She holds up her left hand. There’s a blue Ring Pop on her middle finger.
I put on an appalled face and point a finger accusingly. “How dare you taint this hallowed ground with corn syrup and artificial dyes! Sacrilege!”
She laughs. “What can I say, I’m a rebel. You wanna take a break?”
I laugh too, a little. “I only get a fifteen, and I haven’t even been here an hour yet. I try to go as long as possible before going on break, ’cause then the second part of my shift goes by quicker.”
“Crafty.”
I tap my temple. “Yep.”
“Well, I get a fifteen and a forty-five, so come find me when you want to go on break.”
“Um. Okay.”
“Um. Okay,” she mimics and skips off down the aisle with all the random stuff that doesn’t have a logical home—the paper plates, the dog food, the colanders.
I straighten a few bags of frozen veggies before moving on to the next door. I probably should have said no. I don’t know why I didn’t. My break at work is the one tiny sliver of my day where I don’t have to do anything.
But Joni’s cool. She’s easy to talk to. I get the sense that she’s not into guys, so there’s no chance of being anything more than friends.
And the best part is, she doesn’t know anything about me.
? ? ?
A couple of hours later, I go in search of Joni and find her working register fourteen. I wave from my safe space, off to the side, away from the never-ending checkout line, and she turns off her light.
“Follow me,” she says as she makes her way over to me.
I trail her through the store. When we get to the deli, she punches a code into a door I’ve never been through before and holds it open. I walk through to find that we’re in the employees-only section behind the deli counter. There’s a little corridor with a few turnoffs—the one closest to the door is where the deli guys stand to talk to the customers over the counter.
“Hey, Julio,” Joni says to the guy at the meat slicer. “?Cómo estás?”
“Hola, Joni.” He says her name like ho-ni. “My daughter drew you a picture. I left it in the back for you.”
“Awesome! ?Gracias!”
We keep walking down the hall, past doors marked “Refrigeration. Keep closed at all times,” and wind up in a little break room. It’s empty and spotless. The main break room on the other side of the store is rarely empty, and it’s never this clean. There are about a million employees at this place, and I’ve never seen anyone wipe down the tables or clean out the microwave. There’s a child’s drawing on the table: a beige piece of construction paper with what I’m pretty sure are fish swimming around under the ocean. To Joney, it reads in wobbly black crayon. From Annalisa.
Joni picks it up and smiles. “Aww. Sweet kid.” She gestures to the empty chairs. “Have a seat.” She pulls two long, oval-shaped things wrapped in white paper out of the fridge and tosses me one.
“What is this?”
“It’s a sandwich, dummy.”
“Where did it come from?”
“The deli. Those guys love me.”
Okay, I’m really confused. “Haven’t you only been working here for a few days?”
“You can make friends in way less than a few days, Mr. Ryden Whatever-Your-Name-Is.”
Joni bites into her hero. A glob of mustard squirts out onto her chin. Rather than using a napkin to wipe it away, she tries to lick it off. I laugh as she squints and strains her tongue to try to reach the spot. It doesn’t work, obviously, so eventually she uses her sandwich to wipe it off and then licks the glob off the bread.
“That is disgusting,” I say.
She just grins and takes another bite.
I dig into my sandwich too. It’s Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and olives. Not what I would have chosen, but I only have a few minutes left of my break and I’m suddenly starving.
“Tell me something about yourself,” Joni says.
I swallow the bite of hero in an attempt to force down the lump that’s risen in my throat. “What do you want to know?”
She shrugs. “I dunno, basic stuff.”
Basic stuff I can do. “All right, shoot.”
“How did you get this?” She points to the thin scar that cuts through my left eyebrow.
My stomach twists, and I shake my head. I’ve never told anyone that story—not even Meg. At the time, it was her scars that were more important. In particular the one on the back of her thigh, where they extracted a big chunk of skin and tissue around her cancerous mole. “More basic.”
“More basic than that?”
“Yup.”
She sighs. “Okay. What’s your last name?”
“Brooks. What’s yours?”
“Ríos. How old are you?”
“Seventeen. You?”
“Seventeen.”
That surprises me. I thought she was older for some reason. “When’s your birthday?” I ask.
“March 6. You?”
“March 6!”
Joni’s eyes get huge and she sits up straighter in her seat. “Are you serious?!”
I burst out laughing. “No. It’s actually January 13. That would have been crazy though, right?”