The really stupid part about the whole thing is, right before it all blows up in my face, I decide I like Pepper. Well, not decide, really—it just kind of sneaks up on me. One second I’m tearing through a baguette, relieved my mom is nowhere within a three-mile radius (consuming bread from other establishments is treason in the Campbell family), and the next I’m looking up, seeing this wry look on Pepper’s face as she’s standing in line for her tea—the kind of look you give someone you don’t just tolerate, but maybe care about. The difference between exasperation and mild amusement, that line of what on earth is that guy doing and what on earth is my friend doing.
And yeah, maybe it was kind of happening before that. Ethan asked me to meet up with Pepper the first time, but I kind of hijacked it after that. Ethan doesn’t even know Pepper and I are meeting to go over swim and dive stuff—not that he’d mind, since the organization of the dive team can roughly be described as “extremely hot mess” and his captainship was more of a formality than anything. He’ll still slap it on his resume and call it a day.
He has kind of a bad habit of doing that—overcommitting and pushing stuff onto me. Saying he’ll bring day-old stuff from the deli for a fundraising thing at school, and then asking me to do it when his schedule gets too thin. Promising Mom he’ll pick up Grandma Belly’s prescription, then calling me in a panic when he realizes his student council meeting is running too long for the pharmacy’s hours. I know he doesn’t mean to do it, but he has a tendency to bite off more than he can chew—and then remember, thanks to me, he has a second mouth.
Funny, though, that as strapped for time as Ethan is, he sure found some to tweet from the Girl Cheesing account this morning and do the one thing our dad told us not to do.
But for once, I really don’t mind picking up Ethan’s slack. I like spending time with Pepper, with her Monster Cake and the unexpected blunt funniness of her and the way she’s always trying to tuck her bangs behind her ear even though they’re too short. I like her enough that I don’t even hesitate to ask if she wants to swap bites of baked goods. I like her enough that, for the first time in months, I’m not glancing at the phone my mom liberated after last night’s shift, waiting to see if Bluebird has responded to my last message.
I like her enough that the minute she bumps into Landon, something unfamiliar and hot coils in my stomach, something that makes me irritated with Landon even though he’s done literally nothing to wrong me in his life.
Something happens to Pepper too. Her cheeks are all red, and I can tell she’s stammering even with her back turned, even from halfway across the café. I squish the piece of pastry she gave me between my fingers, making a gooey apple-y mess.
I pull my eyes away from them, and that’s when it happens. That’s when everything goes to shit in one fell swoop. Her phone is on the table. I don’t even mean to look. I’m a New Yorker; I pride myself in my ability to mind my own damn business. But there’s something moving on the screen, some ridiculous-looking cat GIF, and like a raccoon looking at a shiny thing, I can’t tear my eyes away from it.
Then, as I’m leaning back, I take in the rest of the screen. I notice the blue checkmark first. The GIF is part of a drafted tweet. For a second I’m even amused—is Pepper verified on Twitter? Was she secretly in some kind of sports league or singing in a country band back in Nashville?
But the account doesn’t belong to Pepper. It belongs to Big League Burger.
My brain doesn’t quite know how to communicate the information to my body, so I just laugh. I laugh so hard, the woman attempting to eat a scone at the table next to me looks up in alarm, even though she has noise-filtering headphones on. But it’s like something laughs out of me, then, something heavy that comes loose in my chest and lodges in my stomach and instantly starts to calcify.
Pepper comes back, all red-cheeked and wide-eyed, practically stumbling into her seat as if she’s forgotten what it’s there for. When her eyes finally meet mine, she blinks, snapping out of it so fast, I can only imagine I am projecting every inch of the horror I’m feeling on my face.
“What?”
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“You have a drafted tweet from the Big League Burger account on your phone.”
I don’t sound angry. Am I angry? It feels like being a little kid again, practicing tricks on the diving board; like all those first few times I tried to jackknife and ended up belly-flopping into the pool. How the sting of it just stuns you for a few beats before the pain hits; the strange whiplash of how water can be so slippery and welcoming in one second and nearly knock the freaking wind out of you in the next.
“Oh.” Pepper grabs her phone, and now her cheeks aren’t just tinged, but a bright, flaming red that creeps up her neck and into her cheeks. “Sorry, didn’t mean to leave my phone here.”
Maybe I shouldn’t say anything. In fact, I absolutely shouldn’t. I feel like every possible appropriate response I could make just shoved its way into a blender, and whatever comes out now is going to come out all wrong.
Pepper fidgets under my stare, reaching for her bangs again. “It’s dumb. My mom—well, my parents founded Big League Burger.” She says it with her shoulders hunched, with her eyes flitting between me and the table. “They have me send tweets from the account sometimes.”
“Like tweets at Girl Cheesing?”
There’s that familiar crease between her brows. “You know about that?”
The baguette feels like it’s sloshing in my stomach. I manage to nod.
Pepper shrugs. “It’s dumb,” she mumbles, picking at the lid of her tea. “The whole thing is…”
“It’s not dumb.”
I don’t mean for it to come out the way it does. Even I’m surprised by the sound of myself. Her eyes snap up to meet mine, wide and wary.
I stand from my chair, grabbing my backpack, my coffee, the ridiculously large baguette.
“Wait—are you leaving?” There’s an edge of panic in her voice, a kind of insecurity I didn’t think someone like Pepper was capable of feeling. “Are you mad or something? They’re just some stupid tweets.”
I round on her, forgetting how tall I am compared to her until she has to jerk her neck up to meet my eye. I take a step back. “Yeah? Well, that’s my family you’re sending those stupid tweets to, that’s my grandma you stole from.”
Pepper’s lips part, a little “oh” of surprise breathing out of her. I watch, my fingers curling and my nails cutting into my palms, as she follows my words through to their meaning and her entire body goes rigid.
It takes her a moment to speak. I want to storm out, want to be anywhere other than this stupid bakery that seems to get smaller by the second, but I’m rooted to the spot, rooted by the way she’s looking at me. She always seems to have a comeback at the ready, some kind of answer prepared. Right now, she just looks lost.
“Your family owns Girl Cheesing?”
“Since 1963. Which is how long Grandma’s Special has been on the menu, by the way.”
Pepper shakes her head. “I didn’t … I had no idea you—”
“Can you imagine what it was like for her? Starting up a business with my grandpa when they didn’t have a penny to their name? Coming up with all of those recipes herself and working sixteen hours a damn day for over half of her life to serve them?”
Something flickers in Pepper’s eyes. It’s not remorse. It’s more like understanding.
I don’t want it. I’m so angry that anything she projects just seems to slide right off me, into a puddle on the floor.
“It’s not—my mom just makes me do it. It’s not anything personal.”
“First of all, your mom didn’t make you do anything.” I glance to my left and see there’s a clear path to the door, but I’m not done yet. I pull out my phone and open the Twitter app to the Girl Cheesing account, shoving the tweet with the crack about the secret ingredient from this morning under Pepper’s nose. “And that’s my grandma’s legacy. That’s my entire family’s livelihood. Don’t you dare stand there and tell me it isn’t personal.”
“Jack, wait—”
“Do whatever you want with the stupid fundraising. I’m sure you’ll have no problem coming up with ideas because you can always just rip off someone else’s.”
