She Loves You, She Loves You Not... (15 page)

My chin hits the floor.

“Every girl needs a phone.” She winks.

It’s an iPhone. Oh my God.

I hand it back to her. “I can’t.”

She won’t take it. “When someone gives you a gift, accept it graciously.”

“But I—”

She pads into the kitchen. “Consider it my lame attempt at making up for all the time I lost with you.”

That makes me feel guilty. “It’s not lame,” I say. “It’s—” Tempting. Too tempting.

She retrieves salad makings from the fridge while I read about all the iPhone’s features on the box. It has a touch screen and a landscape keyboard, video recording and Internet, which means e-mail and text. I can’t handle this.

“I have raspberry vinaigrette, blue cheese, or Italian,” she calls.

And poppy seed and red wine vinegar. But who’s snooping?

“Raspberry’s fine,” I say.

Carly smiles, a genuine smile. “That’s my favorite. Let’s sit out on the deck.”

I trail her to the French doors, but the second she opens them, heat blasts us like a furnace. Outside, swarms of gnats
attack my ears. Carly swats at them. “On second thought…” She holds the door for me as I hurry back inside.

“This heat is so unusual,” she says. “It’s drier than last year. We haven’t had a drop of rain in months, and I’m afraid we’re going to have another fire up here. We had a scary one last year.”

That must be why all the trees on the mountain are black. I tell her, “I smelled smoke today.”

“Really? Probably from one of the forest fires. There are ten or twelve now.”

“You’re kidding.” The local news doesn’t play on Logo. “Where?”

“All across the state.” Carly sets the salad on the table, along with her empty glass, the bottle of wine, and the vinaigrette. I grab my wineglass and two sets of silverware and napkins from the drawer. We sit across from each other.

“Thank you, Alyssa,” she says, spreading her napkin in her lap. “You have nice manners.”

Which Dad pounded into me.

Carly drizzles dressing on her salad and then passes me the bottle. She forks a leaf of lettuce and says, “I bet the look on your father’s face was priceless when you told him you were a lesbian.”

I swallow hard. “I didn’t tell him exactly.”

“No?”

I hate reliving this. “He found me and Sarah together.”

Carly pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Doing what?”

I lower my eyes.

Carly goes, “Oh. My. God.” She puts down her fork, throws back her head, and laughs hysterically. Then I laugh because it feels good to laugh. Except then I want to cry.

“He’s such a douche bag. I never should have left you with him.” She downs her wine.

“Then why did you?”

She shakes her head and resumes eating. “It wasn’t the right time for me to have a child. One day you’ll understand. I hope.” She replenishes her drink from the wine bottle while I munch my salad. She pours her glass full and toasts, “
Santé
.”

We clink glasses.

I don’t understand and doubt I ever will. “When you decided to come back, why didn’t you take me with you then? Why did you come back at all if you were just going to leave again?”

She expels a long breath. “Can’t we ever get past this?”

“You brought it up,” I say.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I have such a headache.” She holds her wineglass to her forehead.

Now or never. “Who is Jason?”

As pain so deep and real spreads through Carly’s eyes and face, I feel the emotion unleashed on every molecule in the room. “Please, Alyssa. I know I hurt you, but don’t get back at me like this.” Carly gets up, grabs the wine bottle by the neck, and bounds up the stairs to the loft.

When I was eight, Dad told me my mother would like to be in contact with me again. He said, “How would you feel about that?” And I said, “Great!”

He seemed sad, like it was a hit on him as a father. It wasn’t. He was a perfect dad.

No, no one’s perfect. Lesson learned the hard way.

I think Dad would’ve told Carly to stay away if I wasn’t being so horrible to Tanith. This was right after Dad married Tanith and she moved in. Everything she asked me to do, I’d snipe, “You’re not my mother. You can’t make me.” Dad would send me to my room until I apologized. Maybe he thought I’d be nicer to Tanith if I knew the horror of my real mother. Who knows what people’s motives are?

I was so nervous about meeting Carly, worried whether she’d like me. Maybe hoping she’d whisk me away to Disneyland or some enchanted kingdom, swoop me up, and carry me off to her palace in the sky.

When I opened the door to her the first time, I actually
gasped. She was stunning. She had on a short, fitted maroon dress with matching shoes and lipstick. She said, “Alyssa? I’m your mom.”

She laughed at my speechlessness, or Dad’s. He stood there stiffly, clutching my hand. She said, “You can call me Carly,” and she shook my limp hand, the one Dad didn’t have a death grip on.

All I wanted her to do was hold me and tell me how much she missed me and how we would all be together now. She kissed Dad on the cheek and left a lipstick print. His face turned bright red. She introduced herself to Tanith.

Carly made me feel special. She set me apart from my friends, who had frumpy, ordinary moms like Tanith. I’d talk about my real mom, the dancer, who was off dancing in a Broadway show or making music videos.

Or porno films.

What a stupid, naive kid I was. Now I’m a stupid, naive teenager. I guess people never change.

The next day Finn’s eyes are bloodshot, and she looks like death on meth. “Thank God you’re here,” she says in a monotone. She tosses me a dish towel. “Could you bus for me? My head feels like a bomb went off.”

“Big night at Wet Willy’s?” I ask.

She presses her thumbs into her temples and drones, “I never drink. I know better.”

“Can I get a waitress over here?” Arlo sticks his head out the order window. “I know I have two somewhere, and both of them are overpaid slackers.”

Finn bleary-eyes me.

“This should make you feel better.” I pull out the bank envelope and hand it to her.

She looks inside, and her jaw unhinges.

Finn says, “Where did you get this?”

I tell her, “I have some college savings. Don’t worry about it.” I snag the bus tub to head out front, and Finn yanks on the other end to stop me.

“I can’t take your money.”

“Yes, you can,” I say. “I assume it’s a loan, right?”

She shakes her head slowly. “Alyssa, no.”

“Finn, yes.”

She holds my eyes for a long moment, and then lets out a breath. “I’ll pay you back. With interest. I promise.”

I toss her a casual smile. “I know you will.”

She glances at the money again, and the joy that spreads across her face is even better than I imagined. And I put it there. Me.

“Any century now!” Arlo yells. “These orders ain’t serving themselves.”

I pull the tub away from Finn, thinking,
I do trust her. I don’t know why, since I barely know her. But if she says she’ll pay the money back, she will.

The first customer left Finn a one-dollar tip. Cheap bastard. I hope Carly’s in no hurry to get repaid. I pocket the tip for Finn, and the front bell tinkles. It’s that perv construction dude who violated me on my first day. His crew is lined up behind him. He sees me, and then he glances Arlo’s way and nods. I thought Arlo had kicked him out.

The guy walks right up to me. I skirt the table to put hardware between us as he clears his throat. “I apologize for my rude behavior the other day. I didn’t mean to pinch your as—er, heinie. Bum.”

I want to say,
Yes, you did, jerk
. But I hold my tongue.

He peers over his shoulder at Arlo, who’s rolled out the swinging doors and is sitting there with his arms crossed. Arlo hitches his head, like
Go on
. Meantime, I stack a dirty plate and cup in the tub.

Creepo says, “Do you accept my apology?”

Is he talking to me? I keep working.

“Look. Me and the guys want to come back here and eat cuz, I’ll tell ya, there’s no better or cheaper place in the area. So, what do you say? I promise we’ll be respectful and keep our hands to ourselves.”

He sounds like a child who’s been spanked. He comes at me fast and then drops to his knees, folding his hands and steepling his fingers. “Please?”

Everyone’s gawking. Someone yells, “Aw, just tell him you’ll marry him.” People laugh.

“Okay,” I say to him between clenched teeth. I think,
Get up, fool
.

He grunts as he pushes up to stand. “Guys!” He waves his crew over. Extending a hand, he says, “I’m Rufus.”

I shake his meaty paw. “Alyssa.” I slide my hand out, and it’s all smeary.

Each guy introduces himself, like I’ll remember their names. One of them—Rick or Dick—points at me and says, “Know who you look like?”

I grab the tub and scramble. When I bring back menus to the table, Rick or Dick says, “Thank you, Alyssa.” He smirks.

I say to the guys, “Did Rufus mention how he promised Arlo you’d all double-tip from now on?”

They turn on Rufus, and I leave him to the slaughter.

The stream of customers is steady, and Finn’s dragging. I try to pick up the slack, but I’m not as fast as she is. The cowboy, Dutch, comes in and says, “Mornin’, little lady.” I seat him at a window table, where he removes his hat and sets it on a chair.

“Sludge and fudge?” I ask him.

He smiles. He has these sparkly blue eyes, clear as crystal, like my grandpa’s. “Sludge for sure.”

I hand him a menu, and he holds up a hand. “Gimme a number twelve, extra green chili, the way I like it. Arlo’ll know.”

I write the order, printing
Dutch
at the top so Arlo will know.

The rush ends, and the last customers trickle out. “Thanks, Arlo,” Dutch calls. “Dee-lishus and new-trishus. Thanks, Alyssa.”

“You’re welcome.” I lock the door behind him. Oh my God. The Scrubs left me a six-dollar tip for a fourteen-dollar tab. Wait’ll I tell Finn.

She’s at the grill, scraping and looking nauseated.

Arlo rolls up next to me. “Ya done good, Alyssa. You’re a natural at this.”

“So give me a raise.”

“And a comedienne to boot,” he says to Finn as he dumps a pile of huevos rancheros into the trash. Finn hustles to the bathroom to hurl.

“How about this instead, to make you official?” Arlo hands me a name tag.

Wow. Cool. I pin it on my shirt, even though I’m done for the day, and the tee is going in the wash later. I stretch out my tee to look. My own name tag.

Finn staggers out, and Arlo says to her, “If Sysco makes a delivery, see if you can finagle an extra case of sugar and creamer.” He wheels toward the exit. “Lock up when you’re finished. I’m off to get me some.” He chuckles on his way out.

Finn’s there when I turn around, holding out the bank envelope. “I can’t take this.”

“Why? Yes, you can.” I walk past her. She tries to stuff it in my back pocket, but I smack her hand away and go, “Perv.” She tries again, and I snag a spatula and slash the air like it’s a sword. Finn smiles, but it’s a weary smile that vanishes quickly.

Carly’s words replay in my head. I say to Finn, “When someone gives you a gift, accept it graciously.”

She hesitates and then says, “Okay. But I promise to pay you back every dollar before I leave.”

I look at her. “You’re leaving?”

“As soon as possible.” A truck
beep-beep
s like it’s backing up to the door, and she drags toward the sound. Now I wish I’d never given her the money.

Dad has a list of rules for vacations: no computers or cell phones, don’t hog the TV at Grandma and Grandpa’s, help out with chores. On my iPhone, which is cooler than shit, I tap in Grandma and Grandpa’s number. No one answers, and I don’t
leave a message. What would I say? “Did you notice I’m no longer a member of the family?” Honestly, I wonder what Dad and Tanith are telling them about me.

I know no one’s home in Virginia Beach, but I call anyway. I leave a message for Paulie: “Snot-nose brat boy. I’m finally getting around to calling you back. Timing is everything, as they say. Not that I forgot, or was too busy, or didn’t want to talk to you.”

That sounds pathetic, plus I’m choking up. “I just wanted you to know I called you back.” I disconnect.

I check my e-mail, and my heart leaps. Two messages from M’Chelle. I open the first one:

Who told her? It all happened so fast. One day I had a home and a life and friends and a family. Then,
poof
, up in smoke.

The second e-mail is a duplicate of the first, like M’Chelle hit
SEND
twice. Spaz.

I guess she forgives me. She shouldn’t. I’m an ass. I miss M’Chelle. I miss my life. I miss my brother and my grandparents. I dial M’Chelle’s number to call her, but I can’t bring myself to touch the last digit. If I hear her voice, I’ll crumble. And I know what—who—we’ll end up talking about. Instead, I e-mail her:

End of April

M’Chelle said she needed to talk to you. She came over. You sat on the bed, and she hugged one of your beaded pillows to her chest. “Alyssa, you know I’m your friend, right?” she began.

“Of course.”

Her eyes held yours and then dropped. “You should know that Sarah’s been hooking up with Ben.”

First you froze. Then you laughed.

M’Chelle didn’t.

“He’s playing the role of her boyfriend so her parents don’t get suspicious,” you told M’Chelle.

She shook her head. “No, Alyssa. It’s more than that.”

Your heart beat a hole in your chest. “Who told you that?”

“No one,” M’Chelle said. “I saw them at Gracie Field after my soccer game. Making out in the bleachers.”

Your blood was rupturing every vessel. But still you believed in Sarah. In your friend Ben. You wanted to believe; you
needed
to believe. So you lashed out at M’Chelle. She was jealous. You’d suspected all along that’s why she hated Sarah, and this was confirmation.