When I returned to the main room, Jamie was gone, and so was Natalie Reid. Only a few stragglers remained, and Dee and Gaby eyed them warily from behind the counter. I ran out to the parking lot, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jamie and Natalie leaving separately, but I saw neither. I checked my phone, but Jamie hadn’t so much as texted a goodbye. It’s late, for Jamie, I thought. I’m sure she just went home. I was getting good at lying to myself. If I kept practicing like this, one day I might even believe it.
I forgot all about getting pancakes with my dad until an hour before I was supposed to meet him, at ten-thirty the next morning. My body woke me up, sweaty and panicked, and I checked my phone to find a reminder text from him, sent at five-fifteen a.m., which for him was sleeping in.
See u 10:30 @ Mantequilla—JR
My dad signed all his texts like I might forget who the DAD in my phone referred to otherwise. And still no mention of his apparently impending move. I texted him back (Sounds good!) and tapped my conversation with Ruby in case she’d texted me late last night when I was already asleep. Obviously that wasn’t the case, but you could never be too careful. I really had missed a text message once. It was from my mom, not a girl, but it could happen. So a minute later I checked again.
I wasn’t in the mood to see my dad, really, but I knew I should be grateful for the distraction. It wasn’t that I’d expected Ruby to text me, but what a relief it would have been if she had. Without it, I was left to my own horrible imagination of what she might have done with the rest of her night. She’d said she was done with Mikey, but couples like that were never really done. Brody Warshaw and Alina McCaskill had been on and off since literally the fifth grade. They were not good together, clearly, but no one knew what to do when they were apart. Once when they were broken up, the stock market crashed. It was all over the news. Sure, it was a coincidence, but then again…was it?
Ruby and Mikey felt a little like the alt Brody and Alina. I worried that if something more serious than a cheek kiss didn’t happen soon, I would lose my chance for good. And then I would finish high school as single as I’d started it.
That said, the cheek kiss was pretty freaking great. I touched the spot on my face where it had happened and closed my eyes to replay it over and over, giving myself the good kind of chest pain every time.
I’d wanted to tell Jamie first thing. Had she still been there when I came out of the coffee shop, I knew Ruby kissed me would have been the first words out of my mouth. In the sharp morning light, I realized that might not have been the best idea, and I felt momentarily grateful she’d left, saving me from myself. But then I remembered Natalie Reid, and punched my pillow, and got up to get ready.
* * *
—
I was told (mostly by my dad) that Mantequilla was an institution. Though the food was delicious, this was somewhat difficult to accept, especially if you read some of the snottier reviews online. The cafe was situated in a strip mall between two constantly rotating storefronts—currently, an orthopedic-shoe outlet and a nail salon decorated to look like some middle-aged white lady’s version of a Tibetan monastery. Mantequilla had a faded yellow awning and always sticky fake marble tables out front, which nobody sat at unless it was crowded. When I walked in at 10:32, I saw my dad sitting at our usual booth, if you could count a place we sat together every year or two “usual.” His criteria for restaurant seating were as follows: (1) close to the windows, (2) within eyeshot of the bathroom, (3) as far as possible from the kitchen, and (4) highly observable by the server, whom he tended to flag down with special requests three or four times per meal. There was only one booth at Mantequilla that fulfilled all four requirements, so he made sure to arrive early to get it.
As I approached the booth he made a big show of checking his watch. “You’re late.”
“Two minutes doesn’t count as late.”
I slid onto the weirdly hard red vinyl seat across from him and took a calming sip of water from the glass waiting for me, peering at my father over the rim. He looked old, I thought. His eyebrows had an ombré effect, fading into white at the outer edges, and I could tell from his sunglasses-shaped tan line that he wasn’t wearing sunscreen like I told him to. His belly pressed up against the edge of the table, so I assumed he hadn’t cut back on his beer drinking, either. Maybe I should get granola and lead by example, I thought. But food wasn’t really his problem, and no one went to Mantequilla for their granola.
“Three minutes, and yes it does,” my dad sighed. “Thirty seconds counts.”
“Maybe for old people.”
A sly grin spread under my dad’s mustache. This was one of the good things about him: he took shit as well as he gave it. With me, at least. My mom probably didn’t see it that way.
Sara, the college-aged granddaughter of the cafe’s owner, breezed by our booth, sliding two laminated menus onto the table without slowing down. Neither my dad nor I touched them: our orders never varied.
“So how’s things?” he said, taking a big gulp of coffee.
“Good,” I said. “Fine. You know.”
“What’s the status on UNC?”
I flushed. I’d emailed their recruiter, a woman named Paula, a few days earlier in a late-night existential panic, despite my promise to wait for them to come to me. I’d mentioned my recent two-goal club game, and asked if they were still sending out offers, and if I might expect to get one. She had written back the next morning, congratulating me on the win. They were still sending out offers, yes. As to whether I might receive one, she couldn’t yet say. They were still making final decisions. It wasn’t the worst news she could have sent, but it was far from the best. In some far, desolate corner of my brain there was a tiny pragmatist trying to manage my expectations, telling me that if UNC really, really wanted me, I would know by now. Most people knew before senior year started. Ronni had accepted her offer from Stanford last May. But I wouldn’t give up until I got a definitive yes, or a definitive no.
In the meantime, I was on the wait list at UCLA, placed in purgatory while the players who’d been offered spots decided whether to accept them. I’d also gotten a full-ride scholarship offer from Baylor, a Baptist school in Texas that obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that I was a full-blown queer, or—maybe worse—that was benevolently willing to overlook my queerness for the sake of their soccer rankings. When I’d first looked them up online I learned they’d only removed their policy banning “homosexual acts” in 2016. So that was going to be a no from me, thanks.
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re still finalizing offers. But UCLA looks good.”
“Well, that’s a decent backup.”
This stung a little, though I thought of it that way myself. UCLA was just two hours north of where I lived. At least twenty kids from my school would go there too. And anyway, I was wait-listed. They weren’t sure they wanted me, either.