Chapter 14 Heaven
Heaven
I put the dogs in their crates and then start digging through the fridge while Saylor makes herself comfortable at the island.
“Is your fridge color coded?” she asks.
I glance up at the pink, purple, and teal lids on the containers on the shelf.
“Yup. My mom is terrified I’ll starve while I’m home alone.
Even though I’m pretty sure that’s never going to happen.
” I give my not-at-all-small butt a wiggle in Saylor’s direction and try to ignore the weird boost it gives me when she laughs.
“That is so cute. I love your mom. She’s the best dentist ever.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty cool. You want grilled cheese?”
“Yes, please.”
I start grabbing the stuff I need and then grab the container of strawberries my dad got from his “fruit guy.”
“Is it weird that half our school goes to see her?” Saylor asks.
“Yup. Your boy Tagger used to be weird to me about it all the time. I mean, he bullied me in general, but it started with weird jokes about my mom collecting children’s teeth and then he just started calling me fat and gay.
He’s a real charmer, that one.” Saylor’s old, old, old boyfriend was and still is a big ol’ jerk.
“Ugh, I’m sorry. Tagger was a huge ass to everyone. I never should have dated him in the first place.”
“He’s part of the reason I decided not to drive my car to school yet,” I confess. “My parents wanted to get me something nice, but I knew the minute I pulled up, he’d be on me trying to make me feel bad.”
“No, screw that. I will march down to the office myself and get you a parking pass in the fall and Tagger can deal with me if he wants to give you a hard time. I mean if you wanna drive.”
I shrug. “I do, but you know. The whole attention thing.” I set a pan on the stove and then start arranging the bread and cheese.
“Well, people will only care about the car for like a day and then they’ll move on to something else. I know school is close, but especially on really hot days or when it’s raining, if you wanna drive your car, you should.”
I glance up at Saylor, a little shocked at the force in her voice. It feels like she’s sticking up for me. Only Jake and Axel do that. “I’ll think about it, but thanks.”
“No problem. Okay, you cook, and I’ll pull up the bingo board.”
“Deal. Um—I was thinking, because of your mom. Maybe we don’t try and rush through it. I know you said you just needed a break, but really, we could stretch this out all summer. Also, my parents are never home during the day so you can like hang out here.”
“Heaven, it’s starting to sound like you almost want me around,” she teases.
“I mean, you’re alright.”
“Oh! You know what we can watch? And there’s like a million episodes,” she says, all excited.
“What?”
“Love Island!”
“Oh my god,” I groan.
“What?!” Saylor laughs. “It’s my favorite show.”
“I saw a part of it at Jake’s house last week with Bethany.”
“Oh yeah. She’s my Love Island viewing buddy. It’s so good. I’m caught up on US. Last night’s episode was amazing, but I’m behind on UK and I have all of Australia’s winter season. We have to watch it.”
“Ugghh,” I groan again.
“Well, what are you watching?”
“I was doing a Call the Midwife rewatch. And I need to catch up on like three Star Trek shows.”
“So, let’s watch both. We can watch nurses and nuns give birth and lose their loved ones to tragic accidents. Then we can watch people fall in love in a villa in Fiji.”
“Yeah, okay. Fine,” I reply, a little shocked that Saylor knows anything about the plot of my favorite PBS/BBC show.
She smiles at me again before she turns her attention back to her phone and I turn back to the stove.
I get our lunch ready pretty quickly, cutting up our strawberries.
I grab Saylor some water and myself some Baja Blast. I set everything down in front of Saylor then head back for the last most important piece.
“Oh, do you have any ketchup?” Saylor asks, just as I reach for it out of the fridge door. I come to the island and set the bottle between our plates.
“It’s the only way to eat a grilled cheese,” I say.
“Me too! Thanks. This looks great.” I watch as Saylor awkwardly picks up one half of the hot buttery bread with her left hand and dips it in the fresh puddle of ketchup on her plate.
“Axel broke his arm and his ankle, but I’ve never broken anything before. I forgot how much of a pain it is,” I tell her, and then for the first time ever, I see this look of legit sadness pass over Saylor’s face.
“Yeah. This hasn’t been fun. I try not to, like, blame anyone for accidents, but I’m kind of mad at my mom.”
“Wait. I thought you tripped. Do I need to call CPS on your mom?”
“No!” She snorts. “I saw her long Pride video right before we went out to play three-on-three and I was so upset and distracted, my head was not in the game, and I tripped. It’s silly. I just—my mom is so embarrassing.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry,” I reply, not knowing what else to say.
Saylor shrugs and then code-unlocks her phone with her pinky on her busted arm. “Okay, so what do you want to do first?”
“Um, go to the LACMA. That was my original plan anyway.”
“Okay. Let’s do that. I don’t think I’ve been before.”
“Good thing for bingo.” We keep going through the board square by square.
Going to the beach will be easy. We can go anytime, and even though Saylor can’t go in the water or get her cast all sandy, we agree that we can do that little walking path from Venice to Santa Monica.
We need to get the tie-dye supplies and pick out which LEGO kits we want to do.
We also have to decide what books we wanna read for the “read a book written before 1990” and the “read any book” squares.
“Let’s read Frankenstein. All the seniors have to read that. We can get that out of the way,” Saylor suggests.
“That’s smart. Let’s do that. My mom got me this book called Cinderella Is Dead. It has gay Black girls. I haven’t started it yet.”
“Oh, let’s definitely read that,” Saylor says, nodding frantically. “Why does your dad want you to interview two people?”
“They want me to practice coming out of my shell.”
“Man, this must be torture for you. I’m surprised you’ve talked to me this much.”
“I mean it’s been awful, but I’m coping,” I reply.
“I bet. You said Miss Anita is the mail lady?”
“Yeah. My dad got her okay for us to interview her. I just need to suck it up and talk to her.”
“Well, no time like the present. Let’s rip that social anxiety Band-Aid off.”
“What—” I look up and see Miss Anita walking down the street.
“Come on.” Saylor hops up and rushes toward the front door. I’ve barely wiped my hands before she already has her shoes on and is out the door. I scramble after her, shoving my feet into my Vans.
“Miss Anita!” Saylor calls out as she rushes down our walkway. Miss Anita is next door dropping off the Fullers’ mail.
“Hello,” Miss Anita says, and then she spots me and smiles. “Hi, Heaven.” We catch up with her on the sidewalk as she shuffles a fresh stack of mail in her hands.
“Uh, this is my friend, Saylor. She’s doing the bingo challenge with me.”
“Nice to meet you, Saylor,” Miss Anita says with a nod before she turns back to me. “I told my daughter about it and she’s gonna do a more kiddie-friendly version for my grandbaby.”
“Nice!” Saylor says.
“I’m sure my dad will be happy to give his input. He’s the bingo master.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. So, you girls want to interview me now?” she asks as she eases by us and drops my family’s mail in the box.
“If that’s okay,” Saylor says. I whip around and look at her, but Miss Anita just says okay.
“You’ll have to walk with me, though.”
“Not a problem.” Saylor falls into step behind Miss Anita, and I rush to catch up.
“I don’t have questions ready,” I whisper.
“It’s okay. I got it.” She smiles back, pulling out her phone. “Miss Anita, is it okay if we record this?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Great.” I watch Saylor press record. She doesn’t point the camera at Miss Anita, but at the ground instead.
I’m extremely confused about how this is going to work out, but we keep following Miss Anita down the street.
We fall into a rhythm—well Saylor and Miss Anita do.
I just watch, worried this is somehow going to go terribly wrong.
Pretty quickly, though, I see how it’s coming together.
I don’t know where Saylor is pulling these questions from.
Miss Anita is from Inglewood. She still lives there with her husband. She has four kids and five grandkids.
“How did you become a postal carrier?” Saylor asks as we get back to Miss Anita’s truck.
“They were hiring. The pay was good. There were benefits and I like being outside alone with my thoughts. It’s hard work, all the walking, but my route is peaceful. Now talk to a rural route carrier or someone delivering mail where it snows, they’ll probably say something a little different.”
“Is there any advice you would give two gals like us?”
I watch Miss Anita as she sets down her bag in the back of her truck and then takes a seat.
“Be kind to people and have fun. I think a lot of people are miserable because they don’t know how to have the nice kind of fun when you’re with your people.
It’s all gotta be all flashy and expensive or something.
Anyway, actually take the time to enjoy what you have together. ”
“That’s great advice. I guess, that’s it. Can we get a selfie with you?”
“Of course.” Miss Anita waves us over. We sit on the edge of the truck bed and Saylor manages to get a really cute picture of the three of us.
“Can you send that to me? I have to tell my family how famous I am. People actually wanted to interview me.”
“For sure.” Saylor laughs. We say goodbye and start heading back to my house. I’m about to ask Saylor what next, but she’s already ahead of me.
“Okay. So, we have the recording. We write down her answers so your parents don’t know that I did all the talking. Make it look all cute in Canva or whatever. Attach the selfie and then we present it to your dad. Parents love a presentation.”
“No. You’re right. He’ll eat that up.”
“I’ll send you the video and you can, like, study how I did the interview and then when we do the ‘interview a small business owner’ box, you can ask the questions. You know Miss Anita, but if you really practice interviewing someone you don’t know, your parents will be super impressed.”
We stop on my porch, and I just sort of look at her. I’m the one who’s impressed. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Just run out of my house ready to go?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I just did it. You wanna finish lunch?”
“Oh crap. Yeah.” I let us back into the house. Our sandwiches are cool, but still buttery so neither of us mind. We finish eating, and the whole time I can’t decide if I want to be Saylor, to have her confidence, or if I’m falling in love with her.