Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,62
brought to him.
The three of us eat at the dinner table in total silence as our silverware scratches against plates. I want to ask Mitch about it, but it feels like a secret I’m not meant to know.
A few days later, we sit at lunch, talking about what we want to do after graduation when he brings it up all on his own.
“I don’t know if I can leave my mom,” he says. “I mean, he doesn’t, like, hit her or anything. But they don’t talk. Not at all. And I kind of hope that maybe it’s me who’s the problem, so that if I do leave, it’ll get better.”
“Why don’t they get divorced?” A single-parent home is all I’ve ever known, and Lucy more than made up for some deadbeat dad. My real dad was some guy passing through town. He stuck around for a while, but not long enough to be more than some guy. He’s in Ohio or Idaho. Wherever the potatoes come from.
He smiles in a broken kind of way. “My mom doesn’t believe in divorce. She gets really upset every time I mention it.”
Just as I’m about to respond, Tim walks right past us. “Hang on a sec,” I say as I’m already leaving to follow him. “Tim!” I look around for any sign of Ellen as I follow him up to the lunch line.
I cut past three freshmen to squeeze in behind Tim. “Tim, come on. Talk to me.”
He reaches for a tray and so do I.
“We’re friends, too, ya know,” I remind him.
He takes one of the bowls of mac and cheese from beneath the heat lamps. “I know that, Will.”
I check over my shoulder once more for El even though I didn’t see her in second period.
“She’s sick today,” he says.
The lunch lady tries to offer me a plate of chicken-fried steak, but I wave her off.
“You’ve got to get her to talk to me.”
He shakes his head. “When has anyone ever had any luck making Ellen do anything?”
He has a point. “Come on, Tim. Something. I can meet you guys one day in the parking lot or maybe you can tell her you want to meet her in the gym and I’ll show up instead.”
“I’m not tricking her into talking to you. I don’t wanna get in the middle of this.”
Tim pays for his food as the lunch lady eyes my empty tray. I take a bowl of green Jell-O and hand her a few dollars without waiting for my change. “You can’t tell me she’s not miserable without me.”
“Listen, I’ll try, but I just don’t see how I can make something happen.”
I nod my head like a madwoman and pretend he didn’t say that second half. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“I really hate that Callie girl,” he says.
Relief floods my chest. No stronger bond than a common enemy.
I hurry back over to the table where I left Mitch. “I am so sorry,” I tell him.
He’s unfazed. “Can’t beat a Jell-O craving.”
I shove a spoonful in my mouth. I could have at least gone for the red bowl.
“Hey,” Mitch says. “Not to put you on the spot, but my mom’s been talking about making you a homecoming mum, and I wanted to make sure that wouldn’t be awkward or anything.”
I smile. “No, that wouldn’t be awkward or anything.”
The door chime at the Chili Bowl so rarely rings, which means I always find myself startled when it does.
Ron, my former boss, walks in. Because of the log cabin interior and maroon accents, he looks like a candy cane in the middle of a lumberyard with his red-and-white-striped shirt and white pants.
“Ron,” I whisper, circling around the counter. “What are you doing here?”
“Maybe I want chili,” he says, a little too loudly.
I cross my arms over my chest and give him the best cut-the-shit stare I can muster.
“All right.” His voice drops a few degrees. “Listen, we’re desperate and super shorthanded. I’ve got Lydia working sixty-hour weeks covering your old shift because everyone we hire leaves when they find something better. She’s threatening to quit on me and I can’t afford to see her go.”
My head’s shaking before he can even finish.
“Hear me out.” He puts one hand up. “You left in an awful hurry. I may be old, but I’m not dumb. I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, I promise the boys will be on their best behavior. I grilled each of them—Marcus and Bo—after you left, and