164
" Is something wrong?” he asked.
“You seem to have forgotten that someone cut my bike in half.”
“And you seem to have forgotten that I have a truck,” said Miles. “I can give you a ride. To school, at least.”
“No thanks,” I said.
“Really. I’m not joking. Unless you’re that against having anything to do with me. I don’t care. You can get in line.”
He turned onto the main road. The line from the notebook felt like a dead weight in my stomach.
“No, not against it.” I realized with a strange sort of happy dread that we were falling back into the easy conversation we’d had at the bonfire. “But I’d like to know why you’re offering.”
“What do you mean?” Honest confusion crossed his face. “Isn’t that the good thing to do?”
I burst out laughing. “Since when have you been good? Are you feeling guilty or something?”
“A little sentimental, maybe. My first idea was to drive up and down in front of you a few times to prove I had a car and you didn’t.” His tone was light and he was smiling.
Holy crap, he was smiling. A real, teeth-showing, nose-scrunching, eyes-crinkling smile.
The smile slipped off his face. “What? What’s wrong?”
“You were smiling,” I said. “It was kind of weird.”
“Oh,” he said, frowning. “Thanks.”
“No, no, don’t do that! The smile was better.” The words felt wrong coming out of my mouth. I shouldn’t say things like that to him, but they hung neatly in the air and cleared out the tension. Miles didn’t smile again. "
― Francesca Zappia , Made You Up
173
" Tucker and I think we can figure out what McCoy’s master plan is, but we need your help.”
“With what?”
“We’re going to break into his house.”
Miles brought out the Magnificent Quirked Eyebrow, which made me feel better. That expression meant that things were at least kind of okay.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Tucker said if we’re going to find anything incriminating, it won’t be at school, and he’s right. It’ll be at McCoy’s. While I’m sure I could just John McClane my way into his house by shooting down the front door, I figured you might be able to do the job a little more discreetly.”
“So basically you’re saying if I don’t agree, you’re going to go anyway, but you’re pretty sure you’ll get caught.”
“Basically.”
“But you know I don’t want you to get caught.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re blackmailing me.”
“Yep.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can get behind that,” he said. “When?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure you won’t mind it if Tucker’s there? Can you two play nice?”
“Maybe.”
“Would it help if I told you this was Tucker’s idea?”
Now both eyebrows were up. “Well, fuck me.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He leaned over and kissed my temple. The times he kissed me were so few and far between, I couldn’t help but smile.
“I’ll meet you by the track,” he said, walking away without further explanation. "
― Francesca Zappia , Made You Up
175
" Hey!”
“What is it, Eggers?” Dad walks out of the kitchen in his windbreaker and running shorts and looks up the stairs.
“Do I have to walk around with Church and Sully for Halloween this year?”
Dad frowns. “Church and Sully are doing Halloween this year? Are they too old for that yet?”
He asks it honestly, because he really doesn’t remember. He knows they’re in the same grade, and that they’re under fourteen because they play on all U-14 sports teams, but anything beyond that is details. Sully is fourteen, Church is thirteen; born elevenmonths apart exactly, and most people think they’re twins.
“They’re kind of too old for it, yeah,” I say.
“Oh. Well, ask your mom.”
“Is she home right now?”
“No, she took Davy for her quick 10K with her marathon students.”
“What? Davy can’t run a 10K!”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “They’re jogging, and the slow students always take care of him anyway. He’s fine. "
― Francesca Zappia , Eliza and Her Monsters
176
" When sushi-suit girl calls up entrants to show off their costumes, Cole manages to pull Wallace out of his seat to stand awkwardly out there, but I refuse when my name is called.
“It’s just for a second,” Cole says, motioning me out with his hands. “Come on. Just a second.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t really want to.”
Wallace gently pushes Cole out of the way so he can get back to his seat and grab his phone.
If she doesn’t want to, don’t make her do it.
Cole sighs so overdramatically he must be joking, then turns to tell sushi girl I won’t be participating after all. A few more people from other groups around the room go up. There’s a panel of teenaged judges stationed behind one short bookcase like it’s a desk, and at the very end they get together to deliberate before they announce one of the Hogwarts students as the winner.
“Oh, come on!” Cole cries. “The Harry Potter people always win! They’ve had like twelve years to put their costumes together!”
“I’ve done my waiting,” Megan says to Hazel, pulling up the little girl’s arms. “Twelve years of it! In Azkaban! "
― Francesca Zappia , Eliza and Her Monsters
178
" A text comes from Wallace.
An actual text too, not a message through the forum app. I gave him my number awhile back, before Halloween, but not because I wanted him to call me or anything. I wrote it on the edge of our conversation paper in homeroom and slid it over to him because sometimes I see something and think, Wallace would laugh at that, I should send him a picture of it, but the messaging app is terrible with pictures and texting is way better.
So he texts me now, and it’s a picture. A regular sweet potato pie. Beneath the picture, he says, I really like sweet potato pie.
I text back, Yeah, so do I.
Then he sends me a picture of his face, frowning, and says, No, you don’t understand.
Then another picture, closer, just his eyes. I REALLY like sweet potato pie.
A series of pictures comes in several-second intervals. The first is a triangular slice of pie in Wallace’s hand. Then Wallace holding that slice up to his face—it’s soft enough to start collapsing between his fingers. The next one has him stuffing the slice into his mouth, and in the final one it’s all the way in, his cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk’s, and he’s letting his eyes roll back like it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten.
I purse my lips to keep my laugh in, but my parents are fine-tuned to the slightest hint of amusement from me, and they both look up.
“What’s so funny, Eggs?” Dad says.
“Nothing,” I reply. Nothing makes a joke less funny than someone wanting in on it, especially parents.
Wow, I say to Wallace. You really like sweet potato pie.
He sends one more picture, this one with him embracing the pie pan, gazing lovingly at it. We’re to be married in the spring.
An actual laugh escapes me. I really hope Wallace is having a better Thanksgiving than I am. It seems like he is. I take a picture of myself pouting and send it to him, saying, Aw, the cutest of cute couples.
...
Another picture from Wallace waits for me. In this one, an empty pie pan littered withcrumbs sits on the floor beside a large knife. Wallace kneels next to it with morecrumbs on his sweater, expression horrified.
NOOOO
WHAT HAVE I DONE
MY LOVE
OUR MARRIAGE
’TIS ALL FOR NAUGHT
I text back: Oh no!! Not sweet potato bride!
Another picture comes: Wallace sprawled on the floor beside the pie pan, one arm thrown over his eyes.
Let me only be accused of loving her too much.
Wallace is definitely having a better Thanksgiving than me. "
― Francesca Zappia , Eliza and Her Monsters
