Текст книги "He's So Not Worth It"

Автор книги: Kieran Scott

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“Make me a vanilla, chocolate, and coffee banana split.”I looked at Mitch Daly, the proprietor of Take a Dip ice cream. Then I looked at the clock. It was 10:30 in the morning. He couldn’t be serious. But he didn’t blink.“Um, okay. I can come behind the counter?” I asked.“You’re gonna hafto if you’re gonna make me a banana split,” Mitch said. Then he kind of inhaled a laugh, his shoulders and massive stomach rising and falling as one.Excellent point. I stepped behind the counter and looked around. There was less space back there than I would have thought—only about three feet of red tile floor between the icecream freezer and the counters along the back. Mitch had already set up for the day, so the icecream scoops were floating in warm water in little silver buckets that hung from the sides of the freezers, and the covers had been removed from the huge tubs of ice cream. I had never made a banana split before, but my dad used to make them for us all the time. How hard could it be?I plucked one of the long, plastic bowls from the dispenser. Mitch crossed his beefy arms and laid them atop his Santa-style stomach. There was a black tattoo on his left forearm depicting a frog keeled over next to a beer bottle, its eyes tiny x’s and its tongue hanging out, trailing flat into a puddle of beer.Which begged the question: Did I really want to work for this guy?“You might want to start with a banana,” he suggested.“Right.”There were two bushels of bananas hanging from a metal holder on the counter. I ripped one off, peeled it, and looked around for a cutting board. Not finding one, I used a paper plate. Behind me, Mitch clucked his tongue, but said nothing. Feeling hot all down my back, I procured a knife from a drawer and cut the banana in half down the center, then cut both halves lengthwise. I placed them in the bowl like a hot-dog bun, just the way my dad always did. As I turned for the ice cream, Mitch stood on his toes to see over my shoulder. His stomach just grazed my back.This was definitely the oddest job interview I’d ever suffered through.I started with the vanilla, making sure to use a different scoop for each ice cream so as not to taint one flavor with the other, which was always one of my pet peeves. Mitch grunted his approval at this move. Once all the ice cream was scooped, I closed the freezer, but the heavy door slipped from my sweating palm and slammed at the last second, almost taking my fingertip off.“Oops. Sorry,” I said.Mitch simply closed his eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience. My throat was completely dry, and it felt like it was somehow coated in the same sickly sweet smell that clung to everything in the place. I turned around and looked at the row of syrups against the back wall. There was chocolate, butterscotch, caramel, marshmallow, strawberry, and a warming vat of hot fudge. Crap. Which one went on a banana split?I looked up, quickly and casually scanning the colorful signs advertising the million different combinations one could order at Take a Dip. There was a two-scoop sundae, a three-scoop waffle cone, a ten-scoop bikini buster. But the classic banana split was nowhere to be found.“Um?” I looked at Mitch quizzically. “Which toppings would you like . . . sir?”“Hot fudge and whipped cream,” he said.“Right.”I doused the ice cream with hot fudge, dripping a few huge globs of the stuff on the counter. Biting my tongue, I hit the fridge, grabbed the first can of whipped cream I saw, and sprayed. It exploded everywhere. Literally everywhere. Pellets of whipped cream dotted my shirt, the glass doors of the fridge, the ceiling fan lazily spinning above our heads, . . . and Mitch Daly’s face.“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry!”Clearly I was not getting this job. I wondered if the CVS by the causeway was hiring. At least I had experience. But there were no tips at CVS, and summer jobs down the shore were all about the tips.Slowly, Mitch extracted a filthy rag from the back pocket of his grungy shorts and wiped his face.“S’okay,” he said, licking his lips. “Happens all the time. You gotta hold it upright.”He reached over and straightened the silver bottle in my hand, so that it was perpendicular to the floor and my elbow was sticking up at an unnatural angle. I said a quick prayer and tried again. The whipped cream came out nice and slow, in perfect ridged beauty. After adding a generous mound to the top of the sundae, I placed the can back in the refrigerator and handed him the bowl.“Cherry?” he said.“Right. Cherry.” There was a topping bar in an open case between the two freezers. I plucked a cherry out by its stem and placed it atop the sundae. Then I stepped back, wiped my hands together, and realized I was nervous. I wanted Mitch Daly’s approval. What was wrong with me?He turned the sundae this way and that, inspecting it from all angles. He even held it up and checked underneath.“Not bad,” he said finally. “Technically, the customer also gets one dry topping.” He tilted his head toward the toppings bar, with its stunning array of choices, everything from sprinkles to crushed nuts to mini M&M’s to chopped Thin Mints. “But it’s okay. I’m watching my calorie intake this summer.”He reached for a plastic spoon, dipped it in, and took a huge, whipped cream–laden bite. His T-shirt rode up, exposing a swirl of black hair around his belly button. I wondered if this man actually knew what a calorie was.“Can you start this afternoon?” he asked, his mouth full. “I already had somebody call in sick.”“Yes! Definitely. And my summer is wide open, so as many shifts as you can give me, I—”He held up his hand, the spoon held between his thumb and forefinger in an oddly delicate manner, to stop me.“We’ll see how you do,” he said gravely. “The ice cream game . . . is not for everyone.” Then he turned and walked down the aisle toward the door, which led, I assumed, to the storeroom. “Pick out a shirt from the case out front. You get one free and if you want extras, you can buy ’em at half price. And be here at two for a four-hour.” He kicked open the door. “And clean up that counter before you go.”The door slammed behind him. I breathed out and looked through the windows at the fluorescent lights twisted into the shapes of dripping icecream cones and chocolate-covered bars and funnel cakes. I was gainfully employed. By a man who ate ice cream for breakfast.I swiped a rag from one of the bars that hung from the back cabinet doors, wet it, and cleaned up my mess. The case to which Mitch had referred was a double-doored bookcase filled with folded Take a Dip Tshirts in a variety of colors, which were available for purchase at the low, low price of fifteen bucks. But lucky me—I got to take one, gratis. Already this job had benefits. I chose a blue short-sleeved with a strawberry cone on the back and the words DIP THIS scrawled above it. On the front, above the left breast, was the Take a Dip logo—a girl in a bikini diving into a vat of chocolate ice cream.I balled the shirt up and turned to go, but paused when I saw Hammond peeking through the locked glass door, his hand above his eyes like he was on a boat at sea scanning the waves for the shoreline. My jaw automatically clenched. He stood up straight when he saw me approach, and took a step back. It was almost like he expected me to be there.“They don’t open for another hour, you know,” I said, stepping out into the heat.“Oh. Weird. I thought they opened at ten,” Hammond said.I let the door close and lock. Hammond’s Explorer was the only ride in the parking lot. The cruising bike I’d borrowed from Gray’s garage leaned against the brick wall next to it.“So, what was up with you and those locals last night?” Hammond asked, pushing his hands into the pockets of his plaid shorts. He leaned back against the wood railing of the porch, which wrapped around the side of Take a Dip and was slam-packed with people almost every night of the summer.“Hammond, did you follow me here?”“What? No,” he said.He totally did.“You know how obsessed I am with their Moose Tracks,” he said.“Right. Don’t tell me. Jake, Chloe, and Shannen aren’t coming down, so you need someone to hang out with,” I said. “It’s so nice to be everyone’s fourth or fifth choice.”Hammond laughed. “Like you’ve ever been anyone’s fourth or fifth choice.”I blushed, and wondered if he even realized what he just said. “Well, if you’re planning on being all up in my grill all summer, good luck,” I said, trying to skate past the awkward moment. “Looks like I’m going to be spending most of my time here.”“Oh yeah?” Hammond looked up at the wooden sign above the door, all freshly repainted for the summer. “Then maybe I’ll get a job here too.”“Yeah, right,” I said.“What? What’s so funny?” Hammond asked.“You don’t work,” I replied. And half the reason I wanted to get a job was so that I wouldn’t have to be around you and your little friends.He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I’ll give it a whirl. I do have to start saving some money for college. Since, you know, my entire college fund magically disappeared.”My throat closed over. The smile fell off Hammond’s face. Apparently he’d momentarily forgotten that it was my dad who’d magically disappeared his college fund, and that it had caused all of us more than our fair share of misery over the last couple of years.“Right, so . . . I’ll just go fill out an application.”He tried the door. Which was still locked.“You have to call the guy,” I said, taking out my phone. I dialed Mitch’s office number, which I’d found in the paper that morning. He answered on the third ring.“Take a Dip!”“Hi, Mitch. It’s Ally Ryan.”Dead silence. Except for the slurping of ice cream.“Ally Ryan? You just hired me?” I said, giving Hammond a confused look.“Oh, right. Didja clean up the counter?” he asked.“Yeah. I’m actually outside with someone else who wants to apply,” I said.There was a heaving sigh, followed by a loud squeal. Then I saw the office door open out of the corner of my eye. Mitch stuck his head out.“What’s his deal?” he asked, checking Hammond over from the other side of the shop.“His name’s Hammond,” I said. Hammond lifted a hand in a wave. “He’s . . . a good guy.”Hammond raised his eyebrows at me, pleased. What was I going to do, tell the manager that Ham was a jerk after he’d just reminded me my family was responsible for the fact that he needed a job this summer in the first place? Not likely.“All right. I’m comin’,” Mitch said.“Thanks.”I turned my phone off and tucked it away as Mitch lumbered across the small shop.“You so love me,” Hammond said with a grin.“Yeah.” I scoffed a laugh. “We’ll see if you still think that after your interview,” I said sarcastically.Suddenly he didn’t look quite so cocky. I would’ve given my left pinky finger to see Hammond fumble his way through a banana split, but I had to go. I didn’t want him thinking I cared.I just hoped he’d screw it up worse than I had. Because there was no way I was working side by side with Hammond Ross in three feet of space all summer long.As I jogged down the steps toward Gray’s bike, the man himself turned his Land Rover into the parking lot, its massive tires crunching over gravel. My mom was in the front seat, and I caught a glimpse of Quinn’s blond hair as he turned the car sideways in the lot, taking up almost the entire space. I froze with my hand on the handlebar. My mom’s window eased down.“How’d it go?” she asked, resting her arm on the windowsill.“Fine. I got the job,” I said.“Great! Hop in! We’re going to LBI Pancake House for a late breakfast.”The back of the Land Rover opened automatically, letting out a hiss. Gray got out of the car and walked around as if to help me with my bike. My fingers tightened around the grip. This whole scenario felt way too “one big happy family” for me, and I knew why they were doing it. They were trying to prove to me that just because I stormed out on them last night, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have to spend time with them this summer. They weren’t giving up that easily.“I’m not hungry,” I said, looking past Gray’s shoulder at my mom. “I was going to go for a bike ride.”“So you can go after breakfast,” Gray said.He put his hands on the handlebars, right next to mine. When I looked at him, poison darts flew from my eyes. “I said, I’m not hungry.”I wrested the bike from his grip and straddled it, awkwardly maneuvering around him.“Ally,” my mother said. “Come here, please.”I felt hot all over, and my throat was so tight I could barely breathe. But I turned my back on her and started to peddle toward the street. “I’ll see you guys later,” I called, my voice strained.“Ally!” my mom shouted, seriously pissed now.But I didn’t turn back. I tore out of there as fast as I could, and turned down a side street hoping to make as many turns as possible so they wouldn’t be able to follow me. My mother may have decided she wanted to spend all her time with Gray and Quinn Nathanson, but she couldn’t force me to do it too. I’d never wanted a sister. And I already had a father. They were just going to have to be one big happy family without me.

How much ice cream did u eat?I smirked at Annie’s text and leaned back on the soft lounge cushion to text back. The view from Gray’s deck was not at all bad, especially now, as the sun was setting behind me, glittering golden over the water. It was Friday evening and I was freshly showered after my first shift at Take a Dip, which had actually been kind of fun. Somewhere during the third hour I’d realized that making sundaes and cones lent a certain giddy satisfaction—the kids’ grins as they used both hands to take a dripping double-dip from my fingers, the glimmer of life in exhausted parents’ eyes when they saw their mango milk shakes. I felt like I was making people happy, which was rarely the case when slinging Depends undergarments and Pepto at the CVS back home.There had been a rush on the place around three o’clock that had lasted until four, but I was out of there at six, when the dinnertime lull was on. From what my coworker Sandy had told me, it was the evening shift that was the real killer—started around seven and didn’t stop till after eleven. Mitch didn’t have me scheduled for one of those until late next week. Apparently he liked to ease in the newcomers.The unfortunate part was spotting Hammond’s name on the schedule. Guess he hadn’t flubbed as badly as I’d thought on the banana split test. Our first overlapping shift was scheduled for the Fourth of July. I was already trying to think up ways to get out of it. And then I came home to find my mother and Gray coming inside from the outdoor shower, all wet and giggling, and found that, somehow, I just could not be in the same house with them. They were now inside, throwing together some kind of trendy summer salad in Gray’s state-of-the-art kitchen, listening to light rock on the stereo system, while Quinn was off at rehearsal. Thank God for the deck. Although, I was surprised that my mother had yet to come out here to talk about how I’d bailed on them that morning. Maybe she’d decided to just ignore it. Hopefully.I texted back.None.Liar!LOL. I figured if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. So when r u coming down?Tmrw late morning. Mom needs car in a.m. to drop off recycling. BTW have good Crestie dirt.My heart thumped and I stared at the screen. How could she have good Crestie dirt? Ninety-eight percent of the Cresties were down the shore or in Europe. She couldn’t mean Jake dirt, could she? Had she talked to him? Had he asked about me? Had he told her why he hadn’t called?I swallowed back the urge to ask. I did not want to appear interested in what Jake was doing. Because I wasn’t.Cool.The sliding glass door behind me zipped open, spilling out a blast of cold air and overproduced synthesizer. Crap. Looked like my reprieve was over. Here came the lecture.“Ally? You have a visitor,” my mom said.Or not. I turned around in my chair, expecting to see either Faith or Hammond—my two LBI stalkers. I almost dropped the phone when Cooper stepped out the door next to my mother. He was even more beautiful in daylight: a white T-shirt showing off his insane tan, his blond hair long enough to curl under his ears. I realized suddenly that I never thought I’d see this guy again—and that I was very happy to be proven wrong.“Hi,” I said.“Hi.”His grin almost knocked me out of my chair. My mother shot me an intrigued and expectant look. Her hand was still on the door and she stood sideways, because Cooper’s shoulders nearly filled the opening. He had a beach towel around his neck, and wore brown and tan Billabong swim trunks and flip-flops.My phone beeped, but I didn’t even look at Annie’s text. I just texted back.Gotta go. Hot boy arrival.There. That’d make her think I didn’t care what Jake was up to.“What’s up?” I asked Cooper, standing. I smoothed my cotton shorts over my thighs and cleared my throat, wishing I’d dried my hair after my shower.“I came by to see if you wanted to go for a swim,” he said.“Uh, yeah. I could do that,” I said.He’d remembered where I was staying. He’d stopped by. In all my years of coming down the shore, no local boy had ever noticed me. Not once. The packs of local kids always had this aura about them. They were almost never fully clothed, and had zero qualms about it. They could ride their bikes barefoot and ocean-wet, while toting long boards under one arm. Whenever they walked into a surf shop or the fudge place or a pizza joint, they knew someone behind the counter and would make plans to go places we’d never heard of even though the island was so small there was no way we hadn’t heard of everything.That was probably why I’d never considered hanging out with a local crowd to avoid the Cresties. It was an unimaginable alternative. But now, with Cooper standing there in all his beach-boy perfection, it definitely seemed like a viable—not to mention, very attractive—option. I felt this sort of warm satisfaction that he’d come to find me. It was as if I’d broken some kind of secret code.“Let me just go get changed.”Cooper turned sideways so I could slide between him and my mom. I shot her a smile—normally cute boys were something we bonded over—but she didn’t smile back. Instead, she followed me over to the stairs. Gray didn’t look up from the tomatoes he was slicing in the open kitchen.“Ally?” my mom called. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”“Yeah. I’ll be right down,” I shouted over my shoulder as I jogged up the steps. Inside the room I’d been assigned for the summer—cream walls, peach bedspread, Formica furniture—I yanked open the bottom dresser drawer and pulled out my two bathing suits. The blue Speedo was out of the question. It smashed everything down and made me look like a boy. The other—a striped tankini from last summer—left something to be desired, but at least you could tell I had female parts. I yanked my T-shirt off over my head just as my mom walked in.“God! You scared me!” I said, holding the shirt against my chest for a second.“I’m sorry, but would you care to explain?” she whispered, closing the door behind her.“Explain what?” I asked. I turned my back to her to change.“That boy,” she said impatiently. “Who is he? How do you know him?”“His name’s Cooper,” I said as I shimmied into the bathing suit top. “He’s a local.”“So . . . what? We’re just hanging out with random local boys now?” she asked.My skin bristled at her comment. Why did the word “local” sound so negative when she said it?“Is there something wrong with local boys?” I asked. “Is he not rich enough for you? Because guess what, Mom, we’re not rich either. Or did you forget that?”I whipped my T-shirt off my bed and pulled it on, then quickly reached back to braid my hair, sliding in front of the full length mirror on the closet door.“Ally,” she said with a sigh.“Besides, it’s either hang out with him or have no friends all summer, because I am not hanging out with Hammond and Faith no matter how many times you try to throw us together,” I said.My mother stepped up behind me, her face hovering just over my shoulder in our reflection.“This has nothing to do with money, Ally. You know that,” she said, just barely holding on to her patience. “It’s just that we know nothing about him.”I tightened the rubber band around my braid and let it snap. “Well, I know one thing. I’d rather be on the beach with him than standing here having this conversation with you.”I grabbed my flip-flops and a towel out of the closet and started past her, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm.“Ally, what is going on with you?” she hissed under her breath. “First you ditch out on dinner last night, then breakfast this morning, and now you’re completely overreacting to everything I say. You still haven’t even told me why you changed your mind and decided to come down.”I looked at my hands. That was not something I felt like trying to explain right now. Not with Cooper downstairs waiting on me.“Clearly it had nothing to do with wanting to spend time with us,” she added with a hint of sarcasm.I looked into my mother’s eyes. All my potential replies sounded petulant and childish. I wanted to tell her I didn’t like it here, living in this house where you couldn’t put your feet up and you had to dry off completely before stepping inside, where Gray got all tense if he found a crumb or a stain or a droplet of water. I wanted to tell her that all the rules made me tense, but that seeing her and Gray together one hundred percent of the time made me even tenser. Watching them touch hands grabbing for a morning bagel and letting their fingers linger. Seeing the way they looked at each other when I made a joke or Quinn said something silly. It all felt too much like a family, and it wasn’t a family I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to be a part of my family. Me, her, and my dad.But I couldn’t say any of this. So instead I said, “Remember when you and dad renewed your vows?”Her eyes instantly looked sad. She dropped her hand and turned away from me. “Ally—” She sounded fed up, at the end of her rope.“Mom, I’m just asking. Do you even remember that? Because it wasn’t that long ago,” I said, following her toward the sliding glass doors that led to the deck outside my and Quinn’s rooms. “You guys were really happy. I know Dad screwed up, but don’t you even want to talk to him?”“He didn’t just screw up, Ally,” she said, giving me a look that made me feel two inches tall.“For the past two years you’ve been telling me that I have to find a way to forgive him. That he didn’t mean to do what he did,” I said tersely. “But now that he’s back, you won’t even talk to him. You’re such a total hypocrite.”I’d never said anything that harsh to my mom in my life, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. But instead, I turned around and walked out of the room, trying to escape before she reacted.“Ally, get back here,” my mom said quietly.I kept walking and jogged down the stairs. Cooper was waiting in the living room, the TV remote in his hand, a Wimbledon tennis match playing on the big screen.“This TV is sick!” he said, his eyes bright.I grabbed his wrist as I raced by. “Come on. Let’s go.”Startled, Cooper dropped the remote. It clattered on the glass coffee table and an odd squeak escaped Gray’s throat. We had just made it to the glass door that looked out over the main deck with the infinity pool, and the beach, when my mother reached the loft railing one story above.“Ally!” she shouted. “This conversation isn’t over. Not by a long shot. We’re going to talk about this later.”I slipped outside and slammed the door as hard as I could. Every inch of me clenched in humiliation.“Sorry about that,” I told Cooper. Then I looked down at my hand around his arm, and released it, embarrassed.“Don’t worry about it.” He held the ends of his towel with both hands. “My mom can be a bitch too.”“My mom’s not a bitch,” I said quickly.He shot me this look like whatever, which somehow made me feel foolish. And also made me wonder what his mother was like.“Well, thanks for giving me an excuse to escape,” I said.“No worries.” He placed his hands on the railing and looked out at the empty beach below. It was low tide, and the waves were gently lapping the shore. “Damn. This is beautiful.”I stared at his profile. Suddenly I wished Jake could see me right then, standing out here, looking out over the ocean with this perfect beach boy. I bet he’d regret not apologizing then. He’d regret the fact that he’d yet to call.“Yeah, but maybe we should walk up the beach a little,” I said, glancing warily at the house.He shrugged. “Works for me.” For a second he leaned back, clinging to the railing with his feet planted, then looked at me mischievously. “Race ya.”And he was gone, jogging down the wide wooden stairs in his flip-flops with a teasing laugh.“Cheater!”I ran after him, letting the wind whisk away the last bits of my anger. I could deal with my mother later. For now—just this once—I was going to pretend it was actually summer.