Jack’s eyebrows knit like he’s not sure whether or not he should laugh too. “That sounds … hilarious?”
I’m remembering that day so vividly, it feels like I’ve restored some color to it, like I’m living it more fully now than I even was then.
“She had to chase the bus for like a mile in her sandals. We were such little assholes. We didn’t even look out the window — we were already planning our new lives like we were orphans in a book series or something.”
“Were you going to live in a boxcar?”
“Nah. We were going to bake. Paige was really big on wanting to grow up to be a baker then. Open up her own place right next to Big League Burger. I think it was gonna be called Paige’s Pancakes. Clearly the branding needed some work.”
“Where is your sister?”
I blink, and suddenly I’m back on a bus on a street lined with buildings and traffic and too many people.
“UPenn.”
Jack’s eyes are teasing. “How come she’s not fighting me on Twitter?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “How come Ethan isn’t fighting me on Twitter?”
The smile falters on his face for just a split second. “Touché.” He leans even farther back in his seat, stretching out his legs once a few people get off at the stop. “And because he kind of sucks at it. That was him on day two, you know. He tweets like he’s out for blood.”
“And you go easy on me, is that it?”
He knocks his shoulder into mine. “Hell no. I just don’t make the company look bad.” He turns his head to look at me, his eyes disarmingly close. “I take it your sister didn’t inherit the Evans family snark?”
“No, no, she did.” My cheeks are hot. I turn my head to the window, toward the cool air of the street. “She and my mom are sort of — well, I don’t know.”
Jack is uncharacteristically still, like he’s waiting. Like he thinks there’s more I’m going to say. And then, just like that, there is.
“After the divorce she came here with us for a while — before she headed off to school, I mean. And she and my mom had a falling out.”
“‘Falling out,’” Jack repeats, like he’s testing how it sounds. “That’s like something someone would say in a soap opera.”
I shrug. “Yeah. I don’t know what else to call it. I didn’t think it would last this long. I mean, I thought it was just delayed teenage rebellion or something. But then it stuck.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s still in Nashville. We go visit him on breaks.” I can tell he wants to ask, or maybe it’s just I want to explain — why he isn’t here, when my mom and I are. “I think he never quite got used to the idea of Big League Burger not being his baby anymore. So he stayed home.”
Home. Only after I’ve told the whole truth of it does it feel like I’ve put too much in the air, like it just slid out of me and into this bigger, scarier space where Jack can see it, and I can see it too. That I don’t belong here. That even after all this time and everything I’ve done, the things I’ve pressed and organized and pushed into myself to fit into this place, home is still somewhere a thousand miles away.
Farther than that, even. Because that version of home doesn’t exist anymore.
Jack points out the window, and I follow his finger to yet another Big League Burger location we happen to be passing.
I’m so relieved to have something else to focus on that my voice comes out too loud, too fast. “See? That’s weird! There used to just be the one, and now we’re everywhere.”
Jack tears his eyes away from it to look back at me. “Do they all know who you are? Are you the Burger Princess of the Upper East Side?”
This time I’m the one who ribs him, with an elbow into his side. “Yeah. They all have to curtsy when I walk in.”
Jack does an exaggerated bow with his chin, never breaking his gaze. I roll my eyes.
“Actually, nah, it’s weird. I know everyone at the corporate office, but not any of the people in the actual restaurants.” I’m nervous. That must be it. I’m nervous and I can’t shut up, and Jack is just sitting there and letting me not shut up. “Which is just sort of wild, since I watched the first one get built and basically grew up in it. Everybody knew everybody.”
“Yeah. That’s how it is down at our place.”
The unwelcome ache is back again, but now, I think, I’m starting to understand the root of it.
“It must be nice — growing up here, I mean. Staying in one place. Knowing everyone.”
Jack doesn’t do that teenage boy thing where he shrugs it off. Instead, he seems to come to life even more, with an openness I usually only see in him from a distance, talking to Paul or goofing around with other kids on the dive team. He leans forward in his seat, his eyes conspiratorial when he answers, like he’s sharing something special.
“Yeah. It’s cool. We have a bunch of regulars. Some old ladies who all make me call them ‘Aunt,’ so I don’t even know their real names. Some NYU professors, a bridge club, one of those run-and-chug running clubs that mostly runs a mile around the neighborhood so they can all get drunk after. Everybody knows everybody. I was practically raised on that deli floor.” He laughs a little ruefully, scratching the back of his neck. “Can’t get away with shit.”
“You’re an identical twin. You can’t just tell them Ethan did it?”
“Nah. Ethan’s too smart to get caught. Or maybe just too popular.” He deflates almost imperceptibly, blowing out a breath. “Which still does nothing to stop our classmates from mixing us up after twelve solid years.”
I peer into his face — the distinctive way his brow furrows, the unruliness of his hair already out of the confines of the style someone put it in, the way he seems to just fit in anywhere he goes with an understated kind of ease. He objectively is Ethan’s match in every way except for minor ones, but in my head they’re practically different species.
“I don’t get it. You two couldn’t be more different.”
Jack snorts. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“What?”
Jack extends his arms out to some invisible audience, his voice taking on a completely different pitch. “‘You’re nothing like your ridiculously popular, wildly successful brother everyone fawns over and adores.’”
“Whoa. That’s not what I meant.” My irritation at being misunderstood is instantly dampened by this look seared across his face, one he can’t hide because there’s really nowhere to hide it. Being on a bus is kind of like being on a stage. “Hey. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant — you guys are in your own worlds, you know?”
Jack nods. “Sorry. Just feels like — it’s dumb, but it just feels like everyone likes him better, you know?”
I wait for a second for a punchline, for him to soften it with something else. An excruciating few seconds pass, and then it’s all too clear he won’t.
“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t.” And then, because the tips of his ears are suddenly visibly red, I add, “I mean, you’re both pains in my ass, so it’s really not worth much…”
“Aha,” Jack deadpans. The look is gone, replaced by the half grin. “I think you like me.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I just said as much, jerk.”
“I think we’re even friends.”
I’m about to shoot another well-aimed crack at him, but it stops halfway up my throat. “Thanks for doing this,” I say instead.
The half grin softens. Jack rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “Yeah, well. The longer you’re knocking someone’s socks off in that interview, the more time I have to undermine you on Twitter, so — win-win.”