Page 34 of Stops Along the Way
“Excuse me!” Grady waves his arms, not shouting, per se, but his voice easily carries. “We’re ready whenever you are.”
The waitress returns and takes our order. Meanwhile, another family gets up from their table, getting ready to leave, and the girl about our age pauses in front of us on her way back from the bathroom, looking right at Amelia.
“Hey,” the girl says, excited to see my sister. “What are you doing here?”
Amelia falters, struggling to recognize her.
“I’m Iris,” I say, jumping in. “How do you know my sister?”
“Eden,” she introduces herself with even more enthusiasm. “We sat next to each other in algebra last year. Amazing to see you!” she says to Amelia. “You look so good. Did you dye your hair?” Before my sister can answer, Eden continues. “I gotta catch up with the others, but wow, amazing to see you.”
“Yes, so great!” Amelia says, but there’s something off about her response. She slides a hand out on the table as though telling us to hold our reaction until Eden and her family have left. “Um…”
“What?” I ask.
She glances toward the door to make sure the girl is gone, then bursts out laughing. “I didnotknow that person at all.”
“Wait, really?” I cackle. “I just assumed you couldn’t recognize them here.”
“Nope,” she continues. “I don’t know anyone named Eden. Didn’t take algebra last year. Definitely didn’t dye my hair.”
“I thought there was something off,” I say.
“I know. I was trying to figure out the voice, like maybe it was someone from high school but they meant to say a few yearsago instead of last year, but nope. No idea who that person was. And I wasn’t going to correct her.”
Declan and Grady seem confused, but they chuckle along and don’t ask for clarification about the situation, which Amelia doesn’t offer, so it’s not my place to do so. My sister so often has to play along with a conversation, unable to recognize someone sheactually knows, that it’s kind of funny to have done the same with a case of mistaken identity. I didn’t know anything was off until Amelia revealed that she’d put the pieces together yet was still going along with the conversation as if nothing was amiss.
It makes me curious how Amelia fares at college, with something as regular an occurrence as walking across the quad. When someone passes by and says hello, how often does she actually know who’s speaking to her? Maybe she can recognize them by a backpack or bright pair of shoes they wear on a regular basis, but otherwise I’d have to guess that it could often feel like wading through a sea of vaguely familiar strangers.
How do you explain that something as off-putting as that can also make for an amusing situation like this one at the diner? I doubt Declan and Grady would fully understand why we found this funny.
Anyway, our food arrives at the table, which changes the subject easily enough.
“Did you text Dad back?” Amelia asks as she peels apart her grilled cheese slices.
“No, not yet.” I reply in the family chat, letting our parents know where we’ve stopped.
I hold up my phone to take a picture of our meals to send to them, but Declan slides a peace sign into view. I smile and shake my head, quickly taking a full candid photo of him and his brother across from us in this booth before taking a selfie of all four of us and then another food picture—without a boy’s hands—to send to my parents.
Did Amelia tell them that we’re caravaning? Because I haven’t.
“How do we look?” Grady asks when I’m still looking at a picture on my phone, presumably thinking it’s the group selfie, but my eyes are stuck on the first image of Declan.
“Oh, it was fine,” I say. “Just responding to a text.”
Is this picture…cute?
Declan has such a casual, goofy look on his face. It’s better than any of those pictures Peyton found from the game shop. I might as well send this to the group chat, right?
Peyton and Elizabethimmediatelyreply to my text.
Peyton:Look at you all romantic in a diner!!!
Elizabeth:That’s him?? He’s even cuter than I thought. Maybe I should play board games
Peyton:Damn, that’s not the Declan I remember from a week ago.
I’m glued to my phone, heart racing as I respond, desperate for them to continue to reply right away so I can be absolutely positive I didn’t somehow send the text to the wrong person, even though I’m staring at this chat right now.
