But I have to admit, as lone beacons go, Totally Wired is great. The bare brick walls and steel pillars and weird art are like something you’d find in Brooklyn, or Chicago maybe, and there’s always a cool song playing. If you ask, the baristas will tell you the band and the album and how this new stuff isn’t as good as the release from a few years ago, when they had a different bass player and the lead singer hadn’t sold out.
“Hey, kid.” LuAnn snaps her gum as she clears the table next to mine. At least, I think her name is LuAnn; that’s what it says on her old-school diner name tag, but I’m always too in awe of her to ask if it’s for real. “Cute shoes.”
“Oh, thanks,” I mumble. “They’re only from Target.”
“Still, you’re working them.” She winks and struts away in her pink 1950s sandals that match her floral-print sundress. I look down at my red sneakers, feeling a glow of pride. Fashion compliments from the resident vintage queen are gold dust; LuAnn is always showing up in crazy ensembles, with her long red hair in pin curls or a severe wave. She can’t be more than a few years older than me, twenty at the most, but she has this aura of awesome confidence I can’t even begin to mimic. Not that I’d ever try.
“Make a wish.” Garrett returns, depositing a tray with our drinks on the table and presenting me with a cupcake adorned with a single candle.
“You didn’t have to!” I protest, but inside, I’m beaming. Red velvet: my favorite.
He remembers.
“Sure, I did. It’s a momentous day. You’re seventeen now. You can do . . . absolutely nothing you couldn’t already.” Garrett makes a face, then laughs. “Still, we have to celebrate. You’re all grown up!”
I grin. “As long as there’s no singing,” I warn him, then blow out the candle. “You’ll get us barred for life.”
Garrett blinks. “Are you saying I can’t sing?”
“I’m saying the last time you broke out in a chorus of Radiohead, half the neighborhood cats went into a frenzy.” I scoop a fingerful of frosting from the top of the cupcake. After all, what is cake if not a vehicle for frosting?
“Yum.” Garrett reaches over with ink-stained fingertips and does the same before I can slap his hand away. “Ow!” He sticks out his tongue, covered with sprinkles. “So what did you wish for?”
I shrug. “The usual: world peace, winning the Nobel prize . . . Meeting Justin Bieber . . .” I add with a laugh.
“Aiming high. I like it.”
“A girl can dream.” I busy myself with the cupcake, hiding my lie. The truth is, I wished for the same thing I always do, when I let myself wish at all.
Him.
A group of girls comes chattering along the aisle next to us, fourteen or fifteen years old maybe, heading back toward the bathroom. They’re loud and excited. “Ohmigod, we have to see that movie!”
“I know — he’s so cute.”
“Do you think he did that flying thing, or was it all a stunt guy?”
“No way, he wouldn’t do something like that!”
Garrett and I share an amused roll of the eyes. “God, someone needs to lock them in a room and teach them about real culture,” Garrett murmurs conspiratorially. I giggle. “I’m serious!” he says darkly. “A whole generation raised on plastic pop stars and movies with happily-ever-afters.”
“The only way they’ll ever discover great literature is if someone makes a Disney sing-along,” I say. “Anna Karenina: the dance-off.”
He snorts on his coffee, and I feel a surge of pride at my quip. The girls move on.
“So what did your mom get you?” Garrett settles back in his seat.
“No idea.” I pour half the canister of sugar into my coffee, the only way I can stand it so black and strong. Garrett says those ice-blended syrupy things are milk shakes with delusions of grandeur — kid stuff — so I switched to the hard stuff ASAP after we met. “She was talking about some big surprise for when I get back tonight.”
“Maybe she’s finally caved on the car,” he suggests. “You left out that list of used models, right?”
I fix him with a dubious look. “We’re talking about the same woman, right? Tiny, incessantly organized, insanely overprotective?”
“OK, maybe not,” he agrees. “But she’s got to let up sometime, right? You’re a junior now. It’s not like you can ride around on the bus forever.”
I grimace. “Don’t remind me.” In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a senior. Not anywhere close. In my many disagreements with my mom, this is the sorest spot of all: that despite the fact I turned seventeen today, I’m still only heading into my junior year of high school. Such is the fate of those of us born on the school-year borderline. Sure, Mom has psychology reports in her corner — and believe me, she quotes them all the time — about how it’s better to be the most advanced, intelligent, mature kid in your peer group, instead of the underdeveloped wisp in the class above with lower reading scores and a way smaller chest, but honestly, I’d take that boob-related insecurity in a heartbeat rather than feel so out of place and old all the time.
“Knowing her, she’s probably booked us for another mother-daughter bonding retreat.” I sigh. “A workshop on realizing our full potential or some other bleak hell.” This is what I get for having a real-live life coach as a mother; the last time, it was “Seven Steps to Actualizing Your Inner Awesomeness,” none of which turned out to include room service or cable TV. Some retreat.
Garrett gives me that famous half smile, but this time, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s toying with the handle on his coffee mug, and now that I’m sitting right across from him, I can tell something’s not right. I have a radar for his moods, and this one isn’t exactly a bundle of sunshine and bunnies.
“What’s up?” I ask. “Are you OK?”
“Sure. Fine. Hey, did you see that documentary on Warhol and the Factory scene?” Garrett gulps his coffee, looking casual as ever, but I know him too well.
“Nope. You’re not distracting me that easy. Spill,” I order, setting my elbows on the table and fixing him with a look. “I mean it. You’re holding out on me.”
He exhales. “It’s nothing. I mean, it’s your birthday; you don’t want me to get into it.”