“You look great,” my mom said, as if reading my mind. “But you’d better go. Don’t want to be late the first day.”
I nodded, slid my backpack over one shoulder, then walked over to where she was sitting. The bagel had one bite out of it now. Progress.
“I love you,” I said, bending over and kissing her cheek.
She reached down, taking my hand and squeezing it, a little bit too tight. “I love you, too. Have a good day.”
I nodded, then went out into the garage and got into my car. As I backed down the driveway, I looked in the kitchen window to see her still sitting there. I thought she might be watching me as well, but she wasn’t. Instead, she was looking at the opposite wall, her mug now in her hands. She didn’t drink or put it down, just kept it there, right at her heart, and something about this made me so sad, I couldn’t wait to be gone.
* * *
School let out at three fifteen. Ten minutes after the bell, I was the only car left in the lower lot. For once, it felt good to be alone.
The school was just so big. The hallways that had seemed so wide three weeks earlier were, when I stepped inside that first day, totally packed with people: you couldn’t take a step without bumping someone, or at least their arm or elbow. I’d expected that, though. It was the noise that was the real surprise. There was the shrillness of the bells: long, earsplitting tones. The jackhammers of the construction crew replacing one of the many broken sidewalks. And, always, people yelling: in the hallways, across the courtyard, outside the classroom door, at a volume that startled you even with the door solidly shut. It defied logic that in a place so cramped, you’d worry you might not be heard. But everyone did. Apparently.
I’d had only one true interaction all day, with a very perky girl named Deb who was, in her words, a “self-appointed Jackson ambassador!” She’d appeared at my homeroom with a gift bag holding a school calendar, a Jackson football pencil, and some home-baked cookies, as well as her personal business card if I had any questions or concerns. When she left, everyone stared at me as if I were even more of a freak. Great.
Now that I was alone, though, I wondered what to do with myself. I couldn’t go home yet, as there were still a good two hours until dinner, the same stretch of time I’d dreaded even before my brother was sent away. Suddenly, I felt so helpless. If I hated the crowds but also my own company, where did that leave me? It was the saddest I’d felt in a long time. I started my car, like if I drove off I could leave the sadness there.
A block from school, I was at a light when I looked across the street and saw a little strip mall. There was a nail salon, a liquor store, a weight-loss company, and, in the corner, a pizza place.
After school meant pizza to me as much as or even more so than my popcorn-and-Big routine. Just one block from Perkins, there was also a small shopping center, and the Italian place there, Antonella’s, served as the de facto clubhouse for the entire school. They had gourmet brick-fired pizzas, a coffee bar, gelato, and the sweetest fountain Cokes I’d ever tasted. Meredith always went straight to the U for practice, but Jenn and I hit Antonella’s at least once a week, splitting a ham, pineapple, and broccoli pizza and ostensibly doing our homework. Mostly, though, we gossiped and spied on the more popular kids, who always sat at the long, family-style tables by the window, flirting and blowing straw wrappers at one another.
Everything today had been new. With pizza, I could finally have something familiar. Before I could overthink it, I put on my blinker, switched lanes, and turned into the parking lot.
I knew the minute I stepped in that this place was very different. Seaside Pizza was small and narrow, lit not with modern light fixtures like Antonella’s but with yellow fluorescents, some of which didn’t work. The seating consisted of worn leather booths and a few tables, and the walls were covered in a dark paneling and lined with black-and-white photographs of beaches and boardwalks. There was a tall glass counter, behind which sat a row of different kinds of pizzas and a wide, beat-up oven with the word HOT painted in faded letters across its front. A TV playing a sports talk show hung from the ceiling above the drink machine, next to which was a tall, tilting pile of plastic menus. Overhead, music was playing. I could have sworn I heard what sounded like a banjo.
Once inside, I let the door shut behind me but kept my hand on the glass as I realized that this, too, was probably a mistake. Clearly, this was not a popular place with Jackson students, or anyone, for that matter: I was the only one there.
I turned around to leave, only to find that there was now a guy on the other side of the door. He was tall with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a backpack. He waited for me to take a step away from the door, then another, before slowly pushing it open between us and coming in.
I felt like I couldn’t dart out without seeming like a freak, so I turned back to the counter, taking down a menu from the pile. I figured I’d pretend to study it for a second, then slip away while he was ordering. When I glanced up a beat later, though, I saw he was behind the counter, tying on an apron. Crap. He worked there. And now he was looking at me.
“Can I help you?” he asked. His T-shirt, I saw now, said ANGER MANAGEMENT: THE SHOW. WCOM RADIO.
“Um,” I said, looking back down at the menu. It was sticky in my hands, and I made out none of the words even as I read it. Panicked, I glanced at the row of pizza slices under the glass counter. “Slice of pepperoni. And a drink.”
“You got it,” he replied, grabbing a metal pizza pan from behind him. He moved the slices around with some tongs for a second before drawing out one that was huge and plunking it on the pan, which he slid into the oven. Back at the register, he shook a lock of hair out of his eyes and hit a few buttons. “Three forty-two.”
I fumbled for my wallet, sliding him a five. As he made change, I noticed there was a cup next to the register filled with YumYum lollipops. TAKE ONE! said a sign in pink marker behind it. I’d loved them as a kid, hadn’t had one in years. I started picking through them, past the plentiful green apple, watermelon, and cherry ones, looking for my favorite.
“Dollar fifty-eight’s your change,” the guy said, holding it out in his hand. As I took it, as well as the empty cup he’d set on the counter, he said, “If you’re looking for cotton candy or bubble gum, I’ll save you the time. There aren’t any.”
I raised my eyebrows. “They’re popular?”
“To put it mildly.”
Just then, the door banged open behind me and someone rushed past, their footsteps slapping the floor. I turned just in time to see a blonde girl disappearing into a back room marked PRIVATE before the door shut behind her.
The guy narrowed his eyes at the door, then looked back at me. “Your slice will be up in a minute. We’ll bring it out.”
I nodded, then walked over to fill my cup and grab some napkins. I sat down at a table, then studied my phone just for something to do. A few minutes later, I heard the oven opening and closing, and he came out a set of swinging doors with my pizza, now on a paper plate, and slid it in front of me.
“Thanks.”
“Sure thing,” he replied, and then I listened to him walk to the PRIVATE door and knock on it.
“Go away,” a girl’s voice said. A minute later, though, I heard it open.
Alone again, I took a bite of my pizza, even though I wasn’t really hungry. Then I took another. At about that point, I had to resist stuffing the entire thing into my mouth. I mean, pepperoni pizza is pepperoni pizza. It’s, like, the most generic of slices. But this one was so good. The crust was both spongy and crispy—somehow—and the sauce had this certain bit of tanginess, not sweet but almost savory. And the cheese: there weren’t even words. Oh, my God.
I was so involved in devouring my slice that at first I didn’t even notice someone else had come from behind the counter. Then I heard a voice.
“E
verything good?”
I looked up to see a man about my dad’s age, maybe a bit younger. He had dark hair, streaked with a bit of white, and was wearing an apron.
“It’s great,” I said. My mouth was half full. I swallowed, then added, “Probably the best I’ve ever had.”
He smiled at this, clearly pleased, then reached over the register, picking up the cup of YumYums. “Did you get a lollipop? It’s the perfect chaser. But don’t waste your time looking for cotton candy or bubble gum. We ain’t got ’em.”
“I did hear they were popular.”
At this, he made a face, shaking his head, just as I heard the back door open. A moment later, the younger guy walked back past me, the blonde girl behind him. She was holding a lollipop. A pink one.
“You leave the counter unattended now?” the man asked, picking up the tongs and moving some slices around. “Nobody told me we’re working on the honor system.”
“Don’t yell at him,” the girl said. She was wearing a sundress and flip-flops, a bunch of silver bangles on one arm. “He was checking on me.”
The older man opened the oven, looked inside, then banged it shut again. “You need checking?”
“Today I did.” She pulled out a chair at a table opposite the register, sitting down. “Daniel just dumped me.”
He stopped moving, turning to look at her. “What? Are you serious?”
The girl nodded slowly. She’d put the lollipop back in her mouth. After a moment, she reached over to the nearby napkin dispenser, took one out, and dabbed her eyes.
“Never liked that kid,” the man said, turning back to the oven.
“Yes, you did,” the younger guy said, his voice low.
“I didn’t. He was too pretty. All that hair. You can’t trust a guy with hair like that.”
“Dad, it’s okay,” the girl said, still dabbing. She pulled the lollipop from her mouth. “It’s his senior year, he didn’t want to be tied down, blah blah blah.”
“Blah my ass,” her father said. Then he glanced at me. “Sorry.”
Caught watching, I felt my face flush and went back to my pizza, or what was left of it.
“What sucks, though,” the girl continued, pulling out another napkin, “is that those are the same reasons that Jake gave for dumping me when the summer started. ‘It’s summer! I don’t want to be tied down!’ I mean, honestly. I can’t deal with this seasonal abandonment. It’s just too harsh.”
“That hair,” the man muttered. “I always hated that hair.”
The front door opened then, and a couple of guys came in, both of them carrying skateboards. During the ensuing transaction, I finished my slice and tried not to look at the blonde girl, who had pulled one leg up under her and now sat with her chin propped in her hand, eating her lollipop and staring out the window.
The skaters found a table, and soon enough the younger guy came out and delivered their food to them. On his way back behind the counter, he flicked the girl’s shoulder, then said something I couldn’t make out. She looked up at him, nodding, and he moved on.
I glanced at my watch. If I left now, I’d still have at least an hour before dinner. Just thinking this, I felt like I was suddenly wearing something heavy. It wasn’t like Seaside Pizza was so ideal, either. But it wasn’t those same four walls, resonating with their emptiness. I got up and refilled my drink.
“You should take a lollipop,” the girl told me, her eyes still on the window, as I started back to my table. “They’re complimentary.”
Clearly, resistance was futile: this was expected. So I went back to the cup and started to poke around. I was actually waiting for the girl to warn me about the shortage of pink flavors, but she didn’t. But after I’d been at it for a moment, she did speak up.
“What flavor you looking for?”
I glanced over at her. Behind the counter, her father was spreading sauce across a circle of dough, while the guy my age counted bills at the register. “Root beer,” I told her.
She just looked at me. “Seriously?”
Clearly, she was shocked. Which surprised me enough that I couldn’t even formulate a response. But then she was talking again.
“Nobody,” she said, “likes root beer YumYums. They are always the ones left when everything else, even the really lousy flavors, like mystery and blue raspberry, are gone.”
“What’s wrong with blue raspberry?” the man asked.
“It’s blue,” she told him flatly, then turned her attention back to me. “Are you being totally honest right now? They really are your top pick?”
Everyone was looking at me now. I swallowed. “Well . . . yeah.”
In response, she pushed her chair out, getting to her feet. Then, before I even knew what was happening, she was walking toward me. I thought maybe I was about to get into a confrontation about candy preferences, which would have been a first, but then she passed by. I turned to see her head to the same back door, then open it and go inside.
I looked at the man behind the counter, but he just shrugged, sprinkling cheese over the sauce on his pizza in progress. Noises were coming from the back room now—drawers opening and closing, cabinets slamming—but I couldn’t see anything. Then it got quiet, and she emerged, a plastic bag in her hand. She walked right up to me, until we were only inches apart, and held it out.
“Here,” she said. “For you.”
I took it. Inside were at least fifty root beer YumYum lollipops, maybe even more. I just stared at them for a minute, speechless, before I looked up at her.
“I might hate them, but they’re still candy,” she explained. “I couldn’t just throw them away.”
I looked down at the bag again: it was actually heavy in my hands. “Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” She smiled, then stuck out her hand. “I’m Layla.”
“Sydney.”
We shook. Then there was a pause. When I looked up at her again, she raised her eyebrows.
“Oh,” I said quickly, pulling one out and unwrapping it. I stuck it in my mouth, and just like that, I was ten again, walking back from the Quik-Zip with Peyton after spending my allowance on candy. He always got chocolate: with peanuts, with almonds, with caramel. But I liked sugar straight, and time to savor it. In every bag of YumYums there were at least two root beers: I always ate one right away, then kept the other for after the rest were gone. I thought of my brother up at Lincoln and wondered if they ever got chocolate there. It occurred to me I should tell my mom to bring him some.
Just then, a phone rang behind the counter. The younger guy answered it.
“Seaside Pizza, this is Mac.” He grabbed a pad, then pulled a pencil out from behind his ear. “Uh-huh. Yep. That’s a buck extra. Sure. What’s the address?”
As he wrote, the older man looked over his shoulder, read the order, then grabbed a ball of dough and began flipping it in his hands. “Delivery’s close enough for you to get dropped at the house,” he said to Layla. “Call your mom and see if she needs anything.”
“Okay,” she said over her shoulder. Then she looked back at me. “You go to Jackson?”
I nodded. “Just started today.”
She made a face. “Ugh. How was it?”
“Not so great,” I replied, then nodded at the bag. “But this helps.”
“It always does,” she said. Then she waved, turned on her heel, and began walking toward that back door again. I returned to my table with all my YumYums and gathered up my trash and backpack.
“Tell her to meet me outside,” the younger guy was telling the older one as I headed for the door. “Starter’s been stubborn lately. Might have to mess with it.”
“Don’t forget the sign this time!”
We ended up leaving together, just as we’d come in. As I crossed the lot to my car, he jogged up to an older model truck. I watc
hed as he reached into the bed, pulling out a magnetic sign and slapping it on the driver’s side door. SEASIDE PIZZA, it said, BEST AROUND. A phone number was printed below.
It was late enough now that I could leave and get home right around dinnertime. But I stayed until Layla emerged, carrying one of those square pizza warmers. A couple of cars were between us at the first stoplight, but I remained behind them turn for turn for a few blocks until eventually the traffic split us. Only then did I open another lollipop, which I savored all the way home.
CHAPTER
4
OVER THE next two days, things didn’t really improve at school. But they didn’t get worse, either. I figured out the fastest way to my classes, discovered it was actually easier to find a spot in the upper parking lot, and had two conversations with classmates (although one was mandatory, as we were thrown into a group project together; still, it was something).
I didn’t go back to Seaside Pizza again, as I was too worried I’d look like a freak, a stalker, or both. Instead, the next day, I met Jenn at Frazier Bakery to catch up and do homework. The following day, I went home after school, thinking it might not be so bad. Then I saw Ames’s car in the driveway.
“Sydney? Is that you?”
I put my bag on the stairs, then took a breath before walking into the kitchen. Sure enough, there he was with my mom at the table, drinking coffee. A plate of cookies sat between them. When my mom saw me, she pushed them in my direction.
“Hello, stranger,” said Ames as I walked to the fridge, taking out a bottled water. “Long time, no see.”
Although he was smiling as he said this, it still kind of gave me the creeps. But my mom was already pulling out a chair, assuming I would join them, so I did.
“How was school?” she asked. Turning to him, she added, “She just started at Jackson this week.”