All the Rage(59)

“You okay?” Leon asks.

It’s one of those rare, quiet moments when Tracey’s in her office and most of the other girls are on the floor or on break and there’s hardly anyone around.

“Break later?” I ask, because it feels like the easiest way I can be sure of his forgiveness.

He makes me wait a long minute before he wipes his hands on his apron and crosses the room to give me a hug. It makes me want to cry. I forget everything and the forgetting is so nice.

“Sure,” he says.

Leon reminds me of a time before the move across town. When Todd was over a lot, trying to convince my mom we all needed to live together. I came home from school and the house was quiet until a low moan drifted from upstairs and I followed it to her closed bedroom door. I couldn’t keep myself from listening. I’d heard my mom and dad having sex a handful of times in my life. When he was drunk, when he was sober, when she was sad or so angry she couldn’t talk to him, but she was still willing to kiss. It always sounded desperate, like the two of them were clinging to the last way they knew how to understand each other. The way my mom sounded with Todd—it wasn’t like that. It seemed tender, beyond anything I’d ever experienced with someone else. This is tender. I press my fingers into Leon’s shirt and try to memorize it but he pulls away. I want to forget myself in him again.

I get back to work instead. I send out another order and by then, the guy is finished with his. I get him his check. He palms it off the table and says, “Hey, you know you can be professional and friendly.” Then he grabs a napkin and scribbles down some numbers on it, slides it over to me. “Give me a call, you want some advice.”

I don’t know why I take the napkin. It’s something my body does without checking with my head first, like the obligation to be nice to him is greater than myself.

I go back to the kitchen, replaying that moment in my head, hating that I did it, hating that it’s done and that I can’t take it back. I slip into the bathroom and my lipstick is faded out. The rain? I don’t know. All I know is it was mostly gone when that man forced his number on me. I fix it and step out of the bathroom and Leon’s phone is blaring music from his back pocket. He steps away from the grill to answer it.

“What’s up?” He listens for a moment. “What? How long? You—why didn’t you call earlier? Really? Yeah, no—yeah, if I leave now I might—yeah. I can do that—okay, tell her I love her. I’ll be there. I’ll see you both soon.” He hangs up in disbelief. “Uh … Caro’s going to have her kid—like now.”

“What?” I feel my expression mirroring his, that same weird shock. I don’t know where it comes from. It’s not like we didn’t know she was pregnant.

“I know.” He shakes his head and then strides over to Tracey’s office, opens the door. “Tracey, you got to get someone to take the grill for me. I have to go. My sister’s in labor. She’s going to have her baby—”

“What!” Tracey hurries out and throws her arms around Leon. “Oh, congratulations! This is wonderful. How close is she?”

“They’ve been in there since this morning. Like … any minute now, the baby’s going to be here, so I have to go…” He pulls away, laughing a little. “Wow. I have to go.”

“Tell them I said congratulations,” I say.

He smiles. “I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

I watch from the back door as he cuts through the rain in his Pontiac and makes his way out of the parking lot. I stick my hands into my pockets, my left closing over the balled-up paper napkin and that old thought comes, but stronger now.

Maybe it’s a prayer.

I hope it’s not a girl.

I hope it’s not a girl, but later, after my shift, when I’m undressing for bed, Leon texts me to tell me it is.





the ground turns soft.

The lake fills to brimming and the river has more water than it knows what to do with. At times the rainfall is so light, it tricks us into believing it’s stopped until we step outside and find it’s misting. Other times, it seems angry, trapping walkers under store awnings, sending cars hydroplaning.

Most of all it’s constant.

I ask Mom to drive me to school and to pick me up. It’s amazing how easy it is to stay inside if it means not risking seeing a face you don’t want to see, hearing a name you don’t want to hear. Leon takes the week off work to help Caro and Adam adjust. I miss him.

On Saturday, he calls and tells me about Ava, his niece.

“She’s amazing. Ugly-cute.”

“Ugly-cute?”

“Yeah. She’s all squished, looks like an old man,” he says and I laugh. “What, don’t you think babies are kind of tiny little ugly freaks until they’re six months old or so? I do.”

“I don’t see enough babies to have an opinion. How are the new parents?”

“Blissed out on hormones, as predicted. Both of them. Nature at work.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s weird. Caro would love to see you. Told me to invite you down.” He pauses. “How about you come to Ibis tomorrow? Have lunch and meet Ava? I’ll pick you up.”

Oh. I’m glad he can’t see my face because the idea repulses me in a way I don’t know how to put to words. But that’s probably a good thing because I have a feeling it wouldn’t go over all that well if I could. I don’t want to meet the baby.