Chapter Fourteen
“Stand By You”
by Rachel Platten
Meera
As I scrub the underside of one of the café’s tables vigorously with a plastic fork, wishing hell on the customer who couldn’t be bothered to throw their bubble gum into the trash, the door swings open, bringing in a whoosh of warm, sunshiny afternoon air, and Sushant’s voice fills the café. “Hey, Meera.”
My heart almost explodes with joy. Lucy’s not here and Sushant hates coffee, so he must have come to see me. Me! But in the game of love, playing it cool is everything. So I grunt out a hello without looking up.
“What are you doing?” Sushant comes over to where I’m standing and bends down to examine the days-old bubble gum that refuses to peel off the table. “That’s gross. Do you have ice?”
“Ice? Yeah, ask Dad for some.” My eyebrows furrow as I focus on the gum. It’s stringy now and sticking to the plastic fork. Eww. I try not to gag.
Sushant’s footsteps fade only to reappear a minute later. He steers me away from the table, squats down, and presses a bag of ice against the gum. “Once the gum is cold and frozen, you can get it off easily,” he explains.
He’s right. Barely three minutes later, the gum is at the bottom of the trash can. “How did you know this?” I ask, grinning as I wipe my washed hands on my apron. “I didn’t peg you for a home economics kinda guy.”
Laughing, Sushant grabs a chair and sits down, then gestures for me to join him.
I look around, biting my lip. The café’s been fairly busy since the book club launched, but Danny and Dad are both at the counter. No one will miss me if I take a quick break. I sit beside Sushant and wait for him to answer my question.
“Growing up, I was obsessed with this one brand of Indian bubble gum,” he says with a chuckle, his fingers tapping the side of the table.
“My granddad used to bring back a whole box of Boomer from Delhi every time he visited his family there. And like any bratty kid, I’d stick gum all over the furniture.
It drove Mom nuts until she searched online for this ice trick. ”
I smile, wondering what Delhi must be like, whether Sushant has ever returned to his roots, his culture. Might as well ask. “Have you ever been there? Delhi?”
His fingers are still fidgeting, and although he nods, his feet start swinging too, like he’s restless. “Once, a few years ago. Trust me, the Indian street food you get here sucks compared to actual Delhi chaat.”
“I’d love to visit India someday. Bangalore, especially, where my grandparents are from, although they now live—”
“Hey, Meera?” Sushant averts his gaze, his tongue against the inside of his cheek. He finally stops moving his limbs. “Can I…can I ask you something?”
I muster as much playing-it-cool energy as possible, running a hand along my messy braid and shrugging. On the inside, though, my heart might beat its way out of my chest. “Sure, what’s up?”
His eyes show concern as he says, “Do you think there could be something between Lucy and Julien?”
Thank goodness I have resting bitch face and robotic features.
Because if I had expressive features brimming with emotion, like Lucy does, then there’d be no way I could hide the celebratory cheers raging in my head—the kind of cheers that erupt from Appa’s mouth only when India wins the Cricket World Cup.
“Lucy and…Julien?” I frown. “I don’t know, why? ”
Sushant blows out a breath. “She’s been distant lately. And I think it started after Julien moved here. I get that she had to show him around for school when he first started, but he’s been here for weeks, and he still never leaves her side.”
I hesitate, then put my hand on his, which is clenched into a warm fist. “What brought this on? Because they both got detention today?”
He nods, but his body doesn’t loosen up, and he shifts his hand away from mine to interlock his fingers behind his head. “I didn’t even get to see her before football practice.”
“So”—I raise my eyebrow—“what are you gonna do about this?”
“We have a double date tonight with Julien and Natalie. I think I’m going to talk to them and see what’s going on.” Sushant’s face darkens more than usual. “If he’s trying to steal my girl, I’ll kill him.”
Whoa. I didn’t think Sushant was this protective of Lucy.
And also, I’m quite sure there’s nothing between her and Julien, so if he outright asks them, my Plan will go nowhere.
“Hey.” I nudge him. “Don’t get too hotheaded.
Try to be calm and observe them for signs.
Don’t ask them anything, or they’ll just deny it. ”
Finally, he cracks a small smile and playfully punches the side of my shoulder. “Thanks for listening, Meera. You’re a good friend.” Then he adds, his words tentative, “Will you be working tonight?”
I look around. “Uh, I might have to. We’ve had so many people rediscover their love for nonvegan food since the book club that we’re launching a new menu tonight. I’ve been working on it for weeks.”
He smacks his hand against the table, and I jump in place. “Perfect!” he exclaims. “I’ll bring everyone here for our double date. You can gather intel on Lucy and Julien from the counter.”
My eyes have probably never been wider. “Sushant, you’re joking, right?” I put my trembling hands under the table so he won’t notice. It’s working. The Plan is working!
“Please, you have to do this. For me.”
Inside, my mind is cheering knowing that Step 3, becoming Sushant’s confidante, is officially a success—in fact, I’m more than his confidante now; I’m his partner in crime.
But on the outside, all I do is exhale loudly, pretend to consider this, and then finally say, “All right. You owe me one, okay?”
Before Sushant can say anything, Danny walks over to us, his lips pursed. “Meera, I know you’re the bosses’ kid, but you’re not on a break right now. We have, like, a billion customers waiting.”
I bite my lip. “Sorry, Danny. Be right there.”
Sushant actually hugs me—me!—before heading out. As I return to the counter to help Dad and Danny, I catch Appa’s eye from the tarot corner. He raises his brow and mouths the words “What was that about?” He must have overheard parts of our conversation.
I give him a quick shrug and turn to the next customer, someone from the high school debate team, as my smile refuses to leave my face. “Hi, welcome to Café Kismat. What can I get you today?”
Lucy
“American detention is evil,” Julien grumbles.
He pauses, resting his mop along the wall, and wipes sweat off his forehead.
“We did nothing wrong, and here we are, cleaning classrooms that are used by messy, disgusting American teenagers.” His narrowed eyes go to the trash, where we disposed of five or six pieces of chewing gum already, and he gags.
I smile kindly at him. “You’ll get used to it. But honestly? This is my first time getting detention in, well, forever.”
Julien chuckles. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, Lucy. I bet you’ll get all the votes for Most Likely to Succeed.”
Instead of replying, I continue focusing on the graffiti someone scrawled on the chairs and desks.
If you asked me two days ago, I’d have said nobody could win Most Likely to Succeed except me.
But now I probably won’t be going to my dream college next year.
I’m in detention instead of cheer practice.
Brittney must be turning all the other cheerleaders against me.
Meera’s confusing words of kindness are making me think and feel things I vowed never to think and feel again.
And then there’s the question of Mr. Rao’s prediction. The Tower card has finally announced its presence in my life. I had my doubts earlier, despite knowing how psychic Mr. Rao is, and with the way life has been lately, I believe things are only going to go downhill from here.
“Do you believe in spirituality, Julien?” I stop scrubbing marker stains off a desk and turn to him for his response.
He mulls over my question silently as he dips the mop in the bucket of water, then speaks. “Well, I believe in a higher power. What that higher power is, I am unsure.”
“And do you believe in tarot cards?”
“I do not know anything about tarot, no.”
“Well, I do. And a few weeks ago”—I swallow hard, averting my gaze to the random words scribbled on the wood—“Mr. Rao pulled the Tower card for me.”
I look up at the sound of the mop being set aside. Julien walks over to me, concern in his eyes. “What does that card mean?”
“Destruction. Ending. Unexpected change.” I squeeze the sponge in my tense hand and add, “Mr. Rao’s readings always come true.
And now, with the way things are going for me, I have no doubt he’s right this time too.
” I put the sponge away and clutch the edges of the desk, breathing heavily with my eyes shut.
“I am sorry life has been so hard for you lately.” Julien pries my fingers from the desk and takes them in his palms. “Not everyone gets into every college they apply to, and nobody can be calm and quiet all the time when someone treats them badly.”
“But I can,” I insist, “and I have. At least, I thought so.”
He frowns at me, scanning how my shoulders shake and my legs tremble. “Lucy,” he asks, pulling out a chair for me, “is there something you wish to share with me? I do not think school stuff is all that is troubling you.”
I settle into the chair, and he grabs one for himself, facing me.
“Something’s been on my mind for years now,” I admit.
I can’t bring myself to look him in the eye, the one person in Madre Maria who might actually understand how I’m feeling, so I lower my gaze to the blue-inked heart someone’s drawn onto the desk’s wood.
“But I don’t know how to say the words.”
He nods in my peripheral vision, then takes my hand again. “If you need a listening ear, I am here for you.”
The words slip out before I can decide to end this conversation. “Julien, how did you know you’re…pansexual?”
The corners of Julien’s lips turn up, and he leans his head back against his crisscrossed arms like it’s his favorite thing to talk about.
Maybe it is. “I was fifteen,” he replies, his smile widening.
“There was a boy living next door to my family in Paris. We became fast friends, then lovers. It was the best four months of my life. He moved to Marseille that summer and we stayed in touch for a while, but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be. ”
“But—but—” I’m searching for the right way to ask him this. “How did you go from friends to lovers? How did you realize you liked him that way?”
“Because I ached to touch him. All the time.” His face contorts into a half smile and a half grimace, like the memory is painful in the best way.
“One day, I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and I kissed him.
He returned the kiss. I was on top of the world.
” Julien looks up when a tear splashes onto my desk.
“Lucy, are you asking yourself the question you asked me?”
It’s hard to say it. So I let my sobs do the talking. Julien moves his chair closer to mine and envelops me in a tight hug, and I cry on his shoulder until the tears dry and my body stops shaking. I resurface and nod at him. “Julien, I—I think I’m pansexual too.”
He smiles and wipes the only tear still in the corner of my eye. “You’re pansexual, Lucy. And you’re wonderful and brave and beautiful.”
I can’t believe I ever disliked him. I hold my arms out for another hug, and he obliges. A few seconds later, I pull away and look at the time on my phone. “We should get back to cleaning. I don’t want to stay here all night.”
“Same,” Julien agrees, his cheeks burning red. “We have our double date, and I have to look my best. For Natalie.”
“Aw.” I shove him with my elbow until he laughs. “Someone’s blushing.”
“Tais-toi,” he mumbles as the flush deepens. I know enough French to understand that, so I shut up, and we finish cleaning the rest of the classroom in silence, wide grins on both our faces.
“Hey, Julien,” I say after we put the cleaning supplies back, wash our hands, and head out to the parking lot. “Don’t tell Sushant or Natalie or anyone else about our talk, okay?” I wring my hands, biting my lip. “Nobody knows except for you.”
He smiles at me and bows his head. “I will take it to the grave, Lucy.”