Julie Halpern - The F- It List

“Pickles?” he questioned.

“Want one?” I offered.

“I’m good.”

We ate our subs, not breaking for more confusing chat until Leo, wiping his mouth on a tiny, useless napkin, asked, “Should I try a conversation starter?”

I liked the way Leo talked. It wasn’t as matter of fact as the way I spoke, but it wasn’t as forced as most people would be when getting to know someone. “Do you have one?” I asked.

“That was pretty much it.”

“And look at the conversation it started.” He shrugged. “I’ve got one,” I said. “My dad made it up. It’s called half and half. Like, half empty, half full. You’re supposed to say something that happened today that was half empty, you know, shitty? And then something half full, the good.” I waited for him to make fun of the quaintness, but he took a thoughtful pause and asked, “Can you go first? I need a minute to think.”

“Don’t think while I’m talking because then you’re not listening.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I flipped him off pleasantly and said, “I’m getting drinks. You think about your half and half while I get us pop. What do you want?”

“Coke.”

I walked behind the counter to the drink fountain. Ila, a gorgeous women’s studies major with waist-length strawberry-blond hair, worked the register. “Who’s that?” She waggled her eyebrows at me. I could’ve been jealous at the thought of not only a college girl, but a beautiful one at that, ogling Leo, but Ila was a lesbian with the cutest girlfriend who, when not going to school full-time, worked as a carpenter.

“That’s Leo. From my school.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” she asked, completely ignoring the backup of customers. Part of the charm of Cellar.

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know what he is. I barely know him, really.” I pumped the pop out of the fountain into two worn, plastic tumblers.

“But you want to know him, right?” Ila was overdoing the innuendo, but I liked the big-sisterly vibe.

“Yes. But I don’t know. We’ll see. Shit doesn’t seem to work out very well for me lately. Or ever.”

“Hopefully this isn’t shit then.” Ila started taking orders again, and I delivered our drinks.

“Thanks,” Leo said. “I thought of my halves, unless you want to go first.”

“After you.”

“My half empty is that my brother is still in Sangin, and my parents are constantly terrified. We don’t know when he’s coming home. And my mom has these screaming nightmares about it.”

“That is half empty. Are you close with your brother?”

“Yeah. I mean, he’s kind of the favorite in the family. My parents worship him. He’s annoyingly perfect. And I’m the family fuckup.”

“You don’t seem like such a fuckup.” I sipped my Coke through the straw.

“You must have heard some things.”

“Yeah, but not from you.”

“Probably everything you heard was true.”

“So you slept with Mrs. Johansen, the chorus teacher with the lazy eye?” I asked agape.

“No,” he blurted.

“You’ve been to jail?”

“No.”

“You have a tattoo on your ass that reads, ‘Kiss this’?”

“Are you kidding me? Who said that?”

“I just made that up. But that would’ve been awesome if you did.”

“Maybe you can give it to me.”

“What do you mean?” I smiled over the straw at the insinuation that I could give him a tattoo.

“Don’t you have a homemade one?”

“How did you know that?” I could barely contain the rush of Leo Dietz knowing a private factoid about me.

“I saw it once during gym class.”

The fact that Leo had watched my thigh at some point during gym class almost made me blush. “Anyway, so what rumors about you are true? Have you really been suspended?”

“I was suspended last year for busting out Daniel Lum’s teeth. Even though I didn’t really mean to do it. Whatever, the guy’s dad’s a dentist,” Leo mumbled.

“What else?” I pulsed the Coke through the straw in anticipation.

“I was also suspended for having a ‘weapon’”—he finger-quoted—“in my locker, which was bullshit because it was a pocketknife. Boy Scouts are allowed to have them.”

“Are you a Boy Scout?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

“How old are you?” I prodded. The rumor was that he was really twenty after being held back twice.

“Twenty-six,” he answered. I coughed on my Coke, until he said, “Really? You believed that?”

“What? I don’t know you. I mean, for all you know about me, I could be a serial killer.”

“I’m counting on it.” He smirked. Melt. “And I’m only seventeen.”

“So you weren’t held back?”

“I was, actually, after we moved. Behavior crap. But I had skipped kindergarten because I was so ahead of everyone. So it all balanced out.” We both nodded, and he said, “What about you?”

“I’m seventeen. No skipping or going back.”

“I meant your half empty.”

“Oh yeah.” I wasn’t sure what to say, if I wanted to get into Becca’s cancer. But he was honest with me, and I didn’t have to go into great detail. Not that I had many details. “My half empty is that my best friend has cancer. And she started treatment today, and I don’t know what’s going to happen or if she’ll live or die or when I get to see her or talk to her or if she’ll live or die and I know I just said that—” I nervously lifted my straw in and out of my cup, willing myself to hold it together.

“Jesus, Alex, I had no idea. That sucks. That’s like glass almost completely empty. Shit. I thought you were going to say something about your dad, but, damn. I don’t really know what to say. Sorry is such a loaded word.”

“Thank you for not saying that.”

“Alex!” Doug yelled from the kitchen. “Get your ass back in here! I have to take a piss!”

“Fine dining, it is not,” I noted to Leo.

We stood up and took our baskets to the garbage. “I guess it’s just half empty today.” I frowned.

“I’ll do my half full really quickly. I got to have dinner with you. And I got a free drink, too.”

“You can pay me when I give you your ass tattoo,” I told him dryly. I dumped the contents of my basket into the garbage and gave a little wave to Leo. “Have a good night,” I said, feeling awkward that I didn’t know quite how to say good-bye. I didn’t have to know. Leo held my face in his oversize hands and pressed his lips to mine. He was such a good, powerful kisser, I involuntarily hummed with pleasure as I kissed him back, standing on tiptoes as he leaned down to meet me. I gripped the front of his t-shirt with a tight fist to steady myself. The kiss wasn’t long, but it was enough to make me wobble back to my spot in the kitchen after Leo uttered, “Good-bye, pickle breath.”

I think I found my half full.

I ARRIVED HOME from work around nine thirty. Cellar Subs closed at nine, and it was my job to mop the floor with a seventy-five-year-old mop that weighed 600 pounds. I don’t know if the floor ever actually got clean because the lighting was so bad at the restaurant, and the mop was so decrepit. Strings of meat and vegetables slid between the dreadlocks of the mop, long past the expiration of the five-second rule. It was also my job to clean the bathrooms, but nobody actually did that. Cellar had infamously nasty bathrooms, which somehow made the place cooler. Unless you had to use them.

When I walked into my house, AJ and CJ were watching Wipeout and laughing uncontrollably at the big balls. I wished I had the ability to be as ridiculously airheady as they did. Not that they were stupid, but as seventh-grade boys they didn’t yet feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Or in my case, my pocket. The only thing I had to show for Becca’s list was self-pleasuring before breakfast, and I didn’t even know if she knew about that yet. We hadn’t talked about due dates or expectations of numbers. The list was as vague and overwhelming as the cancer itself.