She snorted. “Holy shit, that is so ours. Sour Patch Kids and Cokes.”
“Every day that summer,” I said, grinning as I remembered our obsession with—
“Remember how we’d just binge episodes of Big Time Rush for hours on end?”
“I was just about to say that,” I said, laughing. Technically I’d known Nekesa for only a few years, but we’d been inseparable since that first day together in Mr. Peek’s gym class, aka Toxic Masculinity 101, where she’d spiked a ball right at Cal Hodge’s nose for saying “Looks like Bailey’s boobies came in.”
I still hate Cal Hodge.
“Ah, the simpler times, before we had cars.” Nekesa was chuckling, but then her smile faded away and she said, “Aw shit.”
“Aw shit, what?” I asked, still amused. “What is the shit?”
I followed her gaze to the door, and then I knew what the shit was.
Zack and Kelsie were there. Oh God. They were holding hands, and his head was bent down a little, so he could hear whatever she was saying. She was smiling and he was smiling, and it felt like my heart was constricting in my chest.
They looked so fucking happy.
My stomach hurt as I watched them walk up to the counter. I couldn’t believe it. He really was taking her for Saturday morning coffee. It was such a silly little thing, but my throat was tight because I missed him so much.
I missed us when we were together.
He put his hand on her lower back, and I could almost feel it on my back because that was his go-to gesture whenever we were together.
“Let’s go,” Nekesa said, nudging my arm with her elbow. “I don’t like your face like this.”
That got my attention. I looked away from Zack and said, “What?”
She waved her hand in front of my face and said, “You look like a sad puppy when you see him. I think it’s my job, as your friend, to remove you from any situation that fucks up your face that way.”
I smiled in spite of my heart shattering. “You have no idea how much I love you for that, but can we wait until they go? I’d rather eat curdled milk than have to small-talk with them right now.”
“Eat?” She tilted her head and said, “Wouldn’t you drink curdled milk?”
“You’d drink it if it was mildly curdled, but I was referring to long-forgotten, extra-chunky curds. You’d need a knife and a fork for this shit.”
“Of course.”
We waited until the happy couple left—thank God it was a to-go order—and then we took off. I was walking to her car, trying to shake off the sad and not think about them, when my phone buzzed.
Mom: Was I right?
I rolled my eyes and texted: Maybe.
Mom: Gah, I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I called Jimmy Bob Graham’s prayer hotline and requested they pray for Zack’s bowels to loosen.
I snorted. You did not.
Mom: No, I did not, but now I shall.
I opened the passenger door and got into Nekesa’s car. Texted: What are you doing this morning, besides lying about prayer circles?
Mom: That’s it. My only plans are to lie about prayer circles.
Me: We’re going to Target and Cane’s before work—do you need anything?
Nekesa said as she started the car, “Tell Emily hi.”
I added: Nekesa says hello, Emily.
Mom: Tell her hi and also that the album she recommended was trash.
“My mom says the album you recommended sucks.”
Nekesa scowled at me as she pulled out of the parking lot. “She has terrible taste in music.”
I texted my mom: Nekesa says you suck.
Mom: Nekesa clearly doesn’t know that I used to be the president of the Bobby Vinton fan club.
I buckled my seat belt. Who’s Bobby Vinton?
Mom: Exactly. Hey—can you grab brownie stuff from the store?
Me: Batter party tonight after I get home?
Mom: I forgot you start the new job today. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and TALK to other humans. Also, YES DUH ON THE BATTER. You’ve Got Mail and E. coli—what’s better than that?
It would be impossible for me to count just how many weekend nights my mother and I spent watching TV together and jamming food into our faces on that faded beige couch. I hated the divorce for what it did to me and my dad’s relationship, but from the day my mom and I moved into our tiny Omaha apartment, it’d just been her and me and the forty-two-inch Samsung.
The perfect team.
I texted back: Nothing in the world is better than Tom Hanks and salmonella. We’re going to the bookstore after we get off but I won’t be late.
Mom: Tom Hanks and the Salmonellas; band name—called it.
* * *
“As employees of Planet Funnn, you will be deployed to the intergalactic front lines of happiness. Your out-of-this-world service will be integral to us winning the war on earthly boredom. So let’s bounce in the day by starting with our pump-up jump-up! Come on, sunshine troops—keep on jumping till the music stops!”
“Are we sure,” Nekesa yelled to me as she bounced, “that we want to work at a place where people say things like that?”
“Not really.” I jumped, springing a little higher with every bounce. The trainer gave me an irritated look from his spot up on the stage platform—yeah, he’d definitely heard us—where he was shouting into a microphone next to the DJ while all one hundred fifty of us trainees jumped across the massive trampoline landscape in our new spacey flight-suit uniforms.
Planet Funnn—sadly, not a misspelling—was a brand-new “mega” hotel that was opening in two weeks. It had a water park, trampoline supercenter, indoor snow dome, ultra-arcade, Tiscotheque （teen disco）， movie theater, and karaoke concert hall. There were like twenty other amenities that I’d already forgotten from the job fair Nekesa and I had attended, but basically the place was like a giant landlocked cruise ship.
We’d decided that since we each hated our jobs at the time—she’d been working at Schafer’s Market and I’d been working at Noah’s Ark Daycare—we would go to the massive job fair, and if we both got hired, that would mean it was fate.
Well, we got hired, along with like a billion other people who were all bouncing alongside us at that very moment.
The staff in charge of the planet seemed to be incredibly boisterous for eight a.m. on a Saturday, wildly enthusiastic, as if they’d shotgunned Red Bulls and snorted lines of Fun Dip before welcoming our group into the fold. I was holding my official opinion until bounce time ended and the actual training began, but my unofficial first impression was that Nekesa and I should sneak out of the place as soon as we were allowed to take our first break.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Bay.” I glanced over, and Nekesa had a bizarre look on her face, like she was excited and also trying to communicate without speaking as she bounced. She was just under five feet tall and tiny, so she was getting super good air. “Don’t look now, but there’s a guy on the Jupiter Jumpoline who keeps checking you out.”
“And I can’t look?” I asked, craning my neck to see the aforementioned Jupiter Boy. “Not that I care.”
“Well, I mean, you can look,” she said, “but not like that. Don’t be obvious about it.”