Sources Say

by Lori Goldstein

  “First issue on Tuesday?” Ravi dropped into the chair in front of the other large monitor in the room. “Anything special in mind this year?”

  Ravi had light brown skin and wavy hair a shade or two darker than hers, though the summer sun had painted it with copper streaks. He’d let it grow longer. Actually, all of him had grown longer. His legs, torso, arms, which cradled his sketchbook as his graphite pencil flicked back and forth.

  “Special? I’d consider it pretty darn special if everything kept functioning.” She gingerly set her hand on the iMac. “No funds to replace anything this year since I couldn’t land any new advertisers.”

  “So just the bowling alley? I swear Mr. Murphy relies on us and people hearing clunk, thud, thud, thud while shopping for screwdrivers to let the world knows it even exists.”

  “It is bizarre that the bowling alley’s above the hardware store.”

  “Like a bowling speakeasy.”

  Cat hesitated. “Right.”

  His eyebrows drew together. “Wait, you haven’t been? Not possible. It’s like a birthday party ritual!”

  Cat shrugged. “I’m not really into sports.”

  “Me neither. But my friends and I bowl. Total throwback, but thankfully retro’s in.”

  “I’ll have to try it then.”

  “Cool. Text me.”

  Cat smiled politely and continued her examination of the equipment in the newsroom. As she bent to check the printer, she tugged on the hem of her khaki skirt—a duplicate of the one from the first day of school. Her wardrobe was a clone of itself. Rotating the same basic three outfits saved time and brainpower.

  And irked her sister.

  She was counting how many sheets of paper they had left when Ravi approached. He carefully detached a page from his sketchbook and handed it to her.

  In the drawing, a girl with a blunt bob and bangs wore a cape, a Clark Kent–style fedora, and a press badge on a lanyard around her neck. Except it wasn’t a girl. It was her.

  In the background, skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building, rose up around her. She balanced on a mountain of broken e-cigarettes, about to enter through an arched doorway labeled The New York Times.

  “This is . . .” Words, her trusty sidekick, failed her. Cartoons had a tendency to exaggerate features, using humor to mock, but this was all about highlighting the best, not the worst. She was still on the shorter side but stood tall in her surroundings, thanks partly to the platform boots he’d sketched on her feet; her long eyelashes accentuated her otherwise average eyes; her life’s dream, which she was surprised Ravi knew, was on the verge of becoming a reality.

  “You did this just now?” she asked.

  “Hence the bare bones,” he said. “Though the concept’s been in my head for a while.”

  The concept. Her?

  “Um, thanks?” Her tone unintentionally conveyed the awkwardness she felt.

  “So you like it?”

  Like? She wanted to have it framed. But she simply nodded.

  He rubbed his palms together. “Excellent. Because, and hear me out: How can a proper newspaper not have editorial cartoons?”

  Oh, right . . . that was the concept that’d been in his head.

  “Especially during an election year. There’d be no elephants for Republicans or donkeys for Democrats without a cartoonist: Thomas Nash back in 1874. Think of what The Red and Blue could do—what we could do, because you’d have total approval. I’m cool with that. And . . .” He tapped a drumroll on the paper still in Cat’s hand. “To sweeten the deal, I’ll get you an introduction to the owners of the bookstore where I work. I’m thinking they may be good for a half-page ad in the first issue.”

  “You’re bribing me?”

  “Negotiating. Do we have a deal?”

  Whatever Cat thought of editorial cartoons, she didn’t have a choice. She needed the ad as much as she needed Ravi. “Deal.”

  “Cool,” he said.

  But the decision being hers and hers alone suddenly made the absence of Stavros and Jen and the paper’s existence now squarely on her shoulders seem especially pronounced.

  “Excuse me.” A lanky kid with a fading pimple on the end of his nose appeared in the doorway. “I’m looking for Cathleen Quinn.”

  “Editor in Chief Cathleen Quinn.” Ravi rolled his hand toward Cat and bowed.

  “You’re such a suck-up,” she whispered, but her heart beat a bit faster. No one had referred to her as editor in chief out loud before. She liked it. A lot.

  The boy bounced into the room, ran his hand through his dark curly hair, and then dropped it into his pocket. “Grady Booker, ma’am.”

  “Yeah . . . don’t call me ma’am.”

  “Grady Booker, Chief.”

  Better. “Can I help you? Do you need directions or . . .”

  “Freshman, nailed it! Course you did, Chief. But what I need is a job.”

  “The newspaper doesn’t pay.”

  “The sorry state of journalism today, amirite?”

  Cat and Ravi exchanged a look, the same way she and Stavros or Jen would have.

  “But I worked over the summer, so I don’t need money,” he continued, barely pausing to take a breath. “Well, I’d like money, but what I need is to learn. To do this. From the best.” He grinned, showing a mouth full of retainers. “I need to learn from you.”

  Sucking up, just like Ravi.

  Didn’t mean it wasn’t effective.

  Was this how Angeline felt all the time?

  6

  When Angeline Battles Vegan Bacon

  25 DAYS TO THE ELECTION

  Star-spangled overload. Ms. Lute’s red, white, and blue ensemble matched her classroom, which looked like a clearance aisle after the Fourth of July. Angeline pushed her sunglasses tight against her face to block out the patriotic explosion as she slipped into a seat beside Sonya in her first government class of the year.

  The weekend had passed in a blur of filming, splicing, and refining. She’d tackled questions on everything from whether to ombre at home, to the fairness of a ruling from a peer jury system at school, to how to tell your mom she was too old to be wearing a jumpsuit. All carefully crafted responses to enlighten but not offend.

  This morning, Angeline’s tote bag brimmed with freebies from current and prospective advertisers for use throughout the day. So far, no face mask or eye cream could conquer her puffy lids or the dark circles under her eyes. No energy pill or tonic could stop the yawns that kept creeping up. Not even the free codes to the meditation app she’d been punching in one after another to “find her center,” as Sonya liked to say, had helped.

  She was tired. Tired of listening to herself talk. Which never happened.

  At least she’d lined up videos for the next three weeks. By then, this student council nonsense would be well behind her. She’d be wearing the crown as Madame President and could get back to what really mattered.

  Wait, did she get a crown? When she was president, she could make an executive order that she get a crown. A cute little tiara with red and blue gemstones. That glittered. And glowed in the dark. She could light up the path to Friday-night football games and—

  Holy smokes, was she punchy.

  She sipped on the peanut butter, sweet potato, turmeric smoothie Riley had brought in that morning. Riley considered herself a flavor connoisseur, concocting weird drinks that usually tasted like a compost bin. This one a bit of an exception. Or maybe Angeline’s taste buds were as worn out as she was.

  As the last bell rang, Angeline noticed Emmie Hayes cleaning her desk with a sanitizer wipe and talking with Ms. Lute from her seat in the front row.

  Wrong demographic, hun.

  Angeline leaned over to say the same to Sonya, but the words stuck in her throat. Leo, his left arm in that sling, ducked into
the room at the last moment. They hadn’t spoken . . . hadn’t been within three feet of each other . . . hadn’t had a single class together. Until now.

  His eyes met hers, and even though she was wearing her sunglasses, they punctured deep—right through her anger at him running against her in the student council election and to the reason why.

  The only seat free was the one in front of her. He slid in without another glance, but the loop on his sling got caught. His body jerked back, and he winced.

  “Are you all right?” The first words she’d spoken to him in weeks. She rested her hand on the back of his neck. The warmth of his skin met the coldness of hers, and they both stiffened. It was as foreign as it was familiar.

  They’d do that, her perpetual chill cooling him and his heat warming her. On beach towels on the sand, sometimes under the sun, sometimes under stars they’d try to identify, the skin on the sides of their legs and arms meeting in an exchange of temperatures and a recognition of how comfortable they were with each other. To just be, not to be someone else or someone others saw or expected to see. That mutual sense of purely existing in the present time and place where the most significant thing to be done was temperature regulation might have been what she missed most about Leo.

  Did he? Miss it? Miss her?

  She pressed her hand deeper, her claddagh ring pushing into the flesh of his neck, but Leo slanted forward to wrench himself free. Angeline’s hand fell along with any hope that he would forgive her. That this wouldn’t be her senior year.

  Sonya whispered, “Breathe, just breathe,” which threatened to actually draw out the tears pricking Angeline’s eyes.

  And the truth that she only had herself to blame.

  At the front of the room, Ms. Lute clapped. “And so we begin! Welcome, my virgin voters!”

  Half the class cracked up. Ms. Lute gave a wry smile. It was exactly the reaction she was hoping for. Angeline sat up straighter and slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head.

  “Some of you will be lucky enough to hit that big one-eight before November,” Ms. Lute said. “And I fully expect to be leading an Acedia student parade right to the polling station!”

  “We get a day off from school?” Josh Baker woke himself up enough to ask.

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then count me out.”

  “Okay,” Ms. Lute said.

  “What now?” Josh rubbed the tanned skin around his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to, like, I don’t know, tell me I’m wrong?”

  “My job is to teach,” Ms. Lute said. “You being wrong has everything to do with you, and very little, if anything, to do with me.”

  “Ooh”s and “damn”s echoed, and Ms. Lute held up her hands. “Oh, and Mr. Baker . . .” She tapped the top of her head. “Dress code.”

  Josh frowned and flicked his trucker hat off his head. “Bull. Especially since we were outta conditioner this morning.”

  Ms. Lute nodded. “Rules though. Which can only be changed by getting in the game—whether it’s in here with your student council election or out there in the voting booth. If you’re not turning eighteen before November, you’ll be able to participate by joining the hundreds of thousands of your peers who have already preregistered to vote, so you’re automatically enrolled when you do come of age.” Ms. Lute grabbed a remote off her desk. “Now, when I set out to teach here at Acedia, one thing drew me in.”

  A picture of last year’s student council, which included Emmie, flashed on the screen. A yearbook photo and still most of them hadn’t bothered to show up. Entirely representative of how student council functioned at Acedia. Which was why it was the perfect extracurricular for Angeline.

  “Unlike many schools, your student council is elected at the start of the year.” Ms. Lute pressed the remote, and a calendar appeared. “In twenty-five days.”

  “Leo!”

  “Angeline!”

  Cheers rang out for each of them.

  No one said, “Emmie.”

  Not that Angeline would have expected them to. Emmie had experience, but she’d used her time on StuCo to push blood drives and rolling backpacks and things no one at Acedia cared about. She had no real clique to speak of and the wardrobe of a schoolmarm. Emmie didn’t worry Angeline.

  “And to make sure this election provides the teaching moment that’s so important this year of all years, Principal Schwartz has agreed to my proposed amendments.” Ms. Lute clicked to the next slide. “Enter the Acedia Student Council Presidential Primary.”

  “What?” Angeline said. “We have to be in two elections?”

  She didn’t have time for this.

  Ms. Lute leaned against the edge of her desk. “Only if you want to be student council president.”

  Is that a dare?

  Or a threat?

  “We’re a microcosm,” Ms. Lute said, “and our election will be no different. Though the primary system is a relatively new addition, only dating back to the 1970s. There’s nothing about primaries in our Constitution.”

  Emmie raised her hand. “The framers didn’t even envision two parties.”

  Ms. Lute pointed her remote at Emmie. “Exactly.”

  “Exactly,” Angeline mocked under her breath.

  Leo glared at her. Angeline sunk into her seat.

  “Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton left a legacy beyond a gazillion-dollar musical. It was the election of 1800 that gave us two parties. Aided by the media. The candidates and their supporters funded the newspapers, and they dictated what appeared in print. Personal attacks based on rumors were printed as truth. It wasn’t just common, it was expected. But eventually that changed. And yet . . .” Ms. Lute pressed the remote until she landed on a picture of George Washington. “This guy was entirely opposed. He thought two parties would divide a country they’d fought so hard to bring together.”

  “He was right,” Leo said.

  Ms. Lute’s eyes shone with concern. “Hmm, you are in the thick of it, aren’t you, with your mother’s bid for Congress? To think she started on the school board . . .”

  Leo politely nodded.

  “Then town selectwoman, a woman with Venezuelan heritage able to stand out in this traditionally strong Irish community. And then state senator and now . . . Congress.” Ms. Lute crossed her fingers, starstruck. Proof that she didn’t know Mrs. Torres personally. Ms. Lute lowered her voice. “I know her schedule must be overwhelming, but if she’d ever consider a school visit—”

  Angeline watched Leo’s body go rigid.

  “I’ll be sure to let her know,” he said automatically. “If it were up to her and not her campaign manager, she’d love nothing more.”

  Respectful and diplomatic, just like the politician’s son he’d been raised to be.

  “Hush, little baby, don’t you cry,” someone sang in a soft voice from the back of the room.

  Leo jerked his head around, searching, landing on no one but Angeline. She’d hoped the teasing would have died down by now. She’d strong-armed everyone in their circle of friends and beyond into taking down the captured videos and screenshots of him. If it wasn’t online, it didn’t happen, right?

  “They’ll forget soon enough,” Angeline whispered to Leo. Every part of her wanted to say more, to apologize again, but his firm jaw and dark eyes were like a brick wall.

  He gave a cursory glance at her ring and the heart turned out, but his expression never changed. He faced front again, and she did her best to focus on Ms. Lute and the immediate problem at hand: the primary. Because if she didn’t win, or prove to Cat that she was trying to, this would all be for nothing.

  Ms. Lute flipped to her next slide: A Primary on Primaries! “We’ll see our own primary in action on Friday at a school-wide assembly. Better get cracking on your speeches, my prospective nominees.”

  She swept her hand to
ward Emmie, Leo, and Angeline, who smiled her “Ask an Angel” signature smile while thinking: Well, isn’t this a kick in the ovaries?

  * * *

  “If I’m elected, you’re elected,” Emmie said near the entrance to the cafeteria, where dozens of rectangular white Formica tables sat surrounded by metal chairs of red and blue.

  Angeline stopped and tugged on Maxine’s arm. They were on their way to get BLTs at the sandwich station—the only edible lunch all week. She missed going to Frank’s, even though she’d only ever ordered a caprese salad.

  “The primary’s Friday,” Angeline said. “We don’t have to do anything for days.” Three more students—freshmen, but still—gathered around Emmie. “What is she doing?”

  “Campaigning,” Maxine said. “The time you spent on Ask an Angel this summer’s probably the same as she’s spent preparing for this. She’s waited three years to go for president.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  Maxine laughed.

  “What?” Angeline narrowed her eyes at her best friend.

  “Have you met you?”

  Emmie’s voice could still be heard, but her small frame was easily swallowed by the few students around her. “Did you know the student council president used to serve as a liaison to the school board? Bringing concerns—your concerns—to the administrators who have the power to effect change. If I’m elected, I’ll take up that mantle once again. My figurative door will be open to all of you. Tell me what you need. Tell me what’s important to you. Tell me what I can do to effect change for you.”

  “Make them stop rejecting my happiness club!” someone cried. “Like, seriously, what’s wrong with being happy?”

  “Screw that!” Josh Baker yelled from across the room. “You need to do something about this.” He lifted his sandwich in the air.

  A screech, and Emmie’s tiny head popped above those around her. From the blue metal chair she now stood on, she said, “What is your concern?”

  Angeline snorted.