Rise to the Sun

by Leah Johnson

  It’s Peter who chimes in first though. “Well, don’t we have to do this all day? I mean, another clue could drop any minute.”

  He looks around at the three of us quickly, but his eyes linger on Imani for a beat too long. It’s imploring, the kind of gaze I know I’ve worn too many times over the course of my life. In that moment, if I were a cartoon character, a light bulb would be flickering to life above my head.

  Imani doesn’t understand why I’m such a hopeless romantic because she’s never felt it. She doesn’t know the flip of your stomach when the girl you like walks into the room or the anxious rush that follows sending that “what are we?” text to your maybe-boyfriend. She’s never loved anyone besides Davey Mack, and he doesn’t count because celebrities never count (it’s in the handbook—trust me, I wrote it). I’ve missed what was right in front of me: She’s so easily annoyed by all my romances because she feels left out.

  I kick myself for not realizing sooner—this could be another way for me to make things better for someone this weekend. Call me Jane Austen, because I’m about to Emma the hell out of Peter and Imani.

  “We should go see the solo acts who are performing for the Golden Apple today,” I say, clapping my hands together like a cheerleader. “I just got a notification from the Farmland app. They’re starting now. We can go to the Cortland performance barn and get a sense of the talent. It’ll be helpful for us”—I gesture between me and Toni—“and be a good way to kill time until the next clue.”

  All of which is true, but the most important part is that the performance barn equals a dark space with close seating. The perfect setup for a romantic scene between the two lovebirds.

  Peter perks up immediately, his face and his floppy dark hair so hopeful in that moment that I have an overwhelming urge to just snuggle him. Imani clenches her outstretched hand into a fist and then releases it before sliding it into the pocket of her shorts. Toni shrugs like she couldn’t care either way, and I try not to feel some type of way about that. This isn’t about her. This is about Imani and Peter. (Until it’s time to search for the next apple, in which case it will then be about me again. But whatever.)

  “Fine,” Imani huffs. Peter whoops and pumps one fist in the air. Part of me is convinced the guy has never experienced a bad mood in his life, he’s so happy.

  He and Toni fall into step together and start in the direction of the performance barn, and Imani lowers her voice so that only I can hear as we follow.

  “So how long do we have to deal with Thing One and Thing Two?” she asks. “I’m already annoyed with the Zoë Kravitz wannabe. Honestly, who does she think she is with that hat on?”

  Imani’s generally a curmudgeon, so her comment doesn’t surprise me, but it does chafe a little. I mean, Toni might not be the most personable girl at Farmland, but she’s been cool to me so far. Nice even. And she hasn’t once asked me to be quiet, which is more than I can say for most people within ten minutes of meeting me. I feel the urge to defend her.

  “I like the hat.” I try to change the subject quickly. I elbow her gently. “But Peter is cute, right?”

  “I don’t know,” she says with an eye roll so severe only she could do it. “I don’t pay attention to that stuff. That’s your domain, remember?”

  I know she’s joking, but my neck heats, embarrassed. I shouldn’t have to feel bad about liking to kiss people and be kissed, but sometimes I really do. Sometimes, in moments when a person I love criticizes my penchant to go heart-first into everything I do, I realize there’s nothing I should want to be less than a teenage girl who feels too much.

  It’s been a long time since the two of us fought. Like really, really went at it. So her reaction catches me off guard. I almost want to call the whole thing off; just apologize to Toni for agreeing to do this in the first place and stick with my initial plan of blowing off steam all weekend before the inevitable. Because in a few days, there will be a judicial hearing where the fate of Indiana’s number one basketball recruit rests in my hands, and I have no intention of being there.

  And when I tell Imani the truth, that I can’t do it, I won’t be surprised if she’s too disappointed in me to even try and convince me to do the right thing anymore. That’s how you know Imani has given up on you—when she doesn’t even care enough to argue with you. But I have no choice. If I face the entire school board and tell them what happened between me and Troy from my perspective, I will ruin his life—and my own in the process.

  I try to push the thought out of my head, but I can’t seem to shake it completely. My chest gets tight against my will.

  “I don’t want to talk about either of them,” she says. She shakes her head and her long, loose wave bundles sway easily, kind of like she’s as disinterested in getting into it here as I am. “This is a best friend weekend. Me and you.” She adjusts her tortoiseshell sunglasses and raises her eyebrows. “Remember?”

  I do remember. Of course I remember.

  Imani and I didn’t become friends because we both love the same movies or shop at the same stores or crush on the same celebrities. Our older siblings dated practically from the moment they started at Park Meade together. Nia and Wash. Valedictorian and salutatorian, Most Likely to Succeed and Most Likely to Be President, Harvard and MIT, respectively. Twin superstars of charm and charisma and good old-fashioned Black Excellence. It was no surprise they found each other. And no surprise me and Imani found each other as a result.

  When you know what it’s like to be second-best in your family, I think it’s almost inevitable that you find the only other person who really gets it to make you their number one.

  This wasn’t something we talked about often, or ever really. But it was enough to build a truly iconic best friendship. Because as different as we are, we’re the same in the ways that count. The ways that no one can quantify. It’s why I listen to her in moments like this, even when I don’t quite agree with her.

  The look she gives me now though tells me everything I need to know. It tells me exactly why I can’t bail on her for Toni, why I have to keep my eyes on the prizes: winning the scavenger hunt, competing in the Golden Apple tomorrow, and helping my best friend get one step closer to having an epic weekend romance with a cute—if a little goofy—boy she’ll never have to see again.

  I don’t say anything else for the rest of the walk to the barn where the solo performances are being held. They’re between acts, so there’s a low hum of the audience talking and an empty stage with one light shining directly down on a lone microphone.

  The barn is big, but not overly so. There are about 150 seats in the room, with a balcony with just enough room for a table and three judges. I can’t make out their faces with the lights down so low, but I get excited anyway. Whoever they are, they’re famous. I’m not too cool to admit that the thought of being in the room with someone who may or may not have met Beyoncé is pretty much earth-shakingly impressive, okay?

  The four of us file down the aisle to a row in the back with vacant seats. We’re getting ready to step into the row when I realize the order is all off. It’s Peter, me, Imani, and then Toni. That defeats the entire purpose! At the last second before we step into our row, I reach for Peter.

  “Peter, I’m so sorry, would you mind swapping seats with me? I’m so short, it’s easier for me to see if I’m closer to the middle.”

  It’s a totally nonsense excuse, honestly a hail Mary, but Peter nods so quickly his baseball cap almost flies off his head.

  “Of course!” He brightens so fast it’s like he was just looking for a way to make himself more useful. “Did you know the shortest US president was around your height? James Madison clocked in at a whopping five-four. I’ve always thought it was unfair when people can’t, like, reach the top shelf and stuff. This is practically height reparations.” I groan and laugh at the same time at the terrible comparison.

  “Reparations isn’t the word you want to use with three Black women, Pete,” Toni mumbles. She sit
s down with a huff and slides her sunglasses off her eyes and into the collar of her tank top. She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Know your audience, remember? We’ve talked about this.”

  Peter’s eyes go wide. But I wave off the apology that’s coming. That move probably lost him a couple points with Imani, but I think we can get them back if he just keeps his foot out of his mouth.

  “Wow! Can’t wait for the next act!” I say, overly loud, trying to pivot away from the awkward situation that threatens to descend if I let it. I plop down and Peter follows suit. And right on time too, because as soon as we’re settled, the lights go down and the emcee steps out on stage to announce the next artist.

  I chance one look over at Imani, who is staring back at me with a terrifying glare. I know she’s annoyed that Peter and Toni are with us at all, but she’ll understand it was for her own good one day. She can’t see the forest because she’s looking at the trees, or something like that. The next artist up is a white guy who looks like he can’t be much older than us—probably a junior or senior in college. He steps onto the stage with nothing but a ukulele in his hand and adjusts the mic so it’s level with his mouth. I don’t really listen to his introduction; I think he says something about covering a song by Sonny Blue, but when Toni shifts out of the corner of my eye, I can’t help but look over at her. Her eyes are locked so intently on the stage, it’s mesmerizing.

  She’s focused on his every move, her expression all intense musician’s attention. I imagine what she’s going to look like when we play this stage tomorrow, if she’s going to chance a look at the judges or play to the audience or if we’ll simply watch each other. Like some kind of Black Sonny and Cher.

  I’m lost in my thoughts, in imagining tomorrow’s performance, when she stands up so fast she looks almost surprised at herself. It’s like she doesn’t even see the guy on stage, see anybody, anymore. And she walks out the door without a word.

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON

  I lean against the side of the barn and I press my hand to my chest as if that’ll make the feeling in my heart go away. It’s beating practically out of time, its intensity too much for me to take.

  The guy on stage was playing every note correctly, singing adequately, but it wasn’t right. He didn’t understand the song, not really. His voice didn’t have the rawness it’s supposed to have to tell that story. He was close to the notes but too far away from the story—light where it should have been dark and quirky where it should have been gritty. My throat gets tight at the thought of the first time I heard this song.

  I feel like I’m inside the moment Dad played it for me in his old pickup on our way to Farmland five years ago. I’d just said, “I don’t think I like boys like I’m supposed to.” And he’d responded, “Ain’t no supposed to. When Bonnie Harrison wrote: I’ll face the thunder, the earth won’t swallow me whole it sure wasn’t because she thought loving her wife was gonna be easy. Loving’s not something you do because everybody thinks it’s right—you do it ’cause hearts are all we got. Listen to this.” And then he slid Sonny Blue’s first CD into the truck’s old CD player.

  I’m suddenly overwhelmed with all the things I’ll never get to share with him again. All the songs, all the memories, all the years we’ll miss.

  I breathe slowly, in and out. In and out. I try to focus on the now. On the way the heat warms my skin even in the shade of the barn, on the sound of sandals crunching across dry blades of grass nearby.

  “Toni?” Olivia’s voice is surprisingly soft as she walks around the edge of the barn and finds me. I look up, and for a moment I’m thrown by how strange it is to be approached with so much casual familiarity. In that second, I forget that I barely know this girl. “Peter wanted to come and see about you, but I told him I would handle it.” She leans a shoulder against the wall so she’s facing me. She smiles. “I think him and Imani are meant to be together.”

  I swallow down the lump in my throat and hope she can’t hear how close I was to tears just ten seconds ago. “You think?”

  “You betcha.” She shoots the most enthusiastic finger guns I’ve ever seen at me. “I’m kind of a genius at these sorts of things.” She pauses for a second and then amends herself. “I mean that I am good at the getting together part. The rest of it, not so much.”

  It sounds like there’s a story there, but I’m not sure she really wants to tell it, and I definitely don’t know if I want to hear it. I mean, we don’t really know each other. And that’s a good thing. I don’t need any more complications this weekend than I already have. I mean, look at me. I heard a mediocre cover of a song that came out fifteen years ago and I practically imploded.

  I’m unraveling.

  “You left pretty fast, so you didn’t see the end of that guy’s performance. One of his strings snapped at the beginning of the last chorus.” She shakes her head sadly. “I really felt for him. He’s probably gonna be so down on himself for the rest of the weekend, you know?”

  The poor guy probably didn’t stand much of a chance anyway, given the pure odds of the thing, but I don’t think that’s the point. I hear what she’s saying. Even if the deck was stacked against him, he lost his one shot because of something outside his control. You don’t get over something like that easily, even if your better self tries to make sense of it. We want to believe our best try will be enough, and sometimes that’s just not how it works.

  Peter stumbles around the corner, all flailing long limbs and a cartoonish slide like he’s running away from the villain in an episode of Scooby-Doo, and slides to a stop in front of the both of us. Imani rounds the corner much slower, arms crossed and eyes shooting daggers at everyone involved.

  “Guys.” Peter hurries to unlock his phone and holds it out in front of us.

  On his screen there’s a heavily filtered Instagram photo with a white girl with dreadlocks (a crime against my sensibilities for which someone should have to pay) smiling broadly while holding up a golden apple. Our golden apple. The caption says: “Looky what I found! Did I win?”

  “I think we have some competition.”

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON

  I don’t know how this girl got her hands on my apple, but I know very quickly that she is my nemesis and I want nothing more than to take her down. She is standing between me and my car, and that’s simply not an option.

  Not to mention, you lose this scavenger hunt and Toni has no reason to keep you around anymore. The deal is null and void, my ridiculous lizard brain reminds me. If you’re not good for a good time, then what use are you?

  I work my jaw, grinding my teeth together like I used to when I was younger. Before I realized that there was power in the way I could use my body to bend people to my will, to get them to see me, even if it was only the me I wanted them to see in that moment. It’s a nervous habit that comes rushing back in moments of stress.

  “How, pray tell, did this girl manage to find an apple that we hadn’t even gotten a clue for yet?” Imani’s hands are on her hips and she’s pointing at the phone in Toni’s hand like she somehow planned this. “Aren’t you supposed to be the mastermind here?”

  Toni looks between the two of us, trying to piece something together, and I look away. For some reason, having her eyes on me is even tougher to process than when she’s vaguely distant, and I so don’t know how to deal with that.

  “Well, they never said they’d be putting the apples out as we went along. They just said they’d be dropping new clues throughout the weekend,” she says, voice low and considering. “So, technically they’re always in play.”

  “So, what do we do?” I ask.

  She just stares at me for a beat before huffing out a breath. “It means that we have to get the apple back from this girl.”

  Peter brightens at that, even though he must have known that was the solution. He pulls out his phone and opens up the girl’s Instagram page. @FestyFrankie has twenty-five thousand followers and has been updating every couple hours with diff
erent shots of her in various poses around the grounds. A wide stance and double peace signs with the Ferris wheel in the background. Blowing a kiss at the camera near the entrance, flower crown wrapped around her head.

  It’s easy to follow her whereabouts. Five minutes ago, she added a picture of a funnel cake to her story with the typewriter font in all caps saying SO YUMMY.

  Toni rolls her eyes at that update, like the funnel cake has personally offended her sensibilities. I snort out a laugh. When I do, she snaps her head up to mine, a little surprised. But her lips tick up at the corners in a smile and it feels like a victory. Like a well-earned win against her general standoffishness.

  “There are what? No more than three vendors who sell funnel cakes out here, according to this map.”

  Imani has pulled out the map that they gave us at check-in and is already running through a revised game plan. She’s always been a take-charge type of person, the voice of reason, but another part of me wishes that I was the one with the answers this time. That it was my word dictating how everyone should handle this.

  Peter beams and Toni nods. I make a suggestion: “Yeah, you’re right. So, let’s split up. Peter and—”

  Imani interrupts. “Peter can take the booth by the entrance. Toni can take the one near the Comedy Pavilion. And me and Liv can take the one around the back.”

  I’m usually grateful for her interference, for her ability to spot when I’m getting ready to make a mistake before I can, but now I’m just … frustrated. Maybe I wouldn’t have chosen to pair off with Toni. But I guess we’ll never find out. It’s like she’s taking the choice out of my hands completely, not even giving me the opportunity to prove that I can do what I said I would do. That I won’t jump at the first girl who bats her eyes at me or whatever.