“I just feel like there has to be something more I can be doing,” I say to my dad. It’s the weekend, so I’m at his place and we’re spread out on the couch tossing popcorn into each other’s mouths. I toss a piece that lands on Daddy’s tongue and he says, “Nice,” before launching his own shot. It bounces off my front teeth.
“Have you spoken to Dolly or Henry about this?”
“No. I don’t want them to know that Dom told me the diner is in trouble. It might be something they don’t want a lot of people to know. But Dom said—”
“I know, hon, but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions based on what Dom said. He’s a kid, just like you.”
“Seriously, Daddy? Ageism?”
My dad sighs and launches another kernel in my direction. I dive for it, mouth open, and it lands in my mouth.
“I mean, the neighborhood is definitely changing,” he says. “No one can deny that.”
“Exactly. And I can’t sit around and do nothing. Maybe I could run a fundraiser for them? Do you think the regulars would pitch in?”
He just makes his Librarian Face. “It may not be that simple. If they have a backlog of bills, an influx of cash might help. But if it’s just that fewer people are coming through the doors every day, I’m not sure a fundraiser will solve their problem long term. You can give a man a fish and all that, right?”
I frown at him. Toss a piece of popcorn. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t Shakespeare. “Did you just quote the Bible?”
Daddy looks slightly disappointed. He opens the eye he’d closed as he prepared to aim and shoot. “You know that’s not from the Bible. Look, Baby Girl, I just don’t want you to get too stressed about this. You have enough to worry about with keeping up with your homework and tutoring.”
“Oh crap,” I say. I jump up and place the bowl of popcorn I’m holding on the coffee table. “I’m late.”
* * *
—
Layla and I agreed that the only way we were going to get through this tutoring assignment was if we had a moderator—a neutral third party to basically chaperone what we hoped would be our last session for a while. We also agreed to meet at a completely innocuous location (this was my requirement), instead of Dolly’s even though it’s a Sunday.
Layla is already seated at a small table at the back of the Starbucks when I arrive, and a second later, our chaperone walks in. Jase throws his arm around my shoulder while I’m still standing near the entrance glaring in Layla’s direction.
“Cleo Imani Baker!” he whispers. “What are we doing?”
“We’re glaring,” I whisper back. He’s quiet for a few seconds. When I look up, he’s squinting hard in Layla’s direction.
“How long are we going to glare?” he whispers next. I sigh. “I guess we can be done,” I say.
“Cool. Hey, Lay!” he shouts, and Layla looks up from her phone. She grins at him, but when she sees me, her smile disappears.
I picked Starbucks because I’d otherwise never go to one. There are just way too many independently owned coffee shops in the city for me to spend my (parents’) money here. It makes me think of Dolly’s losing out to burger chains and trendy noodle bars. I don’t want to buy anything, but I don’t want to get kicked out for loitering, so I get a frappuccino (and, I’ll be honest, it’s delicious).
“So,” Jase says, once we’re all seated. “The objective today is for you, Cleo, to read this paper and offer our friend”—I glare at him—“correction, my friend Layla, here, some constructive feedback. Because, Layla, you can’t afford to mess this paper up, and, Cleo, you’re a truant who needs to make up the credit you missed while being…truant-y.”
I nod. Layla nods. Jase smiles. “Okay, then! Let’s begin.”
Layla hands me her paper without looking at me at all. She says, more to Jase than me, “I think I hit all the p-points we discussed, b-b-but I’m stuck on the b-best way to p-pull off the Islam section without an outsider reading it in a stereotypical way. I w-w-w-want to make sure I’m saying there are b-beautiful elements of Islam, and that even sssso, there are imperfections. Like, the Qur’an says men and w-w-w-women are spiritual equals—it’s people that mmake up arbitrary rules about wh-what’s right for g-g-girls versus boys.”
I nod and skim the first half of her paper. Jase plays a game on his phone. “This looks really good, Layla. Maybe just sprinkle the mentions of Islam versus culture throughout instead of lumping it all together in one section as a separate argument. Like here, when you’re talking about Macbeth’s ideas of manhood, talk about how masculinity is interpreted differently by different people. Or here, when you touch on the fact that they have no children, and how Lady Macbeth kind of holds it against him, talk about the cultural expectations of women versus men when it comes to kids and raising families. Does that make sense? Weaving it throughout instead of separating it?”
I look at her directly for the first time since we got here. Her hair is so straight, and she’s wearing dark eyeliner with dangly earrings, and she looks completely different from the girl I used to know. I suddenly realize—or maybe I just finally admit to myself—that this is who she is now.
My best friend is gone, I think as Layla jots down notes based on what I’ve said. And the acceptance of something so simple, something that should have been obvious to me before now, makes me let go of whatever it was I was holding on to.
“That’s all you needed, right?” I say, because I’m overcome with a desire to get away from her. I can feel my chest getting tight with the threat of tears, and my throat feels achy and thick. Layla flips through the remaining pages of the essay and asks me a few more questions that I answer quickly and succinctly. She pulls out her book and asks if I think the quotations she’s included to support her arguments are the best ones, and I double-check, feeling squirmy and more ready to leave than ever. Finally, Layla begins putting her things away and I follow suit. She looks up at Jase.
“Thanks for p-p-playing middleman, J,” she says, and I want to puke because I know this is something she’s picked up from Sloane, who can’t be bothered to say people’s whole names. I think of them calling her L, and then of the one time I did, and I want to run and hide.
But I run to Dolly’s instead.
CHARITY
“Hey,” Dom says when I walk into the kitchen. His lips slip into a grin.
“Hi,” I say back. I take a step closer to him, peering over his shoulder. He’s arranging small scoops of baked macaroni and cheese on a bright blue dish—another one of his small plates, I guess. It’s slow in the dining room, and sometimes he gives free samples to customers waiting at the counter for take-out orders, or regulars nursing coffees while they read the paper. When I asked Miss Dolly if it was okay to step away and see if Dom needed any help, she grinned at me conspiratorially. I think she knows I just want to talk to him, but she’s kind enough not to call me out about it.