Needy Little Things(3)
“I don’t share your enthusiasm for social studies, but more power to you.”
“Anyway. What are you about to do? Come watch a movie with me.” His eyes drift to the top of my head. “I’ll help you take your twists out.”
I’d be offended by the offer if I hadn’t been needing to redo my hair for the past week. “I have to work, but it’s only a half shift. Come with. You can knock out your homework, then we can go back to your place.”
“Ew,” he says, catching another imaginary whiff of something foul.
“Malcolm, come on. It’s been like three months.”
“It can be three damn decades. I’m not going back to that janky little ice cream shop, even though that woman knows she owes her recent uptick in business to me. I heard about some of those new flavors. She think she woke now, I see. Needs to take ol’ Chex Your Privilege and go on somewhere.”
Malcolm quit his job as associate scooper at Sweet Pea’s Ice Creams when he finally confronted the owner, Ms. Jess, about her sometimes problematic, puntastic flavor names. All Flavors Matter was Malcolm’s breaking point. A customer got the whole ordeal on video, which promptly went viral. I even caught a few memes of my own slack-jawed face in the background. I’m not the biggest fan of Ms. Jess myself, but Malcolm’s family is well-off. He wants to work—he doesn’t have to. Best I could do was leave her a list of recommended reading, which she gladly accepted. But that also led to her current cringeworthy wave of socially aware flavors.
We come to the place in the road where we have to part ways. I give him one last pleading look.
“Girl, bye.” He waves me off. “Love you.”
* * *
Sweet Pea’s is a small, freestanding shop with pale yellow walls and a green roof. Seasonal decor and ugly window art give the place a daycare kind of vibe. It’s only disrupted by the faded Casey Sullivan flyers still hanging up, thanks to Ms. Jess’s impossible-to-remove adhesive. Casey went to our rival high school and disappeared about four months ago. It made national news within a day. Her body was found two days after that. Malcolm was angry about Ms. Jess’s stupid ice cream flavors, but mostly, I think he was sick of seeing Casey’s face on the door. I know I was. And it’s not because I’m cold and heartless. It’s because I can’t look at Casey without thinking of Tessa. And thinking of Tessa hurts. She’s Malcolm’s twin and my first best friend. And just like Casey, Tessa vanished one day after school. But unlike Casey, the country didn’t rally for her. #FindTessa wasn’t a trending topic. Unlike Casey, Tessa isn’t white. Unlike Casey, Tessa hasn’t been found. And sure, that leaves room for hope, but Tessa taught me how painful hope can be. It’s a pain I’ve had almost five years to learn to live with. It’s a pain neither Malcolm nor I could have managed without each other. So he can be mad at Ms. Jess. There are more important things to worry over.
I enter through the back of the shop where Ms. Jess is talking with someone my age.
“Oh, Sariyah! Perfect timing!”
Nail file. Nail file. Nail file.
Her need shouts so loudly, the person’s next to her is impossible to make out.
“This is Jude Abrams.” She tucks her blond bobbed hair behind her ears and beams. “He’ll be joining our team! I’ve just finished showing him the ropes.”
Jude extends his hand, light brown and calloused. I shake it without making eye contact.
Ms. Jess clasps her hands together, bangles clanging. “All righty! Introductions are done and I’ve gotta run. Wednesday evenings are slow, but give me a buzz if you need anything.” She disappears into the break room to grab her things.
I sift through Santa Bag and pull out a metal nail file. When Ms. Jess comes back out, I hand it off to her quickly, ready to be relieved of the aching in my skull. “You dropped this.”
She takes it and squints. “Huh. Thanks, sweetie.” She tosses it into her purse and waves as she walks out the door. “Y’all take care!”
Even when she is well out of my range, Jude’s need still only presents as an annoying whisper. He says something, but I’m too busy trying to decipher the mumbles to catch it. “Sorry?”
“I said she didn’t drop that.”
I haven’t brought myself to look him full in the face yet because he smells like he’s cute—it’s a thing—and I can’t be any more distracted from school and work than I already am. “I know, but her nails were looking rough.”
“That’s weird because she said she got a manicure earlier today.”
“I meant her toenails.”
“She had on sneakers. You got X-ray vision?”
I look up just enough to see a small grin playing on his full, two-toned lips. “Something like that.”
“Something like that, or you have a knack for predicting things people will need?”
The box of plastic spoons in my hands drops to the ground with a noisy clatter. “You came to that conclusion over a nail file?”
He begins prepping some waffle cone batter. “No. I came to that conclusion because I’m observant and I have two classes with you. Thought it was pretty cool, but after getting the cold shoulder the first few times, I stopped trying to say hello.”