No One Needs to Know (6 page)

And now he’s clearly already decided. Given it a lot of thought. Made plans.

“What casino?” Emerald Queen Casino is in Tacoma, a ten minute drive from our place. Even though spending my birthday there isn’t what I want, I could do it. Show up for a few hours, play some blackjack or bingo or something.

“Quinault. I was thinking of getting a room on the water.”

Oh. That’s way better than stupid old Emerald Queen. I could walk the beach, enjoy the sand …

“That sounds fun,” I say, reluctantly, giving up the idea of our tradition. After all, we’re getting older. We don’t have to do the same thing forever. “I guess we could do that.”

That’s when he finally turns around, and the look of pity on his face is like a dagger to my heart. “I’m going with the guys, Liv.”

My eye sting, almost instantly. “Why can’t I go?”

“Why can’t you just make your own plans? I’ve shared my birthday with you all this time, and now I want to hang out with my friends. It’s not a big deal.”

“Our birthday is in a week,” I point out. “You could have told me before now! Ava’s going to L.A. with her mom. What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know! You’re an adult too. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

And then he leaves me there on the balcony with only the sun for company. I try to be mad, but I can’t muster the anger when all I feel is hurt.

I’ve spent my whole life with my brother as my best friend.

I don’t know who I am without him.

ZOEY

Burgerville is the bane of my existence. More specifically, the hideous blue visor is the bane of my existence. No matter how many times I adjust it, it seems to just loosen up, and then it slides forward and falls into my eyes.

“I hate this stupid thing,” I mutter, shoving it back onto my forehead.

“You and me both, kid,” says my coworker Rita as she walks past. “I’ll be in the walk-in for a little bit taking inventory. Think you’ll be okay?”

I survey the mostly empty dining room. “Yeah, I can handle it.”

I finish wiping the countertop with a bleach-laced rag and the bell near the door beeps. I glance up from my work, but the visor falls down again, obscuring my view of whoever just walked in the door.

Screw it. “Welcome to Burgerville, how may I service you?” I say, in a fake cheery voice, like serving up burgers made of forty-seven ingredients is the pinnacle of my existence.

Someone on the other side of my visor snickers, so I shove the thing back onto my forehead.

Oh. “Uh, hey,” I say, when I meet Liam’s gaze.

Next to him, Olivia crosses her arms and shoots an annoyed look at her brother. “Ah. Now I understand the sudden, earth-shattering need for a greasy burger. Get me a Diet Coke,” she says, striding away.

“Hey, I’m just a method writer,” I call after her. “This gig is part of my research into the lives of factory workers.”

She pauses for a second and narrows her eyes, like she almost believes me, but I can’t keep a straight face. She ends up just shaking her head and walking off.

When I look back at Liam, he gives me a lazy half-smile. “Hey, so—”

“How’d you know I worked here?” I ask.

He cocks one bushy eyebrow, and for a second I wonder if that’s how Olivia would look if she didn’t wax and tweeze every last stray hair. “You told me.”

“Oh.” God, I’d been really drunk. I was so hung over when I woke up yesterday that it nearly carried into today.

Burgerville is just far enough up the hill that most kids at Annie Wright or Stadium High never wander in. And if they do, it’s always via the drive-thru, which I avoid like the plague. Guys like Liam don’t bother coming in and sitting down at a place like this.

“So, uh, what can I get for you, other than the Diet Coke?” I punch the soda key on the register and wonder if there’s a subtle way I can ditch this dumbass visor without looking like I’m doing it for him.

“Give me the double-burger combo, too.”

“Onion rings or French fries?” I ask, hating my life. I feel like a walking, talking cliché, a poor kid working a dead-end job and asking, “Would you like fries with that?” But this job is a means to an end.

I’m just not sure where the end is.

“Onion Rings.”

“Okay. With Olivia’s drink, it’s $6.42.”

He hands me a hundred, and a few moments later I’m handing him more cash than I see in weeks.

Liam shoves the change into his pocket haphazardly, like he’s used to carrying wads of bills around, like it’s not a big deal if a twenty ends up on the floor.

“I’ll bring out your food when it’s ready.”

“Great,” he says, plastering on an easy smile. And in that instant I know that’s what life is to him—easy. He waltzes through it without a care in the world, throwing footballs and riding skateboards, every day just like the last. I don’t know what he plans for his future—if he’s a perfect little brainiac like his sister seems to be—but I know it doesn’t matter. Whatever he wants, it’s his.

I wonder what it’s like to live that way, to have this never-ending burden lifted.

I watch him a second longer as he strolls away, his letterman’s jacket hugging his shoulders,
REYNOLDS
blazed in gold at the top, and then I turn back to my job. I salt the fries and dump a new basket of them into the grease, the oil hissing.

“Classmates?” Rita asks, setting her inventory sheet on the counter next to my register.

Rita’s thirty-four years old and has worked here for nine years. I have a hard time looking directly at her, because I know every time I do, I’m going to see myself staring back. She’s me as an adult, if I don’t figure out how I can make something of myself without leaving Carolyn behind.

A few minutes later, I’m plunking Liam’s burger on the tray and walking toward the siblings, balancing Olivia’s Diet Coke on the edge. I don’t breathe until I’ve managed to set it down without spilling it all over her silk polka-dotted blouse.

“Do you have a break coming up?” Liam asks, reaching for an onion ring. I don’t have time to tell him it’s fresh from the fryer before he bites in and winces, fanning his mouth.

The edges of Olivia’s lips curl but she doesn’t say anything, just sips at that Diet Coke of hers.

“Um, yeah. I guess.”

“Cool. Sit down with us,” he says.

“Uh, just a second,” I say, and then hustle back to the counter. “I’m going on break,” I call to Rita, then slip off my mustard-stained apron and toss my visor onto a hook near the counter.

Moments later, I’m sliding into the chair next to Liam, wearing just my red polo shirt and black pants. Liam reaches over, and I freeze as he slides his fingers over my hair. “Your bangs are a little jacked up from that hat,” he says.

“Uh, thanks.”

“You still look cute, though,” he adds, like he realizes he’s just insulted my craptastically good looks. Olivia’s lips thin into a line, like she’s trying not to laugh at him. Or me.

Yeah, probably me.

“Uh, thanks,” I say, and then inwardly cringe that I’m just repeating the same stupid things over and over. Screw this. I’m not going to let him intimidate me. A week ago I didn’t even know he existed. “So, what’ve you been up to?”

“Eh, yesterday I went skateboarding again,” he says.

“Oh? How’d it go?”

“Ew, don’t ask him that,” Olivia interrupts. “I can’t handle another dramatic retelling of his rail slide.”

“Hey, it was pretty epic.”

“Right,” Olivia says. “I’m sure the X Games will be calling any minute.”

“Fine, don’t believe me.”

I watch their verbal sparring, pretending not to be bothered by it.

And I’m not bothered. I’m jealous. I wonder what it would be like to be able to joke around with Carolyn, to not have all of our shit hanging over us. Instead I’m stuck icing her eye and watching garage sale cartoons.

“Olivia just wishes she could skateboard like I do,” Liam says, turning to me. “What about you?”

“Skateboarding? No.”

“Any sports?”

No. Sports cost money. “Uh, no. Not really a sports person, I guess.”

“See, Liv? You’re not the only human being in a five mile radius completely incapable of mastering a sport.”

“Gymnastics is a sport,” she says. “Quit acting like it’s not.”

“Sports involve balls or wheels.”

“Yeah, and we’ve established I have ovaries.”

I snort and her eyes slice over me, taking in my clothes, my unruly hair, my utter lack of makeup. I sit up taller and stare back, waiting for it. Anticipating the biting remark. She meets my gaze and we stare into each other’s eyes for a heartbeat longer than is comfortable.

“I don’t know why you’re laughing at me. Unless you’ve got balls.”

“Liv!”

She blinks innocently at Liam. “What? I don’t see why you’re so into her. You don’t normally scrape the bottom of the barrel.” She stands, her chair screeching across the tile floor I get to mop later. “I’ll wait in the car. The smell of cheap food is leeching into my clothes.”

Then she spins around, her perfect hair whipping around her shoulders, and strides out.

“Yikes. Sorry. She’s not usually like that. She’s just pissed at me and she’s taking it out on you.”

“Why’s she mad at you?”

He sighs. “I accidently stood her up on Friday night. And then yesterday I told her I’m kind of ditching our usual birthday plans.”

“Our? So you’re not just brother and sister, you’re twins?”

“Yeah. And we’ve always celebrated it together.”

“So why not this year?”

He pops an onion ring in his mouth, and I get the distinct impression he’s trying to buy himself time. “The thing is, I love my sister, but lately I kind of feel like the asshole mother bird who has to shove its kids out of the nest because they’re not attempting to fly.”

“That was very poetic of you,” I say as I reach over and steal an onion ring.

“I just thought she’d grow up and expand her horizons, but instead she’s kind of getting more and more clingy.”

Olivia Reynolds, clingy? That doesn’t fit my picture of her. She’s too confident, too self-assured.

He chomps another onion ring. “So, do you want to hang out tonight?”

I blink. “Tonight?” Thank god I didn’t react with what I’d wanted to say, which was—
me
? So maybe he did come here just for me. Not for his undying need for a greasy burger. I kind of expected Friday to be a one-time deal, though. Surely he has better prospects than me. It’s not like
his
school is gender-segregated.

“Yeah, tonight.”

“I work until ten,” I say.

I expect him to frown or react, like
oh poor you, working late on a school night,
but he just nods. “Oh. Sometime this week? Tuesday or something?”

“Uh, sure. I guess so.”

“Great,” he says, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “Where can I pick you up?”

A white-hot streak of embarrassment shoots through me. “I’d rather just meet you there. Uh, wherever
there
is.”

“Dorky’s,” he replies.

My jaw drops. “You like Dorky’s?”

Dorky’s Barcade is the closest thing to paradise for me and Carolyn. I set aside twenty dollars from every paycheck and take her there on Sunday afternoons, if I don’t have to work. We order a basket of grilled cheeses for five bucks and use the other fifteen on quarters. If I’m careful, we can spend two hours there, forgetting about our troubles. Watching my sister light up, laugh, enjoy herself in that place is what gets me through each week.

But I hadn’t really pegged Dorky’s as Liam’s style. They’re into old school stuff like Super Mario Brothers and Pac-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they play ’80s movies. But now that I’m getting to know him, seeing past the football and the penthouse, maybe a place like that is totally up his alley.

“What’s not to like?”

“I mean, I love it. But I thought maybe you had … ” My voice trails off.

His mouth quirks up on one side. “What, like my own arcade?”

I crinkle my nose. “Sorry. No, I mean, better places to go.”

“No one is too good for Dorky’s.”

I grin. “I agree. Meet you there at six?” That’ll give me enough time to feed Carolyn dinner before I hand her off to my mom and walk down to the arcade.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” he says.

“Zoey, a little help?” a voice calls out. Rita. I glance up and realize there’s a line up at the counter. I’ve been so wrapped up in our conversation I hadn’t even noticed it.

“On my way,” I say, standing. “See you Tuesday?”

Liam picks up his burger. “Yep. See ya then,” he says, casual-like.

And as I walk away, I can’t help wishing it was Tuesday already.

OLIVIA