Not that I actually am cool with silence, but maybe it would help him relax.
For a moment, we just stand there in the entryway to the back room, surrounded by cardboard boxes and rustic wooden furniture. I bite my lip, feeling awkward and unsettled.
“Welcome to your first day,” he says finally.
“Thanks.” I smile, looking up at him. He’s so tall, I actually have to tilt my head back. He’s not awful looking. He definitely has good hair. It’s this perfect, tousled boy hair—brown and soft and sort of curly. And he wears glasses. And there’s this sweetness to his mouth. I always notice people’s mouths.
“You’ve been working here for years, right?” I say. “I’ve seen you before.”
As soon as I say it, I blush. I don’t want him to think I’ve NOTICED him. I mean, I have noticed him. But not in that way. I’ve noticed him because he sticks out here. He doesn’t quite fit. I think of Bissel as a place for people who care about tiny details—like the texture of a woven place mat or the painted pattern on the handle of a serving spoon.
I would say Reid gives a pretty strong impression that he doesn’t notice patterns on serving spoons.
“Yeah, I’m here all the time. Kind of unavoidable.” He shrugs. “My parents.”
“Your parents?”
“Ari and Deborah.”
I clap a hand over my mouth. “Ari and Deborah are your parents?”
“You didn’t know that?” He looks amused.
I shake my head slowly. “Okay. You just blew my mind.”
“Really?” He laughs. “Why?”
“Because! I don’t know. Deborah and Ari just seem so . . .” Punk rock and badass and not into Lord of the Rings. “They have tattoos,” I say finally.
He nods. “They do.”
I just gape for a minute.
He laughs again. “You seem so surprised.”
“No, I’m just . . .” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
There’s this silence.
“Um. So, do you want to unpack some baby stuff?” Reid asks, nudging a cardboard box with the toe of his sneaker. We settle onto the floor next to it, cross-legged. I’m suddenly glad to be wearing leggings under my dress.
Reid lifts a stack of onesies out of the box. “So these need price stickers,” he says. “Do you know how to do that?”
“Do I know how to use stickers?”
“It’s pretty complicated,” he says. We grin at each other.
I pick up a onesie. “This is very Takoma Park.”
It’s undyed cotton, gender neutral, printed with a picture of vegetables. Seriously. Babies here are forced to declare their allegiance to vegetables before they’re old enough to say, “Suck it, Mom, I want ice cream.”
“This is actually a reorder. We sold out of them last week,” Reid says.
“Of course it’s a reorder.”
“Vegetables are just really popular right now.” He looks down and smiles.
We work in silence, putting price stickers on the tags and folding the onesies up neatly again. When we finish, Reid says, “I think there are some swaddling blankets, too.”
I pick one up, reading the label. “Organic hemp.”
“Yes.”
“Really?” I look at him.
He laughs. “Really.”
So, I guess there are parents who like to roll their babies up like blunts.
It’s funny watching Middle Earth Reid while he works. All this delicate baby stuff, and he’s the least delicate-looking person I’ve ever met. He’s struggling to roll up the swaddling blankets. I think his hands are too big.
Maybe this is why they hired me: for my smallish hands and my blunt-rolling abilities.
He looks up at me suddenly. “So, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Just curious. Why are you so surprised about my parents’ tattoos?”
Um. Because these people are related to you.
“Is it because they’re Jewish?” he adds.
“Oh no! It’s not that. I knew they were Jewish. I mean, the store is called Bissel. Their last name is Wertheim.”
He laughs. “Me too. I’m Reid Wertheim.” He leans forward and offers his hand for me to shake. He has a surprisingly confident handshake.
“Molly Peskin-Suso,” I say.
“Peskin!” he says. “Are you Jewish, too?”
“I am.”
“Really?” His eyes light up, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. I don’t think of myself as super Jewish or anything, and I basically never go to synagogue. But there’s this thing I feel when I meet another Jewish person in the wild. It’s like a secret invisible high five.
And it’s funny. Normally, I go totally blank and silent when I meet a boy for the first time—which is how a person can end up having twenty-six crushes and zero kisses. But around Middle Earth Reid, I feel exactly as nervous as I’d feel around any new person. No more, no less.
It’s actually kind of wonderful.
By three o’clock, Reid and I have unpacked, priced, and set out six boxes of baby stuff. And we’ve talked. There has been ample time for talking. So far, I’ve learned that he really likes Cadbury Mini Eggs. When I asked if this was relevant in June, he said Cadbury Mini Eggs are always relevant. Apparently he buys them in bulk after Easter and hoards them.
Honestly, I respect that.
I leave work exactly at three, and the Metro’s on time, so I’m early to Silver Spring. I walk down Ellsworth Drive and lurk near the entrance of FroZenYo. There are fifty billion restaurants here, and even on a weekday afternoon, it’s packed with people: dads pushing strollers and girls who look like they’re my age but dress like they work in a bank. My moms talk a lot about how Silver Spring was better before it got gentrified. It’s sad to think about. I guess it just sucks when change makes things worse.
I lean against the side of the building so I can play on my phone. Social media is the actual worst today. It’s one of those days where both Facebook and Instagram have been taken over by selfies, and they’re not even the kind that own their selfie-ness. It’s more the kind where the person is looking off in the distance, trying to seem candid. I need an anti-favorite button. Not that I’d actually use it, but still.
I’m sort of wondering where Cassie and Mina are. Cassie’s not usually late, but it’s already ten minutes past the time we’re supposed to meet. I don’t know whether to be grumpy or concerned. But at 3:45, I finally see them: walking together, giggling about something and carrying bags from H&M. They’re not even rushing.
Anti-favorite. Dislike.
“Hey,” Cassie says. She smiles when she sees me. “You remember Mina.”
“From the bathroom. With the labia,” Mina says.
I can’t help but giggle.
Here’s a frustrating thing about me: if everyone else is happy, I usually can’t stay pissed off. My moods are conformists. It sucks, because sometimes you really want to be angry.
“Oh my God, I love your necklace,” Mina adds.
I blush. “Oh. I made it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, it’s easy. See, it’s an old zipper.” I lean forward to show her. “You just cut off the end and unzip it, and curve it into a heart. And then you sew the bottom together.”
“Molly makes shit like that all the time,” Cassie explains, but she says it sort of proudly.
They set their bags on top of a table next to each other. I guess they spent the afternoon together shopping. Which is a horrifying group activity, if you ask me—though maybe it’s different for people with single-digit sizes. They probably modeled for each other. Maybe they got matching outfits.
I pick up an empty yogurt cup. This is one of those places where you serve everything yourself. You can pick whatever yogurt flavors you want, and once you do that, there are fifty million toppings to choose from. There are people who can’t handle this kind of freedom. But I can, and I rule at it. You just have to know your own tastes.
I pay and sit down, and Mina settles in beside me. She peers into my cup. “What’d you get?”