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  My heart.

  And having grown-up Will make grown-up Mallory a job offer is the closest thing to teen Mallory being asked to the prom by teen Will.

  It will have to do.

  Yet–I know I can’t say yes.

  My career isn’t the issue. Even my bank account, as starved and frail as it is, isn’t the issue. The issue is remarkably simple: I can’t take my personality and turn it back ten to fourteen years. Working for Will Lotham would do that to me.

  As the lights dim in the theater, the creaking old seats make an asynchronous melody of their own, the ten or so ticket buyers settling in. I munch happily on my cheap popcorn, heedless of the hydrogenated coconut oil I’m feeding my arteries. If I’m going to have coconut oil in my life, I want it like this.

  Not smeared all over me by a naked porn star.

  The Diet Coke habit I can’t shake–only at the movies!–makes me feel like I’m home again. My mouth is happy, at least.

  “Home” being a relative term. I have about a dozen different internal settings for home.

  One of them, unfortunately, involves Will.

  A trailer for a big, sweeping historical drama starts, the quiet classical music setting the tone that this is a serious movie coming our way just as I tune out, the backdrop perfect for self-reflection.

  Or maybe self-indulgence.

  “Hey! Why are you sighing so loud?” rasps an old lady behind me. “You having an asthma attack?”

  Twisting in my seat, I look back to find a helmet of tight curls attached to a half-worried, half-angry old lady holding a barrel of popcorn bigger than her head.

  “No,” says a familiar voice. I look up to find Fiona at the end of my row, holding a box of Junior Mints and an enormous bottled water. “She’s just hiding from the world.”

  “Ain’t we all?” the old woman says with a surprisingly girlish giggle.

  “What are you doing here?” I hiss at Fiona, eyeing the candy. I had planned to be good and not sugar binge, but when your friend brings the sugar, it’s not your weakness. It’s hers.

  Therefore, it doesn’t count against you, right?

  “Looking for you. You turned off your phone and we figured you went into turtle mode.”

  “Turtle mode?”

  “That’s what Perky and I call it when you do this.”

  “I don’t do ‘this.’ There is no this. I am availing myself of some of the finest contemporary cinema at a cut-rate price. I am being a careful consumer, but also a well-educated member of society who–”

  “This is a movie about male strippers, Mal. Don’t push it.”

  “The score was nominated for a Golden Globe! And male strippers are an under-appreciated sector of society.”

  “Damn right about that,” says the old lady behind me.

  I try again. “This movie is a complex social commentary about upward mobility in American society being thwarted for males by–”

  “Why haven’t you taken Will’s job offer?” I can tell by the look on Fiona’s face that I can’t snow her.

  Shoot.

  “Shhhhhhhh!” the old lady behind me says.”You’re ruining the movie.”

  “I’m not spoiling anything,” I protest.

  “You’re trying to turn it into a thinking movie! I didn’t come to stare at abs so I could think!” Creak creak. The old lady settles her butt in the seat and sniffs.

  “Look,” Fiona says, dropping her voice. “You need a job. Will offered you one. He also kept you from being arrested. Why not make hay while the sun shines?”

  “That saying really doesn’t apply here, Fi.”

  “You know what I mean. Count all your eggs before they’re in one basket.”

  “Stop, Fi. Please.” Before I can point out that she's combined two old sayings, she jumps in and says:

  “You need to take Will’s job offer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Perky and I decided so.”

  “That isn’t a good enough reason!”

  “Since when?”

  She’s got me there.

  I point to the screen and cover my lips with a librarian’s finger. For some reason, she actually shuts up. It works, but now the movie is just going to be two hours of me squirming in my seat, knowing I’m in for a lecture when we’re done watching oiled-up, naked men’s bodies gyrating in fifteen-foot high technicolor.

  Okay. So maybe Fiona’s lecture isn’t why I’ll be squirming. Whatever.

  Two hours later, I’m proven right. The second the credits start to roll, Fiona chugs the last of her water and says, “Text him now and accept.”

  “Come on! I’m trying to enjoy the movie score, you fun sucker.”

  “It’s nothing but shouting the word ‘bitch’ in twenty-seven different languages.”

  “It’s art.”

  “You’re deflecting.”

  “That is a form of art, too.”

  “You’ve certainly elevated it to one,” she says to me, bright and smiling. Fiona has this way of staring at people with those big, round eyes that are a little too interested in the world. Most of us have our friendly, outgoing edges filed off brutally in middle school.

  Fiona was ahead of her time, emotionally darker than the rest of us at a time when optimism was rewarded with scorn and therefore being cynical was justified, but somehow she reclaimed that attentiveness. A pure spirit.

  Maybe the four-year-olds she teaches did it.

  What it’s created, though, is a deeply dangerous friendship pit I fall into over and over: she can be blunt without being threatening until it’s too late.

  Caught.

  “Just because you and Perky think I should take this job isn’t good enough. Why? I could lose out on a much better job opportunity if I tie myself up in this one.”

  “Are you tied up by other men right now?”

  “Fi! I expect Perky to do the double entendre sex-joke crap all the time, but not you.”

  “Are you offended?”

  “No! If I were offended, I wouldn’t be friends with her. I just didn’t expect it from you.” I giggle through an image of being tied up by Will Lotham.

  And suddenly, I’m not giggling. I’m a little swoony.

  Standing quickly, I hustle Fiona out of our row and up the incline to the exit of the movie theater. The sun is bright and shining, forcing us both to fish around in our handbags for sunglasses. Without any conversation whatsoever, we turn right, then left, and find ourselves in front of SushiMe and a little Mexican restaurant we both love, Taco Taco Taco, known to the locals as Taco Cubed.

  Fiona hesitates, leaning toward the sushi place. “So, Mal — ”

  “Taco special!” I call back as I walk toward the scent of cumin and affordable. Fiona’s shoulder’s sag. Why is her sigh filled with frustration? Weird. She loves tacos, even if her choices leave much to be desired.

  The line is long at Taco Cubed, filled with people who work regular, full-time jobs grabbing whatever bit of hope and luxury they can in their hour respite from being under the thumb of The Man.

  That’s what I tell myself as I peel off six of my last dollars and buy the dirt-cheap daily taco special.

  “Hey,” I say to her as we wait for our orders, “it’s Monday. Don’t you have to teach today?”

  “In-service day. We spent two hours talking about new educational standards and agreed to meet back up at five tonight for classroom cleaning.”

  “I could have been spared the high-pressure sales pitch if it weren’t for that?”

  “No. You would have had Perky pressure you at some point.”

  I shudder.

  “See? I’m doing you a favor,” Fiona says in that smooth, melodic voice. Our two taco specials get shoved up on the serving counter, crispy, cheesy goodness in brown plastic baskets lined with parchment paper, sour cream and guacamole exactly where they should be.

  On the side.

  There is a perfect ratio of sour cream, guac, and salsa on a shre
dded chicken tostada. No one can make it happen for you. Many restaurants have tried. All have failed. Only the mouth knows its own pleasure, and calibration like Taco Heaven cannot be mass produced.

  It simply cannot.

  Taco Heaven is a sensory explosion of flavor that defies logic. First, you have to eye the amount of spiced meat, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and tomatillos. You must consider the size and crispiness of the shells. Some people–I call them blasphemers–like soft tacos. I am sitting across from Exhibit A.

  We won’t talk about soft tacos. They don’t make it to Taco Heaven. People who eat soft tacos live in Taco Purgatory, never fully understanding their moral failings, repeating the same mistakes again and again for all eternity.

  Like Perky and dating.

  Once you inventory your meat, lettuce, tomato, and shell quality, the real construction begins. Making your way to Taco Heaven is like a mechanical engineer building a bridge in your mouth. Measurements must be exact. Payloads are all about formulas and precision. One miscalculation and it all fails.

  Taco Death is worse than Taco Purgatory, because the only reason for Taco Death is miscalculation.

  And that’s all on you.

  “Oh, God,” Fiona groans through a mouthful of abomination. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?”

  “Doing what?” I ask primly, knowing damn well what she’s talking about.

  “You treat eating tacos like you’re the star of some Mythbusters show.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “Even if I do–and I am not conceding the point–it would be a worthwhile venture.”

  “You are as weird about your tacos as Perky is about her coffee.”

  “Take it back! I am not that weird.”

  “You are.”

  “Am not.”

  “This is why Perky and I swore we would never come here with you again.”

  Fiona grabs my guacamole and smears the rounded scoop all over the outside of her soft taco.

  I shriek.

  “How can you do that?” I gasp, the murder of the perfect ratio a painful, almost palpable blow. The mashed avocado has a death rattle that rings in my ears.

  Smug, tight lips give me a grimace. “See? A normal person would shout, ‘Hey! That’s mine!’ but you’re more offended that I’ve desecrated my inferior taco wrapping with the wrong amount of guac.”

  “Because it’s wrong.”

  “You should have gone to MIT, Mal. You need a job that involves nothing but pure math for the sake of calculating stupid shit no one else cares about.”

  “So glad to know that a preschool teacher holds such high regard for math,” I snark back. And MIT didn’t give me the kind of merit aid package I got from Brown, I don’t add.

  “Was that supposed to sting?”

  She takes the rest of my guacamole, grabs a spoon, and starts eating it straight out of the little white paper scoop container thing.

  “How can you do that? It’s like people who dip their french fries in mayonnaise.” I shudder, standing to get in line to buy more guac.

  “I dip my french fries in mayo!”

  “More evidence of your madness, Fi. Get help now. It may not be too late.” I stick my finger in her face. “And by the way, you and Perky talk about my taco habits behind my back? Some friends!” I hmph and turn toward the counter.

  Pedro sees me coming and slides a side of guac to me. “No charge, Mallory.”

  “Thanks! What’s this about? You guys always charge me.” I dig in my pocket for change.

  “We saw your picture.” He gives me a sympathetic look, which is jarring, given the gang tattoos all over his face. When someone who got tatted up in prison feels sorry for you, you know you’re a hopeless case.

  “Oh, that,” I laugh, trying to pass it off as a joke.

  “Hey, no judgment, man. We all gotta make our money however we can.” A knowing smile makes him look slightly less threatening.

  “No, no, Pedro, I wasn’t really working in a porno.”

  “Sure.” Wink. The teardrop tat at the corner of his eye folds up. “Sure you weren’t.”

  I take the guac and run away.

  “That was fast,” Fiona says, her mouth twitching with amusement.

  “You heard every word. Don’t pretend you didn’t. This place has like six tables.”

  “You didn’t get the three hundred dollars the porn guys owed you, but at least you got an eighty-five-cent side of guac out of the whole mess.” Fiona gives Pedro an extra look, licking her lips as she does it. Or she’s trying to get every drop of my guacamole that she stole. “And I think he’s suddenly viewing you in a new light.”

  “I’m not a porn star!” I hiss, starting over with my taco calculations. My fork becomes a surgeon’s scalpel, assembling a little sour cream, some salsa, and just enough guac to smear on the edge of the taco shell to produce gustatorial bliss. One bite.

  One bite is all it takes.

  As I chew, I close my eyes and sigh, the push of air out my nose helping me to taste the yummy goodness of Pedro’s kitchen. I have lived my entire life here in this little town, and before Pedro, his father, Pedro Senior, ran this place. They opened during my senior year of high school, and I’ve been a regular ever since.

  Why leave heaven–especially Taco Heaven–when everything you need surrounds you?

  “Done orgasming?” Fiona asks before shoving the last piece of her McTaco into her McMouth.

  “Quit joking about porn.”

  “I meant your crazy taco system. You look like you’re coming.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You totally do. All you have to add is an open mouth.”

  “Why would I do that? It’s gross. I’m eating.”

  “Women eat in porn movies, too.”

  “If you say the word 'porn' one more time, Feisty, I’m going to hack your social media accounts and find Chris Fletcher and friend him as you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Try me.”

  “Fine. I won’t say the word po–you know, P-O-R-N, if you promise to take Will’s job offer.”

  “That’s the weakest blackmail attempt I’ve ever heard. I have the power here, Fiona. Not you.”

  “But I have something more powerful.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Concern. I’m worried about you, Mal. We all are.”

  “All?”

  “Me. Perky. Your mom. Hastings is even concerned.” Hastings is my older sister. She lives in the Bay Area, where she works for a financial services tech start-up as director of business development and accumulates money the way I collect website hits on images of my humiliation.

  You know. Gotta have a hobby.

  “Hasty doesn’t give a crap about what’s happened to me. She’s the golden child and always has been. The only time Hasty thinks about me is when she’s looking at pictures from our childhood and an unexpected wind makes my hair cover her perfect face in a photo on Cape Cod from 2003,” I remind her.

  “Your parents don’t have a golden child. You’re both golden. You know you hit the jackpot in the wonderful-parents lottery.”

  “I did,” I admit. “But don’t try to claim Hasty cares. That’s overplaying your hand.”

  We eat in silence for a moment.

  “Why won’t you work for Will?” Fi finally asks softly, serious and concerned.

  I assemble another bite and chomp down. Suddenly, Taco Heaven has turned into the second half of Law & Order, complete with an interrogation that tastes like cilantro and 2008.

  A very unsatisfactory bite gets swallowed. I look her right in the eye and blurt out the truth.

  “If I work for him, I’ll fall for him again. I can’t do that to myself.”

  “Mal,” she says in a compassionate voice. “You’re ten years older. So is he. You’ve moved on.”

  “He never had anything to move on from. All those years. Lockers next to each other. A h
andful of conversations. Decoding his every look and move like I was a Navajo code talker. He had no idea. It’s–it’s humiliating. Maybe even more than the porn pics.”

  “That’s... a lot of humiliation.”

  “See? That’s why I don’t want to work for him.”

  Fiona wipes her mouth, balls up the napkin, and pushes it inside the guac container, eyeing me. “I think you need to do it.”

  “Need to humiliate myself?”

  “No. You need to get over him. For good. It’s like scary horror films.”

  “My crush on Will is as bad as that?”

  “Your resistance to taking a job that you desperately need just because you’re afraid you’ll revert to your high school self kind of is. Not the horror movie itself, but do you remember when I saw The Ring when I was thirteen, and it scared the hell out of me?”

  “Sure. You were whacked.”

  “Right. And remember what Dale did?” Dale is one of Fiona’s older brothers. We all crushed on him when we were in eighth grade and he was a senior. And by we, I mean me, Perky, and every other junior high girl (and probably a few guys) aside from Fiona.

  “Dale made you watch it five or six times, right? Over and over.”

  “Yes. Five. He said it would desensitize me to the fear.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “I threw up on him the fifth time he made me watch the scene where Samara comes out of the TV.”

  “Are you still afraid of it?”

  “Yes. And now Dale refuses to sit near me anytime we watch television.”

  “Then his advice was a miserable failure.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And you’re bringing it up in relation to me and Will and the job because...?”

  “Because you need to take the job.”

  “You're comparing you throwing up on your brother with me taking a job from Will? You’re making no sense, Fi.”

  “And neither are you. So it's a stalemate.”

  Bzzz.

  My phone interrupts. It’s a text from Perky.

  Listen to Fiona. Take the job. You don’t want to move back home. Mostly, we don’t want to listen to you bitch about moving back home. So be a good friend and take the job, she writes.