by T Cooper
Benedict was devastated. Not to mention deflated, dejected, and disheartened. I have to admit, I was fairly gutted myself, as were the others, being faced with (more) evidence of just how far the Council’s fingers are capable of stretching when it comes to protecting the mission.
Somebody floated the idea that the art gallery next door could be a front for the Council, a way to keep tabs on RaChas activities. Somebody else started sweeping the crannies of HQ to make sure it wasn’t electronically bugged. Benedict triple-checked with each of us that we hadn’t inadvertently Chronicled anything about the launch, just in case the Council was monitoring our Chronicles. As the mood devolved even further, and all of us grew even more sleep-deprived/suspicious, somebody suggested there could be a mole inside the RaChas, one of us who’s feeding every new development directly to the Council. Now I’m paranoid I shouldn’t even be Chronicling this, after the fact.
A heated argument started over by the couch, and somebody got pushed. I couldn’t even see who it involved.
“Enough!” Benedict yelled, and everyone snapped to. “We’re not going to stand for this. And we’re not going to be defeated by it, either.”
People were listening, though nobody seemed to have much faith left. My eyes were blurry and they stung, and I had a math final the next morning, but I was curious about how Benedict was going to respond to being foiled and betrayed by the Council yet again.
“Screw the tech overlords, we’re gonna kick it old school,” he started, slowly and tentatively, but somehow invigorated. “If they won’t let us express ourselves freely in the greatest public forum in existence, then we’ll use our bodies, our mouths, our legs, our arms, our fists, and take our mission to the streets.”
Wylie hopped up from his desk for the first time all night, suggesting to Benedict, “Maybe we don’t talk about anything in detail until we figure out if there’s a leak?”
“Oh, we will root out any leak, be it next door or closer to home,” Benedict said calmly, peering around the room. Then continued, “Because nothing is going to stop change. Real change, the change we need, the change we deserve, will not come from waiting for power to be given. It will come when we take it!’
It was as if Chase were speaking through Benedict. I remembered words just like those coming out of his mouth when he first discovered the RaChas mission and started hanging around HQ. Back then I was terrified of breaking the rules. But this time I felt camaraderie, and a sudden swell of pride. In Chase. And in myself. We were part of a club, of the long line of all the underdogs who ever stood up to a much more powerful force in the name of doing something they believed in. Right or wrong.
A nascent, possibly ill-advised plan was hatched (I’m not going to go into it, just in case), and then we all zombie-walked to our bunks and crashed. Statics would find out who Changers were, even if it wasn’t going to be through a measly website. The RaChas were going to make sure of it.
And I would be standing among them.
Change 3–Day 192
Destiny and DJ are making out in her car in the parking lot when I roll up on them, rapping on the window, loud.
“The hell?” DJ hollers, jumping back from Destiny.
“Condoms save lives,” I mutter, opening the door and sliding into the backseat. “And prevents them, FYI.”
“What’s up?” Destiny says, retying her ponytail in the rearview.
“I don’t know. What’s up with you guys?” I ask.
“Oh, you know, nothing,” DJ replies. “You’re clearly not interrupting anything.” He leans over and pecks Destiny’s cheek. “Call you later. Bye, Kim.”
“Bye, Deej,” I say, as he double-takes at my use of the nickname, then hops out of the car and heads back up to school to meet his mom.
“I’m not your chauffeur,” Destiny turns and says to me then. “Get your arse up here, Sir Kensington.”
I climb over the backseat, purposely bumping her shoulder with my butt on the way.
“Can we eat somewhere downtown?” I ask, hoping to bum a ride to HQ after.
“Sure.”
We buckle up and head out, listening to the old-school hip-hop station, which only comes in closer to town. Something about the city outside my window makes me change my mind about dinner.
“Can we go somewhere and chill for minute instead?” I ask.
I direct Destiny to a clearing on the bank of Cumberland River just across from downtown. She finds a spot to park where we can see the water flow past, and we roll down the windows, take off our seat belts, and stretch our legs across the dash and out the windows. They dangle like we’re children in too-big chairs, as we inhale the breeze, cool and damp off the river.
I tell her about last night, about what the RaChas had been planning to do, going public with the website. And how the Council prevented them from doing it. “Prevented us from doing it,” I correct myself as it comes out.
Because there is no “I” vs. “They” anymore. And then I want to tell her way more, even as I’m not sure whether she wants (or needs) to hear it.
“There’s some other stuff,” I say.
She whips out her e-cig.
“I thought you were trying to quit.”
“It sounds like I’m going to need it,” she says, clicking it on.
“I don’t have to tell you. Say the word, and I’ll shut up right now.”
She’s quiet while inhaling, then blows the vapor out the window. “No, I should know. I mean, obviously I want to know. Knowledge is power, right?”
So I tell her. Everything. About how the Changers Council was aware we were being held in the basement, way before we were actually rescued. How they didn’t do anything at first, and seemingly toyed with the idea of sacrificing us so as to keep things quiet. How maybe Chase didn’t need to die. How we didn’t need to be in there as long as we were, our folks didn’t need to suffer heartrending worry, and Alex didn’t need to lie in a coma for months while waiting for his next V.
I spill and spill, until I look over and notice that Destiny is shaking.
“Are you cold? You want to put the windows up or—”
“I’m furious,” she says, spitting the words through her teeth. “No wonder you were so freaking pissed at the world. The whole time they’re supposedly nursing us back to health and teaching us to deal with our trauma, they’ve been lying to us? Our parents endured all those extra days of worry when the Council could’ve told them where we were, so at least they’d know we were alive? What kind of jacked-up type of empathy is that supposed to be exactly?” She grinds her teeth, squeezes her eyes tight. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I didn’t want to burden you.”
Destiny cuts her eyes at me like a switchblade.
“I don’t know, I’ve just been processing everything in my own time,” I say. “It’s all so confusing, trying to make sense of it. It’s a giant mind-frack, is what it is.”
After a beat, Destiny says, calming herself: “If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are.”
“Damn. How many years is it going to take me to unravel that one?”
“However long it takes you,” she says. “Do your parents know?”
I shake my head.
“My folks are going to be pissed,” she says. “Like, demand-an-emergency-meeting-with-Turner mad.”
“Are you going to tell them?” I ask, momentarily panicked I’ve said too much, stirring up a storm when it was none of my business to get in the mix. But then I remember Destiny’s Zen saying from two seconds ago and realize, the Council put themselves in this situation. If there’s a handful of pissed-off parents they now have to deal with, concerned—with good reason—that the Council doesn’t have the best interests of their children at heart? That’s on them.
“I guess I don’t know if I should,” she says.
We fall quiet as the sun starts to dip below the water, the bleating of the cicadas f
illing in with their shrill, desolate song.
“The RaChas are planning a demonstration,” I say after several minutes. “A visibility march down Lower Broadway, all along the Honky Tonk Highway from Rosa Parks Boulevard to this river we’re looking at. They’re coming out. And I’m going to be there.”
Destiny raises an eyebrow, sucks on her e-cig like it contains the serum of eternal life, then breaks into a magnificent, dazzling grin. “Like, out out?” she asks.
“Like, no-going-back-in out.”
“Exciting . . . terrifying,” she purrs.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen afterward.”
Our eyes lock for a few beats, and then she says: “I’m in, baby.”
We slap hands. “Wait, what about DJ?” I ask.
“DJ,” she says flatly, “will have to adjust. Because you and me? We’re ride-or-die.”
“Things are just as they are.”
“Until they aren’t.”
Change 3–Day 193
If you’d told me when I woke up this morning that I’d end the night splitting cheese fries and a Cherry Coke with Audrey while “Car Wash” played in the background, I’d have said, Keep smoking, Benedict, because the odds of me and Aud whooping it up on a girls night out seemed about as likely as Jason taking up needlepoint.
And yet.
I guess it’s true what they say about confidence. All that Fake it till you make it bumper-sticker philosophy seems to genuinely work on most people. It’s like that old psychology study where they made unhappy people smile, and the very act of smiling tricked their brains into thinking they were feeling better. It really is that simple in some ways. Not the deep stuff. That remains a convoluted murky mess, and I guess holla for that, because without it we wouldn’t have Basquiat or Emily Dickinson or My Chemical Romance. But still, it’s a comfort to realize I have a modicum of control over my mood, if nothing else. [Insert J here.]
This afternoon I was sorting through my locker, filling my backpack with all the supplies I’d need over spring break, when the bitch squad happened to be passing by. I could sense something odd in their energy, something amiss, like maybe one of them forgot it was flat-iron day or whatever simpleminded club they invent every week to reinforce their already abundantly clear conformity. As I was packing up, I could hear the whole rift unfold, front-row seats to girl vs. girl implosion.
“You betrayed me!” Chloe shrieks.
“You don’t understand,” Audrey replies, her voice warbly.
“You knew how I felt about your brother. How could you?” Chloe whines back, really turning up the drama to telenovela levels.
“You were supposed to be her best friend,” one of the Chloettes hisses then, obviously thirsty for the job.
“Yeah,” adds another. Because, Yeah.
“I told you that in confidence, and now the WHOLE SCHOOL KNOWS!” Chloe bellows, really going for her Oscar nod.
And natch, all I can think is, Knows what? That she had a nose job? That she is as petrified of difference as she is of gaining two pounds? That she is Camille Paglia’s worst nightmare?
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Audrey sighs.
“Well, I happen to know you did,” Chloe snips back.
“Just forget it.”
“I will NEVER forget!” Chloe seethes, placing her own embarrassment in the same league of tragedy as, like, 9/11. “You are dead to me. I’m out!” She flips her hair, huffs, “Let’s go,” to the Chloettes, and the remaining squad scurries behind her, leaving Audrey alone and, seemingly, friendless.
“She’s going to make an excellent Real Housewife of Nashville,” I call down the hall, slamming my locker shut. “Or heartless dictator,” I continue, as Audrey turns my way. “Depends on where she settles down.”
Audrey slinks back toward me, releasing her bag on the ground, where it lands with a thud. “I guess you heard all that.”
“Hard not to. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think I know what the WHOLE SCHOOL KNOWS. So there’s that.”
Audrey can’t help but smile. “She was just being dramatic.”
“Nooooo . . . really?”
Now Audrey is giggling. And I struggle not to float to the ceiling. I pick up my bag, double-check my lock is tight. I notice she’s watching me closely, with what feels like curiosity, a big step from her usual fear/avoidance of Kim Cruz.
“Got big plans for the break?” she asks, trying not to seem too interested.
But I know better. I know how much she hates being home with her family, how she feels like a three-headed alien in the middle of a Norman Rockwell painting, how she probably had her whole vacation scheduled around Chloe, and now she was staring down the barrel of so many empty hours, and would do almost anything not to have to fill them with Jason and the rest.
I also know it would be un-Changery of me to take advantage of that intimate knowledge, to pull a Groundhog Day on her and seduce her with what I already know are her favorite things. That such techniques, and heck, even our resuming a real friendship, are strictly verboten by the Changers Council. Add to that how manipulative it is to exploit her vulnerability in a time of need.
Ah, screw it. “You want to go out tonight?” I ask. “As friends?”
I swear she blushes. “Man, you really are bold. Kudos on the big balls.”
“Just thought you might dig a night at the Bowl-Me-Over, the premiere karaoke/disco/bowling venue for karaoke/disco/bowling enthusiasts of all ages.” I smile. (And like those chumps in the experiment, I feel good.) “They also have food.”
Audrey cocks her head. Expels the longest sigh I’ve heard in my lifetime. Maybe she’s remembering Oryon, and the aborted bowling date he/I was meant to take her on before it all went pear-shaped. Or maybe she was doing the social calculus of what exactly would happen to her standing if she were somehow spotted out in public with me, Kim Cruz, chubby likely lesbian and stinky radical who may or may not have a mental imbalance.
“Just the two of us?” she asks at last.
“And every song the Bee Gees ever wrote.”
And that was that. She said yes, and we made plans to meet up later, and when we did it was rocky at first, but there is no discomfort so grand it cannot be subdued by the sights and sounds of middle-aged white Americans performing karaoke.
Audrey and I found ourselves laughing at the same absurdities, like we had so many times before, and I could tell after a surprisingly short time that she was startled by how easy it was to hang out with me. I wasn’t actively trying to use our history to ingratiate myself, but I couldn’t exactly pretend I didn’t know what would tickle her, or thrill her, or gross her out. The thing is, I’ve always felt I’ve known who Audrey is. I knew the second I saw her in homeroom on C1–D1 as Drew.
“You going to go up?” she asked, pointing at the queue of singers idling behind the mic.
“Oh, I’m going to go,” I said, pulling my shoulders back. “I have a signature song.”
“You do not.”
“Watch me, girl. Let me show you how it’s done.”
I high-stepped it to the deejay, wrote down my selection, and took my place in line. And okay. I was lying, 1,000 percent. But I was so buoyant, so out of body with hope and joy and promise and warm memories and the realization of a year-long dream, that if she had dared me to break-dance in my bra and panties I would have thrown down a square of cardboard and started back-spinning, because so help me Gods, that’s what love does.
I was with the girl I loved again. I was capable of anything.
Before I knew it, I was up next. My heart rate was elevated, but I felt in control, ready. The first lines of the background vocals blared from the speakers and I lifted the microphone and . . . went for it: “If you change your mind, I’m the first in line, honey I’m still free. Take a chance on me . . .”
That’s right, folks. I was singing ABBA. Really, it was more than singing. I was owning ABBA. I had zero shame. I was large and in charge, tick
ing my hips right and left, shimmying my shoulders, making that grubby bowling alley stage my bitch.
Okay. In retrospect, the lyrics may have been a tad too spot-on. But I was past the point of caring. This was the new Kim Cruz. The one with nothing to lose. The one who stood up to Jason, who survived, who was loved by the friends she did have, who was learning to love herself, damaged or not.
As I kept singing and twirling and stomping around the stage, my inner diva gloriously unleashed (Kris would be kvelling!), I saw Audrey undergo her own transformation, moving from stunned, to uncomfortable, to grudgingly respectful, to warily standing, to contained dancing, to actual dancing, flinging her body around with an abandon I hadn’t seen since that night she watched me when I was Drew, playing drums with the Bickersons.
By the end of the song, the entire crowd was with me, belting out the words, a chorus of broken hearts, all begging for another chance. I exited the stage to rousing cheers, the whole bowling alley whipped into a Swedish froth, courtesy of the apparent new Karaoke Queen.
“Holy Toledo!” Audrey gushed when I finally made my way back to our seats and scooched into one, fanning myself with the laminated snack menu. “That was off the chain!”
“Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you sing in the school play? You didn’t even audition.”
“I don’t really sing,” I said, “I was just inspired by the moment.”
Audrey smirked. “Bowling alleys are known for their inspiring qualities.”
“And their immaculate restrooms,” I batted back.
“And their comfortable footwear.”
“And their fine cuisine.”
“And their homey smell.”
“And their flattering lighting.”
“And their beer farts.”
I busted out laughing. “You win. Want to split an order of fries?”
As we ate, we talked about classes, the unseasonably warm weather. We avoided anything fraught, only touching briefly on the subject of Chloe, whom Audrey was clearly loath to discuss.