Jessica Martinez - The Vow

Someone came in and I tensed every muscle, bracing for whatever was about to be done to me. Orthopedic shoes and enormous ankles appeared in the stall next to mine. Not her. I listened to the stranger pee and sigh, flush, use the sink, and leave.

Maybe Annie wasn’t coming back. Maybe she’d found her friends and forgotten about me. She had lots of them. Everyone liked Annie Bernier, or at least they were nice to her, which from what I could tell, was the same thing. She never smiled, but she wasn’t like the pouting popular girls. Not viciously pretty or loud-talking or hair-twirling—and yet everyone treated her like royalty.

I didn’t know then about Lena. I didn’t know that they weren’t her friends any more than they were my friends, that we were both being ostracized, just in different ways.

The door swung opened again, and Annie’s pale-pink Chucks appeared on the mottled tile just beyond my stall.

I held my breath.

“Put these on,” she whispered, even though we were alone.

A pair of black sweatpants appeared on the floor, and she slid them under with her foot. I snatched them greedily. I didn’t even ask or care where she’d found them. They were too big, but not so big they’d fall down unless someone gave them a yank.

I opened the door. Annie stood in front of me, spindly arms crossed, examining the fit.

No place to look. I stared at the wall, cheeks burning as the mortification returned, mixed with the overpowering relief of being rescued.

She held out her hand and waited. What did she want, a high five? Money?

“Your pants,” she whispered finally.

I stared at the piss-soaked khakis on the ground. I didn’t ask what she was going to do with them when I handed them over, and I didn’t argue when she stuffed them into the garbage can. I just followed her out of the restroom.

We rejoined the group together, as if nothing else needed to be said. And when she inexplicably saved the seat beside her on the bus back, I was too shocked to ask why.

She didn’t tell a soul. I didn’t know why then, and I only sort of know why now.

Lying in bed that night, I felt the change. Something had happened to me. I’d pivoted, and while one foot was still firmly planted in misery, the other was somewhere else. And the view from my new stance was not entirely desolate.

I’d been saved.

Only then did I realize I’d forgotten to say thank you.

Annie

They all forget to say thank you. Every single kid who walks through the door manages to remember we have an unlimited sample policy, though. Sometimes a mom will squeeze out some gratitude with a nudge or a What do you say? after I’ve handed over twenty or so mini spoonfuls of custard, but in general, the adults don’t do much better.

And in general, I just smile and keep scooping.

But right now the smile is slipping. The arches of my feet ache, and my arm is burning, and I’m still several hours away from the end of my shift.

Reed warned me when I clocked in this morning that it would be nuts. “Swim camp starts today,” he said.

I continued wrapping the apron straps around my waist, double-knotting them in the front. “Okay.”

“That means right after three it’ll get crazy.”

“How crazy?” I stood watching him peel the brown wrapper from the coins, waiting to see if he’d say more, and noticing his paint-speckled hands. For a moment I thought he was an artist and felt almost giddy. I even opened my mouth to say something stupid, but then I remembered he’d mentioned painting his grandma’s house.

“Really crazy,” he said, and let the curl of paper fall into the trash. The nickels clattered as he dumped them into the register.

“Got it. Really crazy.”

And right when I thought he was going to say more than a couple of words to me, he left to go turn the OPEN sign around and sweep the porch.

A week of working side by side, and he still isn’t looking me in the eye.

He was right about the crazy. Since 3:07 we’ve had a steady stream of overtired, undersupervised middle schoolers who reek of chlorine. The one in front of me now—a tubby little freckle-face with bloodshot eyes—looks unnaturally swollen, like he’s swallowed a gallon of pool water.

I hold out his mint chip double scoop, and he stares at me like my head is on fire. He won’t even take the cone, but I keep my hand outstretched, smiling.

“I said waffle cone!” he whines.

He didn’t.

His lip quivers, and I wonder for the thirtieth time today why I’m here and not answering the phone at my dad’s office, or even better, organizing the tubes of acrylic paint on display at Myrna’s Country Craft.

Why did Lena choose this job? Wouldn’t she have rather worked for Dad too? But she and Dad argued a lot. That much I do remember. So maybe she didn’t want to make his coffee and take his messages and buy his socks. Their arguing—that was why the police spent so long calling her a runaway.

Maybe she liked how custard makes people happy.

The lips stops quivering, and the kid glares.

Okay, makes some people happy.

I exhale, grip the lip of the countertop with my free hand, and hold the smile. Soup is pretty chill, but the one thing he rants about is customer service, and I’m not losing my job over this little turd. Freckle-face sticks his lip out a little farther and sniffs. I blink, waiting with my arm out. If I stand here long enough, maybe he’ll take it or at least ask me to make him a waffle cone. Maybe even say please.

I don’t hear Reed come up behind me, but suddenly he’s got one hand on my shoulder, the other prying the cone from my grip. I let him take it. His hand slides down over my shoulder blade and stays there for a second before he dumps the sugar cone into the trash and begins scooping more mint chip into a waffle cone.

“Sorry,” I mumble, feeling scolded. “I was sort of in a daze there.”

“It’s okay,” Reed says.

Freckle-face gives me a smug smile.

I turn to Reed, my back still burning where his hand was. I start to explain that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t actually screw up the order, but stop myself. It doesn’t matter. We both know the customer is always right even when the customer is a lying, chlorine-marinated brat, and I’m not so sure Reed wouldn’t rat on me if he thought I was being rude to the customers.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I repeat and wipe my hands on my apron even though they’re not wet.

Reed gives his glasses a nudge upward. “You get used to it. The kids, I mean. The noise.”

I nod. I doubt it. My house is quieter than death, and I hate it, but it’s a madhouse in here. Right now I just want to be alone in my room, listening to bluegrass and painting sea anemones.

“Where are the tickets?” an elderly woman barks, tapping the old-fashioned ticket dispenser. It’s a glossy red box with rounded corners and slots like a vintage toaster. Soup calls it the Relic.

“It’s broken, ma’am,” Reed says. “The line is there.” He points to the end of the snaking procession of people.

The Relic busted an hour ago, right as the hordes descended from swim camp. The three of us—Reed, Flora, and I—have been shouting “Next in line” instead, trying to keep shoving matches from breaking out.

I glance over at Flora. She’s older than my mom and looks like an aging showgirl, but I like her. I like how she teases Reed. Her hair is a metallic burgundy, the exact same shade as her lips, and she’s wearing gold hoops the size of CDs that stretch her holes in her lobes into half-inch slits. It’s hard not to stare at them.

Flora winks at me and chews her gum, unfazed by the chaos. According to Soup she’s a lifer: scooping at Mr. T’s for decades and perfectly happy to keep at it until she dies. Or retires, I guess. She told me last shift that she goes straight from Mr. T’s to the Lucky Lil’s slot machines every night, so I’m guessing her retirement plans involve some luck.

Reed hands freckle-face the waffle cone, and the kid turns and leaves without a word.

“Next in line!” he calls, then to me, “Do you need a break?”

I shake my head. It’s not my turn, and even if it was, it doesn’t seem like a good time to leave them with the low-blood-sugared mob.

He squints at me for a moment, and I almost think he’s actually going to hold my gaze and not look away.

“Next in line,” Flora’s phlegmy voice rattles, and his head jerks around before either of us can acknowledge the moment with I don’t know what—A nod? A smile? Probably not.

He takes a banana-split order from a girl with dripping pigtails, and I call, “Next in line,” but my voice gets swallowed up. Nobody steps forward, so I do it again. This time a sunburned girl wearing a towel like a toga steps forward and asks for samples of watermelon, mango, lime, and tangerine sorbet.

I won’t be admitting it to Mo any time soon, not with the I told you so waiting for me, but working here is harder than I thought it would be. The aching biceps, cold-cracked knuckles, swollen feet, sore back. I wonder if Lena’s back hurt too.

At the end of every shift I’ve dragged myself home and curled up in bed with a romance novel. Mo, of course, makes fun of them, calls them Novocaine for the estrogen-hampered soul, but I don’t care. I love them anyway, and not for the sex, either. It’s the stories. They’re full of perfect people and chivalry, and at the end, the right thing always happens.

The crowd thins until it’s the usual weekday evening trickle. Flora leaves for Lucky Lil’s an hour before closing, rubbing the Mr. Twister mustache on her way out. “For good luck,” she calls over her shoulder.

I nod. I kind of envy her for the superstition. That takes optimism.

I’ve spent the week imagining talking to Flora about Lena. She must remember her. She’s the only employee still around from seven years ago. But each time I work up the nerve, something happens. She takes a smoke break. Or the place fills up and we’re too swamped to see straight. Or Reed’s there, and I definitely don’t want him to know. Or it doesn’t feel right. I haven’t actually said Lena’s name in . . . I don’t know. Years.

Why would I? Nobody wants to be reminded of Lena. She’s a symbol of horrific truths—that unthinkable things can happen in our quiet town, that a beautiful girl can disappear and be gone forever. People don’t want to think about that. It’s easier to pretend she just never existed and that there isn’t a gaping hole where she used to be, so big an entire family could fall into it.

I’ll talk to Flora another time. Maybe tomorrow.

Closing time comes, Reed flips the sign, and I start wiping things down.

“How long is swim camp?” I ask, pushing my rag over the countertop in big, circular sweeps.

Reed holds up a finger. He’s cashing out the register, counting change.

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay. If it’s like last summer, it’ll be three weeks of insanity.”

I nod and keep wiping. I don’t think I came to Mr. Twister once last summer. Or the summer before. Actually, I know I didn’t. Mo hates it, and who else would I go with?

Not my parents.

They used to take us to Mr. Twister when there was an us to take. Lena and Mom and I would get cones, and Dad would get a milk shake. Unless we were celebrating something, and then they’d let us order one of the Colossal Twister Towers or a Triple Banana Split Supreme to share.

Over the years, my memories of Lena have gone from razor-sharp to blurred to nearly vapor, but I do remember her here. In the corner booth. Me sitting next to her, and Mom and Dad sitting across, and all four of us devouring a mound of custard like lions over a kill. Lena let me have the cherry, but I don’t know if it was because she didn’t like them or if she knew I loved them. Seems like I should know that.

There’s a lot I don’t know. Mom would have answers, but I can’t ask. Was that family trip to Mr. Twister after one of her flute recitals? Or was it a good-report-card event? I can’t remember.

And her face. I can barely remember that, either. Waves of dark-blond hair, brown eyes, freckles—but the correct elements don’t always add up the right way. It makes me nervous to try, so I don’t let myself unless I’m at home and can stare at the silver-framed picture I keep on my desk. It’s her last school picture. Junior class.

To my knowledge, Mom and Dad haven’t been to Mr. Twister in eight years, since the night Dad swerved into the parking lot, tires squealing. We were on our way home from my fifth-grade Thanksgiving production. I’d been the perfect pilgrim, but I knew we weren’t stopping for banana splits.