“April Sawicki!” she yells after me as I walk away.
I don’t see any point in going to the rest of my classes. I’ve failed so many math tests already this semester that unless I get perfect scores for the rest of the year, I’ll be stuck in summer school not understanding algebra all over again. And it’s not like I’m doing much better in English or science.
I grab my black and whites from my locker, change in the bathroom, and head to Margo’s. When I get there, the diner’s empty, except for Margo, who’s perched at the counter, her pink high heels kicked off, bare feet twisted around the bottom rung of the stool. Her toenail polish matches her shoes exactly.
She’s filling saltshakers and watching The Weather Channel on the little TV over the counter. “Florida’s getting a lot of rain,” she says, shaking her head when she sees me. “Bad for the oranges. They get watery.”
“What’s the forecast here?”
“I missed that part.” She pinches spilled salt from the counter, tosses it over her shoulder for luck. “It’ll roll around again in a minute.”
“Sure,” I say, grinning. Margo can tell you what the weather is anywhere else, but she never catches the local report.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at school, young lady?” She screws the top on a shaker and slides the ones she’s finished down the counter to me.
“Failed math. No point.” I grab four shakers in each hand and walk around, placing them on tables.
“I’m harboring a fugitive,” she says, waving her hands in mock horror. “The truant officer is going to have a field day.”
“They don’t have those anymore, I don’t think.” I finish placing the shakers and sit on the stool next to hers.
“Did you at least give it your best shot?”
“Not really.” I twist my promise ring around my finger and avoid making eye contact.
“Well, not everyone’s cut out for school, you know? I didn’t graduate and look at me. I did just fine for myself.” Margo finishes salt and moves on to pepper. “This isn’t because of that Matty Spencer, is it?”
“Naw.”
She raises her eyebrow, scrunches up the corner of her mouth. She’s being polite calling Matty by name. Usually, she calls him Golden Boy, and she doesn’t mean it in a nice way. “That kid could charm the pants off a snake,” she told me once, and I wondered what it made me. But that’s the thing about Matty. No one else knows him like I do.
I tell her the truth to change the subject. “You know that guitar I got for my birthday?”
“Yeah.” She turns her head away from the shakers as she pours, so the pepper dust won’t make her sneeze.
“I played at the Blue Moon last night.”
“Oh, girlie!”
“Just open mic.”
“How’d you do?” she says, holding her fist to her mouth, then, “You did great,” before I even answer. “I know you did.”
“I did okay.”
“Well, where was my engraved invitation? Your dad go?”
“No.” I balance shaker lids in a pile while I’m waiting for her to finish the next pepper. She’s pouting like a little kid. “You’re busy,” I say, “I didn’t want to bother you.” Partly I feel bad I didn’t invite her and partly I’m just embarrassed for her. The pouting isn’t as cute as she thinks it is. She would have stuck out like a sore thumb in that crowd. They were all odd ducks, but Margo, she’s a different kind.
“Well, that’s not a bother; that’s exciting.” Pepper spills. She uses her hand to corral it to the end of the counter and sweeps it into the shaker. Only a little ends up on the floor. “Hey, wait. How’d you get all the way out to the Blue Moon?”
I smile. “You don’t want to know.”
“What are you doing to me?” She swats my shoulder with the towel she keeps tucked in her apron and gets up to go behind the counter. “You know I don’t have money for bail just lying around.”
“I’ll save for my own bail. I have to go to summer school anyway, may as well be for good reason. Can I pull extra shifts? Keep me out of trouble,” I say, batting my eyelashes at her. I don’t tell her Matty and I talked about saving for a wedding. She’ll get too excited about dresses and flowers or launch into another lecture about Matty and how sixteen isn’t old enough to be making the kinds of decisions that aren’t easily undone, and either way, she’ll forget I ever asked about the extra shifts.