Absolutely Almost(73)

            Some days, it didn’t.

            But every day, what I tried to do was to roll the names Darren called me around in my head, over over over, until the edges were smooth and the words weren’t so painful.

            Sometimes it worked.

            Sometimes it didn’t.

            But still I kept rolling. That was the only thing I had to do.





superpowers.




            I hadn’t been to visit Hugo in a long time, because I guess I just wasn’t feeling that much like donuts, but Monday after school I decided to go. I told my new babysitter, Nadine, that I wanted to go downstairs to get a snack and that Mom always let me go by myself, and after I said that, she let me go right down the elevator and right out the front door of the building, even though what I’d said about Mom letting me go by myself was a lie.

            I figured out that maybe Nadine was not a very good babysitter.

            Hugo was super happy to see me. He finished scooping sugar into a customer’s coffee cup and waved at me. “Albie!” he said when I walked through the door. “What’s new?”

            “I got two B’s in a row on my spelling tests,” I told him.

            “Albie!” he said. “That’s great. You’ve been really studying, huh?”

            I shrugged. Then I got to picking out a donut. Hugo didn’t say anything else, just went back to straightening things behind the counter.

            But then he did say something.

            “You know, Calista was here the other day.” That’s what he said.

            My head shot up. “She was?” My heart felt like it was racing just a little bit in my chest. “Did she say anything?”

            Hugo straightened a box of gum packs on the counter. “She said to say hi when I saw you,” he told me. “So, hi.”

            “Hi,” I answered. I felt a little bit sunken-in, in my chest, all of a sudden. I wished I could’ve told Calista about my B’s in spelling. She’d be real excited for me, I knew it. “I wish she’d come to see me,” I said. But even right when I said it, I knew she couldn’t. I knew she couldn’t come up to my apartment to see me for the same reason I couldn’t call her on the phone anymore, even if I wanted to all the time. Because she wasn’t my babysitter anymore, and my mom would be mad. And it wasn’t fair to Calista to have people be mad at her, even if it was people who were only trying their best to be good moms.

            “I’ve missed you around here, you know,” Hugo said.

            “You have?” I asked. I thought Hugo only liked talking to Calista.

            Hugo nodded. “Course I did. Plus, I’ve got coffee cups up to my eyeballs.” Hugo swept his arm toward the corner where, sure enough, the tower of coffee cups was teetering like it was about to topple. But it wasn’t quite up to his eyeballs. I think he was exaggerating about that.

            “I guess I better get to work, then,” I said.

            “I guess you better.”

            I headed over to the coffee corner.

            “Albie?” Hugo said. I looked back. “Calista asked if she could check the stock when she was here, and she said she thought there might be something wrong with the newest shipment of coffee sleeves.”

            “Something wrong?”

            Hugo shrugged. “I don’t know. But if I were you, I’d look in the back.” He pointed. “The stack closest to the door, I believe.”

            • • •