With a trace of despair, Millie said, “You two are so cute.”
“Actually, that’s kind of an example of hownotcute—”
“I don’t want to talk about Keme.”
To buy myself time, I took a sip of my latte. “Okay, well—”
“He’s a JERK!”
“What did he—”
“And he—he’s STUPID!”
“Well, he’s a boy, so—”
“And he won’t even let me say ONE THING that I really need to tell him!” She twisted the towel some more, her body tightening. More words burst out of her. “I don’t have to feel bad for dating Louis. I like Louis. Louis is funny and smart and everybody loves him.”
I wasn’t sure abouteverybody; I thought Louis might be wise to stay out of dark alleys and away from Fox and their switchblade comb. But I tried to focus on the more important part of the conversation. “Did Keme say—”
“And Louis LIKES me. Do you know the last time a guy asked me out? I shouldn’t have to feel bad because—because—because—”
And then she started to cry.
I patted her arm and gave the coffee shop a quick scan. Tessa had stopped even pretending to stock the sugar packets. Aric Akhtar lowered his e-reader. The woman in the beachcomber hat, the little jalapeno pieces forgotten,glaredat me.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. I switched from patting her arm to rubbing it. “Millie, don’t cry. It’s okay. You don’t need to feel bad—”
She grabbed a handful of napkins and pressed them to her eyes. “I DON’T!”
(In case you were wondering, they did absolutely nothing to diminish the volume.)
“Right, well, good. You shouldn’t. And whatever Keme said—”
“Keme doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know Louis. He doesn’t know ANYTHING.” She lowered the napkins to give me a red-eyed stare. “He’s just a DUMB. BOY. It’s none of his business what I do with my hair.”
Maybe it was the choking sensation of having so many sets of eyes fixed on me. Maybe it was the prickling flush climbing my body, like I’d eaten a bad enchirito. Maybe it was simply that I didn’t want her to cry again. Whatever the reason, I grabbed onto that last line like a spar in the conversational shipwreck. “Keme doesn’t like your hair?”
From behind me came Tessa’s muttered (and despairing) “MyGod,Dash.”
“Uh, I like your hair. Actually, I love it. The pink part is so—” It took me about five seconds to come up with “—pink.”
(I’m a writer, ladies and gentlemen.)
Millie sniffed, although it was impossible to tell whether this was at my descriptive abilities or merely a result of her crying. She ran her fingers through the length of pink hair and said, “Louis said it would look good. He said he likes when girls dye their hair. Louis’s got lots of great ideas.”
Louis, I decided, needed to kiss a wood chipper.
“Oh,” I said. (I was channeling a particularly straight part of myself that day, apparently.) “Okay.”
Millie didn’t seem to hear me, though. She was still finger-combing that section of hair, her expression distant. When she spoke, her anger had collapsed like a burned-out fire, leaving her voice small and brittle, and it sounded like she wasn’t even talking to me. “Dash,” she asked, “am I loud?”
I did another of those rapid scans of the room.
Tessa made a motion for me tosay something.
Aric took off his glasses like he was getting ready to fight me.
The woman in the beachcomber hat literally shook her fist at me.
