It was Thursday afternoon and Enzo and I were having a competition to see how many olives we could stuff into our mouths. It’s not as gross as it sounds. It’s not like we put the olives back in the plastic tubs for people to buy. That would be gross. We usually sneak out into the alley at the back of the shop to see who can spit the olives the furthest. Enzo’s the champion when it comes to spitting. I don’t know why I even bother trying to compete. But when it comes to stuffing olives into our mouths, there’s no beating me.
The moms and Dante always get onto us when they catch us playing Olive Face, so we have to be careful to only do it when they’re not paying attention. Still, they usually know something’s up when Mr. Kellerman comes in for his weekly tub of lemon olives and there aren’t enough left. It just so happens that lemon olives are the best ones to use for a game of Olive Face. The sourness adds another dimension to the challenge.
Dante was home sick and Mom was at the dentist getting a root canal. Mamma was busy on the phone in the storeroom. It was my job to alert her if a customer came into the deli.
We were in the middle of round three. Enzo’s mouth was stuffed full and he was breathing hard through his nose. He looked ridiculous, but I guess I must have looked ridiculous too. I plucked another olive from the tub—the one that would mean I would beat Enzo (again). It was a big one too, just to emphasize my victory.
I pushed the olive into my mouth just as the bell above the door tinkled. A customer! Enzo and I ducked down beneath the counter, cheeks bulging like hamsters munching on marbles. He pointed at me and then pointed at whoever was now on the other side of the counter. I shook my head, pointing at him. In an unspoken agreement (well, it had to be unspoken), we decided to settle the matter with a speedy game of rock-paper-scissors. I lost.
I stood up and tried to arrange my mouth in something close to a smile, and then I realized that I knew the customer.
Jacob was standing on the other side of the counter, looking about as surprised as I felt. “Hi.”
I held up a finger to indicate for him to wait a second. Then I ducked down again and spat the lemon olives into the bin. Enzo did a little victory dance, which was some feat given that he was still crouching down. Then he spat his olives into the same bucket.
I stood up again, my cheeks feeling oddly stretched and tingly. “Hi. What are you doing here?”
Jacob’s face was red, and he was blatantly hiding something behind his back.
“My mom asked me to get some cheese. She’s in a café down the street. I forgot you said your mom and…mom run a deli.”
It was painfully obvious that Jacob had been about to say “dad,” but he’d caught himself at the last second.
“What’s that behind your back?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me!”
It was a walking stick.
“I never took you for the English-gentleman type! What’s next? A bowler hat? You look so fancy!”
He didn’t laugh. “It’s my mom’s.” He pulled on the end of the stick and started folding it up. By the time, he was finished, it was barely longer than a pencil.
“That’s pretty cool. Why does she need a walking stick?”
“She has this…condition. She doesn’t have to use it very—”
“Hi! I’m Enzo!” Enzo sprang up from his hiding place, making Jacob jump. That kid always did have impeccable timing.
Jacob laughed to cover his embarrassment. “It’s nice to meet you, Enzo.”
“Who are you? Are you Liv’s boyfriend?” Enzo stretched out the word, enjoying himself.
I kicked him in the shin. Not very hard, but hard enough to (hopefully) stop him from being so annoying. Jacob just laughed and said, “No, we’re just friends.”
That was weird. Good weird though. I suppose we were friends. I’d found a real-live actual friend at Bankridge Middle School without even noticing.
We let Jacob come behind the counter to get a better look at the cheese choices. Enzo recommended the gruyère, and I recommended the taleggio. Jacob hemmed and hawed before deciding he’d take some of both (even though his mom had asked him to get Monterey Jack). Enzo ran to get Mamma to slice the cheese. We weren’t allowed to use the cheese slicer, even though I’d promised to stop joking about slicing off Enzo’s fingers.
Mamma was happy to meet Jacob, and she didn’t even try to hide it. She let him try the cheeses before he bought them, and she said he should come over to our house for dinner one day soon. Jacob thanked her and said he would like that. He was clearly much better at talking to adults than I was because he knew all of the right things to say, and it didn’t even come across as fake.
I could tell that Enzo liked Jacob. He kept asking him questions about basketball, skateboarding, and gaming. Jacob didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Your family’s really nice,” Jacob said as I walked him to the door. Mamma and Enzo were having a “discussion” about whether Enzo would be allowed to go to the skate park this weekend. Jacob had wisely taken the opportunity to make his getaway.
“Weird, you mean.”
Jacob shrugged. “Everybody’s weird. My mom’s obsessed with One Direction.”
“OK, that is definitely weird.” I followed Jacob outside. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I guess you will. And tell your mom I’ll keep an eye out for Enzo at the skate park if he wants to come down on Sunday.”
“I call her ‘Mamma’ because she’s Italian.”
Jacob nodded. “And what do you call your other mom?”
“You’ll never guess,” I said with a smile. Then I decided to put him out of his misery and tell him that she’s just Mom.
“Will she give me free samples of cheese too?” Jacob grinned.
“Probably. I bet she’ll take pity on you when I tell her your mom is in love with Harry Styles.”
He guffawed at that. “How do you know she likes Harry?”
I laughed. “Just a hunch.”
When Jacob walked away, I noticed that the sidewalk was wet and that he was walking very, very slowly. Halfway down the street, he looked back over his shoulder. He gave a quick wave then set off again, a little faster this time.
=
Mamma told Mom all about Jacob at dinner. We were having chicken cacciatore—one of my favorites. Poor Mom was only having a glass of water because her mouth was still numb from the dentist; we laughed every time she tried to talk.
Between the two of them (with added input from Enzo), they decided that I should invite Jacob over for dinner on Saturday.
“But that’s only two days away!”
“So what?” The moms said in unison.
I was just about coming to terms with the idea when Mom had to go and ruin it. “It will be nice for you to have a friend over.” At least that’s what I think she said. It sounded more like, “Ih wih bih ice fuh ou ou ah a hwend oha.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mom shrugged and Mamma took over. “I don’t think it’s supposed to mean anything, Liv. It’s just that you haven’t had anyone over in a while. It’s good that you’ve made friends with Jacob. He seems like a really nice boy.”
“He’s OK, I suppose.”
The moms shared a smile when I said that. Mamma helped herself to some more salad and suggested I invite Maisie to come too.
“No!” I said, a little more forceful than I’d intended. I figured it was time to tell them that Maisie wouldn’t be coming over again—ever. That Maisie and I hadn’t made up, and never would. I didn’t tell the whole story, obviously. I just said that she’d found some new friends who weren’t very nice. Mamma asked if they weren’t very nice to me, or just in general. I admitted that sometimes they were a little mean to me. When you’re trying to cover something up (like the fact that you’re being bullied because you have two moms), it’s better to tell some of the truth (that some girls are being slightly mean to you, but you don’t know why).
Mom wanted to call the school to get the girls to stop, and Mamma agreed with her. Enzo was too busy licking his plate to care, and Garibaldi was too busy politely waiting for someone to throw him some chicken. Gari would have cared though—if only he could have understood. I’m sure of it.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and took a sip of water. In my calmest, most grown-up voice, I said that I would prefer to handle the situation on my own. I said that it was nothing to worry about because they were just a bunch of silly, immature little kids, and I really didn’t care whether they liked me or not.
It took a while for me to convince the moms, and they made me promise to come and talk to them if things got any worse, or if I changed my mind. Mamma said that I should think very hard about whether I wanted them to do anything about it. She said that I might be strong enough to deal with the mean girls, but what if they picked on someone who wasn’t? Marion popped into my mind when she said that. She never talked back when Jade said mean things to her. I told Mamma I’d think about it.
When we were clearing the table, Mamma said that it was a shame about Maisie. “She always seemed like such a nice girl.” Mom muttered something that I couldn’t hear because the kettle was starting to boil. From the look on Mamma’s face, I don’t think it was anything good.
If my suspicions were right (and I think they were), it was sort of reassuring that Mom had said something mean about Maisie. It reminded me that Maisie was the one with the problem, not me. She was the one who’d changed all of a sudden. I’d stayed exactly the same—as far as she knew, anyway.