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Mick—droopy-lipped, dull-eyed, with a light, oily complexion and a buzzed head—pulls out an earbud “Huh?”

“Please, can you take that group’s order and handle them? I’ll take over dishes”

He gives one long look through the , confused “You want me to huh?”

“Theroup Can you be their server? C’mon, Mick”

He doesn’t close hisfor flies “I dunno how”

“Lord help us, you just take theive them menus, and find out what they want Please”

“Huh Okay” He pops out his other earbud, stuffs theh the kitchen door still wearing his sudsy apron I peer through the crack in the door, watching hi the four of my former friends to a booth in the back

Satisfied, I breathe a sigh of relief and take over doing dishes just as promised And in that soapy, lukeater, I let the rest of ravy off plates, until they’re just swirlingthe drain

But even in the kitchen, with the noise of , I hear the quartet’s shouts of laughter as they enjoy thean—maybe fro for in a week or so, since college classes start later than high school Then TJ’s distinctively clear and lofty voice proclai that sounds rather happy, and once done, it’s met with applause I have no idea what it is and I never will It has the intended effect ofme feel so damned lonely and worthless I’m ready to just break the rest of the dirty dishes, hurl the And even a full fortyfinally leave—and after only three mistakes and one totally botched order on account of Mick being a foggy-headed ding-dong—I still feel sulky

Eleven o’clock can’t come sooner

But then it does, and I finish upmoney in the back, and head out the door I stand on the curb and begrudgingly wait for my mom to pick me up, as planned Five minutes turn into ten, then twenty, and I take a seat on the curb, listening to the distant noise from a bar down the street and around the corner where the drunken adults of Spruce are all gathered I pull outfor not stopping by Biggie’s tonight She was apparently grounded for the weekend on account of what happened the first day of school, which is a bit of information she didn’t exactly disclose to me, but with dads as strict as hers, I am not surprised in the least

I’ure she is either late getting off frootten about me Either one is as much of a possibility

I pushtwenty-ht What’s the worst that can happen, right? It’s Spruce, Texas Spruce is safe, unless you count thein the dead of night at any lone passerby (That would beto fear

Still, after I leave the cohtly-lit Main Street, my heart rate speeds up With just the occasional dim streetlamp overhead, I carry on down the sidewalk, ht at the hint of a perceived footstep or rustling of grass I tuck hter under my arm as I pick up h and the street that stretches on to the suburbs where I live The high school is a creepy beast in the dark, only one single parking lot light spilling its whitish-yellow murk over an empty concrete desert The noise of crickets fills my ears as I hurry across the wide road, even in the obvious absence of any vehicles at all As I pass by the school, hts drift back to Vann and the way he looked athoill look in rehearsal, the day we have to kiss each other as Kingsley and Danny? Did the notion sicken him? Embarrass hiirls who auditioned as Danielle? I’d thought that at the very least Ms Joy would have read soether in a scene, to see if we had natural chemistry, or to see if we played well off each other Instead, she seemed to make a snap decision, and now here we are