Asha sees my look and casts her gaze down at the tabletop. “Sorry, am I interrupting?” she asks. “I can go if you want.”
She pushes her chair back and stands, but I shake my head, motion for her to sit down and close my textbook. Parabolas can wait. Asha beams, sitting again and unwrapping her sandwich.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
I gesture to my homework and point a finger gun to my temple.
She grins. “Having some trouble, I take it?”
I pull out my whiteboard and write, Only always, and she laughs.
“You know, I could help you with it sometime,” she says. “I’m pretty good with numbers.”
I am more than willing to use this reluctant camaraderie to my benefit. Maybe I can get a good math grade out of it. That’d be something.
You free after school?
Asha makes an apologetic face. “Can’t. I have to work,” she explains. But then her eyes brighten. “Hey, why don’t you come with me? Thursdays are slow anyway, and I get a break, so I could help you out. And I bet I can get you a free sandwich. Sam makes amazing tuna melts. I mean, I haven’t tried them because I’m vegetarian, but everyone says they’re awesome.”
What about your boss?
“Dex won’t care, trust me. He’s really laid-back. You’d like him.”
I consider my options. Hanging out at a diner does sound pretty sweet compared to the alternative—moping in an empty house until my parents come home from work. The prospect of eating something not made from tofu is too enticing to pass up. What’s the worst that could happen?
O.K.
Asha’s face lights up. “Perfect!” she exclaims. “It’ll be fun, I promise.” She grins and passes me an apple slice.
I bite into it, grateful, and for the most fleeting of moments I forget how depressed I’m supposed to be.
* * *
Asha meets me after detention, and we drive to Rosie’s together. She’s particularly bubbly today. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten what it’s like to be in such a good mood that you feel the need to dance in your seat to the radio.
“You like rap?” she says over the music. “That is awesome.”
Kristen would not find that awesome. And she definitely would not find Asha’s dorky car dancing awesome. At least, not post-Warren Kristen. Pre-Warren Kristen was different. Less concerned about looking like an idiot. We used to choreograph silly dance routines in my bedroom, using hairbrushes for microphones. Those days are long over.
Asha doesn’t stop dancing as we enter the diner. She even does a little twirl on her way up to the counter, leans across it and hollers, “Hey, Dex! I’m here!”
“My savior!” An older guy—late twenties, probably—pops his head over the counter. He has long hair, like my dad’s in those old pictures, and a bunch of tattoos up and down his arms. There’s also a big black star inked on his neck. He sees me hovering and grins. “And you brought me a customer? Damn, you really know how to score the brownie points. Speaking of brownies…”
Asha gasps. “You better not be teasing me.”
“Of course not. I would never joke about a subject as sacred as baked goods.” He brings out a brownie on a napkin. “Fresh out of the oven.”
“You rock so hard,” she says. She turns to me. “Chelsea, you have to try this.”
I break off a piece and pop it into my mouth. It is good. Melt-in-your-mouth good, warm and chewy and delicious. I give Asha a thumbs-up to express my approval.
Dex cocks his head to the side. “Have I actually rendered someone speechless with my baking?” he asks. “That may be a first.”
“Don’t be so quick to flatter yourself. Chelsea doesn’t talk,” Asha explains. “She’s taken a vow of silence.”
Okay, now I’m blushing. I hate having to explain this. People probably think I’m just being an attention whore, and it is so not about that. Or people just think I’m a freak. Which…maybe I am. But I’m still not comfortable with letting my freak flag fly, so to speak.
But Dex doesn’t miss a beat. “Very cool,” he says, not sarcastically at all, then to Asha, “Sam’s pulling stock from the freezer, and Andy should be here in an hour or so. I’m going to hole up in the office and make some calls to vendors, so come back and grab me if you need me.”
“Sure thing,” she tells him, walking around behind the counter. “It’s cool if Chelsea hangs out?”
“As long as she doesn’t break anything,” he says with a wink, and then disappears down the side hall.
I sit down on one of the stools and sling my bag onto the counter as Asha smoothes her long hair back into a ponytail.
“I’m going to go load up the dishwasher,” she tells me. “We don’t really have one specific person who buses, so whoever has a minute just takes care of it. Noah was usually the one…”
She trails off, and at first I’m confused, but it takes only a second to put two and two together. Noah must have worked here, too. That explains the other day, when they mentioned that guy having to cover kitchen. And he’s Sam’s best friend, it’s no surprise they’d work together.
This has to be a joke. Maybe I’ve underestimated Asha, and the only reason she’s been friendly to me is that she’s setting me up for humiliation. I can think of no other possible reason why she would invite me to Noah’s workplace, a place full of people who know and, presumably, care about him. And anyone who cares about him likely hates me.
I grab my whiteboard and write furiously.
Why did you invite me here?
She frowns. “So I can help you with your homework. We talked about this.”
This was a bad idea.
“Why?”
You know why.
“What do you mean?” she asks, but in a careful way that leads me to believe she knows exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want to have to spell it out for her, literally.
How much do you know?
She hems and haws before she answers me. “I heard what you did at the party,” she admits. She can’t look me in the eye as she says it. “Did you know what would happen? When you—told people what you did?”
I shake my head, because it’s true that I didn’t, but I don’t know how that makes any difference. I should’ve known. I shouldn’t have been such an idiot to not realize what would happen.
Why are you being nice to me?
“I don’t know.” She goes quiet for a minute. “I guess I just… I don’t think you are what people say you are.”
How would you know that?
“You turned your friends in to the cops,” she says. “That’s something.”
Yeah, but what she doesn’t know is that I question my decision every day. I busy myself with rubbing my board clean so I don’t have to look at her and see that hope in her face, the hope that I’m this good person she imagines me to be, when I know the truth.
Asha’s face flushes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be upset,” she says. “You can leave if you want.”
She disappears into the back, leaving me there to stay or go. Staying is a bad idea, I know. I start to grab my backpack so I can leave, but then I think of what Asha said, how she doesn’t think I’m the person other people say I am. Her words gnaw at my gut. I know I’m not that person, but it’s comforting to know someone else sees me as something more than a bitch or a backstabber.
Besides, I can’t deny the fact that I could really, really use her help with my homework.<
br />
I sit back down and slide out my geometry book from my bag. It couldn’t hurt to stay for a little while. If things get weird, I’ll just take off. No harm, no foul.
I flip the book open to tonight’s assignment. I hate math. I hate formulas and functions, especially when letters get involved. It’s so confusing. I don’t know how I’m supposed to relate to numbers. How learning any of this will ever come in handy in real life. Like, will I one day be in the grocery store, comparing the prices of toilet paper, and desperately need to find the square root of x in order to get the best deal? I highly doubt it. Geometry just feels like a waste of time.
My whole life feels like a waste of time.
I’m staring at the open page so hard my eyes cross when Sam walks up with a metal tub of sauce. When I see him, I jump a little, causing the stool to squeak as it turns. He looks even more startled than I feel.
“Chelsea? What are you doing here?” he blurts out.
I feel my face burning red. I point one hand to the left, where Asha went, and Sam follows the gesture with his eyes, seeming to connect the dots.
“Excuse me,” he says flatly, and takes off in that direction.
As soon as he’s out of sight, I jump off the stool and follow without thinking, hovering by the double doors leading to the busing area. I crouch behind a cart of clean dinner trays and spy through the dirty circular windows, catching a glimpse of Sam marching up to Asha, who is stacking some dry dishes into a rack. I can hear every word.
“You brought her here?” he exclaims. “What were you thinking?”
“Give her a chance,” Asha says.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he says. “If Andy sees her, he is going to freak out.”
Okay, who the hell is Andy, and why would he care about me being here?
Asha sets down the last plate and looks up at him. “I just think she could really use a friend right now.”
“And you’re volunteering for the position,” he says skeptically.
“I don’t think she has anyone else,” she tells him. “Everyone is mad at her.”
“I’m not saying we should be gathering the pitchforks or anything, but come on. Did it ever occur to you maybe she deserves it?”
“You don’t know, Sam. It’s not just about Noah…it’s about her ratting out those basketball players. There were these girls today, and they said these awful things to her… I mean, really awful. Then one of them said something to me—”
“What? Who?”
“It doesn’t even matter,” she continues, “but Chelsea got in the girl’s face, and she didn’t say anything, obviously, but I could tell she was mad about it. And someone wrote something nasty on her locker. And you saw what they did to her car, and I know you don’t think that was deserved. I just want to be nice, okay? Can you please have my back on this?”
There’s a lengthy pause, and I hold my breath, trying not to make any noise that will give me away, desperately waiting to see what Sam will say to that.
“All right,” he says softly. “Just…be careful, okay?”
“I will,” she promises. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Depends. What is it?”
“I told her you’d make her a tuna melt. On the house.”
Sam groans. “The things I do for you, Asha.”
I decide I’ve heard enough. I bolt back to my stool, settling on it just as Sam reappears. He gives me a long, considering look, like he’s warring with himself on how to deal with me.
“Asha says I owe you a tuna melt,” he says. He’s not smiling, but he doesn’t sound angry. “Sound good?”
I nod, and he turns his back to me to grab ingredients. I shouldn’t have stayed. Now I know why Asha is being nice—I’m her charity project. It’s embarrassing, and idiotic because if she knew me at all, what I’m really like, she would hate me, not pity me. She’s too nice for her own good.
The way Rosie’s is set up, the grill is right there so you can see your food being made in front of you. I watch as Sam quickly assembles the sandwich then slaps it on the grill. After a while he flips it with the spatula and cooks the other side. His movements are smooth, practiced, like he’s done this so often he could do it in his sleep.
Asha reemerges just as an elderly couple walks through the door. She skirts around the counter, snatching two menus, and goes to greet them. Sam flips the tuna melt onto a dish and pushes it toward me.
“You’re gonna love it,” he says. “I’m famous for my tuna melts.”
So Asha said. When I take my first bite, I totally get the ringing endorsement. It’s so good I actually moan a little. Embarrassed, I clap a hand over my mouth.
Sam looks over from wiping down the grill and grins. “Told you.”
More people start filtering into the diner as the evening goes on. Asha’s kept busy, alternating between seating patrons, bringing out drinks and busing tables. Every time Sam finishes cooking, he yells “Order up!” and sets out the dishes where Asha can reach. It is way more interesting to watch him than it is to focus on my homework.
About an hour later, a boy rushes through the door, half running into the kitchen and yelling, “I know, I know, I’m late, goddamn car wouldn’t start, but I’m here, I’m on it.”
“Don’t swear in front of the customers,” Sam chides him.
“Like they give a fuck,” the boy mutters under his breath. He looks toward one of the booths with a wide smile. “Hi, Sally!”
I swivel the stool around to see an older woman waving at him cheerily. When I turn back to the counter, the boy is staring at me with frightening intensity.
And that’s when it hits me.
This is the boy. The boy who was with Noah at Kristen’s party.
“Why the hell is she here?” he asks.
I’m frozen in place. All I can do is stare back at him, my stomach in my throat.
“That’s Chelsea,” Sam explains. “She’s—”
“I know who she is,” he snaps. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me for a second. “I’m asking what she’s doing here.”
Oh, God. Oh, God, I might actually throw up. This is too much.
“Andy, come on. Be cool, okay?” Sam assures him. He puts his hand on Andy’s back and gives him a little shove. “Go ring up the customers. I just boxed their order. It’s cool.”
The look on Andy’s face tells me it is anything but cool. But after a lingering second he tears his piercing stare off me and moves to the register at the other end of the counter.
I gaze down at my open textbook, my eyes blurring with unshed tears. My breath comes out all shaky and uneven. I can’t even be justifiably upset at his reaction—Andy has every right to hate me. I’m fuzzy on some of the details, but when the cops interviewed me, they did say he was inside the convenience store when Warren and Joey pulled Noah out of that car.
If he’d been there—if he hadn’t gone inside—it could’ve just as easily been him. It could’ve been even worse.
I should leave. I should find a bathroom to throw up in. I should—
“Hey.” Sam throws a straw at me so I look up. His face is soft and serious. “Don’t worry about Andy. I’ll talk to him later. Explain things.”
Explain what, exactly? Nothing’s changed. Nothing will undo what I did. And how am I supposed to ever make that up to Andy? To Noah? To anyone?
Where do I even start?
* * *
Normally I would call it a night and duck and run, but I can’t find an opportunity to make a sly getaway when I keep catching Sam looking at me and when Asha walks by me every few minutes. Besides, I’m Asha’s ride home, and even I know stranding her here would be a shitty thing to do. So I stay, struggling through the first few problems of my geometry homework until I give up the pretense of understanding anything and start sketching out random outfit design ideas instead.
Asha, true to her word, spends her break sitting next to me and explaining how to graph parabolas.
“Since a is positive, it opens upward,” she says. “So you make the chart, then take the interval and plug the numbers into the equation.” She scribbles a few numbers in my notebook. “And all you have to do is solve for y, find the points and draw them in. See?”
This is her third attempt to explain this problem to me, and I’m only just starting to get it. I can’t believe how patient she is with me, considering she’s been running around here like a crazy person all night. When her shift ends, I hang back awkwardly as she goes to say goodbye to Sam, who is closing with Dex and Andy. Andy hasn’t even looked at me since our first interaction. That’s okay with me. It’s not like I have anything to say to him, either.
As we drive toward Asha’s house, she rolls her head back against the headrest and sighs. “Usually that wouldn’t be so rough,” she says. “But we’re pretty understaffed right now—” She stops and looks at me cautiously. “Sorry, I’m not trying to, you know, make you feel—”
I cut her off with a shake of my head to let her know that it’s okay. I know she’s not trying to make me feel guilty. It doesn’t matter. I still do.
“I really liked having you there. And not just for the transportation,” she says. She turns her head away from me, toward the window. “I don’t really have a lot of friends. Yeah, Sam is great—everyone I work with is, really—but at school, people think I’m… I don’t know. Weird, I guess. Most of the time I’m okay with that. But sometimes—it’s just, it’s nice, hanging out with you, is all.”