Dealer's Choice

 1.

Jumi’s Mom grinned over her oatmeal, a naked attempt to lift her daughter’s mood. “You know in a way, this is your first real summer. You get to do regular kid things. Go to the beach, hang out with your friends… ”

Jumi wasn’t having any of it. Her best friend, Arpan, had been shipped off to visit extended family in Sri Lanka. Her other classmates were busy, too. Bundled off either to camp, or their grandparents’ houses on the mainland. The majority of them were working under the radar at their own parents’ places of business — she knew two seventh graders who took tickets on the ferry, and a bunch of “junior fishermen” who sailed the harbor with their old head uncles.

“Try not to look so grim about the mouth, Jumi,” her Mom said. She patted her daughter’s cheek and poured the dregs of her orange juice down the drain. The sun was rising. Any minute now, she’d be heading off to work.

“What am I supposed to do all day?”

“I don’t know! Mix it up!” Jumi detected a dash of impatience. Her mother could never suffer whining. Whenever a younger Jumi would fuss, she would  tell her ‘only boring people got bored.’

“Mix it up, how?” Jumi grumbled. Her Mom was already making for the garage, her attention pinned on the first donut bake of the day.

2.

There are certain things that make life easier on an island. It has to do with knowing the rules. Avoid oysters during any month with ‘R’ in the name. Always wear a helmet. Never feed a gull, or really any stray thing, unless you’re prepared, as Jumi’s mother says, “to take another creature’s life in your hands.”

And this above all, in the summer: always be polite with the city people. But don’t get too close. Because you can’t get it twisted, her Mom says. The islanders need them, but they don’t need the islanders.

That need, in the case of Jumi and her mother, was a literal thing. Jumi’s mother owned Donovan’s, which was widely considered the most popular donut shop in Kookaburra. This title was hard-won. In order to maintain this status, each day of the year Jumi’s Mom would wake up before the sun rose. Christmas was the only day she allowed herself a reprieve. Typically, she would trundle to work in time to fill the glass display case with pastries before the first ferry docked. She had a team of ten during the busier months, but was the type of woman who struggled with delegation, preferring to complete tasks herself. She thought it was often easier that way.

Jumi was eight when she started working the counter. Her Mom paid her two dollars an hour — half allowance, half wage. Jumi was attuned to the hustle and bustle, and of course she loved the donuts.

The job itself wasn’t demanding so much as it was high-octane. By the time Jumi was nine, she could rattle off the typical traveler’s request by heart: three old-fashioned, three glazed, three chocolate sprinkles, three rainbows. The last one, to make a “baker’s” dozen, would always be “Dealer’s Choice.” That arbitrary request was her least favorite part of the job. Trying to guess what some stranger would like, on the spot. She didn’t like that responsibility being thrust at her.

This summer, as usual, she’d planned on working in the shop. But on Memorial Day, a water main erupted under Main Street, flooding several businesses. Donovan’s was spared. But every other bakery in town had to close for repairs. As a result, the store made money hand over fist.

That Thursday, the mayor showed up at their counter, which was unusual, as she rarely came into the shop. Aileen divided opinion in town: some saw her as someone willing to take on an unenviable duty, others as a woman with ghostly ambition and spurious municipal claims. Jumi’s mother had run against her, years before Jumi was even born, a rare challenge to Aileen’s Mayor for Life status, and one that the woman never forgot. There was no love lost between the women and Jumi often witnessed her mother’s lips purse whenever they passed Aileen in the street.

As Jumi wrapped up her Boston Cream, Aileen wondered aloud why she was working the register when she should have been in Mr. Monahon’s penultimate English class. There was an explanation — students had been given a half-day, because so many parents had to deal with the plumbing situation. But it didn’t matter. The mayor had seen what she needed to see.

The day after the pipes were repaired, Jumi’s Mom received a letter from the city council. It was an injunction that threatened to take action against Donovan’s unless she immediately complied with “child labor laws.” Jumi was thirteen, young for her school year, and technically not allowed to work a full-time job during the academic calendar. Her Mom pursed her lips so hard as she read that Jumi worried her face would permanently remain that way. Jumi hasn’t worked at Donovan’s since.

3.

Most teenagers graduating from middle school would relish the freedom to fill their own summertime, totally unsupervised. But Jumi didn’t know what to do with herself. The stuffy surroundings of Donovan’s, the bustle of the customers, the sound of the cash register, were all part of her practice, a ritual she’d grown accustomed to. Within an hour of sitting around the house, it felt like the walls were closing in around her. She decided to do the dishes, and then read two chapters of a Nancy Drew adventure before putting it down. She checked in on her Sims family. But somehow all this effort only brought her up to eleven o’clock.

She put her sneakers on and decided an outside walk would do, that some sun on her face might be good. But as she opened her front door, she was confronted by the sight of a girl, spinning on the tire swing Jumi’s mom had strung from their sycamore.

“Hey,” the girl said. Very casual for a trespasser. She frowned and looked up at the house. “You live here, huh?”

Jumi nodded, cautiously. For all its friendliness, Kookaburra rules were strict about trespassing.

“Cool-cool-cool. We’re renting that little number,” the girl said and pointed in the direction of the fancy block just across the way. She had long dark hair that she wore with neon green tips, like Billie Eilish, and light eyes that seemed to burrow into you as she spoke. She spun so hard a branch creaked. “Sorry if I scared you. Can’t resist a tire swing.”

“No worries.”

She smiled. Jumi smiled back, out of compulsion. And maybe, a little bit of fear.

Nella wasn’t an islander. Her family was in town so her parents could lead a surf camp on the Sound. Nella herself didn’t care for surfing. “Why this conqueror’s impulse to tame the unknown all the time?” she said, legs kicking dust all over Jumi’s yard.

Jumi surmised that Nella was older than her — but not by much. Nella refused to say. Jumi guessed she had to be fifteen, maybe sixteen (it was, in fact, the latter). Tumbling off the tire swing in one graceless gesture, Nella ambled over and hit Jumi with her intense eyes.

“Enough baby stuff. You want to come to mine?”

4.

The rental was bright and clean, but lacked personality. After wiping her grubby hands on a cloth towel, Nella flung the freezer open and handed Jumi a popsicle.

“So what brings you to the bonny isle?” She asked, and plopped down on the sofa across from Jumi. It took Jumi a moment to parse her meaning. She opened the popsicle — a purple one — as a sluggish attempt to stall for time.

“Um, I live here? Born and raised. Just me and my mom.”

“Ah, amazing,” said Nella. She bit hard into her own sweet treat, as though unafraid of any brain freeze. After she’d devoured it in two bites, she slid the wooden stick between her teeth and pretended to smoke it, like a cigarette. “I’ve been dying to convene with the natives. What’s your mom like?”

Jumi was briefly stumped, curious about the line of questioning. She hadn’t ever had to describe her mother before. And what was meant by ‘native?’ Nella had asked the question with an elevated sense of fascination, as though the natives might be alien. All the same Jumi found she had the urge to impress this strange girl. This chomping, stomping tourist.

“She’s tough, but fun. Always has powdered sugar on her face, but almost never blots it off. And she never complains,” Jumi said. Nella smiled, satisfied.

“So you grew up in a bakery. That’s so… provincial.”

“What does that mean?”

“‘See the squishy little baby, all covered in sprinkles. Buy a donut,’ I don’t know.” Nella shrugged. “Though I guess my parents did that kind of thing to me. Used my face on their little posters and website. All to make it look like I had this idyllic seaside childhood, so they could make the big bucks.”

Nella looked off into the distance, briefly lost in thought. Jumi was still trying to keep up. It had never occurred to her that her presence in the bakery could ever have been anything but practical. And she still had no idea what Nella meant by ‘provincial.’ But the popsicle was sweet, and she’d barely cracked its cool surface. “Sure,” she said. Just to say something. It seemed to be effective.

“So tell me, J. Is this town as edgeless as it seems? I’m seeing lots of picket fences, lots of cutesy mailboxes. I bet everyone makes pies. Right? And says, ‘Hey there, neighbor,’ like Ned Flanders?”

“It’s a pretty friendly town,” Jumi admitted. But something in her wanted to complicate Nella’s portrait. “Well, except for the mayor.”

She shared the circumstances that led up to her mother having to fire her, and embroidered the story a little, having gathered the sense Nella’s attention span was short. She described Mayor Aileen as her mother’s “nemesis,” not knowing what truly happened between them. Rumors have circulated and have gathered wind and wings over the years. Everything from tall tales of a passionate high school love triangle, to scandal and financial impropriety. Jumi reached for the popular rumor. That the decades-old conflict was related — somehow — to church.

“Wow,” Nella said, almost too giddy for Jumi’s liking. “Talk about small town nonsense,” she said and waved her stick, gesturing for Jumi to continue.

She shared what she thought she knew. Aileen and her mother had both grown up on the island, and attended the same Pentecostal storefront revival before its pastor fled town with the contents of the collection plate. “But I seriously don’t know the rest. Except for the fact that Mom doesn’t do organized religion anymore,” Jumi said.

Nella’s eyes crinkled. She nodded, but didn’t say anything. The subject turned to “regular” things — the surf camp kids, the best beaches on the island.

They had three more Popsicles apiece before Jumi left, her stomach turning with the sudden fructose overload. As Jumi was leaving, Nella clapped her on the shoulder. “Thanks for the tea,” she said.

5.

Jumi never questioned why Nella chose to hang out with her, rather than the local teenagers her own age. She was too appreciative. But it was clear from the outset that this girl was — like Jumi — irregular. She wasn’t like The Menaces — as Jumi’s mother called them — those teens you saw working downtown, or loafing outside the cineplex. Nella hated the other tourists, who raced their dirt bikes over the dunes, and left litter on the beach, after their ill-tended bonfires. The rich ones rented speed boats they didn’t know how to drive and had to be dragged back to shore in the middle of the night by the Coast Guard.

Nella didn’t go in for any of those things. But as Jumi had witnessed that first day, she did go in for drama. Each day they spent together began the same. Nella would appear at some point on the tire swing and ask Jumi to “spill the tea” about the “natives.”

“Who’s hooking up?”

“Who’s in a feud?”

“Who’s on your nerves, today?”

Her questions were endless.

Whenever Nella grew tired of spinning, the two would stroll the streets with a bag of day-old donuts. Jumi would point out houses and answer Nella’s questions with visual aids.

That’s Mr. Burke’s place. He’s got two different families on opposite sides of town.

That’s Letitia Gary’s house; she owes the arcade a hundred thousand dollars for a pinball machine.

“Yesssss,” Nella would reply, whenever something struck her as particularly intriguing. Or: “Oh, fantastic. That’s aces. Jui-cy.”

Getting those ‘Yesssses’ satisfied Jumi. She liked being able to hold Nella’s attention. It didn’t take long for Jumi to grow adept at sensing what Nella would find ‘aces.’

One Friday, as they were ambling around the North tip of the island, Jumi pointed out old Mr. Melroses’ place, where — years ago — two graduating seniors had died when they crashed their ATVs into his barn.

“That sucks,” Nella said, her eyes fiery. “But on the other hand, what a cautionary tale.” Jumi was headed to high school at the end of the summer. Nella made her promise to be shrewd about her associations. “Don’t ever let a maverick into your corner.”

Jumi took a bite of her donut and chewed it slowly as she contemplated Nella’s words. It was frequently like that between them. Nella would spout and Jumi would contemplate.

“What do you mean by ‘corner?’” Jumi finally said. “What’s my ‘corner?’ Exactly?”

Nella leaned over and wrenched a piece off Jumi’s Blueberry Cake. “Your corner is the little envelope of the world that’s just yours. Before anyone else’s influence,” she said as she spoke through a full mouth “Like — what do you call this?” She gestured, spraying crumbs.

“Um… a donut? Duh?”

“No. You call this a ‘Dealer’s Choice,’ right? This donut is the one you arbitrarily picked out. It’s your Dealer’s Choice.” Jumi nodded, slowly, still trying to follow. “Think of it this way: the corner is where you deal from.”

Jumi frowned, and considered the side of the barn. Mr. Melrose, who ran the hardware store, had repainted it a soft periwinkle color since the accident. Any evidence of grisly tragedy had long since been erased.

“But it’s not like the kids who died here made a choice,” she said. “I mean, not that I remember. They weren’t on drugs or anything. They didn’t mean to die.”

“They made a choice to get on those bikes, didn’t they?” Nella clicked her tongue. “ATVs. Trashy things. You can’t even drive them in Boston.”

“That’s a little cold, isn’t it? It was an accident.”

Nella shrugged. “Look, all I’m saying is, you can do your best to avoid certain outcomes by being very, very intentional about who you spend time with. Like I’m being, right now. With you, ya cool cat.”

She punched Jumi’s arm and something in her tone made Jumi want to punch back.

“My mother has a saying,” she said. “If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.”

“I thought your mom didn’t believe in God anymore,” Nella crowed. She pinched the last piece of donut from the bag and darted off down the road.

6.

It was during their fourth “tea party,” (as Nella called them) that they found themselves in front of Knott’s Landing.

“Who’s in there?” Nella trilled, stopping to gawp at the big white mansion. “That is a house.”

“That’s the mayor’s place,” Jumi replied.

“Sticks out like a sore thumb among these caddyshacks. Gosh, it looks like one of my parents’ friend’s houses. Like it belongs in Beacon Hill, or something.” Nella reached out to touch the wrought iron fence that encircled the property, then whirled on Jumi. “Okay. Tea time. I gotta have more juice on this mayor/Mom/nemesis situation.”

“I got nothing, I told you,” Jumi replied. She wasn’t very convincing. Half of her attention was stapled to the upstairs windows, where she imagined Mayor Aileen would show her face at any second. It was easy to picture her disapproving glower. What horrible letter would she write her mom next, if she saw them loitering at her fence?

“But church isn’t enough,” Nella said “There must have been a personal slight, at some point. Like, was this about a boy? Oooh, did she steal your dad away or something?”

“No,” Jumi replied, bristling. “I told you — my Dad’s whatever. Not in the picture.”

“But there’s gotta be something.” Nella’s eyes narrowed with mischief. “Like, she clearly messed up your summer. Maybe your Mom’s whole life. I mean, you’ve gotta really hate this woman. Right?”

Jumi wasn’t sure any of this was ‘right.’ But she couldn’t help but picture her mother’s pursed lips. She thought of the yeasty, cozy smell of Donovan’s. And all the time that had been stolen from her. Time that could have been spent with her mom, in a space in which she felt she belonged, a space no one else had the right to take from her.

“I guess I do,” Jumi finally said. “I guess I do… ”

Nella grinned.

7.

Nella wanted to walk to Knott’s Landing every day after that. The big white mansion became our destination without either of them seeming to decide it. Nella studied the walls of the house as though she was trying to determine viable entry points. She’d hold onto the fence posts and tug, as if her will alone could uproot the poles.

And every day, she’d ask Jumi for more details. More tea.

Do you think it was political?

Are you sure it wasn’t about a boy?

Could she be jealous of your mom, for any reason?

It struck Jumi that it was as though Nella was building a case. The idea of adults at odds seemed to please her. And the more Nella questioned, the more Jumi found Mayor Aileen increasingly taking up space in her own mind. There was a thin film of anger that began to saturate her beneath the skin. Maybe the mayor was to blame for everything small-minded and stupid about the town. Maybe that was the idea, to keep everybody thinking small while she reigned supreme from her majestic white house on the hill.

“Where was she the day those kids crashed into the barn?” Nella asked Jumi one day as they walked along the rise that flanked the house. “Terrorizing your Mom, I bet.”

Another day, as they stared up at the turret, Nella picked up a pebble. “What if I just put this through a window,” she said. “Do you dare me?”

Jumi stared. Frozen. Nella held her gaze.

“Nevermind,” she said, dropping the stone.

8.

Jumi and her mother had a ritual. Most days, Omalolu would arrive home exhausted around three, and wind up falling asleep in front of the television while Jumi made dinner. They were slowly marathoning reruns of The Office, thankful that it was running on network. Something about Jim and Pam and Dwight soothed Omalolu — Jumi assumed it was because her mother had never worked in an office.

Jumi liked cooking. She was particularly talented at it, but she’d picked up the fundamentals of baking while working in Donovan’s. She’d mastered Julia Child’s famous soufflé earlier that year, with a little help from TikTok. That night it was a broccoli and cheddar cheese quiche.

“That smells amazing, Jujube,” Mom said, on waking. “How did I get so lucky?” She trailed Jumi into the kitchen.

“It takes one to know one,” Jumi replied and her thoughts went to recent conversations with Nella. “Hey, speaking of luck. Do you ever feel lucky, in general? Like… as a person?”

Mom made a face. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think the world’s been friendly to you? Or do you like… ” She floundered, in search of the right words. “Does it ever feel like people are plotting against you? To make things… unfair? I dunno.”

Her mom set her fork down and peered at Jumi. “I don’t really go around carrying a chip on my shoulder, Jumi,” she said, enunciating her words very carefully. “And I have to be honest, sweet pea. I’m not sure that’s a healthy way to live.”

Jumi was dying to ask: what about the mayor? What actually happened there? But Omalolu looked at peace and contented. In the end, Jumi didn’t want to bother her.

It occurred to Jumi later, while walking the dunes, that she’d leaned on her mother all her life. But you couldn’t lean too hard on anything. That was another saying of Nella’s. Lean too hard on, say — sand — and it will give way beneath you.

9.

The first phase of Nella’s “plan” involved meeting outside of usual hours. At twilight, Jumi was to join her at the edge of the Sound, near where her parents held their surf camp sessions. Jumi waited until her Mom was cozy enough with the Dunder Mifflin gang again before sneaking out the back and wheeling her bike out of the garage.

It was hard to pick a path over the stones in the fast-ebbing twilight. The beach she’d known all her life was suddenly a mystery. But she could just barely make out the flames of a bonfire, surrounded by a few languishing surfboards. They looked a little like coffins, from up high.

Close up, the surf camp kids looked older to her. Scary old. Their teenage status was striking, obvious, in a way that Nella’s wasn’t. Or maybe it was that the crowd was so glossy. Even in the low light there was a lot of shiny hair and white teeth.

Jumi felt their eyes scanning her as she entered their circle. She wondered who they thought she was. The provincial native? A charity case?

Nella cleared her throat. She reached for Jumi’s hand, which Jumi found reassuring — but when Nella spoke, it was in a deep, husky voice.

“Operation Townie Vengeance,” she snarled. The plan was to drive to Knott’s Landing, don face masks and wreck the walls. The other kids looked skeptical at first. But then Nella bent down, pushed her ukelele aside and briskly unzipped the backpack. Faces began to sparkle with mischief. Inside the backpack were a set of paint cans. Jumi recognized the brand from Melrose’s Hardware Store.

There was a long silence. Then one of the boy’s cleared his throat and said, “Bad—. We can take my Jeep. And dibs on Silver.”

He reached over and lifted a canister of silver spray-paint from Nella’s bag, and then immediately started shaking it back and forth. It made a clicking sound. He winked at Jumi when he caught her staring at him. Her stomach lurched.

Another kid with a blonde platinum bob raised their hand. “So just to be clear, Nell,” they said. “The plan is to prank the mayor’s house?”

“That’s right.”

“But… why?”

“Because we can,” Nella cried. “And literally what else are you doing, on this dull summer day? Another bonfire?” Some surfers snorted at this. But a few looked puzzled. As if suddenly remembering Jumi was beside her, Nella turned and squeezed her hand. “I should also say, our mission is just. Old Aileen did Jumi’s Mom dirty, back in the day. She deserves payback.”

One girl, Anise, turned to Jumi, squinting. “What did she do?”

Jumi felt everyone’s attention swivel towards her. In that moment she realized afresh that she had no idea what had come between Mayor Aileen and her mother. The only proof of evil she had was a bunch of unconfirmed gnarly rumors. And she knew the labor injunction would hardly make Aileen sound like much of a villain.

Nella seized on the silence that gripped Jumi. “It’s something deeply personal” Nella, with dramatic sympathy. “Dare I even say… embarrassing?” She looked Jumi full on in the face and squeezed her hand. “It’s the whole reason they have to work at that dinky coffee shop.”

The shock — the way in which the lie came so easy to Nella, so fast — was riddled on Jumi’s face, a shock the teenagers construed as shame. Now was her chance to say something otherwise, but she couldn’t find the words. Instead, in frustration at this state of freeze she found herself in, her eyes began to well and glistened in the fire light.

“Jesus,” said Anise. “That’s tough.”

One of the boys, Skyler, stood up and started shaking his paint can with even more vigor. A few others reached over to select their own colors. Jumi caught another peek inside Nella’s bag and saw, below the spray paint: toilet paper, plastic bags, weed killer, and a staple gun.

10.

Even to this day, there are certain sounds Jumi associates with Kookaburra: the low moan of the foghorn, bursting through the mist. The tinkle of bells over doorways. Bicycle horns. Gulls cawing. Waves crashing, again and again, against the rocks on the Sound.

And sirens.

She never found the answers to all the questions she had about Nella. For all the time they spent together, she told her surprisingly few true things about her life. Now that Jumi was a teenager, and time had created distance, she could better make out Nella’s shadow, or at least imagine her motivations. She recalls their long afternoons in conjoined loneliness and imagines Nella must have felt so stranded. And, more than anything, bored, just like Jumi.

The difference between them was power. She thought Nella believed rules did not apply to her. And that people were toys, placed on earth for amusement. Nella didn’t believe they needed each other for anything but entertainment. A tire swing, a Popsicle, a secret.

And, whenever Jumi’s not overwhelmed with shame from all the messy aftermath of “Operation Townie Vengeance” (for the the mayor’s lawn was trashed, the police did catch them, and some even went to juvie for vandalism — the summer was ruined, for all), she can appreciate the one bit of useful advice she took from her summer tango with that quintessential summer girl. You deal from your corner. And that has always stuck with her. Now Jumi holds tightly to the idea that you don’t have to let everyone play.

You’re the dealer, in the end. It’s up to you to make a choice.