This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,19
swear and frantically de-suds my hands while the phone rings once, twice. And of course I don’t catch a break as Mr. Bertozzi’s secretary picks up on the third ring.
“Lisowski and Bertozzi, how may I help you?”
These words should not strike fear in my soul, I know they shouldn’t. But I don’t need to look at my smart watch app to know that my heart rate has probably doubled. I grab the phone and turn off the speaker. My voice only shakes a little as I answer.
“Um, hello. My name is William Domenici. I was hoping to speak with Mr. Bertozzi?”
The minute I’m put on hold, I hiss at my sister, “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad. You know Dr. Rifkin said exposures are supposed to happen in a safe environment, right?”
Grace rolls her eyes. “Please. You’re in our kitchen. Doesn’t get much safer than that. Good luck, bro.” She grabs her blazer and is out the door before Mr. Bertozzi picks up the phone.
“Will! How can I help you? My daughter just texted something about the Boilermaker?”
“Yes, sir.” At least I’m so pissed off at my sister that I can’t concentrate enough to be too anxious. “I know the deadline has passed for vendor applications, but I wanted to know if it’s possible to make an exception for a small food cart?”
When it turns out that there are a few more openings left, it’s maybe a little bit irritating to have to admit that Grace’s strongarm tactics worked. It’s worth it, though, to be able to show up at A-Plus with the opportunity in hand. Jocelyn is already staging the bags for that afternoon’s lunch orders when I get to the restaurant. She looks up from her work using a box cutter to make rectangles of cardboard and nods at me.
There’s something off about her. It’s not just that she’s frowning with concentration (she is)—it’s that her movements are slower than usual. When she showed me the setup routine yesterday, her movements were impressively quick and efficient: open the paper bag with a flick of the wrist, slide it instantly into a plastic bag, line it with cardboard with one hand while grabbing two fortune cookies to throw in with another.
“I should’ve brought coffee again, huh?” I ask, joking, but when she doesn’t smile, I hover awkwardly for a minute.
How could everything that felt so natural yesterday feel so wrong today?
This Is My Brain on Frugality
JOCELYN
My brain feels like a giant ball of lint.
Will, in contrast, comes into work all eager, like a Saint Bernard with a tennis ball in his mouth. I nod at him in greeting, because words seem too hard at the moment.
“I should’ve brought coffee again, huh?” he jokes, and for a moment it irritates me. Is he basically saying that I look tired? Or worse, cranky? I swallow a snarky response and wave to the kitchen.
“Amah has some green tea already steeped if you need some caffeine.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m good,” he says a little too quickly, like he’s trying to manage my mood, for God’s sake. I shake my head to clear out the cloud of negativity in my head.
Snap out of it, Wu.
“So,” I say. “What’s in the folder?”
“Oh!” Will lays down his folio and starts pulling out computer printouts. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I made some mock-ups of a new website.”
“Wow,” I say after some stunned blinking. “These look awesome!” I mean, anything that uses a font more sophisticated than Arial Black would win an A-Plus design competition, but what Will has come up with is both functional and super slick.
He flips through some different views of the drop-down menus and spouts some technobabble that I mostly ignore, before he asks anxiously, “You like it?”
“Are you kidding? It’s ridiculous. You did this in one night? My dad will freak out.” At least he’ll be happy when he finds out it was free. He’s always ignored our website except for the annual grumbling when he has to renew our hosting service.
Will gives a bashful smile. “And, oh, I’ve got another advertising opportunity. You know the Boilermaker?”
I laugh. “Do I know the Boilermaker?” It is the biggest event of the year in Utica, with literally thousands of runners flooding the city, seeking carbs and electrolytes. “It’s a freaking zoo every year. Dad tripled our order of water and Gatorade last year and we still ran out. Why? Are you thinking of running in it?”