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up in my head starts to lose steam, my thoughts gettingstuck all over Josh and that sincere, post-crash, blue-eyed apology and hot chocolate fantasy.
    “Highly likely . You look hot today, sweets.”
    “No way. My ass is especially huge in my winter gear.”
    “Shut up ! You have a great ass. I’d kill for a piece of that.” She tries to grab a handful, but I dodge, zipping my jacket all the way up before I go hypothermic. She tries for another grab, but I slap her hand, and when she looks up at the sky and laughs, her shoulders shake and her breath puffs out in big white clouds. Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” comes on Trick’s radio, and I reach for her hands and spin her around, the two of us singing and dancing by the Dumpster under the bright gray November sky.
    Even with her off-key voice and the subzero winter air, when it’s like this, I don’t notice the cold. I don’t hear the wind howling through the empty spaces. I don’t feel like a small, broken-winged bird trapped in a rusty cage.
    I just feel … home .
    But it never lasts.
    “Let’s go , sweet tarts!” Trick shouts. Something crashes to the floor in the kitchen—sounds like a tray of drinks. “And I mean yesterday. Carly’s in the weeds.”
    “Be right in!” Dani calls back. “Man, these new girls. Might as well be working the floor myself. Hey, seriously … you okay? What were you saying about an invitation?”
    “Oh … junk mail from an old skating thing.” I wave awaythe words, ignoring the imaginary burn of the foundation letter in my jacket, hot against my ribs. “I’m good.”
    Dani looks at me a moment longer, squinting as if the truth is as easily read as that Cupcake Queen article behind the register. “You know I didn’t mean to trash-talk your dad, right?”
    “I know.” I slide my sneaker back and forth over a patch of ice on the ground. “Go ahead. I’ll be right in.”
    She sighs, checks the bobby pins in her hair, and straightens the half apron beneath her coat. “Don’t freeze that sweet, bacon-lovin’ ass out here, ’kay?”
    “I won’t. Smoke break’s almost over.”
    “Good. And don’t forget about the rest of those cupcakes, either. There’s more buttercream in my future, and you’re not about to go messin’ that up. Sure you’re cool?”
    “Totally.” I flash her my pearly whites to prove it.
    Dani scoots back inside and I blow my breath into the air, exhaling all of life’s b.s. in a long white sigh. As Buddy Guy sings out over the grill, I close my eyes and lean sideways against the bricks and pretend I’m in some swanky nightclub, hip jutting forward, elbow on the bar, tapping out the long ash from my cigarette. Ladies and gentlemen, this next song goes out to Hudson Avery, the lovely lady who breaks my heart every time she walks through that door.
    Guitar.
    Horns.
    Bass.
    Mmm, mmm, mmm. Cue those smoldering vocals.
    I been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met …
    The alto sax blows and the guitar moans and here behind Hurley’s, a few miles down the hill and across the highway, that old Erie Atlantic train starts up the track, light floating over the engine like some kind of fairy godmother. Ten-oh-five, right on schedule, far away and sad as the sound stretches and bends its way through the approaching storm. Who knows where it goes, but sometimes, when the wheels screech against the tracks and the red lights flash along the crossways, I think about hitching a ride on a coal car just to find out. Then I wouldn’t need a parallel universe and a skating scholarship to get out of here.
    “Hudson? You out there?” Mom pokes her head out the back door, her static-ridden hair now pulled into an old scrunchie. “Third toilet’s clogged again.”
    “Ma, we really need to have that thing fixed.”
    She blows a loose strand from her face. “I know. But I’m in the middle of the dairy inventory. We’ll call the guy next week, okay?”
    “No problem.” So now I’m a