All the Rage

After a while, Sarah Trainer and Norah Landers come in.

“This shirt looks awful on me. They should have different colors to pick from,” Norah says. Sarah makes a sympathetic sound. I peer through the crack in the door. “You think if I asked him, Brock would get me more Georgia Home Boy?”

Norah smirks, makes air quotes when she says Georgia Home Boy.

“He said that was just a Wake Lake thing.”

“But I’m having Trey over this weekend.”

Sarah laughs. “What, you planning to wine, dine, and date-rape him?”

“Fuck off. Wake Lake was amazing and if you hadn’t been too chicken shit to try it, you’d know it. All in the dosage.”

“That still didn’t answer my question.”

“Shut up. I’m going to ask him.”

“He’ll probably make you blow him for it.”

Norah considers it. “There are worse things.”

They inspect their reflections in the mirror and then they leave. I take my phone out of my pocket and search Georgia Home Boy.

Georgia Home Boy

Slang for Gamma Hydroxybutyrate (GHB) *

leon texts while I’m getting ready for work, lets me know he swapped shifts with Brent Walker and won’t be in tonight. I text BUT I’M OFF FOR THE WEEKEND like he doesn’t know after all the time we’ve worked together, I get the weekends off. & MONDAY FOR THE SEARCH PARTY.

It upsets me in a way I’m not proud of, but I don’t know why. Is it weak to want to see him? It can’t be wrong to want to see someone because you like the person you are when you’re around them. That’s probably one of the best reasons you could have.

At Swan’s, the air-conditioning plays tricks again, on and off, on and off. Every time we pass Tracey’s office, we hear her swearing about it through the door.

“You’re going to the search party on Monday?” Holly asks while I put on my apron. She fans her overheated face with her hands.

“How’d you know?”

“I’m picking up your shift.”

“Thanks.”

“Money for me.” She shrugs. “You think you’re going to find anything?”

My fingers fumble with the apron strings and I have to start the bow over. I fight with the question because I’ve barely thought about the searching, let alone any finding. It doesn’t really matter if I think we will but …

“We have to,” I say.

The night floats by, I float through it, trying to keep my head clear, trying not to think about things like Brock and GHB because I don’t want to think about it. I can’t.

I can’t think about it.

Leon not being here makes that hard.

I do a quick check on the pain-in-the-ass family I’ve been looking after for most of my shift. They’re on their way to something they think I should care about but they’re running late and it’s my fault. Their twin boy toddlers smile at me, making grabby hands at everything they can hold. Their parents don’t smile. They scowl when it takes me five minutes to bring out their drinks, even though it took them over twenty minutes to order them in the first place. The food doesn’t get cooked fast enough for their liking. When I clear their table and get the bill, they write MEAL TIME SENSITIVE, SERVICE TOO SLOW—NO AC!!!!!! on the tip line.

After they leave, the air conditioner rattles on. I turn my back on the diner a minute, enjoying the cool of it, and when I face the room again there’s someone familiar in one of my booths.

Caro.

“Third trimester sucks,” she declares when I reach her. Her hand rests on her stomach and I wonder why pregnant women do that. If it’s out of instinct. Or if it’s out of awe. If it’s out of some need for assurance that the baby is still there. Or maybe they do it because they think they’re supposed to. She smiles at me in the same nice way she did at her place and it puts that night in my head. I feel instantly stupid about it, as if it was happening all over again right now.

“What brings you here?” I ask.

“I used to come in all the time when I was in high school. Sit in a corner booth and be by myself. I got nostalgic.”

“Leon’s not here today.”

“I know. He’s not why I came,” she says. “I’m hungry.”

I take her order, a burger with extra cheese and bacon and caramelized onions on a toasted bun with a side order of fries. She wants to wash it down with a glass of ice covered in a splash of Coke and asks, “Is the air-conditioning on? I’m going to boil my baby.”

“It’s been on and off all day,” I say. “But it’s on now. I can make your order to go, if it’s going to be a problem for you and the…”

“It was a joke, Romy,” she says. “Except I can’t believe Tracey still hasn’t gotten around to fixing it. It’s been broken since I was in high school too.”

“Oh.” I am so awkward.

Her expression turns serious. “Leon said you knew the missing girl, Penny Young. How are you doing?”

There’s so much in everything she’s just said, I don’t know where to start. If Leon told Caro about it—that means they were talking about me. It’s so hard for me to wrap my head around that, them, together, talking about me, like I’m something worth talking about. It flusters me enough to say, “I’m fine. Are you?” Because I guess I’m destined to be stupid around Caro.

She gives me a puzzled look. “Yeah, besides starving.”

“Right.” I walk to the kitchen, my face burning. I put the order in and get the Coke, filling it with as much ice as the glass will hold and by the time I’ve walked it back out to her, she’s playing with her phone and I have another table waiting on me.

“I’ll be back out with your order soon,” I say.

“Thanks, Romy.” She glances out the window at the parched parking lot full of cars and a few semis. The heat turns the air above the pavement all wavy. “It needs to rain.”