Three
Jackson High was not
the Gulag. It was also no Fountain School. Instead, it was pretty
much just like all the other public high schools I’d attended: big,
anonymous, and smelling of antiseptic. After filling out the
typical mountain of paperwork and having a rushed meeting with a
clearly overworked guidance counselor, I was handed a schedule and
pointed toward my homeroom.
“Okay, people, quiet
down,” the teacher, a very tall guy in his early twenties wearing
leather sneakers and a dress shirt was saying as I approached the
door. “Typically, we’ve got twenty minutes’ worth of stuff to do in
five minutes. So help me out, all right?”
No one appeared to be
listening, although there was a barely discernable reduction in
volume as people made their way to a half circle of tables and
desks, some pulling out chairs, others hopping up on tables or
plopping on the floor below. A cll phone was ringing; someone in
the back had a hacking cough. By the door, there was a TV showing
two students, a blonde girl and a guy with short dreads, sitting at
a makeshift news desk, with a sign behind them that said JACKSON
FLASH! The teacher was still talking.
“. . . Today is the
last day to hand in your yearbook orders,” he was saying, reading
off various pieces of paper that were on the desk in front of him
as a few more people straggled in. “There will be a table in the
courtyard during all three lunches. Also, doors will open early for
the basketball game tonight, so the earlier you get there, the
better seat you’ll get. And where’s Mclean?”
I jumped, hearing
this, then raised my hand. “Here,” I said, although it came out
sounding entirely too much like a question.
“Welcome to Jackson
High,” he said, as everyone, en masse, turned to look at me. On the
TV screen, the student reporters were signing off, waving as the
picture went black. “Any questions, feel free to ask me or anyone
here. We are a friendly bunch!”
“Actually,” I said,
reflexively going to correct him, “it’s . . .”
“Moving on,” he
continued, not hearing me, “I’ve been instructed to tell you again
that you are not to touch the wet paint outside the cafeteria. Most
people would know this without being told, but apparently some of
you are not like most people. So: keep your dirty mitts off the wet
paint. Thank you.”
The bell sounded,
drowning out the various responses to this message. The teacher
sighed, looking down at the papers he obviously hadn’t gotten to,
then shuffled them into a stack as everyone got up
again.
“Make it a good day!”
he shouted halfheartedly, as people started spilling into the
hallway. I hung back, standing to the side of his desk until he
glanced up and saw me. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“I just,” I began, as
a pack of girls in cheerleader uniforms filed in, gabbing, “I
wanted to say my name isn’t—”
“Wendy!” he called
out suddenly. His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t we just have a
conversation about dressing appropriately for school?”
“Mr. Roberts,” a girl
groaned from behind me, “get off my case, okay? I’m having a bad
day.”
“Probably because
it’s January and you’re half naked. Go change,” he replied. He
looked back at me, but only for a second before his attention was
again diverted by a crash in the back of the room. “Hey!” he said.
“Roderick, I told you not to lean on that shelf! Honestly . .
.”
Clearly, it was
useless to try to do this now, so I stepped out into the hallway,
looking down at my schedule as Wendy—a big girl in what I had to
admit was a very short skirt for any
season—huffed out behind me. I retraced my steps to the guidance
office, figuring I’d try to tackle the rest of the building from
there. Once I found it, I hung a right toward what I hoped was Wing
B, passing a group of people gathered in front of the main
office.
“. . . sure you
understand our position,” an older man with curly hair, wearing a
dress shirt and jacket, his back to me, was saying. “Our son’s
schooling has been a top priority ever since we realized his
potential as a small child. Which is why we had him at
Kiffney-Brown. The opportunities there—”
“—were exceptional,” a short, thin woman finished for
him. “And, as you’re aware, it was when he transferred here that
all these problems began.”
“Of course,” the
woman opposite them, in a pantsuit and sensible haircut that
screamed administrator, even without the laminated ID hanging
around her neck, replied. “But we believe he can get everything he
needs, both academically and socially, here at Jackson. I think
that by working together, all of us, we can help him to do just
that.”
The man nodded. His
wife, clutching her purse with a weary expression and looking less
convinced, glanced at me as I passed. She looked familiar, but I
couldn’t place her, at least not at first. So I kept walking,
taking a left and consulting my schedule again.
I was scanning
doorways and room numbers when I saw Riley. She was sitting on a
bench, leaning slightly forward and craning her neck to look out in
the hall, a backpack parked beside her. I knew her instantly, from
the rings on her fingers and the same puffy jacket, now tied around
her waist. She didn’t look at me as I passed, too intent on
watching the group in the hallway.
My math class was
supposedly in room 215, but all I could find were 214, 216, and a
bathroom that was out of order. Finally, I figured out what I
needed was on the next corridor down, so I doubled back. I was just
approaching Riley again when she jumped to her feet, grabbed her
bag, and darted out into the main hallway ahead of me. The group
was farther down now, by the stairs. The only person in the hallway
was a guy with short hair wearing a white button-down oxford and
khakis.
“What did they say?”
Riley said as she ran up to him.
He glanced at the
group, then back at her. “They’ll agree to let me stay if I keep up
my U courses. And about a hundred other attached
strings.”
“But you can stay,”
she said, clarifying.
“Looks that way,
yeah.”
She reached up,
throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a hug. He smiled
down at her, then glanced over at the group by the office. “Hey,
shouldn’t you be in class?”
“It’s fine,” Riley
said, flipping her hand. “I have drama, they won’t even notice I’m
gone.”
“Don’t waste an
absence on this,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”
“I just wanted to
make sure they weren’t going to pull you out. I was
freaking.”
“Everything’s fine,”
he said. “Don’t freak.”
Don’t freak. It was only when I heard this that it
hit me. I looked at the guy again: short hair, clean-cut. Your
generic High School Boy. Except he wasn’t. He was Dave Wade,
neighbor and storm-cellar dweller. The clothes might have been
different, the hair short, but I knew his face. It was the one
thing that no matter what, you could never really
change.
Riley stepped back
from him. “Okay. But I’ll see you at lunch, right?”
“David? ” His mom was
standing by the office door, holding it open. Just beyond, I could
see his dad and the administrator disappearing down a hallway.
“We’re ready to go in now.”
Dave nodded at her,
then looked back at Riley. “Duty calls,” he said, and gave her a
rueful smile before walking away. She watched him go, biting her
lip, before turning around and starting down the stairs. A moment
later, the door banged, and I saw her jogging up the walk that led
to the adjacent building, her bag bouncing against her
back.
I looked at my
schedule again, took a breath, then walked over to the other
hallway and scanned the doors until I found 215. I wasn’t exactly
looking forward to interrupting just as the teacher got things
under way, much less having to take a seat with all those eyes on
me. But it was better than a lot of other options, especially the
ones Dave had spared me from the other night. I was lucky to be
here. So I reached for the knob, took a breath, and went
inside.
Two periods later, I
braved the cafeteria, taking a chance on a chicken burrito that
didn’t look entirely inedible. I brought it outside, along with a
wad of napkins and a bottled water, then settled myself on the wall
that ran along the main building. Farther down, a group of guys
with handhelds played games in tandem; on my other side, a very
tall, broad-shouldered guy and a pretty blonde girl were sharing an
iPod and a pair of earbuds, arguing—albeit good-naturedly—about
what was playing as they listened.
I pulled out my
phone, turned it on, then clicked open a new text message and typed
in my dad’s number. MADE IT TO LUNCH, I wrote. YOU?
I hit SEND, then
scanned the courtyard before me, taking in the array of typical
groups and cliques. The stoners kicked around a Hacky Sack, the
drama girls talked too loudly, and those who cared about the world
sat at various tables lined up along the walk, collecting money and
selling baked goods for various causes. I was unrolling the foil on
my burrito, wondering where exactly Liz Sweet belonged among them,
when I saw the blonde, busty girl I’d met at the party on Friday
night. She was cutting across the grass, wearing tight jeans, high
boots, and a cropped, red leather jacket that was clearly more for
show than warmth. She looked irritated as she passed by, heading
for a group of picnic tables on the edge of the parking lot. After
taking a seat at one she crossed her legs, pulled out a cell phone,
and looked up at the sky as she put it to her ear.
My phone beeped and I
picked it up, scanning the screen.
JUST BARELY, my dad
had replied. THE NATIVES ARE VERY RESTLESS.
My dad expected to
encounter resistance when he first came into a restaurant, but
apparently Luna Blu was an extreme case. There were several
“lifers,” as he called them, people who had worked there for years
for the original owners, an older couple who’d moved to Florida the
year before. They’d thought they could manage things long-distance,
but their balance sheet quickly proved otherwise, and they decided
to sell to EAT INC in order to enjoy their golden years. According
to what my dad had told me the day before at breakfast, Luna Blu
had been running for the last year or so on little else but the
goodwill of its longtime regulars, and even they weren’t showing up
the way they used to. There was no point in trying to tell that to
the natives—employees—however. Like so many before them, they
didn’t care that my dad was only the messenger. They still wanted
to shoot him.
I took a tentative
bite of my burrito. By the time I’d opened my water, taken a sip,
and braved another taste, I saw Riley was approaching the blonde at
the table. I watched as she dd her backpack on the ground, then
slid onto the bench beside her, leaning her head against the
blonde’s shoulder. After a moment, her friend reached up, giving
her a couple of pats on the back.
“Hi!”
I jumped, spilling
some beans across my shirt, then looked up. A girl in a bright
green sweater, khakis, and white sneakers, a matching green
headband in her hair, was smiling down at me. “Hi,” I said,
noticeably less enthusiastically.
“You’re new, right?”
she asked.
“Um,” I said,
glancing back at Riley and her friend. “Yeah. I guess I
am.”
“Great!” She stuck
out her hand. “I’m Deb. With the student hospitality committee?
It’s my job to welcome you to Jackson and make sure you’re finding
your way around okay.”
Hospitality
committee? This was a first. “Wow,” I said. “Thanks.”
“No problem!” Deb
reached down, brushing off the wall beside me with one hand, then
sat down next to me, placing her purse—a large, quilted number,
also green—beside her. “I was new last year,” she explained. “And
this is such a big school, and so hard to navigate, I really felt
there was a need for some kind of program to help people get
comfortable here. So I started Jackson Ambassadors. Oh, wait, I
forgot your welcome gift!”
“Oh,” I said, “you
don’t have to—”
But already, she was
unzipping her green bag and pulling out a small paper one, tied
with a blue-and-yellow ribbon, from within it. There was a sticker
on the front that said JACKSON TIGER SPIRIT! also blue and yellow.
And shiny. She handed it to me, clearly proud, and I felt like I
had no choice but to take it.
“In there,” she said,
“you’ll find a pencil, a pen, and the schedules for all the winter
sports. Oh, and a list of numbers you might need, like guidance and
the main office and the library.”
“Wow,” I said again.
Across the courtyard, Riley and her friend were now sharing a bag
of pretzels, passing them back and forth.
“Plus,” Deb
continued, “some great giveaways from
local merchants. There’s a coupon for a free drink at Frazier
Bakery, and if you buy any muffin at Jump Java, you can get another
for half off!”
Sitting there, I
realized that one of two things could happen from here. Either I
would hate Deb, or we’d be best friends and Liz Sweet would end up
just like her. “That’s really nice,” I said as she beamed at me,
clearly proud. “I appreciate it.”
“Oh, it’s no
problem,” she said. “I’m just trying to make people feel a little
more at home than I did.”
“You had a tough
time?”
For a moment, and
only a moment, her smile became slightly less perky. “I guess so,”
she said. Then she brightened. “But things are great now,
seriously. I really like it here.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ve
moved around a lot. So, hopefully it won’t be so bad.”
“Oh, I’m sure it
won’t be,” she said. “But if you have any problems, my card’s in
there as well. Don’t hesitate to call or e-mail, okay? I mean
that.”
I nodded. “Thanks,
Deb.”
“Thank you!” She
smiled at me, then put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, goodness, I’m so
rude! I didn’t even get your name. Or did—”
“Mclean!”
I blinked, sure I
hadn’t heard this right. But then it came again. Yes, someone was
calling me. By my real name.
I turned my head.
There, at the picnic table, was the blonde girl, now standing, her
hands cupped over her mouth. Yelling. At me.
“Mclean!” she said,
then waved. “Hey! We’re over here!”
“Oh,” Deb said,
glancing at her, then back at me. “Well. Looks like you’ve already
made some friends.”
I looked back at the
table, where Riley was watching me as well, the bag of pretzels in
one hand. “I guess so,” I said.
“Well,” Deb said,
“maybe you don’t need the packet at all. But I just thought . .
.”
“No,” I told her,
suddenly feeling bad for some reason. “I’m glad to have it.
Really.”
She smiled at me.
“Good. It’s nice to meet you, Mclean.”
“You,
too.”
She stood, then
turned on one pert sneaker and started down the walkway, reaching
up to adjust her headband as she went. I glanced at the blonde.
Come on, she mouthed, waving at me
again. So this was my moment, I thought, picking me again, although
not exactly the way I’d expected. Still, I got to my feet, tossing
my burrito in a nearby trash can, and headed across the courtyard
to see what would happen next. I was almost there when I looked
back in the direction Deb had gone, finding her a moment later by
the bus parking lot. She was sitting under a tree, her green purse
beside her, sipping a soda. Alone.
The blonde’s name was
Heather. How she knew mine was not yet clear.
“I had to save you,”
she explained as I approached their table. “That girl Deb is a
spazzer freak. I considered it an act of charity to call you over
here.”
I looked back at Deb,
sitting under the tree. “She didn’t seem so bad.”
“Are you kidding? ” Heather said, incredulous. “She sat next
to me in bio last year. Spent the entire semester trying to recruit
me to her various groups, all of which she is the sole member of.
It was like sharing a Bunsen burner with a cult
member.”
“What’s in the bag?”
Riley asked, nodding at the welcome packet, which I was still
holding.
“A hospitality gift,”
I said. “From the student ambassadors.”
“Ambassador,” Heather corrected me, adjusting her ample
cleavage. “Hello? She’s the only one!”
I wasn’t sure what I
was doing here, now that I’d been saved from Deb. Before I found
out, though, there was one more issue to clear up.
“How did you know my
name?” I asked Heather.
She’ireen checking
her phone, and now looked up at me, squinting in the sunlight. “You
told me at that party, before it got busted.”
“No,” I said. “I
didn’t.”
She and Riley
exchanged a look. Now I was acting like a cult member. Heather
said, “Then I guess Dave must have mentioned it.”
“Dave? ”
“Dave Wade? Your
neighbor? You did meet him on Saturday, didn’t you?” she asked.
“He’s not exactly forgettable.”
“He’s not as weird as
he seems,” Riley said to me.
“He’s weirder,”
Heather added. When Riley shot her a look, she said, “What? The boy
hangs out in the basement of an abandoned house. That’s not
normal.”
“It’s a storm
shelter. It’s not like he built it, or something.”
“Do you even
hear what you’re saying?” Heather
sighed loudly. “Look, you know I love Dave. But he is kind of a
freak.”
“Isn’t everybody?”
Riley said, picking out another pretzel.
“No.” Heather
adjusted her bosom again. “I, for instance, am completely normal in
every way.”
Riley snorted, eating
another pretzel, and they were both quiet for a moment. Now, I
thought. Now is when I introduce myself as Liz Sweet, clear this
whole thing up. Then I’d just have to do it again in homeroom
tomorrow and I’d be all set, just where I needed to be for all this
to work the way I wanted it to. But for some reason, standing
there, I couldn’t. Because despite my best efforts otherwise,
Mclean already had a story here. She was the girl who’d discovered
Dave on the back porch, then taken refuge in his hideout. The girl
at the party, the girl Deb welcomed in her own spazzy freaker
style. She was not the same Mclean I’d been for the first fourteen
years of my life. But she was Mclean. And not even a new name could
change that, now.
Heather looked at
Riley. “So, speaking of Eggbert, what’s the story? Did his parents
yank him out of here for good, or what? ”
Riley shook her head.
“I saw him after homeroom. He said they were letting him stay, but
he had tons of hoops to jump through. They’ve been meeting about it
with Mrs. Moriarity all morning.”
“God, that sounds
miserable,” Heather groaned. To me she added, “Mrs. Moriarity is
the principal. She hates
me.”
“She does not,” Riley
said.
“Actually, she does.
Ever since that whole, you know . . . incident when I backed into
the guardhouse. Remember?”
Riley thought for a
second. “Oh, right, that was bad,” she said. Then she looked at me
and added, “She’s a horrible driver.
She never looks when she merges.”
“Why should I always
have to do the looking? ” Heather asked. “Why can’t other people
look out for me?”
“The guardhouse is an
object. It’s defenseless.”
“Tell that to my
bumper. I’m still paying off the money I owe my dad for the damn
body shop.”
Riley rolled her
eyes. “I thought we were talking about Dave.”
“Right. Dave.”
Heather turned to me. “My point is, he’s, like, an administrator’s
wet dream. Boy genius who skipped, like, all of junior high and was
taking college courses, then came to this hellhole by choice. Which is something I’ll never
understand.”
“He wanted to be
normal,” Riley said quietly, picking out another pretzel. Then,
glancing at me, she explained, “Dave had never been in public
school. He was actually going to go to college early, because he’s
so smart and got moved up so much. But then he decided he wanted
to, you know, live like a regular teenager. So he got this
after-school job making smoothies at Frazier Bakery, where my
boyfriend at the time was working.”
“Nicolas,” Heather
said. She sighed. “Man, that boy could blend. You should have seen
his biceps.”
Riley ignored this,
continuing, “Dave and I had actually known each other when we were
kids, but we’d fallen out of touch. Once he was working with Nic,
though, we picked right back up where we’d left off and started
hanging out.”
“At which point he
fell totally in love with her,” Heather told her. Riley shook her
head. “What? It’s the truth. I mean, he’s supposedly over it now,
but there was a time—”
“He’s like a brother
to me,” Riley said. “I could never think of him that
way.”
“Also, she only dates
dirtbags,” Heather told me.
Riley sighed. “True.
It’s a sickness.”
Heather gave her a
sympathetic look before reaching over, patting her back the same
way I’d watched her do earlier from a distance. Then she looked at
me. “So, you going to sit down or what? You’re making me nervous,
just standing there.”
I glanced back at
Deb, alone under her tree, and then the random groups, as
intricately divided as genuses in the animal kingdom, spread out
between us. “Sure,” I said, stuffing my welcome bag into my
backpack. “Why not.”
After school, I took
a bus to Luna Blu, then cut down the alley to the kitchen entrance.
I found my dad in the cramped office—a converted supply closet, by
the looks of it—sitting at a desk. There were papers spread out all
around him, and he had his phone to his ear.
“Hey, Chuckles. It’s
Gus,” he was saying. “So, look, it’s not as bad as you feared. That
said, though, it’s far from good.”
Charles Dover was the
owner of EAT INC. A former DB and NBA player, he was over six seven
and built like a Mack truck, the last person anyone would ever want
to call a name like Chuckles. My dad, though, had been one of his
best friends since his own glory days riding the Defriese bench.
Now Chuckles was a TV commentator and a multimillionaire. He
traveled around the country a lot for the network, and he loved to
eat, which is how he’d ended up owning a company that bought up and
rehabbed restaurants before selling them off to new owners.
Mariposa had been his favorite restaurant whenever he was in town
for Defriese games, and now that he’d lured my dad away from there,
he worked him hard. But he also paid well and took very good care
of us.
I dropped my backpack
on the floor of the office, not wating to disturb them, then headed
out into the restaurant proper. It was empty except for Opal, who
was standing by the front door, surrounded by a stack of cardboard
boxes. The UPS man, who was parked outside, was in the process of
wheeling in even more.
“Are you sure there
hasn’t been some kind of mistake?” she asked him as he put another
one by the hostess stand. “This is a lot more than I was
expecting.”
He glanced at a
clipboard that was balanced on the top box. “Thirty out of thirty
cartons,” he said, then handed it to her. “All here and accounted
for.”
Opal signed the sheet
and gave it back to him. She was in a cotton long-sleeved shirt
printed with cowboys and horses, a black miniskirt, and bright red
boots that came up past her knees. I hadn’t figured out yet if her
look was punk or retro. Maybe petro.
“You know,” she said
to the UPS guy, “it’s pathetic what a person has to do to secure
ample parking in this town. Pathetic
.”
“Can’t fight city
hall,” he replied, ripping off a sheet and handing it to her. “Hey,
you got any more of those fried pickles lying around? Those I got
here the other day were wicked good.”
Opal sighed.
“Et tu, Jonathan?” she said sadly. “I
thought you loved our rolls!”
He shrugged. “They
were good, for sure. But those pickles? Crispy and crunchy, and,
you know, pickly? Damn! They’re just beyond.”
“Beyond,” Opal
repeated, her voice flat. “Fine. Go back and ask Leo to throw a few
in for you.”
“Thanks,
doll.”
He walked past me,
nodding, and I nodded back. Opal put her hands on her hips,
surveying the boxes, then added over her shoulder, “And tell him to
send someone out here to help me carry these upstairs, would
you?”
“Will do,” the
delivery guy said, pushing into the kitchen, the door swinging out,
then back again behind him. I watched as Opal bent down over one of
the cartons, examining it, then pushed herself back to her feet,
rubbing her back.
“I’ll help you, if
you want,” I said.
She spun around,
startled, her face relaxing—a bit—when she saw me. “Oh, thank you.
The last thing I need is for Gus to come out here and start asking
a bunch of questions. He’s already out to get me as it
is.”
I waited a beat, for
her to realize what she’d just said. One. Two. Then—
“Oh, God.” Her face
reddened. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I just—”
“It’s okay,” I told
her, walking over and picking up one of the smaller cartons. “Your
boxes of secrets are safe with me.”
“I wish they were
boxes of secrets,” she said with a sigh. “That would be infinitely
less humiliating.”
“Then what are
they?”
She took a breath,
then said, “Plastic buildings, trees, and
infrastructure.”
I looked down at the
box. MODEL COMMUNITY VENTURES, read the return
address.
“It’s a long story,”
Opal continued, hoisting a box onto her hip. I followed her into
the side dining room. “But the condensed version is that I sold my
soul to the head of the town council.”
“Really.”
“I’m not proud.” She
went down a small hallway, past the bathrooms, then bumped open a
doorway with her hip, revealing a narrow set of stairs. As we
started up them, she said, “They were about to shut down the
parking lot beside us, which would have been totally devastating,
business-wise. I knew they were looking for someone to take on the
project of assembling this model of the town for the centennial
this summer, and that nobody wanted to do it. So I volunteered. On
one condition.”
“Parking?”
“You got
it.”
We reached the top of
the stairs, entering a long room lined with tall, smudged glass
windows. There were a few tables stacked along one wall, some empty
garbage cans, and, inexplicably, two lawn chairs right in the
middle, an upended milk crate between them. On it was a pack of
cigarettes, an empty beer bottle, and a fire
extinguisher.
“Wow,” I said,
setting down my box. “What is this place?”
“Mostly storage now,”
she replied. “But as you can tell, the staff have been known to use
it on occasion.”
“To set
fires?”
“Ideally, no.” She
walked over, picking up the fire extinguisher and examining it.
“God! I have been looking everywhere
for this. The kitchen guys are such kleptos, I swear.”
I walked over to one
of the big windows, peering out. There was a narrow balcony, made
of wrought iron, over which I had a perfect view of the street
below. “This is nice,” I said. “Too bad you can’t seat people up
here.”
“We used to,” she
said, picking up the beer bottle and tossing it in a nearby trash
can, followed by the cigarettes. “Way back in the
day.”
“Really,” I said.
“How long have you been here?”
“I started in high
school. It was my first real job.” She picked up the milk crate,
moving it to the opposite wall, then folded the chairs, one by one.
“Eventually, I left for college, but even then I came back and
waited tables in the summers. Once I graduated, I planned to get a
full-time job with my double degree in dance and art history, but
it didn’t exactly work out.” She looked at me, then rolled her
eyes. “I know, I know. Who would have guessed it,
right?”
I smiled, looking
back out the window again. “At least you did what you
liked.”
“That has always been
my defense, even when I was flat broke,” she said, wiping off the
milk crate with one hand. “Anyway, I was back here and unemployed
when the Melmans decided they needed someone else to take over the
day-today for them. So I agreed, but only on a temporary basis. And
somehow, I’m still here.”
“It’s a hard business
to get out of. Sometimes impossible,” I replied. She looked at me.
“That’s what my dad says, anyway.”
For a moment, she was
quiet, instead just taking the folded chairs and stacking them
against the wall. “You know,” she said finally, “I understand he’s
just here to do a job, and that we needed to make some changes. I’m
sure he’s a good guy. But it just feels . . . like we’re being
invaded. Occupied.”
“You say it like this
is a war.”
“That’s kind of how
it feels,” she replied. She sat down on the milk crate, propping
her head in her hands. “I mean, with half the menu gone, and
cutting out brunch. I think maybe I should have gone with the
rolls. Out with the old, in with the new, and all
that.”
She looked tired
suddenly, sitting there saying this, and I felt like I should say
something supportive, even though we hardly knew each other. Before
I could, though, there was a bang from the stairs, and the skinny
cook I recognized from the alley a few days earlier appeared on the
landing, carrying a box. My dad, also with one in his arms, was
right behind him.
“Yo, Opal, where you
want us to put these? ” the cook asked.
Opal jumped to her
feet. “Leo,” she said, quickly walking over to take the box from my
dad’s arms, “I can’t believe you asked Gus to do
this.”
“You said to get
someone to help me!”
“Someone,” she
muttered, under her breath. “Not the boss, for God’s
sake.”
“It’s fine,” my dad
said easily. To me he added, “Mclean! I didn’t even know you were
here. How was the rest of the day?”
Opal turned, looking
at me, confused, and I suddenly remembered I’d told her my name was
Liz. I swallowed, then said, “Okay, I guess.”
“Gus, seriously,”
Opal said to him. “I’m so sorry. . . . It will only take me a
second to get the rest of those boxes up here, I promise.” She shot
Leo a dark look, but he was just standing there, fiddling with the
strings of his apron.
“What?” he said as
she continued to glare at him. “Oh. You mean me?”
“Yes,” she replied,
sounding more tired than ever. “I mean you.”
He shrugged, banging
back down the stairs. Opal still looked mortified, but my dad
hardly seemed to notice as he walked over to stand beside me at the
window, looking out at the street.
“This is a great
space,” he said, glancing around him. “Did it used to be dining
room?”
“About ten years
ago,” Opal replied.
“Why’d they stop
using it?”
“Mr. Melman felt
people were too slow going up and down the stairs. All the food was
cold once it got here, because the kitchen was so far
away.”
“Huh,” my dad said,
walking over to one of the walls and knocking on it. “In such an
old building, I’m surprised there wasn’t a
dumbwaiter.”
“There was,” Opal
told him. “But it never worked right. You’d put your food in and
never see it again.”
“Where was
it?”
She walked over to
the wall by the stairs, pushing aside one of the tables there.
Behind it, on the wall, you could see the imprint of something
square, protruding slightly. “We had it plastered over,” Opal said.
“Because people kept riding in it after closing. Serious
liability.”
“No kidding.” My dad
walked over, checking it out. As he did, Opal glanced at me again,
and I wondered what she was thinking.
“So,” my dad said,
turning back to the room proper. “What’s with the boxes? I didn’t
realize we had a big order coming in today.”
“Um,” Opal said, as
Leo reappeared, carrying three boxes stacked precariously, one on
top of another. “We didn’t. This is . . . something
else.”
My dad looked at her.
“Something else?”
“I was just telling
Liz”—she glanced at me, and I felt my dad do the same, though I
didn’t look at him—“that it’s this model for the town council. They
needed someone to run the project and a place to do it in. And they
were about to shut down our parking lot, so I kind of
volunteered.”
She trailed off,
surveying the various cartons dispiritedly as Leo added his to the
collection. My dad said, “What’s it a model of?”
“The town. It’s for
the centennial this summer,” she replied. She pulled a piece of
paper out of her back pocket, reading aloud from it. “‘Providing
both a community project and public art, this living map will allow
your citizens to see your town in a whole new way.’ ”
“Looks like it might
take up some space,” my dad said.
“I know.” She shoved
the paper back in her pocket. “I didn’t realize how big it was.
I’ll find another place for it, and soon. I just have to make some
calls.”
“Yo, Opal!” a voice
yelled up the stairs. “The linen guy is here and our towel order’s
short. And that lady’s still on hold for you.”
“What
lady?”
“The one Leo told you
about,” the voice replied.
Opal turned to Leo,
who was standing the window. “Oh,” he said. “You, um, have a phone
call.”
She said nothing,
just gave him a look before heading downstairs without comment. My
dad glanced at Leo, then said, “Once all the boxes are up, you’ve
got peppers to slice. And make sure that walk-in’s clean by
opening. No grit anywhere, and Windex the door.”
“Sure thing, boss
man,” Leo said less than enthusiastically.
My dad watched, his
expression unreadable, as Leo ambled across the room and down the
stairs. Once the door at the bottom banged shut, he said, “I can’t
tell if this is a restaurant or a charity foundation. I mean, that
guy can’t even work a spray bottle.”
“He does seem a
little useless,” I agreed.
“It’s epidemic here.”
He walked over to the windows again, looking out. “Unfortunately, I
can’t fire everyone. At least not right away.”
I stood with him,
watching the street below. It was a pretty spot, framed by tall
trees on either side, bending toward us. “Opal seems
nice.”
“I don’t need her to
be nice,” he said. “I need her to take control of her staff and
implement the changes I tell her to. Instead, she argues every
single point, wasting endless amounts of tim
We were quiet for
another moment. Then I said, “Did you know she’s worked here since
she was in high school?”
“Yeah?” He didn’t
exactly sound interested.
I nodded. “It was her
first job. She really loves this place.”
“That’s nice,” he
said. “But all the love in the world won’t save a sinking ship. You
have to either bail or jump overboard.”
I thought of Opal,
sitting on that milk crate, looking so tired. Maybe she was ready
to find an island somewhere in need of a dancer or art historian,
and my dad was doing her a favor by giving her a plank to walk. I
wanted to believe that. It was part of the job, too.
“Look, I’m sorry for
the outburst. I’m in a crap mood right now,” he said, sliding a
hand over my shoulder. “Hey, want to come down for the staff meal?
It’s the first run of the all-new menu. I could use someone there
who actually likes me.”
“I’m your girl,” I
said.
He smiled at me, and
I followed him to the stairs. We were halfway down when he paused,
looking back at me. “She called you Liz,” he said. It wasn’t a
question, exactly. But I knew what he was asking.
“A misunderstanding,”
I told him. “I’ll straighten it out.”
He nodded, and led me
the rest of the way to the bar and main dining room. There, the
employees were gathered around for the mandatory nightly meeting
and staff meal he implemented at every restaurant. I looked for
Opal, finding her at the end of the bar, taking in the plates lined
up all down it, a different dish on each, with a wary look on her
face.
“All right, everyone.
Can I have your attention, please?” my dad said.
The group grew
quieter, then silent. I watched him square his shoulders and take a
breath.
“Tonight,” he began,
his voice loud and confident, “we start the first phase of the
reincarnation of Luna Blu. Our menu is smaller, our dishes less
complicated, our ingredients fresher and more local. You will
recognize some items. Others are brand-new. Now if you could just
pick up a menu and read along with me, let’s start at the
top.”
Opal passed out the
one-page, laminated menus stacked on a nearby bar stool. As the
group looked them over, there were some grunts. Some groans. One
boo, although I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It wasn’t
going to be easy, this moment, or this night. But my dad had seen
much worse. And as he continued, I slid into a booth just behind
him, so he’d know I was there.
“Disaster.”
This was the one-word
response I received the next morning when I found my dad already
awake, scrambling eggs in the kitchen, and asked him how things had
gone the night before. I’d tried to stay up and wait for him, but
had fallen asleep around midnight when he still wasn’t home. Now I
knew why.
“First new menu run
is always tough,” I reminded him, pulling two plates out of the
cabinet.
“This wasn’t tough,”
he replied, stirring the eggs with a flick of his wrist. It was
ridiculous. We were in the weeds in the first hour and never
recovered, with only half the tables seated. I’ve never seen such
rampant disorganization. And the attitude! It’s mind-boggling.”
I put the plates on
our small kitchen table, then got some forks and napkins and sat
down. “That stinks.”
“What stinks,” he
said, still on a roll, “is that now I have to go back there and
figure out how to fix it all before service tonight.”
I stayed quiet as he
turned, sliding a generous portion of yellow, fluffy eggs onto the
plate in front of me. But what I’d said was true: the first night
of a new menu always went terribly, with staff members either
imploding or exploding, the customers left unhappy or downright
angry, and my dad deciding the whole effort was doomed. This
sequence was almost required, part of the process. He never seemed
to remember this from place to place, though, and reminding him was
useless.
“The thing is,” he
continued, dumping some eggs on the other plate before sitting down
across from me, “a restaurant is only as strong as its chef. And
this place has no chef.”
“What about
Leo?”
“He’s the kitchen
manager, although God only knows who thought he was qualified for
that position. The chef quit about a week ago, after Chuckles
starting asking questions about some hinky stuff his financial guys
found in the books. Apparently, he did not feel like providing an
explanation.”
“So you need to hire
someone?”
“I would,” he said,
“but no chef worth his salt would take the job with the state of
the place right now. I need to implement the new menu, streamline
operations, and clean house, both literally and figuratively,
before I even think about bringing anyone else in.”
“That sounds easy,” I
said.
“Shutting the door
and cutting our losses would be the easiest,” he replied. “I’m
thinking that might be the way to go.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” He sighed,
then looked out the kitchen window, taking another bite. For
someone who made his living out of a love of food, my dad was a
fast, messy eater. He never lingered or savored, instead just
wolfing down what was on his plate like someone was timing him. He
was almost finished as I got up to pour myself a glass of milk,
only a few bites of my own meal taken.
“Well,” I said
carefully, “I guess it was bound to happen sometime.”
My dad swallowed,
then glanced at me. “What was?”
“No potential,” I
replied. When he raised his eyebrows, I said, “You know. A place
that really can’t be fixed, even by you. A hopeless
situation.”
“I guess so,” he
replied, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Some things can’t be
saved.”
This was a fact we
both knew well. And maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, I
thought as I opened the fridge, letting this ship sink. Sure, it
would mean another move, another change, another school. But at
least I’d get to start right, not like I had here, where I was
stuck with Mclean, despite my best—
“The thing is,” he sd
suddenly, interrupting this quickly snowballing train of thought,
“there is some good talent in the
kitchen.”
If I’d been paying
closer attention, I probably would have heard it, the sound of the
bottom getting hit. Followed by the beginning of this small
rise.
“Not Leo, obviously,”
he continued, glancing at me. “But a couple of the line guys, and
one of the prep cooks. And there are possibilities on the floor as
well, if I can just weed out the gloom-and-doomers.”
I slid back into my
seat, putting my glass in front of me. “How did the customers like
the new menu?”
“The few we had, who
actually got their meals hot and complete,” he said with a sigh,
“were raving.”
“And the
pickles?”
“Went over huge. Opal
was furious.” He smiled, shaking his head. “But the new menu, it’s
good. Simple, flavorful, plays to all our strengths. The few we
have anyway.”
Now I was sure he was
going to stay in. This, when he went from using “them” to “us”—an
outsider to one within—was another sign.
His phone, parked by
the sink, suddenly jumped and buzzed. He reached over, grabbing it
and flipping it open. “Gus Sweet. Oh, right. I did want to talk to
you. . . .”
As a voice crackled
from the other line, I glanced over at our neighbors’ house, just
in time to see Dave Wade’s mom coming out her side door. She was
dressed in jeans, a white, cable-knit sweater, and sensible shoes,
a tote bag over one shoulder, carrying a foil-covered pan in her
hands. As she walked down the steps, she moved carefully, looking
down so she wouldn’t trip.
“. . . Yes, that’s
exactly what I said,” my dad was saying as she crossed the driveway
and started up our steps, equally cautiously. “Why? Because I don’t
like the look of the order I got yesterday.”
Mrs. Wade was almost
to our side door. I got up to meet her, just as she leaned into the
screen, covering her eyes with her free hand. When she saw me, she
jumped back, startled.
“Hello,” she said as
I pushed the door open. “I’m Anne Dobson-Wade. I live next door? I
wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood, so I made some
brownies.”
“Oh,” I said. She
extended the dish to me, and I took it. “Thank you.”
“They are nut-free,
gluten-free, and sugar-free, made with all organic ingredients,”
she said. “I didn’t know if you had any allergies.”
“We don’t,” I
replied. “But, um, thanks for the consideration.”
“Of course!” She
smiled at me, a bit of frizz blowing in the wind coming in behind
her. “Well, as I said, we are right next door. If you need anything
or have questions about the neighborhood, I hope you’ll let us
know. We’ve been here forever.”
I nodded in response
to this, just as Dave came out of her door, wearing a green T-shirt
and jeans, and began dragging the garbage can down to the curb. His
mom turned, saying something to him, but he didn’t hear her over
the wheels scraping the pavement, and kept walking. Then my dad
started yelling.
“I don’t care if
you’v been supplying them for a hundred years. Don’t run a muddle
on me. I can tell a light order when I see it.” He paused, allowing
the other person, who was now talking even more quickly, to say
something. “Look. This isn’t up for debate, okay?”
Mrs. Dobson-Wade
looked at my dad, clearly alarmed at his tone. “It’s a work call,”
I explained, as behind her, Dave came back up the driveway. When he
saw me talking to his mom, he slowed his steps, then stopped
entirely.
“Who am I?” my dad
said was saying as Dave Wade and I, strangers but not, just stared
at each other over his mother’s small, bony shoulder. “I’m the new
boss at Luna Blu. And you are my former produce purveyor.
Goodbye.”
He hung up, then
slammed his phone down for emphasis on the table, the sound making
me jump. Only then did he look up and see me and Dave’s mom at the
door.
“This is Mrs.
Dobson-Wade,” I said, keeping my own voice calm, as if to prove we
weren’t both total maniacs. “She made us some
brownies.”
“Oh.” He wiped his
hands together, then came over. “That’s . . . Thank
you.”
“You’re very
welcome!” There was an awkward beat, with no one talking, before
she said, “I was just telling your daughter that we’ve lived here
for over twenty years, so if you need any information on the
neighborhood, or schools, just let us know.”
“I’ll do that,” my
dad said. “Although this one’s already gotten herself settled in
pretty well, from what I can tell.”
“You’re at Jackson?”
Mrs. Dobson-Wade asked me. I nodded. “It’s a fine public school.
But there are other options if you wanted to explore them, in the
private sector. Exemplary ones, actually.”
“You don’t say,” my
dad replied.
“Our son was at one
of them, Kiffney-Brown, until last year. He decided to transfer,
not that we were very happy about it.” She sighed, shaking her
head. “You know teenagers. So difficult when they decide they have
a mind of their own.”
I felt my dad look at
me, but this time I kept my gaze straight ahead. I wasn’t about to
field this one. “Well,” he said finally. “I suppose . . . that is
true, sometimes.”
Mrs. Dobson-Wade
smiled, as if he’d offered more agreement than he had. “Did I hear
you say you’re the new chef at Luna Blu?”
“More like the
interim,” my dad said.
“Oh, we love Luna
Blu,” she told him. “The rolls are amazing !”
My dad smiled.
“Well,” he said, “next time you come in, ask for me. I’ll make sure
you’re taken care of. I’m Gus.”
“Anne,” she said. She
glanced behind her, seeing Dave, who was just standing there still
looking at me, having not come any closer. “My husband, Brian, will
be along in a moment, and that’s my son, David. David, this is Gus
and—”
Everyone looked at
me. “Mclean,” I said.
Dave raised a hand in
a wave, friendly, but still kept his distance. I thought of what
Heather and Riley had told me: boy genius, smoothie maker, cellar
dweller. Right now, I thought, he didn’t look like any of the
people they’d described, which was unsettling in a way that was
entirely too familiar.
The side door banged
again, and Mr. Wade finally came out. He was tall and reedy, with a
beard, and carried a messenger bag, which he strapped across
himself as he came down the stairs. In his other hand was a bike
helmet covered in reflector stickers.
“Brian!” Mrs. Wade
called out. “Say hello to our new neighbors.”
Mr. Wade came over
cheerfully, a smile on his face, and joined our little confab on
the deck. Standing together, he and Anne looked like a matched set
of rumpled academics in their thick glasses, he with his helmet,
she with her NPR tote bag over one shoulder. “Nice to meet you,” he
said, shaking my hand and then my dad’s. “Welcome to the
burg.”
“Thanks,” my dad
said.
“Gus is the interim
chef at Luna Blu,” Anne informed him.
“Oh, we love Luna
Blu!” Brian said. “Those rolls! They’re the perfect dinner on a
cold night.”
I bit my lip, making
a point of not looking at my dad as we all just stood there,
smiling at each other. Meanwhile, behind them, Dave gave me a look
that was hard to read—almost apologetic—and walked back to the
house, going inside. The sound of the door swinging shut behind him
was like a whistle being blown to end a huddle. With it, we all
broke.
“I’ve got to run to
the lab,” Dave’s mom said, stepping back from the door. Brian
smiled, following her as he put on his helmet. “Please let us know
if we can be of any help as you get settled.”
“We’ll do that,” my
dad said. “Thanks again for the brownies.”
They waved, we waved.
Then we stood there, silent, watching them as they went down the
deck stairs, back to their driveway. Under the basketball goal,
they stopped, and Brian leaned down so Anne could give him a peck
on the cheek. Then she went to her car, and he to his bike, which
was chained to their front deck. He wheeled it down the driveway,
she backed out, and at the road, he went left, she
right.
“Well,” my dad said
after a moment. “They sure do like those rolls, huh?”
“No kidding.” I
lifted up the pan she’d given me, taking a hesitant whiff. “Can
brownies actually be sugar-, gluten-, and nut-free and still be
good?”
“Let’s find out,” he
said, lifting the Saran Wrap covering it. He reached in, took one,
and stuck the entire thing in his mouth, devouring it. After
chewing for what seemed like a long time, he finally swallowed.
“Nope.”
Point taken. I put
the pan down. “Everything okay on the produce front? It sounded
kind of intense.”
“That guy is an
idiot,” my dad grumbled, getting up to slide his breakfast plate
into the sink. “Not to mention a thief. Maybe now I’ll get some
decent vegetables. Shoot, that reminds me, I set up a meeting at
the farmers’ market in ten minutes. You going to be okay
here?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Absolutely.”
As he picked up his
phone and left the room, I looked back at Dave’s house. His parents
seemed nice enough, hardly the strict Gulag types Heather had
described. But then again, as Riley ha said, no one was really
normal, and you couldn’t tell a thing from the outside anyway. One
thing, however, was clear: there was no escaping Mclean now. I was
her, I was here, and it looked like we’d be sticking around.
Nothing left to do but bail, and rise.