The Moon and More(15)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“He says,” she continued now, as the Da Vinci’s Pizza and Subs sign—featuring the Mona Lisa chowing down on a slice—came into view up ahead, “that they let him go because the owner wanted to hire her nephew.”

I had a flash of Morris, leaning up against the fridge in Luke’s kitchen as everyone moved around him. “Her nephew already works for her.”

“He does?”

She was looking at me, but I kept my gaze on the Mona Lisa. “Yeah.”

Daisy exhaled, a low, whistle-like sound. It was the same noise I’d heard her mom make often in response to a chattering customer. Some things were the same in every language. “He’s still working with your dad, though, right?”

“I think so,” I replied, although in truth I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Morris show up at 6:30 a.m. for a ride to the job site. Just because I hadn’t witnessed it, though, did not mean it wasn’t happening. Technically.

We came up to the door of Da Vinci’s, which was steamed over slightly, and I pulled it open, instantly smelling dough and pepperoni. It was just before twelve, so the place was packed with a mix of tourists in beachwear and locals on lunch break. We got in line, right behind three girls in bikini tops and shorts looking up at the wall menu and talking loudly.

“I can’t believe I still have a headache,” one of them was saying.

“I can’t believe you hooked up with that guy last night,” one of the others replied. “Since when are you into chest hair?”

“He did not have chest hair.”

Her friends burst out laughing, clearly disputing this. “Deidre,” one finally said, “it was like fur.”

They started giggling again, while the girl with the headache sighed. “I think you guys are forgetting the vacation code we decided on during the trip down here.”

“Code?” the girl on her right asked.

“We said,” her friend continued, “that what happened here, this week, would not be part of our permanent record. Pizza at last call, chest hair, belly shots—they all apply. They’re to be filed away and forgotten.”

“Belly shots?” the girl on the left said.

The other two looked at her. “You don’t remember the belly shots?”

“Who, me? No way. I would never do that.” They kept staring. “Would I?”

“Next in line!” the guy behind the counter called out, and they moved up. I smiled at Daisy, who was shaking her head disapprovingly.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “You have to admit, it would probably be fun.”

“What?” she replied. “Belly shots?”

“No, that whole down-for-a-week, anything-goes, summer-fling thing.”

“Please don’t start up about how the tourists have more fun than us again,” she warned me. “I can’t take it today.”

“I’m not saying they have more fun,” I replied. She gave me a doubtful look. “I’m saying that, you know, we never get to go to the beach and just, you know, let loose. Fall in love and be different, with no permanent record. We live in our permanent record.”

“There are other beaches besides here,” she said.

“I know. But we’ve never gone to any of them, have we?”

“Emaline, I look at the ocean all year long,” she told me. “If I travel, I want to do something different.”

“Which is exactly what I’m saying. You go on vacation, you can be different. We see people do it all the time. But we’re always just supporting players in someone else’s summer, so we stay the same.”

“I like my same, though,” she said. “And don’t forget, things are about to change, in just a month or two, with college. Right?”

I nodded, but really, that was different. College was for four years, not one week. It was permanent, whereas a vacation—like the ones I saw beginning, in progress, and ending all around me, every day—had a set duration, only a finite amount of time before it was gone for good. Just once, I would have liked to find out how it felt to come to a place like Colby, have the time of my life, and then leave, taking nothing but memories with me. Maybe someday.

“Next!” the heavyset guy behind the counter called out. We stepped forward. “Crazy Daisy, my favorite customer.”

“Eddie Spaghetti,” she replied. “How’s it going?”

“Wednesday,” he said with a shrug, like this was an answer.

She put down a twenty-dollar bill. “She wants her usual. No mayo.”

“You got it,” he said, scribbling something on his order pad. “You guys eating?”

“Slice of cheese,” I told him, and Daisy held up two fingers. I reached for my money, but she shook her head, sliding the bill towards him. “Hey. I can pay.”

“I know.”

Eddie comped us two fountain drinks, which we got before claiming a booth to wait for our food. “So,” Daisy said, unwrapping her straw, “why’d you really just take a shower?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Does there have to be a reason?”

“For you, yes.” She flicked her eyes to the TV over my head, then back at me. “I know for a fact you’ve been up since six thirty, at work at eight sharp. Last I checked you didn’t take bathing breaks.”

I poked at my ice. “Luke and I, um, met up for lunch at my house.”

She exhaled, shaking her head. “I thought you said never again.”

“I did. Apparently this is never.”

“Apparently you want to get caught.”

“I really don’t,” I told her. She made a face, clearly doubting this. “But it’s not like we have a lot of options.”

“Other people manage.”

I held up my hand. “Stop right there. Remember what I told you. I don’t want to hear about you and Morris.”

“I’m not talking about me,” she replied, offended. “I don’t sneak around like that.”

“You do it in the car or dunes instead?”

“I don’t do it, period. You know that.” This was true. Daisy was a virgin, and planned to remain one until marriage. While the reasons for this tended to vary from person to person, among the people we know it was usually religion based. Daisy, however, was not a churchgoer. But her family was her faith. Mr. and Mrs. Ye, first-generation immigrants, were upstanding, hardworking, morally centered people who expected their children, especially their oldest daughter, to follow suit. In their family, there was no rebellion, no back talk, no sneaking a boy home at lunch. These things just Did Not Exist. My mom, battling with my sisters and me throughout middle and high school, once asked Mrs. Ye how she managed to keep her kids so in line. She just looked at her. “They are children,” she said. “You are adult.” It was just that simple. At least at their house.