by Robin Talley
I nodded. I couldn’t imagine Christa’s parents being cool with her hanging out with a girl who wore T-shirts that said Gay by Birth, Fabulous by Choice.
“But not totally,” I said. “Only with her parents, right?”
“Mostly, but even so, she’s weird about it. Last year we went to Youth Pride in Dupont, and it was awesome and fun, and she got those pink hair streaks she wears all the time and she was taking tons of photos. But then someone we didn’t know tried to take a photo of us and she flipped out.”
I sighed. “She’s always afraid something will get back to her parents. They’re really conservative, right?”
“Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. You know those people you hear about on the news, who kick their kids out of their house for being gay or trans or whatever? Well, I thought those people were only in, like, Kentucky, but then I met Christa’s parents. And...maybe they wouldn’t go that far, but honestly, if I were her I wouldn’t take any chances, either.”
God, I was horrible. So many times, I’d acted as if Christa was just being paranoid. I looked at my feet.
“My parents were cool with it from the beginning, though,” Madison went on. “Back in middle school, the first time I went to Youth Pride, they came with me. My mom even ordered a shirt that said I Love My Gay Kid.”
“Wow.” That explained a lot about Madison. “That’s so amazing.”
“Yeah. I mean, they’re still hella annoying, but when it comes to that stuff, I guess they’re pretty cool.” Madison pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Anyway, listen. While we’re talking. I want you to know that we’re good, you and me. I wasn’t sure about you at first—I couldn’t tell if you were really into chicks or if you were just using my girl for target practice—but you seem okay. So, it’s too bad it didn’t work out for you and her, but if you ever want to hang out once we get back home, that could be cool. There aren’t that many girls like us around.”
My head was spinning. She’d thought I was using Christa? For target practice?
“Girls!” Aunt Miranda was shouting. “Madison, Aki! Grab a shovel, we’ve got a lot to finish today!”
“Coming!” I yelled back.
“Let’s text on Sunday, okay?” Madison said as we jogged back toward the ditch. “So we get each other’s numbers. If you want to go to Youth Pride next year, maybe we can hang out.”
“Okay.” I still wasn’t sure what to do with all the information Madison had just given me.
She was sorry it didn’t work out with Christa and me.
Was that what Christa told her? That we “didn’t work out”?
I hadn’t spoken to Christa since she’d walked away from me on Monday night. I’d been spending most of my time with Lori and Jake, planning the debate. They’d both noticed that I suddenly had a lot more time free, and they’d started asking if something had happened with Christa. Finally, on Wednesday, I told Lori an abbreviated version of the story and asked her to tell Jake. They’d both been really understanding, which only made me feel worse. I’d hoped for at least a little bit of shock and outrage on my behalf.
We were flying back home the day after tomorrow. After that, Christa and I would never see each other again. I should probably go ahead and delete her from my phone.
None of this was supposed to bother me. I’d set out to have a summer fling, and that’s exactly what I’d done. Sure, it had been a big deal when it was happening, but would I still think that a year from now? Or five years from now?
By then I’d have a whole new life. I’d barely even remember what Christa looked like.
Except I couldn’t imagine ever forgetting her face.
And I didn’t want to.
CHAPTER 23
“Put it under the window. No, the middle window. No, more to the right. No, that’s not—never mind, I’ll do it.”
I took the chair from Jake and positioned it directly under the Perezes’ back window while he huffed behind me.
“Hurry up, you guys,” I said as Gina and Olivia snickered. “We’ve only got a few minutes before people show up. This place looks crappy.”
We hadn’t been able to find anything that remotely resembled a podium for the debate. Reverend Perez had offered to detach the lectern from the church and haul it over, but that seemed mildly sacrilegious so we told him not to worry about it. Instead we’d brought one of the big living room chairs outside and positioned it with its back to the crowd. If someone was standing behind it, and you squinted, it kind of looked podium-like.
“Way to be a bossypants, Aki,” Gina said. But she started moving chairs again.
“For real,” Jake said. “Don’t you think you’re taking this all a little seriously?”
“Like you aren’t. How many drafts of your speech did you write again?”
“Only three.” Jake paused. “Or maybe four, I don’t know. I only wrote two drafts of the intros I’m doing for each of the other speakers, though.”
“Right.” I moved the chair another inch to the left. I still needed to write my intros. I hadn’t had time. People kept asking me questions.
“Aki, I have a question.” I turned around and groaned in relief when it was only Lori. “Who’s in charge of counting up the ballots and comparing them? You guys are supposed to announce the results a few minutes after the last speech ends, right?”
“Uh.” I pulled a sheaf of notes out of my pocket and flipped through them. The last speeches—mine and Lori’s, on global health—ended at eight thirty. At eight forty we’d compare the results from the first round of voting against the votes that came in after everyone had heard the speeches.
“I guess. Hmm.” I hadn’t actually thought about this. “I guess I’ll count them up?”
“You’re not going to have time.” Lori shook her head. “You can’t do everything yourself, you know. People are going to come up and talk to you after it’s over, the way they keep doing now. Oh, and someone needs to count that first set of ballots, too.”
“Crap. Everybody’s already got their jobs. Jake is giving the closing speech, and you’re in charge of crowd control and—”
“I can do it,” Drew said, making me jump. I hadn’t heard him come in. “I’m already passing out the ballots, so I’ll gather them up and look at them really quick after.”
“But you hate math,” I said.
Drew gave me the look he reserved for when I’d just said something particularly obnoxious. “Even I can add, Sis.”
Lori and Jake laughed.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, I know you’re busy but can I steal you for a second?”
I didn’t have a second, but I followed my brother through the courtyard gates anyway. He stopped at the same place where Christa and I had talked that first night. So much had changed since then. I felt like a different person now.
“I talked to him.” Drew tucked his hands into his armpits.
“You told him the whole story?” I hadn’t been sure if he’d really go through with it. “What happened?”
“He, ah...” Drew tilted his head and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, he didn’t actually yell about the grades thing, but I could tell he wanted to. There was definitely some sputtering involved.”
I smiled. Drew was being funny. That was a good sign. “What did he say?”
“Well, it took a minute for it to, I think, absorb. So he was quiet at first. That was the scariest part, the waiting. Then he said he was disappointed, but I was an adult now and it was up to me to decide how to deal with my own mistakes. He said we could talk more about what my different options are with Mom when we get home on Sunday.”
That was better than I’d expected, honestly. “Are you okay with that? Talking to Mom?”
He shrugged. “I
guess.”
“But you’re going anyway? To join the army?”
He stared out past my shoulder into the empty hills. “Probably? I need to think more. I haven’t signed any papers yet. Dad said if I wanted to wait a while to decide, maybe I could take off school for a semester or two, get a better job back home. He said he and Mom could maybe help me out with an apartment. So I guess I’ll see. I really just need—look, something’s got to change, you know? I can’t keep going the way I was. I need to figure out what to do next. Get this funk out of my system.”
Drew lowered his chin, and our eyes met. For a second we were kids again. I remembered the time I fell off the see-saw on the church playground and the other kids pointed and tittered at me. Drew came over and pulled me up, and right away everyone stopped laughing.
I hugged my brother. Fiercely. After a second, Drew hugged me back. He was one of the only people around who was still taller than me, and his chin rested on my head as he said, “Sis, I appreciate the support, but I think people are looking for you inside.”
“Oh. Crud.” I pulled away and turned back to the gates. At least twenty people were standing around while Olivia and Gina rushed frantically to set up. Aunt Miranda was hauling four chairs at a time and calling for Olivia and Gina to move faster.
“Drew, go!” I shoved him in the shoulder. “Help them—now!”
He laughed and mock-saluted me. “Aye aye.”
I moved fast on Drew’s heels. Before I’d even made it through the gates, it started again.
“Hey, Aki, I have a question.”
“Aki, where’s this supposed to go?”
“There you are, Aki—all I need is this one thing.”
There were so many questions I could barely keep track of who was asking, let alone who was coming in, but the courtyard was fuller than I’d ever seen it before. I must’ve lost track of time as I tried to answer everyone because it was a complete shock when Jake asked me, “Hey, should we start? It’s a couple of minutes past.”
Almost everyone was sitting down by then. Drew had a big pile of already-completed ballots jostling in his baseball cap from the first round of voting.
We hadn’t even started and already we were off schedule?
“Oh. Uh, yeah.” I gestured for the latest question-asker to go sit down. “We’d better hurry.”
“Wait.” Suddenly Lori was there, tugging on my sleeve, her eyes wide. “First I have to tell you something. Outside.”
“Now?” She had to be kidding.
“Now.” She dragged me through the gates.
Behind us, the crowd was turning around to talk to each other in their seats. Dad stood along the back fence, looking at his watch.
“Okay, so first of all,” Lori said, her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear us, “I’m really, really sorry. I had no idea this would happen.”
A pain gnawed at the bottom of my stomach. “You’re sorry for what?”
“I, um. It was me who told Nick you turned them in.”
I gaped at her. “You what?”
“I’m so, so sorry!” She really did look like she felt awful. “I didn’t know he’d do this. It was after that fight we had in Texas. I was just so pissed at you, and he was ranting on the bus about how much trouble he was in with his parents and how awful his dad is to begin with, and it sort of—I don’t know. I couldn’t help it.”
“I cannot believe this.” I pinched the skin between my eyebrows. “You—seriously, I can’t believe—wait. Why are you telling me this now?”
“I heard—um, a rumor.” Lori looked as if she might cry. “Just now. The Harpers Ferry girls are talking about it. Nick and his friends are going to slip you a note after the speeches start. He’s saying you have to tell your dad, before the debate’s over, that you were wrong and it wasn’t them you saw that night. You have to get him to say he’ll call their parents and tell them, too.”
“Seriously? Tonight?”
She nodded. “If you don’t, he’s going to stand up in the middle of your speech and show that picture to everyone.”
I swallowed. That would destroy Christa.
“He’s bluffing.” I wished I totally believed that. “He has to be.”
“I hope he is.” Lori patted my arm awkwardly. “Seriously. I am so sorry.”
As though her being sorry helped anything.
Maybe I’d been wrong to think everything with Lori was back to the way it used to be. Maybe that could never happen. Not after everything that had changed this summer.
“What are you going to do?” Lori said.
I had no idea. “I guess I’ll figure it out when I get in there.”
I pushed past Lori and hurried through the gate. I didn’t think about what she’d said or how late we had to be running now. I just walked straight up to the makeshift podium.
I looked at Dad as I passed him, but I didn’t stop.
Maybe Nick was bluffing. Maybe not. Either way, there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t going to lie. Not for him or for anyone else.
Then suddenly I was in front of the whole group saying, “Hello. Thanks so much, everyone, for coming.”
I said thank-yous to the chaperones and the Perezes for their help getting the debate organized while I took in the sight of the crowd. No wonder the courtyard had looked so full. Everyone was here. Every single person and every single chaperone from all three youth groups. Plus Reverend and Señora Perez, the Riveras, the Suarezes, Carlos and Alicia, other church ladies I recognized from our dinners, Juana and the rest of our jewelry class, the girl who worked at the computer shop where I’d done my research... People were even standing behind the neat rows of chairs, filling every available spot.
They’d all come out just to see this? To see us?
And I hadn’t even had time to get nervous.
As I kept talking, there was one face in the crowd that drew my eye again and again. Christa was sitting in the second row next to Rodney. I couldn’t read her expression. I wondered if she’d heard the same rumors Lori had, about Nick’s threat.
“Each speaker has a strict time limit of three minutes,” I told the crowd, tearing my eyes away from Christa. “My dad’s timing everyone and he’s not going to hesitate to cut you off, so don’t bother cheating, you guys.”
People laughed as Dad held up his running watch and pointed to it menacingly. I glanced at Christa again. She was smiling, too.
“Every issue will be debated in the same order,” I said. “First the side arguing in favor of the proposed resolution, then the side against it. Our first issue is item number twenty-one on the conference’s agenda, the ‘Resolution to Recognize All Marriages through Official Church Doctrine.’ So I’m going to hand things off to our first set of debaters—Jake Spotswood, who’s arguing in favor of the resolution, and Madison Richmond, who’s arguing against.”
Jake stood up, notecards clutched in his hand. I stepped back from the podium-chair and joined Dad leaning against the fence. Jake’s fingers were white at the knuckles, but his face looked distinctly green.
“Hello. Ah.” Jake cleared his throat once, then twice. Dad held up his stopwatch. Jake saw him and gave a small nod. “Hello. I’m here to tell you why you should vote in favor of the resolution on marriage equality.” He cleared his throat again and glanced down at his notecards. Then he looked up, took a long breath, swallowed and tossed the cards into a messy pile on the chair. He looked straight at the crowd. “Frankly, it’s self-evident. As people of faith, it’s our duty to love everyone, the way God loves everyone. There’s no reason why any one group is less deserving of love—either the love of a church community, or the love of a family—than any other.”
Wow. Jake always sounded smart, but this was a whole new level.
The crowd ate it up. He
kept talking, using his now notecard-free hands to make a lot of excited gestures. You could tell how much he meant what he was saying. If I wasn’t already on his side, I would’ve been by the time he made it to the two-minute mark. I could see people nodding along, even the guys from his church who’d given him a hard time when he first started circulating his petition.
“Finally...” Jake’s time was almost up. He was starting to turn green again. “I wanted to close by saying that, um. Well. The reason I think the delegates should recognize same-sex marriages is because of everything I just said. And also because, well, I might need one of those marriages myself someday.”
After that, it was so silent it was almost scary. Jake stood in front of the crowd, staring from face to face. Everyone stared back at him.
Then someone started clapping. I thought it was Lori, but it was impossible to tell because immediately someone else started clapping, too. Then more joined in.
There were people who didn’t clap, but not many of them. Next to me, Dad was clapping so hard I was afraid his hands were going to fall off. I stuck two fingers in my mouth and whistled the way my mom had taught me. Then I dared to glance at Christa. She was clapping, too. Discreetly, with her hands below the seat in front of her.
Jake grinned. Then he charged toward me, walking right past his own empty seat on the front row.
“Congratulations!” I squealed. “I didn’t know you were going to do that!”
“Yeah, neither did I.” Jake might have been hyperventilating.
“Congratulations, young man.” Dad shook Jake’s hand. “That was quite a speech.”
“Thanks, sir.” Jake nodded, his face greener than ever. Then he turned to me and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Aki, I can’t go up there again. You’re going to have to do the rest of the introductions.”
“What?” I whispered back. Madison was already climbing to her feet to give her counterargument. One of the guys from Harpers Ferry came over to us, clapped Jake on the shoulder, and handed me a folded piece of paper that looked like a ballot. “I can’t. I don’t know what to say.”