Since You've Been Gone (15 page)

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I . . .” Something occurred to me, and I asked hopefully, “Your name isn’t Jamie, by any chance?” After all, I was halfway to hugging her already.

“No,” the girl said, straightening up. She pointed to her T-shirt, which was designed to look like a military uniform. On the shoulders, there were pizza toppings where medals would have gone—mushrooms and peppers and pepperoni slices.
DAWN
was printed on the shirt in military typeface, right over her heart. “Dawn Finley.”

“Emily,” I said. “Hughes.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, giving me something that was closer to a real smile this time. “I’m really sorry about this,” she said, pushing herself up to standing and scooping up her crumpled tissues. “Thanks for listening.”

“Sure,” I said, standing as well. “Are you sure you don’t want any ice cream? On the house.” Technically, I wasn’t sure I was allowed to do this, but considering nobody had even come in to get any samples, I figured that a scoop or two wouldn’t necessarily be missed.

“No, thank you, though,” Dawn said. “Sorry again.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Really.” Dawn gave me a half smile, then squared her shoulders and took a deep breath before pulling open the door and heading back toward the pizza parlor.

The bell chimed, then faded, and I was left alone again.  And as I walked back to stand behind the counter, I realized that the silence somehow felt louder than it had before.

The afternoon passed with glacial slowness. I cleaned and then re-cleaned the glass cases, then re-organized the ice cream in the walk-in freezer, first by flavor grouping, then alphabetically. I wasn’t in charge of locking up—that was Elise, the assistant manager, who came at closing every day. I had my eyes fixed on the back entrance, just waiting for Elise to show so that I could clock out and go home. I was trying not to think about the fact I had nothing to go home to, really, just parents who couldn’t be disturbed and a little brother probably lurking in a doorway and no life whatsoever. I just wanted to get out. I was looking so intently at the back door that I didn’t hear the bell jingle, and didn’t notice there was someone in front of me until they cleared their throat.

“Sorry,” I said, turning around quickly. Dawn was standing there, holding a pizza delivery carrier with a stack of tickets on top. “Oh, hi.” She looked slightly better than she had earlier in the day, but her eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy.

“Hey,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “I just wanted to thank you again, and apologize for earlier.”

“It’s really fine,” I assured her. To my surprise, I realized I wanted to know what had happened when she’d gone back to work, what Bryan and Mandy had done. But I didn’t actually know this girl, and now that she seemed embarrassed and slightly uncomfortable, I was starting to feel that way too.

“So if there’s anything I can do, let me know,” she said, shifting the carrier to her other hand, closer to the counter. “And I can get you a lunch special with my discount! Just come in any weekday, and . . .”

Dawn kept going, telling me about the pizza deals she could probably get for me, including a can of soda, my choice, but I was no longer hearing her. Instead, my eyes were fixed on the top delivery ticket. It was going to an address in Stanwich, to a Jamie Roarke.

I gasped. It felt like a sign. And if not a sign, at least an opportunity that I wasn’t about to pass up. “Actually,” I said, interrupting Dawn, “there is something you can do.” She raised her eyebrows, and I took a breath, my eyes still fixed on the name on the delivery slip. “Can I deliver pizzas with you?”

“And then Mandy started talking about how she felt like she never saw me anymore, and asked if I could get her a job at Captain Pizza too,” Dawn said as she barreled down the road. I nodded and gripped on to the side of the car, feeling my foot press down on a phantom brake. I wasn’t sure if Dawn was
driving like this—fast, and a little distractedly—because she was reliving the Bryan and Mandy saga as she told me about it, or because she always drove like this, but either way, it was clear that we were definitely going to make Captain Pizza’s promised delivery window. “And so I put in a good word for her and she got a job as a hostess, and it was so great for a while, and she and Bryan really got along, and I just thought everything was perfect, you know? I didn’t even
suspect
anything else was going on.”

“But you had no way of knowing,” I said as Dawn screeched to a stop at a red, causing the figurines on her dashboard—including a shirtless male hula dancer who, I had learned, was named Stan—to bobble and shake. When I first asked to come along, I’d been surprised that she’d agreed so easily, but after I asked her where she went to school (Hartfield, going into senior year, like me) and she’d used the opportunity to fill me in on the drama, it was becoming clear to me that she’d just been glad to have someone to talk to, which I could more than understand.

“I know,” Dawn said, as she glanced down at the directions on her phone, then jolted the car forward as soon as the light turned green. “But I feel like I should have, you know? Everything was going just perfect, and I was sure it was going to be just the best summer ever. It’s like I jinxed it by believing that would happen.” She made a hard left, flicking on her blinker for a second almost as an afterthought, sending Stan’s hips swaying. “I just can’t believe I’ve lost both of them,” she said, shaking her
head, still sounding a little dazed by this. “Like, in the same day. And all I want to do is talk to Mandy about this, but of course, I can’t. . . .” Her voice trailed off and she glanced over at me. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said immediately, not even thinking about it first, just so glad to have someone verbalize what I’d been thinking for the last three weeks. “My best friend . . .” I hesitated. “She’s away for the summer,” I said, rationalizing, like I had with my mother, that this wasn’t even really a lie. “And we used to hang out or talk every day, so it’s just . . . hard to adjust to.”

“
Yes
,” Dawn said as she made a sharp right. She slowed slightly as she leaned forward, squinting at the numbers. “Why don’t you just call her, though?”

“Because,” I said, trying to think fast. “She’s . . . you know . . . camping.” Dawn glanced over at me, and I added, “In Europe.”

“Oh,” she said, looking impressed. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said, already regretting this and wishing I’d chosen almost anything else, since I knew nothing about camping. Or Europe.

“Where?” she asked, and I tried to think fast.

“In . . . Paris,” I said, wondering why I was continuing to do this, but realizing that it was probably too late to admit I’d made the whole thing up.

“I didn’t know there was camping in Paris,” Dawn said.

“Me neither,” I said honestly. “But that’s where she is,” I added, just hoping that Dawn wouldn’t ask any more questions,
since I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.

Dawn took a breath, like she was about to ask something else, but then slammed on the brakes and leaned over to my side of the car. “Does that say thirty-one?” I nodded and Dawn pulled into the driveway, narrowly avoiding hitting the house’s decorative mailbox. She put the car in park and then got out, tipping her seat forward so she could grab the carrier in the backseat. I got out as well, feeling my pulse start to pound in my throat. I’d been distracted on the ride over, both by Dawn’s story and her driving, but now the reason that I was here—to hug one of Captain Pizza’s customers—was unavoidable.

“So which house is this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light and pleasantly curious. I knew she had four deliveries to make this round, but I had no idea where Jamie Roarke fell in that order.

Dawn picked up the ticket on top of the carrier and peered down at it. “Greg Milton,” she read, then groaned. “He always orders like four kinds of meat toppings. I can barely lift his pizzas, they’re so heavy. Did you want to come to the door?”

“No, that’s okay,” I said. I knew I was going to have to psych myself up to hug Jamie Roarke, whoever that was, and could use a moment of quiet. “I’ll just wait here.”

“Cool,” Dawn said, heading toward the house. “Be right back.”

As I watched Dawn walk up to the front door and ring the bell, I leaned back against her car, a green Volkswagen convertible
with a triangular Captain Pizza car topper. But rather than being on the roof, where I’d always seen them on pizza delivery cars, this was on the trunk of the car, like a shark fin.

She was walking back toward the car only a few moments later, tucking some cash into the front pocket of her shorts, and I let out a breath as I pulled the passenger-side door open and got in the car. I told myself that it didn’t matter if Dawn thought I was weird, or if I scared this Jamie person, or if I would feel like I couldn’t go back to Captain Pizza for the rest of the summer. I had to do this.

“So is this the last delivery?” I asked, twenty minutes and two other Jamie-free deliveries later, hoping I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt as Dawn pulled down the driveway of a small, light-blue house.

“Yeah,” Dawn said, shooting me a sympathetic look. “Has this just been so boring for you? It’s for Jamie Roarke. She’s the nicest, and she has the cutest puggle . . .”

Dawn got out of the car, and, hoping it sounded somewhat natural and spontaneous, I unbuckled my seat belt and said, “I think I’ll come with you this time, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Dawn said as she reached into the back and grabbed the carrier. “Come on.”

I got out of the car, feeling my heart beating hard. I was grateful that this Jamie was a woman—it just seemed like it would make things easier. I followed behind Dawn, noticing for the first time that there was writing on the back of her shirt
as well.
Captain Pizza—We’re a MAJOR deal!
was emblazoned across her shoulder blades. I stood next to Dawn on the mat as she rang the bell, which chimed Pachelbel’s canon. The door opened, and a woman who looked to be in her forties stood behind it, a dog peeking out from around her ankles.

“Hi,” she said, fumbling in her wallet for some bills. “Sorry—you always get here so fast, I’m never quite sorted.”

“No worries,” Dawn said as she slid the pizza out of the carrier and dropped the now-empty bag at her feet.

I just stared at Jamie Roarke, my pulse pounding, willing her to come out from behind the door. She was still half hidden behind it. What was I supposed to do, pull the door open and hug her? What if she thought I was attacking her or something?

“I could have sworn I picked up some ones yesterday,” she murmured as I swallowed hard and tried to get my courage up. I could do this. I could hug a total stranger. As though somehow sensing the direction my thoughts were going, the puggle at Jamie Roarke’s feet started growling. “Quiet,” she said as the dog bared his teeth—I was pretty sure—right at me. “Okay, got it,” she said, looking up at Dawn and smiling as she handed over some bills. Her eyes landed on me, standing there in what was clearly not a Captain Pizza uniform, and her smile faded.

“That’s Emily,” Dawn said as she pocketed the bills and handed Jamie Roarke her pie. “She’s just . . . observing.”

Jamie Roarke gave me a nod, and I knew it was my moment. I just had to do this. Who cared what this woman or Dawn
thought? I just had to reach out and hug her. My opportunity was right in front of me. I tried to make myself do it, just take a step forward and give her a hug. But I couldn’t seem to move. I just stood there, frozen, my heart slamming against my chest while I watched my opportunity slip away as Jamie Roarke thanked Dawn and then closed the door.

“So that’s how it works,” Dawn said as she picked up the empty carrier. She looked over at me in Jamie Roarke’s porch light, where the moths were beginning to circle, drawn toward the brightness. “You okay?”

I nodded, and walked to Dawn’s car without speaking, furious with myself. Who knew why Sloane had put this on the list, but she had—and it was one of the easier ones. And I couldn’t even do it. The second things got hard, or I couldn’t hide in the woods, I just gave up. I got into the passenger seat, slamming the door harder than I needed to, staring out the window, hating myself.

“Um,” Dawn said as she started the car, glancing over at me. “You sure you’re all right?”

“Fine,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as upset as I currently felt. “I’m just . . . really tired.”

“Oh my god, me too,” Dawn said with a sigh. “I just feel like this has been the longest day ever. Do you ever feel that way? Like some days take five years, and others are over in like a minute?” Dawn talked on as we drove back, and didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t saying much. I was happy to have her fill up
the car with conversation, helping distract me from the truth of how I’d so decisively failed.

She parked crookedly in what I wasn’t exactly sure was a spot, and as we both got out of the car, I saw Dawn bite her lip as she looked toward Captain Pizza. “It’ll be okay,” I said, without even thinking about it first. I wasn’t sure I should have said it, since I had no way of knowing if it would be true. But Dawn shot me a smile that was much less trembly than the one she’d given me when she’d first shown up at Paradise that afternoon.