I shifted my weight onto my left foot, easing over as imperceptibly as I could. Just move your arm, Grandma . . .
That’s when I saw her, sulking in the line for the Caribou kiosk about twenty feet past the entrance to the food court: Jessie Florenzano.
. . . and her mom, waving cheerily at me like I wasn’t the last person Jessie wanted to see, especially with her mom in tow. Jessie had been embarrassed by her even before our friendship imploded.
Jessie raised an eyebrow as though she could smell what I was doing. I dropped the phone down to my side and waved back. Jessie rolled her eyes and turned her back on me. I could see her whispering sharply to her mom, who smiled apologetically, then turned to Jessie, frowning. There were very few people I’d rather see less than Jessie, anywhere, ever, but I kind of loved that her mom still automatically acted friendly, four years after Jessie had sliced me out of her life.
I turned back. Grandma was laughing and nudging her husband’s arm.
“You know how I love pickles!”
Ew. Not the mental image I needed before eating.
Kyle smiled and tapped at the register. If I moved my arm a couple more inches . . . but not too far. He couldn’t know what was happening, and Jessie couldn’t guess; it would be way too mortifying. He tapped his fingers on the counter in a rat-a-tat rhythm as the old lady dug through her wallet.
He was perfectly lined up in the frame, the last traces of a smile lingering on his smooth cheeks.
I glanced over at Jessie. She was resolutely pretending I didn’t exist. There was never going to be a better time.
Click.
He looked toward me for a second. Crap, I was totally caught. I could feel my cheeks burning, betraying me. My breath caught somewhere around my sternum and stopped there, trapped.
But then he smiled and turned back to the customer, taking her pile of ones and quarters.
I exhaled, trying not to grin. I cropped the photo, typing in Mo’s Flit handle so she’d see it. This was even better than a German shepherd with a tie.
“It’s Rachel, right?”
I looked up, startled. The old couple had moved away to wait for their order, and Kyle was staring at me expectantly. I checked over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone else. Like the Burger Barn only served Rachels or something? But I was the only person in line.
“Um, yeah.” I felt my face going hot again. “Rachel. That’s me.” Oh god, I sounded like the worst kind of stupid. Quickly, I clicked to make my screen go dark.
He pointed at himself.
“Kyle.”
I just stared, totally incapable of forming words.
“We’re in Creative Writing together? Fifth period?”
As though I hadn’t spent every day of the three weeks since school started thanking all the gods for that fact.
“Right,” I said, trying to sound like a girl who didn’t eye-assault him daily. “You sit in the back, right?”
“Yeah! So Jenkins won’t call on me too much. I’m not as good as you are at that stuff.”
“I’m not that good,” I said automatically, looking down at the counter. Someone had made a ketchupy fingerprint to the right of the register. Like a cheeseburger crime scene. I couldn’t believe he knew who I was. The semester had barely started, and I wasn’t even his year. Not only that, he had an opinion about me. A nice one.
“No, you are. That story of yours that Jenkins read yesterday was . . . well it was really weird, but, like, in a cool way,” he said.
“Oh. Um, thanks.” All my words were melting, puddling around my feet in a big sloppy jumble, too liquid-slippery for me to get a grip on. The story had been about a computer that got a weird virus that convinced the machine it was actually the ghost of Queen Elizabeth I. He’d already summed it up: It was weird. I was weird. I could feel my armpits stinging with sweat.
“Anyway, what can I get you, Rachel from writing class?” he said.
You, shirtless, on a stallion?
“Um . . . what do you mean?”
“To eat?” He frowned. It made his nose wrinkle upward, like it was tethered to his forehead. I was so flustered about him knowing my name that I’d forgotten where we were—in line, at his job. He was being nice because he worked service. For god’s sake, he flirted with the elderly. Even more blood rushed into my cheeks. If you poked them with a pin they’d probably burst everywhere. Like that scene in The Shining all over the Apple Prairie Mall food court.
“Oh, duh. Sorry, my blood sugar must be really low,” I said. That’s always Monique’s excuse when she gets ditzy or snippy. “I was thinking, um, french fries?”
“Small?”