This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,22
be an in-season special for August and September, when local farmers are drowning in cukes. I could even ask Mrs. Peabody next door for some the next time she comes around trying to offload her extras. If the restaurant’s rent is going to increase, a new popular item could help. I’m dying to ask Jocelyn for their landlord’s contact information, but it’s pretty obvious that now is not the right time.
Jocelyn’s noticeably down for the rest of the afternoon, even though we get a few more followers on Instagram and Facebook. I try to cheer her up by showing her my mock-up e-commerce interface.
As Jocelyn clicks through the steps customers would use to order, I see the clouds begin to lift. Pretty soon she’s blazing with excitement. “Will, this could be a game changer,” she says, bug-eyed with wonder. “Even two or three orders a night will make a huge difference.”
Ten percent, I think. That’s how much their rent might go up by. Surreptitiously, while Jocelyn’s taking a phone order, I google “average restaurant margins” and find that they average from 3–6 percent.
No wonder Jocelyn’s stressed; just looking at the stats makes me queasy. Suddenly, the offhand comments she makes to Alan, along the lines of “You better pull your weight, or we’ll have to move again,” make sense.
“I’ll get the online ordering up and running tonight,” I promise Jos.
Before I leave, I remember to tell her that I’m going to be a little late tomorrow because I have a doctor’s appointment. I tell her I’ll stay an hour after closing to make up for the time.
“Oh, is everything okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, it’s just a skin condition.” It’s a fib I’ve been telling for years whenever I’ve had to explain why I have to skip out on something for a therapy session. Dermatology is one of those things that’s almost always an instant conversation stopper, and Jocelyn’s no exception.
I can’t help hoping, though, that someday I won’t have to lie about where I’m going.
I don’t get to go home and change before heading over to hang out with the guys. I collapse onto Javier Diaz’s basement couch, more tired than I realized. Tim Rosenthal is our fourth player today. He’s wearing his “Tolkien White Male” T-shirt.
“Javi and I call France,” Manny says, loading up a game of FIFA.
The background roar of computer-generated stadium noise washes over us as we settle into our normal trash talk. I’m a little slow to start, my muscles aching from the repetitive motions earlier in the day. Manny scores first off a header and tears his shirt off, running around the basement as the in-game commentators go wild. Of the four of us, he’s the only one who plays soccer for St. Agnes. Tim’s not the biggest fan of anything that requires him to break a sweat, and team sports aren’t really Javier’s thing. I played youth soccer for a few years—my uncle Akunna was my coach for the first year—but only lasted a couple of months of travel league. I begged my mom to let me quit after the time I almost hyperventilated going back onto the field after missing a penalty kick.
The next year, my mom signed my sister and me up for tennis lessons. We started playing mixed doubles as a family, and that satisfied my mother’s desire to keep us active. By that time I was seeing Dr. Rifkin, and he taught me all the little ways to trick my mind into calming down during a match, like focusing on the feel of my right toe in my sneakers, counting the ridges on my racket, and recalling how a perfectly hit volley reverberates in my shoulder.
“Missed you yesterday, Will,” Manny says. Yesterday—Wednesday—was, of course, new comic book day. “Marvel’s gearing up for their next crossover.”
“Pfft,” says Tim. “Getting ready for the next crappy money grab, more like it.”
“Someone’s bitter,” Manny sings. “Did you rewatch Justice League last night or something?”
If we’re honest, the four of us all read across distributor lines, but Manny and I have always been more Marvel than DC fans, mostly because of Black Panther and Kamala Khan. Tim, on the other hand, was raised in a die-hard DC family. There are literally pictures of him being toted around in a baby carrier dressed as the Robin to his parents’ Batman and Catwoman.
After FIFA we play Mario Kart, because at the end of the day there isn’t a multiplayer that’s a more straightforward adrenaline rush. Plus there are