Tucker snorted. “East Shoal is different than everywhere. But I guess you’ll find out tomorrow.”
Tucker was the only person who seemed to think East Shoal wasn’t the perfect place to be. My mother thought a new school was a great idea. My therapist insisted I’d do better there. Dad said it’d be okay, but he sounded like my mother had threatened him, and if he’d been here and not somewhere in Africa he would’ve told me what he really thought.
“Anyway,” Tucker said, “weeknights aren’t nearly as bad as weekends.”
I could tell. It was ten-thirty, and the place was dead. And by dead, I mean it was like the entire possum population of suburban Indiana. Tucker was supposed to be training me to work nights. I’d only worked the day shift during summer, a plan concocted by my therapist that my mother had quickly blessed. But now that school was starting, we’d agreed I could work at night.
I grabbed Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball from behind the cash register. My thumb went for the red scuff mark on the back of the ball, trying to rub it out like I always did whenever I got bored. Tucker was now preoccupied with lining up a pepper shaker cavalry across from a hostile regiment of saltshaker footmen.
“We’ll still get a few stragglers,” he said. “Creepy late nighters. We got this really drunk guy one time—you remember him, Gus?”
A thin line of cigarette smoke trailed through the short-order window and up to the ceiling. In response to Tucker’s question, several large puffs clouded the air. I was pretty sure Gus’s cigarette wasn’t real. If it was, we were breaking about a hundred health codes.
Tucker’s expression went dark. His eyebrows drew together, his voice flattening out. “Oh. And there’s Miles.”
“Miles who?”
“He should be here soon.” Tucker squinted at his condiment skirmish. “He comes on his way home from work. He’s all yours.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And why, exactly, is he all mine?”
“You’ll see.” He glanced up when a pair of headlights illuminated the parking lot. “He’s here. Rule one: don’t make eye contact.”
“What, is he a gorilla? Is this Jurassic Park? Am I going to get attacked?”
Tucker shot me a serious look. “It’s a definite possibility.”
A kid our age walked through the door. He was wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans. A Meijer polo dangled from one hand. If this was Miles, he didn’t give me much of a chance to make eye contact; he went straight to the corner table in my section and sat with his back to the wall. From experience, I knew that seat was the best vantage point in the room. But not everyone was as paranoid as I was.
Tucker leaned through the short-order window. “Hey, Gus. You have Miles’s usual?”
Gus’s cigarette smoke curled in the air as he handed over a cheeseburger and fries. Tucker took the plate, filled a glass with water, and plunked everything on the counter beside me.
I jumped when I realized Miles was staring at us over the rims of his glasses. A wad of cash had already been placed on the edge of the table.
“Is there something wrong with him?” I whispered. “You know . . . mentally?”
“He’s definitely not like the rest of us.” Tucker huffed and went back to building his armies.
He’s not a Communist. He’s not wired. Don’t check under the table, idiot. He’s just a kid who wants some food.
Miles lowered his eyes as I walked up.
“Hi!” I said, cringing even as the word left my mouth. Too perky. I coughed, scanned the windows on either side of the table. “Um, I’m Alex.” I lowered my voice. “I’ll be your waitress.” I set the food and water down. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, thank you.” He finally looked up.
Several synapses imploded inside my brain. His eyes.
Those eyes.
His glare peeled away the layers of my skin and pinned me to the spot. Blood rushed to my face, my neck, my ears. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. And they were completely impossible.
My palms itched for my camera. I needed to take a picture of him. I needed to document this. Because the Freeing of the Lobsters hadn’t been real, and neither was Blue Eyes. My mother had never mentioned him. Not to the therapists, or to Dad, or to anyone. He couldn’t be real.
I screamed curses at Finnegan in my head. He’d forbidden me from bringing my camera to work after I’d photographed an irate man with an eye patch and a peg leg.
Miles nudged the wad of cash toward me with an index finger. “Keep the change,” he muttered.
I grabbed it and raced back to the counter.
“Hi!” Tucker mimicked in a high falsetto.
“Shut up. I didn’t sound like that.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t bite your head off.”
I shoved the wad of cash into the register and brushed my hair back with shaking hands. “Yeah,” I said. “Me either.”
While Tucker stepped out back for his break, I commandeered his condiment armies. Gus’s cigarette smoke wafted toward the ceiling, pulled into the vent. The oscillating fan on the wall made the papers on the employee bulletin board flutter.
Halfway through my recreation of the Battle of the Bulge, I shook Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball to find out if the German saltshaker would be successful in his offensive.
Ask again later.
Useless thing. If the Allies had taken that advice, the Axis would have won the war. I kept myself from looking at Miles for as long as I could. But eventually my eyes wandered back to him, and I couldn’t look away. He ate with stiff movements, like he was barely keeping himself from stuffing everything into his mouth. And every few seconds, his glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back up.
He didn’t move when I refilled his water. I stared at the top of his sandy-haired head as I poured, mentally urging him to look up.
I was so busy focusing that I didn’t notice the cup was full until the water ran over the top. I dropped it in shock. The water splashed all over him—across his arm, down his shirt, into his lap. He stood up so fast his head smashed into the overhead light and the entire table tipped.
“I—oh, crap, I’m sorry—” I ran back to the counter where Tucker stood, a hand clamped over his mouth, his face turning red, and grabbed a towel.
Miles used his Meijer polo to absorb some of the water, but he was soaked.
“I am so sorry.” I reached out to dry his arm, very aware that my hands were still shaking.