Page 19 of Sunshine
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say as I present her with a bright pink curly straw. “But milkshakes taste better when you drink them through these.”
Izzy bounces with impatience as I swap her paper straw for the novelty one, and when she sets her lips to the top, the milk takes a few extra seconds to hit her tongue.
“Oh, that does taste better,” she agrees before her face falls. “But what about you?”
I pluck a twisted orange straw from my bag and drop it into my glass. “I always come prepared.”
Izzy sags forward with a happy sigh. “I love that bag.”
“I used to come here for burgers and milkshakes with your dad and Aunt Daisy when we were kids,” I tell her as we slurp on our drinks.
“Really?” Izzy sticks out her tongue to collect some of the foam spilling over the top of her frosted glass.
“Yep.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Cool.” I take another sip, watching her over the top of my glass. “So, did you have a good day at school? Did you learn anything new or interesting?”
Izzy shrugs and watches her straw as she swirls it around in the glass. “Not really.”
I don’t love the way Izzy was so excited about her music lesson this afternoon but withdraws when I ask her about school. Before I can think of another way to encourage her confidence, the bell above the diner door chimes, and both Izzy and I look up to see who enters. It’s the blonde girl who ignored Izzy outside the school gate, hand in hand with her mom.
Izzy shrinks a little, trying to hide in plain sight.
“That’s the girl we saw at school this afternoon,” I comment, careful to keep my tone neutral as the newcomers slide into a booth on the opposite side of the diner.
Izzy sucks on her straw. “Yes.”
“Her name is Mellie?”
“Yes.”
“But she isn’t your friend?”
“No.”
In all my years as a nanny, I’ve never felt as personally invested as I do with Izzy, nor as desperate to prove myself as I am with Dylan. So, I’m starting to sweat with the pressure to getthis right when Izzy throws me a bone. I shift forward to better hear her whisper.
“She used to be my friend until…”
Izzy’s dark eyelashes brush her cheeks as she concentrates on slurping up her milkshake, and when she doesn’t finish her sentence, I crack under the suspense.
“Until…?”
Izzy doesn’t look up. “Until I beat her in Miss Teasley’s math competition.”
I ease back into the booth as things start to make more sense. “Can you tell me about the competition?”
Izzy heaves a sigh that’s too big for someone so small. “Miss Teasley divided the class into teams and had us take turns solving math problems.”
“And what happened to make Mellie mad at you?”
“Nobody could beat me,” Izzy mutters like it’s something to be ashamed of. “So, when nobody onmyteam could get a turn, Miss Teasley moved everyone to theotherteam. It was me against the whole class! I beat everyone three times, and then they started teasing me.”
Izzy scrubs at her eyes, and my fists tighten as I quietly rage about a teacher putting her in that position.
