Doomed by Tracy Deebs

boots and I shiver at the sound. It’s crazy, I know, but I love the crisp noise they make and always have.
    Eli’s hand brushes against mine, and though I stiffen in surprise, I don’t move away. A few seconds later, his fingers tangle with mine, and I relax. Let him hold my hand. In those moments—despite the game, the lack of communications, my absentee mother, the lost e-mail from my father, and everything else—I’m calm, forgetting to freak out.
    Which lasts until we hit the back door of Little Nicky’s, and find, inside, chaos reigning in all directions. It’s eighto’clock, and the place is still packed as usual. But instead of the regular semiorganized disorder that comes from people jockeying for tables as their friends or family members wait in line, there’s an air of palpable panic that is turning the place into a madhouse.
    “What’s going on?” I ask, absurdly grateful that Eli is still holding my hand.
    “I don’t know.” Theo shoulders his way through the seething crowd and we follow, Emily, me, and then Eli in back. We get close to the counter, and I realize that the three people working there aren’t entering the orders into the registers like they usually do. They’re handwriting them, then trying to total the items up on pieces of scratch paper.
    They don’t even have calculators, and from the frustrated looks on their faces, math isn’t their strong suit.
    We stand there watching. It’s kind of like rubbernecking at an accident that’s about to happen. You see the two cars about to run into each other, you want to stop them, but you’re too far away and the drivers aren’t paying attention to you, anyway. You can’t do anything but watch as they collide.
    Here, at Little Nicky’s, that collision is just happening, and the fallout is growing with each passing second. Because even when the cashiers do get everything right the first time, which has only happened once in the nearly ten minutes we’ve been standing here, the customer can’t pay. The credit-card machine is down and she doesn’t have any cash on her.
    Her shoulders slump as the two children, one on either side of her, start to cry, and it’s obvious she’s so frazzled bythe whole situation that she doesn’t know what to do. I think of my debit card nestled in my wallet and how I don’t have any cash, either. If I did, I swear I would have given it to that mother with the two hungry kids.
    “Let’s go,” Eli says. “Nothing good’s going to come out of this.” He starts pulling me back through the crowd, which has grown bigger and more hostile in the time we’ve been there. People are yelling and demanding service, some are pushing and shoving, and others are berating the people behind the counter for being slow and stupid.
    I’ve never seen anything like this, and it scares me a little. I can tell Emily feels the same way, because as Eli uses his massive build to force our way through the crowd, she clutches on to my other hand so tightly that I fear ending up with a bloody stump when she finally does let go. I look back at her, just to make sure she’s doing okay. Over her shoulder, I see Theo pull out his wallet and hand the upset mother some money.
    The crowd is spilling onto the sidewalk in front of the pizza place now, their complaints growing louder and louder. Any joy I had in the beauty of the night is gone, and I can see that my friends feel the same way.
    “So, do you want to try someplace else?” Eli asks, though he doesn’t sound encouraging.
    “It’s going to be the same anywhere,” Theo answers grimly. He isn’t looking at us; he’s looking across the street and when I follow his gaze, I realize that he’s right. I can see through the front windows of the two restaurants across the street—my mom’s favorite little French-style bistro andthe Greek restaurant Jules swears by—and the situation is just as dire over there.
    “Screw it. We have food at my place,” Emily says.