No. And I’m not even really sure why. Only a few days ago I was about as attached to Jack as I am to the guy who delivers our mail.

I tuck my bangs behind my ear. If I get into it like I almost did with Dad, I’ll have to tell her about Jack, and given the circumstances, I don’t especially want her to know. “Yeah, just … doing a post for the blog.”

“Paige is still posting too?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. It’s weird that most of the information Mom gets about Paige these days comes from me or from Dad.

“Yeah.”

She closes the fridge and leans there against the door for a moment, biting her cheek the same way I am. No matter what evolution of my mom I’m looking at—the barefoot, back-porch-singing Nashville one, or the high-heeled, power-walking one—there are always these uncanny moments when we’re both thinking the same thing or feeling the same way, and our bodies seem to mirror each other’s, like two halves of a coin.

She blows out a breath, reopening the fridge to grab the jar of tomatoes she’s always snacking out of, and then props herself on the other kitchen stool. “Taffy had trouble reaching you toward the end of the day.”

“I had practice. And homework.” And apparently two hours of guilt-induced baking, although that goes without saying.

My mom nods. “There are a lot of eyes and ears on that Twitter feed, you know. I know you’re juggling a lot right now, but we could really use your help.”

“I did.” Not necessarily on purpose; after I ghosted on her, Taffy must have sent out the GIF of the cat herself. It had ten thousand retweets last I checked. “And now that the whole thing with that deli is winding down—”

“Winding down?” My mom laughs. “It’s just getting started.”

“What do you mean?”

She pulls out her phone and opens Twitter, where there’s a new tweet from the Girl Cheesing account.

Girl Cheesing @GCheesing

Anyone who unfollows Big League Burger on Twitter gets 50 percent off their next grilled cheese! And, y’know, the relative comfort of knowing they’re eating something that doesn’t suck

6:48 PM · 21 Oct 2020

“So? Got any ideas cooking?”

The thing is, I always do. Within seconds, usually. Sometimes before I even finish reading a tweet. But right now, my mind just draws a giant blank. Right now, I’m looking at this tweet, but the only words I’m really hearing are Jack’s on his way out the door: Don’t you dare stand there and tell me it isn’t personal.

“Actually, I was thinking—I had some other ideas for things we could post, memes or some funny quote retweets we could do—”

“Sure, of course, we can do those later. But how are we going to respond to this?”

I’ve been smiling this uneasy smile, but I can feel it starting to tilt on my face. And that’s not the only thing tilting. Something is off here, something I don’t fully understand.

“Should we?” I ask. I keep my voice bright and noncombative. “I mean, they’re such small potatoes. We can do better than that, right? The McDonald’s Twitter account posted some promotion about their new McCafé flavor this morning, and I bet I could—”

“Maybe you could sleep on it? We can loop in Taffy in the morning.”

She pops another tomato into her mouth.

“Actually, Mom, um—I’m really busy this week, and I don’t think I should tweet at that Girl Cheesing account anymore.”

She shrugs. “So give Taffy some jumping-off points.”

I turn my back on her, pretending to wipe some crumbs off the counter so I can pinch my eyes shut for a moment and brace myself. Unlike Paige, I’m not so good on the whole rebellion front.

“What I mean is, I think we should just … full stop. No more tweeting at them at all.”

The tomato crunching stops for a moment. “You can’t just let him win.”

My ears snag on the word, my heart lurching.

“What do you mean ‘him’?”

There’s a beat, and then my mom waves her hand dismissively. “The owner’s probably a he.”

“It’s called Girl Cheesing.”

Not to mention, assuming an owner of a business is a guy is just not my mom’s MO. Long before she dreamed up the idea for Big League Burger and helped build it up to the veritable empire it is today, she was almost too progressive a feminist for a place like Nashville, where she jokingly but not-quite-jokingly would clamp her hands over our ears anytime a line in a country song said something about girls with painted-on jeans or sitting on tailgates, saying it would make us “the complicit kind of cowgirl.”

“You know what I mean.”

But now she’s the one having trouble looking at me.

I could tell her, I suppose. About Jack. But I already know what it’ll look like—that I have a crush on him or something, and I’m backing out of something that matters to her over a dumb boy.

“I’m going to lie down,” says my mom, getting up from the table so suddenly she leaves her briefcase and her sunglasses behind. “There should be leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

I can’t stand the idea of her being upset with me. I feel it all over again like some phantom force—that tug between her and Paige, except this time, of all people, it’s between her and Jack.