Page 10 of The Dead of Summer

Compared to Scuttlebutt’s, Pizza Monster is disconcertingly quiet.

No lights, no music, certainly no drag queens enforcing peace upon the kitsch-cluttered patio.

I would call out hello, but I’m afraid the many little monsters decorating the storefront might all turn to me at once.

Dolls sit in the trees. Metal sculptures twist from the ground.

Grimy plaster cherubs scale the roof. They’re called offerings.

People bring them from all over the world, adding to Pizza Monster’s reputation as a haven for misfits.

Quiet as it is, it’s like peering into a graveyard.

Still, the glass doors of the shop are propped open. Someone—or something—is home.

I step inside, listening for life. Nothing has changed in here, either.

It would hurt to see it all again if it wasn’t already so painful to be back.

For months, even the smell of oregano has made me anxious, yet here I go, diving right into the beast itself.

I scan behind the counter until I spot the massive, dome-shaped oven.

Since before I was born, it’s been stylized to look like a giant, roaring monster, with horns and eyes and even pizza-shaped teeth bordering its mouth, the oven entrance …

which is glowing? Before I can back up, the mouth lets out a smoking belch, and a boy stumbles into view.

“We’re not open yet—”

Bash sees me and halts. In the past year he’s gone from skinny to sturdy, just like me.

The shape of his jaw flirts with manhood, but the wound is still there.

The one I slashed into him myself. He shrinks back as though he can hide behind the pizza monster.

We both jump when another person enters from the back room holding a stack of boxes.

“The fridge is still cold, but we better use up what we’ve got,” says Elisa. “No telling when the power’s coming back, but we should be able to get through today. Thank god the oven is wood fired.”

Elisa sees me, and the boxes drop to the floor. It’s a punch in the gut to see how much she looks like her mom now. Beautiful, guarded, intelligent. Her light brown eyes are huge as she looks me over, then they narrow with fury. The anger makes her freckles practically glow in the dim light.

For the first time in months, the Suds are all in one place.

At my high school on the mainland, I didn’t have any friends.

I didn’t even notice. Willy pointed it out to me on one of his visits, and I shrugged.

You should have someone nearby to talk to.

I’m sure Bash and Elisa will understand if you make a new friend, Ollie , he joked.

When I went quiet, his humor turned to genuine concern.

Wait, you haven’t been talking to Bash and Elisa, either? About any of this?

I hadn’t said a word. For weeks their texts had gone unopened, their calls ignored.

Finally—blessedly—the calls and texts stopped.

Of course I felt horrible, but I also felt relieved.

If they knew what was happening, they would try and lift me up, but I only wanted to sink.

I thought that if I sank far enough, they might just forget about me and let me go.

The Ollie they knew was long gone by then, anyway.

Then, one rainy October afternoon, Bash and Elisa showed up at our door. I remember thinking they should look different, even though it had only been a few months. Time, for me, vanished in every blink. Their sameness disgusted me. I couldn’t even look at them.

Can we come in? Elisa asked.

The apartment was a mess. My fault. There were pizza boxes stacking up.

My fault. There were pills that needed sorting in Gracie’s pillboxes.

My fault. If my friends came in, they would realize I was not on vacation, and that my mom was very, very sick.

My fault. Then it would be true. Then she would die.

My fault.

We miss you , Elisa said when I told her it wasn’t a good time.

Bash rocked on his toes. He had a small plastic container tucked under his jacket.

Inside was our pet hermit crab, which I guess I also abandoned when I left.

Even though he had brought it all the way to me on the mainland, he now seemed intent on protecting it from me.

All he could manage to say was Your aunt said—

Elisa elbowed him. He started over. We miss you, Ollie. We’re here for you. If there’s anything you want to talk about, we could listen. We would love to listen.

When I said nothing, Elisa finally showed her anger.

Ollie, it’s been months of you ignoring us. We took the ferry here and we need to take it back in a few hours or we’re gonna be in major shit with our parents. Bash’s mom thinks he’s practicing for the Fishnets game. We don’t have a lot of time.

Something about Bash’s alibi horrified me.

The Fishnets was a drag basketball league.

The idea of him dribbling in a wig while I was here felt not just absurd but cruel.

We had nothing in common anymore. They were exactly the same, separated from me by more than water.

Time and space had spilled between us, and now we stood upon separate islands of life.

I remember thinking they weren't really in front of me, and that the doorway was just a window between our distant worlds, and all I had to do was shut it.

So I did.

I watched them go. They had brought their bikes with them on the ferry. They picked them off the ground and I remember thinking, How childish . Elisa tugged Bash’s shoulders, but he shrugged her off. He looked up at my building, eyes bright with tears, and he shouted: SUDS STICK TOGETHER!

Then they rode off.

Elisa stares at me, and I think she’s going to run at me with both hands raised in a horror-movie strangle.

“How dare—” she starts to say, but Bash’s mom rushes in, car keys jangling in her fist.

“Oh, Orlando! How are you feeling? Bashar didn’t tell me you were coming by, but what luck! We need all the help we can get if we’re going to open for the afternoon rush. Have you eaten?”

I remember I haven’t, but there’s no room for hunger among all the unsaid words crowding my stomach. I don’t even know where to begin.

“We can handle the rush,” Elisa says frostily.

“You think you can handle everything,” Mrs. Itani chides.

“Orlando, what size shirt are you these days? I think we only have extra-large left, but you don’t mind, right?

Truly, we could use the help. With you here, I can work on getting that generator back online, and then I need to go check on Mary.

Plus, I’m sure these two would much rather have you back behind the line than me, right, Bashar? ”

As if she can’t feel the tension, Mrs. Itani has snatched a shirt off the rack of merchandise near the registers and is holding it out not to me, but to Bash.

He stands up straight, ever polite before his mother, and takes the shirt.

Maybe Mrs. Itani isn’t clueless after all; it’s Bash she wants making this peace offering.

Bash clenches his jaw. Elisa clears her throat, but he ignores her. He lifts his eyebrow—the one with the tiny scar in it—and he asks, “You back?”

I could run, but seeing them, I feel something I haven’t allowed myself to feel in months: a homesickness that Singing House failed to evoke, that rises in me now like a cresting wave.

Even through the tension, and even through the anger, I feel that sparkle of excitement reaching out to me. Whether I like it or not, I’m home.

I nod. “Yeah. I’m back.”

“Then it’s shine time, baby.”

Bash tosses me the shirt. I’ve barely caught it before Mrs. Itani has the shop doors all the way open, and the first of many hungry customers is lining up for the best—and only—pizza in town.