I shield the phone from the sun’s glare and scoot next to him to look at the photos. There’s one of her cuddling Boomer at Piedmont Park. Grandma and Boomer are wearing matching Hawaiian shirts in the next one. I smile at one with her sipping a frappé at a local coffee shop, and Boomer photobombing. The next one makes me pause—it’s an old-school photo. It’s clearly her, because she’s got some seriously fashionable frames on, but she’s younger—maybe in her twenties—and she’s next to a man with dark hair and a smile that looks like Jamie’s. They’re sitting on two matching Adirondack chairs with iced tea, gazing into each other’s eyes.
“That’s my grandpa.” Jamie points to the man. “He died when I was nine—my grandma shares their photos for Throwback Thursdays.”
“They’re so cute.”
“They really were. They’d been married over forty years, and they still used to hold hands all the time, completely lovestruck.”
My parents used to be that way. Holding hands. Looking at each other from across a crowded room and smiling in a secret language even I couldn’t decipher. I remember rolling my eyes when I’d walk into the kitchen early mornings before school and catch them standing next to each other, holding coffee mugs, heads pressed together as they took in the sunrise from our bay window. They made it eighteen years. They were happy for most of them. At least, I thought they were. I wish I knew why some people keep holding hands and why some people stop.
I’m not sure what the reason is, but the people in the next few houses we knock on actually open their doors. Five of them promise to vote in the special election, and one lady shrugs and says “maybe,” which is better than staring at closed doors while the owners peek down at us from their upstairs windows. I would call that behavior a bit creepy, except we’re the randos knocking on their doors.
When the person at the next house opens up, it takes a second to register that I actually know him. I’m not sure why that’s so surprising. We’re canvassing four miles from my house; it would probably be more weird not to run into someone I know, but it still throws me off guard.
“Kevin?” Jamie and I say at the same time. I look at Jamie. He knows him too?
“Maya?” He smiles at me and glances at Jamie. He’s wearing an Atlanta Falcons jersey. “And Von Klutzowitz, right? What are you both doing here?”
Von what?
“Um, we’re canvassing for the special election.” Jamie blushes. “We’re talking to voters about Jordan Rossum.”
“Yep,” I tell him. “Are your parents home, young man? We’d like to have a word with them.”
“My mom is running errands, but I’m eighteen, thank you very much. How about you try to get my vote too?”
“You’re a lost cause,” I say.
“Wait? Why?” Jamie asks.
“Maya’s right. Your words will be wasted on me.” Kevin takes a flyer from me and holds it up. “Look at this slogan. Just look at it. Rossum is awesome? Cheesy much?”
“But you’re not going to vote or not vote because of his campaign slogan, right?” Jamie asks.
“Jamie.” I side-eye him. They must not know each other all that well if he’s asking him to vote for Rossum. “This guy is as staunch a Republican as they come. Trust me, we had US history together.”
“I’m more of a Libertarian now,” Kevin protests. “But this race is getting ugly. I’m not sure I’ll vote for anyone. You know, if Newton wins, the GOP will have a veto-proof supermajority. They could pass any bill they want. So obviously, the trolls are out in full force against Rossum.”
“What trolls?” I ask. “I haven’t seen anything.”
“You haven’t heard of the Fifi-ing around town? It was on the news all last week.”
“Fifi-ing?” Jamie and I say together.
“You know, that meme with Fifi the poodle holding a cup of tea to celebrate white supremacy or some shit.”
“I’ve seen it,” Jamie says. “It’s all over the internet.”
“It’s not just online anymore,” Kevin replies. “Some local trolls make these Fifi stickers, steal Rossum car magnets on people’s cars, and stick the bumper sticker in its place.”
“My mom’s got those Rossum magnets on both our cars,” Jamie says.
“I think I saw a dog like that on someone’s car the other day . . .” My voice trails off.
“It’s everywhere. And once those things get on your car, they do not come off. You can try to scrape them off, but then you’re just going to damage your paint.”
“Wow,” I say slowly. “That’s . . .”
“Fucked up.” Kevin nods. “Exactly. I don’t love this Rossum guy, okay? He hardly has any experience, and I’m not impressed with his debate skills. But bumper-stickering without consent is peak trolling. And I’ve heard the stickers going up around town have anti-Semitic messages.” He tucks the flyer under his arm. “I’ll give this to my mom when she gets back. You can put her down as a yes. She’s definitely going to vote.”
We thank him, and Jamie and I head back onto the sidewalk.
“How do you know Kevin Mullen?” I ask as we walk to the next house.
“He works at Target, the one over by the Publix, where the Staples used to be. I . . . uh, met him there a while back.”
“I like that Target.”
“It’s basically the best place on earth.”
I laugh, but he looks completely and utterly sincere. “Wait, seriously? I mean, there’s Disney, the Grand Canyon, Iceland . . .”
“Maya, they hand out free cookies in the bakery! The sign says you have to be twelve, but no one bats an eye when I grab one. It’s so great. I’d live there if I could.”
“Well, you’re on your way if Target employees recognize you on sight.”
“I made a bit of an impression with Kevin,” Jamie says bashfully.
“What happened?”
“Just a little mistake.”
“Does it have anything to do with that Von Klutzowitz nickname?”
“It was a display of tangelos.” Jamie winces. “I pulled one out and everything went tumbling.”
“Wait.” I slow down. “That was you? I was there that day!”
“Uh, yeah.” He flushes. “I thought I saw you . . .”
“That was such a mess.”
“In my defense, a pyramid display of citrus, which is famously round, is kind of an accident waiting to happen. Kevin was really nice about it, though.” He looks at me sheepishly. “Kind of like how you were pretty understanding about the whole ‘destroying food at a place where everyone’s been fasting all day’ incident.”
“Trust me, if you’d tried the puffs, you’d know you did everyone a favor.” I glance at my watch, surprised it’s almost six o’clock.
“Good news,” Jamie says. “We have only one house left to go, the one across the street.” He nods to a gray stucco house.
“They’re definitely home.” I point to the opened garage and two cars parked inside.
“Now to see if they’ll actually open the door,” Jamie says. “I’m going to guess no.”
“I’ll go with yes.”
“Loser gets the winner donuts on the way back!” He hops up the steps.
Still fasting, Jamie! I’m about to call out, just as he rings the doorbell. Seriously, though—first the Goldfish crackers in the car, and now this. I guess I could take the donuts to go if I win and eat them this evening. My stomach grumbles. Donuts sound really good right now.
But thoughts of fasting or donuts-to-go take a backseat when the door parts open. It’s a man. He looks a bit older than my dad. He’s balding and has on a blue T-shirt with a picture of a white swordfish across his belly.
He’s staring at us.
More like glaring at us.
At me.
And just like that, all the lightness from moments earlier vanishes.
Jamie must feel it too. He hasn’t said a word either.
“Well?” The man glances at both of us. “What do
you want?”
“Oh, sorry.” Jamie clears his throat. “Um. Are you . . .” He glances down at his paper and then back up at the man. “Are you Jonathon Hyde?”
“That’s my landlord. Hasn’t lived here in years. What do you want with him?”
“We’re campaigning on behalf of Jordan Rossum. He’s running for state senate in the special election,” I say quickly. I’ve got the words down pat, I realize, since I can say them through my racing heart. “He’s running on the promise of hope and change in our district, and every person who can come out to vote will make a difference. I have more information here if you’d like it.” I hold out the flyer toward him.
He looks down at the flyer. He doesn’t touch it.
“This guy’s a Democrat, right?” He says it like it’s a bad word, like it physically tastes bad on his tongue. “Does the fact that you two are here interrupting my day mean I’m renting from a Democrat?”
“Well, we’re targeting Independents and Democrats,” Jamie says in a hesitant voice. “Would you like a flyer to read over?”
He stares at us, his hand resting on the door. I glance at Jamie. Why is he waiting for a response? This guy is obviously not voting for Rossum. We can cross this house off the list with a resounding no and get on with our day.
“Look,” the man finally says. “I don’t mean to be offensive or nothing. I just tell it like it is. Do you really think you’re going to get anyone around here to vote for your candidate when they’ve got her knocking on doors?” He raises a hairy finger and points it toward me.
He doesn’t touch me.
He is a good two feet away on the other side of the door.
But I feel punched.
“Think about it.” He turns his attention to Jamie. “You really need to do a better job keeping this agenda hidden.” He nods toward me. “Being politically correct is fine and all, but it won’t get him votes. Not in this district. May want to pass that tip on to your Rossum person. We do want change out here, but not the kind he’s promising.”
Before either of us can say another word, the door slams in our faces.
Jamie looks exactly like a squirrel my mom almost hit when she was dropping me off super early to school last year. She had to slam the brakes, because even though the squirrel was pretty much looking death in the eye, it seemed like it was so scared it couldn’t move.
I know people feel the way this guy does. But to say it to my face as casually as if he’s discussing the weather? I’ve gotten racist stuff here and there, especially when I’m with my mom, who wears hijab. The mumbling as someone passes us, or a look by the cashier you know is saying something without saying it. I’m used to that. But this?
I have to get out of here. Before the man opens the door again. Before he does something worse. I study the door and breathe in. It’s a deep mahogany, this door. I can see the grains of wood. The doorknob is faded brass, worn at the edges.
“Hey.” Jamie’s voice floats in and out. “Maya, can you hear me?”
I turn my head toward him. He’s looking at me. How long has he been calling my name?
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod numbly. He gently takes me by the elbow, and together we get off the stoop and step back onto the sidewalk.
“Listen,” he says. “That guy . . . he was . . . he was a total monster. And you know what I think? I think we should . . .” He looks at me. He hesitates.
Oh God, Jamie, I think, biting my lip to push back the tears. Please don’t tell me you’re planning to knock on this dude’s door and try to say something on my behalf. I’m pretty sure I can predict how a confrontation between him and that man would go.
But that’s not what he says.
What he says next is something so unexpected, it’s just the thing to shake me from my weirdly catatonic state.
“Target?”
“What?” I blink.
“It’s on the way back to the campaign office,” he says quickly. “Have you seen the patio section lately? It’s got blue lights overhead and everything. It’s like being at the weirdest garden party ever. Want to check it out?”
I look into his worried eyes. Anywhere that isn’t here sounds really good right now.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
Jamie
I should have said something.
I keep replaying the moment in my head. The way that racist dude looked at Maya with death-ray eyes. The drop of spittle in the corner of his mouth. And the sound of the door slamming in our faces. The whole time the guy was speaking, it was like I’d stepped out of my brain. It felt like I was watching it all happen in a movie.
And then, afterward, the way Maya stared at that door without blinking. The sheer blankness of her expression made my stomach lurch. She was clearly as shocked as I was. More than shocked. She looked like the ground had given way beneath her.
This just wasn’t supposed to happen.
That’s the thought that plays on a loop in my brain, all the way to Target.
“The Rossum campaign needs to update their system,” I say at a red light on Roswell Road, glancing toward Maya.
She nods. “Yeah.”
“That can’t happen. It’s ridiculous. We’re in Sandy Springs, not, like, middle of nowhere Georgia. It’s just not okay.”
“Wouldn’t have been okay in the middle of nowhere either,” Maya says.
I blush. “Right.”
The Target patio section is so underrated. I mean, yeah, Target’s Wi-Fi is the worst, which would normally make me twitchy—and my phone doesn’t even get cell service here. But when I’m in the patio section, it’s like it doesn’t even matter. It’s my favorite place to sit and think.
“I don’t know if you want to test out different chairs or anything,” I tell Maya. “But I will say I’m kind of a patio expert these days.”
“A patio expert?” She smiles.
“I mean, I know my way around the patio section, and I’ll just leave it at that.”
Maya peers up at me for a moment, still smiling, and I get this flutter in my stomach. “Okay,” she says. “So if you’re the expert, what chairs are the best?”
“Those two.” I point, without hesitation, to a pair of cushioned chairs on display underneath a slatted wood awning. “And they’re right near the blue lights, so.”
“I see.” Maya’s eyes drift around the patio area, taking in the clusters of sample furniture, rows of barbecues on display, and bins of rolled-up outdoor rugs. “Yeah, I’m gonna need to test out all the options,” she says.
I press my fist to my heart. “You don’t trust me?”
“Not at all.” She sinks into a nearby chair, nodding solemnly. “Hmm. Not bad.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But the armrest is kind of iffy.”
“Right? That’s what I said! What’s with the low armrests? Who wants low armrests?”
“Maybe we just have high arms?” Maya says, shrugging.
She slides onto a stack of cushioned porch chairs next—but by the time I settle onto the stack beside it, she’s moved on to an Adirondack. Followed by a few patio dining chairs around tables, and then a couch, and then a tightly woven brown set with bright orange cushions. Every single time she sits down, she makes this face like she’s judging a reality show competition and trying not to reveal the winner.
She pauses for an extra-long time in a double-cushioned wicker chair shaped like an egg. “Ooh, I like this one.” But then she circles back around to the very first set of chairs, the cushioned ones under the slatted awning. “Okay, we have a winner.”
“I told you!” I say, settling into the chair beside her. “You should have listened to me.”
“Um, we both know the egg chair is the best. I just decided to pick a place where we could both sit. So, you’re welcome.”
I make a face at her. “You just can’t let me be right.”
“I’d let you be right,
” she says, “if you were actually right.”
She grins, and I grin back, trying to ignore my quickening heartbeat. I feel strangely at home with her.
For a moment, neither of us speak.
“So,” I say, finally—just as Maya says, “Well—”
“You go first,” I say.
“No, you.”
“Okay.” I pause. “I was . . . I just wanted to see how you were feeling about . . . you know.”
“The racist guy?”
“Yeah.” I exhale. “Maya, I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“You’re fine. You were great. We were both in shock.”
“Yeah, but I should have stuck up for you. Or I should have gone back in there and—”
“No way. Not a good idea.” She tucks one leg onto the other, leaning toward me. “Never a good idea. Listen. What happened back there sucks, okay? I mean, no one’s ever done that to my face before, but it’s not like what he said is anything out of the ordinary.”
My jaw tightens. “That’s—”
“I know. I know! It’s not okay. It’s ridiculously not okay. But Jamie, we live in the suburbs. In Georgia. I’m a Pakistani American Muslim. People get pissed when cashiers don’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ here, you know?”
“Ugh. Yeah.”
“It’s not like being Muslim in New York City. Though, actually, that’s probably not a cakewalk either. People can be awful. And it’s been . . . kind of worse in the last few years. For obvious reasons.”
The look on her face makes my stomach feel like it’s free-falling. I don’t think Maya and I have ever talked about the religion thing. How I’m Jewish and Maya’s Muslim. I mean, how deep do six-year-olds really get on faith-related topics? I highly doubt we were comparing notes on Islamophobia or anti-Semitism at Catch Air. I don’t even think I’d heard those words before.
Now it seems like those words are everywhere. Maybe because we’re older. Or maybe because the world sucks more.
“I just hate this,” I say.
Yes No Maybe So Page 7