“You guys short-staffed today or something?” I ask him.
A pained expression crosses Dom’s face, but he catches himself and smooths out his features quickly.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Sydney barely waits for him to finish. “Whatever. Listen. Cleo. I was looking for you on Friday. I was wondering if you could read my paper and like, give me some feedback on it.” When I look at her blankly, she adds, “The one for Novak’s class? I tried texting you, but you didn’t text back.”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry. My mom confiscated my phone after I skipped on Friday. But, like, how did you know I’d be at Dolly’s? You don’t even live around here.”
“Stalkerrrrr,” Dom whispers. I kind of laugh, but Sydney gives him a look that could melt ice.
“It was a shot in the dark. You don’t remember bringing me here when you tutored me last semester?” she asks. I shake my head. “You totally did. And you said that you and Layla came here every Sunday. So I took a chance, and here you are!”
Even hearing Layla’s name makes something inside my chest fracture, and I take a deep breath, trying to shake it off. Sydney must think it’s a sigh of annoyance or something.
She leans closer. “You gotta help me,” she whispers. “Please. I’m desperate.”
“Oh, shit,” Dom says, and we both look at him. “Shit,” he says again, and then he says it a third time. “Are you talking about that Macbeth paper?”
“Yep,” I say. “It’s due Tuesday.”
“You didn’t forget about it, did you?” Sydney says next. “It’s worth like, half our grade.”
“Shit,” Dom says one last time, and at the same time I turn to Sydney.
“I don’t think he’d be cursing to himself if he’d already sent a perfect draft to Novak.”
I don’t know why I say what I say next. Maybe because Sydney is already taking out her phone to email me her draft. Maybe because Dom looks terrified and a little pathetic when he was so confident a minute ago.
It doesn’t hurt that he’s hot.
“You need help, too?” I offer, and Dom’s deeply brown eyes grow wide.
“You’d do that?” he asks. “Even right before it’s due?” I shrug, and nod.
“Can you come by here after school tomorrow?” Dom asks, his whole face brightening.
“Not until she helps me,” Sydney interjects.
I put a hand on each of their arms. “Look. I’ll help Sydney today, and you tomorrow, Dom.”
“That’s right. Me first,” Sydney teases, and her pale blue eyes dart from Dom to me until I promise to send her notes on her paper the second I get home.
* * *
—
Between Sydney asking for my help and Dom coming back and forth to my table all night, my mind is perfectly preoccupied with homework and Shakespeare, with Sydney’s dumb jokes and Dom’s adorable grin.
As I leave, I smile to myself. This new-memory thing might actually work.
A WARNING
Mom hands me my phone without a word Monday morning as we walk down the hallway of our apartment building. It isn’t until we’re outside, standing on the sidewalk where we usually part ways, that she turns to me.
“I got a call from Layla’s mother on Friday. She’s who told me about you skipping.” She pulls out her phone. “Just so we’re clear, you’re definitely grounded, but I’m working late again tonight,” she says. “And I need to be able to get in touch with you.” I’m all giddy for about five seconds, but when she starts walking in the same direction as me, I realize she’s escorting me to school and I pause on the sidewalk, poised to negotiate.
“If you keep my phone, do you still have to come with me to school?” I ask, holding it out to her even though I can see a ton of missed texts and calls.
She doesn’t think the question is funny.
“I never had to worry about you skipping when you and Layla were taking the train together every day,” she says under her breath but loudly enough that I can hear her. “When is that before-school program of hers going to end, again?” She’s asking about the lie I told her to explain why I don’t meet up with Layla in the morning anymore.
“Dunno,” I say, lying more, keeping my eyes on my phone so she won’t be able to tell. My mother thinks Layla is the most perfect kid alive, so she’d be devastated if she knew I didn’t have such an “excellent influence” in my life anymore permanently.
I take mental note of the fact that Mom doesn’t mention the most obvious reason I never used to skip school: that Daddy used to be the school librarian at Chisholm before he started working in the main branch of the New York Public Library, so he’d notice right away if I was absent. She smooths a strand of her thick black hair and tucks it behind her diamond-studded ear. Then she reaches out and does the same to one of my braids.
Her hair is relaxed and cut into a neat, even bob, while mine is natural—my braids fuzzy and draped all over my shoulders. She’s stopped making me straighten it, but I know she’d still prefer if I did. As soon as she lowers her hand, I shake my head to get a dozen more of the braids in my face again.
She sighs deeply, like in the last ten minutes she’s gotten her fill of Cleo time for the month. The feeling is mutual.
Mom and I have never exactly gotten along. Gigi used to be our referee, but since we lost her, we’ve been drifting further and further apart. It probably doesn’t help that the year Gigi died was the same year I got my period, acne, and my first crush; the same year Mom’s PR business really took off. While I cried constantly, losing it over just about everything, Mom threw herself into work. We fractured. And Mom making Daddy move out in December was the final straw. We’ve been a different kind of broken ever since.
“Can I at least trust you to go into the building, or do I need to get off the train and walk you inside?” she says as we push through the turnstile and onto the platform. I pocket my MetroCard and roll my eyes so hard I see stars. Just as I’m about to respond, her phone rings, probably saving us both from saying something we’d regret. She fishes it out of her bag and says, “Naomi Bell,” in a singsong voice. She was only ever Naomi Baker on her marriage license and her passport.
“No,” she says into the phone in her “white-lady voice,” as I used to call it. She sounds just a touch more proper whenever she’s on a business call—her gerunds regaining their g’s and her Brooklyn accent ceasing to exist. “No. That is completely and absolutely unacceptable.”