Caleb tosses the football back to some guy and then I have his full attention. As much as I’ve wanted just that, having Caleb’s eyes on me is kind of intimidating. I wonder how many people are watching this exchange right now. April has slipped off somewhere, probably to give me time alone with him, but I kind of wish she was here right now.
“So what’d you have in mind?” Caleb asks, giving me a grin just like he had when we’d kissed at the arcade.
“Wednesday,” I say as we walk. I’m not sure what I want to do, and I probably should have figured it out before I yelled his name and asked him on a date.
“This Wednesday?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.
“Yep. The third. Should we go to the beach and hang out at that bonfire that’s always lit?”
He nods. “Yeah, I could do that. But why Wednesday? Why not the weekend so we can stay out late?”
“It’ll be April third, which is my birthday,” I say with a grin. My answer makes him stiffen.
“Your birthday? Am I supposed to get you a gift?” He laughs and holds open the door to the school for me. “I wouldn’t even know what to get.”
“No, not at all,” I say quickly, hoping he doesn’t think I asked him out just to get free stuff. “I just wanted to have a chill night. Maybe we can get a cupcake from Gigi’s on the boardwalk then hang out by the bonfire?”
“Uh, sure,” he says after thinking about it for a few seconds. Down the hallway, some guy calls his name. He nods at him, holding up a finger to signal that he’ll be right there. “Just text me or something.”
And then he jogs to catch up with his friend, leaving me in the crowded hallway after lunch, reeling over my newly found confidence. I asked a guy out. And he said yes.
The next two days fly by, and the next thing I know it’s Wednesday, April third. My birthday. Mom’s still asleep when I leave the house in the morning, so I don’t bother waking her up. When I was a little kid, she’d make me smiley face pancakes and let me open one present before school. Now that I’m older, birthdays really aren’t a big deal. Sometimes I miss being a kid.
April is waiting for me on the sidewalk when I leave my house. Usually we meet in the middle of our houses, but today she’s holding a gift bag piled high with tissue paper.
“Happy birthday!” she says, rushing up the steps to my porch. “I thought I’d meet you here so you can leave your gift at home and not have to lug it around all day.
I grin as she hands me the bag. “Thank you,” I say before I even open it. I didn’t realize how bummed out I felt about Mom sleeping in until now. It’s not every day that your daughter turns eighteen.
April has given me a new Circle E Candle in my absolute favorite scent, Barefoot Beach. It’s the big one too, the one that costs more and is harder to find in stores. I clutch it to my chest. “You are an angel,” I say as I close my eyes and hug the candle. “Thank you so much.”
She grins and gives me a hug. “You’re totally welcome. Mom and I found it like three months ago when we went to Dallas, and I’ve been saving it for you.”
I head back inside to drop off my gift and Mom’s still not awake. Oh well, I tell myself. I’m an adult now. I don’t need my mom to wish me a happy birthday.
“So have you talked to Caleb yet?” April asks on our walk to school. Although we haven’t texted at all since Operation Lunch, Caleb has said hi to me in the hallways yesterday and the day before.
April has been telling me to chat him up through text, but I never do. I contacted him first last time, and I’m waiting for him to contact me this time. I shake my head.
“He knows it’s your birthday today, so he better freaking text you,” she says. “If not, I’m going to kick his ass.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s a guy…guys are dumb, remember?”
“So why do we like them again?” she asks.
I heave a sigh. Sometimes I really don’t know the answer to that.
My school day is easy enough. Tutorials went really well yesterday and Jonah and I finally got caught up with the lessons my teachers are giving in class, so I breeze by today with no problems. I take notes and I focus and I mark places in the book that I don’t quite understand so Jonah can help me with them at our next tutorial session. I’m starting to breathe easier when it comes to school now. I haven’t missed any more days, so everything is going according to the plan Mrs. Reese set up for me. I might actually graduate now.
April and I eat lunch together, and I resist the urge to look over at Caleb’s table. I don’t know what I was hoping for—a Happy Birthday? A hello?—but it’s like Caleb doesn’t realize I have the same lunch as him.
It’s not until sixth period when he finally acknowledges my existence.
“There’s the birthday girl,” Caleb says as he walks up next to me in the art hallway. I can smell his cologne before I smell him, and I wonder how long we’ll need to date before I can politely tell him to lay off the stuff. One spritz is all anyone needs.
“I am officially eighteen now,” I say.
“You should go by a lottery ticket,” he says, his grin making me swoon. “And anything else you can do as an eighteen year old. Like check out a porn shop or something.”
“Ew,” I say. “Aren’t there just perverts in porn shops?”
He shrugs. “And people who just turned eighteen who are using all their new age privilege.”
I laugh. “So what time do you want to hang out tonight?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Just text me?”
I nod. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later,” he says. Then he leans over and touches my lower back, his hand sliding down until it covers my back pocket. “Happy Birthday.”
I blush from head to toe and I watch him until he walks into his classroom.
***
My aunt Sheryl and a few of my cousins text me Happy Birthday. But by the time I get to the store after school, I’m pretty sure my mom has forgotten that today her only child turns eighteen. She’s wearing her reading glasses and she’s bent over the inventory list, highlighting items as she goes along.
“Hey,” I say, dropping my backpack behind the front counter. “Busy day?”
She snorts. “Hardly. Not a single customer since lunch.”
I watch her for a moment, wondering if she’ll suddenly remember. I don’t expect a present or anything, since money is so tight right now. But I do want some kind of acknowledgement. She doesn’t say anything at all though, she just crunches her brows together and stares at the paperwork as if it’s the inventory’s problem that no customers come into the store.
Mom has a lot on her mind, and that’s what I tell myself as the next hour goes by and she still hasn’t realized it’s my birthday. I straighten some items on the shelves and look up more books to order for the store. It’s only four-thirty, but Caleb hasn’t yet replied to the text I sent him an hour ago.
Me: Gigi’s cupcakes at 5?
I stare at the text, wondering if I should say something else. At 4:45, I send another one.
Me: Headed to Gigi’s! Meet me there!
“Hey, Mom?” I ask. She makes some kind of noise, but doesn’t look up from the books.
“Since the store isn’t busy, can I head out for an hour or so? I’m meeting a friend for cupcakes.”
The word cupcakes should trigger her into remembering it’s my birthday. But she just nods and says, “Sure. I’ll call you if we miraculously get busy, but I’m betting that won’t happen.”
So yeah, my feelings are a little hurt that my own mother forgot my birthday, but I’m starting to worry about her. She’s so preoccupied with the store and so stressed out all the time about money. Once stress makes you forget birthdays, something should be done. I need to find a way to save The Magpie once and for all, so Mom can rest. She could take a vacation and enjoy life again without worrying about paying the bills.
I walk down to Gigi’s Cupcakes and order the birthday cake flavored cupcake. I get a coffee as well, and I sit in a corner booth and eat them because by 5:30, I’m starting to think Caleb isn’t going to show. I debate texting him again.
I finish my cupcake and wander down the boardwalk to the bonfire on the beach, but none of the benches have Caleb sitting there waiting on me. I go back to Gigi’s an hour later and order another cupcake, this time the double chocolate one with a mound of icing on top that’s taller than the cake itself.
I eat the whole thing.
Still no text from Caleb.
Happy Birthday to me. Ugh.
Mom has probably closed up the shop by now, but I walk back there to get my backpack. The lights are still on, the OPEN sign still facing outward, even though it’s fifteen minutes past closing. I guess Mom forgot about closing time just like she forgot my birthday.
I come to a stop on the boardwalk just a few feet before the entrance to the Magpie. I stare up at the setting sun, look around at the stores, half of them now owned by Jack Brown Properties.
Jack Brown is trying to ruin my mother’s business, and his son just ruined my birthday. I check my phone again, just in case, but there are no new messages. Tears well up in my eyes. I blink and they roll down my cheeks. I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself, but here I am, doing just that.
Some birthday.
Congratulations, Natalie. You picked a total asshole to ask out on a date.