Here’s me, sunk down in the seat like a total loser, trying to hide, breathing a sigh of relief when we start rolling again. “Yeah,” I say, totally miserable. “Do you?”
Three
Trey smiles. “Nah. That urban underground thing he’s got going on is nice, and of course I’m fond of the, ah, Mediterranean complexion, but I’ve been over him for a while. He’s too young for me. You can have him.”
I laugh. “Yeah, right. Dad will love that. Maybe me hooking up with an Angotti will be the thing that puts him over the edge.” I don’t mention that Sawyer won’t even look at me these days, so the chance of me “having” Sawyer is zero.
Sawyer Angotti is not the kind of guy most people would say is hot, but Trey and I have the same taste in men, which is sometimes convenient and sometimes a pain in the ass. Sawyer has this street casual look where he could totally be a clothes model, but if he ever told people he was one, they’d be like, “Seriously? No way.” Because his most attractive features are so subtle, you know? At first glance he’s really ordinary, but if you study him . . . big sigh. His vulnerable smile is what gets me—not the charming one he uses on teachers and girls and probably customers, too. I mean the warm, crooked smile that doesn’t come out unless he’s feeling shy or self-conscious. That one makes my stomach flip. Because for the most part, he’s tough-guy metro, if such a thing exists. Arms crossed and eyebrow raised, constantly questioning the world. But I’ve seen his other side a million times. I’ve been in love with him since we played plastic cheetahs and bears together at indoor recess in first grade.
How was I supposed to know back then that Sawyer was the enemy? I didn’t even know his last name. And I didn’t know about the family rivalry. But the way my father interrogated me after they went to my first parent-teacher conference and found out that I “played well with others” and “had a nice friend in Sawyer Angotti,” you’d have thought I’d given away great-grandfather’s last weapon to the enemy. Trey says that was right around the time Dad really started acting weird.
All I knew was that I wasn’t allowed to play cheetahs and bears with Sawyer anymore. I wasn’t even supposed to talk to him.
But I still did, and he still did, and we would meet under the slide and trade suckers from the candy jar each of our restaurants had by the cash register. I would bring him grape, and he always brought me butterscotch, which we never had in our restaurant. I’d do anything to get Sawyer Angotti to give me a butterscotch sucker again.
I have a notebook from sixth grade that has nine pages filled with embarrassing and overdramatic phrases like “I pine for Sawyer Angotti” and “JuleSawyer forever.” I even made an S logo for our conjoined names in that one. Too bad it looks more like a cross between a dollar sign and an ampersand. I’d dream about us getting secretly married and never telling our parents.
And back then I’d moon around in my room after Rowan was asleep, pretending my pillow was Sawyer. Me and my Sawyer pillow would lie down on my bed, facing one another, and I’d imagine us in Bulger Park on a blanket, ignoring the tree frogs and pigeons and little crying kids. I’d touch his cheek and push his hair back, and he’d look at me with his gorgeous green eyes and that crooked, shy grin of his, and then he’d lean toward me and we’d both hold our breath without realizing it, and his lips would touch mine, and then . . . He’d be my first kiss, which I’d never forget. And no matter how much our parents tried to keep us apart, he’d never break my heart.
Oh, sigh.
But then, on the day before seventh grade started, when it was time to visit school to check out classes and get our books, his father was there with him, and my father was there with me, and I did something terrible.
Without thinking, I smiled and waved at my friend, and he smiled back, and I bit my lip because of love and delight after not seeing him for the whole summer . . . and his father saw me. He frowned, looked up at my father, scowled, and then grabbed Sawyer’s arm and pulled him away, giving my father one last heated glance. My father grumbled all the way home, issuing half-sentence threats under his breath.
And that was the end of that.
I don’t know what his father said or did to him that day, but by the next day, Sawyer Angotti was no longer my friend. Whoever said seventh grade is the worst year of your life was right. Sawyer turned our friendship off like a faucet, but I can’t help it—my faucet of love has a really bad leak.
• • •
Trey parks the truck as close to the Field Museum as our permit allows, figuring since the weather is actually sunny and not too freezing and windy, people might prefer to grab a quick meal from a food truck instead of eating the overpriced generic stuff inside the tourist trap.
Before we open the window for business, we set up. Trey checks the meat sauce while I grate fresh mozzarella into tiny, easily meltable nubs. It’s a simple operation—our winter truck specialty is an Italian bread bowl with spicy mini meatballs, sauce, and cheese. The truth is it’s delicious, even though I’m sick to death of them.
We also serve our pizza by the slice, and we’re talking deep-dish Chicago-style, not that thin crap that Angotti’s serves. Authentic, authschmentic. The tourists want the hearty, crusty, saucy stuff with slices of sausage the diameter of my bicep and bubbling cheese that stretches the length of your forearm. That’s what we’ve got, and it’s amazing.