Bittersweet (35 page)

“Right here.” Dani steps in through the smoking lounge door, rubbing her arms. “What’s going on?”

“Critic’s coming tonight instead of Monday,” Mom says. “Can you two change out the specials for the beef tips, put on fresh coffee, and make sure the menus are spotless?”

“Ma!” I step in front of her, finally snagging her attention. “I can’t stay tonight. I have plans. It’s … they’re kind of important.”

“Important?” She laughs. Like, maniacally. “Hudson, this is the most important night in the life of this diner. If we don’t pass this review with flying colors, we’re sunk. I don’t know how to be any more clear than that.
Sunk
. Do you understand?”

“But—”

“I’m sorry. If I had another option, I’d—”

“You’d take it. Right.” I drop my backpack on the floor, still clutching the dress. Grill smoke fills my lungs and makes me cough. I close my eyes to keep the tears in, but soon my heart is racing, blood pounding in my ears. I think back to that night in November when she told me I’d have to waitress, that she wished so badly she had another option, that she’d try to find another server as soon as she could.

“Why don’t you and Dani do a quick run-through on the tables,” Mom says. “Make sure the condiments are filled, check underneath for any gum Bug missed, and—”

“No.”

Mom glares at me, eyes fixed on the Hurley Girl dress in my hand, and it all comes down to this. All the guilt, the money, the extra work, my little brother, the gas bills, the smell of fryer grease, the dropped skating lessons, my father’s suitcases by the door, the arguing, the crying, the cheetah bra, and the hours of my life, ticking off against the clock on the wall.

“I can’t stay,” I say. “I’ll come back in a few hours to help, but I have to go now.”

She grabs my arm and drags me to the walk-in cooler, fingers digging into my muscle. “Open it.”

I do as she says and she pushes us both inside, slamming the door behind us. The skin on my arms prickles, but I’m not cold; adrenaline rushes through my body and warms me all over.

“You’re skating on thin ice, Hudson Marissa.
Very
thin ice. This is serious. This is our whole life.”

“But it isn’t our
whole
life.” I shake my head, voice soft but
certain. Unwavering. “I don’t want to stay here forever, Ma. Not in Hurley’s and not in Watonka.”

“Since when did home stop being good enough?”

“That’s what you want for me? Good
enough
? Whatever happened to aim high? Reach for the stars and all that crap parents are supposed to say to their kids?”

“Do you have any idea what it takes just to keep us fed and housed? To keep this place going?” Mom slams her hand against the metal egg shelf, sending one of the cartons to the floor. “We can’t afford the stars.”

The yolks soak the cardboard, darkening the edges. The balled-up Hurley Girl dress slips through my fingers and lands on the floor. “It’s not fair.”

“You’re absolutely right.” She ignores the eggs, but bends down to retrieve the dress, shaking it out and pulling it against her chest like it’s some precious thing. “It’s not fair that you have to work so much and take care of your brother. It’s not fair that I had to move you guys to a cramped apartment. It’s not fair that your father was sleeping with other women during our marriage. So what do you want me to do? Tell me how to make things fair. How to make it work.”

Her hand clutches the lavender fabric of the dress, all knobs and angles and bones poking up against the skin, and it reminds me of when she used to dress me for a day out in the snow, tugging my hands into mittens, guiding my feet into boots lined with plastic bread bags to keep out the slush. How much time has passed since my parents took us to Bluebird
Park in the winter? Since they pulled me along the path in a sled, Bug wrapped up in a snowsuit in my arms, all of us laughing as the branches shook and dropped snowflakes on our heads?

I look intently at her face, all the lines deeper in the blue glow of the cooler. “I wish I never showed you that bra.”

Mom shakes her head and stands down, turning the handle and pushing open the cooler door. As she steps out into the warm light of the kitchen, her voice goes so low I barely catch her words.

“Some days,” she whispers, still clutching the dress, “so do I.”

I slip past her through the doorway, everyone waiting silently for the final outcome. Their eyes are on me; Dani shakes her head and Trick’s gaze burns my skin from all the way across the room. Bug sits at the prep counter with his head in his hands, face crumpled, glasses sliding down his nose.

My cheeks burn and I can’t meet their eyes—the people who’ve been my family for so long, related or not.

“Hudson?” Bug says softly, tugging the sleeves over his hands. “Can I help you check the tables now?”

“Sorry,” I whisper to my brother. To all of them. To none of them. I scoop up my backpack from the floor, grab my jacket from the staff closet, and head out into the ice-cold February air.

Chocolate cayenne cupcakes topped with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and heart-shaped cinnamon Red Hots

One hour—that’s it. Three twenties. Twelve fives. Sixty one-minute intervals
borrowed from the clock on the scoreboard, all that stands between me and my final, don’t-look-back golden ticket out of here. A chance to see the world. A chance to finally live. Because if I don’t, it’s back to the diner to claim my family legacy, all the unchosen things vanishing, all the lines in my mother’s face passed down with the deed to Hurley’s Homestyle Diner in Watonka, New York.

We can’t afford the stars.

Skaters fill the locker room at the Buffalo Skate Club, each stationed at her own mirror, mothers and sisters and coaches applying a final coat of glitter gel or lip gloss. I recognize two
of them from my own club days, former Bisonettes, inseparable friends from the west side of Buffalo who were like the brunette versions of me and Kara. I brace myself for the sneers, the
who does she think she is showing her face around here
whispers. But the girls remain silent. Focused. They don’t remember me, or maybe they don’t care enough to cause any drama.

After I slick my hair back into a tight bun and apply the requisite amounts of blush and shadow, I check out the rest of the competition, sparkly and stiff, concentration pulling muscles taught beneath whimsical costumes. I close my eyes and it seems like a dream, so far away and foreign. For three years I haven’t watched competitive skating. Haven’t seen the girls zipping into their dresses or felt the tension, the pressure, the palpable expectations in the locker room before a big, make-it-or-break-it event.

Instead, I’ve been at the diner, watching Dani, Marianne, and Nat bus one another’s tables, run food from the grill to the dining room no matter who placed the order. I’ve seen Mom tie her hair back and chop vegetables for Trick a hundred times, watched Trick put on a fresh pot of coffee when I was in the weeds with customers, watched Dani pinch-hit when Nat’s nursing class ran late, everyone gathering at the end of the long night to count the money and divvy the sidework and trade crazy customer stories. I’ve been with the Wolves, helping the boys change from a bunch of mouth-breathing hockey thugs to a real team, a real crew.

I look over the girls in the prep area now, so driven and
determined, so willing to put everything and everyone else second, and it hits me: For all my stolen hours on the ice this winter, all those frigid, windblown days at Fillmore and the hard work at Baylor’s, the pure competition of it—me against them, them against one another, all of us fighting for a single spotlight—wasn’t something I prepared for.

Did I ever prepare for that, really?

“All skaters and coaches, please report to the ice.” The announcement crackles through the overhead speakers, setting the locker room ablaze with nervous chatter. “The competition will begin in ten minutes. All skaters and coaches, please report to the ice.”

I hobble on my blade guards out to the arena, merging into the line of girls near the edge. One of the west-siders—Paige, I think, or maybe it’s Peyton—follows behind me from the locker room, elbowing her way to the front of the pack, catching me in the ribs.

“Nice costume, Sparkles. Shoulda burned that thing after the Empire disaster. Hope it brings you the same bad mojo tonight.” She bumps me again as she passes by, a sharp reminder that my single biggest mistake will always follow me, its harsh, black lining lurking just beneath the roses-and-glitter surface of my dreams.

“Skaters, this way, please.” A thin man with a walkie-talkie and clipboard waves us over to the box, checking us in one at a time. At his command, we file onto wooden benches and remove our guards. I keep my back to Paige/Peyton and
focus on the other surroundings, visualizing my jumps and spins and the cheers that will follow, even from the relatively small crowd—mostly parents and grandparents and a few well-dressed, poker-faced women who are probably part of Lola’s foundation, perched unmoving on the center line seats.

I instinctively scan the arena for my parents, row by row, top to bottom. I know it’s ridiculous—my father is thousands of miles away and Mom is probably locked in her office, hyperventilating about the foodie. I didn’t tell her about the competition, but part of me wishes she’d be here, like she’d somehow found out and dropped everything to watch me, even on the most important night in Hurley’s history. Skating was never
her
thing—not like it was with my dad—but maybe now it could be. I could show her how good I am, how swiftly I can win this competition. Earn that scholarship. Remap the course of my life and rediscover the path I lost that night in Rochester. Prove to her, once and for all, that I was born to be on the ice.

But … is that why I’m here? To prove something to my mother? To get a do-over on a mistake I made three years ago? Is that the reason I’m zipped too tightly into my old sequined dress, feet anxious to slide and tap and twirl and jump through the right combination of hoops to impress those bored foundation stiffs in the reserved seats? Who are they to decide whose dreams come true and whose die on the ice? Am I here just to win their hearts, to make them fall in love with me?

No.
I shake my head, trying to loosen the thought, to jar it free. I’m here because I want to compete. To win. To go to
college and continue training and land on a professional circuit. To … what?

The remaining girls pack into the box like glittery sardines, the seconds ticking off the clock, and my resolve melts away. This isn’t some movie where the dramatic music starts and Mom bursts through the side doors, teary-eyed as I hit the ice, all of our problems disappearing in the wake of my flawless triple/triple combo. This is reality.
My
reality. And though I’ve been off the competition ice for a long time, I’ve done enough events to know with absolute certainty that something isn’t right—something
else
that has nothing to do with Mom not being here or all the broken, bittersweet choices I made before tonight. I can feel it.

More precisely, I
can’t
.

That’s the problem. I used to get these butterflies before every event, good ones. They’d swarm my stomach and knock into each other beneath the surface, a gentle tickle from the inside out. Kara would massage my hands and shoulders just to steady them. And then the event manager would say my name over the announcements, calling me for my turn, and all those butterflies would stand at attention, calming me, focusing me, helping to propel me around the ice and ensure I performed my routine beautifully. They’d stop their flitting just long enough to see me through, and then, when my scores were announced and the audience cheered from the stands, they’d reappear, excited and warm inside, drunk from the victory.

I close my eyes and wait for them to come, will them to fill
me up again, but they’re not here. And now that I’ve finally noticed their absence, the hole inside presses on me like a real thing.

Since I’ve started training again, I’ve felt that kind of fluttering anticipation
not
when I thought about this competition, but when Dani sampled my new cupcake creations, or when Bug put the final circuit board on his robot. When I finally figured out how to carry a tray full of drinks without spilling a drop. When the Wolves skated toward the net during the semis, feet shushing hard against the ice, arms arched as they prepared to take the winning shots. When Josh’s lips brushed against mine in the firelight as we hid from the storm.

“Paige Adamo,” the announcer calls. The girl hugs her friend and skates to the ice, music setting her feet on fire, strong and energetic. I want to hate her for everything she said, for everything she is, but I can’t. She’s beautiful, and her routine is breathtaking.