The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [33]
I leave the nurse’s office and head back to the cafeteria. I’ll grab something and bring it up to the library to eat there. Mike Cohen comes up to me as I’m spreading peanut butter over a bagel.
“Sternin, hey, you seen Jeremy?”
“No, I don’t think he’s here today.”
“Oh, dude. I’ll give him a call.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to answer that like, Yeah, good idea. How come Mike can just go ahead and call like it’s nothing, while I’m completely paralyzed by the possibility?
“Hey,” Mike continues. “You know what? Just tell him I was looking for him, okay?”
“Sure.” Mike assumes that I’ll be talking to Jeremy sometime today, so he needn’t call. I feel like I’m lying to him. But I like the way everyone is treating me, now that they know I’m friends with Jeremy Cole. So I don’t tell Mike he should go ahead and call Jeremy; I let him think that I’m in a position to convey his message.
And maybe I am; Jeremy will probably still come over for our bedtime cigarettes later.
Mike surprises me by asking, “Do you know—have you seen Kate lately?”
“What?” I say dumbly.
“We were just wondering how she was doing.”
“We?”
“You know—the guys and stuff.” Maybe Mike Cohen’s position as the host of every party makes him the student body ambassador too.
“Oh.”
“Have you seen her lately?”
I pause. I guess by now everyone knows that Kate is sick, but maybe they’re actually being sensitive about it. Mike sounds genuinely concerned, so I say, “Yeah. I saw her the other night. She’s doing okay.”
“Thanks. I’ll let everyone know.”
I nod and smile. I guess one of the nice things about being the prince is that your subjects really do care about you and your family.
When I get home, my mother suggests we have dinner together. This doesn’t happen often—mostly she leaves me money to order in or I make something for myself, usually ramen or something like it. We go to the diner across the street, where my mother insists on waiting for a booth even though there are plenty of tables with chairs available. When we do finally sit, I order a grilled cheese. It arrives greasy and lukewarm. My mother gets a hamburger. I eat her fries.
“So, how’s school?”
“Fine. You know, physics is killing me, but I’m bringing up my grades.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?” I ask.
“Is that Jeremy’s help, do you think?” I wonder if this is why she suggested dinner, why she opened the conversation by asking me about school. Maybe she thinks that Jeremy and I are dating but she wants to hear it from me, if for no other reason than to say, “Well, I knew that.” It makes me sad, how little she knows me.
“Maybe. He’s a good tutor.”
“Well, he’s more than a tutor.”
Here it comes.
“I notice he comes over late at night.”
“Oh?”
“Why don’t you invite him up? You know, at a more reasonable hour. I could make us dinner.”
“You don’t cook.”
“Sure I cook!”
“When? You never cook.”
“I do too; I make chicken and pasta and mashed potatoes.”
“Not all at the same time, I hope.” I’m laughing, because I can’t remember her ever having cooked a meal for me.
“Connelly.” My mother puts her hamburger down on its plate and looks at me seriously, and I wonder when this became a serious conversation. It had seemed like I was just teasing her a second ago. “I cook.”
“Maybe you used to,” I say quietly.
“What?”
“Maybe you did a long time ago, when I was little or before I was born, and you just don’t realize that you stopped.”
She surprises me by considering this. In the silence, something occurs to me, and I surprise myself by asking her, “Did you cook for Dad?”
“For your father?”
“Yes.” I can hear the panic in her voice. I don’t know why it seemed natural to ask about him now.
“Yes,” she answers, speaking slowly, not looking at me. Then she smiles, looking at her plate as she says, “He liked my spaghetti with meat sauce.”
She continues before