bunch of cookies
and that’ll be that.”
“Marroney did not say ‘all fancy-like.’”
“Dave, will you please?”
“Sorry.” Dave pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it.
There was a text message from Gretchen. Want to help me study for AP
Chem tomorrow night? If the power of words was ever in doubt, a text message like this was all the proof Dave needed.
“So the night of the feast comes, and the ambassador and his wife
DAVE 127
bring this huge platter of Nutella that looks like something the Food
Network would show to make you feel inadequate.” Julia was talking
excitedly now, getting into the story. Dave put the phone facedown
on the counter he’d helped build so he wouldn’t be tempted to text
Gretchen back while Julia was still talking. “The chief accepts the
platter and puts it on the table with all the other dishes, and then the feast begins. There’s stewed goat and a million different vegetable and
rice dishes and a handful of items that the ambassador and his wife
can’t recognize in the least. But the Nutella goes untouched. For the
entire meal, no one reaches to scoop some on their plate. They don’t
even grab a cracker that surrounds the Nutella. The ambassador
starts to worry that maybe he’s somehow offended local customs, or
that he’s insulted the chief by bringing something that comes in a jar.
He’s so nervous he can barely eat. Dave, you listening?”
“Yeah,” Dave said, “just trying to picture Marroney actually telling
this story.”
“He told it so much better than I could.” She took a bite of her
leftover pizza, dipping it in the Tupperware of Dave’s chipotle salsa.
“Then, when most of the food has been eaten, the feast spontaneously
quiets down, and everyone turns their attention to the chief, who’s
standing up over the Nutella platter. The ambassador and his wife
are shitting bricks. Then the chief very deliberately”—Julia imitated
Marroney imitating the chief—“sticks his hand into the platter so
that his fingers are covered in Nutella to the second knuckle. And
then”—she mimicked the chief bringing his hand into his mouth and
tasting the Nutella—“he spits it out!”
128 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
She started laughing hysterically, cackling so that everyone at the
tree house was giving them weird looks. Tears were actually coming
out of her eyes, and it took a while for her to notice that Dave was not laughing along with her. She wiped her eyes and sat up straight.
“That was it? That was the end of the story?”
“You don’t get it,” Julia said disappointed. “He spits it out!” She
widened her eyes and leaned forward, as if repeating the punch line
would help the story make more sense.
Dave shrugged and looked at his phone again, opening the text
message to respond to Gretchen. “Sorry, Julia, but that guy is as
bizarre as that story was.”
“He’s not bizarre! He’s a romantic. That whole story was a
metaphor.”
“For what?”
Julia just shook her head and picked up her pizza again. “It doesn’t
matter.” She chewed for a while, looking dejected. Then she brushed
the pizza crumbs from her hands. “We’re going to his house tonight,
by the way.”
“His house? There’s a weird feeling in my stomach that tells me
you’re not referring to me in the third person.”
“You have such good instincts. We’re going to Marroney’s house.
This courtship is a little too slow and Jane Austen for me. I’m a
woman of action, and it’s time to put myself out there.”
“Reciting erotic slam poetry to his face doesn’t count as putting
yourself out there?”
“That was all innuendo. It was too indirect,” Julia said, pouring out
DAVE 129
the rest of the salsa on her second slice. “I’m going to woo him with
baked goods. We’re going to his house tonight.”
Dave looked down at his phone and back at Julia, who was now
finishing his torta. He picked up his phone. Only if we can go GPS
drawing after, Dave responded to Gretchen, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “I knew at some point in our friendship you were
going to get me arrested.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, and it hasn’t happened yet,”
Julia said, throwing away her napkin into a trash can that the school
had placed inside the tree house. Administration had turned a
surprisingly blind eye to the structure that had suddenly appeared
on school grounds. “You should probably wear black, though. Just in
case.”
They made the cupcakes at Julia’s house. Though Dave had been
texting back and forth with Gretchen throughout the day, watching
Julia make cupcakes again—Nutella, this time—it almost felt like
nothing had changed. He kept his phone in his pocket and forgot
about it, as if his world still belonged to Julia entirely.
“How can I help?”
“Clean up after my mess?” She motioned toward the obscene