I waved away the gravel dust kicked up by Vince’s car and made my way to the towers of knickknacks and boxes of mismatched trinkets. Nothing on Mrs. Moates’s sticky lopsided table was my idea of a treasure, but I paused at a collection of mugs, lingering over one with a kitten dangling by his claws from a tree. A thought bubble from his head said Hang in There, and my heart squeezed a little.
“How much for the mug?” I asked. A mangy cat curled around Mrs. Moates’s ankles.
“The one with the busted handle?” she lisped.
“No, the other one.”
“Fitty cents.” I gave her seventy-five. Not that a quarter could replace the cat who’d lived under her home. But the thing had been stuffed in a box with my name on it, and I felt responsible. The gesture, small as it was, made me feel better.
With the mug safely inside my backpack, I went to the Bui Mart. The bells jingled when I opened the door, and a 1980s hair band wailed from the overhead speakers. Bao looked up from the counter and smiled.
Everyone called Ahn’s older brother “Bo”—though I’m pretty sure that’s not the way Bao was supposed to be pronounced—the same way we all called Anh “Ann.”
“Morning, Leigh.” He already had my newspaper and chocolate milk laid out for me. I fished a chocolate donut from the day old bin. “Heard my little sister is kicking your ass in chem lab.” Bao snickered. “Maybe all the crap you eat rots your brain.”
“That crap is the breakfast of champions.” I took a bite of the donut and headed for the cheap greeting card display, licked the frosting from my fingers, and picked a ninety-ninecent Happy-Mother’s-Day-and-thanks-for-putting-up-with-me card. I stacked it on the counter with the rest of my loot.
Bao keyed them in and counted out my change, without looking at the register or the coins. He had to be bored out of his mind, running the family store. Bao was wicked smart. Maybe smarter than Anh. It was one of the reasons I liked him so much. I could forgive him his music and the obnoxious skinny jeans he’d paired with his Bui Mart polo T, and the fact that he was an incessant flirt.
“You should come over for dinner with the family sometime. I’ll show you what you’re missing.” Bao looked me up and down like he was mentally removing my clothes. When he got to my baggy pant legs, he frowned. “You’re too skinny. You’re spending too much time with that country club kid. I know his parents don’t feed you.”
“Jeremy’s parents won’t even let me into their house. For that matter, neither would yours,” I snorted, stuffing my purchases into my backpack. “What’s your mom so afraid of, anyway? That I’ll take my clothes off and dance on her table?”
Bao blushed.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said before he forced himself to suffer through some bogus apology. We both remembered the look on his mother’s face when Anh brought me home after school in seventh grade. Anh had asked her mother what was so bad about being a waitress. Bao had kept his eyes on the floor. He’d understood more than I had back then. At least now we could joke about it. “Besides, I’m storing up all this fat and calories for my end of the semester sprint. Your sister will never see me coming.”
“Don’t make me poison your Yoo-hoo.” He leveled a finger at me. “She’s got her heart set on that scholarship. The whole family does. I might have to go all big-bad-ass brother on you.” His playful voice didn’t match the rest of him anymore. College had never been an option for Bao. He would work here for the rest of his parents’ lives because that’s what was expected of him.
He slapped the cash drawer shut. A wallet-size photo of Anh was taped to the register. He was as proud as any parent. Anh didn’t need that scholarship as much as she thought she did. She already had so much. I wondered what it would be like to have someone like Bao looking out for me. Someone proud and protective and strong. Someone who would sacrifice his own future for mine. I tucked my newspaper under my arm. It felt unusually light.
“Here.” He slid seventy-five cents across the counter. “Donut’s on me. My money is still on Anh.”
I opened the paper and thumbed through the sections. The classifieds were missing. I folded it up and set it on the counter. “Can you swap this for another paper? It’s missing a section.”
“All the important stuff is in there. Besides, what do you need the personals for? Everything you need is right here.” Bao leaned against the corn dog machine and waggled his eyebrows at me.
I felt my face grow hot. “I don’t need the personals,” I lied. “There’s a lot of other stuff in the classifieds too, you know.”
I jumped as a package of Twinkies dropped to the counter in front of me.
“Should I be offended that my cheap cake offerings have been trumped by a fudge cruller from the day old bin?” Jeremy leaned over my shoulder and piled breath mints, a soda, and a candy bar beside the Twinkies, giving Bao something to do other than harass me about the paper.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised.
“Taking you to school.”
“But it’s Friday. Aren’t you supposed to be at—”
Jeremy coughed loudly into his hand, cutting off what I was about to say. “I need someone to share my Twinkies with me. If Anh makes me eat one more carrot stick, my hair will turn orange.” He gave me a pointed look that said Please don’t go there. He didn’t want Bao to know he was seeing a shrink. Since when did he care? Then again, I didn’t want anyone to know I was reading the personals, so I guess we were even.
“Maybe I like redheads. Ever think of that?” Anh emerged from an aisle balancing a cup of fat-free cottage cheese, a banana, and a bottled water. She leveraged her items onto the counter and Bao wrote them all down on an index card rather than ring them up. All the while his eyes were fixed on Jeremy.
“Sharing produce, Anh? Sounds serious.” Bao glared at Jeremy, sizing him up.
Jeremy looked at me with an awkward smile. “Just a few carrot sticks between friends.”
“Ew.” I held out the last bite of my donut to Jeremy. He probably needed it more than I did. He stuffed it into his mouth, looking relieved to have an excuse not to say anything.
“Jeremy’s been giving me a ride to school on Fridays. And in return, I’m trying to save him from a slow death by high triglycerides.”
Jeremy stopped chewing and looked at me sideways. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He hadn’t told me he’d been driving Anh to school on Fridays. And missing appointments with his shrink to do it. Anh kept talking, clueless to our silent exchange.
“Do Mom and Dad know about this?” Bao asked, looking all serious and parental.
“He’s only driving me to school,” she said. “And to the school play—”
“Wow! Would you look at the time! We should probably go . . . to school . . . before we’re late.” Jeremy made a show of looking at his watch, clearly uncomfortable.
An awkward silence passed and we all turned at the sound of the bells when Lonny Johnson pushed open the door. His new friend followed, the one who’d shoved me at school. They drifted in like two dark clouds, and changed the climate of the store.