“I thought you said no riding without a helmet.”
“I did. This isn’t riding. It’s standing still on grass.”
She gave her board to Kimi and stepped back. The two girls spent a few minutes doing as she’d said. Kimi kept pulling out her phone to text; Mae figured if she could text and balance, it was probably a good sign. After a bit, both girls started getting silly.
“Look at me,” Lily said, balancing on her back wheels. She toppled a second later.
Mae offered a hand. “That’s why you’re on grass. It’s fine to try that, but it might take a little while to get good at it.”
A girl emerged from the building next door and stood back, watching. Mae smiled at her. “I only have two boards. You can join us, if they’re willing to take turns.”
“My brother has one,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into her building and returned with a beat-up board. No helmet. No helmet would be okay for this first day, while they were on the grass, but after that, she’d have to insist. After that? She was already anticipating a next day.
The new girl was Joni, from Lily’s class. Two more girls showed up a few minutes later, and Kimi walked over to whisper to them and point at Mae, then approached.
“I told my friends to come over. Is that okay?”
Mae nodded. They’d have to take turns with the boards and helmets.
She started over again with Joni and the two newest girls, Fatima and Tamsin, showing them how to stand. Kimi and Lily gave pointers like they were old hands.
By evening, all five girls could balance and stand on the grass without the board flying out from under them, and she’d started showing them how to foot brake, and nobody had landed badly.
“If there’s no school tomorrow, can we do this again?” Fatima asked.
Mae nodded. “If we find more helmets.” It would be one thing if she was another kid, or if they were adults, but an adult teaching kids had some responsibility to keep them safe. Plus, she couldn’t afford to get sued.
Dana got home at a reasonable hour for the first time since everything had gone screwy. Mae made mac and cheese while Dana showered. She left the bathroom open so they could still talk. “The union rep had been in California and had to drive back. When he saw the hours we’d been working, he threw a fit, so I have a whole two days off, whether I want them or not. What’ve you been up to?”
“I, ah, you know those girls who hang out on the stoop? I started teaching them to skateboard.”
The water came on. “Really? I thought you—argh, cold! Ice cold!— I thought you were never going to touch one again.”
Mae’s hand went to her head, fingers tracing the scar beneath her hair. “I dunno. Everyone’s walking around like they’re accepting that everything is closed forever, and I figured that if we’re going to get killed any second, I might as well skateboard again.”
“Good logic there, babe. I’m not going to stop you! I miss it, myself. And not everyone is accepting it.”
“Accepting for what?”
“For people organizing. Vigils. Protests. I’ve treated a few people coming in from protests that got broken up by police. They’re out there—you just haven’t gone looking.”
“If they’re that hard to find, the people organizing them can’t be doing that good a job.”
“It’s not their fault communication’s all messed up.” Dana emerged from the bathroom, drying her hair in a towel. “We’re so used to everything being at our fingertips. We’ve forgotten how to spread information the old-fashioned way.”
“What’s the old-fashioned way? Telegraph?”
Dana disappeared into the bedroom and returned in pajamas. She reached for a bowl and answered as if there’d been no pause. “I dunno. I do know about one meeting tonight, if you want to go. This guy told me about it while I stitched his eyebrow.”
“Isn’t there a curfew?”
“Curfew’s at ten, meeting’s at eight. It’s not far. I’d have to put on real clothes again, but we could make it.”
Mae recognized the generosity of the offer of post-shower clothes, after all those work days in a row. “I’d love to.”
The café was a twenty-minute walk, a tiny independent bookstore café with a classroom in the back, where the meeting was already underway. A man with a rubber duck bandage above his left eye, presumably Dana’s patient, sat chatting with a dozen people in folding chairs.
They stood in the back and listened to plans for a major protest, warnings that no permits were being given, so any march or rally that wasn’t on private property would be an illegal one. Someone asked what the goal of marching would be, which launched a spirited discussion of protest with goals versus protest for protest’s sake. Then there were the big problems: how to get the word out, how to get the crowds that would make protest safer, how to communicate within the operation itself, if text messages were still delayed and phones unreliable.
Mae was cheered by the fact the group recognized those flaws in their plan. They appeared to know what they were doing. She liked the idea of a protest, something to focus people on the questions at hand instead of the extended, unwanted vacation. She liked, too, that they voiced some of her own concerns: that it didn’t make sense for communication to be interrupted for this long, or for news to be so hard to find and distraction so easy.
“There’s something seriously wrong on a national level,” someone said. “But I think the answers will probably be local.”
When the planning meeting broke up, Dana introduced Mae to her patient, who said his name was Duck—hence his bandage choice. They chatted for a minute and then someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to see their friend Nora, who she hadn't seen in she didn't know how long.
“You still not skating?” Nora asked.
“Nah. Can’t afford it.” Mae didn’t need to show Nora her wrists or her head; Nora had been there.
Dana put an arm over her shoulder. “It’s not the skating we can’t afford. It’s the falling.”
“Nah,” said Mae. “It’s the landing. And the work I missed in rehab.”
Nora laughed. “If you say so. We miss you at the park.”
Mae was about to mention the girls from that morning, but someone else came over to speak with Nora, and they were introduced, and the conversation drifted.
Walking back, Dana laced her fingers around Mae’s. “Did that help?”
“I think so. I’m glad someone’s doing something, even if it’s logistically challenging.”
They walked home on empty streets that felt far less safe than the usual bustle.
The next day, Mae woke to laughter below the bedroom window. She looked down to see seven girls on the steps. Lily was shoving one of her friends from behind, which Mae hoped was to see which foot she favored.
“Where are you going?” Dana asked from the bed. “Nothing’s open.”
“I’ve got a class to teach. If you want to help, come downstairs once you're up.”
She grabbed the boards and helmets and headed downstairs. Seven girls, four boards, three helmets. She’d have to fix that.
They went over what they’d learned the day before, and that day’s girls taught the new ones how to stand and balance.
“Why are you doing this?” a new girl asked.
“It’s something to do,” Mae said, which was as good an answer as any. Then she felt bad, because these girls didn’t need cynicism. “I love skateboarding, and I hate that everyone has somehow been convinced that the safest thing to do is sit around doing nothing, and I hate seeing people look bored.”
“My mom says, if you’re bored, you’re boring.”
“That seems a little unfair. I’d say that if you’re bored, you should look around for an opportunity to learn something. There’s always something to learn.”
Dana came out of the building. She stood on the top step and surveyed the scene.
“Hey, everyone, you’re
in luck,” Mae said. “It’s time for a demonstration. Kimi, give that helmet and board to Dana.”
Dana held out her hands, and the girl brought them to her.
“Is she going to ride down the steps?” Lily whispered. “That’s advanced.”
Mae grinned and stood back. She’d always been okay, but Dana was a skater who surveyed any space and immediately knew how she’d ride it. She rolled down the stairs, then did a few basic tricks. Stuff that looked impressive but wasn’t discouraging for a beginner. The next building’s stairs had a railing that gave her a chance to show off a little.
“Are we going to be able to do that, Ms. Mae?”
“Maybe. I was never able to do that last one.”
Dana returned with the board and helmet. “I’ve got an errand to run. Back in a while!”
“Can we learn to do that railing thing next?” Lily kicked up her heels in imitation.
“Nope. Next, we learn how to fall.”
The girls giggled, clearly thinking she was joking.
“I’m going to show you how to land so you don’t hurt yourselves, if you fall. This is serious stuff.” She thought about showing them the scars on her wrists and head, but she didn’t actually want to scare them off.
Dana returned around noon with arms full of battered boards and less battered helmets, enough for all the girls. They had still been falling—it turned out they liked falling—but scrambled to call dibs.
“Should we order them pizza?” Dana whispered.
Mae shook her head regretfully, the dollars spinning in her head.
The next day, with enough helmets and boards for everyone, they all walked two blocks to the empty middle school parking lot.
“Um, is there anyone here whose parents would object to you leaving the block?” It had occurred to her that she didn’t know where these girls were and weren’t allowed to go. It was one thing when they showed up at her door, another when she led them somewhere. “If anyone asks, you all decided to take a walk, right? We’re not kidnapping you?”
“Ms. Mae.” Kimi’s voice dripped with scorn. “We’re fourteen.”
“And thirteen,” said Lily. “And we walk this alone every day, when there’s school.”
Dana laughed at the exchange.
The lot had been repaved in the not-too-distant past and proved to be a safe enough practice ground. The two sets of pads had been divvied up among the girls, so that two had elbow protection, two wrist, and so on. Lily, the boldest skater among them, had taken none. Within an hour, her leggings were shredded, as were her knees, but she didn’t seem bothered. They’d brought wet wipes and antiseptic and adhesive bandages, and the presence of Dana the on-site nurse reassured Mae, even if she couldn’t help anticipating the screech of an unexpected car, the deep thud of head meeting pavement.
“Relax,” Dana whispered. “They’ll be okay.”
She tried to relax. If the world was ending, at least they’d have brought a few more girl skaters into the world. At least it kept everyone entertained.
The skies opened around midnight, and the rain continued into the morning. Dana had to return to work, and after checking to see if the library was open yet, Mae burrowed into the covers to sleep late. Until the pounding on the door.
“You’re late,” said Kimi.
Mae yawned. “How did you even know which door is mine?”
“We didn’t. We knocked on all of them. There are some grouchy people in this building.”
“We can’t skateboard in the rain.”
“We need to do something,” Kimi said, as if it was on Mae.
The funny thing was, she felt like it really was on her. She went down to the lobby. Her books were still in the corner. No; hers were gone, but other books had replaced them. Nice.
There were ten girls now, all looking at her, except one who was thumbing a paperback. How did they keep multiplying? What would they be doing if she hadn’t offered them something to do? She wished the library was open. An art project? She didn’t have any materials.
“How many of you are worried about your parents right now? Worried about how much they’re worried about bills, that kind of thing?”
A couple raised their hands.
“And how many of you want to be back in school?”
Different hands.
“And do you know why jobs and schools are closed right now?”
“It’s dangerous?”
“Well, they say it’s dangerous, but we don’t know. We don’t know if there’s something to be scared about, or if someone wants us to be scared. Are you scared?”
Heads moved in various directions. Some were, some weren’t.
She tried another. “What are some questions we could be asking?”
“How are we supposed to do year-end exams if we aren’t learning anything?”
“Are they going to keep us into summer because we’re missing school now?”
They built on each other. “Is there really someone threatening our school? How can they threaten all the schools at once?”
“We already had to risk people shooting at the malls and stores and school and stuff. How is this any different?”
“Who’s in charge of deciding?”
“If my mom doesn’t work, she doesn’t get paid, but it’s not her fault. Shouldn’t the management company take that into account?”
“And we have to eat! How are we going to pay for food?”
Mae’s heart went out to these kids. This was a lot to be thinking about as an adult, let alone a fourteen-year-old. “Okay, so next question. What can we do about it?”
They all looked at her, waiting. “It depends on which one you want to tackle, right?”
The conversation paused as Mr. Snow, from the third floor, made his slow way through the lobby, a paper bag holding a pint of milk from the convenience store in his shaking hand.
“All of them,” said Fatima, when he had gone upstairs. “They all matter.”
Joni shook her head. “The rental office. Straight up. My mom says they charge a huge late fee, and if you already can’t afford your rent, you can’t afford the late fee, either. They could waive the late fees, but they won’t. All the other stuff gets harder if we're evicted.”
The kid was right. She’d spoken with enough homeless library visitors to know how much harder everything got once you lost your home. “Okay, then. Let’s see. Their office is only a couple of blocks away.” The same company managed all three buildings on the block, and Mae assumed most of these kids came from these three buildings or the rowhouses around the corner.
“What do we do?”
Mae didn’t really know. “Ask nicely, I think.”
The rain still fell steadily, and other than one girl with a polka dotted umbrella and rubber boots, they were all underdressed for it, Mae included. The walk left them soaked.
Starsign Management had its office in a storefront on the ground floor of yet another apartment building, this one larger and more modern than those a few blocks away. The building was recessed from the street, with a well-maintained entry plaza. It would be a decent skateboarding spot on a nicer day.
The office itself had an awning, a small kindness Mae was grateful for, and a wooden front door displaying two laminated signs, one reading “$50 lost key fee,” and the other, “by appointment only.” A phone number was listed below each. She hadn’t remembered the by appointment part. Was that sign here when she’d dropped her rent check last month? Maybe they weren’t the first to stop in to plead a case.
“Who wants to do the honors?” Mae asked, pointing.
Kimi pulled out her phone and entered the number. “Hi, my name is Kimi Porter, I’d like to talk to you about an apartment. Yes. I can be there in a few minutes. Ten o’clock would be fine. Thanks.”
When she disconnected, the others copied her in their own best phone voices, giggling. Mae wondered if the receptionist could hear them over the rain; as she remembered it, the front desk was
only a few feet inside the door.
At ten, they rang the doorbell. The receptionist buzzed them in. She didn’t hide her surprise at a gaggle of dripping teenagers and one dripping librarian. “We don’t rent to students,” she said.
“We’re not looking to rent. We’re already your tenants,” said Mae.
“We have an appointment,” said Lily in an awful British accent, settling herself in the nearest chair. The others followed her lead, sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall after the chairs were taken.
“Nicely,” Mae whispered.
Kimi leaned forward. “My name is Kimi Porter, and this is my sister Lily. We live in the 152 building. Our mom is a cashier at Fresh Fare. Except they don’t need cashiers right now because the store is closed, so she hasn’t had a shift all week.”
The receptionist smiled. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do about that? We have one halftime handyperson position open. She should come in person if she wants to apply.”
“That’s not the issue. She’s got a job, but if this paycheck is short, she won’t be able to pay the whole rent. If she doesn’t pay the whole rent, you charge a fee, and then we’re playing catch up like when she had back surgery and didn’t get paid.”
The receptionist turned to Mae to answer. “It’s in the lease—”
“Talk to Kimi, ma’am. She’s the one talking to you.” Mae had expected to talk, but these kids had things to say. There was nothing for her to add.
“Kimi, the lease had specific terms. Your parents signed the lease. I can’t help …”
“Sure, you can,” said Joni. “You can choose whether to enforce those terms. You can also choose to offer a grace period or not enforce while all this is going on.”
The receptionist frowned. “I don’t have that power. I can talk to the manager, but she isn’t really big on exceptions. I’ll pass your concerns along for you, Miss Porter.”
“For all of us?” asked Fatima. “It’s not just their family. Everybody’s hurting.”
“For everyone. Now, if you can excuse me? I have another appointment waiting.” There was nobody else in the office.
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