Lucky for him, Victoria missed the whole exchange. “Sharon Eggleston texted me that she was up visiting her sister’s sorority house at USC and they all heard it and Sharon told them that she was friends with you and everyone started freaking out.”
I paused. “There’s so much wrong with that sentence that I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Like?”
“Sharon Eggleston’s sister got into USC?”
“I know, right? Apparently her parents are alumni.”
“And when did you start texting with Sharon?”
“Just today. I guess she got my number from someone else after she couldn’t get ahold of you.”
“Sharon told her sister we were friends?” I asked.
“I know, it’s crazy, she obviously drank an entire keg last night or something. But Audrey! People really love that song!” Victoria’s eyes were shining just like Sharon’s lip gloss. “I bet your cell phone exploded from all the messages. I could barely get through half the time.”
James was scurrying around behind the counter, rinsing scoopers and starting to close the register. “I gotta help him,” I told Victoria.
“Just think,” she said, sinking back in her chair, “everyone is gonna be kissing your ass at school.”
“Oh, joy.”
“And Sharon Eggleston is gonna go batshit crazy.” Victoria clapped her hands together with glee. “Oh my God, I cannot wait. Monday is gonna rock.”
“Sharon Eggleston?” James said. “That’s the girl that always comes in here.”
Victoria and I glanced at each other. “She always comes in here?” I asked. “Really?”
“Yeah, usually on your days off. She’s the one with the…I don’t know, the flippy hair, I guess you could call it.” James mimed tossing his hair over his shoulder.
Victoria and I exchanged another look: Oh, really?
I snorted as I went around the counter and began counting the change in the register. “Sharon Eggleston had a huge crush on Evan before I started going out with him,” I told James. “She’s probably plotting my imminent demise. Be prepared to find my body in the freezer.”
“Uh…” James’s eyes widened.
“I’m kidding!” I told him. Apparently the word sarcasm had never entered his lexicon. “Only kidding, I swear.”
“Aud has a weird sense of humor,” Jonah pointed out to James. He was still eyeing the ice cream and I stopped counting my register long enough to scoop him a cone of Choco-Nuts-a-Lot. “Awesome.” He grinned. “Thanks, Aud.”
Then I threw a rag at Victoria. “Here,” I told her. “Please do something useful so I can get the hell out of here.”
She wrinkled her nose, but started wiping down tables anyway. And when she was in the middle of the third table, and after I counted the change in the register twice and it still wasn’t balancing out, the song came on the radio again. “This song is already on its way to being number one on tonight’s countdown,” the DJ said. “And you heard it here first on KUXV, 98.5!” But we only heard the first few bars because I reached up and turned the stereo off.
The silence in the store was even louder.
After we closed and locked up and James almost got the key stuck in the front door and we had to wedge it out, I walked with Victoria and Jonah to our cars. “So, the second-most exciting thing that happened today?” Victoria said. “James.”
“James?” Jonah and I both asked.
“He was really talking to you a lot,” Victoria pointed out, and nudged me in the ribs. “At least he can say he knew you before you were famous, right?”
“Vic-tor-ia!” I cried. “I’m not famous! Remember that one girl last year who got a perfect 2400 on her SATs and she ended up in that article in the L.A. Times? She’s more famous than me.”
“Perfect 2400? Pfft.” Victoria waved her hand in front of her face. “I could do that in my sleep. Besides, cool sells better than brains.”
Jonah laughed and nodded. “She’s right.”
Victoria grinned and linked her arm with his. She loved being right. “Anyway, I’m just saying that James kept looking at you all night.”
“I think it’s his lazy eye.”
“Did he talk to you out of his lazy eye, too?”
Okay, that one made me laugh, I admit it. “When the song first came on the radio,” I told them, “I totally froze behind the counter and he came up to me and said, ‘Scoop now, think later.’”
“Words on a bumper sticker,” Jonah said, nodding his approval.
“Embroidery on a hand towel,” Victoria added. “See, he’s very calm, very Eastern philosophy, very Buddha-like.”
“He couldn’t be more Irish,” I pointed out.
“Buddha-like in spirit. When everyone asks you how you stayed humble, you can say it was because of James.”
I shot her a look, but couldn’t really hide a smile. “How I stayed humble?” was all I said.
“Gimme a break, I’m still giddy with excitement. I’ll come up with a better example later.”
After they walked me to my car, I got in and locked the doors and waited to see them drive off. I could see that Victoria had scooted closer to Jonah and he had his arm around her shoulders, and he was laughing about something (probably the Buddha comment). They both looked so happy.