Most Likely

by Sarah Watson

That seemed legitimate. Though also incredibly convenient. As Jordan sat there, her Spidey sense on fire, she decided that she had to push. “You understand that I could file a records request under the Freedom of Information Act, right?”

  Jordan had absolutely no idea what the Freedom of Information Act actually covered. She was taking a gamble that he didn’t either.

  She thought she heard Scott sigh. It turned out that he was just clearing his voice so he could lower it. Almost to a whisper. “Look,” he said. “I can’t give you anything on the record. But I’ll show you something if you can keep it between us.”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you meet me tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely. Should I meet you at the office?”

  “Definitely not. How about the place where that young professionals’ mixer was? The Hyatt Regency. We can meet in the lobby bar.”

  “Uh…”

  “Meet me there at seven.”

  He hung up. The first thing Jordan did was to call the Hyatt Regency and ask if the lobby bar was limited to patrons twenty-one and up. She was relieved to learn that it was also a restaurant. “Kids welcome.” That’s what the man on the phone actually said. Kids welcome. As soon as that was done, she uncapped her red pen and wrote something down.

  Councilman lying?

  CHAPTER TEN

  AVA DIDN’T mean to look at Logan’s canvas. He’d asked her not to look at the painting of her until he was done and she’d agreed. She’d walked into the art room after school because she’d finally had a revelation about how to paint her mother in the background of her self-portrait. After-school art hours were optional, and it was usually just Ava and Isla and Tobin in the room. She’d been surprised when she opened the door and saw Logan, paintbrush in hand. He’d been surprised too. His easel was angled in a way that she could see it. She looked away at first, wanting to keep her promise. Then she couldn’t help herself. She glanced back. It was only a quick look.

  “You made me white!”

  Logan spun around. “You looked? You said you wouldn’t look.”

  “No. Okay, yes. I looked. I couldn’t help it. Logan. I’m Latinx. My skin does not look like that. Even white people aren’t that white.”

  Logan stepped back and looked at his painting. Ava could tell he was embarrassed. “I know. It’s awful. I can’t do this. Mrs. Simon is going to fail me, isn’t she?”

  “Well…”

  “Shit. I can’t have anything below a B on my report card this semester. How is art harder than AP Physics? Shit, shit, shit.”

  Logan was spinning out far more than the situation required, and now Ava felt bad about her reaction. She was going to feel really terrible if he had another panic attack. “Okay, calm down. Mrs. Simon grades on effort, not talent. The fact that you’re here after school… and that you’re taking this seriously…”

  “I’ll try to find the right skin color,” he said.

  While Logan went to the back of the room to get more paint, Ava found her self-portrait. She set it up on the easel and thought about how she was going to do this. Her plan was to paint her own face onto her mother’s. Then, using the palm of her hand, she’d drag it through the wet paint to make a blurred shadow effect. Logan came back with the paint and paused behind her.

  “You make it look so easy.”

  “It’s not,” she said. “I work harder than people realize. And even then, it doesn’t always come together. This one’s been really tough. I thought it would be interesting not seeing her face, but it’s just weird.”

  “Do you ever think about looking for her? Your mom?”

  Ava grabbed the edges of her sleeves and pulled them over her wrists. “Um, it’s complicated. I don’t really want to… It’s not something I want to talk about.” With you.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll try to get your skin color right. I really am trying.”

  He returned to his painting and she returned to hers. She could feel him staring at her from time to time. He’d peek around his easel and squint at her, studying her, trying to get the image right.

  Of course Ava thought about looking for her birth mother. Sometimes she thought about it every waking second of every day. She had so many questions. That’s why the fuzzy image wasn’t sitting right with her. Because a fuzzy image would never be enough. She desperately wanted to meet the woman who had given her away, and she wanted to ask her why.

  Suddenly Ava felt goose bumps spring up all over her arms. She looked up and saw that Logan was staring. She knew it was just because of the assignment, but he didn’t look away when she met his eye.

  “I’m going to get this right,” he said.

  Ava nodded. Then she dug for her phone and sent out a desperate text.

  CJ was already in the parking lot of the rec center when she got the text from Ava.

  Logan is staring at me. It’s horrible. It’s the assignment. But still. It’s horrible. Can anyone come hang out in the art room? PLEASE. Like be a Diffenderfer buffer?

  Martha and Jordan both texted back right away that they couldn’t do it. CJ sighed. She would do anything for Ava. And if she was being honest, she was relieved to have a reason to skip out on volunteering. She felt like such a failure with Dakota. Everything she said was wrong. Like she was just making things worse. She sent a quick text to Wyatt.

  So sorry, but I can’t make it today. I’m sick.

  Wyatt texted back immediately.

  Sick of Dakota?

  CJ started to type something back about a horrible fever, but she deleted it. Maybe she could tell him she had cramps. He’d never question that. She deleted that too. Before she could come up with a third lie, her phone chimed with a new text from him.

  The blue dots betray you, Clarke. I can see you trying to come up with a lie.

  I’m not lying.

  Okay. I’m lying.

  But it’s not because of the reason you think.

  As soon as she hit send on the last message, her phone rang. It was him. “Hello?” she said.

  “Clarke. You don’t sound sick.”

  “I already admitted I’m not.”

  “Then talk to me. Why aren’t you gracing us with your presence today? If it’s because you think you failed as a volunteer, please don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re honestly not as bad as you think you are.”

  “Well, thank you for that.”

  “She’s a tough kid going through a tough time.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  CJ sighed. “The thing is,” she said, “I’ve got another tough kid going through a tough time.”

  “Are you lying to me again?”

  “Not exactly.” Ava was seventeen. Technically that made her a kid, so technically it wasn’t a lie. “Look, here’s the deal. One of my best friends got partnered up for this portrait assignment with her mortal enemy.”

  “Ah. High school drama. Tell me more.”

  “Well, it’s kind of a long story. Freshman year he said this thing and—”

  “You need to learn to recognize sarcasm. I absolutely do not care. Now get your butt down here.”

  “I know it sounds dumb, but it actually is a big deal. She’s…” CJ stopped herself from saying fragile. Ava definitely wasn’t fragile. If anything, she was the strongest person CJ knew. “She’s special.”

  “Again, Clarke. I don’t care. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  CJ hung up and walked into the gym thirty seconds later. “I was in the parking lot,” she said when Wyatt raised a curious eyebrow.

  “Clarke,” he said. “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. You’re not here to change Dakota’s life. If we can eventually get her to play some tennis, awesome. But we can’t pull her out of this thing she’s in until she’s ready to come out. She’s gotta just be in it, you know?”

  Dakota didn’t even say hello when she arrived. She went straight to the sideline, as was her habit. CJ waved. Dakota didn’t
wave back. She thought about what Wyatt had said. That Dakota just needed to “be in it.” So she let Dakota be and helped run drills with the willing participants. After about twenty minutes, Dakota looked so sullen that CJ couldn’t take it anymore. She turned to Wyatt. “Do you mind if I…”

  “Go,” he said.

  CJ went over to the sideline and sat down next to her.

  “Hey, Dakota.”

  “Hey.”

  “Where’s your mom today? I didn’t see her drop you off.”

  “Angus’s dad drove me.” Angus was a boy with death-metal stickers all over the back of his chair. “My mom is having coffee with another mom. The mom of my—this girl I used to be friends with.”

  “You’re not friends anymore?”

  Dakota shook her head. “She’s mean. I hate her. We got in a fight, and now our moms have to have coffee and talk about us.”

  “What was the fight about?”

  Dakota looked away. CJ could tell she’d hit a nerve. “I sometimes fight with my friends,” CJ said. “It feels awful, but deep down, even when we’re fighting, I know we still love each other.”

  “It’s not the same. She’ll never be my friend again. I don’t have any friends.”

  “I bet that’s not true. I know that’s not true. Because I’m your friend.”

  Dakota gave CJ a pained look. “That’s even worse than having no friends. You’re just some creepy adult who gets paid to hang out with me.”

  “I’m not getting paid,” CJ said. “I’m not even an adult. Dakota, I’m just trying to figure out everything too. The truth is, I’m kind of a mess. More than people realize sometimes. I get overwhelmed. I get scared. So I might understand better than you think. You can talk to me about anything. That’s what friends do for each other.”

  Tears immediately sprang to Dakota’s eyes. Then there was a flash of anger. “YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND!”

  Heads turned and the action on the court shifted into silence. CJ could feel everyone staring. “Dakota…”

  Wyatt caught CJ’s eye. She gave him a look as if to say that everything was under control. Even though she was fairly certain that it wasn’t. CJ leaned over to Dakota. She touched her arm lightly and whispered, “Why don’t we go outside? We can talk while we take a walk.”

  The words that were supposed to keep Dakota from going over the ledge pushed her straight off it. “Don’t you get it? I can’t take a walk! Just leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  The pain in Dakota’s voice was almost primal. It stunned CJ into silence. She sat there frozen while Dakota unlocked the wheels of her chair and fled for the exit. It was only when Dakota exploded out of the gym doors that CJ registered what was happening. Dakota was racing into the parking lot.

  Wyatt was already on the move.

  “Dakota!” he shouted as he went after her. “Dakota!”

  CJ could feel all the boys staring at her. This was her fault. This was her fault and she needed to fix it. “Carter,” she said to the oldest boy on the court. “Have everyone practice their serves. I’ll be…” She didn’t even finish the sentence.

  Outside, CJ saw that Dakota still had a lead on Wyatt. There were so many cars in the parking lot. So many drivers not paying attention. A minivan came around the corner. CJ saw it before Dakota did. The van slammed on the brakes and honked the horn. The driver opened his mouth to yell. As soon as he saw that it was a child in a wheelchair, he waved instead. “Sorry.”

  The near collision must have jarred Dakota, because she stopped. Wyatt caught up to her and Dakota spun around. She was breathing hard, and CJ got close enough that she could see tears in her eyes. “I… I… I’m sorry,” Dakota said.

  CJ decided to hang back and let Wyatt talk to her. She was so scared of saying the wrong thing again.

  Wyatt looked at Dakota with deep sympathy. “What are you sorry for?”

  “For screaming like that.”

  “It sounds to me like you needed it.”

  She nodded.

  “You want to scream some more?”

  She shook her head. “Everyone will stare.”

  “Who gives a shit?”

  She looked at him, confused but intrigued that he’d just sworn in front of her.

  “Yeah. I said ‘shit.’ You are having a shitty day and you are allowed to scream about it. I think you need to scream about it. So scream.”

  CJ shifted her weight. She felt so useless.

  “Try it,” he said. “Yell whatever you want. Yell whatever is inside of you that needs to come out.”

  Dakota was still trying to catch her breath. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “What wasn’t? But tell me louder.”

  “I was supposed to have surgery and everything was going to be fine. My mom said I’d be fine. She promised. But I’m not fine and my friend is scared of me and it’s not fair. IT’S NOT FAIR!”

  “No,” Wyatt said. “It’s not. LOUDER.”

  “IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S NOT FAIR!”

  There were at least a half dozen people walking through the parking lot. Not one of them said anything. A couple of them even looked over and smiled politely. The wheelchairs made everyone so weird and awkward. CJ looked down at her feet. She was weird and awkward too.

  Now that the floodgates were open, Dakota screamed. Wyatt raised his voice and screamed with her. It gave Dakota the permission she needed to be even louder. She screamed her truth with everything she had. She screamed until tears streamed down her face. She screamed until the shouting was mingled with laughter. Wyatt pumped his fists into the air and howled like a wolf. Dakota screamed until there were no words left, and then she howled like a wolf too. Their voices blended and carried, and the sound ebbed and flowed between anger and joy, sadness and relief.

  It was one of the most beautiful things CJ had ever seen in her life. And the most useless she’d ever felt.

  CJ didn’t talk to Wyatt about what happened that afternoon. She wouldn’t even make eye contact with him. She helped him pick up cones, and she put the tennis rackets back in the office. Then she said good night. Wyatt tried to say something to her, but she told him she had to be somewhere. She raced to her car, and when she got there, she gripped the steering wheel tightly. She’d failed again. This time it wasn’t just the SATs or coming in last in a race. She’d failed another person.

  CJ turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. She wondered if she’d ever come back. She decided it would be better for Dakota if she didn’t.

  That night, Martha opened the envelope from her dad. In one column, he’d written his gross income, his debt in another. Martha looked at the numbers and felt like her knees were going to give out. She knew it wasn’t her dad’s fault that he was in such terrible financial shape. Not that long after his layoff, he’d been in a motorcycle accident. It wasn’t even that bad, he was only banged up, but this was back when he didn’t have health insurance. The ambulance ride alone had cost two thousand dollars. She’d overheard him complain about it to one of his friends. Wish I’d never even gotten in the goddamn thing.

  Martha flopped back on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling, where she could still see the yellowed outlines where an entire galaxy of glow stars had once loomed. Her dad had bought them for her and helped her put them up on their first night in the new apartment. Martha was in her astronomy phase back then. For a few years, her dream was to fly to the stars. Now her dream was so much smaller. She just wanted to be able to pay for college.

  Martha decided to call CJ. It’s not that Ava and Jordan wouldn’t try to understand, it’s just that CJ actually would. Not totally. Her family wasn’t nearly as bad off, but money was still tight. Her parents clipped coupons and complained about the economy and at least that was something. CJ’s parents had had to fill out these horrible forms too. When CJ didn’t pick up, she called Jordan. Then Ava. Then she tossed her phone across the room and clenched her eyes shut. She wanted to hide. From all of it
. The debt and the anxiety and the stars she’d once thought she could fly to.

  Martha’s phone rang, and she walked across the room to get it from where it had landed. She hoped it was CJ. It wasn’t.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively.

  “Hi,” said Victoria. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”

  “No. What’s up?”

  Victoria was probably calling to take more of her hours away. “Uncle Benny” had mentioned that he was going to rearrange the schedule again.

  “I was just calling to talk,” Victoria said. “I wanted to see how you’re doing, I guess. You seemed… I don’t know. You seemed like you were having a bad day.”

  “I don’t think you’d understand,” Martha said.

  “Try me.”

  “It’s financial stuff. That doesn’t really seem like a problem for you. No offense.”

  “It’s okay. None taken. I probably wouldn’t understand. But I can still listen.”

  Martha walked back to her bed. She climbed in it and curled up. Then she told Victoria everything while she stared at her stars.

  Jordan had learned her lesson with the too-tight suit dress, so when she walked through the revolving door of the Hyatt Regency that night, she was dressed stylishly but comfortably in a pair of her own bright-red cigarette pants. She usually paired them with a funky printed tee and a pair of sneakers, but today she’d made the look more subdued with a simple black tank top and some heels. She felt more like herself—the adult version of herself—and that gave her confidence as she searched for Scott at the bar.

  He was seated at a small table with a single candle flickering on it. There was a manila folder in front of him. Jordan’s heart leaped slightly when she saw it. She didn’t know what was in that folder, she just knew that it was going to change everything.

  Scott stood when she approached and shook her hand. He was so unfailingly well-mannered. She could never imagine one of the boys in her high school behaving like this. “Nice to see you,” he said as they both sat.

  “Is that for me?” she asked, eyes moving to the folder.