There’s a Starbucks on the next block, and I go inside just to smell it. As the door whooshes shut behind me, I pat my pockets, hoping money will magically appear. It doesn’t. Only Dr. Villapando’s card. I left my backyard in a rush, taking nothing but my skateboard, which now dangles against the side of my leg, all awkward and dirty.
I scan the café for an empty table. Maybe I can hang out for a little while even though I’m not buying anything. I can pretend I’m here to meet someone. Like a cute boy with golden hair and an ironic T-shirt. Or maybe I can make new friends.
There’s actually a group of high schoolers doing homework at a long table by the window. Their laptops and phones are out. Their books are cracked open. Sugary half-drained Frappuccinos sweat condensation into rings by their elbows. If I sat down next to them, would they look at me funny? Would they tell me they’re saving the empty chair for someone better and make me leave?
I take a few steps toward the studying students until my eye catches two trays filled with tiny paper sample cups. One has thumbnail-size squares of some kind of cake, the other, a frothy drink with a dollop of whipped cream and a crisscross of caramel drizzle on top. I stroll to the counter and ask the girl with the purple hair at the register what they are.
“That’s iced lemon pound cake and our Ultra Caramel Frappuccino,” she says with a peppy smile. “Help yourself.”
Frappuccinos and cake? It’s everything my dad hates, so I scoop them up eagerly. “Thanks.”
I tip the square of lemon cake into my mouth. It’s too sweet and too tangy, with a chemical aftertaste. I wince and smack my tongue. Honestly, my mom’s lemon cake is way better, but I take another sample anyway. I wash it down with the Frappuccino. The creamy caramel clashes with the sour of the lemon, but I swallow them together like it’s the most delicious combination I’ve ever tasted.
The girl with the purple hair says, “Good, right? Do you want to order one?”
I shake my head no. “My dad says these are toxic.” I grab another drink. Toss it back.
“Oh, um … okay.”
“Don’t worry. That won’t stop me. But I’ll order when my boyfriend does. He’s always running late, so if I order now I’ll end up finishing before he gets here.” I shrug as if to say, Boyfriends. Aren’t they annoying but also the best?
I grab another square of cake and a drink. Purple Hair holds her index finger up as if she’s going to say something—probably that there’s a one-sample-per-customer limit and I need to slow my roll—but I walk away before she gets to it.
Once again I ponder sitting with the group of students at the long table. If they become my new friends, we could go to the beach and the movies and thrifting at the secondhand shops downtown with the money I make from my allowance and the farmers market. But they look too serious right now, all wrapped up in writing essays and doing math. I don’t want to interrupt and annoy them like Sequoia does to me when we’re studying in the kitchen, so I slide into the chair of a table in the back instead. I scan Starbucks. There’s a woman in a business suit at a table by the door. She’s typing away on her laptop, and I smile when she recrosses her legs and I catch a glimpse of her feet. It’s the flip-flop lady from the farmers market.
One of the students from the long table glances my way. Instead of smiling and being cool, I nervously look away. My table is near the restroom, and I can hear the toilet flush through the door. Gross. A guy walks out, patting his wet hands against the front of his jeans to dry them. Gross again.
I decide to feign interest in the flyers on the corkboard above my head while I wait for my fake boyfriend. They’re mostly local ads for fundraisers and lost pets fringed with tear-off phone numbers along the bottom.
But then another flyer catches my eye.
Candlelight Vigil at the Pier for Katherine St. Pierre
There’s a picture of Baby Kat in the center of the page. The same photo from the newspaper. That bow in her hair. The date for the vigil is tonight at seven o’clock.
I glance over my shoulder at everyone here. Nobody’s looking at me. Not even that student who made eye contact with me before. Nobody knows anything. But even though my photo is nowhere on that flyer, the idea of it might as well be a police sketch of me. A spotlight shining. This is the girl who gave that baby the measles. Are these flyers up all over town? I want to make them disappear. I want to disappear. Every time I turn around, I’m reminded, and the ache in my chest hurts all over again.
Please join us for a community gathering to honor Katherine St. Pierre. Rev. Charles from St. Mary’s By-the-Sea will lead attendees in prayer. Candles will be provided.
I rip the flyer down with so much force that the thumbtack holding it in place rockets toward me. I scramble across the floor and pick the pin up before someone steps on it. Because what if they’re like me and they’ve never had a tetanus shot? After I push the tack back into the corkboard, I fold the flyer into fourths and shove it in my pocket along with Dr. Villapando’s card. Then I stand up and grab my skateboard.
My parents will be worried. It’s getting dark. If they’d let me have a phone like a normal person, I could text them. I could tell them how I have to go to the pier. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s that I need to pay respects or apologize or tell someone who I am.
But I have to go to that vigil.