Chapter 35 Saylor
Saylor
Heaven drives us over to the West Adams part of LA, just beyond the new Whole Foods where this all began, and I tell her about Mom’s blowup with Stella and that she’s planned two tedious videos about packing the twins up and getting them off to soccer camp.
“It’s just so not important,” I say. “Like who cares how many pairs of socks they’re bringing to camp. I do not get it.”
Heaven just nods, biting the inside of her lip.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask her.
“Nothing. Just—I was thinking about how it’s her job, or whatever.”
“And?” I ask. “I think that just makes it weirder.”
“Listen, I’m with you. I guess I’m just looking at it from her perspective.
That it’s, like, her whole job. And maybe that just makes it weirder.
That she makes all this money for your family or makes you money doing it.
I mean, what would you do if it wasn’t for Fosters Healing Ointment, the number one medicated ointment in America? ” she teases.
“See?!” I laugh. “It’s all so weird. I just need to be away from her for a little while. I can hold her off at least until next week or so when I’m home, which I’m going to try to not to be.”
I glance back over at Heaven. She doesn’t say anything, but there’s another stressed look on her face. I want to know what she’s thinking about, but I’m a little nervous it might be something that I don’t want to hear.
“I know you said you wanted to do it, but I looked up some extra questions just in case,” I say. Changing the subject seems like the right thing to do.
“I think I got it. I watched like three episodes of Hot Ones last night. I realized a little too late that Lara isn’t an actor, but I think I got the idea.”
“Cool. I’ll record and then you can make the next little presentation to show your dad, so we can officially cross off the square.” I unlock my phone and pull up the bingo card, looking at what we’ve done so far. My stomach instantly sinks. “Dang it,” I whisper.
“What?”
“I forgot about the free square.”
“What about it?”
I glance up as the maps lady’s voice comes through the speakers. “The destination is on the right.” It’s there for sure, a pink storefront under a bunch of new apartments. There’s a sign shaped like a bow hanging above the street. Le Petit Morceau.
Heaven drives right by it and manages to find street parking not too far away. We double-check the street signs and then walk back toward the shop.
“What were you saying about the free space?” Heaven asks. But before I can answer, the door to the shop opens and this tall, slim Black woman pokes her head out.
“Are you looking for me?”
“I think so,” I say.
“The bingo girls? Come on in!” She holds the door open for us, and we hurry inside.
The shop is small but so cute. All pink and gold.
There are two small tables in the corner and a counter with a display case.
There are labeled trays in the case, fifteen different flavors of cookies, but only half of the trays are still full.
“We know you open soon, so we’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” Heaven says, after we introduce ourselves properly. Her voice is quaking a bit. I almost grab her hand to reassure her, but I stop myself.
“Are you kidding me? This is so cool,” Lara says.
“You hope people want to know about your business, but you usually hope it’s the local paper or someone with a really huge internet following.
Teenagers actually thinking you’re cool enough to talk to is like every old lady’s dream. I can’t wait to answer your questions.”
“Okay, good,” Heaven says. “Sorry. I’m a little nervous.”
“Oh honey, don’t worry. Awkward is my middle name. Ask your questions and then we’ll have some cookies, and you two can get on with your summer.”
“Okay,” Heaven says, a small smile cracking through her nervousness. Ms. Lara directs us to one of the tables and then comes back with a small plate with some mini chocolate chip cookies on them. Well, mini for her shop. Her standard cookies are the size of your hand and twice as thick.
“So, you said you’re doing a bingo challenge your dad came up with and interviewing a small business owner was one of the squares.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to become a tattoo artist when I graduate, and as you can see, I’m not great in the people department. He wanted me to practice talking to people and also learn about working for myself. We also interviewed our postal carrier, but Saylor did all the talking.”
“I love to talk,” I add.
Ms. Lara laughs, giving her nod of approval. “Well, props to dad. That sounds like a great idea. Okay, you can ask me anything you want on one condition?”
“What’s that?” Heaven says.
“When you’re finally tattooing, all nice and official, you have to tattoo me.”
My heart melts when this huge smile blooms over Heaven’s face. “Deal.”
“Great. Ask away.”
We have such a fun time with Ms. Lara. She’s funny and talks to us for almost an hour before her assistant actually needs her for something.
Heaven does a great job. She asks her serious questions like how much time she has to put into the shop, and some silly questions, like what’s her favorite song to bake to.
She says it takes up all her time, and when she’s really in the zone, she’s blasting old-school Lil’ Kim.
She’s horrified I don’t know who that is, but Heaven promises to enlighten me when we get back in the car.
She tells us how she got started baking with her grandmother, but she stopped back when she went as far as she could go with her distance running career, like Olympic trials far.
After, she thought she’d go to law school, but she realized she was happiest when she was baking.
After ten years working around LA, she finally opened her own shop with help from her brother and her best friend.
She lets us sample every flavor of cookie she sells, plus the Oreo cookie brownie she’s testing out.
The chocolate chip is good, a classic, but her Earl Grey sugar cookie brings tears to my eyes.
Ms. Lara has definitely picked the right career.
When we finish up, she sends us each home with a box filled with every flavor of the full-sized cookies, so we can share them with our families.
We take a quick picture with Ms. Lara and her assistant, Nadine, and then head back to the car.
“You killed it,” I say once we’re buckled in.
“Yeah, that wasn’t so bad. She was really easy to talk to,” Heaven says, smiling back.
“And look, you already got a client on the books.”
“True. Hey, what were you gonna say about the free square before we went in?” she asks me.
“Oh. Just—” I sigh, feeling like we just stepped back into the real world after being in the beautiful land of cookies. “We just got our bingo. I forgot about the free square, but talking to Ms. Lara gets us our bingo.”
“Oh. Well, we still have a lot of squares to go before we clear the board.”
“I know, but my mom wants to do content around our first bingo. She has our shirts ready and everything. They came last week.” It seems so weird, like my reaction is outsized, but I really want to cry. Cristine Ford, the reason we can’t have nice things.
“Saylor,” Heaven says.
“Yeah?” I turn to her, suddenly worried because her voice sounds off.
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
My heart speeds up like I’m the one training for the Olympics. It’s maybe the only thing I’ve wanted Heaven to ask me all summer, but still her tone is weird. Like she’s not sure.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay.” Heaven lets out this shaky, adorable breath and then she turns back to me with the cutest smile. “So we’re girlfriends.”
“Yeah.” I nod, biting the inside of my lip. “Definitely girlfriends.”
“Cool.” Her smile drops, but she turns and faces me. “I know things are weird with your mom, but we should probably tell her before homecoming. I hate dancing and I wouldn’t say I’m exactly the jealous type, but I think it would suck watching you dance with other people.”
“Wow, you must really like me. Homecoming?” I tease even though I’m pretty shocked. Homecoming together is a big deal.
“I mean, yeah. You’re my girlfriend.”
“I know.” I let out a deep breath and look down at my cast. It’s still so cute covered in Heaven’s doodle magic, but also so nasty.
I can’t wait to get it off, the one thing that finally brought us together.
My eyes start to burn when I realize what this all means.
Heaven reaches over and takes my hand, and a few tears escape. I don’t even try to wipe them away.
“What’s wrong? Tell me,” she says.
“I’ve had a crush on you for, like, eight months.”
“You have?”
I nod, more tears running down my face. One splashes on top of the box of cookies on my lap. I take my hand back and wipe my cheeks.
“You can ask Bethany. She’s the only person I told. Oh, and my sister forced it out of me this morning because she thinks I look at you with mushy eyes, but I made her promise not to tell my mom.”
“Wow, okay.”
“I never thought you’d like me back, and now all I can think about is the moment you get sick of my mom trying to make us wearing matching dresses and do a monthlong Get Ready with Me leading up to the dance and then you dump me.”
“Say. Come here. Actually.” Heaven gets out of the car and comes around to my side. I open my door and slide out just enough for her to hug me. I don’t mean to sob on her shoulder, but I do.
Eventually she pulls back, and I feel like absolute crap because I know she’s stressed out because of me and I’m stressed out because of my mom. This stress transference needs to stop.
“What do you want to do?” she asks me.
“I want to be your girlfriend. I’ve wanted to ask you, but I was afraid to scare you away, and now I’m crying on you.” I laugh.
“It’s okay. How about this? We get lunch, and then we go back to my house and we do girlfriend things.” I burst out laughing at the way she waggles her eyebrows.
“Yeah, we can go do girlfriend stuff.” Heaven laughs and then she hugs me tighter. We drive to this place down the street called Vicky’s and have a really good lunch. The sandwich I order tastes amazing especially after I’m done crying.
We go back to Heaven’s after and do girlfriend stuff. By the time she drops me off back at home, I still don’t know what to do. I care about Heaven so much. My new girlfriend. My first girlfriend. I can’t let my mom or @Mom2SixTX mess it up.