Crescendo

CHAPTER 13

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON VEE DROPPED ME OFF near the front door to Enzo’s. I was dressed in a yellow printed sundress that walked the line between flirty and professional and was far more optimistic than anything I felt on the inside. I stopped in front of the windows to shake out my hair, which had relaxed into waves after being slept on all night, but the gesture felt wooden. I forced a smile. It was the one I’d been practicing all morning. It felt tight at the edges and brittle everywhere in between. In the window, it looked false and hollow. But for a morning following a night spent crying, it was the best I could manage.

After walking home from Marcie’s last night, I’d curled into bed, but I hadn’t slept. I’d spent the night tormented by self-destructive thoughts. The longer I stayed awake, the more my thoughts took a dizzying departure from reality. I wanted to make a statement, and I was hurting enough not to care how drastic it was. A thought came to me, the kind of thought I never would have entertained in my life before. If I ended my life, the archangels would see it. I wanted them to feel remorse. I wanted them to doubt their archaic laws. I wanted them to be held accountable for ripping my life apart, then ripping it away completely.

My mind swirled and tottered with these kinds of thoughts all night. My emotions shifted through heartbreaking loss, denial, anger. At one point, I regretted not running away with Patch. Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could never have him.

But as the sun began to crack across the sky this morning, I came to a decision. I had to move on. It was either that, or slip into a frozen depression. I forced myself through the motions of showering and dressing, and went to school with fixed determination that no one would see below skin-deep. A pins-and-needles sensation enveloped my body, but I refused to display a single outward sign of self-pity. I wasn’t going to let the archangels win. I was going to pull myself back on my feet, get a job, pay off my speeding ticket, finish summer school with the top grade, and keep myself so occupied that only at night, when I was alone with my thoughts and it couldn’t be helped, would I think of Patch.

Inside Enzo’s, two semicircular balconies spread out to my left and right, with a set of wide stairs leading down into the main eating area and front counter. The balconies reminded me of curved catwalks overlooking a pit. The tables on the balcony were filled, but only a few stragglers drinking coffee and reading the morning paper remained in the pit.

With the help of a deep breath, I took the stairs down and approached the front counter.

“Excuse me, I heard you’re hiring baristas,” I told the woman at the register. My voice sounded flat in my ears, but I didn’t have the energy to try to correct it. The woman, a middle-aged redhead with a name tag that read ROBERTA, looked up. “I’d like to fill out an application.” I managed a half smile, but somehow, I feared it wasn’t anywhere close to believable.

Roberta wiped her freckled hands on a rag and came around the counter. “Baristas? Not anymore.”

I stared at her, holding my breath, feeling all hope deflate inside me. My plan was everything. I hadn’t considered what I would do if even one step of it was yanked out from under me. I needed a plan. I needed this job. I needed a carefully controlled life where every minute was planned, and every emotion compartmentalized.

“But I’m still looking for a reliable counter attendant, night shift only, six to ten,” Roberta added.

I blinked, my lip quivering slightly in surprise. “Oh,” I said. “That’s … good.”

“At night we dim the lights, bring out the baristas, play a little jazz, and try for a more sophisticated feel. It used to be dead in here after five, but we’re hoping to lure crowds. Tough economy,” she explained. “You’d be in charge of greeting customers and writing down orders, then calling them in to the kitchen. When the food’s ready, you’d carry it out to the tables.”

I tried to nod eagerly, determined to show her how much I wanted this job, feeling all the tiny cracks in my lips split as I smiled. “That—sounds perfect,” I managed in a husky voice.

“Do you have any work experience?”

I didn’t. But Vee and I came to Enzo’s at least three times a week. “I know the menu by heart,” I said, beginning to feel more solid, more real. A job. Everything depended on it. I was going to build a new life.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Roberta said. “When can you start?”

“Tonight?” I could hardly believe she was offering me the job. Here I was, unable to summon up even a sincere smile, but she was overlooking it. She was giving me a chance. I put my hand forward to shake hers, then noticed a half beat too late that it was trembling.

She ignored my outstretched hand, eying me with her head cocked to one side in a way that only made me feel more exposed and self-conscious. “Is everything okay?”

I sucked in a silent breath and held it. “Yes—I’m fine.”

She gave a brisk nod. “Get here at a quarter to six and I’ll issue you a uniform before your shift.”

“Thank you so much—,” I began, my voice still in shock, but she was already scooting back behind the counter.

As I stepped outside to a blinding sun, I ran calculations in my head. Assuming I was going to make minimum wage, if I worked every night for the next two weeks, I just might be able to pay off my speeding ticket. And if I worked every night for two months, that was sixty nights that I’d be too drowned in work to dwell on Patch. Sixty nights closer to the end of summer vacation, when I could once again throw all my energy into school. I’d already decided to pack my schedule with demanding classes. I could handle homework in every shape and form, but heartbreak was entirely different.

“Well?” Vee asked, coasting up beside me in the Neon. “How’d it go?”

I climbed into the passenger seat. “I got the job.”

“Nice. You seemed really nervous going in, almost like you were going to lose it, but no reason to worry now. You’re officially a hard-working member of society. Proud of you, babe. When do you start?”

I checked the readout on the dash. “Four hours.”

“I’ll stop by tonight and request to be seated in your area.”

“Better leave a tip,” I said, my attempt at humor nearly bringing me to tears.

“I’m your chauffeur. That’s better than a tip.”

Six and a half hours later, Enzo’s was jammed to the walls. My work uniform consisted of a white pintuck shirt, gray tweed slacks with a matching vest, and a newsboy cap. The newsboy cap wasn’t doing a very good job of holding up my hair, which refused to stay tucked out of sight. At this moment, I could feel stray curls plastered to the sides of my face with sweat. Despite the fact that I was completely overwhelmed, it felt strangely relieving to be in over my head. There was no time to shift my thoughts, even fleetingly, to Patch.

“New girl!” One of the cooks—Fernando—was shouting at me. He stood behind a short wall that separated the ovens from the rest of the kitchen, flapping a spatula. “Your order is up!”

I grabbed the three sandwich plates, carefully stacked them up my arm in a row, and backed out of the swinging doors. On my way across the pit, I caught the eye of one of the hostesses. She jerked her chin at a newly seated table up on the balcony. I answered with a quick nod. Be there in a minute.

“One prime rib sandwich, one salami, and one roasted turkey,” I said, setting the plates down in front of a party of three businessmen in suits. “Enjoy your meal.”

I jogged up the steps leading out of the pit, pulling my meal order pad out of my back pocket. Halfway down the catwalk, my stride caught. Marcie Millar was directly ahead, seated at my newest table. I also recognized Addyson Hales, Oakley Williams, and Ethan Tyler, all from school. I thought about making an about-face and telling the hostess to give someone else—anyone else—my table, when Marcie glanced up and I knew I was trapped.

A granite-hard smile touched her mouth.

My breathing faltered. Was there any possible way she could know I’d taken her diary? It wasn’t until I’d walked home and crawled into bed last night that I remembered I still had it. I would have returned it right then, but it had been the last thing on my mind. The diary had seemed insignificant next to the raw turmoil scraping me both inside and out. As of this moment, it was sitting untouched on my bedroom floor, right beside last night’s discarded clothes.

“Isn’t your outfit the cutest thing ever?” Marcie said over the prerecorded jazz. “Ethan, didn’t you wear a vest just like that to prom last year? I think Nora raided your closet.”

While they laughed, I held my pen poised on the order pad. “Can I get you something to drink? The special tonight is our coconut lime smoothie.” Could everyone hear the scratch of guilt in my voice? I swallowed, hoping that when I spoke again, the jittery quality would be gone.

“Last time I was in here, it was my mom’s birthday,” Marcie said. “Our waitress sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her.”

It took me a whole three seconds to catch on. “Oh. No. I mean— no. I’m not a waitress. I’m a counter attendant.”

“I don’t care what you are. I want you to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.”

I stood paralyzed, my mind frantically groping for an escape. I couldn’t believe Marcie was asking me to humiliate myself this way. Wait. Of course she was asking me to humiliate myself. For the past eleven years, I’d kept a secret scorecard between us, but now I was certain she was keeping her own scorecard. She lived for the chance to one-up me. Worse, she knew her score doubled mine and she was still running up the points. Which made her not only a bully, but a bad sport.

I held out my hand. “Let me see your ID.”

Marcie lifted an uncaring shoulder. “I forgot it.”

We both knew she hadn’t forgotten her driver’s license, and we both knew it wasn’t her birthday.

“We’re really busy tonight,” I said, feigning apology. “My manager wouldn’t want me to take time away from the other customers.”

“Your manager would want you to keep your customers happy. Now sing.”

“And while you’re at it,” Ethan chimed in, “bring out one of those free chocolate cakes.”

“We’re only supposed to give out one slice, not a whole cake,” I said.

“We’re only supposed to give out one slice,” Addyson mimicked, and the table erupted with laughter.

Marcie reached into her handbag and pulled out a Flip camera. The red power button blinked on, and she aimed the lens at me. “I can’t wait to spam this video to the entire school. Good thing I have access to everyone’s e-mail. Who would’ve thought being an office aide would be so useful?”

She knew about the diary. She had to. And this was payback. Fifty points to me for stealing her diary. Twice that many to her for sending a video of me singing “Happy Birthday, Marcie” to all of Coldwater High.

I pointed over my shoulder at the kitchen and slowly backed up. “Listen, my orders are piling up—”

“Ethan, go tell that lovely hostess over there that we demand to speak to the manager. Tell her our counter attendant is being cranky,” Marcie said.

I couldn’t believe it. Less than three hours on the job, and Marcie was going to get me fired. How was I going to pay off my ticket? And good-bye, Volkswagen Cabriolet. Most importantly, I needed the job to distract myself from the useless struggle of finding a way to deal with the blistering truth: Patch was out of my life. For good.

“Time’s up,” Marcie said. “Ethan, ask for the manager.”

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

Marcie squealed and clapped her hands. “Good thing I charged my battery.”

Subconsciously, I tugged the newsboy cap lower, shielding my face. I opened my mouth. “Happy birthday to you—”

“Louder!” they all shouted.

“Happy birthday to you,” I sang louder, too embarrassed to tell if my tone was perilously flat. “Happy birthday, dear Marcie. Happy birthday to you.”

Nobody said a word. Marcie stowed the Flip back inside her handbag. “Well, that was boring.”

“That sounded … normal,” Ethan said.

Some of the blood drained from my face. I gave a brief, flustered, triumphant smile. Five hundred points. My solo was worth at least that. So much for Marcie blowing me to smithereens. I had officially taken the lead. “Drinks, anyone?” I asked, sounding surprisingly cheerful.

After scribbling down their orders, I turned to head back to the kitchen, when Marcie called out, “Oh, and Nora?”

I stopped in my tracks. I sucked in a sharp breath, wondering what hoops she thought she could make me jump through next. Oh, no. Unless … she was going to out me. Right now. In front of all these people. She was going to tell the world I stole her diary, so they could see just how low and despicable I really was.

“Could you rush our order?” Marcie finished. “We have a party to get to.”

“Rush your order?” I repeated stupidly. Did this mean she didn’t know about the diary?

“Patch is meeting us at Delphic Beach, and I don’t want to be late.” Marcie instantly covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t even thinking. I shouldn’t have mentioned Patch. It’s got to be hard seeing him with someone else.”

Any smile I was clinging to slipped. I felt heat creep up my neck. My heart beat so fast it made my head light. The room slanted inward, and Marcie’s cutthroat smile was at the center of everything, laughing at me. So everything was back to normal, then. Patch had gone back to Marcie. After I’d walked away last night, he’d resigned himself to the deal fate had handed us. If he couldn’t have me, he’d settle for Marcie. How come they were allowed to have a relationship? Where were the archangels when it came to keeping tabs on Patch and Marcie? What about their kiss? Were the archangels going to let it slide because they knew it meant nothing to either of them? I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Marcie could be with Patch when she didn’t love him, but I couldn’t, because I did and the archangels knew it. Why was it so wrong for us to be in love? Were angels and humans really that different?

“It’s fine, I’ve moved on,” I said, injecting a note of cool civility into my tone.

“Good for you,” Marcie said, nibbling seductively on her straw, not one part of her looking like she believed me.

Back in the kitchen, I sent Marcie’s table’s order in to the cooks. I left the “special cooking instructions” space blank. Marcie was in a hurry to see Patch at Delphic Beach? Too bad.

I picked up my waiting order and carried the tray out of the kitchen. To my surprise, I saw Scott standing near the front doors, talking to the hostesses. He was dressed comfortably in loose-fitting Levi’s and a snug T-shirt, and given the body language of the two black-clad hostesses, they were flirting with him. He caught my eye and gave a low wave of recognition. I dropped off table fifteen’s order, then hiked the stairs.

“Hey,” I told Scott, pulling off the newsboy cap to fan my face.

“Vee told me I’d find you here.”

“You called Vee?”

“Yeah, after you didn’t return any of my messages.”

I wiped my arm across my forehead, sweeping a few loose hairs back into place. “My cell is in the back. I haven’t had a chance to check it since I clocked in. What do you need?”

“What time are you off?”

“Ten. Why?”

“There’s a party at Delphic Beach. I’m looking for some poor sucker to drag along.”

“Every time we hang out, something bad happens.” The light didn’t go on in his eyes. “The fight at the Z,” I reminded him. “At the Devil’s Handbag. Both times I had to scrounge a ride home.”

“Third time’s a charm.” He smiled, and I realized for the first time that it was a very nice smile. Boyish even. It softened his personality, making me wonder if there was another side to him, a side I hadn’t seen yet.

Chances were, this was the same party Marcie was headed to. The same party Patch was supposed to be at. And the same beach I’d been at with him just a week and a half ago, when I’d spoken too early by declaring I was living the perfect life. I never could have guessed how fast it would tailspin.

I did a quick inventory of my feelings, but I needed more than a handful of seconds to figure out how I was feeling. I wanted to see Patch—I would always want to—but that wasn’t the question. I needed to determine if I was up to seeing him. Could I handle seeing him with Marcie? Especially after everything he’d told me last night?

“I’ll think about it,” I told Scott, realizing I was taking too long to answer.

“Need me to swing by at ten and pick you up?”

“No. If I go, Vee can give me a ride.” I pointed toward the kitchen doors. “Listen, I need to get back to work.”

“Hope to see you,” he said, shooting me one final grin before departing.

At closing, I found Vee idling in the parking lot. “Thanks for the pickup,” I told her, dropping into shotgun. My legs ached from all the standing, and my ears still rang with the conversation and loud laughter of a packed restaurant—not to mention all the times the cooks and waitresses had shouted corrections at me. I’d carried out at least two wrong orders, and more than once, I’d entered the kitchen through the wrong door. Both times, I’d nearly knocked over a waitress up to her arms in plates. The good news was, I had thirty dollars in tips folded inside my pocket. After I’d paid off my ticket, all my tips would go toward the Cabriolet. I longed for the day when I wouldn’t have to rely on Vee to haul me around.

But not quite as much as I longed for the day when I’d have forgotten Patch.

Vee grinned. “This ain’t no free service. All these rides are actually IOUs that will come back to haunt you.”

“I’m serious, Vee. You’re the best friend in the whole world. The bestest.”

“Aw, maybe we should commemorate this Hallmark moment and swing by Skippy’s for ice cream. I could use some ice cream. Actually, I could really use some MSG. Nothing makes me happy quite like a boatload of freshly fried fast food, smothered in good old-fashioned MSG.”

“Rain check?” I asked. “I got invited to hang out at Delphic Beach tonight. You’re more than welcome to come,” I added quickly. I wasn’t at all sure I’d made the best decision when I’d made up my mind to go tonight. Why was I putting myself through the torture of seeing Patch again? I knew it was because I wanted him close, even if close wasn’t close enough. A stronger, braver person would cut all ties and walk away. A stronger person wouldn’t beat her fists against fate’s door. Patch was out of my life for good. I knew I needed to accept it, but there was a big difference between knowing and doing.

“Who all’s going?” Vee asked.

“Scott and a few other people from school.” No need to mention Marcie and get an instant veto. I had a feeling I could use Vee’s support tonight.

“Think I’ll curl up with Rixon and watch a movie instead. I can ask if he’s got any other friends he can hook you up with. We could do a double-date thing. Eat popcorn, tell jokes, make out.”

“Pass.” I didn’t want someone else. I wanted Patch.

By the time Vee rolled into Delphic Beach’s parking lot, the sky was tar black. High-power lights that reminded me of those on CHS’s football field beamed down on the whitewashed wood structures housing the carousel, arcade, and mini golf, causing a halo to hover over the spot. There was no electricity farther down the beach, or in the surrounding fields, making it the one bright spot on the coast for miles. By this time of night I didn’t expect to find anyone buying hamburgers or playing air hockey, and I signaled for Vee to pull over near the path of railroad ties cutting down to the water.

I swung out of the car and mouthed a good-bye. Vee waved in response, her cell pressed to her ear as she and Rixon worked out the details of where they’d meet up.

The air still held the earlier heat of the sun and was filled with the sounds of everything from the distant music carrying down from Delphic Seaport Amusement Park high on the cliffs, to surf drumming the sand. I parted the ridge of sea grass that ran parallel to the coast like a fence, jogged down the slope, and walked the thin ribbon of dry sand that was just out of reach of high tide.

I passed small groups of people still playing in the water, jumping waves and hurling driftwood into the darkness of the ocean, even though the lifeguards were long gone. I kept my eyes out for Patch, Scott, Marcie, or anyone else I recognized. Up ahead, the orange flames of a bonfire winked and flitted in the darkness. I pulled out my cell and dialed Scott.

“Yo.”

“I made it,” I said. “Where are you?”

“Just south of the bonfire. You?”

“Just north of it.”

“I’ll find you.”

Two minutes later, Scott plopped down in the sand beside me. “You going to hang out on the fringe all night?” he asked me. His breath held the tang of alcohol.

“I’m not a big fan of ninety percent of the people at this party.”

He nodded, understanding, and held out a steel thermos. “I don’t have germs, scout’s honor. Have as much as you like.”

I leaned over just far enough to smell the contents of the thermos. Immediately I drew back, feeling fumes burn down the back of my throat. “What is it?” I choked. “Motor oil?”

“My secret recipe. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“No need. I’m pretty sure taking a drink would get the same result.”

Scott eased back, elbows in the sand. He’d changed into a Metallica T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, khaki shorts, and flip-flops. I was wearing my work uniform, minus the newsboy cap, vest, and pintuck shirt. Luckily, I’d slipped a camisole on before heading out to work, but I had nothing to replace the tweed slacks.

“So tell me, Grey. What are you doing here? I gotta tell you, I thought you’d turn me down for next week’s homework.”

I leaned back in the sand beside him and slanted a look in his direction. “The jerk act is starting to get old. So I’m lame. So what?”

He grinned. “I like lame. Lame is going to help me pass my junior year. Particularly English.”

Oh boy. “If that was a question, the answer is no, I will not write your English papers.”

“That’s what you think. I haven’t started working the Scott Charm yet.”

I snorted laughter, and his grin deepened. He said, “What? Don’t believe me?”

“I don’t believe you and the word ‘charm’ belong in the same sentence.”

“No girl can resist the Charm. I’m telling you, they go wild for it. Here are the basics: I’m drunk twenty-four/seven, I can’t hold a job, can’t pass basic math, and I spend my days playing video games and passing out.”

I flung my head back, feeling my shoulders shake as I laughed. I was beginning to think I liked the drunk version of Scott better than the sober one. Who would have figured Scott for self-deprecating?

“Quit drooling,” Scott said, playfully tipping my chip up. “It’s going to go to my head.”

I gave him a relaxed smile. “You drive a Mustang. That should give you ten points at least.”

“Awesome. Ten points. All I need is another two hundred to get out of the red zone.”

“Why don’t you quit drinking?” I suggested.

“Quit? You kidding? My life sucks when I’m only half-aware of it. If I quit drinking and saw what it’s really like, I’d probably jump off a bridge.”

We were quiet a moment.

“When I’m wasted, I can almost forget who I am,” he said, his smile fading slightly. “I know I’m still there, but only barely. It’s a good place to be.” He tipped back the thermos, eyes on the dark sea straight ahead.

“Yeah, well, my life isn’t so great either.”

“Your dad?” he guessed, wiping his upper lip with the back of his hand. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“Which almost makes it worse.”

“How so?”

“If it were my fault, that would imply I messed up. I’d blame myself for a long time, but maybe eventually I could move on. Right now I’m stuck, facing down the same question: Why my dad?”

“Fair enough,” Scott said.

A soft rain started to fall. Summer rain, with big warm drops splattering everywhere.

“What the hell?” I heard Marcie demand from farther down the beach, near the bonfire. I studied the outlines of bodies as people began shuffling to their feet. Patch wasn’t among them.

“My apartment, everyone!” Scott hollered out, jumping to his feet with a flourish. He staggered sideways, barely hanging on to his balance. “Seventy-two Deacon Road, apartment thirty-two. Doors are unlocked. Plenty of beer in the fridge. Oh, and did I mention my mom’s at Bunco all night?”

A cheer went up, and everyone grabbed their shoes and other discarded clothing items and hiked up the sand toward the parking lot.

Scott nudged my thigh with his flip-flop. “Need a ride? C’mon, I’ll even let you drive.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’m done.” Patch wasn’t here. He was the sole reason I’d come, and suddenly the night felt not only like a letdown, but a waste as well. I should have been relieved at not having to see Patch and Marcie together, but I mostly felt disappointed, lonely, and full of regret. And exhausted. The only thing on my mind was crawling into bed and putting an end to this day as soon as possible.

“Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” Scott coaxed.

“Are you trying to appeal to my conscience?”

He dangled the keys in front of me. “How can you turn down a once-in-a-lifetime chance to drive the ’Stang?”

I got to my feet and brushed sand off the seat of my pants. “How about you sell me the ’Stang for thirty dollars? I can even pay cash.”

He laughed, slinging his arm around my shoulders. “Drunk, but not that drunk, Grey.”