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Not necessarily. But I don’t have the energy to contradict her.
All of a sudden, even though I know this isn’t really about me, I feel a thundering sense of loss. Maggie and Walt and I were a unit. For the past couple of years, we went everywhere together. We’d sneak into the country club at night and steal golf carts, and cooling off a six-pack of beer in a stream, we’d talk and talk and talk about everything from quarks to who Jen P was dating. What’s going to happen to the three of us now? Because somehow I can’t imagine Peter taking Walt’s place in our corny adventures.
“I guess I have to break up with Walt,” Maggie says. “But I don’t know how. I mean, what am I supposed to say?”
“You could try telling him the truth.”
“Carrie?” she asks in a wheedling tone. “I was wondering if maybe you could—”
“What? Break up with him? You want me to break up with Walt for you?”
“Just kind of prepare him,” Maggie says.
Maggie and Peter? I can’t think of two people who belong together less. Maggie is so flighty and emotional. And Peter is so serious. But maybe their personalities cancel each other out.
I pull into the parking lot of the Hamburger Shack, turn off the car, and think, Poor Walt.
The Hamburger Shack is one of the few restaurants in town, known for its hamburgers topped with grilled onions and peppers. That’s pretty much considered the height of cuisine around here. People in Castlebury are mad for grilled onions and peppers, and while I do love the smell, Walt, who has to man the onion and pepper grill, says the stench makes him sick. It gets into his skin and even when he’s sleeping, all he dreams about are onions and peppers.
I spot Walt behind the counter by the grill. The only other customers are three teenage girls with hair dyed in multiple hues of pink, blue, and green. I nearly walk past them when suddenly I realize that one of these punks is my sister.
Dorrit is eating an onion ring as if everything is perfectly normal. “Hi, Carrie,” she says. Not even a “Do you like my hair?” She picks up her milk shake and drains the glass with a loud slurp.
“Dad’s going to kill you,” I say. Dorrit shrugs. I look at her friends, who are equally apathetic. “Get out to the car. I’ll deal with you in a minute.”
“I’m not done with my onion rings,” she says with equanimity. I hate the way my sister won’t listen to authority, especially my authority.
“Get in the car,” I insist, and walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to talk to Walt.”
Walt’s wearing a stained apron and there’s sweat on his hairline. “I hate this job,” he says, lighting up a cigarette in the parking lot.
“But the hamburgers are good.”
“When I get out of here, I never want to see another hamburger in my life.”
“Walt,” I say. “Maggie—”
He cuts me off. “She didn’t go to her sister’s in Philadelphia.”
“How do you know?”
“Number one, how many times does she visit her sister? Once a year? And number two, I know Maggie well enough to know when she’s lying.”
I wonder if he knows about Peter, as well. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing, I guess. I’ll wait for her to break up with me and that’ll be it.”
“Maybe you should break up with her.”
“Too much effort.” Walt tosses his cigarette into the bushes. “Why should I bother when the result will be the same either way?”
Walt, I think, is sometimes a bit passive.
“But maybe if you did it first—”
