“I feel so stupid,” Annie says. “I emailed Harris and told him everything. God, I signed the email love!” She buries her face in her hands and hangs her head so her damp hair creates a shield between us.
I don’t tell her I know exactly what the email said.
“He hates me,” Annie says with a muffled sniffle.
“No one hates you.” I can’t believe she doesn’t realize that.
She drops her hands from her face, wipes her nose, and logs into her email. “Read it.”
I scroll down to Harris’s reply.
Angel Annie,
I tried to call you back but you didn’t answer.
Please don’t be mad but I started seeing someone after we met in Buffalo. We might move to Europe to study art history for a semester.
This doesn’t change how much I care for you and always have.
Please do whatever you need to do to be happy. You have my full support no matter what you decide.
Best,
Harris
Fiery anger settles into my gut with every word my eyes pass over. I read it again, punishing myself twice.
“Wait a minute, he has a girlfriend?” I say. “What a fucking asshole!”
“He didn’t when we met up,” Annie says. Defending him. Still.
“Yeah right. Then why didn’t he tell you before? Like, any time before today?” I demand.
“We kept missing each other on the phone.”
“Bullshit.”
“I called him back this morning,” Annie says through pooling tears. “Some girl answered and said he wasn’t around. Harris never called back after that. He only sent this email.”
“Did you reply?” I ask, trying to calm down so I don’t have a heart attack or aneurism.
“No.” Annie pulls a Kleenex from her pocket and blows her nose. Tissue fibers float in the light of the computer screen.
The screen saver pops on and the picture of me and Annie flashes by. A fiercely protective instinct hits me like a slap to the face, the same way it did when the idiot kids on our bus would tease Annie.
She takes a shuddery breath. “How can he call me ‘Angel Annie’ and then tell me he wants nothing to do with me?”
That is so like Annie. She’s pissed but refuses to call Harris any names based on Satan, the male anatomy, or bodily excretions. Right now those are the only words in my head.
“I thought he loved me,” she whispers.
I hand her the Kleenex box, wondering if this is the first time since high school that she’s ever been rejected by anyone.
Annie blows her nose. “I can’t have this baby knowing Harris wants nothing to do with it. Can I?”
“It’s late. I’m tired,” I say even though my insides are spinning like eggbeaters.
“But what should I do?” Annie asks.
I turn off the computer. “Go to bed.”
Annie nods and stands, zombie-like. She shuffles out of the office, hugging the tissue box to her chest.
***
Mom and I have been avoiding each other like mortal enemies since our fight at dinner yesterday, but Dad is acting like nothing happened. In the morning I catch a ride with him to work. I would’ve ridden my bike if it weren’t for the rain, and Dad has a photo shoot near Ridgecrest Hospital anyway. He lets me drive, warning me to take the crater-sized puddles easy so we don’t hydroplane.
“Only two weeks,” Dad says.
Two weeks until my seventeenth birthday.
“How do you feel about signing up for your driver’s test soon?” Dad asks.
“I’m so ready,” I say as I make a slippery left turn into the hospital parking lot and hit the brakes.
Dad cringes. “Good. I’ll make us an appointment.” He pats me on my shoulder and opens his door.
“Thanks for the ride.” I sprint into the hospital and squeak to the cafeteria in my black slip-proof shoes, the only thing keeping me from flying down the hall like it’s a water slide.
“Morning, Mel,” says Dexter.
“Hey, Dex.” I move into automatic prepping mode, having worked breakfasts for about a year now. I grab bowls, spoons, measuring cups, and baking mixes from the metal storage shelves.
“Did'ja have a good Fourth?” Dex asks, transferring smoking bacon from baking trays to serving bins while a couple other preppers work on the sausage and potatoes.
I pour eight cups of water into a bowl with the pancake mix. “It was fine. How about you?” I might like Dexter as a boss, but he’s not getting a soliloquy of my family drama.
“My brother came into town. But lemme tell ya, he almost caught himself on fire with these freakin’ huge fireworks he brought.” Dexter laughs. “True story!”
Dexter tells lots of “true stories” that I’m not positive happened in real life. They are entertaining.
I pass the pancake batter to Dexter who plops spoonfuls onto the heated flattop. Next I mix the scrambled eggs, which come off the delivery truck in a big tub of yellow liquid that makes me doubt my cooking morals.
“The Pin Wheel, that firecracker was called,” Dexter continues. “My brother, he sets that firecracker on the driveway and tells us all to back up. Well, doesn’t he light the wick right in its middle and I see smoke rising from Jimmy’s hair. So I grab the pitcher of lemonade and throw it at his head, hooeeee! Glad no one spiked it.”
“Nothing that exciting happened at our place,” I say, though I would have preferred singed eyebrows to my own celebration.
Soon the cafeteria is open for business and I take my place at the bacon and sausage station with a pair of tongs. You’d think a hospital would try to prevent heart attacks starting with the food, but fatty pig it is.
Time ticks by and the line of diners dwindles. The holiday decorations taped to the back wall catch my eye. Paper fireworks explosions and American flags attempt to give the windowless room a more festive atmosphere.
A very pregnant woman wobbles through the line, holding the hand of a little girl who’s holding the hand of a littler boy while she carries a breakfast tray.
“Bacon or sausage?” I ask the family.
“Tina, hold onto Mama’s skirt, she needs both hands.”
“Mommy, I don’t wanna eat here! I wanna eat McDonald’s!”
“We’re visiting Grandma. Now come on, be a good girl.” The woman holds her tray out to me. “Bacon, please.”
“Mommy, Davie won’t hold my hand.”
The boy toddles off to a table of nurses who coo at how cute he is even though his pants are taking a dive. Another girl wearing a pink and purple headscarf, the same one I saw the other day, bends down to talk to the toddler. A woman rushes over to retrieve her, almost tripping over a chair and dropping her coffee. The nurses peek around for the owner of the toddler who is starting to yell.
That could be Annie, bulbously pregnant with people staring, wondering if she’s fit to take care of a baby when she’s so young herself.
My vision blurs as I watch the scene, anger flooding my senses so I can hardly stand upright. I hate Harris, hate him for doing this to Annie. I want to get him locked away so he can’t gallivant through Europe with his new girlfriend. I drop my tongs into the sausage tray and grip the edge of the serving station.
I can’t report Harris. I promised Annie I wouldn’t tell anyone and I can’t betray her trust.
It’s all I have left of her.