She paused at the trash basket beside the counter, dropped the box of cookies into it, took a picture of it in there, and walked out the door.

Home run.

Kira blinked hard, refusing to cry, and looked right at me. “What can I get you?”

I’ve seen that face in every house, school, and mirror I’ve known.

In the tip jar were three pennies and a nickel.

Whatever was happening, it was clear that even on this idyllic island, there were still dickhead kids. They are All. The. Same. Where does this uniformity come from? Are they taken aside to a special class where they memorize the techniques and voice patterns of Assholery 101?

Never one to jump into anyone else’s battle, for some reason I shocked myself when, on autopilot, I went to the trash basket, where the cookie box lay unopened and lopsided on a pile of empty coffee cups and wadded-up napkins. I pulled it out and wiped dripping coffee from its side, otherwise perfectly intact. Kira watched me, wide-eyed, from the register, then looked away. I walked back to the counter.

“What can I get you?” Kira asked again, all business, clearly bewildered by what I’d done, and so was I, but she wasn’t going to acknowledge or say anything about it, and thank God, because I didn’t want to, either. Key to flying under the radar and therefore surviving in school or life is always, always staying out of anyone else’s business; I know that, I live that, so what had compelled me to dumpster-dive and insert myself into this obviously well-established war?

Because the familiar look on Kira’s face when those cookies went in the trash said it obviously wasn’t a war. It was one-sided bullshit, and she was scared. That’s why.

“Tea, please. And…” I hated to part with any more of my ten dollars, but I was so hungry. “What’s the best thing?” I asked. “Your favorite?”

“Toast,” Kira said, no hesitation. “With jam. House-made.”

I got a little light-headed and put my hands on the counter. “Toast?” I said. “With jam?”

“It’s life-changing,” she said, expressionless.

“Okay.”

“Tea and toast. Five dollars. Name for the order?”

“Muiriel.”

“Got it. Next.”

I paid and waited for a table to be free. Even in hot weather, tea is good. John Muir made tea from pine needles, which sounds to me like it would taste the way Pine-Sol cleanser smells, but you do you, man. Sometimes he purposely lived on nothing but tea and bread for months.

But bread and jam.