Saint Anything (18 page)

“Bad idea,” said Mac, who had not been invited to the table but was listening, as always.

“Nobody asked you,” Layla told him.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not safe,” he replied. “You’ll be walking up to people’s houses, strange apartments . . .”

“But Sydney and I will be together,” she told him. I blinked—I had not realized I was involved. “And we’ll leave you the runs to sketchy neighborhoods.”

“What if
all
the calls are from bad neighborhoods?”

“Then we probably need to rethink our marketing, wouldn’t you say?” She turned back to her dad. “You said yourself deliveries are up, especially on the weekends with game days. We can help. Keep it in the family. And I need to start getting more experience here at the shop if I’m going to do it full-time after I graduate.”

Hearing this, Mac looked up. “Nobody’s talking about that happening, as far as I know.”

“Which is exactly why we
should
be,” Layla replied without missing a beat. “It’s pretty sexist to just assume a girl can’t move into a leadership position, don’t you think?”

“Leadership?” Mr. Chatham said. “I thought we were talking about delivering pizzas.”

“We were talking about the business.” Layla sighed. “The bottom line is, you need more delivery help. I need hands-on experience. It’s a win-win.”

Mr. Chatham rubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t said no yet, but he was clearly a ways from agreeing. “If I were to consider the delivery thing—”

“You shouldn’t,” Mac said.

“—there would have to be some rules, for sure.”

Layla, sensing victory anyway, shot me a grin. “Like I said, we’d always be together. And we’d both go up to the door, every time.”

Her dad mulled this over as Mac, shaking his head, spread some sauce on an empty crust. “I could see offices,” Mr. Chatham said finally. “And maybe
some
residential areas on weekends, during the daytime. But not evenings, and no apartment complexes.”

“Oh, Daddy, that’s great! Thank you!”

“But,” he said loudly, holding up a hand, “Mac trains you first, and we have a trial run on Saturday, during the game, with no promise of a commitment on my part. Understood?”

“Yes,” Layla told him solidly. Then she kicked me under the table so I’d say it, too.

And so it was decided. Our training happened two days later, on Thursday evening. I told my mom I was going over to Jenn’s, assuming she might not be thrilled to know I was taking on a job, much less this one. I’d really only agreed for Layla’s sake, so I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed it.

I couldn’t say why, exactly. We
were
with Mac: there was nothing not to like about that, at least for me. Since the night I’d stayed over, we’d definitely been more friendly with each other, although I could sense he felt it important to keep our distance when we were around Layla. I had not forgotten the way she’d talked so angrily about Kimmie Crandall dating, then dumping him. I didn’t want to break any rules, although it was difficult when you weren’t certain what they were.

It wasn’t just Mac, though. As he went over the various rules and procedures in substantial detail, Layla—despite her leadership aspirations—got bored immediately. I, however, was intrigued by the whole idea of the delivery business. There was something about going up to strangers’ houses, getting a glimpse of another place and the lives within it, that appealed to me. Maybe it was because I felt that for so long, people had been outside my family, peering in. It was nice, for once, to be on the other end of things.

At our first stop, the guy answered the door in his bathrobe. It was dark in the living room behind him, the only light coming from two TVs set to the same channel and a row of laptops lined up on the coffee table. He squinted at us and the light like a mole, as if it hurt him, before paying and taking the pie wordlessly, then shutting the door in our faces.

At the next stop, we interrupted a teenage Bible study and were greeted at the door by a beaming girl with braces, who invited us in for a slice and some testimony. Even though we declined, she tipped generously. Jesus would have approved.

Then it was on to the Walker Hotel, where we sat out front with three large pies until the guest who’d made the order came down to retrieve them. (Mac explained that, because of its own room-service business, the Walker frowned on deliveries to the rooms themselves.) While we waited, he joked around with the red-shirted valets who were hanging around a key cabinet, shooting the breeze.

In just an hour, we’d seen all these little pieces of various lives, like a collage of Lakeview itself. Layla, still bored, spent most of the time on her phone, although she perked up at the hotel because the valets were cute. But when it was eight o’clock and she had to get back to help with Mrs. Chatham, I sort of wished I could stick around.

Mac must have put a good spin on this experience, because we were allowed to go ahead with our trial run that weekend. On Saturday, just after eleven thirty a.m., Layla and I stood in the parking lot, waiting for him to bring out a magnetic sign for my car from the office. Ten minutes later, he still had not emerged.

“I swear, it’s like he’ll do anything to keep me from cutting into his tip profits,” Layla complained, adjusting her outfit—
SEASIDE
T-shirt, jeans, black motorcycle boots—for the umpteenth time. Thanks to her small-business book, she’d emphasized the importance of our “brand look.” As I did not have any motorcycle boots, I was wearing a pair of Rosie’s, which were easily a size too small. My brand, apparently, involved limping. “I’m trying to help him out in the long run, too, as far as college goes. You’d think he’d be happy to share the wealth.”

“I think it’s more of a protective thing,” I told her. “He’s worried about you.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be. It’s delivering pizza, not going into warfare.”

I laughed, but once Mac had arrived, I kind of had to wonder if she wasn’t sort of right. First, he repeated what he’d already told us about handling the money and keeping the car locked even if you were only out of it for a second. Then he moved on to the importance of stepping far enough back from the door after knocking that no one could touch you when it opened. He was just segueing into a few cautionary tales from his own experience to emphasize these points when Layla looked at her wrist and said, “Can we start now?”

He made a face at her. “You’re not wearing a watch.”

“True. But if I were, it would say you’ve been talking too long.” She turned on her heel, starting back to Seaside. “I’m going to get our first order, Sydney. Warm up the car!”

We both watched her go, her steps light. She was more excited than she’d been at any point during the training. “Don’t let her go to a door alone even if she insists she’s fine,” he said as she disappeared inside. “And if she starts talking too much to customers, cut her off. Get the money, give the pie, and go. Should take no more than five minutes.”

“Right,” I said, again feeling like I was being prepped to infiltrate enemy lines.

“And only take the cash you’ll need to the door with you. If you have to make change, turn your back.”

“Got it.”

“If you’re ever in doubt or feel weird, just leave the pizza. It’s not worth it.”

I nodded just as Layla emerged from Seaside’s door, carrying a warmer in her hands. She was beaming as she approached. “It’s our maiden voyage! And in your neighborhood, Sydney.”

“Really?” She held out the slip: sure enough, it was an Arbors address, although not one I recognized.

“We need to be careful, though,” she said, shooting Mac a serious look. “You know how dangerous those rich people can be.”

“Ha-ha,” he said as she opened the back door, putting the pizza on the floor as he’d taught us. (There was less risk there of cheese slide, apparently a cardinal sin in the delivery business.) Then, to me, he said, “Drive safe.”

“I will.”

The ride over was uneventful, marked mostly by Layla making grand plans for what we would do with all our tip money once it started rolling in. By the time we pulled up to a large Colonial in my neighborhood, she’d spent more than I figured we’d ever make, unless we planned to do this into our thirties. Little did I know that as soon as the door opened, our new endeavor would pretty much be over before it even began.

“Pizza’s here!” a voice called, and then there were footsteps, followed by the sound of a lock flipping. We both stepped back—Mac would have been proud—as the door opened, revealing a guy about our age, blond, with blue eyes and broad shoulders, wearing a U football jersey. When he saw us, he smiled.

“Do you need me to come pay?” a woman’s voice, older, called from down the hallway behind him.

“No, I’ve got it,” he replied, then stepped outside, shutting the door behind him. I took another step back, but Layla stayed where she was.

“Extra large half cheese, half ham-pineapple,” I said. “That’s fifteen-oh-nine with tax.” (“Recite the order and price first thing, even if they’ve already paid over the phone. It’s like a verbal contract they can’t renege on, plus they’ll know how much they should tip.”)

Although I’d spoken, it was Layla he was looking at as he pulled out some bills. “How much for the delivery?”

“For you, it’s free,” she told him.

“It’s my lucky day, then,” he said, peeling off a twenty and handing it to her. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you!” she said cheerfully, pocketing it as I opened the warmer and handed him the pie. “I hope you enjoy your lunch.”

“I would, if it meant you weren’t leaving,” he told her.

“Duty calls,” she replied. But I was pretty sure I saw her blush. “Pies to deliver, money to make.”

I turned around, hoping to give the signal that she should do the same. But of course, she was lingering, following me down one step but not the next.

“If I were to order another,” he said, his hand now on the knob, “would you deliver it?”

“Maybe.” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Or it might be my big brother.”

“Fifty-fifty chance?” He smiled. “I’ll take those odds.”

To this, Layla said nothing, instead just following me back to the car. Once safely inside, engine on, I said, “You do realize you just broke, like, every one of Mac’s rules.”

“Do you know him?” she replied. “Like, from the neighborhood?”

“No,” I said flatly. He was still on the steps, watching us, as if he thought maybe she might get out of the car. I backed out of the driveway, quick. “Never seen him in my life.”

When we got back to Seaside, another order had been placed from the same address. So we doubled back across town, this time with Layla primping the entire way. More flirting ensued and another five was tipped, while I stood by feeling awkward, to say the least. This time, when we returned, Mac was waiting, the warmer in hand.

“Same address?” he asked. “Three pizzas?”

“They’re
very
hungry,” she said, reaching for it.

He pulled it back, out of her reach. “We’re running a restaurant here, not a dating service.”

“It’s an order, and I’m a professional. It needs to be delivered!”

He just looked at her. “Then I’ll do it. You’re done for the day.”

“Mac,” she protested, but I could tell he wasn’t budging. “We’ll see what Dad says.”

With that, she went inside. Mac said, “At least tell me the guy is her age.”

“He is,” I told him. I glanced at my watch. “You know, I can deliver that on my way home. Save you a trip.”

“No,” he said.

“It’s my neighborhood,” I said. “And he’s already had two chances to kill us, if that’s what he really wanted.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s how you’re selling it? Really?”

“Just give me the pizza.”

After hesitating another moment, he pulled a pen from his back pocket, then scribbled something on the back of the ticket. “My number,” he said. “You text when you’re leaving. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He handed me the warmer and watched as I put it on the floor in the backseat. Then I went in to say good-bye to Layla, who was pouting at a table, a strawberry YumYum in her mouth. She cheered up a bit when I handed over her half of the tips.

“We’ll really hit it hard next time,” I told her. “Big money.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving her lollipop at me. “Whatever.”

Back in the Arbors, I rang the bell, then waited for the door to open. When it did, it was the same guy, although he’d changed his shirt into a nicer button-down and put on shoes. When he saw me, he made no effort to hide his disappointment.

“Fifteen-oh-nine with tax,” I said, keeping my voice cheerful anyway. “Thanks for your business.”

He glanced at me, then pulled yet another twenty from his pocket. “Your friend,” he said. “What’s her name?”

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

He thought for a minute. “Okay. But if she wonders if I was asking about her”—he scribbled a number on the flap of the box, a name beneath it, then ripped it off—“give her this.”

I didn’t agree or say no outright. I just took it and went back to my car, where I texted Mac.

Leaving now,
I told him.
Alive and well.

I was pulling up to my own house when he replied.
She wants to know if he asked for her number.

I thought for a second, trying to figure out where my loyalties lay in this situation. Then I typed
No
, which was not a lie. And waited. My phone beeped. This time, it was Layla.

Did he give you his for me?

I smiled. As tricky as I thought I was, she was again one step ahead. If I had to be behind, though, there was no one else I’d rather follow.

Yes.

A beep. A row of smiley faces filled my screen, then another. But it was Mac’s text I was focused on as I cut my engine.
ADD TO CONTACTS?
my phone was asking, as it did whenever an unknown number came in. It felt like a leap of faith, or even an assumption. But as I typed in his name and hit
SAVE
, I looked back at those rows of faces and smiled, too.

CHAPTER
14

HIS NAME
was Mason Albert Spencer, but everyone called him Spence. He’d just moved to Lakeview and went to W. Hunt Academy, the military school just outside town. When he officially became Layla’s boyfriend, everything began to change.

Well, not everything. We still hung out at lunch every day, as well as at Seaside after school. Spence had a packed extracurricular schedule in the afternoon, so he could only see Layla on weekends, and even then he had a tight curfew. At first, I’d just assumed he was like so many other kids in the Arbors, where the number of activities you participated in reflected the money available to do them. And Spence’s stepfather, a plastic surgeon, could afford just about anything. Pretty soon, though, I began to recognize certain aspects of Spence that gave me pause. I didn’t want to say anything to Layla, though. She was just so happy.

“He’s just the
sweetest
,” she told me one day as we sat in our customary booth, only crusts left of our pizza slices between us. Her phone, which had always been close at hand, was now our permanent third. She checked it constantly, hopeful for even the smallest missive. “I mean, he’s, like, chivalrous. Who’s like that? And did I tell you the way he eats his French fries?”

She had: with mustard, using a knife and fork. Based on that alone, they were clearly meant for each other. Unfortunately, there were other facts, too.

Like that W. Hunt was his third school in three years. He’d ended up there only after leaving two separate boarding schools. He told Layla that things “just hadn’t worked out,” but it sounded a bit too much like Peyton’s history for my comfort. Plus, he volunteered several hours a week—at the senior center, an animal shelter, and a local after-school program—more than even Jenn, the most altruistic person I knew. Sure, maybe he had a big heart and wanted to give back. But I knew mandatory community service when I saw it.

And then there was his charm. I’d seen a glimpse of it that first day on his doorstep, but the second time we crossed paths, when he met us at Frazier Bakery one afternoon, it was in full force. Anyone else seeing him arrive wearing a big smile and carrying flowers would have probably been just as tickled as Layla was. But I knew what that mix of confidence and entitlement looked like.

“You,” she said as he slid in beside her, handing over the flowers with a flourish, “are crazy.”

“Crazy for you,” he replied, then leaned in, giving her a kiss on the lips. When they separated—about two beats longer than I was comfortable with—he turned his attention to me. “Sydney. Hey.”

“Hi,” I said.

This courtesy done, he turned back to Layla, who flushed happily. It had been her idea to pick Frazier and not Seaside, as she maintained that both her dad and Mac hated everyone she dated on sight. I seemed to remember Mac saying this was not true of her last boyfriend, even if Mr. Chatham hadn’t wanted to admit it. This was just a small detail. But the secrecy didn’t help with my suspicion.

It soon became clear that Spence felt about as enthusiastic about me. At first, he seemed fine that I was always tagging along to their various meetings. After a couple of weeks, though, I could tell that the little time they did get between his busy schedule and the fact that Layla was always working they wanted to spend alone. Maybe I should have taken this hint and left them to do just that. Instead, I made her spell it out for me.

“It’s just,” she said one day at lunch, while Eric, Mac, and Irv were having yet another loud debate about possible band names, “Spence really likes you. I mean, he thinks you’re so funny and smart. Because, you know, you are.”

I raised an eyebrow. This kind of kiss-up always led to a rug being yanked out from beneath you.

“But,” she continued, looking down at her hands, “we both want to, you know, have a chance to get to know each other. Alone.”

I glanced at Mac, but he was eating a handful of sunflower seeds, listening to Eric defend the name Cro-Magnon as a reference to the “evolutionary” nature of the band’s direction. “How are you going to do that, though?”

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “If I went home with you once in a while . . .”

“You want to hook up at my house?” I asked.

“No!” Now she looked at the boys, then lowered her voice even further. “He could meet me there, get me. And then I could come back. Later.”

“You want me to lie to Mac, too?”

“Sydney, it’s not lying.” I gave her a look. “It’s not! I’ll be at your house. Just . . . not the entire time.”

I knew I should say no: this sort of thing never ended well. But it was Layla asking, and she’d done so much for me. So I agreed.

The first time, everything went according to plan. We went to my house after school, where my mom immediately fell back into her snack-and-school-day-summary mode. When she went to the War Room to do some stuff for the Lincoln graduation, we took a walk, ostensibly to the convenience store just outside the neighborhood for Slurpees. Two blocks from my house, Spence was waiting.

“We meet in one hour,” I told her as she climbed happily into the passenger seat of his huge Chevy Suburban. “Right here. Yes?”

“Yes!” she said. He already had his hand on her knee. “Thank you!”

And they had showed up right on time, parting with a kiss so long, I had to distract myself by studying the topiary in a nearby yard. As we walked the two blocks back, she was happier than I’d ever seen her. That was enough to make me feel like whatever this was we were doing couldn’t be all bad.

We tried again the following week, with these same steps. This time, though, two things happened: Layla was late, and Mac showed up unexpectedly.

I was sitting on the curb when I saw him coming. At first, I felt the same burst of nervousness and happiness that I always did in his presence. The latter waned, then disappeared altogether, when I realized not only that his sister was nowhere in sight or nearby, but that I didn’t even know where she was.

It was too late to try to dodge him. So I just sat there as he pulled up beside me. He had on a blue long-sleeve T-shirt, and as he leaned out the window, looking at me, his Saint Bathilde pendant slid down the chain into view. Every time I saw it, I tried to imagine his neck so thick it was tight there. I still hadn’t been able to.

“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing?”

This was a fair question. Unfortunately, I did not have an answer. “Um, just sitting,” I said. “Waiting.”

“For?”

He didn’t say this in an accusing way. His voice was not pointed nor his tone suspicious. But I caved, immediately and totally, anyway. “Layla.”

Somehow, he did not look surprised to hear this. He cut the engine, then sat back. “She’s with that guy, huh? The three-pizza eater.”

Now I was taken aback. “You know about him?”

He just looked at me. “Sydney, please. You guys are not that stealth.”

“Hey!” I protested.

“What, you want to be a good liar?”

He had a point. “She does seem to really like him.”

“She must, if she’s leaving you sitting here alone.” I looked down at my hands, not sure what to say to this. “I’ve got to run a delivery. Want to come?”

“Really?” I asked.

In response, he cranked the engine, then reached over, clearing a spot on the seat next to him. I walked around, pulling open the door, and got in.

Mac showed up,
I texted Layla as he turned around and we headed out of the neighborhood.

A moment later, she responded.
Shit.

We’re doing a delivery,
I typed.
Same spot in 20?

OK.
Then, just as I was about to put my phone away, one more message.
Sorry.

I wasn’t. In fact, as Mac and I pulled out of the Arbors, I was happier than I’d been in a while. And, weirdly enough, not nervous. As if where I was—riding beside him in the dusty truck, the radio on low—was not a new place, but one altogether familiar that I’d returned to after a long absence.

It was a testament to how being with Mac pretty much made me oblivious to everything else that I didn’t notice the situation with the ignition at first. As we turned onto a side road, though, something hit my leg. When I looked down, I was surprised to see a pair of pliers dangling from some coiled wires, just hanging there.

“Um,” I said, in a voice I hoped didn’t sound as panicked as I was starting to feel, “I think your truck is falling apart?”

Mac looked at me, then the pliers. “Nope,” he replied. “That’s the starter.”

Granted, I was no expert on cars. But I felt relatively confident as I said, “I thought that was in the ignition?”

“In a perfect world, yes,” he said, putting on his turn signal and slowing down. “But this is an old truck. Sometimes it has to be modified to, you know, actually run.”

I had a flash of all those clock radios on his desk, the protruding springs. “Layla said you liked to tinker with stuff.”

“I don’t
tinker
,” he replied, sounding offended. “Tinkering is for grandfathers in shop aprons.”

Whoops. “Sorry,” I said.

He looked at me again. “It’s okay. Tender spot.”

I smiled. “Everyone has one.”

“So I hear.” He sat back. “Layla has a tendency to make everything I do sound kind of twee. My ‘woods wandering.’ My ‘tinkering.’ It’s like I’m her own personal gnome or something.”

This was so far from how I saw him, I almost laughed out loud. Thank God I managed to resist, saying instead, “For what it’s worth, I was impressed by your alarm clock. And if my starter were busted, I’d be walking. End of story.”

“Well, thanks.” He slowed for another turn. “There’s no shame in trying to make stuff work, is how I see it. It’s better than just accepting the broken.”

I wanted to say he was lucky he even had a choice. That for most of us, once something was busted, it was game over. I would have loved to know how it felt, just once, to have something fall apart and see options instead of endings.

The order had been called in from a gymnastics school, and it was a big one: seven pizzas, four salads, and enough garlic knots that I could smell them through the plastic. I took the cold stuff and one pizza, he got the rest, and then I followed him up to the building. Inside, there was a window that looked into the gym itself, a huge room lined with mats featuring a balance beam, uneven bars, and a vault. There were girls of all ages milling around in brightly colored leotards and sporting ponytails, like an army of Merediths.

“Just put that here,” Mac said, walking to a nearby counter and sliding his warmer onto it. I put down my pizza, then the bags of salads as he began to unload. He was almost done when I heard the first shriek.

It was sharp, yelp-like, and startled me. When I turned toward the sound, which had come from the big window, I saw there were now about four girls, a couple very small, the other two a bit taller, all skinny, looking at us. One of them—I was guessing the shrieker?—was blushing fiercely.

“Hi, Mac,” two of them sang out through the glass, and then they all dissolved into giggles. Mac, who was still stacking pizzas, nodded at them.

“Coach Washington!” one of the smaller girls called out. “Mac is here!”

More giggles. A few other gymnasts now ran over, while the blusher was turning red enough to make me wonder if they had a defibrillator.

“Okay, girls, clear the way, please,” I heard a voice say, and then the assembled ogling crowd was parting to let a woman with short, spiky blonde hair, wearing sweatpants and a tank top, come through. She had a whistle around her neck, but even without it you would have known she was in charge. She pushed open the door from the gym and began to walk toward us, a couple of the girls spilling out behind her. “Well, if it isn’t our favorite pizza guy, triggering the usual hormone rush.”

Mac, clearly uncomfortable, put the last pizza on the counter. “Big order today.”

“Scrimmage meet with Beam Dreams,” the woman told him, stopping in front of us. She put her hands on her hips, her posture perfect. I stood up straighter. “And who’s this?”

“Do you have a
girlfriend
?” one of the girls called out. More giggles.

“Employee in training, actually,” I said to the coach. “Just started.”

“About time he had some help,” she replied. “Let me get some money for you guys.”

As she disappeared into a back office, the girls were still at the window, clearly discussing us. I turned my back, then said, “It’s always like this?”

“No,” he said, so curtly that I immediately knew it was.

The coach returned, giving Mac a tip and a thank-you, and we headed for the exit. As he pushed open the door for me, a chorus of voices rose up behind us

“Good-BYE, Mac!”
This time, the giggles were thunderous.

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh as we walked to the truck. I could so remember that feeling as a tween, when just being in proximity to a good-looking older boy could make you feel like you might explode. If all you knew was going crazy over someone famous on TV, like Logan Oxford, meeting the real-life equivalent was almost too much to take.