by Sarah Watson
“Um, you already tried that,” Martha said.
“I tried it as the editor of a high school newspaper. Not as an adult journalist.”
“Adult journalist?” Ava said. “Like porn?”
Jordan shot her a look. “I mean a journalist who is an adult.”
CJ had no idea where this was going. “But you’re not a journalist who is an adult.”
“He doesn’t have to know that,” Jordan said. “If I call and request a phone interview, he won’t have any idea how old I am. Once I get my interview, I’ll run it in the Blaze. He’ll be stunned when he sees how good it is. He’ll never underestimate a kid again.”
“And this saves the park how?” Ava asked.
“One step at a time,” Jordan said.
The bell rang and CJ tensed. She and Martha both had AP Physics. They had their first quiz of the semester and CJ was nervous. Math and science had never come easily to her, and she’d been lost and overwhelmed since the first day. Martha belonged in that classroom. CJ didn’t. She was a fraud.
“Wait,” Jordan said. “I need one of you to help me create a fake online imprint.” CJ and Ava both pointed at Martha. She was good at coding. “Sure,” said Martha.
“Nothing too extreme. It’s just in case he tries to look me up. Give me a different last name. James. It’s my mom’s maiden name. She always wanted her legacy to live on. I’m thinking a LinkedIn profile and some links to clips of mine. But attributed to adult newspapers.” Ava was right. It sounded like porn when you said it that way. “Oh, and I’ll need some help researching the councilman. Past voting record. Donor lists. Everything.”
Ava and Martha both pointed at CJ. Which was fair. She was the best at research. If she could find the time. CJ thought about her already monstrously long to-do list. She had the SAT and APs to study for. College essays to write. She had an interview after school with a volunteer program. The food bank where she used to give her time had shut down over the summer because of budget cuts, and she was itching to do something worthwhile. And, okay, she also wanted it because she was worried about how the gap in her volunteer hours would look to colleges. Now, on top of everything else in her life, Jordan wanted her to do a full background check on a politician. CJ honestly didn’t know how she was going to balance it all.
Ava was usually the first person in her art classroom every morning. Mrs. Simon opened the door one hour before class started, and since Ava still hadn’t worked up the courage to tell her mom that she wanted to apply to art school, she figured it was safer to work on her application portfolio outside of the house.
As the second bell rang, Ava said a quick hello to Isla and Tobin, the class’s other star artists, before hurrying to her spot in the front row. On the first day of school, Mrs. Simon had told everyone to choose where they’d like to sit. Art was the only class where Ava didn’t mind being in the front row. It was the only time she felt okay when people stared. The classroom was divided into pairs of easels, and Ava was the only one without a partner next to her. She didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t because they didn’t like her. It was because they were intimidated by her.
Mrs. Simon paced the room and gave a few instructions before telling the class to pick up their hand mirrors and get to work. Their first project this year was a self-portrait, and Ava found the assignment a little uncomfortable. She didn’t know if all adopted kids did this, but Ava would often stare in the mirror for long periods of time and study her own face. She’d never seen a picture of her birth mother, so she could only imagine that her mother had the same expressive eyes and long lashes, the same small nose and cowlicked hair. Ava’s own face was the only clue she had about what her biological mother looked like.
Ava always wanted her paintings to be about something, so she decided to make this one an expression of the complicated relationship she had with the woman who had given birth to her yet remained a mystery. She decided to paint an image of a female figure looming deep in the background and watching her. Since she had no idea what her birth mother looked like, she would keep the image hazy—a blurred mystery woman.
As Ava painted, she wondered about a lot more than just the shape of her birth mother’s face. The questions floated through her with each stroke of her paintbrush. Was she artistic too? Was it hard for her to make her voice loud enough to be heard in a crowd? Did she sometimes get sad for no reason?
Ava was immersed in her work when the classroom door flew open and broke her concentration. A flustered Logan Diffenderfer walked in. “Hey. Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t know where the art classroom was. Am I in the right place?”
Mrs. Simon looked up. “Yes. Can I help you with something?”
Logan held up a note. “Yeah. I’m supposed to be in this class now. I guess it was the only first-period class with room.”
Mrs. Simon walked over and took his note. After a second, she nodded. “Welcome to Advanced Art, Mr. Diffenderfer. There’s an empty spot up front.”
She directed him to the only open easel in the classroom. The one right next to Ava.
“Turn right in fifty meters.”
The electronic voice of CJ’s GPS belonged to a British woman.
CJ was annoyed by the accent, but she would be late if she stopped to mess around with her phone settings. The British woman was a gift from Martha. CJ had been up late the night before studying for their physics quiz, and she’d been so tired that she fell asleep during fifth period. Hard enough that she didn’t even notice when Martha used her thumb to unlock her phone. While CJ continued napping, Martha changed all of CJ’s settings. She’d meant for it to be funny, and on any other day, CJ probably would have laughed—she certainly deserved it after that whole air horn thing—but she’d cried instead. Martha was so stunned that she immediately apologized and changed everything back. But she’d apparently forgotten about the British woman.
“Keep left at the car park,” said the regal voice.
The e-mail from the college counselor had broken her. She was already worried that she wasn’t good enough for Stanford even before Ms. Fischer’s message arrived in her in-box.
Stanford had been her top choice for as long as she could remember. It was a campus dappled in golden light and lined with palm trees, where nobody laughed when you said you wanted to change the world. They encouraged big ideas, loud ones, disruptive ones. The kind that CJ kept locked deep inside her because she was too scared to say them out loud. She wanted to do something with her life that would matter. Something bigger and more important than painting protest signs and recycling her milk carton. She just didn’t know how. Stanford would give her the tools. It would also give her the credibility to use them. She would never feel like a fraud again.
“In one hundred meters, you will arrive at your destination.”
The destination was the office for Sensational Recreational, an after-school program that taught sports to kids with physical disabilities.
“In fifty meters, you will arrive at your destination,” said the British voice.
CJ was ten minutes early. She should put that on her Stanford application. Always punctual. She reminded herself that the volunteer coordinator had e-mailed her almost immediately after she’d sent her résumé. He’d been impressed by her cover letter. Because that’s the kind of girl she was. The kind who was on time and wrote exceptional cover letters. So what if her SATs were a little lackluster? Even Hermione Granger stumbled from time to time.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the British voice said, and CJ realized that it actually sounded like a grown-up Hermione. It gave CJ confidence. She pulled into the parking lot and paused before getting out of her car. She was going to get this volunteer job and impress Stanford with how beautifully well-rounded she was. But first she needed to Hermione Granger the shit out of this interview. She took a breath, exhaled, and adjusted her posture a bit. This was a thing she did when she was talking to anyone important. Shoulders back, head high, confident smile,
and…
She walked across the parking lot and opened the rec center door. A blast of music greeted her.
Duh. Duh, duh, duh.
It was the music from Rocky and it was so loud that CJ actually cringed. Was she in the right place? A sign tacked to the back wall told her that she was.
A guy about her age sat behind the front desk doing some paperwork. He clearly hadn’t heard CJ arrive over the music. His shaggy brown hair fell over his face as he worked. CJ said hello in her most professional voice.
When he looked up, CJ found that she was staring into a pair of brown eyes that were more mature than the shaggy brown hair suggested.
“Hi,” he said over the music. “Alexa, turn it down.” The music continued blasting. “Alexa. Shut up!” This time the music stopped. “Sorry. I’m working on an inspirational playlist. Is the Rocky theme too obvious?”
Totally too obvious. Instead of telling him that, CJ put out her hand and said, “Sorry to interrupt. I’m CJ Jacobson.” He stared at her outstretched hand as if confused. He was definitely cute, but he was also definitely giving her generation a bad name. She had been taught that when someone puts out a hand, you stand and shake it.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked.
Still holding herself in her professional posture, CJ consulted the details of the e-mail that she’d been sent in response to her application. “I have a four o’clock interview with… Wyatt.” She checked the e-mail again. “I’m sorry. No last name was provided.”
“I’m Wyatt No Last Name Provided,” said the guy who was giving her generation a bad name.
“You’re him?”
“I am he.”
There had to be more than one Wyatt.
“Wyatt the volunteer coordinator?”
“Wyatt No Last Name Provided. Wyatt the Volunteer Coordinator. I answer to either. But I’m confused. I have a meeting with…” He turned to his e-mail as if challenging hers. “Clarke Jacobson.”
“I am she.”
“Huh,” he said, looking her up and down. She knew from experience what this up-down look meant. He wasn’t checking her out. He was registering the fact that she wasn’t a dude. “I thought you were…”
“A guy. Yeah. I get that a lot. I’m not.”
“Evidently.”
She felt flustered. It was his smile. It was incredibly disarming. Not in that way. It’s just that this interview was not going well and she needed it to go well.
“My legal name is Clarke. But everybody calls me CJ.”
CJ was the fourth child, and with three older sisters, she was her father’s last chance for a boy he could name after himself. When CJ came out all feisty and tough, he decided to give her his name anyway.
Wyatt pulled out her résumé from a stack of other résumés. It made her heart sink a little. She didn’t like thinking about the competition.
“Your résumé is impressive, Clarke,” he said. Either forgetting or not caring that she went by CJ.
“Thank you.”
“But I was really looking to hire a guy.”
“Pardon?” she said. Because obviously she’d heard him wrong.
“I was hoping to hire a guy.”
It’s not like she was naïve. She knew the world hadn’t changed so much that misogyny didn’t still exist, but she certainly thought it had changed enough that nobody would be dumb enough to come right out and admit it. CJ was ready to call the ACLU right then and there but not before giving him a piece of her mind.
“Well, Wyatt. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but not only are your hiring practices completely illegal, they are also totally small-minded, since I assure you that I can do anything a man can.”
Wyatt didn’t seem at all flustered by CJ’s passionate speech. His smile had shifted a little bit, but it was still there on his face. It made him look… She wasn’t exactly sure how it made him look.
“You can?” he said. “You can do anything a man can?”
“Oh, I can.”
“You can go into the boys’ locker room and help them change?”
Smug. That was the look on his face. He was smug.
“Oh. Uh… oh. Well… I guess not that.”
His smugness shifted to amusement. “I’m not sexist. But the locker room thing is a concern. We have more boys than girls in the program. It’s probably still technically illegal for me not to hire you because of your gender, but it’s an unpaid position, so…”
It was a fair point. While suing a nonprofit organization that empowered kids in wheelchairs would certainly be something that colleges would notice, she guessed that it wasn’t quite the kind of experience that Stanford was looking for. So she politely and somewhat sheepishly thanked Wyatt No Last Name Provided for his time and turned to leave.
“Nice meeting you, Clarke,” he said when she reached the exit. “Sorry that we weren’t meant to be.”
She put her hand on the door but paused before opening it. “Hey. Why do you have more boys than girls? In the program?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. This is the first month. Well, of the expanded program. It used to only run once a month on a weekend. So we had kids coming from all over the state. But I talked my bosses into letting me try out a weekday version. I just feel like the kids deserve more than once a month, you know?”
CJ nodded.
“But that means it’s only been the local kids. And so far it’s mostly boys. We do have one girl, though.”
CJ couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry, it’s just… that’s your ‘more boys than girls’ breakdown? You’ve got one girl?”
“It’s a start. Hey. I’m just happy kids are showing up.”
“Boy kids.”
“And one girl.”
CJ shot him a look.
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I know I can do better. And honestly,” he added, “I don’t think the one girl is having a very good time.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because every time she comes, she tells me how much she hates it.”
CJ nodded. It would seem she wasn’t having a good time, then. CJ had been on coed teams before, but they had always had a pretty close gender balance. She’d never been the only girl. She wondered what that would feel like.
“A female leader could help,” CJ told him. “It would probably be less weird and more fun for her if she wasn’t the only girl in the room.”
Wyatt looked up. She could tell that he was considering what she’d just said.
“I’m just saying, if you’re really committed to expanding this program, it would help to have a female role model.”
“And you would be that female?”
She’d found herself an opening. That was all she needed. Now she just had to close this. Shoulders back, head high, Hermione Granger, and…
“Look, I work hard, I’m enthusiastic. I’m a people person.”
Wyatt seemed to be considering. “Go on.”
“I’ve played sports all my life, so I know what it takes to be a good coach.”
She was thinking of her best coach now. Ms. Chandran. She had been CJ’s cross-country coach. CJ wasn’t the best girl on the team, not by a mile. Sometimes literally. She felt clumsy and huge next to the other girls who looked like sleek greyhounds in their tiny track shorts. CJ possessed the kind of body that people politely called “stocky.” It wasn’t built for distance, and she opted to stick to the shorter runs. She would never forget the day that Ms. Chandran unceremoniously told her that she was going to compete in the long course. CJ shook her head. Her legs couldn’t go that far. Ms. Chandran assured her that they would. CJ assured her that they wouldn’t. This went on for several rounds until Ms. Chandran finally rested her hands on CJ’s shoulders, looked her in her terrified green eyes, and said, Your legs aren’t what’s holding you back, CJ.
CJ ran the race. She ran it with every bit of Ms. Chandran’s coaching advice pumping in her ears. Dig deep, CJ. Dig! She ignore
d the ache in her lungs and the burn in her legs, and kept digging until she exploded over the finish line, collapsing in a heap of exhaustion and emotion and absolute awe at what she’d just done. She’d come in second to last, and yet she’d never been prouder of herself. She didn’t feel intimidated by the greyhound girls after that.
“And I know”—CJ’s voice caught a little and she played it off with a cough—“I know what it means to have a good coach. Your one girl needs that. She deserves that.”
Wyatt looked CJ up and down again. She could tell he was impressed. “Okay, Clarke. You’re hired. I mean, not hired. No money will exchange hands, but…”
She smiled. “You will not regret this.”
“I doubt I will. But you might.”
He was smiling now. In a way that made her wonder what she’d just gotten herself into.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ve got some paperwork for you in the back. Follow me.”
Feeling triumphant, CJ stepped forward. Wyatt did not. Step, that is. He rolled his chair back from the desk. With a sweatshirt slung over the back of his chair, CJ hadn’t noticed that the reason Wyatt hadn’t stood when she’d extended her hand wasn’t because he was rude. It was because he couldn’t stand. Wyatt was in a wheelchair.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Nope,” CJ said.
She gave him a smile and followed him into the back.
The movie theater where Martha worked was a dusty old singleplex. The best thing about working there was also the worst thing: It was boring. They only showed artsy movies that weren’t exactly popular with the unsophisticated masses of their Cleveland suburb, and there were some days where not a single customer showed up. Martha hoped today would be one of those days. She’d dragged Ava to work with her because she wanted to pick her brain about Jordan’s plan with the park. Martha had concerns. So far, though, Ava was only interested in talking about Logan Diffenderfer.
“He’s violating my safe space.”
Martha slid her key into the lock and pulled the door open. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t sign up for art just to ruin your life.”