FIVE

Rude Dude leads me into the crappy cubicle, drags out a small stool from under the counter, and motions for me to sit. He leans back in his chair and stretches his long legs out toward me. I can tell right away that the holes in his jeans are the artificial, fancy-designer kind that have been cut and frayed to look cool. My eyes hop around the tiny room as I lower my butt onto the narrow stool. There’s a black leather jacket hanging off the back of his chair. The arms of the jacket are so long, the sleeves drag on the dusty floor. In front of the computer monitor, there’s a shiny silver iPod hooked up to a small speaker and playing a melancholy British rock tune. Beside it, there’s a blank notebook page, a Sharpie pen, and a half-read novel sitting splayed open — in the exact same way Mom always warns me about. You’ll ruin that book’s spine, Lily MacArthur.

I peek at the novel’s title. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Why am I not surprised?

The air in the cubicle feels sticky and damp with cooking oil. And no wonder: the entire far end of the room is taken up with a slick, industrial-sized grill and fryer covered in grease and towering stacks of orange paper containers and bags. The space is so small and cluttered, there’s barely room to scratch an itch. I can’t imagine spending hours here on my own. Despite all his bad manners, I actually find myself feeling sorry for Rude Dude. Is it actually possible that someone else’s nights are worse than mine?

“Okay, you’re here,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “So what do you want to talk about so badly?”

Eyebrows arched, he leans forward on the chair to hear my reply. A thin chain dangles out from the V of his uniform shirt collar. There’s a solid silver initial ring hanging off the bottom of the chain like a pendant. SB. Somehow, I’m pretty sure those aren’t his initials. Just by looking at it, I know the ring is way too small to fit any of his fingers. My mind stretches wide with possibilities. Who does it belong to and why the hell is he wearing it around his neck?

He leans a bit further, and suddenly he’s so close I can see the fine, dark hairs of a beard sprouting out through his tanned skin. I take a shaky gulp of air and inhale the smell of toothpaste on his breath.

Cool spearmint — oh my!

I’m suddenly hyper-aware of my own breath (did I brush my teeth tonight?) and the little red zit on my chin that I doused with Clearasil just an hour before jumping out my window, and my sticking-out-like-a-chimpanzee ears, and my jagged mess of a haircut from two weeks ago when I tinted it purple and trimmed it in one of those impulsive moments of stupid bravado that inevitably end up in disaster.

And in that instant, every last drop of my earlier courage disappears. The best I can muster up for a reply is a squeaky, teeny-tiny, flower-girl voice.

“Well, I um, kind of said it all out there.”

“The emissions thing?”

Nod.

With a bored-sounding sigh, he leans back on his chair again. I have to admit, the little bit of distance is a welcome relief. “Yeah, I heard that too. But that report was actually ripped apart by a later study suggesting that — unless there’s a huge lineup of idlers in front of you — parking your car, walking into the restaurant, and then reigniting the engine is probably worse for creating carbon dioxide emissions than driving through. In the future, if you’re going to go around spouting science, get it right,” he said. “And also, for your information, I bike to work. And everywhere else for that matter. So you can save your whole ‘I’m the solution to the problem’ bit for someone else.”

“Oh.” My entire face is burning with a mortified heat. I feel like grabbing one of those paper bags and pulling it down over my head.

“I’m disappointed. For a minute, I thought you actually had something interesting to say. Sure there isn’t anything else you wanted to tell me?”

I clear my throat, hoping to scrape the squeak out of my voice. “Well, yeah, you were pretty mean back there. All I was trying to do was order food. Haven’t you ever heard that customers are always right?”

“Okay, sorry. You’re right.”

An awkward silence wraps around the room while Rude Dude scratches his scruffy cheeks and stares at me thoughtfully.

“That all?”

I nod again.

“So if you’re done with your little tirade, maybe you could answer a question for me?”

“O-kaaay.”

“Tell me what a kid like you is doing up so late at night. It’s past four in the morning.”

My eyes dive down to the floor as my brain scrambles to come up with something. The truth is too hard to explain and too far out to believe. I’m a freak who can’t sleep and I’ll probably be dead in a few days and I don’t want to die alone like my Aunt Su so I’ve been wandering around in the dark looking for company.

Yeah, sounds pretty lame. And this guy probably wouldn’t care anyway. “I … I just couldn’t sleep,” I lie. “And it was a nice night, so —”

“So you figured you’d come here and harass the drive-thru attendant?”

My mouth drops open. “I’m harassing you?” Why does it totally feel like it’s the other way around?

The corners of his lips curl down into a frown. “And anyway, aren’t you a bit young to be wandering around by yourself in the middle of the night? I mean, don’t you have crime rates here? Are small-town people really so ridiculously trusting?”

Man, this guy has some serious charm issues! Suddenly on the defensive, I sit up as tall as I can on that stupid little stool and summon up my most disdainful expression — which isn’t as easy as it sounds. Trust me, if you haven’t been cursed with shortness, then you have no idea how hard it is to look badass when you’re five foot nothing. “I’m almost sixteen, which is plenty old enough to be out at night. And anyway, what about you? Aren’t you a bit young to be working the graveyard shift in a drive-thru?”

His sleepy, bored voice suddenly turns sharp. “Well, I am sixteen. And what I’m doing here is none of your business.”

Those last four words come at me like flying circus knives. I have to swallow hard to push down the lump that’s rising in my throat. Okay, I can take a hint. Time to change the subject.

“So, is it always this busy around here?”

Shrug.

Unbelievable, now he’s pouting like a little kid who got his cookie taken away. I try again. “What do you do in this room all night? Don’t you get lonely?”

“I read. And I sleep. At least I try to. Now that the season’s over, it’s pretty dead. You’re my first customer in three days.”

“You mean nights.”

“Whatever.”

I shift my weight on the stool, searching my brain for something interesting to say. Not because I care what he thinks, really. I just don’t want to seem like one of those twits from school who gets tongue-tied around good-looking guys.

“So, um, what do your parents say about you working the night shift?”

Ugh, I feel like slapping myself. Just brilliant, twit!

It’s obvious my idiocy offends him. His eyes darken at the mention of his parents and his mouth twists into a weird line. “Not much,” he snaps, the words landing like a couple of bricks at my feet. And right then and there, I decide it’s time to stop asking this guy personal questions. Everything about him is warning me to stop — like he’s just slammed the door shut on his personal life.

Cue to exit, Lily!

I rise to my feet, still gripping the bag of uneaten fries. “So, maybe I should just let you go back to your nap?”

“Wait a sec,” he says, nodding in the direction of my uneaten food. Dark grease has covered the bottom half of the paper bag, turning the bright orange into a slimy, wet brown. “I just want to say … well, those fries are crap. You don’t have to pretend they’re any good. I made them about five hours ago.” As if to apologize, he takes the bag from my hand and hurls it into the trash can on the other side of the room. He looks at me and shrugs. And in that quick flash of a second, he actually looks kind of guilty. “I shouldn’t have sold them to you. I can make you a fresh batch if you want.”

What? A fresh batch? Is it possible that just maybe he isn’t a total cad? Warmed as I am by the gesture, I have to refuse. “No thanks. I better get going before my mom notices I’m gone and calls the police.”

So, just between you and me, that’s a lie. Mom would never notice I’m gone because she never wakes up. Neither does Dad, for that matter. My parents are the complete opposite of me (just further proof of my genetic mutation). If they don’t get their solid eight hours a night, they get really grumpy and mean. No, Mom isn’t going to wake up. But still, I figure it’s probably a good idea to end this strange little rendezvous on a high note.

“See you later,” I say, pulling open the red door.

“Yeah,” Rude Dude replies.

With a wave over my shoulder, I step out into the night. Call me crazy, but it feels like he’s actually sorry to see me go.

Maybe that’s why I can’t resist taking one last peek at him as I walk away from the drive-thru. He’s sitting in his chair facing the window and his face is lit up by the neon orange sign shining down from outside. His hands are folded behind his head and he’s leaning back with his eyes closed, as if he’s already asleep. With his face all calm and peaceful like that, he looks even better than before, and I actually have to stop myself from going back there and knocking on his window again. What is wrong with me? There are plenty of good-looking guys at my school, but I’ve never gotten so unglued over any of them before. What makes this guy so different?

That’s when I notice a heavy wristband of silver and gold winking out from beneath his cheap uniform sleeve. Whoa — nice watch, man! Even from a distance, I can tell it’s expensive. Suddenly, red flags started waving all around my brain. Who exactly is this guy and why is he working the crappiest job known to mankind? iPod, designer jeans, leather jacket, nice watch — he definitely doesn’t look like a guy who needs cash this badly. I mean, can you think of a worse job than the graveyard shift at a deserted drive-thru stand in an out-of-the-way village? How does he have such expensive things if he makes minimum wage? Is he some kind of drug dealer? Or maybe the job is a mafia cover. Or maybe he’s in the witness protection program and there’s a team of highly trained killers on his tail. My imagination swirls with scenarios all the way home as the gravel road Cinammon-Toast-Crunches beneath my shoes.

It isn’t until I’m sneaking up the stairs to my bedroom that I realize I didn’t even ask his name.