Kris stopped mid-turn and studied me for a second, confusion all over his face. “This might not be your world and I really don’t understand why you’re doing it, but you have an amazing way of making words come to life and a great voice. Probably better than anyone here. You could probably read the water ice menu at Marranos and beat half of them. You don’t have anything to worry about.” He then finished turning, waving over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back with the aspirin.”
My heart sped up at how he complimented me followed by a massive crash when I realized that was the most politically nice way of saying yes I’d ever heard. I buried my head into my knees and tried to block everything out. When Kris came back with the aspirin and a bottled water, I took them, even though I didn’t need them. And when he perched on the chair’s arm and gently rubbed my back without saying a word, I didn’t protest. It might have been fake comfort, but at least I didn’t have to feel alone for a little while.
“We make change,” Ann reminded me of the Change Council theme in a tone that was way too perky as she passed me with a box full of peanut butter sandwiches in individual zipper bags. In her quest to force me to get up at an ungodly hour each morning, Ann had come up with the idea that all of us would volunteer at a local soup kitchen before breakfast at least one day of the week, and the organizers loved it. Thanks to her, all of us from the L through “New” states were either lined up behind tables set up in the soup kitchen parking lot or inside helping with lunch preparation.
“Yes, we do,” I said back to her, pushing away the voice in the back of my head that said it would rather still be in a warm bed. I filled another cup almost to the top with coffee and, careful not to spill it, handed it to the man in front of me with a smile, then moved onto the next cup. I had probably already handed out almost one hundred coffees by that point and the parts of me not in direct contact with the giant coffee urn were starting to freeze in the early morning cold, but I wouldn’t let my smile fade. The middle and last people in the line snaking around the soup kitchen parking lot deserved as much of my attention as the first people.
“Hey.” Kris slipped into the space next to me, grabbed a styrofoam cup, and started filling it while I was busy talking to the woman who had just taken my cup. “We finished making the pasta for lunch, so they sent me out here to help.”
I took the full cup from him, assembly-line-style and said, under my breath, “Why aren’t you handing out sandwiches? I’m good here. We don’t need more than one person to hand out coffee.” I was too sleepy to waste any of my small reserve of nice energy on him.
“Peanut allergy. That’s why I couldn’t help make the sandwiches earlier.”
“Oh.” I passed out two more cups of coffee before adding, “So, the high and mighty Kris isn’t perfect, after all.”
We started falling into a rhythm of him filling up cups and me handing them out. Kris’ eyes scrunched in amusement as he looked over at me. “I think I can survive perfectly well without eating peanuts.”
“I don’t know about that. The soup kitchen guy,” I nodded over at the older man who had been guiding us all morning as we made sandwiches, “said peanut butter is full of protein, so you’re totally missing out.” I poked him in the bicep, which was decidedly not soft, but I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of knowing that.
He rubbed his arm but otherwise ignored my dig. “That explains why it’s always peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the morning here. I thought it was just because nobody ate peanut butter anymore and the extra jars had to go somewhere.” His face was hidden behind the coffee urn and I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or serious.
“Yup, protein and all the good fat. If it’s going to be the only thing someone eats all day, it has to…” I tried to remember what soup kitchen organizer guy said while Kris was outside setting up the tables, “‘pack a nutritional punch.’”
“Two sandwiches and a cup of coffee isn’t a lot,” Kris said, his eyes focused on the cup he was filling.
“I know,” I said, just as softly. “It sucks, doesn’t it?” I forced my most brilliant smile for an older man in a worn puffy coat, “Good morning.”
“Yeah.” Kris looked up at me as he handed me another cup, but then his focus went past me to somewhere near the end of the line. His brow furrowed. “There’s a guy in a suit on line,” he said, and his eyes narrowed. “What’s up with that?”
I didn’t even have to look—I knew exactly who he was talking about. “What do you mean by ‘what’s up?’” It took everything in me to keep my rapidly growing annoyance out of my voice.
“I mean, he’s in a suit,” he said, like it explained everything.
“And?” I prodded, pushing back the tiniest bit of glee that was bubbling up at his discomfort at my questions.
“And he has a pretty decent cell phone for a soup kitchen line. It doesn’t seem right,” he said, not realizing how spoiled and tone-deaf he sounded.
I took the next cup from him with a little more force than necessary. “So you’re saying he looks like he doesn’t deserve to be in line?”
“It just seems wrong that he’s in line for a free sandwich when everyone else here needs it more.”
“Let me guess, you think he’s just a moocher.”
Kris’ hand slipped while filling a cup and he let out a quiet curse as hot coffee spilled on his hand before saying, “Well, yes.”
“Don’t assume stuff about people.”
“I know you love to debate, but c’mon. What else can I assume about some guy with a nice suit and a briefcase waiting on line for free sandwiches?”
“How about the truth?” I narrowed my eyes at him and hoped the people on line weren’t watching us. “That guy you think is ‘mooching’ is a professor at the college we passed on the way here. He,” I gestured with my free hand in the direction of the guy who ran the soup kitchen, “told us that, about a month ago, the college converted him from tenure to adjunct—you know, basically fired him and rehired him—with less than forty hours so they didn’t have to pay his benefits and he had to choose between having a place to live and eating. That ‘moocher’ has a doctorate, by the way.”
Kris had the decency to look abashed. “Oh.”
My cheeks grew warm partly with anger and partly with embarrassment over how much his comment bothered me. “You really don’t know anything about the real world, do you?” I said, my words filled with more venom that I thought they could be. This argument hit way too close to home.
“I—”
I nearly dropped the coffee I’d been holding, but forced myself to carefully set it down on the table without showing how much my hand was shaking. “Excuse me.” My voice was low and cold, like the time I’d played the Snow Queen, and I pushed past him and into the building behind us.
As soon as I was out of sight, I stopped trying to hide how my hands, and soon my whole body, were shaking. I dropped onto a bench on the side of the big soup kitchen dining area, crossed my arms tightly around myself, and started doing breathing exercises Mr. Landry had taught us to work out stage fright. I needed a minute to compose myself before I could go back out there and pretend that nothing happened.
Kris came into my line of sight, his own arms crossed and his brow even more furrowed than before. “Hey, what just happened out there?”
“You didn’t leave the coffee, did you?” Of course he did. Why care about helping people when he could come inside and rub in some more about how his family was so rich they didn’t have to know or care about other people’s problems?
“Ann took over,” he said, calmly, then added in a more annoyed tone, “What the hell was that all about? I get that I made a stupid assumption, but you didn’t have to blow up at me like I’d just said the soup kitchen needed to be shut down or something.”
I looked him straight in the eye, ready to say everything was okay, but after less than I second, I dropped my gaze to my knees. “My mom’s a professor. You know that,” I said so quietly I
almost couldn’t hear myself.
“Oh.” The bench creaked as he sat next to me, keeping a decent amount of space between us. He dropped his elbows onto his knees so our faces were at the same level. “Yeah, but your mom’s at a big university and she’s pretty high up, isn’t she? Like, doesn’t she head the history department at Schuylkill U? She’s safe from stuff like that.”
I side-eyed him hard. “Don’t you think crap like this can happen everywhere? And not just universities and colleges, but companies, too.” Dad telling us about the layoffs popped into my head and I swallowed hard. “That professor has a freaking doctorate. He probably busted his ass to get it and probably has a ton of student loans. And then he got the rug pulled out from under him.”
Kris put up his hands in an “I surrender” motion. “Sorry. You’re right, I was being a total jerk out there.”
“Yup, you were.”
“Wow, it must suck to be that guy.”
My side-eye turned into a stink eye. He really didn’t get it. “You know, people don’t want you to feel bad for them. People in bad situations still have their pride, and it’s really hard for most of them to ask for help. They don’t need your holier-than-thou privileged ass ‘feeling sorry’ for them.” I was on a roll, and Kris wasn’t pushing back, so I kept going, pouring out everything that had been building in me all morning from what I’d been hearing from him and all the other clueless people around me as we set up. “And that whole ‘there but for the grace of God’ crap? That’s even more privileged, like the people saying it are shoving other people’s problems onto a deity because they think their God is so awful or tiny or limited that he or she would help some people but not others. You,” I pointed my finger at him sharply, “have no freaking idea what got those people in line this morning, and that political shit-show you support creates policies that probably shoved some of these people under the poverty line.”
That comment made Kris’ entire body stiffen. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. The same politics you hate have, for decades, focused on creating job growth so people could get themselves out of poverty and made good change in our country. This—” he gestured towards the door and the line of people, “doesn’t do anything but stick a Band-Aid on the problem. It’s small scale and it’s good that we’re doing it, but it doesn’t fix the reasons people are going hungry. If people are under the poverty line, maybe it’s because people like you keep pushing the government to help them out instead of giving them a way to do it themselves.”
“Really? Tell that to the individuals going hungry. Because without us helping out today, a lot of the people out there weren’t going to eat anything. And other people lose their houses or get sick and don’t have the money to pay for the medicines they need because of those policies you love that help big companies instead of the little person. And while your precious policymakers fight, those people depend on this…what did you call it? Band-Aid.” I straightened up like I wasn’t going to give an inch, and so did he. “Your policies don’t care about the individual, damnit.”
“If you want to make real change, you need to look past the immediate now. Good policy creates economic tides that raise everyone up. You care about the person and so do I. Except where you want safety nets, I want to empower them. We both care about the individual,” and then, in direct imitation of me, he added, “damnit.”
Ann poked her head around the corner and she froze in place, eyes wide, like she was afraid to venture any closer. “Um, can you two come out here and help us carry in the coffee urns and tables?”
Kris’ eyes didn’t leave mine as he stood up. “Sure. Be right there.” And, without letting me get in another word, he turned and walked out.
From: AKatsaros ([email protected])
To: Em ([email protected])
Subject: How is Boston?
Dear Ephemie,
Call us. Your mom is worried because you haven’t called in two days. She also says to tell you texting does not count and that kidnappers know how to text, too.
How are the conference and competition going? Make sure you take it seriously. Your teacher told us you can make good connections for college recommendation letters while you are there.
There was mail for you from Schuylkill University admissions department. Mom and I think you should look at the International Studies for Business. It might be interesting to you because it has lots of travel, which you will like, and you’re good with people, and it has a 97% job placement rate. Think about it.
Chloe says hi.
Love,
Dad
“Calling home?” Ann asked as she stepped into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, I just need a new notebook and pen.”
I picked at the edge of the skin on my tablet. The corner of the yellow swirly was starting to curl up slightly from all my worrying at it. “Yeah. I just wanted to check in with one of my friends.”
“I know things were tough for you this morning. I’m glad you have friends to talk to about it,” Ann said. She pulled a notebook out of her suitcase, picked up one of the inn pens out of the desk, then inched towards the door. “Remember, we start up again in five minutes.”
Damnit, now my roommate felt even sorrier for me. My life had disintegrated into worrying, working on my speech, and waiting for e-mails and video chats. Oh, and mock-flirting with the one guy in my school I’d rather strangle than date.
“Thanks.” My phone started playing Alec’s signature ringtone of video game sounds and I picked up. “Good morning, sunshine. Thanks for calling.”
“With the freaked out text you sent, how could I say no?”
“I didn’t send a freaked out text.”
Alec made a scoffing sound. “It was ninety percent emoji. You only use that many emojis when you’re really happy or really panicked.”
That wasn’t true. I used emojis all the time. “I just wanted to hear a familiar voice.”
“You mean a familiar voice that isn’t Kris.”
“No.”
“And not Phoebe or Grace because the two of them would lecture you about your stupid plan instead of listening to your problems?” I could hear slamming lockers and people talking in the background. Alec made an “oof” sound, followed by a muttered, “sorry.”
I made a face at my phone, wishing I could switch to video so I could stick my tongue out at him or flip my middle finger at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“I’m on my way to physics lab. Park doesn’t care if I’m late by a few minutes.” Right. Alec was a physics genius who took science tests for fun. Of course he could get away with things the rest of us delinquents couldn’t. “Anyway, what’s freaking you out this time?”
“Just… we were at a soup kitchen and Kris pissed me off and…” I shook my head, as if trying to shake away the cloud that still clung to my skin from the morning. “How are things with Mom and Dad? I know you don’t have an excuse to go over there, but, I thought that maybe you’d hear something over the fence?” I picked a little more at my tablet skin until another edge started curling up.
“You’re not the only connection between your family and mine, you know. Mom invited them over for dinner the other night and your dad had an interview, so they asked me to babysit Chloe. Who, by the way, is going to be a kick-ass artist. You should see the mini-manga she made.” There were a few shuffling sounds on the other end of the phone and then my tablet beeped with a new email. He’d sent me a picture of a few sheets of his manga storyboard paper laid out in a row, filled with colorful sketches and a familiar block-lettered “Chloe” at the bottom of each. One of the recurring figures was in a short yellow dress with corkscrew curls, which made me grin.
“That’s adorable.”
“She destroyed my acid yellow and cadmium yellow Copics drawing those. It’s going to cost more to replace then than what I got for actually babysitting her.”
“You gave a six-year-old really expensive markers. What did yo
u expect?” I enlarged and shrunk the picture, smiling at my sister’s drawings, which looked like, well, something a six-year-old would make. But Alec had a better eye than me for these things, so if he said she was good, he was probably right. “How did the interview go?”
“Okay, I guess.” His tone shifted from amused to cagey.
“Alec,” I drew out his name in an almost—but not quite—whiny tone.
“What?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He made a “No way in hell are you getting anything from me” grunting sound. “You’re going to freak out and that’s not good for your competition.”
“Alec Noah Kohen.” I sifted through my memory for something recent I could use to blackmail him if he didn’t cave soon.
He didn’t say anything for a second, then seemed to heave a big sigh on his end of the phone. “He didn’t get it. Something about being too skilled for the position.” He continued, pushing on before I could get a word in, “Would you quit freaking out about your family going broke? Even without your dad’s job, you’re fine. It’s not like they even have a mortgage to worry about, like my mom.” He was right about that. Dad, especially, hated being in debt to anyone, so he and Mom made a point of paying off the house even before I was born. “Your mom’s tenured. She’s had, like, a million offers from universities all over to teach. The worst that can happen if, in the really unlikely event Schuylkill U shuts down and she loses her job is that your family has to move to, like, Stockholm or something.”
“Stockholm?” Now that added another, new, possibility I hadn’t thought of freaking out about.
“Or Kenya, right? Your mom was mentioning how they were interested in having her lead the group on site identifying stuff from the dig?” The only sound on the other end was the rapidly emptying hallway. Another locker clanged, but the sound was distant.
“My family can’t move all the way to Africa.”
“My uncle’s in New Zealand and we see him all the time.” Alec’s voice had an amused lilt to it and I knew he was teasing me, but it still didn’t make the panic go away. The late bell went off in the background and Alec sounded like he was scrambling.
Dramatically Ever After Page 14