Where Futures End Read online

  “I come here every Tuesday,” Saint Professor says. “I know how these things are supposed to work.”

  “I’m also here every Tuesday,” I say. “Also, pretty much every other day of the week.”

  Saint Professor’s frustrated scowl turns into a smile of genuine warmth. “Don’t worry, you’ll catch on,” he says, and gives me an encouraging chuck on the shoulder.

  I grit my teeth. I make no further delay in searching out those imperiled ice-cream nuggets.

  And, goodie, there’s still some boxes left. I squat in the frosty air of the walk-in fridge and consider ways to prevent Brandon’s transfer to Debtors’ House, which I’ve heard serves only one large meal a day and encourages residents to scour the surrounding neighborhood for cans to recycle in order to make some “snack money.” Brandon’s skinny enough as it is. He thinks I don’t know he sneaks his bacon onto my plate every morning like I’m a little kid.

  I could call Griffin and ask him to send us some of the cash he’s made apprenticing with a guy who does body art. Something I could split with his dad. I toy with my e-frame, considering the idea. Calling Griffin would mean hearing his voice, hoarse with salt air and sadness, and trying to keep my heart from breaking to pieces all over again: Remember the times on the roof, under the stars? They don’t have stars here, you can hardly see the streetlights for all the smog. It would mean trying (failing) not to get angry at him for leaving.

  How can I ask him for money? I haven’t exactly been his biggest supporter lately.

  Or I guess the better question is—how much does he really owe me?

  “Brixney? You know what, Brixney?”

  I turn to find Mr. One red-faced with disapproval, hands pressed together under his chin.

  “Did you pay for those ice-cream nuggets?” He’s pleading with God that it be true.

  “They’re melting. They’re making a mess of the walk-in.” I point at an ice-cream puddle leaking onto the refrigerated floor.

  “And you’re taking initiative, and that’s great.” He hunches his shoulders. He’s practically bowing to me. “But eating food that belongs to the store and not to you? That’s a fast ticket to scraping the seat of your pants on the pavement outside the door. Know what I mean? I mean, when I fire you.”

  “Okay, well, don’t fire me.” I go into a hot sweat. My stomach rejects the aesthetics of cold ice cream mixed with fiery panic. “I’m just eating ice-cream nuggets that we’re allowed to neither sell nor toss. Basically what I’m eating is trash.”

  “Except that if you were eating trash?” He winces in an exaggerated way, as if pained on my behalf. “It’d be because you were on the streets without a job. Without this job, specifically.”

  My face muscles spasm a little. I bend down on pretense of examining the leaking box. “I think I can staunch this. I’ll staunch this mess and then the nuggets can stay here in the box. Yeah, I’ll get on that.” I nod vigorously, partly to underscore my initiative and partly to shake out the muscle tics.

  “Great.” Mr. One turns to go. “And I’ll tell Lola to take care of the tourist type who’s been sitting in your section for a full five minutes without being greeted.”

  What? No! Not my tourist! Lola will have used him all up by the time I get out there.

  I shove a couple of reams of processed cheese into the leaky box and hurry out to tell Lola that my tourist is not for human consumption.

  Saint Professor catches me first. He’s come right up to the mold bar to talk to me. “I want ice-cream nuggets added to my order,” he says. “You didn’t tell me those were available.”

  “They’re not.”

  “I saw you eating them. I saw on your feed.”

  He saw me eating them?? Since when is there a camera in the walk-in? Stupid Mr. One and his (apparently rational) fear of inventory pilfering.

  “We have ice-cream nuggets,” I admit, “but I’m not allowed to serve them.”

  “You’re hoarding them for yourself because they’ve been discontinued.”

  “I’m not allowed to give them to you,” I tell Saint Professor, “unless you are a nonprofit organization that does not serve the economically disadvantaged.”

  Saint Professor frowns in confusion. He slowly shakes his head. “I don’t think you’ve been properly trained at all.”

  I break away from him and make for my tourist. Lola’s squinting at him from a distance, trying to center his face in her e-frame as if that’ll help pull up his nonexistent profile.

  “My section,” I hiss at Lola.

  I dart over to the tourist’s booth and say in my most alluring voice, “What is it you’re looking for?”

  He looks up at me with an expression as open as the middle of the ocean.

  “I’m waiting for a friend,” he says. Then, with his head tilted to one side: “This place was different last time I came here.”

  I glance at the colorful banners slung everywhere. “Yeah, we’re doing a promo for FeedBin. I can get you Confused Teen Can’t Find His Car if you want.”

  He swipes his shaggy hair out of his face, giving me a clear view of eyes the deep green color of murky lake water. “No, I mean this place used to be some kind of sandwich shop.” I can’t place his accent. He speaks slowly, like he’s having trouble getting all the consonants out. “With spicy peppers, I guess, that hurt your mouth if you ate a lot of them.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Spicy peppers are like that, aren’t they?” I glance back at Lola, who’s watching our feed on her e-frame. I shoot her a look that says, What’s up with this guy? “So . . . Teen Doing His Confused Thing—that okay for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want a flavor gel?”

  “Yes.”

  I wait for him to tell me which kind. He looks at me blankly for a moment—are his eyes green or brown?—and then hurries to pull something out of his pocket. He hands me a silver coin stamped with what looks like a two-headed elephant.

  “We don’t accept . . . Cambodian currency here,” I tell him.

  “You could melt it down,” he offers.

  I stare at him. He’s messing with me. I give him a knowing smirk. “I think I’ve got just the thing for you.”

  I come back with what Lola and I have dubbed Banana Split The Check, a mountain of banana-gelled flavor foam topped with crumbled Oreos and graham cracker bits. She and I often make it and split the deduction from our paychecks, hence the name. Clever, right? I usually throw in some ice-cream nuggets too, but looks like that tradition has just gone out alongside privacy in the walk-in.

  “I find it disquieting to eat faces,” I tell the tourist as I slide into the booth with the Banana Split. Mr. One doesn’t mind if we sit with the customers. He encourages it, especially if the customer is good-looking and doesn’t mind staging an argument or make-out session—it brings in more customers. I’m not planning on staging either, but Mr. One doesn’t need to know that.

  The tourist digs in with all the self-consciousness of a five-year-old.

  “Do you like it?” I ask.

  “So far it’s not burning my mouth at all,” he reports.

  “I’ll tell my manager to start printing that on the cups.”

  He gulps down big puffs of glossy yellow foam.

  “So what’s your name?” I ask, leaning in like I’m breathless to hear the answer.

  He pauses for a suspicious length of time. “Michael.” He plows on through more Banana Split.

  Hmmm. False name. No profile. I’m guessing he’s old money. Probably owns a couple of castles that his parents are trying to hide from gold-diggers like me.

  I’ll try not to let that discourage me.

  “I’m Brix.”

  I glance at a tattered notebook on the table. A name is inked on the cover: Dylan.

  “Who’s Dylan?” I ask, wondering
if that’s this guy’s real name after all.

  “My friend,” Michael says. He nods at the notebook. “I brought this to give back to him.”

  “Oh, right, you’re supposed to meet someone. Is he as cute as you?” I give him the obligatory conspiratorial wink.

  He actually considers how to answer that. “I’m more attractive.” Perfectly earnest.

  “No need to waste time with false humility, right?” I hold back a laugh. “So where is this friend?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in ages. He once told me he comes to this sandwich shop every summer. Longest day of the year, he comes here with his brother, Hunter, and they eat the spicy peppers until one of them throws up. And it’s always him—Dylan—who throws up, so his brother gets to be the one who goes out in the kayak first. But as long as I’ve been coming, Dylan has never showed.”

  I pause, trying to take that all in. “Are you serious? You come here every summer hoping to run into him? And now it’s not even a sandwich shop.”

  “In his defense, he has no idea I’ve been trying to get in touch with him. I just figure he must be missing his notebook. It was important to him.” He uses his fingertips to straighten the cover.

  “Why don’t you look him up on your e-frame?” I pull mine out of my pocket. “I can type in his name and you can send him an instant message.”

  “I don’t know his full name. Just first name. Dylan.” His shoulders sink. “I don’t know where he lives. I don’t know his e-frame ID.”

  “Sounds like you two are close friends.”

  His shoulders drop farther. “He was in love with my sister.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I ask, because he seems a little mopey about it.

  “It didn’t really work out well, in the end.”

  “But no hard feelings?”

  “I hope not.”

  I meant for you, dork. “Hey, happy endings are overrated. I mean, unless you’re in a movie.”

  He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, like he doesn’t agree.

  I fidget with my e-frame. “How’s the banana foam?”

  He points his spoon at what’s left. “I really like it. I can see why this place isn’t a sandwich shop anymore.”

  “Sandwiches aren’t as photogenic.” I point to the little camera mounted on the napkin dispenser. At the same time, the giant screen over the mold bar cuts to a shot of us sitting together. I lean farther into the frame. Gosh, we make a cute couple, what with my endearingly bedraggled appearance and his broad Your Troubles Fit On My Shoulders shoulders.

  “I’m on your TV,” Michael says, frozen.

  “Our TV and everyone else’s. Well, anyone who’s tuned to my feed.”

  He’s still frozen, his spoon poised like an exclamation mark.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “Until an ad pops up, you know nobody much is watching. Takes a few thousand viewers for that to happen.”

  “Hey, Pretty-Face!” calls a boy from a crowded booth. In my section, crap. “How about we order now?”

  I slide out of the booth. “Don’t go anywhere,” I tell Michael.

  He shovels the last spoonfuls of Oreo crumbs into his mouth. Like he’s getting ready to leave. And darn it if I don’t want to raid his wallet and figure out his story.

  “I’ll get you another Banana Split,” I tell him. “Just don’t leave.”

  The boys in the booth wear varsity jackets from the school I briefly attended when I first moved into MyFuture. I recognize one of them from my old math class. He leans back in the booth to look me over. He has a nice haircut—Brandon would look good with that haircut.

  “Didn’t you go to our school?” he asks me. “What happened to you?”

  “Solving quadratic equations doesn’t pay as much as it used to.” I smile so the sarcasm will go over easier.

  He doesn’t match my smile. In fact, he looks genuinely concerned. He scratches his shoulder self-consciously, showing off an unfortunate T-shirt tan—stark white underneath his sleeve. The sight of it makes me relax. Here’s a guy who isn’t trying for perfection. He probably wouldn’t mind if I swam in the lake in cutoffs and a T-shirt instead of the swimsuit I don’t own.

  Would he care that I live in a debtors’ colony?

  I train my eyes on the table. “How about ordering?”

  His friends have their e-frames out and are browsing feeds.

  “Whose pants are on my head?” one boy says.

  “Excuse me?” As far as I can see, there are no pants on his head.

  “Tell your dog to stop laughing at me!” another boy says, and they all break into guffaws. “Tell him to shut up!”

  “They’re quoting feeds,” the boy from math class explains, pointing at the sleek, silvery e-frames in their hands. “Seriously, why don’t you go to school anymore? Didn’t you win that Math Bowl? Yeah, I remember my friends all used your feed to cheat off your algebra homework.” He smiles sheepishly. Adorable. But what am I supposed to tell him? I dropped out, I’m a dropout.

  “I’ll give you another minute to decide.” I turn away and hurry to the back of the store. In a spot where the kitchen steam makes it hard for Mr. One to spy on me, I pull out my e-frame and find Griffin’s feed.

  He’s grimacing at the sun and the wind streaming into his face while he crouches on the Santa Monica pier. A couple of co-eds stand before him, naked from the waist up but for a thick layer of body paint that has transformed their torsos into suburban landscapes. Painted sparrows perch on their collarbones. Griffin looks cramped from all the crouching but otherwise happy.

  Does he ever think about his dad toiling on cleanup crew to shave dollars off his debt? Does he ever think of me, working swing shifts alone?

  I remember us at the lake together late at night. Tourists gone, locals calling to each other in the dark like birds. Griffin collecting empty beer bottles to balance on the rocks by the shore, making crazy silhouettes. Because Griffin never thinks of trash as trash. Sometimes I forget I’m stuck here, he would say on the roof of MyFuture or down in the empty pool, where we’d hide from our cleaning assignments. Sometimes I think we’re just hanging out. He’d pull me close, and I would smile, because rooftops and empty pools can be just like living rooms and back porches, depending on who you’re with.

  My e-frame trills at me. Brandon’s calling.

  “Hey, Brandon.”

  His pale face and overlong hair come into view. I can tell he’s having a bad day. I mean, an especially bad one. The kind that can’t be fixed by hunting down the rec room’s missing Ping-Pong balls and bouncing them off the walls until they’re missing again—our favorite pastime.

  “Hey,” he says. “Bad news.”

  “Toilet’s clogged again? Brandon, I cannot share my bedroom with a bowl full of cess.”

  “They’re moving me today. End of the day.”

  “What?”

  “We’re transferring to Debtors’ House.”

  All the blood drains from my head. “That’s shit. They said we had until the end of the month.”

  Brandon shrugs, but his brown eyes are full of despair. “What does it really matter, Brix? End of the month, end of the day. You have a secret inheritance I don’t know about?”

  I rub a hand over my forehead. The smell of bananas and graham crackers makes me feel sick.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” Brandon says quietly.

  “I’m just going to leave you? Just let it get worse and worse for you?” Doesn’t he get that I’ve lost enough family already? Doesn’t he know that I look the other way every morning so he can put his stupid bacon on my plate? I don’t even like bacon. “You’re no heartthrob, Brandon, you’ll never be able to use your feed to get out.”

  “I’ve got good hair,” he says, hurt. “Good when I cut it.”


  “Your eyes are too close together.” And nobody watches nice guys like you on FeedBin. Nobody cares that you fold my laundry or that you line up all my origami foil on your windowsill.

  “Get a place with Lola, work the night shift, and go back to school,” Brandon says. “That would be worth it to me, living in a colony. As long as I know you’re getting somewhere.”

  “And I could come visit you on Thanksgiving so you could update me on your shuffleboard score and introduce me to your seven roommates. Great, Brandon. Great idea.” I choke back a sob. “How much do we need to prevent a transfer?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  My head feels as if it’s detaching from the rest of my body. It’s floating away. I can’t feel my teeth. Ten thousand dollars.

  “There’s nothing we can do, Brix.” He’s full of sympathy, his brow creased with concern. For me, the idiot. He’s the one who can’t get out.

  I think back to the day, the big day at the hospital. That black pit day when we said good-bye to our parents and took them off the machines. Brandon held my hand and I held Mom’s limp hand and we told Dad we’d never sell his big-screen or forget to feed the cat, and we said good-bye. Because there was nothing we could do.

  Screw that.

  “We have until the end of the day,” I tell Brandon. “Put some sunglasses over those beady eyes of yours and start playing to the camera.” Even as I say it, a Sunglass Shack icon pops up in the corner of my screen. Our drama is increasing the hits on Brandon’s feed. But that’s not going to last. Pity is entertaining for only so long.

  I march out to Saint Professor’s table and press my hand over the camera mounted in the napkin dispenser. “You want ice-cream nuggets? You know what discontinued means? It means you’ll never see those nuggets again. Unless you’re willing to pay good.”

  Saint Professor goes silent with shock. He fidgets with his cartoon tie the same way my dad fidgeted with his own tie when a salesman came to our door and offered to install cameras in our house so we could explore the exciting world of profitable family drama.