actors’ interpretation and Priya’s framing. But today I feel like my brain is in one of those mesh foam wrappers they use to keep Asian pears from bruising in transit.
Priya stares at me as if I’ve just slapped a baby in the face. “Good for us,” she says.
“That’s what I meant,” I say, trying to muster up a scrap or two of enthusiasm. “Good for us.”
Sundays are usually pretty slow in the restaurant, so Will only works for a few hours that afternoon to hash out a plan for the week. At first, things are kind of awkward, like we’re tiptoeing around the conversation where he basically called me a head case. There’s enough shit to do, though, that we get over it quick.
We’re going to hit another slew of doctors’ offices tomorrow, and we start working on an idea that I had as I was cycling past one of the sports fields a few days ago: a post-practice special.
Will gives a thumbs-up to my idea, which involves free on-field delivery with a full set of utensils and three dollars off a twelve-pack of Powerade instead of our usual two-liter soda. “Great idea to tap into the sports industrial complex. If you get a hungry high school lacrosse team hooked on A-Plus…”
“… Thirty percent, here we come.” My eyes flick over to where my dad’s “dating contract” is taped behind the counter. “How did Alan do today?”
“Not quite as well as yesterday. Eighty percent.”
“Hey, at least he’ll pass.”
“How was your day?” Will asks. “Did you guys have a good shoot?”
I pause for a second. “Yeah, it was good.”
“Only good?” Will asks, his mouth bending toward a frown.
“No, it was fine,” I amend my statement. I hate that he can read me so well. “Priya did a great job. I just don’t really want to talk about it.”
Will’s brow furrows. “Hey, you know what we should do,” he says after a minute or two of silence. “We need to start having a regular movie night. What’s next up in your tier-one movies?”
“I’m not sure.” Tier-one movies are films that I really want to see that are either on Netflix or available through interlibrary loan. And I’m lying, I know the dozen or so movies that are in that group, I just haven’t had any interest in opening my spreadsheet to figure out what’s on top. “I haven’t really been all that into any of the movies I’ve seen on my own lately.” I glance over to where my mom’s counting the cash register. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been seeing them on my own,” I whisper, giving him a half-hearted smile.
He doesn’t smile back, like he recognizes it for the excuse that it is. “Maybe…” His eyes go unfocused for a second. “Or maybe… never mind.”
There he is, holding back again.
“What?” I ask, suddenly irritated. “Spit it out.”
Will grimaces sheepishly. “You’re going to think I’m a broken record.”
“Spit. It. Out.”
He sighs, and his head drops into a hangdog position. “Okay, so my aunt Mary is a nurse at the U,” he says, his voice pitched so my mom can’t hear. “She’s really into mental health, always has been. She knows issues run in my family, so she’s always, like, screening us during holiday gatherings and talking about warning signs. And she says that one of the first signs of depression is losing interest in activities that you once enjoyed.”
I bristle and turn on Slacker Radio, angling my laptop to face the counter and block our conversation a bit. “My not being impressed by Ben Affleck’s first attempt to revive his sputtering career is not a sign that I’m depressed,” I hiss.
This time, Will doesn’t roll over the way he usually does when I give him pushback. “It’s not not a sign that you’re depressed, either,” he argues, though he has the grace to look uncomfortable doing it. “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately; there have been a lot of ups and downs. It’s natural for—”
I cut him off. “You’re right.” His mouth snaps shut, and God help me but he looks like a puppy waiting for its chew toy. I almost feel bad. “You are absolutely correct, going through stress and having ups and downs is perfectly normal,” I say coldly. “Would you freaking stop with trying to mother me? I am not depressed.”
WILL
Jocelyn’s words are like a slap.
There’s a civil war going on in my head. Team Chill is telling me, again, that nothing good will come