Bittersweet Page 4

  Josh’s smile fades. Despite the icy fingers of the lake, my neck is hot and itchy under the wool scarf. I lean forward on my toe pick and take a step toward the edge, but the wind hits me again, throwing me off balance. My feet skid, skates connecting with Josh’s in a clash of metal.

  For the second time in five minutes, the two of us are laid out like a car wreck, that dumb seagull and his motley friends whooping it up on the ice around us.

  Stupid birds. Don’t you know it’s winter?

  “Okay, the first crash was my fault,” Josh says, standing and pulling me to my feet. “But this one was all you. Think you’re okay to work?”

  “No choice. Time to frost the cupcakes.” Time to frost the cupcakes? Concussion confirmed. No way I’d say something like that to the hockey boy without some sort of head injury. I’ve got to get out of here.

  “Cupcakes, huh?” Josh nods appreciatively. “Okay. But I’m walking you out.”

  “You just got here. You should stay and skate.” I check out his scuffed black hockey skates. They’re not new, but they’re definitely good quality. Sturdy. Probably fast. “At least until the storm hits.”

  “Nah. I’ve had enough crashing and burning for one day. Besides, someone has to look out for you, Avery. You’re dangerous.”

  My breath catches in my chest and my heart speeds up again, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He just smiles and puts his arm around me, one hand on my elbow as he guides me off the ice. He trades his skates for boots and I follow suit, slipping rubber guards onto my blades and wrapping them safely in a plastic Fresh ’n’ Fast bag in my backpack.

  We walk together over a stomped-down opening in the fence, past Fillmore’s infamous Graveyard of Signs, every one scrawled with blue graffiti and bent like a broken cornstalk. FALLOUT SHELTER—IN CASE OF NUCLEAR EMERGENCY, USE BRYANT STREET ENTRANCE. HARD HAT AREA—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. COMPROMISED STRUCTURE—BEWARE OF FALLING DEBRIS. CONDEMNED PROPERTY—DO NOT ENTER. NO TRESPASSING—VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. When we reach the end near the parking lot, there’s a lone car parked under another sign: LOT B—OVERNIGHT EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  “Need a ride?” Josh digs the keys from his pocket. His breath fogs as he waits for my response, soft and even like the plume of a distant train.

  I don’t have my finger on the pulse of Watonka High’s gossip network, but I try to recall everything I’ve ever heard about him. Co-captain of the Watonka Wolves. Moved here last year from Ohio or Chicago or some other lake-effect place that ends in an o. Hangs out with the other guys on the team and their various rotating “hockey wives,” though I don’t think he has a girlfriend—at least not from our school.

  “It’s not far,” I say. “I like the walk. Besides, if my mother sees me in a car with a strange boy … not that you’re strange or anything. And not that there’s anything wrong with riding in a car with you. It’s just …” Brain to mouth! Must! Stop! Moving!

  “Nah, I hear you.” Josh smiles and unlocks the car.

  I sling my bag over my shoulder and press my hand against my jacket, the foundation letter crinkling softly inside, reminding me of its presence. “Sorry if I ruined your ice time today.”

  “You didn’t. Actually, it was kind of cool … um … running into you.”

  “I’m not usually so clumsy out there,” I say quickly. “I mean, I just didn’t see—”

  “I know.” He’s still smiling at me, but not in a teasing way. It’s almost self-conscious, like he’s trying to be calm and collected, but he just can’t help that smile. Which, of course, makes it that much more adorable and—

  “So, see you around?” he asks.

  “Definitely. I mean, yes. Okay. Um, bye.” I turn away before any more stupid comes out of me.

  Josh warms up his car as I jog up to the main road, skates bouncing lightly against my back. The sound reminds me of Lola on that first night, eyes dark and serious as she whacked her gloves against her hip, again and again and again.

  You gotta want it, kiddo. Really want it.

  I turn back toward the car. It’s close behind me now, tires crunching over the snow. Josh pulls up next to me and lowers the window.

  “Watch your step, Avery,” he says, easing onto the road. “Slippery out there.”

  I raise my eyebrows and give him a half smile. “That’s good advice, Blackthorn.”

  “Winter in Watonka, right?” He waves and glides down the slick street, break lights flashing at the stop sign. I walk backward in the opposite direction and watch until his taillights disappear around the corner, my boots slipping in the slush only once, all the way back to Hurley’s.

  Chapter Three

  No One Wants to Kiss a Girl Who Smells Like Bacon, So I Might as Well Get Fat Cupcakes

  Double-chocolate cupcakes served warm in a sugar-butter reduction; piped with icing braids of peanut butter, cream cheese, and fudge; and sprinkled with chocolate chips

  Saturday breakfast is in full swing when I get back, bacon popping on Trick’s grill like cholesterol was just recategorized as an essential nutrient by the food pyramid people. If I don’t already smell, T minus ten minutes to maximum porkaliciousness.

  “There’s my girl,” Trick says as I throw my stuff into the staff closet and change into my kitchen sneakers. “Thought you went out lookin’ for a new man.”

  “Nah. You know you’re the only man in my life.” I laugh, but it’s basically true, and not in a dirty-old-man way, either.

  Trick smiles from beneath his Buffalo Sabres cap, dark brown skin crinkling around his eyes. “Hey, take that box in the office for your brother tonight. I found a bunch of computer parts for his school thing—he left before I could tell him.”

  “It’s not for school.” I wash my hands and dig out my frosting gear. “He’s building a robot playmate. Says he—”

  “Finally!” Dani pushes through the kitchen doors and sticks an order ticket into the strip over the grill. The top of her retro lavender Hurley Girl dress is splattered with the morning’s sludge. “You’re never that long on break. Where’ve you been?”

  “Nowhere.” I tie a semi-clean apron around my waist and look at Trick. His back is turned for the moment, but his ears have multidirectional sonar capability and his mouth is even bigger than his heart.

  “All right,” she says, taking the hint. “Get started on those cupcakes while I do a flyby on my tables. Smoke break in fifteen?”

  I nod. We don’t smoke, but we break. It’s all very complicated.

  Fifteen minutes later we’re out in the trash alcove otherwise known as the smoking lounge, warming our hands in the heat leaking through the propped-open back door.

  She stamps her feet to chase away the ice-blue air. “Spill it,” she says. “Quick. My equatorial ass can’t handle this cold.”

  “I ran into Josh Blackthorn from school. We sort of …” Pow! I slam my palms together like Josh did earlier, imitating our crash.

  “Hold up—you did it? With the hockey captain? On your break? What the—”

  “No! We crashed on the ice at Fillmore. I was skating. Fully clothed. Besides, I totally reek.” I pull my red-blond ponytail across my face for a whiff. “No one wants to do it with a chick who smells like bacon.”

  Her brow creases. “Everybody loves bacon.”

  “Not as a signature scent.”

  “True, but some people—wait. You went skating with Josh Blackthorn?”

  I play with the zipper on my jacket, yanking it up and down. Voop. Voop. Voop-voop-voop. “Not exactly.”

  Her eyes narrow. When it comes to my on-again, off-again affair with the ice, Dani knows the highlights, but we don’t talk about it much. She and I got close during the post-skating part of my life, right after Mom, Bug, and I moved to the apartment near her house.

  She taps my foot with hers. “Hud, why are you acting all, like, twitchy? What’s going on?”

  I let out a long, slow breath, remembering how alive I felt today on the ice. I think about t
he Capriani Cup and the warmth that rises up inside when I land the perfect jump, make the hard turns, nail my favorite moves, even all these years later.

  And then I remember Josh Blackthorn’s hand brushing the hair from my face.

  “Hudson?” Dani asks again, her big, copper-penny eyes searching mine.

  “Danielle!” Trick shouts from the kitchen. “Two steak-and-egg specials up for table three!”

  “Get Carly to run it!” Dani shouts back. “Sorry. Talk to me, girl. I’m freezing my—”

  “Listen.” I grab the front of her jacket, pushing out the words in a half-frozen jumble. “I got an invitation in the mail today … this thing … and after all that stuff from three years ago, and Dad, and Shelvis, and crashing into Josh, something hit me. I think I’ve been … I don’t know. Something’s just … missing. I might—”

  “Oh no. Don’t even say it. You’re totally crushing on the hockey boy, aren’t you? Jeez. How hard did you hit your head?”

  I swat her hand away from my forehead. “I’m not crushing—”

  “Trust me. I know hot and bothered when I see it.”

  “Bothered, maybe. By you. You read too many books, you know that? This isn’t How I Met My Half-Naked Pirate Hottie.” I look down at the pavement. “Not even close.”

  “First of all, it’s called Treasure of Love, and there’s no such thing as too many books. And anyway, you’re totally blushing. What is it with you and hockey captains? First Will Harper, and now his number two? This is bad news, baby. Bad.”

  “Will doesn’t count,” I say firmly. Will Harper became my first kiss when a rousing match of Seven Minutes in Heaven forced us into someone’s basement closet a million years ago—way before his hockey captain days. Honestly, it’s not like the stars aligned or anything. Before my brain could catch up to the breaking news of what was happening on my lips, the closet door opened, the light spilled in, and we broke apart. Some guy high-fived Will and everything smelled like Cheetos and root beer and that was pretty much it. “It was just a stupid eighth-grade party game.”

  “That’s because he never spoke to you again.”

  “Well, Josh isn’t like Will. Josh seems really sweet, and he’s—never mind. How did we get on Josh?”

  “Who got on Josh? I certainly didn’t. Did you?”

  I smack her arm. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “Look, just because your father’s a grade A jackass—”

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry.” Dani tugs on one of her curls, wrapping it around her finger. “I mean, just because your parents’ relationship didn’t work out doesn’t mean all relationships are doomed.”

  “Crashing into someone on the ice doesn’t make a relationship.”

  “No?” She smiles, her cheeks glowing like smooth red plums. “Maybe you just need to get—”

  “Dani!” Trick again. “These cows are well-done, sweetheart,” he calls from over the grill, all sizzle-sizzle, scrape-scrape, metal-on-metal. “Ain’t gonna run themselves. Carly’s got her hands full.”

  Dani waves him off. “As I was saying … wait, you’re bright red! Oh, if Josh could see you now. He’d be all over it.” She belts out a not-so-kid-friendly, not-so-in-tune rendition of the sittin’-in-a-tree song.

  “Highly unlikely,” I say. The impassioned skating speech queued up in my head starts to lose steam, my thoughts getting stuck all over Josh and that sincere, post-crash, blue-eyed apology and hot chocolate fantasy.

  “Highly likely. You look hot today, sweets.”

  “No way. My ass is especially huge in my winter gear.”

  “Shut up! You have a great ass. I’d kill for a piece of that.” She tries to grab a handful, but I dodge, zipping my jacket all the way up before I go hypothermic. She tries for another grab, but I slap her hand, and when she looks up at the sky and laughs, her shoulders shake and her breath puffs out in big white clouds. Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” comes on Trick’s radio, and I reach for her hands and spin her around, the two of us singing and dancing by the Dumpster under the bright gray November sky.

  Even with her off-key voice and the subzero winter air, when it’s like this, I don’t notice the cold. I don’t hear the wind howling through the empty spaces. I don’t feel like a small, broken-winged bird trapped in a rusty cage.

  I just feel … home.

  But it never lasts.

  “Let’s go, sweet tarts!” Trick shouts. Something crashes to the floor in the kitchen—sounds like a tray of drinks. “And I mean yesterday. Carly’s in the weeds.”

  “Be right in!” Dani calls back. “Man, these new girls. Might as well be working the floor myself. Hey, seriously … you okay? What were you saying about an invitation?”

  “Oh … junk mail from an old skating thing.” I wave away the words, ignoring the imaginary burn of the foundation letter in my jacket, hot against my ribs. “I’m good.”

  Dani looks at me a moment longer, squinting as if the truth is as easily read as that Cupcake Queen article behind the register. “You know I didn’t mean to trash-talk your dad, right?”

  “I know.” I slide my sneaker back and forth over a patch of ice on the ground. “Go ahead. I’ll be right in.”

  She sighs, checks the bobby pins in her hair, and straightens the half apron beneath her coat. “Don’t freeze that sweet, bacon-lovin’ ass out here, ’kay?”

  “I won’t. Smoke break’s almost over.”

  “Good. And don’t forget about the rest of those cupcakes, either. There’s more buttercream in my future, and you’re not about to go messin’ that up. Sure you’re cool?”

  “Totally.” I flash her my pearly whites to prove it.

  Dani scoots back inside and I blow my breath into the air, exhaling all of life’s b.s. in a long white sigh. As Buddy Guy sings out over the grill, I close my eyes and lean sideways against the bricks and pretend I’m in some swanky nightclub, hip jutting forward, elbow on the bar, tapping out the long ash from my cigarette. Ladies and gentlemen, this next song goes out to Hudson Avery, the lovely lady who breaks my heart every time she walks through that door.

  Guitar.

  Horns.

  Bass.

  Mmm, mmm, mmm. Cue those smoldering vocals.

  I been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met …

  The alto sax blows and the guitar moans and here behind Hurley’s, a few miles down the hill and across the highway, that old Erie Atlantic train starts up the track, light floating over the engine like some kind of fairy godmother. Ten-oh-five, right on schedule, far away and sad as the sound stretches and bends its way through the approaching storm. Who knows where it goes, but sometimes, when the wheels screech against the tracks and the red lights flash along the crossways, I think about hitching a ride on a coal car just to find out. Then I wouldn’t need a parallel universe and a skating scholarship to get out of here.

  “Hudson? You out there?” Mom pokes her head out the back door, her static-ridden hair now pulled into an old scrunchie. “Third toilet’s clogged again.”

  “Ma, we really need to have that thing fixed.”

  She blows a loose strand from her face. “I know. But I’m in the middle of the dairy inventory. We’ll call the guy next week, okay?”

  “No problem.” So now I’m a plumber? Awesome. The only thing that could make my life even more awesome is if Josh and the whole pack of Watonka Wolves march in for lunch just as I’m emerging from the bathroom in my little baker’s apron, shirt collar flipped up, hair tousled, restaurant-grade toilet plunger in hand, all kinds of black-rubber-gloves-to-the-elbows sexy.

  The train whistle blows like a snowbird into the dead sky and I lean forward on my tiptoes, heels scraping up on the bricks. Whoooo. Whoooo. It’s not that far, those few miles. I can make it, I think, if I’m careful and the hill isn’t too icy. If not today, tomorrow for sure. I’ll pack my wool socks and wear my big snow-stompin’ boots and stash my stuff out here behind the Dumpster. When I
come out for my nonsmoke break I’ll snatch up my backpack and ice skates and go, run, dodge, break, hit it, straight for the fairy godmother lamplight on the ten-oh-five, black coal train to nowhere.

  Cue those smoldering vocals.

  Ever since the day we met …

  “Hudson, you still out there?” Mom rushes past the door again, a clipboard in her hand and a pen stuck behind her ear.

  “Yeah! I mean, no! I … um … third toilet. Got it, Ma.” I stamp out the invisible cig with my standard-issue food service sneaker and hobble back through the doorway, careful not to put too much weight on my left hip, semi-throbbing from this morning’s two-part wipeout. If she sees me limping … no way. My former skating career was Dad’s project, and now that he’s gone, there’s an unwritten, don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy in our apartment: Mom doesn’t ask me to share his dating narratives, and I don’t say anything that implies he was ever around in the first place.

  “This joint’s about to get mad crazy.” Dani busts into the ladies’ room as I’m scrubbing toilet germs from my hands. “Carly’s having a meltdown. Girl can’t keep it together for five minutes out there.”

  “What happened?”

  “She dropped the F-bomb when that big party asked for separate checks, and now we’re comping their whole meal, so of course they all want more food. Their kids made a giant mess, half of them are screaming and eating crayons, and by the way, we’re in the middle of a bacon crisis.” Dani presses her fingers to her temples.

  “You check the back freezer?” I ask, wondering how fast I can squeeze my so-called sweet ass out the little window over the first stall.

  “We’re totally out.”

  I close my eyes and magically transport myself to the rink in my parallel life, cool wind running its fingers through my hair as I pick up speed for a triple salchow. I whip my leg around and launch myself into the air over the ice, the world spinning away beneath me and back up again as I land like a feather on an eggshell.

  Look at that landing! Incredible! And that form! Amazing!