No “Bayview’s Former Beauty Queen Peaks in High School” headline for Adelaide Prentiss.
“If you know what you want to do when you graduate, great,” she’d said, perched on a stool in Café Contigo with the day’s specials written in brightly colored chalk on the blackboard behind her. “If you don’t, why pay a fortune for a degree you might never use? There’s nothing wrong with not having your entire life mapped out when you’re eighteen.”
Or seventeen. I eye my phone warily, waiting for another barrage of Bronwyn texts. I love my sister, but her perfectionism is a hard act to follow.
The evening crowd is starting to arrive, filling the last of the tables as someone turns all the wall-mounted big-screen televisions to Cal State Fullerton’s baseball season opener. Addy pauses when her tray is almost empty and scans the room, smiling when she catches my eye. She makes her way to our corner table and places a small plate of alfajores between Knox and me. The dulce de leche sandwich cookies are a Café Contigo specialty, and they’re the only thing Addy has learned to make during her nine months working here.
Knox and I both reach for them at the same time. “You guys want anything else?” Addy asks, tucking a lock of silvery pink hair behind her ear. She’s tried a few different colors over the past year, but nothing that isn’t pink or purple lasts for very long. “You should get your order in now if you do. Everyone’s taking a break once Cooper starts pitching in”—she glances at the clock on the wall—“five minutes or so.”
I shake my head as Knox stands, brushing crumbs from the front of his favorite gray sweatshirt. “I’m good, but I have to hit the restroom,” he says. “Can you save my seat, Maeve?”
“You got it,” I say, sliding my bag onto his chair.
Addy half turns, then almost drops her tray. “Oh my God! There he is!”
Every screen in the restaurant fills with the same image: Cooper Clay walking to the mound to warm up for his first college baseball game. I just saw Cooper over Christmas, not even two months ago, but he looks bigger than I remember. As square-jawed and handsome as ever, but with a steely glint in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. Then again, until right this second, I’ve always watched Cooper pitch from a distance.
I can’t hear the announcers over the chatter in the café, but I can guess what they’re saying: Cooper’s debut is the talk of college baseball right now, big enough that a local cable sports show is covering the whole game. Part of the buzz is due to lingering Bayview Four notoriety, and the fact that he’s one of the few openly gay players in baseball, but it’s also because he’s been tearing up spring training. Sports analysts are taking bets on whether he’ll jump to the majors before he’s finished a single college season.
“Our superstar is finally going to meet his destiny,” Addy says fondly as Cooper adjusts his cap on screen. “I need to do one last check on my tables, then I’ll join you guys.” She starts moving through the restaurant with her tray tucked under her arm and her order pad in hand, but the attention of the room has already shifted from food to baseball.
My eyes linger on the television, even though the scene has switched from Cooper to an interview with the other team’s coach. If Cooper wins, this year will turn out fine. I try to push the thought out of my head as soon as it pops in, because I won’t be able to enjoy the game if I turn it into yet another bet against fate.
A chair scrapes noisily beside me, and a familiar black leather jacket brushes against my arm. “What’s up, Maeve?” Nate Macauley asks, settling into his chair. His eyes rove across the sodium-spattered tabletop. “Uh-oh. Salt massacre. We’re doomed, aren’t we?”
“Ha and ha,” I say, but my lips twitch. Nate’s become like a brother to me since he and Bronwyn started dating almost a year ago, so I suppose teasing comes with the territory. Even now, when they’re “on a break” for the third time since Bronwyn left for college. After spending last summer angsting over whether a three-thousand-mile long-distance relationship could work, my sister and her boyfriend have settled into a pattern of being inseparable, arguing, breaking up, and getting back together that, oddly,