Food was the last thing I wanted. But somehow, I asked for my usual scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Luke got a bacon and egg biscuit, like always. Even when nothing was normal, breakfast apparently did not change.
Once the waitress was gone, neither of us said anything for a while, instead just sitting there as the sounds of the restaurant—forks clinking against plates, other conversations from the tables and counter customers, the door chime sounding again—filled the air around us. Finally, I said, “So what now? We break up?”
“I don’t know.” He picked at his napkin, fraying the edge. “Maybe we just spend a little time apart, to think.”
“God, that is such a cliché.” I shook my head, looking out at the water again. “Next you’ll be saying that it’s not me, it’s you.”
He sighed, letting this pass without comment. “Look. We’ve been together since ninth grade, Emaline. We go to college in a few weeks. I just wonder if, you know, this is happening for a reason. Like maybe we both were missing out on something.”
“Like a date with some tourist at Tallyho?” I asked. “Oh, no, wait. You did that already.”
He shot me a look. “Fine. You don’t have to agree with me. But I bet, if you think about it, you might actually get what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, glancing outside again. Just another Friday, or so it would seem from the outside. But down deeper, something I’d seen as solid—not perfect, but solid—was suddenly crumbling. I felt like I was falling to pieces right along with it. “I don’t need to get anything, Luke. You did this.”
He didn’t say anything. But I could feel him watching me, that heaviness of someone’s scrutiny, as I focused solely on a sea tern outside, floating above the boardwalk. Its wings were outstretched as it rode the breeze, up and down, up and down.
“I’m sorry,” I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn’t eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all.
9
I SHOWED UP at work a half hour later with a small plastic take-out box, Luke’s uneaten biscuit wrapped up inside. I’d tried to just leave it, but the waitress, for whatever reason, was determined that I bring it with me.
“They actually keep pretty well, if you stick them in the fridge,” she explained as she folded a piece of wax paper carefully around it. “When you’re ready to eat it, microwave it on low for, like, thirty seconds only.”
I nodded. This must be what shock feels like, I thought, as I paid, tipped her, then carried the box to my car. I passed three garbage cans on the way, and told myself at each one I should toss it in. But I didn’t. Like that box held the last little piece of what was normal, and I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.
Once at the office, I put on my busy face and headed inside, intending to go straight to the back storage room to get the towels and whatever else needed delivering to clients who had requested them. Then I saw everyone gathered in the conference room. It was Friday at nine a.m., which meant another one of Margo’s mandatory meetings. Crap.
“So nice of you to join us, Emaline,” she said as I came in. “Did you bring food for everyone, or just you?”
I ignored this, taking a seat next to my mom, who was busy typing something on her phone, her morning Mountain Dew from the Gas/Gro on the table beside her.
“Well, I guess we can start now,” Margo said, shuffling some papers in front of her.
“What about Mrs. Merritt?” Rebecca asked. Despite having been with us only six months, even she knew any meeting was useless without my grandmother, who, despite Margo’s posturing, was the real boss here.
“I have a printed agenda that will catch her up,” Margo replied, passing the stack of papers over to my mom, who was still busy with her phone. They sat there on the table, untouched, until my sister finally picked them up again, handing them out to us one by one with a bit too much gusto. “All right. Let’s start with item one. Staff food storage and rules.”
My mom finally put down her phone, then nodded hello to me. I nodded back, very aware of her looking at the take-out box, my face, then the box again. I concentrated on the stupid agenda, not wanting to risk full eye contact.
Margo cleared her throat. “It has come to my attention that certain employees are not showing the proper respect for other people’s foodstuffs.”
“Foodwhat?” Rebecca asked.
“All drinks, snacks, and lunches in the office kitchen area brought from home,” Margo replied. “As I’ve reminded everyone here multiple times, they should be labeled with the owner’s name, to be removed and/or consumed by that person only.”
My mom sighed. “Is this about your coconut juice?”
“It’s coconut water, Mother, and no, it isn’t,” my sister snapped. “It’s about the simple concept of respect for other people’s property.”
“What happened?” I asked.