As a shorthand, it had long ago made the jump from the restaurant setting to everyday use. It was what I thought the night I walked into our old kitchen and found both my parents home during the restaurant rush, sitting and waiting for me, their expressions grim. What I doodled on a yellow legal pad in any number of lawyer’s conference rooms as the tugof-war over my custody raged on around me. And what I always thought in that too-long pause between when I shared something with my mother I knew she wouldn’t like and the moment she freaked out about it.
Even though it had been three days since my HiThere! chat with Peter, I still hadn’t told my dad about seeing my mom that weekend. It was just too weird and awkward on so many levels that I decided to push it out of my mind until I absolutely had no choice but to deal with it. Which was not easy, as all around me the town was gearing up for the game. I’d forgotten what it was like to live in a basketball-crazed place. Just about everyone I saw had on a U sweatshirt or T-shirt, the local stations were covering every detail of the lead-up to tip-off like it was a national news event, and light blue U flags flew from porches and whizzed past on car antennas. The only place the game wasn’t discussed was at our house, where my dad and I had avoided the subject like a live land mine. Until now, when my phone beeped again.
LATE LUNCH? my dad had written. NOT HERE, PROMISE.
I bit my lip, my fingers poised to respond. What I had to say, though, seemed entirely too delicate to convey via keypad. So after a shower and some breakfast, I walked up to Luna Blu to tell him in person.
I’d just spped off the curb to cross the street when I heard a door shut. When I glanced back, there was Dave Wade, in jeans and a flannel shirt, sliding his keys into his pocket as he started down the street just a few feet behind me. I thought of what Riley had said, that he might like me, and suddenly felt self-conscious. Today was complicated enough, and it was not even noon yet. I nodded at him and kept walking.
When I crossed the street, though, he did the same. And when I turned down the Luna Blu alley, he did that, too. I slowed my pace as I got closer to the kitchen entrance, waiting for him to pass me and continue on to the street. He didn’t. In fact, within moments he was right behind me, having slowed down as well.
Finally, I turned around. “Are you following me?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“You just walked, like, two feet behind me the entire way here.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “but I’m not following you.”
I just looked at him. “What would you call it, then?”
“Coincidence,” he proclaimed. “We’re just headed in the same direction.”
“Where are you going?”
“Here,” he said, pointing at the kitchen door.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not?”
Suddenly, the door swung open, and there was Opal, wearing jeans, shiny black shoes, and a white sweater, a coffee cup in one hand. “Please tell me,” she said to Dave, skipping any greeting, “that you are here for the community project.”
“Yep,” he replied. Then he shot me a look that could only be described as smug. “I am.”
“Oh, thank God.” Opal pushed the door open farther and he stepped through. Then she said to me, “You saw all the people here the other day. I had tons! And now, today, when the local paper and freaking Lindsay Baker are coming in twenty minutes, no one. Not a single person!”
She was still holding the door, so I stepped inside behind Dave, who was standing there awaiting instruction. Opal let the door bang shut, then hurried around him and started down the hallway to the restaurant, still talking.
“Plus the walk-in conked out at some point last night, so we lost half our meat and all of the fish. On the day of the Defriese game! The repairman can’t get here until this afternoon and he’ll charge double overtime, and all the suppliers are totally out of everything because everyone else ordered so big for game day.”
That explained my dad’s text, at least. Sure enough, as we passed the main door to the kitchen, I could see him in the walk-in, poking at something with a screwdriver. Jason the prep cook was standing behind him with a toolbox, like a nurse handing off instruments during surgery. It was not the time to interrupt—you never wanted to bug anyone when they were doing hardware repair on old kitchen equipment—so I continued following Opal and Dave through the restaurant and to the stairs that led to the attic.
“The last thing I was worried about,” Opal was saying now as she started up the stairs, “was not having enough delinquents for this freaking photo op.” She stopped, suddenly, both walking and talking, and turned back to look at Dave. “Oh. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to call you—”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Kind of comes with the community-service requirement.”
She smiled, relieved, and turned back around. “Seriously, though. I had such a turnout on Wednesday, and now today nobody shows up? I don’t get it.”
“Did you sign their sheets?” Dave asked her.
Opal paused. “Yeah, I did.”
“Oh.”
She looked back again. “Why?”
“Well,” he said, “it’s just that I’ve heard that once some people get a signature, it’s easy to just copy it. The court office is usually too busy to do more than double-check the name matches.”
Opal looked appalled. “But that’s so wrong!”
Dave shrugged. “They are delinquents.”