“I cannot eat this,” Brooklyn Bigelow was declaring loudly. “I cannot eat anything on this menu.”
The waitress stared at Brooklyn with mild amusement. She was young and chic, with wild thick black hair and perfectly applied bloodred lipstick. She wore a black T-shirt, skinny jeans that clung to her as if their life depended on it, and shiny black gladiator boots laced all the way up to her knee. She looked like she had tumbled out of the latest edition of Vogue Paris.
“Do you have a salad?” Brooklyn asked, very slowly and loudly. Brooklyn appeared to think that raising the volume of her English would make it more understandable to those who spoke other languages.
“Sahh-ladd?” Brooklyn repeated.
“Brook, it’s a poutine restaurant,” Shoshanna said. The Satellite Girls had commandeered one end of the long table. “That’s what they have. That’s all they serve. Poutine. Get over it.”
Frankly, I had assumed Sid was having a bit of a joke on us when he described the fare available at our first official meal. Poutine was essentially a plate of french fries covered in gravy and liberally doused with chunks of something he called squeaky cheese. We had arrived at the restaurant with voracious appetites—even Jac’s stick-thin mother was casting anxious looks in the direction of the kitchen. The adults had their own table, and the rest of us were sitting at one long table clutching menus.
I was at the end opposite the Satellite Girls, with Jac to my right. Directly across from me was Ben Greenblott. I had so far pretended, I think very convincingly, not to have noticed he was there. Instead I focused on the unfolding drama around Brooklyn.
“Havez-vous le steamed vegetables?” Brooklyn asked. “Knowez-vous les foods on le Zone Diet? Le South Beach?”
“Brook, zip it,” Shoshanna said, not bothering to conceal her irritation. She twisted a lock of shiny dark hair between her fingers, opened her phone and snapped it shut again, then physically turned her back on her number one Satellite Girl and began talking to number two, Lacy Fowler, instead.
“Havez-vous le grapefruit?” Brooklyn pressed.
Jac snickered.
“Havez-vous,” she muttered. “Does she actually think that’s French?”
The waitress took the menu from Brooklyn and pointed at it, the way you’d show a kid in kindergarten an illustration from a picture book.
“We don’t havez anything but poutine,” she said in perfect unaccented English. “You can have fries plain, with meat, Italian style, Mexican style, or extra cheesy. What’s it gonna be?”
“Brooklyn, come on,” shouted one of the sporty boys. “We’re starving here. Just pick one.”
“Just pick one,” chimed in other voices, most of them male.
Alice leaned over and whispered something to Indira, who began giggling wildly. On Alice’s other side, Mikuru gazed down at her plate and smiled. It wasn’t often one of the Satellite Girls made a scene.
Shoshanna turned and gave her devoted slave a pointed, unpleasant look.
“Pick one,” she commanded.
Brooklyn instantly pointed at something on the menu, pressed her thin lips together, and made a sour face.
“Small, large, or extra large?” the waitress asked.
“Small,” Brooklyn whispered. “And a Diet Coke.” A cheer erupted from the Random Sport Guys.
“There better be a Stairmaster at this hotel,” Brooklyn muttered.
Once the obstacle of Brooklyn had been overcome, the waitress made swift progress taking orders around the table, ignoring the worshipful glances the guys threw her way.
“This is so great,” Jac said. “We’re, like, getting school credit for eating. I wonder if they have cake here?”
Jac had inherited her mother’s tiny frame, though I knew from close personal observation that she ate more than any human being I had ever encountered and was especially partial to food groups in the chocolate family.
“We check into the hotel after this, right?” I asked.
“I think so,” Jac replied. “Ben—do you have a copy of the schedule on you?”
What? Why was Jac talking to Ben? Because I hadn’t told her not to, I thought. I hadn’t told her that the plan was to pretend Ben didn’t exist, because he had seen me talking to an invisible friend.
“Yep,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and scanned it. I snuck a look at his large brown eyes while he read, then held on to the table while the room lurched a bit.
“After dinner we check in at the hotel and have unpacking and free time; nine o’clock we have to be in our rooms for the night; and ten lights out.”
“And tomorrow? Kat, are you listening?”
Why wouldn’t I be listening? How did my best friend in the world suddenly develop a thick sponge of mush between her ears?
I nodded. Ben hadn’t taken his eyes off the schedule.
“I’m listening,” I said, so quietly I barely heard myself say it.
“Tomorrow is pajama breakfast, then Mont-Royal and surrounding sights, and in the afternoon the Biodome.”
“Which one are you looking forward to most, Kat?” Jac asked.
Why had Jac chosen this time and place to become Oprah? Her perky questions and conversation-making were beginning to freak me out. I was saved by the arrival of the bombshell waitress.
“Mexican poutine, large, please,” Jac declared. “And a Coke.”
“Italian small poutine, please,” I said. “And a root beer.”
I examined the waitress’s gladiator boots as she directed her attention at my soul mate. And suddenly couldn’t stand her.
“Regular medium, s’il vous plaît,” Ben said. “Et aussi un root beer.”
“Bon, merci,” said the bombshell, and floated away, presumably powered by the sheer force of her good looks.
I was getting ready to ponder whether Ben ordering the same soda as me was a) coincidence; b) a secret message; or c) subtle mockery, when a man in a black suit approached our table and stood directly behind Ben, scowling. He had the thickest, darkest eyebrows I had ever seen, and they were pushed together to emphasize his expression. He leaned forward, half through and half around Ben, and spoke directly to me, pounding his fist on the table to emphasize each word.
“Je n’aime pas le poutine,” he declared emphatically.
Fool me once, shame on you and all that—but I wasn’t going to make the mistake again of thinking this guy was among the living. I was sure there was no visible reaction on my face to his declaration that he did not like poutine. The guy whumped the table with his hand one more time, then stood up straight and took a step back. I gave him a look that said, “Back up off me, bro.”
And Ben Greenblott turned in his seat and for the briefest of moments directed his gaze to the precise spot where the man was. When the poutine-hater abruptly turned on his heel and stalked away, Ben turned back at the table and gave me a strange look.
Apparently I was not as clever as I thought. Ben had seen me react to the man after all. Correction—he had seen me react to someone who for all practical purposes was not there.
“I need to find the restroom,” I mumbled, standing up clumsily. Before Jac could offer to go with me, which she usually did, I walked away. Fortunately the little shape-in-a-dress symbol that means ladies’ room in America looks the same in Montreal, so I located it easily. As I walked across the restaurant, I noticed that the man in the dark suit was visiting every table in the room to declare his disdain for the only dish on the menu. Nobody seemed to see him. Big surprise.
I paused by the bathroom door and shot a look over to the adults’ table. My mother was watching the phantom poutine hater with a small smile on her lips. As usual she seemed to feel me looking at her. She met my gaze, widened her smile, then nodded toward the poutine hater and gave a small “Whatcha gonna do with these crazy ghosts?” shrug. I felt unaccountably mad at her, and turned away without acknowledging her. As I walked through the bathroom door, I felt a rush of guilt and a bad heat rising in my stomach.
I had pretended not to see my mother.
Not okay.