Free Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler Page A

stuff during Joelle Woodard’s annual summer bash. It didn’t matter that Joelle and I weren’t friends. It was the kind of free-for-all where no one needed an invite, so I put on a miniskirt and some body glitter left over from my skater glam stuff. I was ready for a do-over—the kind I never got in competitions. It was supposed to be a fresh start without Kara, but suddenly there she was, dressed in a bright green sundress with eyelet trim on the bottom that floated above her tanned knees as she walked down the basement stairs, a can of root beer in her right hand, her left on the railing. I remember it was root beer and not Coke or orange because she dropped it when she saw me stepping out of the make-out closet with Will Harper, and from that moment on, the smell of root beer would always remind me of her face, crumpled and confused, her head hung low above that bright green dress like a flower crushed on its stem.
    Soon after, she dismissed the closet scene and asked Will out, just like she told me she would that night at the diner. They got together, and I buried my shame in a bowl of cupcake batter. The Hurley’s kitchen was a safe place to be; I was finally good at something else. I could forget about Will and Kara. I could erase Lola Capriani and the private lessons Mom could no longer afford and all of the promises that died when my father left, and I could focus instead on making people fat and happy.
    I’ve been doing it ever since.
    While Trick works on my order, I take five at the counter with my Scarlet Letter homework, a mug of hot chocolate, and one of our best sellers—caramel apple granola cupcakes, a.k.a. Tree Huggers. Two seats over, Earl counts out a stack of dimes from one of those paper rolls you get at the bank, pulls his cardigan tight over his shoulders, and winks at me, hair and eyes and face as gray as the sky. “See ya next time, Dolly Madison.”
    I walk him to the front door and watch him leave, his footprints making uneven holes in the snow-covered parking lot. Behind his little blue sedan, the I-190 overpass glitters with red and white orbs in the distance, the lights of a thousand cars zooming along to some other destination, Watonka no more than an exit with FOOD-GAS-HOSPITAL , just like the sign says. A crumbling smokestack horizon wedged between the city of Buffalo and its southern suburbs. Exurban, we’re called. Ex. Former. No longer.
    Dani joins me at the door, nudging my shoulder with hers. “You’re a million miles away over here.”
    I shrug and press my forehead against the glass. Outside, Earl flicks on his wipers and coaxes the car out of the lot. With my fingertip I draw an X in the frost on the glass over the spot where he used to be. Ex. Former. No longer.
    Dani follows my gaze past the highway. “I know you don’t love the new arrangement, but you’re doing great tonight. Don’t fade on me now—even on slow nights, we have to stick together. You remember what happened with Carly, right?”
    “She’s the reason I’m wearing this lovely dress,” I say. “No offense.”
    “None taken. I rock this thing and you know it.” She shakes her hips a little.
    “Doesn’t count. You could make a Hefty bag look hot.”
    “True. But enough about me. You’ve been acting funny all weekend. What are you dodging?” The smile vanishes from her reflection in the glass and something hazy passes over her face, gray and sad like a cloudless snowstorm.
    I reach into my apron pocket and pull out the letter, wrinkled from all the times I’ve read and refolded it, carrying it with me ever since it passed from Bug’s anthrax detector to my hands.
    “Read this,” I whisper, keeping an eye out for Mom.
    She looks over the letter. “Capriani … she was your coach, right?”
    “Yeah. Mom was still paying off my lessons after we moved—we must be on an old mailing list.”
    “Is this the invitation you unmentioned last night?”
    I nod.
    “Fifty grand? That’s pretty