So I can’t just stroll into this tournament in slouchy, lint-speckled separates. The judges will take one look at me and assume that I’m stupid. Or, well, that I’m poor. But the two are usually one and the same in their minds.
So I iron my clothes. I stash them in dry-cleaning bags. I carry a lint brush at all times to tidy up any oopsies. And I wonder, as I pack this de-linting device into my suitcase, if I am gay, after all.
Just as quickly, though, I put the thought out of my mind. I don’t have time for an identity crisis on the morning of Nationals. I don’t even have time for . . .
“Breakfast!” Mom calls from the next room.
Breakfast? Really? We sit down for a meal together once, maybe twice a year. After that one spaghetti dinner, we’re already well on our way to hitting that quota. And I don’t think we’ve ever actually sat down and consumed breakfast as a group. There’s a reason, after all, that Lucy and I partake in those bus-ride breakfasts every morning.
And yet, when I walk into the kitchen, there they are: Mom, Dad, and Roo, a broken circle around a sweet-smelling spread of scrambled eggs and bacon and buttered toast. There’s a pitcher of orange juice, even. And I know—I know—it’s got to be the stuff you buy frozen, in a can, and stir into water with a great big wooden spoon, but still! I’m very impressed.
Dad pulls out a seat for me. “Look, kid, we’re sorry,” he says. “We know how much this tournament matters to you. We should’ve at least talked to you about the ticket.”
Am I dreaming? I take the seat, and Mom nods, agreeing. “I’m so glad your coach could come through for you.”
Roo reaches out, passing me an envelope. I slip my thumb beneath the flap, tear it open, and find . . . a card. A card? A group breakfast, a genuine apology, and now, to top it all off: a card.
I’m just beginning to suspect body-snatchers when my eyes fall on the front of this card: a field of white and yellow stars on blue-black cardstock. They spell out GOOD LUCK, these stars, in a dazzling, glittery constellation. ALL THE BEST, it says, inside, TO A GUY WHO SHINES LIKE THE STARS IN THE SKY.
A lump forms in my throat as I take in Mom’s signature, Dad’s. Roo has signed it too, with a postscript: You better kick . . . and a rudimentary drawing, in her perfect fourteen-year-old scrawl, of a pair of hairy buttocks.
Am I ready to forgive them? I lift my head. I take in the softness—the love, even—on the face of my dad, my mom, my little sister. Ever since Dad lost his job, my life at home has been little more, sometimes, than a series of screaming matches to sleep through.
But this morning, Roo rushes forward, and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me hard. And I feel, just for a second, the way I felt at Jonah’s. Like we’re a family. A real one. There’s a card in my hands, and a pitcher of orange juice on the table. We love each other. We’re trying our best.
* * *
—
“This morning was nice, wasn’t it?” Mom glances at me; I nod. We’re on that familiar tree-lined highway now, driving fast to Sea-Tac so I can catch my plane. “I can’t remember the last time I fixed a real breakfast. Mixed blessings of unemployment, you know? We may be behind on our bills, but I’ve got all kinds of free time.”
“You know, there are these researchers at Yale who came up with this thing called ‘time affluence.’ ” I scratch at the side of my nose, trying to remember where, exactly, I read about this. “They did this study, and they found out that the happiest people weren’t actually the ones with the most money. It’s the most free time. That’s the ticket.”
“Heard that one before,” Mom says, snorting.
“No! Really!” I lean over the divide. Mom, being a reporter, is usually the only person who lets me info-dump like this. Who finds it interesting, even. “If you’re making tons of money, but you’re coming home at the end of your hundred-hour workweek to screaming kids and a messy kitchen and a garden full of weeds . . .”
Mom nods, less skeptical than she was before: “. . . then all the money in the world won’t make you happier.”
“Exactly! Unless you use your money to buy time—like, ordering takeout instead of cooking, or hiring maids instead of cleaning.”
“Christ, but that makes sense. Rich people have more time, and poor people have less.” Mom looks sideways at me, smiling. “You’re so smart, you know that? You’re going to do great things. Someone in our family should.”
“Mom. Come on.” Why’d she have to give me a compliment that hurts? “It’s not your fault, what happened to the paper.”
“Oh, I know. I just can’t help feeling a little stupid. These past few years, a paper goes kaput every five seconds. It’s constant. Another newsroom, cleaned out. Another friend of mine walking past me with that goddamned cardboard box. And the whole time, I kept telling myself it’d never happen to me, but . . .”
She sighs, then goes silent, staring through the broad windshield at the tall rows of trees.
“You know, Lucy’s starting a YouTube channel.” I start speaking before I remember that we’re fighting, me and Lucy. I wince. “She says she’s going to use it to reinvent journalism.”
Mom lets out a laugh—a less than kind one. “Anyone told Lucy that journalism’s a dying industry?”
“Yeah, but she’s got this whole plan to crowdfund it,” I say. How weird, to be speaking in spirited defense of someone who isn’t even speaking to me. “She launched a Patreon for it. Racked up something like two hundred dollars of monthly pledges in the first hour.”
“I don’t know, Finch. I’ve spent decades watching these V.C. vultures pick this industry down to the bones.” She shakes her head. “And I just can’t help feeling your friend’s bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
“She really believes she can do it. And she’s already making it happen. Booking interviews. Making videos.”
“Maybe that’s my problem,” Mom says. “Maybe we just got to a point where none of us believed this thing could actually be saved.”
She stares again through the rain-spattered windshield, lost in thought. We’re at the curb now, right outside the bustling departure gate. I should get out, grab my suitcase, say my goodbyes. But something keeps me in my seat.
“Mom? Can I ask you a question?”
She waves a hand at the signs dotting the curb. “This is a five-minute parking zone. A kiss-’n’-fly.”
“A quick question. It won’t take five whole minutes. I promise.”
“Fine,” she says. “Shoot.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be a reporter again?”
“No,” she says, much quicker than I was expecting. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, I hope so. But hoping and thinking—very different things.” She puts a hand on my shoulder, and squeezes. “I’m glad you told me what Lucy’s up to. Glad someone’s keeping the dream alive, I mean. It makes me think I can still win. All of us could, maybe.”
She lets me go, then, with a rare smile.
“You most of all, honey,” she says. “Go, fight, win.”
I step out of the car. “I will,” I tell her. “I’ll bring home a trophy.”
* * *
—
I’m just boarding the plane, shoveling my plain black suitcase into the cramped overhead bins next to Adwoa’s (leopard print, bulging hugely) and Jonah’s (sleek, economical, doubles as a backpack if the urge to hike hits) when I realize: I’ve got precious little time before I’ll be forced to switch to airplane mode. And so I open Twitter. I scroll through my timeline the way a runner throws back water before the final stretch of a marathon: sloppy, quick, and already exhausted.
God, is this why I get anxiety? This constant exposure to the worst people in the world doling out the worst takes imaginable? Just for a second, I wonder what it would be like to delete the app. No, delete my account. No, unfollow everyone but that one account that posts pic
tures of possums every hour on the hour.
I’m just contemplating this glorious possibility when I hit a tweet from Bailey Lundquist like a speed bump on a superhighway.
BAILEY LUNDQUIST—@BaileyOnBroadway
i want @tchalamet to lick apricot lacroix off my body
I don’t follow Bailey, of course, but three people from school have deemed this likeable, so Twitter’s forcing it down my craw. When will this website learn that I don’t want to see anything he posts? Ever? Especially if he’s being horny on main?
I tap on Bailey’s name out of morbid curiosity. And that’s when I see it:
BAILEY LUNDQUIST—@BaileyOnBroadway
well it’s official i just got the email guess who’s not going to juilliard next year lolololololololololololololol
No. Fucking. Way.
Bailey Lundquist didn’t get into Juilliard? Bailey Lundquist, who built his entire personality around aspiring to Juilliard, didn’t get into Juilliard?
All the disappointment I felt in December, reading my Georgetown deferral—it transforms, in an instant, into the most delicious kind of schadenfreude.
Adwoa takes in the vivid shock on my face. “What’s happening on Twitter?” she asks. “Someone die? Resign from the White House? Say something super racist? All three?”
I can’t speak. I can’t even shake my head. She’s in the center and I’m in the aisle, so I tilt the screen of my phone to her, point to the key words: guess who’s not going to Juilliard. She gasps.
Jonah, in the window seat, preoccupied with SkyMall, cranes his head. “Wait, what’s happening on Twitter?”
I exchange a worried look with Adwoa. Is Jonah ready for this news? Should we break it to him? She gives me a solemn nod: It’s better if he knows.
I pass my phone to the window seat and watch Jonah’s face—watch as his eyes widen, his lips fall open, his hand fly to his mouth in silent shock.
And then, before I can even blink, he explodes into laughter. I mean, really explodes; I’ve never seen him—never seen anybody—laugh so hard, so physically. His hand is shaking so hard that I worry he’s going to drop my phone. I pry the device out of his fingers—I do not want it to fall and shatter on the floor of the plane—and when I settle back into my seat, he’s still laughing.
“He didn’t . . . didn’t even . . .” Jonah can’t get the words out, each one swallowed up by fresh rounds of laughter, a sandcastle caving to a wave. “After all that, he . . . they . . . they didn’t want . . .”
It’s not long before I’m laughing, too. Even Adwoa, between us, is beginning to break down, giggling furiously behind her hand.
Folks are staring at us, bug-eyed. I know very well why. I also know that we can’t stop. Not now.
“Wait. Wait.” I’m giggling like an insane person. “Why did Bailey cross the road?”
“Why?” Jonah giggles.
I’m laughing so hard that I can barely get the words out: “To get rejected from Juilliard.”
Jonah fully bends over at the waist, wheezing. “Jesus.”
“Okay, boys,” says Adwoa, dabbing at her eyes, trying to catch her breath. “Let’s behave.”
I don’t really feel like behaving, though. Neither, judging from the giddy look on his face, does Jonah. He reaches across Adwoa, tugging insistently at my arm.
“Hey, Finch,” he says. “How many Baileys does it take to get rejected from Juilliard?”
I know we’re being mean. I know. But this is the balm my soul needs after the past few long, hard weeks. I smother a laugh. “How many?” I ask him, and he crows, “One!” and then we’re both falling all over Adwoa, shrieking with laughter.
“Okay. Fine.” Adwoa lifts an imaginary champagne flute high. “A toast to the exquisite discernment of Juilliard’s admissions committee.”
Jonah clinks his Hydro Flask against her imaginary glass. As the plane tears through the open sky to our final destination, all, for a moment, feels right in the world.
chapter twelve
After the flight, there’s a shuttle bus, and after the bus, an arduous walk through the terminal to the Metro, which takes us on a dank and clattering ride into the heart of Washington, D.C. I should be exhausted, running on little food and even less sleep, but I’m not. Every part of my being is thrumming, pressing up against the windows of the train. There are no spectacular across-the-Potomac views of the monuments, but even underground, seeing the names of the stations is a thrill: Smithsonian! Dupont Circle! Pentagon!
Well. Not that last stop so much. The Pentagon’s maybe the only place from which I’d prefer to be banned.
Our host this year is the Gray School, a dour castle in a chi-chi corner of the Palisades—not like there are any un-chi-chi corners of the Palisades, I mean. Before we do anything else, and before we go anywhere else, we need to sign in at the school’s front office. We’ll all be billeting in the dorms here. This is how it works whenever boarding schools hold tournaments. No hotels. If we’re lucky, we’ll sleep on common-room sofas. If not, we’ll get a sleeping bag on a floor. It’s probably the least luxurious element of this weekend. Everything else about this place screams inherited wealth.
Adwoa heads into the office for registration while we perch on our suitcases in the Gray School’s cavernous Gothic lobby. I’m chewing a hangnail and falling asleep upright when, suddenly, Nasir blows by us.
“Fuck is up, Olympians?” he calls out—and then, mysteriously, he slaps his own ass. “How you liking Foggy Bottom?”
I heard a rumor that Nasir’s going to Oxford next year. I hope it’s true. I can’t wait ’til there’s an ocean separating me from this guy.
“So far, so good,” says Jonah, cordially. “How was your flight?”
“Oh, man, the worst, even in biz class,” Nasir groans. “Food was shit, too. Broken crackers. Camembert cold as a witch’s tit.” I look at him, confused, and he clarifies: “Camembert’s cheese. You serve it hot.”
I nod, nervous. If Nasir’s here, Ari can’t be far behind. I haven’t spoken to her since that day at Annable, outside the library. I’m still terrified of what she might do with the truth I told her.
“All right, Nas.” Speak of the devil: Ari’s walking out of the Gray School’s office, juggling a thick packet of maps and schedules and tournament regulations. We’re all wearing the clothes we traveled in; she’s wearing her Annable uniform. Does she ever take it off? “We’re up against West Virginia Red, and then—”
“Nice,” Nasir interrupts, and pumps his fist. “Country bumpkins! Gon’ be a breeze. Thank fuck we’re not up against Massachusetts first thing, am I right?”
“Nasir, no. Do not underestimate the competition. Ever.” She pauses, gives me and Jonah a curt nod, and then looks back to her partner. “Speaking of which, let’s go strategize somewhere quieter.”
“Hold up a second, Rodham. I’m socializing.” He pulls out his phone, glances up at us. “You guys coming to this party tonight? Up at Georgetown?”
“Nasir, we’ve got four competitive rounds tomorrow.” Ari is not amused. “What part of ‘the North American Debate Association National Championships’ do you not understand?”
“Uh, I understand that I need to cruise for chicas tonight,” he says, and again flicks his eyes at us. “And these guys are gonna come cruise with me. Ain’t that right, fellas?”
I should tell him no, shouldn’t I? I should refuse his offer of chica-cruising and get a solid night of shut-eye before tomorrow’s rounds.
But something holds me back, stalls the no in my mouth. A party up at Georgetown, he said. If Nasir’s party can take me there, well . . .
“Sure,” I leap in. “Sounds fun.”
“Wait.” Jonah turns to me, disbelieving. “You actually want to go to this party?”
I nod. Georgetown, I mouth; mercifully, he gets it.
He turns to Nasir. He nods. “We’re in,” he says. “We’re cruising.”
“Wait. Don’t you have a boyfriend, Jonah?” Ari looks up from the schedule she’s busily highlighting. “I thought I saw him on your Instagram. Blond guy? Looks like an elf?”
“Oh. No.” Jonah’s clearly startled by Ari’s recon. “I mean, yes, he does look like an elf. But we’re not together anymore. We just broke up.”
“Oh, Jonah, my man.” Nasir plants a sympathetic punch on Jonah’s shoulder. “On God we gon’ get you laid tonight.”
Jonah winces. “I’m not really sure if . . .”
“No, no, no—we’re making this happen.” Nasir speaks like he’s doing some kind of gracious public service. “Lemme ask my friend at Georgetown if she knows any guys who’d be good for you.”
“Really, Nasir, I’m not—”
“And you’re, like, fully gay, right?” Nasir asks, tapping away on his phone’s keyboard. “Not even a little bi? A hundred percent into dick?”
“Correct,” Jonah says, unsmiling. “Guys only.”
I step away from them, shrinking into myself. A hundred percent into dick; guys only—that absolutely doesn’t include me, does it? Not that I want it to. Not that it’s relevant in the least. There’s nothing between Jonah and me. He just touched me. Once. That’s all. I’m getting worked up over nothing. Jonah didn’t even say the part about “dick.”
But he didn’t call Nasir on saying it, either.
“What about you, ginge?” Nasir asks, and nudges me in the ribs. “What you into? Girls? Boys? Gender liquid?”
I stare at him, bewildered: “Gender . . . liquid?”
“Leave my boys alone, Nasir,” says Adwoa, emerging from the front office, welcome packets in hand.
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