“Do we have time for another game?” she asks. I can’t believe she actually likes it.
“The pizza only takes about ten minutes.”
She peppers me with questions about school, which I’m happy to answer, but which also sink like lead into my heart. Once school starts, this all ends.
When the oven timer goes off, I paddle the pie out of the oven and place it before her. Her eyes widen and she licks her lips.
“Two more minutes,” I tease. “We have to let it settle.”
She groans, but waits patiently. I eventually cut the pizza and plate a slice for each of us.
“Utensils?” I ask, and she scoffs at me and sinks her teeth into her pizza.
“It’s a pumpkin base with manchego cheese,” I tell her, “and—”
“This is amazing!” she says, eyes alight, jaw working. “This is incredible!”
“Nah. I mean, I didn’t even puree my own pumpkin. It’s out of a can.”
“Sebastian! This is phenomenal!” She chokes as she tries to chew, swallow, and talk all at the same time. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. Ever. You could sell this.”
“What, invite people over to my house and cook for them? Yeah, right.”
“No, you idiot. Like, in a restaurant. Or in stores.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And besides, it’s not that good. It’s just pizza.”
“You minimize,” she says. “That’s what you do. You minimize. I say something nice about you and you contort yourself into a pretzel shape to find a way to make it meaningless.”
“Some pretzels are just straight sticks.”
“Add evasive to the list of your character flaws,” she says, taking another slice. “Seriously uncool. And rude.”
I start to say I’m sorry, but I know how she feels about that. Instead, I nod and grit my teeth and then say, “You’re right.”
She blinks, the slice halfway to her mouth. “I am?”
“Yeah. I minimize. I evade. You’re totally right. I shouldn’t do that. So, how am I going to sell this stuff?”
“Really? You’re serious?”
“Aren’t you?” I counter. “You’re the one who put the idea in my head. You have to help me. You’re honor bound. Or something.” And then I hit her with the finishing blow: “Or were you lying when you said it was good enough to sell?”
“I wasn’t lying!” she says hotly. “I don’t lie. Especially to my friends.”
“Okay. Then what’s our next step? We’re now Sebastian’s Pies, Inc. I’m CEO and head chef. You’re…”
“Taste tester and head of marketing.”
“Sounds good.”
So now we stare at each other and chew. “Well?” I ask after a while.
“I’m thinking,” she says. “I’m trying to think, but this stuff is making my brain go wacky. My taste buds are commandeering my medulla oblongata. Or something.”
Aneesa checks her phone to find messages from her mother. She washes her hands, thanks me for the pizza, and says, “You really could sell it,” again before leaving.
As I clean up the kitchen and wrap Mom’s pizza in foil, I think of the look on Aneesa’s face when she first bit into the pizza, the sheer unexpectedness, the sheer joy, the delight. It’s crazy to think that I’ve known her for not even a whole summer and today was as much fun, if not more, than I’ve ever had with Evan, even on our Epic Saturdays.
I don’t know how to quantify the way I am around her, the person I am. When I’m with her, I feel hope. Possibility. It clings to me like a scent.
Is this what love feels like? I’ve never felt it before, and I’ve never felt this before, so maybe they’re the same.
I could stay, maybe. For her, yes. I could stay.
You could sell this stuff. Not at all. Not at all. But it was fun to think about it. Fun to pretend. Fun to have someone who—for a little while—cared as much as I do.
Later. Asleep. Beeping. Wake up. Blurry dark. Shake head. Rub eyes. Still beeping. Clock? Can’t see. Rub eyes again. Clock: half past midnight. Evan. Gotta be Evan texting. Sometimes loses track of time.
Waking up now. My phone bleats again.
Young Leaders live in a whole different time zone from We of the Proletariat.
I grab the phone and twist it right side up so that I can read the screen. The incoming text isn’t from Evan; it’s from Aneesa.
It’s one word. I take a moment to read it a second time, to make sure I understand. But I don’t understand.
Rather, I understand the word, but not why Aneesa is texting it to me at this hour.
The word is YouTube.
Maybe that’s two words.
Me: ?
Aneesa: YouTube!
Aneesa: YouTube!!!
Aneesa: You! Tube!
Me: Quoting myself: “?”
Aneesa: YouTube is how we get sebastian’s pies started!!! You start your own channel where you make a pizza. A different one each time.
Aneesa: And people tune in to see how Aneesa: Like once a week. Your own cooking channel!!!
Aneesa: And then you get advertisers and you make a million dollars and you give half of it to me because it was my idea Me: U r nuts. No one wants to watch me make pizza Aneesa: No, U r nuts! people watch all kinds of stuff on YouTube like the makeup girl and unboxing videos and video gamers and stuff like that Aneesa: Trust me!!!
Before I respond, the chat bubble scrolls up, replaced by a new one loaded with more emoji than I’ve ever seen in one place at one time. There are multiple pizzas, hands clasped in prayer (or perhaps begging), a white boy’s face grinning, a brown girl’s face alight with surprise, more pizza, a computer screen, and then a dollar sign followed by the symbols for euros, British pounds, Japanese yen, and what I can only assume to be four to five other foreign currencies, after which I believe she merely ran her fingers across the emoji keyboard because I don’t know what the symbols for—among others—poop, a haircut, a shoe, and a trumpet have to do with making pizza online.
Me: I’ll think about it.
Aneesa: Nothing to think about Me: It’s late. I’m tired.
Aneesa: Dream of success!!!
I dream of nothing.
In the morning, though, I’m convinced the late-night text interlude was nothing more than a dream itself, until I look at my phone and scroll the evidence.
In the cold light of day, what seemed like a moderately ridiculous notion has become…
… surprisingly…
… possible.
“No,” Mom says when I broach the topic at breakfast. It’s Saturday and she’s home and I’ve emerged from my room for a rare morning meal with her, a token of affection that I thought might sway her to my side, but instead she favors me with a withering, exasperated look and says, again, “No.”
“But, Mom—”
“No. Did you not understand the first two times?” She stabs at her omelet; it bleeds melted cheddar. “I want you to do something productive with your time. Not have fun with your friends goofing off online.”
“It’s not goofing off! It’s a business!”