Not cute.What if her kid ate pet food? Or paste?Do kids still eat paste?she wondered.
“I moved the food to another cabinet, but he’s a smart kid. At recess, I found him hiding out in the tube slide, munching on thosepellets like they were candy.” Daniel laughed and sighed fondly. Zadie cringed.
“So how have you been?” he continued. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Oh. Uhh…” Zadie was unprepared for this line of questioning, so she decided to keep it vague. “I’m… good.”
“How’s Dustin?”
Zadie was surprised he remembered her ex’s name. They’d met only once at an awkward run-in at Costco. “He’s, uh… good, too.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Zadie glimpsed the pavilion in the distance. Was it just her, or were they getting farther away?
Everywhere Finn looked, she thought she saw her mother. She stopped in her tracks beside every woman with long auburn hair, every vaguely familiar laugh, every sarcastic remark. Her party had become a hall of mirrors, only instead of her own reflection staring back at her, it was her mom’s.
Finn spotted a group of women huddled together on the deck’s gazebo. She recognized several of them from the halls of her high school, teachers mostly, but there was one woman with her back turned that she couldn’t identify. She wore an anklet similar to the one Finn was currently wearing on her ankle, silver with two tiny charms, anFfor Finn and aZfor Zadie. It had been her mother’s. The day Nora disappeared, Finn had found it lying on their driveway. She’d barely taken it off since.
Finn approached the woman, who then looked over her shoulder at her. “Oh, hi, Finn! Congratulations on graduating.” Finn’s heart dipped. It was Mrs. Kirby, the freshman English teacher whom many of the younger students called “Mrs. Coleslaw” for reasons unbeknownst to Finn. Finn could only assume the nickname had originated during one of her regular shifts as cafeteria monitor.
Finn tried to hide her disappointment. “Thanks, Mrs. Kirby.”
“Do you know what you’re going to study in college yet?”
She had been asked this question a lot and already had an answer prepared. “Ornithology.”
The teachers looked at one another, impressed by her specificity. She wasn’t actually planning on studying ornithology. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, but that response was too mirthless for a party. Before she could get roped into a lengthier conversation about her hopes and dreams, Finn felt a sharp pain in her foot and gasped. She looked down and realized that she had stood on someone’s discarded disposable fork. The weight of her body had cracked the plastic, and a piece of it was wedged in the sole of her foot.
“Excuse me,” she gasped, and limped in the direction of the bathroom.
She was halfway across the deck when she heard a voice say, “Hey, Finn.” She turned and saw Jonathan, anchor of the four-by-four and former crush of Finn’s, standing with a group of guys from the track team. He had eyes that could look either brown or green depending on the light. Today they looked green.
“Oh, hey, Jonathan,” she said, half grimacing and shifting her weight to her uninjured foot.
He glanced from Finn to the bouncy castle, which was now overrun by a group of Steve’s colleagues’ children and a traumatized-looking Labrador retriever who couldn’t keep its footing on the inflatable rubber floor. “Cool party.”
Her cheeks grew hot. “Thanks.” Okay, maybe Jonathan was more of a current crush than a former one. Technically, they didn’t know each other that well, but Finn had felt a special connection with him ever since she’d taken over his old locker at the beginning of last school year. Every time she opened it, she would get a whiff of one of his old memories: a friend clapping him on the back, the song he was listening to, a test marked with a red D that he’d crumpled up and tossed behind a pile of dirty gym clothes. Jonathan didn’treally know her, but she knew him (in a skulking, unrequited-love sort of way).
“Got any big plans for the summer?” he asked.
“My sister and I are going to the beach for a week. How about you?”
“Just chillin’,” he replied. The guys he was standing with all nodded in agreement. Chillin’ was by far the most popular activity among the suburban teen population. In contrast, Finn could think of nothing more boring than hanging out in her basement all summer watching Netflix. “That sounds… fun.”
Jonathan nodded slowly,chill-ly.His gaze drifted to the ground and a disgusted look came over his face. “Is your foot bleeding?”
Finn looked down and noticed a smear of blood on the deck. She shrugged and tried to play it cool. “It’s no big deal. It happens all the time.”
“Maybe you should start wearing shoes, then.” There was no humor in Jonathan’s voice. He didn’t joke about feet. After all, he had a scholarship riding on his.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’d get fewer forks stuck in my foot, that’s for sure!” She snorted.
Jonathan grimaced. The more Finn liked a guy, the flatter her jokes fell, she’d noticed.
“I should go grab a Band-Aid. See you later!” She hobbled as fast as she could into the pavilion and locked herself in the women’s bathroom. “Smooth, Finn,” she muttered to her reflection in the mirror, then lifted her injured foot into the sink. She examined the cut. It didn’t look particularly deep, nothing she’d need stitches for. She ran water over it and grabbed a bandage from her purse. As she was peeling off the paper backing, she heard a knock at the door.
“Finn?” It was her foster dad. “Your mo— Kathy told me to tell you it’s almost time for cake.”