“Okay,” I say. “We’re going to try something.” I look toward the front of the shop, see that Lachelle’s leaning over the counter, casually flipping through a supplies catalog, and I call out to her. She rushes back as though she needs to rescue me from the purgatory I’ve been in, and I give her a grateful smile before explaining my plan.
The rules I make are messy, a bit nonsensical. We each get three sheets, and we’ve got ten minutes—onlyten minutes, because I don’t want Lark getting trapped in another decision vacuum—to make some kind of flying projectile out of each one. After the time is up, we’re all going to stand in a line behind this table and, one by one, launch them out into the shop.
The two that go the farthest?
Those are the ones I’ll use for the initial lettering treatments.
I don’t put conditions on it, don’t tell Lark that treatments aren’t final, don’t tell her that I can mix and match pretty much any of the various styles I have spread across these nine sheets. At this point, none of that matters, same as it didn’t matter at first with what I’d ended up doing with the letters Reid and I had gathered up on Saturday night. It only matters that Lark gets out of her own head for a few minutes.
“Am I allowed to use my phone?” Lachelle blurts. You’d think I’ve announced a ten-thousand-dollar prize. I should’ve known; Lachelle has a real competitive streak. Last year some of the local businesses along this street had a window-decorating contest for Halloween, and Lachelle had basically conscripted Cecelia—who’d really had no interest in this kind of contest—and I to work late into the night before the judging. When the shop got runner-up instead of first place, she accused the judges of vote tampering. Every once in a while she still brings it up. “Crooks,” she’ll say, shaking her head.
“Sure, why not?” I say, and before I have it all the way out Lachelle is tapping away, surely searching for how-to videos on paper airplane designs.
I start folding, using the kind of rudimentary tactics you learn in elementary school, and for a few seconds Lark simply looks back and forth between me and Lachelle, as if our different approaches are now the newest, freshest dilemma of her life. But eventually, she takes out her phone, and after a quick search she starts folding, too. Every once in a while Lachelle makes a noise of satisfaction; one time she says, “You’d better get yourself ready, Meg,” and Lark laughs softly.
By the time we line up behind the table, we’ve formed some kind of strange paper-airplane adversarial bond. Lachelle says I have “noodle arms” when my first attempt fails miserably. Lark puts a hand over her mouth when Lachelle squares up the first time like we’re on an actual Olympic field, and when Lachelle sees her doing it she says, “You won’t be laughing when I win, princess!” but that makes us all laugh harder. It’s clear that I am the worst at this game, which provides pretty good fodder for both of my competitors. I don’t really mind their teasing, but before I can stop myself I think about Reid again, guessing that all his math knowledge would probably make him an extremely skilled projectile designer. His broad shoulders, those would be good for the throwing.
But I shouldn’t be thinking about those.
“It’s you and me, princess,” says Lachelle, giving an exaggerated side-eye to Lark before throwing her last sheet. As far as I can tell, it lands right past her first effort, which means two of her three might be the winners. I look over at Lark, and notice her last sheet isn’t folded yet. She looks at me sheepishly.
“I ran out of time.” She’s holding the sheet close to her, the writing facing her body, and even though I don’t know her well, I can tell something.
She didn’t run out of time.
Before I can say anything, before I can tell her to hang on to it, that I can definitely work with that one, no matter the rules of the game—she sets her face and crumples the sheet into a tight ball.
And then she throws it—as if she’s standing on a pitcher’s mound—out into the shop. Almost all the way to the front door.
“Damn,” Lachelle says. “I didn’t know we could do just—balls!”
I shrug. “Wasn’t a rule against it.”
Lark’s smile is huge, and she doesn’t bother covering it.
“Chalk or paint for the winner?” I say, before she can think too hard.
“Paint.” She looks surprised with herself.
I want to raise my fists in the air in victory. Lachelle actually does it, even though she’s probably going to ride me about the balls rule every time I see her for the next few months.
But finally, finally—we’ve gotten somewhere.
By the time Lark has left the shop and I’ve packed up all my things and said goodbye to Lachelle (she does bring up the balls thing again), it’s past four thirty, and while I’m still feeling pretty satisfied, I’m also exhausted. Most of my burning desire to get back to my desk has now left me, since the idea of sitting in a chair again sounds like the worst possible idea. It’s possible my ass has turned into a pancake, or a tortilla. Or a pizza.
Also, I am hungry.
In spite of the fact that I did pretty well over the weekend with Sibby’s packing, I’m not up to heading back to the apartment now. If I’m not planning to shut myself up in my room to work it’s likely I’ll feel her impending absence more acutely, and anyway, it’s a nice afternoon, warm and breezy, and I sort of want to . . .
Walk.
Play.
My slouchy bag bumps rhythmically against my upper thigh as I head down the street, and each time I think of my phone in there, about taking it out and sending a message to Reid. I’d been frustrated with Lark and her decision paralysis this afternoon, but had I done any different, working so hard to avoid thinking about Reid, about that almost confrontation? Had he left that coffee shop wondering whether I’d call him again? Has my laser focus on the Make It Happyn job these last few days been, in part, some version of staring down at a table of options, unwilling to make a decision about our . . . arrangement?
I’ve made my way down to Joe’s on Fifth without really thinking, unless “smelling pizza” is a form of thinking. Inside the narrow store—not quite busy with the dinner rush yet—I order a slice, then decide to take it back outside on its already limp paper plate. Reid would like this place, and this pizza. He would not like the paper plate, or the fact that I got only two napkins for what I’m sure is a four-napkin slice, but you can’t win them all, I guess.
I sit on the red wooden bench that’s been constructed around the tree outside of Joe’s and stare up at the crooked awning, the white vinyl sign above. Truthfully, there’s not much interesting to see here—maybethe little serifs on the sign stuck to the cooler in front, advertising some prepackaged Italian ices. But as I finish my last bite and wipe my fingers (two napkins were not enough), I make a decision.
