Until the Day I Die(24)

When will this pain stop? my brain thinks, looking down at me. When I’m dead too? But there is no answer, and I keep crying. Eventually the tears dry up, and my body lets out a final shudder. I feel like one of those cicada shells in the daylilies beside the garage. Empty. But also very calm.

I haven’t checked today’s server report so I open my email to see if the error message has shown up again. Today’s is clear, interestingly. And when I download the log, the only activity I see is not by an admin, but by a user. It looks like from the 128-bit universally unique identifier, a regular Jax user has logged on the same way an administrator does.

Okay, that’s highly unusual.

I jot the UUID down and stare at it. Somebody’s up to something, messing with the servers. And it appears they fixed the deadlock issue, which is not the way things work at Jax. Only admins get on the servers and fix things.

The frustrating thing is there’s no way for me to know who this person is. As a digital wallet app, Jax has to follow really strict FDIC rules about privacy. All our user accounts are anonymized with these UUIDs. This person could be any one of the millions of people who are using Jax.

There is one way to gather more data from this UUID, although it’s not an entirely legal one. It would involve uploading a basic surveillance software program to my phone, then doing some minor reconfiguring of the setup. Installing spyware on this person’s Jax account, in other words. Which is terrible and all kinds of wrong and really not what I should be doing. But I’m curious—okay, nosy—and it’s the only way I’m going to figure out what’s going on. If I ask Scotty, he’ll just bump me off the report list.

I grab my laptop and start digging.

An hour and a half later, I realize two things. I’m starving, and there’s no food in our room. Well, Dele has some peach yogurt and grapes and Little Debbie Swiss Rolls in the fridge, but I haven’t had a chance to go to the store yet, so I don’t have anything. I check the school’s app and see there’s one cafeteria open until nine. I flash to an image. Me, sitting at a table, choking down a sad, limp sandwich, while a couple of other kids—who either didn’t know how to find their way to parties or were too stubborn or anxious to go to the ones they were invited to—notice with pity my puffy red cry-face. Ah, the homesick girl.

What I really want is a Davenport’s black olive and onion pizza and a large root beer over mounds of flake ice, but that’s not going to happen, so I better get my butt in gear. I do a quick check in the mirror, then grab my wallet and room key. The idea of hunting for a meal in the fresh air sounds strangely invigorating. Something concrete to focus on.

I head toward where the new-student guide said there are some food trucks, in one of the fields where they let the RVs park on game days. Sure enough, in the center of the field there’s a semicircle of food trucks, all but one of them shuttered. I check my app. Great. Not officially open until school starts. But there is that one . . .

It has a pita wrap painted on the side of it with the words SHAWARMA-RAMA below. It may not be a black olive and onion pizza, but the window’s up and the trio of picnic tables beside it is deserted, so it’ll have to do. I break into a trot, actually salivating and waving my phone around in the general direction of the truck. No menu or price suggestions pop up on Jax. Then, when I’m about half a block away, the awning slams shut. I slow, hot and wilted, my feet throbbing from all that running in my slides.

I rap tentatively on the pink metal. “Hello? Would you mind selling me . . . well, whatever you’ve got left? Leftovers? I’ve got cash.” There’s no answer. “I’ll pay you double. Whatever you’ve got. Please, I’m starving.”

Nothing.

I glare at the truck. There’s somebody inside, I can see that, but now they’re hiding from me. It’s completely silent in there too. Instead of cleaning up, like he should be doing, that asshole is holding his breath, waiting for me to give up and go away.

“Great customer service, buddy,” I shout, then sit. I can outlast this guy. He has no idea.

The sun’s going down, a hot, messy egg yolk, spilling every shade of orange there is across the horizon and then trails of pink and blue and purple. Prettiest sunset on the plains, Dad used to say, and he’s not far off. This was his alma mater. He majored in computer science, like me, joined a fraternity, and played intramural football. Also he was a Plainsman, which is basically like the official host of the school who has to wear an amazingly ugly orange blazer and striped tie. But it was a big deal, and I’ve seen pictures of him at games. He looked a lot like a young Paul Newman.

Which is not a thing I would say, except that Gigi used to say it a lot. Once I googled Paul Newman, and he was a straight-up babe, for sure, but nobody likes to think of their dad that way. I just think Dad looked cute and happy, hugging my mom under the spreading branches of an old oak festooned with toilet paper.

I check my phone. It’s been exactly fifteen minutes. And I guess I can hear a few thumps from the truck, but the Shawarma-Rama guy hasn’t had the decency to show his face or collect the napkin dispensers from the picnic tables. I pick up one of the dispensers and hurl it at the truck.

Instantly the door to the food truck slams open, and the guy thunders out.

Holy Paul Newman.

This guy really does look like him. Or maybe not him—but he’s movie star good looking, so much so that my mouth goes dry and my face suddenly feels like I’ve just slathered on a molten lava facial mask. I wish desperately I hadn’t thrown his napkin dispenser at his food truck. I wish desperately that I had bothered to brush my hair. And also my teeth.