USUALLY WHEN I SAT DOWN on the bus, I got a nod from Sarah and not much more. Sarah was not exactly a morning person. But the very moment I sat down the next day, Sarah whipped off her headphones and treated me to a long rant about driver’s ed. It seemed she’d been storing up all her feelings and frustrations about it, and I was, apparently, the lucky recipient. I waited it out as best I could.
“Are you done now?” I asked, after she’d finally paused for longer than a brief second to draw another breath.
“For the moment,” she said. “But if I fail the test, there’ll be a whole other round, I promise you. And if the instructor tells me again that it’s ‘cute’ how nervous I am, then you’ll need to bring me a cake with a saw in it while I’m in jail.”
“Noted,” I said. “Anyway, I wanted to ask—do you really have a ‘phone guy’?”
“Yep. Phone girl, actually.” Then she paused and considered. “Or maybe as a feminist I should say phone woman?”
“Is she good?”
“Yeah. I used to take it to the place where I bought it, but they’d usually try to get me to buy a new one rather than repairing it—somehow none of the stuff I do is ever covered under warranty. Mona’s managed to keep it limping along for years.”
“Mona? Mona Addle is your phone woman?”
“Yep.”
“How did that happen?”
Sarah raised her eyebrows at me. “You see, I’m not one hundred percent sure whether you’re surprised because you don’t think she’s capable of fixing people’s phones, or because you don’t understand what a girl like Mona would have to do with the humble likes of me.”
I considered these two choices. Honestly, I was a bit surprised by both.
Sarah laughed. “Wow, you need to work on your poker face. Mona is a secret nerd. It’s not even like it’s a real secret—it’s just, between all the curls and the cheerleading, people manage to forget about all her science fair trophies and think that maybe she just wandered into AP Bio by mistake or something.”
“What’s in it for her?”
“The two of us used to be friends. Then she got popular in middle school and dropped me,” Sarah said. “Later she felt bad and tried to reconnect, but I was over it. Now I just reach out when I need some troubleshooting, and she helps me. I think it makes her feel good—like she’s doing community service.”
“Do you think she might look at something for me?”
Sarah shrugged. “Maybe. Honestly, though, she gets a bit grumpy when I bring her small stuff, so if it’s something pretty basic you might want to first search the interwebs for an answer yourself. What she likes best is when I bring her the hard stuff.”
“Mine’s pretty hard. I don’t think she’ll even be able to do anything with it.”
Sarah smiled. “Say it exactly like that. That will drive her crazy. I’ll ask her about my phone too while we’re at it—it’s still not back to its old self.” Then she paused. “Oh, and this really wouldn’t be like you anyway, but just a word to the wise—do not bring up Brian with her.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because they broke up last spring. It’s still a super-touchy subject. And I say this as someone who teases her about a lot—do not bring up Brian. I made that mistake already, and she’ll assume I’m behind it if it happens again.”
“Okay,” I said.
And I meant it. But I couldn’t help thinking back to Mona rushing past him during the lockdown drill, and to that day on the roof. Couldn’t help wondering what exactly had happened between the two of them.