“It’s Cady’s,” he said, a little sheepish when he saw me looking. “She lent it to me.”
This was a big deal, and I wasn’t sure if he even realized it. Cadence wouldn’t sleep under anything but the bunny quilt for a good six months or so. But that didn’t factor at this moment.
“Why don’t you sleep on the couch?” I said.
“I’d be in the way. No one needs the window.”
“But it’s a window.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s … a window.”
“Yes. And that’s a door. That’s a stove. Those are shoes.”
I frowned. “We could work on the basement. Help Kyle out with it.”
He was looking at me oddly. “You want to help do the basement?”
“Sure, how hard could it be? Putting up drywall. Nailing stuff. We could totally do that.”
“Why would you care? You don’t even know me.”
I felt suddenly read. “Yeah, but … everyone’s a neighbor in Acadia.”
It was on the sign leading into town, in big stylized painted letters, like a 1950s postcard. When you left town, the other side read, YOU’RE ALWAYS WELCOME BACK.
He shook his head. “It’s okay. It’s just temporary.”
“Yeah. About that. Heather said …”
“What?”
“I don’t know, she made it sound like you would be around for school in the fall. Like it’s not … as super temporary … as you made it sound.”
Something in August’s eyes shuttered. Glancing away, he said, “I mean, I might enroll. For the fall. If I’m still here.” The way he said it sounded like a concession.
“Oh. Cool.”
The back door rustled then. I wasn’t even standing that close to August, but I felt compelled to move away as the door opened and Heather emerged.
She looked between us for a second before tossing her keys and her purse down on the kitchen table. “Well, hey there. How’s it going?”
“Good,” I said, too fast. “The girls are sleeping.”
“Cady didn’t give you any trouble about bedtime?”
“Nope. Perfect angels.”
Heather snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I appreciate it.” She set about paying me, and then she glanced at the clock on the wall, the one that made a different bird sound every hour on the hour. “Hey, the Yum Yum Shoppe’s still open. If you guys hurry, you can get some ice cream.” She grabbed the keys off the table and tossed them at August. “You can take my car.”
He looked hesitant.
“Go. Live a little. Enjoy the sugar and fat while your bodies are still young and springy.”
Heather was still pretty young and springy herself. She had been one of my mom’s students. She still slipped up and called her “Mrs. Kemper” sometimes, despite all the instances my mom had said to call her by her first name. My parents had the Conlins over for dinner not long after they had moved in, and I remember Heather shaking her head and laughing when my mom offered her a drink: I can’t take booze from Mrs. Kemper!
Honey, if you’re trying to make me feel positively ancient, it’s working, my mom had replied, and Heather, chastened but still laughing, took the beer.
Right now, she looked between August and me expectantly.
August glanced at me. “Do you want to—?”
“Yes.” A little too quick on the draw. I coughed. “Yeah. Sure.”
Heather winked at me as we headed out.
* * *
Terrance worked at the Yum Yum Shoppe. He and Brit had started there together, but according to Terrance, Only one awesome person can work there at a time. At least, that’s what he had texted when Brit told the rest of the group about getting fired (I didn’t like it there is how she put it in the chat, but we all knew what that meant).
That’s probably fair, Brit had replied. Since everyone else who works there uncategorically blows.
How do you blow categorically? Terrance asked.
Using your hand to assist your mouth, Brit said. It simulates greater depth.
BRITTANY. ELIZABETH. CARTER was my contribution.
It’s just Brit, and you know it. My parents gave me half a name.
You should use your hand to assist your name, Dash said, and Flora threatened to leave the chat.
Tonight I watched Terrance as the line at the Yum Yum Shoppe inched forward. He was entrenched behind the fudge case next to the cash register, both arms resting on top as he spoke to a woman with two little girls who were already clutching cones. I could hear him over the din:
“But you gotta try the new fudge, it’s got these huge white chocolate chunks and, uh, what is it, Kim?”
“Heath bars,” Kim supplied as she rang them up.
“Heath bars. Hands down best fudge I’ve ever had in my life. And I’ve tried every fudge here at least twelve times.”
The woman huffed a laugh.
By the time we reached the register, three people had bought fudge.
“So they just have you stand here and upsell people?” August said.
Terrance grinned. “Sometimes I switch to cookies. They have this insane peanut butter cookie—”
“If you’re gonna pitch us, you could at least give us a discount,” I said.
“No discounts,” Kim said flatly.
“You’re the light of my life, Kim,” Terrance replied. She didn’t smile.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” I glanced at August before taking my mint-chocolate-chip cone. He shook his head and dug into his pocket, pulling out his wallet.
“Don’t do that,” I said, handing my cone back to Terrance, who looked slightly bewildered, and reaching for my own money. But August had already handed a few bills over to Kim.
“Cookie or fudge, which one’s better?” I said to Terrance.
“That’s like asking a mom to choose between her kids,” he replied, deadpan.
“Jesus Christ, give me both, then.”
I handed them to August as Kim rang me up. “Enjoy.”
“I said I wasn’t hungry.”
“I said not to pay for me.”
“She’s got you there,” Terrance remarked, and then batted his eyes at Kim. “I’m going on break. Try not to miss me too much.”
* * *
The three of us sat on the back steps to the building while we ate, and Terrance chatted amiably with August. A tiny part of me was irrationally annoyed that Terrance was crashing whatever this was—a date? Did it count as a date if Heather basically contrived it for me?—but I knew Terrance would be a good person for August to hang out with. Terrance could make friends with anyone. It was one of my favorite things about him—there wasn’t a person he couldn’t talk to, or an awkward silence he couldn’t transform.
Despite saying he wasn’t hungry, August tore through the fudge and cookie in record time. He handed the waxed paper packets back to me when he was done, and “Thanks for your trash” was on the tip of my tongue before I realized there was a piece of each remaining.
“Try them,” he said. “They’re good.”
“It’s the best fudge I’ve ever had,” Terrance reminded us. “And I’ve tried every fudge on earth ninety-seven times.”
He was ridiculous, but he was right. It was incredible.
“Is this place hiring?” August asked as I ate.
Terrance shook his head. “Nah. Not right now. They just hired. McDonald’s might be, though, you should ask Flora.”
August nodded. “I put in an application there. And at Pizza Hut.”
“Somewhere’ll take you,” I said. “I heard someone say there was an opening at Dollar Depot.”
“I’ll look there too, thanks.”
He and Terrance had exchanged numbers by the time Terrance had to go back in, Terrance inviting August to the pickup football game he and Dash were playing in that weekend.
I was almost finished with my cone by the time Terrance went back to work, but I gave in to the temptation to stretch it out, holding the last pointy bit of it longer than I should, managing the drips that tipped over the jagged edges while August and I kept talking. He was sitting on the step below me, leaning back on his elbows so his face turned up whenever he looked my way.
I didn’t know you could simultaneously find someone easy to talk to, and yet somehow be conscious of everything you’re doing around them. Like how your body exists in space, and where your hands are in relation to theirs. August managed to inspire it. I couldn’t tell if it was mutual. I wanted it to be.
Finally I had to finish the cone. It was soggy, and basically empty, but I ate it anyway. I wiped my hands on my shorts. We talked some more.
“Do you have a curfew?” he said eventually.
“Sort of? Not really. Like, I usually just go home.” Maximum coolness.
“Mine is soon,” he said, and he sounded like maybe he regretted it, but then again maybe I was just imagining it.
“This was Heather’s idea, though, so I feel like there might be a bit of leeway there.”
He smiled, and I was almost certain there was a little regret when he said, “Probably shouldn’t risk it.”
* * *
I couldn’t get to sleep that night, and sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I thought about my colleges. I had created a broad list at the beginning of junior year, as The College Collective had advised, and had slowly whittled it down over the course of the year, after a lot of research and consideration.