“No. If I had grandparents, I’d love to go visiting.” She felt a tiny sting at the confession. How often had she dreamed of going to Grandma’s, or meeting a cousin? She would have done almost anything to meet an honest-to-God relative.
“I’ll bet Angie would take you. She seemed pretty cool.”
Lauren thought about that. Was it possible? Could she ask Angie for that big a favor? “Yeah,” she said, just so David wouldn’t worry. “I’ll ask her.”
David’s remark stayed with Lauren all the rest of that day and into the next. She was unused to having someone of whom she could ask a favor. It would make her look vaguely pathetic, she knew, might even prompt questions about her mother. Normally that would be reason enough to just forget the whole thing and take the bus.
But Angie was different. She seemed to really care.
By the end of the week, Lauren still hadn’t made up her mind. On Friday, she worked hard, moving quickly from table to table, keeping the customers happy. Whenever she could, she caught a glimpse of Angie, tried to gauge how a request would be received, but Angie was a butterfly all night, flitting from place to place, talking to each patron. Twice Lauren had started to ask the question, but on both times, she’d lost her nerve and turned away abruptly.
“Okay,” Angie said as she was closing up the register for the night. “Spill the beans, kiddo.”
Lauren was filling the salt shakers. At the question she flinched. Salt went flying across the table.
“That’s bad luck,” Angie said. “Throw some salt over your left shoulder. Quick.”
Lauren pinched some salt between her thumb and forefinger and tossed it over her shoulder.
“Whew. That was close. We could have been struck by lightning. Now, what’s on your mind?”
“Mind?”
“That space between your ears. You’ve been staring at me all night, following me around. I know you, Lauren. You have something you want to say. You need Saturday night off? The new waitress is working out. I could spare you if you and David have a date.”
This was it. Now or never.
Lauren went back to her backpack and pulled out a flyer, which she handed to Angie.
“California schools … question-and-answer session … meet with representatives. Hmm.” Angie looked up. “They didn’t have any of this cool stuff when I was a kid. So you want Saturday off so you can go?”
“I-want-to-go-could-you-give-me-a-ride?” Lauren said it in a rush.
Angie frowned at her.
This had been a bad idea. Angie was giving her that poor Lauren, so pathetic look. “Never mind. I’ll just take the day off, okay?” Lauren reached down for her backpack.
“I like Portland,” Angie said.
Lauren looked up. “You do?”
“Sure.”
“You’ll take me?” Lauren said, almost afraid to believe it.
“Of course I’ll take you. And Lauren? Don’t be such a chicken next time. We’re friends. Doing favors for each other comes with the territory.”
Lauren was embarrassed by how much that meant to her. “Sure, Angie. Friends.”
The traffic from Vancouver to Portland was stop-and-go. It wasn’t until they were halfway across the bridge that connected Washington to Oregon that they realized why. This afternoon was the big UW–UO football game. The Huskies versus the Ducks. A rivalry that had gone on for years.
“We’re going to be late,” Angie said for at least the third time in the last twenty minutes. It was alarming how angry that made her. She’d undertaken the obligation to get Lauren to the appointment on time and now they were going to be late.
“Don’t worry about it, Angie. So we miss a few minutes. It’s hardly a trauma.”
Angie flicked on the turn signal and veered left onto their exit. Finally.
Once they were on the surface streets, the traffic eased. She zipped down one street and up the other, then pulled into an empty parking stall. “We’re here.” She looked at the dashboard clock. “Only seven minutes late. Let’s run.”
They raced across the parking lot and into the building.
The place was packed.
“Damn.” Angie started to walk down to the front. They could sit on the step if nothing else. Lauren grabbed her hand, led her to a seat in the back row.
On stage there were about fifteen people seated behind a long conference table. A moderator was facilitating a discussion of entrance requirements, school selectivity, in-state to out-of-state student ratios.
Lauren wrote down every word in her day planner.
Angie felt a strange sort of pride. If she’d had a daughter, she would have wanted her to be just like Lauren. Smart. Ambitious. Dedicated.
For the next hour, Angie listened to one statistic after the other. By the end of the presentation she knew one thing for sure: She wouldn’t have been accepted to UCLA these days. In her era, you’d needed to be breathing without a respirator and have a 3.0 grade point average. Now to get into Stanford you better have cured some disease or won the National Science Fair. Unless, of course, you were good at throwing leather balls. Then you needed a solid 1.7 grade point.