The Throwback List Page 9

  Anyone can afford you when you’re unemployed, Bee thought. She chided herself for being uncharitable. Jo had gone to the same university as Olympians and Nobel laureates. She probably found her feces too fragrant for food service.

  Whoops. Uncharitable again.

  “Let me run and grab you a bottle of surgical wash and the aftercare sheet,” Bee said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She had started toward the downstairs storage closet when she saw Cruz behind the counter with the store’s iPad. The landline receiver was tucked under his chin, the cord wound around his index finger. He was speaking in Spanish too quickly and too softly for Bianca to catch every word—he’d grown up fluent and she’d grown up with a mother who’d patently refused to learn—but she knew enough from Lita and Tito to understand:

  “She’s getting her hands dirty for once. Yeah, yeah, tomorrow Dez will bring in good money, but Pizza Girl has a—” He spotted Bee watching him and muttered a hurried goodbye.

  “Who was that?” she asked, dreading that she already knew the answer. The only people who cared about the shop’s inner workings and made fun of her for working in the quick-service industry were her own family.

  Cruz immediately put his hands up. “Bianca. Did your friends leave already?”

  “Why are you reading my calendar into the phone? Who are you reading my calendar to, Cruz?”

  “No one, I swear. It’s not what you’re thinking—”

  “Yeah? Did I get a new stalker? Are you reporting on me to a murderer or—Ha!” She boxed him out and pushed the History button on the phone. At the top of the call list was the name LITA CELL. Speed dial 4. “Cruz, how could you? She’s not the boss anymore.”

  “She was curious about the appointments we had on file for the month,” Cruz said, his shoulders coming up to hide his ears like he was afraid Bee might take a swing. He’d grown up with older sisters. “It wasn’t supposed to rain this week! Lita’s worried we might not get the pre-tourist-season bump that we normally do.”

  The pre-tourist-season bump that I could have brought in with new paint or a permanent-makeup artist? Bee mentally screamed. But it wasn’t Cruz’s fault that her grandmother was all Lita all the time.

  “Really, Bee, I don’t hear from her that often. She’s too busy watching soaps. And, besides, Mo’s her favorite. They’re the one planning that flash event.”

  Dread rose in her stomach. “Flash event?”

  “Red and white and blue designs going on sale, first come, first served.” He searched for recognition on her face. “The Fourth of July thing?”

  “The Fourth of July thing that they were planning to host in secret while I was on my honeymoon?”

  Cruz’s horror dawned as Bee whipped the phone out of her back pocket. Thumbs flying, she sent out a text to the Salty Dog employee thread—the one that didn’t include her mother or grandmother.

  BIANCA: Memo: orders/ideas/events that come from any Boria but the one who signs your checks are NOT OFFICIAL and should not be treated as such.

  She started to type I know she’s a scary old lady, but you can’t follow her every whim! but thought better of it. She would rather die than have someone accurately diagnose her hypocrisy, thanks.

  Her brain tried to spin out an argument with Lita. Marching into her bedroom. Turning off the TV. Folding her arms with disapproval.

  Lita would ask whose back that shop had been built on. Bianca, after all, was only acting manager. Lita was the owner. Lita would win. She always won. All Bee could do was try to hold back the drowning tide of demands and traditions.

  She washed her hands in hot water, rinsed them in cold, then pressed the tips of her fingers under her eyes. She waited for her core temperature to cool from hopping mad to sociably chill.

  Belatedly remembering to grab the bottle of wash, Bee came around the corner. Her ponytail bobbed cheerfully behind her, doing the lion’s share of making her look more chipper than she felt.

  “Good! You’re back,” Autumn said the moment Bianca turned the corner. “One of the next things on Jo’s list is tackling the Sunday Sundae Surprise from Frosty’s. And I thought, ‘Duh, what better way to make new friends and re-meet old friends than to share, like, a metric shitload of ice cream?’ This weekend! Florencio already said he was in—he’s never had the Sunday Surprise either. Jo has to meet Birdy!” Autumn clutched Jo’s forearm. “Birdy’s the absolute best. You’ll like him, I swear.”

  Bianca’s instinct was to decline. With a laugh and a Hell no. She wasn’t sure that she needed to spend more time in Autumn and Jo’s friendship reboot. Or eat a sundae that was advertised in the Frosty’s window as a whale of a treat. Besides, on weekends, she normally focused all of her attention on Lita.

  Well. If Lita could have friends and secret plans, then so could Bianca.

  COMPLETED ITEMS

  TP Bianca’s house

  Perform onstage

  Get belly button pierced

  TO BE COMPLETED

  Surf the Point

  Host a dinner party

  Have a glitter fight

  Try everything on the menu at TGIFridays Days

  Do a keg stand

  Play hide-and-seek in public

  Break something with a sledgehammer

  While her sister was hogging the upstairs bathroom, Jo grumbled her way down the stairs to the half-bath to wash her stomach again. She winced as the saltwater solution touched the open wound above her navel. Twenty-four hours into having a glittery belly button and Jo was still mostly on the fence about it. Possibly because she’d yet to take a cute after-photo. Self-portraits had never been her strong suit, but taking an attractive picture of her midriff in her childhood bedroom might prove impossible. She’d at least have to throw out the furry pillows first.

  In the living room, Phil Freeman was stretched out on the armchair under the turtle painting watching some miserable Nordic crime drama with a landscape not unlike Sandy Point’s. Apparently the Surf & Saucer closed after lunch, making both of Jo’s parents almost unbearably present.

  “You’re going out again tonight?” he asked.

  “Eden’s going to help me check something off my list at Point High,” Jo answered vaguely. She hadn’t figured out how much input she should let her parents have about the Throwback List. They subscribed to her social media, so they saw the posts and wondered aloud about them over shared meals. Jo brushed off questions about it. Part of the list’s appeal was that it was separate from life inside her family home.

  “I hope it’s not punching more holes into either of your bodies,” Phil said with a huh-huh chuckle that meant We both know this is no joke. He crossed his ankles and tilted his head toward Jo. “The day you were born, the doctor assured us that you were good on holes. Didn’t mention you needing any new ones at all.”

  Jo refused to touch the sore spot above her belly button. She didn’t say, Dude, even Beyoncé has a navel ring. She did say, “Well, Dad, doctors rarely discuss how the patriarchy shapes beauty norms with new parents, but we could deep-dive into how my piercing will affect my personal sexual worth, if you want?” She flashed him a full-teeth smile, her own silent That wasn’t a joke either.

  Marching up the stairs, she called, “Eden! Let’s go!” before finding her sister slouched moodily in the bathroom doorway. Like Jo, she wore head-to-toe shades of black. Unlike Jo, most of her outfit had come from the Hot Topic website. Her beanie had a Jack Skellington face on it. Less stealthy than Jo had hoped for.

  “Why are you being mean to Dad?” Eden asked.

  Jo rolled her eyes until she felt like her optic nerve was in actual danger of snapping. “I’m not mean. He won’t talk to me like a person.”

  “No…” Eden said, cocking her head in the exact same way their father had. “He’s talking to you like your dad?”

  Jo exhaled through her nose. “I haven’t had parents in a long time, Eden. It’s not like riding a bike.”

  “You’ve always h
ad parents, you weirdo,” Eden scoffed. “You don’t become an orphan when you go to college.”

  Reaching out and smushing her sister’s cheeks together into a chipmunk pucker, Jo crooned, “Oh, my sweet summer child. Yes. You really fucking do.” She released her sister’s squirming face. “Are you ready to go?”

  Eden grabbed a bulging backpack from her bedroom. Less enthusiastic than before being face-smushed, she said, “Ready.”

  Jo took the stairs down two at a time, practicing her quiet pranking walk. Eden clattered behind her.

  “Home by nine,” Phil called after them.

  Jo skidded to a stop with the doorknob in her hand. “What the—”

  “Not you,” he said. He pointed at Eden. “But her, yes.”

  “This he’s strict about,” Jo muttered, once there were two closed doors between her mouth and her father’s ears. The air inside the Mini Cooper was frigid. She blew into her hands to warm them before touching the steering wheel. She prayed that it wouldn’t unexpectedly rain for a second time this week. “The pig-fucking TV show is political commentary but hanging with me is ‘home by nine.’”

  “I help open the store on Saturdays,” Eden said, buckling her seat belt. “I overslept one time and he’s been the most paranoid about it since.”

  Jo turned the ignition over, glancing at her sister in disbelief. When she’d been a high school senior, she put in at least twenty-five hours a week at Freeman Fine Arts, going in every day after school and serving canapés at exhibit-opening galas. “You only work one day a week?”

  “Saturdays. Mom needs to do all the accounting. Otherwise it comes home.”

  “So what?”

  “Sooo, work stays at work?” Eden said.

  How am I even related to you three? Jo thought.

  Point High was dark out front, but the parking lot was packed for softball opening day. The stadium lights were on but invisible against the golden-hour light. The bleachers were noisy.

  Jo broke into a flop sweat as she and Eden stepped away from the sounds of the game. Striding into the dimly lit Point High main building like she belonged there, Jo tried to comfort herself by remembering what Autumn had told her as they’d game-planned this in the boardwalk parking lot yesterday—as long as she and Eden were in and out of the building before the end of the softball game, they should beat the custodian setting the security alarm.

  Jo was a lot more nervous than she had been TP-ing Bianca’s house. But less nervous than she had been with Bianca’s forceps yanking at her skin.

  Keeping that in perspective, she rolled her shoulder back and prepared to redo the yearbook prank.

  Back in the day, all the student clubs pulled end-of-the-year pranks. Usually it was a harmless excuse to sneak around school grounds in the middle of the night. Jo’s senior year, the football field had been so densely sporked that it crossed the invisible line between morale booster and grass-murdering nuisance. All school events were put on hold until the pranksters came forward. It fully soured the concept of pranking for Jo. She shut down the yearbook committee plan to move the vice principal’s office into the center of the quad.

  A choice she would rectify tonight.

  The administrative offices were at the far end of the main building’s rectangle, where all the windows and doors faced dark classrooms across the quad. The white cinder-block hallways echoed the Freeman girls’ footsteps.

  “Here,” Eden said, stopping abruptly in front of an office door with a vice principal nameplate.

  The original prank ten years ago had been aimed at Mr. Dawson—and the infamous shot-glass collection he kept mounted above his desk—but Autumn had informed Jo that he’d retired.

  “There’s a new vice principal this year,” Autumn had assured Jo after her piercing appointment. They’d stood in the parking lot for twenty minutes, caught up in talking about ideas for the newly dubbed Throwback List. “She doesn’t have a lot of stuff, and her office windows open onto the quad, so you’ll only have to take the big pieces through the building. It’s even easier than the original plan, I swear!”

  Jo would have been far less nervous with a staff member present. She invited Autumn along, but Autumn was needed across campus at the PTA concession stand at the softball game. Because Autumn was a member of the PTA.

  “And the vice principal isn’t my boss, per se,” Autumn had told Jo. “But she’s not not my boss, you know?”

  Jo was in no position to ask Autumn to put her job in danger. Hanging out twice in a week had been a nice surprise, but Jo didn’t want Autumn to think she was being needy. Or competing with Bianca.

  “It’s unlocked!” Eden squeaked excitedly as she swung open the door.

  The two of them stepped inside the underdressed office. There were plain white walls. A metal desk faced by two chairs. A filing cabinet. A tall rubber-tree plant that could have been real or fake. An ancient computer desktop. A short red bookcase. Jo aimed her Nikon around, making sure to get every detail.

  Eden tossed her backpack aside and went behind the desk. She shoved open the large windows. The evening air was sharp and cold. Jo pulled her hat down over her ears. Eden picked up the computer chair and heaved it out the open window, into the quad.

  The sound of the chair casters clattering on the pavement outside ended in a crash.

  She beamed. “I’ve been looking forward to that.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Eden,” Jo said. “It’s a prank, not a smash and grab!”

  “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line!” Eden pointed out the window at the flagpole in the center of the quad where the chair had overturned. “And it landed perfectly center!”

  Eden started clearing the desk while Jo started scooping books onto the floor. The covers were emblazoned with buzzwords like Restorative Justice, Educational Leadership, and Principalship, a word Jo had never seen before. The only two nonacademic texts stood out, their black-and-white covers nearly identical: Abby Wambach’s memoir and Megan Rapinoe’s. Jo couldn’t stop herself from pulling down the latter. Stumbling upon gay nonfiction in the vice principal’s office was just too exciting. It was the polar opposite of Mr. Dawson’s horrid I Got Crabs in Boston shot glass.

  “You’re dead-ass reading right now!” Eden gasped. “Help me get this desk outside. Unless you want me to try to push it out the window, too?”

  Jo set the book aside.

  The metal desk was lighter than it looked—hooray—but awkwardly wide. They carried it at a scurry, down the hallway, hissing curses as the metal legs repeatedly clipped their shins.

  Outside, they set the desk down beneath the flagpole, site of so many pep rallies. Eden righted the chair and slid it neatly into place. They moved the bookcase and chairs through the window. Eden carried the rubber-tree plant and desk lamp in one go.

  But no matter what they did, they couldn’t move the filing cabinet. It was too heavy, the metal sides impossible to grip. With the sisters’ power combined, they could only manage to lift it off the floor an inch.

  “Fuck.” Jo shook the filing cabinet until the metal sides thundered. “We can’t leave one piece behind! That ruins it! The only difference between a prank and a misdemeanor is all the furniture makes it outside.”

  “Start moving the floor stuff outside,” Eden said. “I’ll get a dolly from the attendance office for the filing cabinet.”

  Jo pulled the hat off her head and blotted her hairline with the satin lining. “Why would there be a dolly in the attendance office?”

  “It’s how they move the paper boxes,” Eden said. “I used to be an office aide. Trust me.”

  “The last time you told me to trust you, I ended up getting thrown off campus.”

  “Yeah, but that was personal between you and Miss Kelly. Now that you’ve made up, do you think she’ll let you do headshots? I don’t like the ones we took on Tuesday.”

  “Eden. The dolly?”

  “Fine, but I’m going to ask again later.�
�� Eden ran out into the hallway and around the corner.

  Jo got all the books back on the small case and the computer monitor situated outside. She checked the Nikon reference photos. Adjusted the desk lamp’s position.

  As the sun started to fall, turning the sky pink, Eden rattled into view with an ancient brown metal hand truck with PHS Office written down the side in gold Sharpie.

  “You’re a hero,” Jo said.

  “You know my Venmo,” Eden said.

  They rocked the filing cabinet onto the dolly and pushed it out into the hallway. The cabinet rattled the whole way, metal on metal on metal. Jo steered it to the right of the desk, right next to the rubber plant. The hand truck scraped against the pavement unpleasantly as Jo pulled it away.

  “Someone’s coming!” Eden hissed.

  “Remember the plan!” Jo whispered back.

  “Right!” Eden yanked off her backpack, grabbed something inside, and thrust it at Jo. A visitors’ sticker.

  Jo slapped it over her heart, the scarlet apple printed on it garish against her formerly covert outfit. She could hear the footsteps approaching now, too, echoing up the hallway.

  Before Jo could stop her, Eden leaped into the nearest cement planter, camouflaging herself behind a skinny sapling. Feeling remarkably like the last person to dibs a seat in the living room again, Jo was caught in the center of the quad. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  As the footsteps rounded the corner, she sat in the desk chair.

  Eden swung the Nikon’s lens, so that Jo distantly heard the paparazzi buzz of burst mode. And then Jo’s first love stepped into the quad. With the cool blue eyes of a Siamese cat and a short asymmetrical haircut, her lips gave the slightest quirk as she said, “Hello, Johanna.”

  Wren Vos. Here in front of her. In a sweater vest. With a tie. If there had been elbow patches, Jo’s underpants would have no choice but to up and quit.

  More than anything, she wished that she hadn’t chosen to wear a hat today. Later, she would burn this glorified bonnet.