Fifteenth Summer - By Michelle Dalton Page 0,40

have a chef salad with ham instead of turkey. And egg whites only, no yolks. Dressing on the side. And I’d like extra dressing.”

“Okaaaay,” I said, sticking my tongue in the corner of my mouth as I furiously scribbled the complicated order.

“Now the extra dressing,” the man instructed, “I want on the salad. Oh, and I’d like ham instead of turkey.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “didn’t you just say turkey instead of ham?”

And doesn’t a chef salad have both turkey and ham? I wondered frantically.

“Sweetie,” said the woman across the table from the man, “he’s messing with you! He does this every time we go to a restaurant.”

Then she scowled at her husband.

“John!” she scolded. “You’re scaring the girl to death.”

“All right, then,” the man said, grinning at me. “I’ll have a burger. With everything.”

I squinted at him. “Really?” I said skeptically.

“Really, sweetie,” his wife said. “John! Stop!”

He chuckled and crossed his arms over his big belly as if to say, My work here is done.

Old people amused themselves in really weird ways.

Then again, young people could be kind of weird too. For instance, some of them planted out-of-the-blue kisses on unsuspecting girls during completely inappropriate children’s story hours.

I swooped back to the kiss—to the unexpected yet wonderful kiss and the imprint of Josh’s hands on my shoulders that I swore I could still feel—and completely missed the next two orders.

“I’m sorry,” I said as John’s wife said something about an extra plate. “Can you repeat that?”

I saw the customers exchange a look and shift in their seats.

It’s going to be a long afternoon, they telegraphed to each other.

You don’t know the half of it, people, I thought.

By the end of my shift, I was beyond exhausted. If Melissa thought two-to-eight was the easy shift, then she was a superhero. My feet ached and my arms were sore from lugging heavy trays. I had a greasy spot on my camisole from a salad dressing spill. I was starving, but I also had no desire to even look at food.

I was also just as bewildered by the Kiss as I’d been six hours earlier. In my few minutes of free time that afternoon, I’d sent Emma three urgent NEED ADVICE texts, but her phone must have been turned off. Her mean teachers at the Intensive apparently loved to snap cell phones in half if they dared to ring during class. The ballet world was so weird.

Of course, everything was seeming weird to me at that moment—customers who left tips entirely in nickels, Melanie making a gross blue and red cake in honor of the Cubs . . . Weirdest of all, of course, was Josh acting all phobic one moment, then planting the best kiss of my life on me the next.

I went to the little office off the kitchen to take off my apron and get ready to leave. I considered calling a couple other friends from back home to get their take on the Kiss, but I was too tired to explain all the backstory to them. Then I thought about talking to Hannah. With her I could speak in sisters’ shorthand. Then she’d probably do that thing where she reads between the lines of what I tell her and informs me of what I’m really saying. Usually I find that excruciatingly annoying, but in this case I actually kind of craved it.

You’ve got two sisters who’ve just been through all this, Hannah and Abbie had told me before the lantern party.

I hated when they were right, but they were right. I decided to talk to Hannah right after I got home.

As I walked through the dining room, waving good-bye to Melissa, I pulled the rubber band out of my messy ponytail and held it between my front teeth. I pushed through the front door backward as I used both hands to smooth my hair back so I could make a new, neater pony.

But as soon as the door swooshed closed behind me, I heard the jingle of Dog Ear’s door opening and closing as well.

I glanced up. The elastic band fell out of my mouth and my hands dropped to my sides, causing my hair to poof frizzily around my face.

Josh was standing in front of the bookstore.

He looked kind of like he wanted to dive right back inside.

For once I knew we had something in common, because I kind of wanted to do the same thing.

But I also couldn’t stop staring at him. At his smooth face,