Chapter 7: Novak Catering

"Eli."

He didn't move.

I knelt on the comforter and shook his shoulder.

"Eli. Wake up."

He opened his eyes all at once.

I held the photo up into the moonlight.

He looked at it.

Then he looked at his wallet, open on the carpet.

"You went through my wallet," he said.

"It fell. That's my backyard."

He sat up slowly and put his back against the side of my bed.

"That's me," I said. "On the steps. That's my backyard, and you're standing in it."

"Yes."

"You told my mother you'd never been here."

"Your mother didn't ask."

"Eli."

He took the photo out of my hand.

He didn't look at it.

He'd clearly looked at it enough.

"My mom had a catering company," he said. "Novak Catering. She did a lot of the lake houses. She did your family's parties for six years."

I tried to think.

There had always been caterers.

Women in black aprons. Trays. A van in the driveway.

I'd never once looked at their faces.

"I worked one," he said. "Summer I turned sixteen. My first job. My mom took that picture before we started, because she was proud of me."

"Whose party?"

"Your sister's graduation."

Mina's college graduation.

Six years ago.

I'd been fifteen and miserable in that yellow dress, and I'd hidden in the pool house the whole afternoon.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I said. "Sunday. When I said Wisconsin."

"Would you have paid me?"

I didn't answer.

"Why do you still carry it?" I said instead.

He put the photo back in his wallet.

He folded the wallet shut.

Then he stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"Outside."

"It's one in the morning."

"Then nobody's watching," he said. "I don't have to be your boyfriend."