“Uh … well, there’s fundraising. And picking out options for people to vote on for the team shirts this year. And Ethan and I were supposed to meet up every week to plan things for meets — like sending out directions to other pools for away meets, and who’s bringing snacks. And write up the newsletter for the parents.” I’m sure at any second he’s going to interrupt me and back out of this massive time suck, but he just stares back, waiting for me to finish. “It’s — kind of a lot.”
Jack doesn’t miss a beat. “Fundraising, shirts, newsletters, snacks. Got it.” He shoots a glance back in Ethan’s direction, even though he’s well out of sight. “How about we grab food after practice?”
I stop walking. “Are you asking me out?”
The mischief in his eyes makes me regret asking before I even finish the sentence. I brace myself, sure he’s going to do that thing guys do, that thing Paige warned me about—Wow, someone thinks highly of themselves, or some similar belittling comment. Instead, he stretches his back and says, “Well, I wasn’t. But now that it’s on the table…”
I cross my arms over my chest.
“Not a date,” says Jack, holding his hands up in surrender, the eternal Jack grin still branded across his face. “Just to work out the season. We can go once a week, like you and Ethan planned.”
I consider him for a moment, still waiting for some kind of punchline, some ulterior motive. I don’t find any, so I offer my hand for him to shake. He raises his eyebrows at me. I raise mine right back.
Then he claps his hand to mine, shaking it firmly, just once. There is something warm and grounding in it, something that seems to mark a shift between Jack Campbell then and Jack Campbell now. Like maybe I have misjudged the idea of him I had in my head for the last few years.
Jack hikes his backpack up onto his shoulder and looks down Seventy-Eighth Street. “I’m gonna catch the 6 train home. See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see you then.”
It’s only then I realize we left my seven-block bubble a few blocks back. I stand on the sidewalk for a minute, feeling ridiculous for the jolt it sends through my system, staring at the back of Jack as he waits for the light to change as if he’s some sort of compass. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, still within earshot when he scrolls for a moment, pauses, and lets out a low “Shiiiiiiiiiiit.”
I touch my own phone, buried in the pocket of my jacket. It’s back to reality for us both.
Jack
Wolf
Do you ever just do something really, really stupid
Bluebird
No, actually. I’m perfect and I’ve never done a single stupid thing in my life
Bluebird
But actually all the time, always. You good?
Wolf
I mean, my parents are less than pleased with me right now. Well, my dad’s not pleased. I think my mom secretly is, but is trying to do that whole solidarity thing
Bluebird
So what did you get busted for?
Wolf
The usual. Selling hard drugs. Joining a cult. Starting an underground fight club for teens, except the one rule is you HAVE to talk about it. Don’t know why my parents won’t just get off my back
Bluebird
Seriously. Cults are a big commitment. They should have more respect.
Bluebird
But I feel you. Also experiencing some not so great parental pressure
Wolf
College stuff?
Bluebird
Hah. I wish
Wolf
Would joining a fight club help?
Bluebird
Now that you mention it …
Bluebird
Ugh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think my mom and I have very different ideas of what I should be doing with my time/my life in general
Wolf
Yeah. I get that
Wolf
My parents are kind of like that too
Bluebird
What do you want to do?
Bluebird
Haha that sounds so dumb. Like, “what do you wanna do when you grow up?” But I guess we’re sort of getting to that point, huh?
“You’d better put that phone away before your dad spots you.”
I flinch. “Jeez, Mom, you’re like a freaking ninja.”
“Former ballerina, but I’ll take it,” she says wryly. She plucks my phone from my hand. “I think you’ve done enough damage on this bad boy for one day.”
Fair enough. I could delay my return home with practice and impromptu field trips with Pepper all I wanted, but that did nothing to get me out of a Supreme Dad Lecture of the highest order. The kind where he doesn’t even wait for me to get upstairs to the apartment we live in above the deli, but raises a thumb and jerks it to the booth in the back, which my mom dubbed the “Time-Out Booth” when we were kids. These days it’s more like the break booth, where we’ll scarf sandwiches mid-shift or do our homework during lulls, but every so often it seems to revert back to its original purpose to suit my parents’ needs.
The truly demoralizing thing about it reverting to the Time-Out Booth is that I haven’t done anything worthy of it in ages. And now that I have, it isn’t over anything edgy, like when our upstairs neighbor Benny hotwired a motorcycle, or when Annie, one of our regulars, got caught with a joint in Roosevelt Park. It was because of a stupid tweet.
“You know we’re not that kind of business.” My dad has so rarely had to discipline me that it’s almost funny, how he’s straightening his back at the worn-out cushions of the booth as though his clothes don’t fit quite right. “I don’t even like that we’re on Twitter and Facebook at all.”
“How else are people going to know about us?” I ask, for about the umpteenth time.
“The same way they always have, for the past sixty years. This is a community, not some … internet clickbait.”
I don’t understand how my dad can look so deceptively young and hip for a dad — all bearded and skinny with a baseball cap that confuses customers into thinking he’s our much older brother — and still be such a bonehead about social media. Honestly, our food is so good it should be in ridiculous Hub Seed roundups and viral food videos. I have watched literal tears form in people’s eyes when they’ve bitten into our sandwiches. The way the cheese in our grilled cheeses peels apart with each bite is near ungodly in nature. With just a few well-lit Instagrams, a few well-executed tweets …
They could be out of the hole they’re in right now, that’s for damn sure.
But I can’t say that to him outright. My parents think Ethan and I don’t know we’re not doing so hot right now, only dealing with the finances in the back office when we’re out of sight — and I’m sure that has every bit as much to do with my dad’s pride as it does with protecting us from it. Trying to push my agenda here will only make things worse.
“And besides,” my dad says, “that tweet was crossing a line.”
“I didn’t think freaking Marigold was gonna retweet it.”
“Even if she hadn’t, it was over the line. I don’t want to be provoking other businesses, especially not—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “And now it’s gone ‘viral,’” he says, using actual air quotes, “so we can’t even delete it. Especially since they responded.”
“They what?”