Bittersweet (13 page)

“Perfect! Next time I’ll bring journal prompts. We can all write about our feelings, and after that, we’ll listen to some Indigo Girls and make friendship bracelets.”

Josh’s eyebrows go up. “That … sounds pretty awesome. Hockey with feelings. I can dig it.”

We continue our shoulder-to-shoulder loop, picking up speed until we’re practically racing. He’s taller than me, and definitely strong, but I keep up with him anyway, matching his increased pace at each turn. On our fourth time around, I stop at the box for my water bottle.

“Man, I’m out of shape.” I try not to pant like a straight-up dog, but my lungs burn.

“Come on, you’re holding your own out there. I’m impressed.”

I take another swig and cap the bottle. “Don’t be. I’m good on the short bursts, but I suck at endurance stuff.”

“I know a trick for that. Something you probably didn’t learn at skate club.”

“I’m all ears. Um, skates. Whatever.” I clamp shut my cornier-than-thou mouth and follow Josh to the center line.

For the next twenty minutes we practice a hockey drill—some sort of sideways run-hop-slide move. I have no idea what it’s called officially, but if my lungs and thighs have their say, we’ll be calling it the Crusher. Or the Killer. Or the What-the-Hell-Have-You-Gotten-Us-Into-You-Stupid-Girl-er. By the time we finish a few sets, I’m ready to curl up and zonk out, right here on the rink.

“Strange night,” I say when we finally change out of our skates and pack up our gear. “Not sure I can handle a weekly dose of this stuff.”

“Whatever you’re training for, it has to be important, right?” Josh asks.

“Just my only chance at going to college and getting out of here. NBD, as my little brother says.”

Josh zips up his bag and throws it over his shoulder. “Then you
have
to do it, right? Give us another shot? Your future totally depends on it.”

“That’s a fact, fifty-six?”

“Just looking out for your best interests.”

“Aww, how selfless.” I laugh as we wave good night to Marcus and head out the front door together, my hips already feeling the burn of tonight’s workout. Josh walks me to the Tetanus Taxi, the banged-up Toyota 4Runner I inherited from Trick, and waits in the passenger seat until it’s warm and ready to roll.

“What do you say? One more chance?” He looks at me and smiles, his eyes softened by the muted green lights of the dash, and I revise my original estimate on the night’s badness scale from seven thousand to three.

“The thugs of Watonka can’t scare me off
that
easily,” I say, thinking of that smooth Baylor’s ice. “I’ll be back.”

“Sweet!” He pulls his hat over his ears and slides out of the truck, breath fogging as soon as it hits the outside air. “See you in school, Avery.”

My muscles ache, my bones are battered, and my feet feel like they ran a shoeless marathon over broken glass, but tonight, after I pay Mrs. Ferris, get Bug to bed, and sink my head into that cool, worn pillow, I pull the comforter tight beneath my chin and sleep better than I have all year.

Oatmeal pumpkin cupcakes shot through with chocolate fudge, topped with a thin layer of fudge icing and toasted coconut tumbleweeds

“So, the stretchy jeans. Did they or did they not get the job done?” Dani
demands, watching me over a bowl of peaches-and-cream batter on our usual Saturday-morning shift. “Usual” meaning I still had to be here before sunrise to bake, only now, instead of hitting up Fillmore for a late-morning break while my cupcakes cool, I’ll be working the floor. After nearly a week of training, I’m still not winning any customer service awards, but it
is
getting easier.

I pour the batter into cups and slide everything into the oven. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“Are you kidding me with this right now? I gave up ladies’ night so you could hang with the hockey boys, and
you’re
making conditions?”

“Promise!”

“Okay, okay. No laughing.” She drops a stack of laminated menus on the counter for their weekly wipedown. “Now
tell
me!”

I clear my throat for dramatic effect. “For starters, every time I see hockey boys, I bite it on the ice.”

“You fell?
Again?
” Dani’s cough-that’s-supposed-to-cover-the-laugh-she-promised-not-to-do is only slightly muted by the howl of a passing ambulance out back.

“Hey! I said no laughing! This is
so
not funny.”

“It’s totally funny. You’re the most graceful person I know. I can’t believe you’re such a klutz around your crush.”

“He’s not my—”

“Mmm-hmm.” Dani tosses an unsavable grease-stained menu into the trash. “You know, hon, it occurred to me that this whole Wolves thing might be a
really
bad idea. What kind of a hockey team has not one, but
three
black dudes? No wonder they can’t win.”

“You think we live in Norway or something? Amir Jordan is Pakistani. There’s also an Asian guy, some Puerto Ricans, and the starting left wing has, like, carrot-hair. He must be Irish. It’s the whole UN over there.”

“Yeah, but did you ever notice there aren’t many black guys in the NHL? There’s no hockey in the homeland, Hud. It’s unnatural.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s no corned beef hash in the homeland, either, but you dogged that stuff Trick cooked up like it was your job.”

Dani laughs. “You’re just a regular, hockey-playing Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?”

I scoop some brown sugar into a bowl of buttercream, add two drops of orange tint, and flip on the mixer. “I’m not playing. Just helping out with a few practices so I can train afterward. Which, by the way, was your idea.”

“I know.” She lets the air out of her lungs, slow and loud, all the funny stuff suddenly erased. “Hudson, listen. I get that you pretty much skated right out of your mother’s uterus, okay? No doubt you can rock the rink from here to Antarctica, and that scholarship is a kick-ass opportunity.”

“Okay, one: Don’t mention my mother’s uterus. And two: That scholarship is the only reason I’m doing this.”

“I know, and I’m with you. If you want to get back out there, pull on those skates and lace ’em up, girl. I’ll be in the stands, stompin’ out my Hudson cheer. Just be realistic, too. You have a lot going on right now, and—”

“Hold up.” I flip off the mixer. “You have a Hudson cheer?”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no singing involved, is there?”

“That’s not—”

“Trust me, Dani. I can work this. They just need me once a week. And with the extra money from waitressing, I’ll pay Mrs. Ferris to stay longer with Bug. All I have to do is keep up with cupcake orders, put in my Hurley Girl time, and fly under the Mom-radar long enough to train for my competition. Two, three months tops.”

“Then what?” Finished with the menus, Dani grabs the clean silverware bin and a stack of paper napkins. “The wolf pack comes back from the dead, you score the Capriani thing, and you and the boys dash off into the sunset on your magical golden ice skates? How ro-
man-
tic.”

“And leave all this behind?” I sweep my arms around the steel kitchen, air saturated with bacon and cupcakes and my entire family history. “No
way
.”

“You know you can’t get extra-hot extra–bleu cheese chicken finger subs in any other city. And if you ditch me right after high school, I’m not FedExing them.” She tries to laugh, but it comes out too fast, a soft rush that disappears as soon as it hits the light.

Dani’s a Western New York girl, all the way. We’ve talked about going to college in Buffalo together, sharing a dorm or apartment, staying close to home. Even if I got stuck helping out at the diner on weekends, we could still live together, still see each other every day. But now, with this skating opportunity, I could do something else. I could actually leave here. And we both know it.

I lean on the counter as my best friend methodically rolls forks and spoons into napkins, not meeting my eyes. When I saw her the first morning at my new bus stop freshman year, she was like the one-girl welcoming committee, all dimples and crazy black curls that bounced when she laughed. She’d recently moved to the neighborhood, too—from some place in North Buffalo—and everything about her was different from me and the world I’d just left behind. When she smiled, it was
like when the sun unexpectedly comes out in the middle of a harsh winter, and I just turned to the light of her.

Still, things had blown up with Kara and I wasn’t ready for a replacement. I kept my distance—polite yet cool, friendly but not too inviting. It was the I-fly-solo vibe that I’d spent the aftermath of my father’s disappearing act perfecting, but it didn’t faze Dani. She’d wait for me at the bus stop every morning and sit next to me for the ride, sharing her cherry-frosted Pop-Tarts and asking me what kind of music I listened to and how I liked our apartment and whether I had any siblings. Nothing about skating or competitions or coaches. Nothing about Kara and the friends I’d ditched. From that very first day, Dani looked at me like no one else had in years—without expectations, pity, or disappointment.

I fell in love with her then.

“Mom will be here any minute,” I say softly. “Let’s make sure everything’s ready.”

“Cowboy at table seven’s yours today, babe,” Dani says, armed with an empty coffee carafe and a devious grin. “Be warned: He likes to send his food back a lot, and he only tips a dollar, no matter what the bill is. Watch his hands. Oh, and don’t bend over in front of him.”

I tighten the strings on my apron. “Thanks for the A&E biography. If you know him so well, why don’t you take him?”

Dani shrugs. “Consider it your final rite of passage. If you can handle Cowboy, you can handle anyone.”

“That’s what you said about the Buff State frat boys at table twelve.” I tug on the bottom of my dress, square my shoulders, and head out to face the country music.

“Howdy,” the man says with a cheesy wink. “I’ll do the usual.”

“Sounds good. Um, what is it?”

He looks me up and down and sighs loudly through his nose. “Large orange juice, hot coffee, black, two sugars, side-a home fries, and a westerner omelet, with extra cowboys and Indians, if you please.”

Folks, we’ve got a live one here.

“OJ, coffee, home fries, western. Got it.” I scoot back toward the kitchen to put in the order, but frat house central snags me before I clear the floor.

“Can we get some more nog, please?” One of them points to his empty glass. Mom really needs to reconsider the bottomless eggnog deal. I’ve spilled so much of it on my Hurley Girl dress, the bacon grease stains are jealous. Besides, I hate that word.
Nog
. Ugh.

“More
nog
, coming right up.” I try to smile, but my cheeks hurt.

“And some ketchup,” another says.

“Sure thing.” I turn back to the kitchen.

“Oh, miss? Can I get a take-out box for this?”

“Take-out box, you got it.”

“More coffee, too.”

“Okay.” By the time I make it behind the beautiful,
protective doors of the kitchen, I’m just one nod-and-smile away from stripping off the Hurley’s dress and running out onto the train tracks.

“Looks like a good crowd,” Mom says, zipping around the kitchen. “Maybe I shouldn’t take off just yet.”

“Ma, you can’t ditch Bug.” Mom’s supposed to leave early today—taking my little bro to the McKinley Mall to see Santa. Bug and I have conversed at length on mythical creatures, particularly after Santa missed our house the first Christmas after the divorce, but he lets Mom go on thinking he’s a big believer in all that naughty or nice crap. Probably because it’s one of the few occasions Mom takes off an entire afternoon just for him.

“Don’t worry about us,” I say. “We’ve got it all under control.”

“Okay, you’re right.” Mom scrapes a dried splotch of frosting from my apron with her thumbnail. “You’ve really taken to this, Hud. When things calm down after New Year’s, I’ll show you how to do inventory and food orders. Sound good?”

“Cool, Ma.” Mental notes: One, add cowboys and Indians to inventory list. Two, jab icicle into eye.

“Thanks, baby. For everything.” She leans in to kiss my cheek, and I inhale the scent of her grapefruit shampoo, mixed with the bacon-and-onions smell of the diner. Then I slip my arms around her waist and return her hug. But just for a second, because I have tables waiting, and those Peachy Keen cupcakes aren’t going to frost themselves.

“How’s it going at the O.K. Corral?” Dani asks at the prep counter.

“I’d rather be at Baylor’s falling on my ass in front of the Wolves.” I spread a generous pile of buttercream on a cupcake.

“Still crushing on the hockey boy, then?”

I flick a gob of frosting at her boob. “Shut
up
!”