Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

I breeze through the front door like everything is fine, like I’m coming off the most epic night of my life. Ebony and a new part-time girl are working the front. Neither of them even look up as I head to my locker in the back. I have to walk past Micah in the prep area to put my purse away. He’s buried up to his elbows in bread dough, humming along to the music on his headphones.

Ebony gives me her spot at the cash register. For once I’m glad to be trapped out front. The new girl’s name is Piper. Apparently she’s one of my mom’s former students. Whenever we need anything from the back I send her to go get it. The longer I can go without facing Micah, the better. Eventually Piper is in the middle of ringing people out and I have to go back and ask him for some peanut butter cookies. I can barely choke the words out but he seems completely fine as he plates up a dozen for me, like he’s coming off the most epic night of his life.

He doesn’t go off on me or ignore me the whole day. Instead he does something that manages to hurt even more. He goes back to treating me the way he did at the beginning of the summer: distantly, politely, like I’m a customer—one who orders a lot of blended drinks and doesn’t tip. If he had any feelings for me, he’s managed to turn them off, like flicking a switch. I wish I had that power. My whole summer would have been different if I could have gotten over Jason in a nanosecond. But then you wouldn’t have gotten to know Micah.

Okay, maybe I don’t want that power after all. But I want the pain to go away.

Leo doesn’t seem to know what happened so he’s still talking to us like we’re all friends. “You read The Prince yet?” he asks, smearing tomato sauce on one of Micah’s hand-tossed pizza crusts. “Deceit. Betrayal. Totally your thing.”

Totally my life.

“No, I’m done with strategizing.”

Leo sprinkles the pizza with shredded cheese. “So you gave up on your ex too?”

“Yeah. Turns out we’re not as compatible as I thought.” I swear I can feel Micah’s eyes on me, but I’m too afraid to look up, too afraid I’ll see him staring straight through me. “But thanks for all your help. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, let me know.”

Leo furrows his brow as he tops his pizza with sliced mushrooms and green peppers. “There is one thing.” He puts the pizza in the oven. “Bianca. She’s one of your best friends, right?”

I’m thinking right about now she’s my only friend. “Yeah,” I say, not really understanding where Leo is going. “She’s off today.”

“Is she dating anyone?”

“Oh.” I force myself to smile. “So Bee is the girl you’re interested in?” Now I get why Leo was so anxious to plot warlord style with us. I steal a peek at Micah. He’s, like, four feet away but his music is so loud I can hear the tinny echo from his earbuds. He might as well be four miles away. “No. She’s not.” I struggle to stay focused. “You know, she’s really smart like you. She wants to be a doctor. You should totally ask her out.”

Leo looks mortified. “Is there any way you could maybe find out if she’d be interested?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” I say. “But remember. We’re talking about Bianca. If she’s not interested, she’s going to be so nice about it that you’ll walk away feeling even better than if she’d said yes.”

“I know. But I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. Especially since we have to work together,” he says.

“Right,” I agree. “You wouldn’t want things to be awkward at work.” My eyes flick over at Micah again. He’s scooping out cookie dough with an ice-cream scoop. The dough balls land neatly and evenly spaced on the warped, silver sheet pan. If he feels awkward, I sure can’t tell.

After work, I convince Bianca to meet me at Hallowed Grounds, Hazelton’s other coffee shop, the one where no one knows me.

“So what do you think of Leo?” I ask, trying to be coy. Bee has never had a serious boyfriend. She’s definitely been asked out, but she always refuses and ends up going to school dances with friends. I don’t know if it’s because she’s so focused on getting a scholarship or because her overprotective family scares off any guy who shows an interest in her.

“Leo?” Bianca pulls the chopsticks from her bun and sets them on the red lacquer tabletop. She shakes her head once and thick waves of black hair cascade over her shoulders. She looks down at her iced chai. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Because he likes you.”

She giggles. Seriously a giggle, like we’re back in sixth grade and the cute boy from Massachusetts who sat behind her just pulled on her braid. “Why would you even say that?”

“Ohmygod. You totally like him.” My jaw drops a little. “How did I not know this? You loooooooove him!”

“Shh.” Bianca’s honey complexion is rapidly turning red. She takes a long swill of her drink. “I do not love him.”

“But I can tell him you’re interested?”

She looks up from her drink. “Are you sure he likes me ?”

“Why? Because you’re so hideous and unlikable?” I tease. “Of course I’m sure. He told me.”

“I figured he probably . . . you know.” She twirls her straw violently. The ice cubes clink together in the environmentally unfriendly plastic cup.

“What?” I feel like we’re having a conversation in a foreign language where I can only translate every other word.

She looks up at me. Her eyes are soft and dark. Nervous. “Liked you,” she finishes.

I almost choke on my drink. “No chance. He’s a really cool guy,” I say. “But it’s not like that with us.”

“What if it’s not like that with you, but it is like that with him?” Bee asks. “I don’t want to be the girl who gets used so some guy can get close to her popular friend.”

“I swear, Bianca. He has never even flirted with me. Apparently he has liked you for weeks but is too shy to do anything about it.”

“Really?” Her face lights up like a stained-glass window. Right then I know I will kill Leo if he ever hurts her.

“Yeah, really,” I singsong. “If I had known you liked him sooner I would have let you be his pseudo-date. How come you never told me?”

“Well, I knew he was trying to get back with Riley. And also, I knew you’d pressure me into talking to him, even if I wasn’t ready.”

“Why would you say that?” I ask. I remember Kendall forcing me to talk to Jason during our freshman year, how terrified I was that day. Bee is making me sound exactly the same, which is not cool.

“Because that’s your style, Lainey. And you think it works for everyone.”

“That’s not true.” I am stunned that Bee feels like this. I had no idea.

Bianca’s eyes narrow. “What about Shaun Demetz, sophomore year? You sent him a carnation-invitation to the Turnabout Dance and signed my name to it.”

“You told me you liked him and I knew he would say yes.” I huff. “Come on, Bianca. He does other people’s math homework for fun. Were you really worried about getting rejected?”

“He gets paid for that,” she says. “And it wasn’t rejection I was worried about. I just wasn’t ready to have a boyfriend and I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. I didn’t want to have to blow him off afterward.”

I try to remember what happened after the dance. “But didn’t you guys go out for a while?”

“Yes,” Bianca says. “Because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But eventually I had to. Not everyone is always moving at fast-forward like you.”