by Dave Connis
“Hi?” I asked, sitting down, and she instantly collapsed into my arms and shook with tears for at least five minutes. Did I put off pheromones that said cry on me? What was happening?
Finally, she said, “Sorry, you were probably reading some amazing book that’d make you wanna do something crazy and brave while I sat here being a pushover.”
I didn’t know what was happening that made her think she was a pushover, or how to answer. Not because I didn’t want to, but mostly because when LiQui spilled, you let her spill.
“I’m mad at Lukas,” she said. “Raging. It doesn’t matter that he’s sexy.”
“Lukas?” I asked, confused. “Oh, you mean, like, my Lukas? What did he do?”
She nodded. “Not Don’t Tread on Me—that one was just all right.”
“I’ll forgive you for that.”
“I’m talking A House of Wooden Windows.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, that one punches too.”
She sat down, brushing tears out of her eyes. “I think I want to be president.”
“Not to be insensitive, but, like, aren’t you that . . . already?”
“No, like of the USA.”
“Oh, that’s not a minor jump. Is this because of what Ashton said?”
She glared at me. “I’d settle for senator. It’s just . . . Not that you can’t change stuff with business-degree cash, but I want to change stuff like Lila Stavey. I want to fight with craft like Levi and Joss. I want to be a lawyer. Then I want to be a senator. Then president. I was chill with business degree–ing it, seriously, but since this whole thing with, like, researching students’ rights and private-school contract law, digging into how the administration works and all the other junk I’ve been doing because of your book thing, not to mention watching you do your own shit, then reading Wooden Windows, it feels disingenuous to me to go get a business degree when I feel that civic leadership and doing grassroots change is in me bone deep. I don’t know. Maybe it’s crazy.”
She trailed off.
“Qui, that’s . . . incredible. Like, purely incredible.” I nodded. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I see it in you too. I think you’d be amazing.”
She smiled and brushed a tear out of her eye. “I see why you like your Book Honey so much; dude is a heavy hitter.”
“So you did like Don’t Tread on Me.”
“I’m just saying, Wooden Windows is much better.”
“So . . .”
“So. I don’t know what to do. Should I blow the family to pieces with the new plan? If the grandrents drop, my mom and dad will be furious. Then I’ll probably end up going to community college while you go to Vandy.”
I looked at her. “I’m sure if you told your grandparents you wanted to be president of the US, they’d forgive you for not getting a business degree?”
“You don’t know my grandparents.”
“Yeah, you’re right. What do your parents say?”
“‘They’re paying; do what your grandparents say.’” She sighed. “Anyway, let’s go get fried chicken. I figured these tears were your fault and driving emotionally impaired would’ve gotten us into a ditch, so I needed to spill them here.”
“Technically, they are Lukas’s fault. He wrote the book that started the Unlib.”
“Nah, he didn’t make me read House of Wooden Windows.”
“I didn’t either.” I held up a finger. “I shoved Don’t Tread on Me in your hands. Not House.”
“Oh, then, I guess technically these tears are the Mav’s fault.”
“What else is new?”
“Right?” She sighed. “Oh, he asked me on a date, FYI.”
“Who did?” I asked.
“The Mav—aren’t you paying attention to all my conversations happening at once?”
I found myself stunned for the second time. “Uhhhh. I thought y’all were, I quote, ‘done with a capital F for forever.’”
“He read Eleanor and Park and apparently realized that Park was everything he wanted to be as a boyfriend and here we are.”
“So . . .”
“President takes precedence.”
I laughed. “Like I always say, department of state before a mate.”
She snorted, then wiped another tear off her cheek.
“Do you feel good about that? Saying no to him, I mean?”
“Yeah. He’s going to go off to some school and play football and, even if we stuck around each other, we’re nowhere near the same gravity. But it’s still funny to think he got all these grand romantic ideas from a book.”
“Well, the Mav aside, I’m sorry about the grandparents, LiQui. That’s a really hard thing.”
“I know,” she said as she leaned into me. “Why is it that knowing who you are just makes things harder sometimes?”
I immediately thought of Jack. I thought of me. I thought of everyone.
“The same reason knowing what you believe is so confusing to figure out.”
“What reason is that?”
“Fear, I guess.”
A few seconds of silence passed between us.
I stood and pulled LiQui up. “So, how would you feel about getting pizza instead?”
LiQui scoffed as if she was offended I was considering different dinner plans, but then she tilted her head in consideration. After a beat, she looked at me with a face that said, Why does every decision have to be so hard?
I nodded. “Yeah. Tell me about it. Let’s just start driving and see what happens.”
The Librarian Is Hanging Out with His Mom
Three strange things:
My body was trained to wake up early. The library was closed. Our librarian was hanging out with his mom.
These things created a problem: I woke up early but had nowhere to go. So I made a new tradition. I answered some LitHouse emails, then checked a few of my TLLs, making sure they were stocked. Then, right before getting on the highway, I stopped at a gas station to see if the newspaper had any story about Lupton, but there wasn’t a single mention of LA.
Even after all that, I still had some time to kill, so I decided to drive through downtown Chattanooga instead of taking the highway. Driving downtown was longer because of the sheer amount of stoplights between my house and LA.
The new route brought me past the courthouse, and under the Art District, home of the Hunter Museum of Art, the museum where, on one school trip, LiQui put her glasses on the floor and we watched museumgoers stare at them like they were an art installation. There were four bridges that crossed over the Tennessee River: Highway 27 (my normal route), the Market Street Bridge (the one I took that day), the Veterans Memorial Bridge, and the Walnut Street Bridge. The Walnut Street Bridge wasn’t for cars, though; it was one of the world’s longest pedestrian bridges.
Sometimes, LiQui and I would walk the Walnut Street Bridge after school if we didn’t feel like heading home immediately. It was one of my favorite places in Chattanooga. You got to stand over the river and look out on its murky and ancient currents. On days where there weren’t clouds, I liked to believe that the bridge’s blue trusses were an integral part of the Earth’s atmosphere, and if it weren’t for Chattanooga, the sky would cave in.
Finally, I pulled into Lupton like a normal student, grabbing one of the last spots in the senior parking lot. I walked around the roundabout and into Lupton Hall, and as soon as I walked inside, I felt the whispers about the library before I even got to class.
Oh.
And Jack wasn’t in class, again.
The Second Star to the Right Finds Lost Boys
One look at our lunch table proved that the world was tilting in ways incomprehensible.
Ashton sat in the open spot next to where I usually sat. Luckily, everyone was too busy whispering about the closing down of the library to whisper about the new occupant of our table. It was strange that the thing that made people forget about table rules was not having a library.
“Hey,” I said to Ashton. “W
elcome to the second star to the right.”
He looked at me, confused, but then glanced up, spent a moment doing locational math. Then, glancing at the sun painting above our heads, he chuckled. “Why haven’t I sat here before today?”
LiQui shrugged. “We’ve been here all along, bro.”
“What? I thought it was perfect over there,” Scott added, the first thing out of his mouth.
I had to promptly shoot him a look that said, Cut the rich-kid jokes or die.
Scott grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to put you in a pigeonhole.”
“Scott,” LiQui corrected. “It’s ‘I didn’t mean to pigeonhole you.’”
“Either way, aren’t you in a pigeonhole?” Scott asked.
“Sooo,” I said, looking back at Ashton. I wanted to talk to him about Jack. About Jack’s family. How miserable Jack seemed to be. To make a plan on how to help him. But the cafeteria table wasn’t the place. “What’s up? Jack was back and then he wasn’t.”
He shrugged, not sure if he wanted to share, but he must’ve felt safe enough to venture out a little bit, which made me feel proud. We were a safe space. “Everyone’s mad at someone. I’m mad at Jack. Jack is mad at Resi. Resi is mad at me for being mad at Jack. It’s a whole thing. Anyway, I need to talk to you, Queen Li.”
I wondered if Ashton knew I knew about Jack. He hadn’t given me any looks that said, Yo, you know now, so I assumed he didn’t.
LiQui fanned herself. “Go on.”
“So you know the GSA?”
LiQui cocked her head. “Gay-Straight Alliance? Yeah?”
“You know that we haven’t gotten club funding since we’ve been official? Two years?”
LiQui’s mouth dropped. “Shut up. That cannot be true. No.”
“Well, I read DTOM last night, and because of it, I want to change everything I hate, so this morning I stopped by Principal Walsh’s office three times to ask about getting funding.”
“That book, man,” LiQui said. “Dangerous.”
I smiled at the fact that I wasn’t the one who’d said it. “Wait, so you’ve been running the GSA? Why haven’t you brought up funding until now?”
Ashton laughed. “It’s Lupton, man! They do this kind of thing and there’s nothing we can do. I see behind the scenes of all the money. Y’all really don’t know how little power we have. You know the idiom ‘money talks’? Well, here, money teaches. Money makes the rules. Money erases public records. Money buys out suspensions.”
LiQui shrugged. “For real. I knew that, sort of, being in StuCab, but I didn’t know it was that bad until this year.”
“The worst,” he said, stabbing a fork into a sad-looking Caesar salad.
“So . . . why now, then?” I asked. “Why fight it now? Why fight it when you know it’s not going to do anything? Asking for a friend.”
LiQui snorted.
“Because . . .”
I knew why. Because it was the only way he felt like he could fight for Jack. Jack. A kid whose family held the biggest legacy at LA. A legacy that wouldn’t fund a club that would support their own son. I could see the weight in Ashton’s eyes so much clearer now. He was no longer the best bro of the biggest rich jerk on the planet. He wasn’t a star-star anymore. He was a fiercely loyal friend who didn’t know how to help.
“So? What happened? Did you talk to Mr. Walsh?”
“He was never there,” Ashton said. “Always gone.”
“I think he’s got a second office somewhere,” LiQui said.
“Does anyone know if he owns a Fitbit?” I asked.
“What they’re doing has to be against bylaws somewhere, right? I want to have an event for once.”
LiQui hung her head. “After all the research I’ve done, no. We’re a private school. They can discriminate any way they want.”
Ashton sighed. “God, why have I spent three years here?”
Number of Texts Received Having to Do with the Unlib/The Closing of the Library, A.K.A. Make It Stop!
At lunch: 5
After lunch: 24
After calculus: 35
As I was doling out white covers after school: 41
When I got home from school: 56
Before I left for the football game: 67
A Fancy Email for Clara
Part A: The Email
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Founders Scholarship Dinner Final Details!
Ms. Evans,
On behalf of everyone here at the Founders Foundation, I again want to congratulate you on being a Founders Scholarship finalist. This email is a friendly reminder that the Founders Scholarship Dinner is right around the corner!
We’re all excited to hear the finalists’ speeches, and thank you in advance for all the work you’ve done preparing for this event. Please see below for all the details and information you’ll need for next Saturday.
Where: Hunter Museum of American Art
When: 6:45 p.m.
Attire: Formal
Table number: 6. Your table’s guest of distinction will be Janet Lodenhauer, founder of the Chattanooga Educators’ Commission for Change. Please come prepared with a few questions.
Dinner: After a brief time of hors d’oeuvres, dinner will be served at 7:15. If you or anyone in your party have any food allergies that need to be taken into consideration, please respond to this email ASAP.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Thank you,
Shelli Brown
Chair of the Founders Foundation
Part B: My Subsequent Reaction
Shit.
I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot.
I forgot about the speech.
I have to prepare something in a week. I need clothes. I need to figure out if my parents can even go. I was going to ask Lukas, but it’s too late notice for him. I need to prepare something in three days.
Four on a Bleacher
The library accumulated slowly. Like a steady snow. I thought it beautiful. How fitting was it that the very things that worked their truth in us over time also took the time to work on themselves.
—Lukas Gebhardt, Don’t Tread on Me
It was Friday, and for the first time in all my years of high school, I sat with three people at a football game. LiQui, Jack—who hadn’t been in class, or at school for that matter, today, but I wasn’t going to ask—and Ashton.
I hadn’t realized how many people Ashton actually talked to at this school. I mean, he was nonstop back and forth with almost everyone. He was like a one-man PR event, and it was strange for me to watch because I had this very clear picture in my mind of him literally not talking to anyone but the star-stars. I’d had it for years. How had I missed this about him? How had I not seen that Jack was a hurting soul, a product of being told to change, that he wasn’t good enough, and that he had no problems because he was rich?
Why had I thought that someone couldn’t hurt? Hurt was rainwater. Falling and dripping everywhere. There wasn’t a single place it didn’t douse, so why was it that it was acceptable to write off one person’s hurt if we considered it less than? It was as if we believed there was a universal standard for what the context of hurt needed to be before we could be empathetic.
As I thought of all this, I stared at Ashton and watched him interact with Jack, in awe of him . . . my friend. Two friends, who both, to me, felt like brand-new people who had just joined LA. LiQui saw my staring. Then nudged me with her leg
and leaned over and whispered, “You for real right now?”
I turned. “What? Oh, Ashton? No. I’m just . . . no. Isn’t it crazy what we think we know?”
LiQui looked unimpressed. “Mm-hmm. Right.”
“Seriously! Like how did we end up here? With Jack Lodey and Ashton Bricks on our bleacher?”
LiQui shrugged. “I don’t know, but . . . it’s fun.”
I stood as someone on the field caught a ball and did a thing. “I’m going to go get some snackies. I’ll be right back.”
Another thing I noticed: if it wasn’t someone talking to Ashton, it was someone talking to me about the library, which, at that moment anyway, I didn’t want anything to do with. For a while I answered honestly, but I got so sick of being poked at that my snark level grew with every second.
At the start of the game:
Them: “Do you know why it’s closed?”
Me: “Nope. Completely clueless.”
Them: “Your library is going to stay open, right?”
Me: “Until the library comes back.”
An hour later:
Them: “Why is the library closed?”
Me: “The books are infested with commas.”
Two hours later:
Them: “Why is the library closed?”
Me: “No one knows how to turn on the lights.”
By the end of the third quarter:
Them: “Why is the library closed?”
Me: “Someone dropped a hamburger from the cafeteria by the circulation desk and it linked our world to a parallel universe, so now there’s this gaping hole in the floor that you can look in and see how you’re faring in an alternate reality. I mean, if you’re not already dead. Anyway, we’re waiting for the maintenance team to fix it. Can’t have students freaking out about their mortality when Lupton’s first principle is ‘focus,’ you know?”
With every question asked of me, I felt the pressure of being LA’s sole ambassador of literature stack like bricks on my shoulders. The only relief was that I wouldn’t have to do it much longer.
I bought a bunch of nachos for everyone else, and a bag of Twizzlers for me (the candy that’s somehow both boring and good at the same time), and brought it all back to the bleachers. I handed out the nachos, but Jack seemed to zero in on my Twizzlers. So I pulled the bag open and sat next to him, holding the bag out for him to grab one, really wanting to ask him why he was gone today.