The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,34

let me at it. You’ll never hear me complain about it. No cooking, no dishes. Plus you get to fly all over the fucking world. And all the pilots fall in love with you.”

“Did she say that?”

She pushes her hair back over her shoulder. “No, but you know that’s what happens.” She reaches for her Coke, poking a straw into the lid. “The only thing is, you have to be careful not to get fat. If you get even a little bit fat, they’ll fire you.”

“Why?”

Star swallows, her eyes scanning the restaurant. “It’s bad for the plane…if the stewardesses are fat.” She sees me squinting and looks away. “Anyway, it’s a rule.”

I look out the window. Right there, on the street in front of the Arby’s, is Mr. Mitchell, wearing a Royals baseball hat, easing out of his truck. He stops to put money in the meter, fishing in the pockets of his jeans for change.

“What?” Star asks. “What are you looking at?”

“It’s a friend of my mom’s.”

“Like a boyfriend?” She moves to my side of the booth so she can see him.

“Kind of,” I say. He takes his baseball hat off and wipes sweat from off his forehead, looking right at our window. If he sees us, he doesn’t show it.

“He’s too fucking old for your mom,” Star says.

We watch him walk into the flower shop across the street. He smiles and holds the door open for two women coming out.

“Do you think he’s buying flowers for your mom?” Star asks. She is almost sitting on me now, waiting, trying to get a good look. We wait, watching the door, not looking away. No one has ever gotten my mother flowers.

The glass door of the flower shop opens again, and Mr. Mitchell steps out carrying red roses, their stems wrapped in green paper. Star and I look at each other, mouths open, eyes wide. For a while, there are no words, nothing we can say. We watch him get back in his truck, Star clutching my sunburned arm.

“Roses mean love. He must love her,” she says, nodding the way she does when she talks, whether she’s lying or not.

My mother meets me at the bus stop, wearing a blue dress that is too hot for the day. She is also sunburned, especially on her nose and cheeks.

“You’re going to get a big surprise,” I tell her. I am so excited about the roses I could blow up. The whole way back to school and then home on the bus, I have been imagining her taking them into her arms, saying, “Oh Merle,” like a woman in a soap opera, smiling at what she knows they mean.

But my mother frowns and says she doesn’t need any more surprises. When we get inside, she looks at me, squinting. She wants to know why my shoes are wet, how I got sunburned.

“They took us to the park,” I say. “They do that on the last day.”

Her eyebrow moves up. “I didn’t hear anything about a park.”

There is a knock at the door. Mr. Mitchell, wearing no baseball hat and a different shirt from before, is on the other side of the screen, holding not roses, but a box of pizza. He cups his hands against the screen to see inside. “Shakey’s Pizza,” he says.

I run to open the door for him and reach up to see inside the box, to see if it’s pepperoni. He holds it high above my head, laughing. “Uh, Miss, that’ll be eleven ninety-five with tax,” he says. “Uh, Miss, you can’t have the pizza until you pay.”

“Evelyn,” my mother says, holding the door open for him, “did you ever think to stop and say hello to him before you started grabbing? Were you raised in a barn?”

I stop jumping. “Hi.”

“Hi, squirrel.” He tousles my hair with his free hand. “If you hold on a moment, I’ll set this down on the table and let you dig in.” He looks up and smiles at my mother as she walks around the counter to get a knife, running her hands through her hair.

“I wasn’t expecting you this evening,” she says. “I’m just a mess.”

“Sorry to stop by without calling. I ended up having to come back into town, and I thought I’d see if you-all wanted to have dinner. I didn’t mean to interrupt. If you want me to come back later…”

“No no,” she says. “Don’t be silly. I just need to take a quick shower. I walked down