—listening to you count change? Fascinating.”
“Oh, shut up,” I say. I’m about to come up with a clever retort when I hear footsteps behind me. I turn to find Oliver walking toward me.
“I have to go, Will. I’ll call you back, okay?” I say hurriedly. For the first time all day, I switch off my phone. I watch Oliver approach.
He’s out of his work uniform and in a brown T-shirt and black running shorts. His shirt is emblazoned with some faded band logo I don’t recognize, like he’s owned it forever, and there are headphones around his neck.
“Hey,” he says as he catches up to me. He’s grinning at me, a sly smile. He has a whole collection of them, and having known him for so many years, I’m sort of an expert on them.
“Hey!” I say. For most of the week, I haven’t really remembered we work in the same store.
“How’s it going, Sheridan?”
There it is. The reason for the sly smile.
I cringe when I hear the name. I feel like I’ve been caught stealing someone else’s identity.
Oliver’s still smiling, though. “I don’t think I’ve heard anybody call you that in, what, five years?” He scratches the back of his head, as if trying to remember something. “Thought you hated that name.”
I shrug. Things change.
I try to push the memories back, of fighting with Lacey, of watching my mother and Serg, of Will’s funeral.
One of the few things I’ve never told Lacey—because she would murder me—is that I understand the fuss over her brother. I’m obviously not one of those girls who uses terms like bedroom eyes in describing him, but I’ve definitely been privy to the Oliver Murdoch charm offensive. His dark brown hair is just the right amount of messy, his limbs all lean, strong from years doing track. His eyes are brown too, and he’s been charming mothers and their daughters and granddaughters since kindergarten, without ever having to do a thing. In fact, I’m not sure he even knows this is the case.
He’s leaning against my car now, hip against the glass of my passenger window.
Who am I kidding? He totally knows.
“Well, don’t worry,” he says. “Nobody’s calling you that anyway. They’re calling you the Ice Queen.”
“What?” I shriek. “Why?”
“You keep to yourself. You’re MIA at lunch. Chris said he hadn’t heard you utter a full sentence.”
Chris?
“Tall blond guy? He’s one of the newbies.”
Oh, he’s Longlocks.
“And then you never hang out after work,” Oliver says.
“I didn’t know people were hanging out! It’s only been five days!” Both my volume and my pitch are skyrocketing by the second.
Oliver laughs. “Relax. It’s all good. But since I know you, I did get nominated to ask if you wanted to come out with us tonight. I think we’re just doing Juno’s?”
Juno’s is a diner across town, with a proper jukebox and leather booths, that my family goes to once in a while to do breakfast for dinner.
As much as I like Juno’s, I can think of nothing worse than heading to dinner with the group of strangers I trained with and have barely exchanged two sentences with.
I can’t believe they think I’m an ice queen.
I can’t believe they’re nominating people to talk to me. Oh my God.
“Um, now?” I ask.
“Five-ish?” Oliver says. It’s just after four.
I could take a chance and go, but all I foresee are awkward conversations, struggling to find anything in common with the people I work with, or, even worse, all of them ignoring me.
“I have to…I wish I could come but I have this…thing tonight,” I say. I know he doesn’t buy my excuse, but he just nods. Squints up at the sun.
“Next time, then. They’ll be very disappointed.”
“Sorry,” I say.
Oliver taps on the hood of my car. “Well, I’ll see you around,” he says, starting to back up. He puts his headphones on and fiddles with his phone.
I can’t believe they call me the Ice Queen, I think as I throw my bag in the passenger seat and start walking over to the driver’s side.
Like he can read my thoughts, Oliver shouts over his shoulder, “I’ll put in a good word for you.”
I hope he means it, and that it works, because the idea of a group of people hating me makes my skin hurt like it’s been stretched too far. I’ve never been able to handle conflict, never been one to ruffle feathers.
But now I wonder if that’s just another way to be invisible, if all that means is that I never had any impact, never affected anyone or did anything worth doing.
Lacey’s words from that night come back to me.
I have to hold your hand for every single thing. That’s the only way you ever do anything.
I climb into my car, but I don’t start it.
I dial Will’s number instead.
“Howdy,” he says.
“I need your help.”
“I’m listening.”
“Lace and I had a list, a bunch of stuff we wanted to do the summer before college.”
“Like what?”
“Fun stuff,” I say with a shrug, even though he can’t see me. “Obviously they’re not happening now. At least not with Lacey.” I pause for a bit. “But I want to do them. And I want you to do them with me.”
I DECIDE TO start easy, with the most doable thing on our list.
“So the first order of business,” I tell Will, looking at the list on my phone. “Number four. Do something dorky like sneaking into a movie.”
“Hold on,” Will says. “That’s on your list? Sneaking into a movie?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“That’s so…I mean, it’s not exactly skydiving.”
“What, you think it’s boring?”
“I don’t think. I know,” Will says. “And you do too. You called it dorky.”
“No, Lacey did,” I admit. “We were coming up with things we wanted to add to our Before College list and every single one of them was her idea. So it was my turn to choose something and this was mine. I was going for wild and daring, but according to Lace, it ended up somewhere around dorky.”
Will is laughing on his end and it makes me crack up too. It’s Friday evening and I’m sitting in the crowded parking lot outside the movie theater complex.
“I’m actually really nervous,” I admit.
“Wait,” he says. “You’ve never snuck into a movie before? Never?”
I feel a prick of annoyance at his incredulity. Is it some rite of passage in high school that I never heard of, was never invited to be part of?
“Nope,” I say. I’ve always been a chronic rule follower, and proud of it. “You have?”
“Who hasn’t?” Will snorts. “I mean, apart from you.”
I make a face. “Wait a second, though,” I say. “How do you know you have, if you don’t remember anything?”
“Because,” Will says, voice a little patronizing, “everyone has.”
“Whatever,” I say.
I climb out of my car, still holding Will in my palm, and walk inside. I stick in my wireless earphones so I can hear him without having my phone on speaker.
“I hope you have nine-one-one on speed dial,” he says.
“What? Why?” I ask, alarmed.
“Just in case, you know, the thrill is more than you can take.”
“Oh, shut up,” I say, smiling. He’s making it out to be completely lame, just like Lacey would have, but I’m pretty sure I could get in actual trouble if I’m caught.
I join the line for the box office, and Will and I are silent for a few moments, so I don’t seem like a psychopath talking to myself.
When it’s my turn, I ask for a ticket to In a World Like Ours, this indie film I’ve never heard of before.
“Hey, how is it sneaking in if you’re buying a ticket?” Will asks in my ear, distracting me from what the ticket attendant is saying.
I ignore Will as I take my ticket from her. “Thank you,” I say with a smile. If I get caught, at least maybe she’ll vouch for me being a nice human being. Or something.
I walk over to the concession stand and join the shortest line for snacks.
“Eden,” Will says, drawing out my name in my ear.
“Will,” I mutter under my breath.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Getting some popcorn,” I say. When it’s my turn, I order an extra-large bucket of popcorn, an extra-large Coke and two packets of
candy.
Will starts laughing in my ear, a wheezing, out-of-breath laugh that makes me have to stop and pretend to be getting an extra straw.
“Why are you laughing?” I hiss at him under my breath.
“Because I know what you’re doing,” he says.
“What am I doing?”
“You just bought the whole freaking concession stand because you feel guilty.”
He does know what I’m doing.
“I just…At least I’m technically giving them the money, in a roundabout way.”
“Mm-hmm,” Will says, and I can still hear the smug smile in his voice.
“And I thought I’d pay to see In a World Like Ours but then sneak out and go see something else. Like Invaders or something.”
“Ah, you’re theater hopping.”
“Exactly,” I say. I want to pay for In a World Like Ours because it’s an indie film and I can hear Lacey in my head, her familiar refrain about independent artists and supporting good art.
When I say this out loud, Will takes offense. “Hey, who says Invaders isn’t good art? Just because it’s, like, a blockbuster.”
I’m in no mood to argue with him, so I join the line. The ticket taker tears my ticket and directs me to theater 9. Right across the hall is Invaders. I can totally do this.
I glance behind me, making sure no one is paying any attention to me, and then I hurry into theater 6.
“I did it,” I whisper to Will as I shuffle along in the darkness, finding a seat at the very back of the theater.
“Way to go,” he says, sounding like he’s repressing a laugh. “Welcome to a life of debauchery.”
I smile to myself.
It feels strange to sit alone in the dark, to have such a big bucket of popcorn and not be passing it to Lacey, whispering about which of the previews are for movies we want to see. To be honest, the whole thing feels a little anticlimactic. I thought it would be thrilling and fun to sneak into a movie, but Lacey was right. I should have picked something more daring for my contribution to the list.
Why don’t I ever do anything brave?
“You’re making me hungry,” Will says, reminding me that I’m not totally alone.
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