Come for the food, stay for the student activism! is Fitz’s line of the week.

Will the message resonate? To be determined.

In the meantime, I’m ignoring my nerves by writing snapshots of dialogue from behind the hostess stand. Today’s scene, scrawled on the back of a paper menu, is from Lady M—a modernized black comedy starring sixteen-year-old Lady Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare character. I love adapting my favorite works, taking something that exists and exploring it through a new medium or point of view. In Lady M, I’ve crafted an epic enemies-to-lovers arc between her and Macbeth, and it is so fun to get lost in their world and escape from the intensity of junior year. To lose myself in something I can actually control—something for only my eyes to see.

Because I love writing with Henry, but I also love having something that’s just for me.

“Hey, Natalie.”

Arjun’s voice snaps me out of my creative zone and I flip my paper menu script over. Arjun is early, but he brought friends! Plural! Connor DiMarco, student council president and a baritone in The Trebles, and Kendra McKenna, a former journalist for the recently cancelled student news show, Jag TV.

I am cheesing hard, so relieved that people showed up.

“Hey! Henry’s setting up some booths in the back.”

“Awesome,” Kendra says.

“Thanks for organizing this, Natalie,” Connor says as they pass me, heading toward Henry.

My heart swells with validation as student after student enters Chao Down in the final minutes of my shift. Nearly every cut club is represented—drama club, visual arts, a cappella, journalism, lit mag, etc. We’re up to nearly twenty attendees when the door swings open and Makayla and Fitz enter the restaurant with froyo.

“Natalie!” Makayla yells.

“You came!” I say, wrapping my arms around Makayla.

“Duh!” Makayla says. “But can we start ASAP? I have HIIT at four.”

Of course. Makayla’s aesthetic can be summed up as, I can drop and give you twenty at any moment. Today’s look is compression leggings and her LHS varsity basketball track jacket.

“Your commitment to Saturday HIIT is aspirational. Truly,” Fitz says, scooping a spoonful of M&M’s.

Makayla shrugs. “It’s easy when the instructor looks like Natalie Dormer.”

Fitz swoons. “Wow. Okay. Saturdays at four, you say?”

“Do you even know what HIIT stands for?” I ask, folding my paper menu into quarters.

“I will learn in the name of Natalie Dormer,” Fitz proclaims, and we burst out laughing as an elderly couple enters the restaurant, reminding me that I am still, in fact, on the clock.

“Kenny should be here any minute to take over, but everyone else is in the back. I promise we won’t stand between you and a superior Natalie, Makayla.”

Makayla laughs. “You’re good people.”