Page 83 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

“Oh, it’s okay, sweetie,” Mom says, taking the leashes from my hand. The dogs, of course, sit politely next to her. “We checked with the owner, Mr. Gonsalves, and he doesn’t mind at all; also did you know his niece is married to that boy you went to preschool with—what was his name again?”

“Kevin,” Dad says, sipping mimosa from a straw.

“You remember Kevin from preschool, don’t you, Mo? I’m sure Mr. Gonsalves could tell him to come by and say hi.”

The cold plunge is no longer working.

I look up to see if maybe there’ll be a freak storm, during which I could be struck by lightning or maybe sucked up into a tornado.

The absolutely cloudless blue sky mocks me.

“So how do you usually stand?” my dad asks, peeling himself from the chair and taking a weird squat-stance, holding his mimosa cup like a stop sign. “Like this?”

Okay, I guess this is happening.

I pull on my neon vest, unable to care that it’s still tangled.

“You won’t even know we’re here,” my mom assures me, patting Louis, who I swear is giving me a smug smile.

The kids and parents start arriving, and I do my best to ignore my own parents. It gets harder when the mimosas take hold and they cheer each time I hold up the stop sign.

“Watch out!” cries a third grader as I step out in front of a car, refusing to hold up the sign. At this time, I prefer to be flattened than humiliated.

The kid tugs on my sleeve. “Want me to help you across?” Then, as the sidewalks fill up and I rush from one intersection to the other, my parents whip out Dad’s custom foam fingers that sayMo is #1and wave them in the air.“You got this!”yells my dad.

“You’re so lucky to have supportive parents,” one of the PTA members says to me.

“I don’t know those people,” I say.

She hurries off.

I, meanwhile, zone out in the intersection for another second until a car honks. “Sorry, sorry,” I mutter as I head back to the corner.

Not my best work. Certainly not #1 foam-finger-level work, but in my defense, no one has gotten flattened and no one has fallen into the sinkhole, which is currently at least a foot wider than the metal plate covering it. I make a mental note to call 311 and ask for a second metal plate.

If I survive this shift, anyway.

I see the bulging duffel bag that suggests Mom and Dad have even more humiliating accessories just waiting to be deployed in my final minutes, but then fate intervenes and actually does me a solid. “Look, Mo!” Mom cries. “Davey, pour another mimosa!”

“Roger that, sweetcheeks,” Dad slurs.

And oh my god—like Venus emerging from her clam or whatever, Hannah climbs out of a rideshare holding a cardboard tray with two beautiful coffees.

I barely register the “sweetcheeks.”

“Need some caffeine?” Hannah asks.

Am I crying? I think I’m crying.

Hannah looks behind me, where my mom is now talking to Mr. Gonsalves through his front window about Kevin. “Why are your parents here?” she whispers.

“I think I got cursed by a mummy and didn’t realize it,” I whisper back.

I reach for a coffee.

“So this coffee comes on one condition,” Hannah says. “That you get another coffee with me. Can we chat after your shift?”

I take a sip and I am alive all over again. Sorry, cold plunge freaks. Coffee wins over cold shower any day.