My throat collapsed in on itself.
“Helen,” Troy repeated. “Like Helen of Troy.”
Troy had always loved that our names were heavily featured in Greek myths. Troy was the city fought over in the Trojan War. Cassandra was a princess of Troy, who saw visions of the future.
Clearly, I had not seen this coming.
“Helen,” he added, “whose great beauty caused the Trojan War.”
I choked. This Helen was not beautiful. She was tiny and terrifying like a feral Chihuahua with a horrendous home perm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I somehow managed to ask.
“I thought it would be disrespectful to break up with you over the phone.”
“So, this is better?”
He shrugged and sheepishly looked at his feet. Helen bared her yellowed snaggleteeth. She was a smoker for sure. And her receding gums were common for a non-flosser. My parents would be appalled by her poor oral hygiene.
“So, you expect me to be okay with working next to you two all summer?”
Troy and Helen exchanged knowing looks. They released each other from their four-handed death grip, and Helen slid her palms into the back pockets of Troy’s pleated khakis.
“No,” Troy replied. “We don’t expect that at all.”
“Didn’t Zoe fire you?” Helen asked.
“She’s the assistant manager,” Troy said.
I leaned against the wall for reinforcement. Ten minutes into what was supposed to be my triumphant return to the Parkway Center Mall, I’d lost the job, the boyfriend, and—worst of all—the plan.
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
I wanted to return to my blanket igloo and never come out again.
“I’m sure you can get hired somewhere else,” Troy said.
“Maybe another Steve Sanders,” Helen offered condescendingly. “Or at least a David Silver…”
A rush of angry adrenaline shot through me. I seized Troy by the strings of his ABC apron and shook him. Hard.
“You told her? She knows the 90210 Scale of Mall Employment Awesomeness?”
Troy had let Helen in on what was by far one of our best inside jokes. This betrayal was even worse than the kiss or anything else they had surely done together. And by the overly familiar way Helen was massaging his butt right in front of me, I assumed they’d done a lot.
“We never meant for this to happen,” Troy insisted.
“I had a boyfriend when we met.” Helen stopped groping Troy and casually twirled a crusty curl around her finger. “I was only at the Pineville prom because I went with Sonny Sexton…”
This was just about the only part of this whole sordid situation that made any sense to me. Sonny Sexton was legendary at Pineville High for being the first twenty-year-old senior in school history. Obviously, we’d never had a single class together. But I couldn’t avoid passing him in the halls, this denim-on-denim dirtbag who reeked of weed and Designer Imposters Drakkar Noir even at a distance. Sonny Sexton and Helen made sense. Troy and Helen? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“It’s kind of funny,” Troy said. “If you hadn’t insisted I go to the prom without you, Helen and I never would have met.”
My ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend rested her head on his shoulder, releasing a brittle crunch of Aqua Net dandruff onto his ABC polo shirt.
“We have you to thank for putting us together…”
For thousands and thousands of years, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, four types of body fluids—or humors—were believed to influence personality and behavior. Bad moods were blamed on too much black bile in the spleen. I got off easy with an IV and six weeks of bed rest. In the fourth century BC, Dr. Hippocrates might have treated a “splenic” temperament by surgically removing the bulging, bilious organ without the benefit of anesthesia or antiseptic. I know all this because Troy left a copy of Apollo to Zeus: Greek Mythology and Modern Medicine in my mailbox as a get-well gift.
Blame a buildup of bad humor for what happened next.
I grabbed the only weapon within reach—the tray of Fat-Free Fudgies—and chucked it directly at Troy. I only wish I’d felt more satisfaction when it smacked him right between his lying eyes.
3
BEING ALIVE
The Volvo inched toward Macy’s. If my legs weren’t so shaky, I would’ve leapt out the vehicle and run the rest of the way. Anything to escape Mom, Dad, and Barbra Streisand.
“Nothing’s gonna harm you…”
The Broadway Album. Track Four.
“Not while I’m around.”
Too late, Babs, I thought. Too late.
Kathy hit fast forward on the tape deck to get to the up-tempo Sondheim number she preferred.
“Explain to me again why Troy couldn’t drive you to work today?”
I earned top grades, respected curfew, and kept myself too busy with extracurriculars to cause trouble. I’d never had incentive to lie to my parents about anything this big before. Without much practice, I did the best I could.
“He got promoted to seasonal assistant manager and had to, um, attend a meeting?” I answered unconvincingly. “Or something?”
“Hmph.” Frank tapped the steering wheel. “Why does he get to be seasonal assistant manager and not you?”
I should have predicted Dad would be disappointed in me for not getting a nonexistent promotion for a job I didn’t have anymore.
“Because he’s worked there for six weeks and I haven’t started yet?”
“You should have the same opportunities as him,” Dad said. “Your medical condition shouldn’t be held against you.”
“Uh-huh,” I said noncommittally.
The mall wasn’t open to customers yet, but the parking lot was already filling up. Shoppers stayed in their cars, keeping the engines and AC running right up to the moment the doors opened at 10:00 a.m.
“I was surprised when you told us you needed a ride,” Mom said. “Troy assured us that he’d do all the driving this summer. And when Troy says he’s going to do something, he does it.”
“You can’t expect us to drive you every day,” Frank warned.
“I don’t,” I said, though I kind of did.
I didn’t have a license. I took driver’s ed like the rest of my class, but I just hadn’t bothered to take the road test. It wasn’t a priority. Since I was ten years old, I’d fallen asleep with a poster of the five boroughs map above my bed, dreaming of public transit, of attending college, and living the rest of my life in New York City.
Who needed a license when I had Troy? With a September birthday, he was one of the first in our class to turn seventeen. He’d gotten his license early and had chauffeured me around in his hand-me-down Honda Civic ever since. Not that we ventured out very far, very often. By junior year, I was sticking subway tokens in the slots of my penny loafers, a perpetual reminder to prioritize practice tests over parties.
“You can’t spell ‘Saturday’ without SAT,” I’d joke to Troy.
“You can’t spell ‘party’ without AP,” Troy would joke back.
Though he was technically correct, the wordplay wasn’t nearly as funny as mine. Comedy wasn’t his forte. But I laughed anyway because that’s what I did when we were together.