by Sarah Watson
He slid it across the table. “That’s for you. You can’t reference any of it in your article. I could get in a lot of trouble for showing you this.”
“Totally off the record,” she said. “I promise.”
She opened the folder and saw that it contained a stack of about thirty pages. There were handwritten notes on torn-out sheets from a yellow legal pad and printouts of e-mails. She started to read. As soon as she realized what it was, she looked up at Scott. “These are the constituent complaints,” she said, somewhat stunned.
He nodded. “I could tell you thought I was lying and I get it. But it’s the truth. The majority of the neighbors hate the park. The handwritten notes were taken by my predecessor. From phone calls. The e-mails pretty much speak for themselves.”
She barely heard him. She was reading one of the e-mails. The neighbor who lived directly across the street from the park hated it. Passionately. The hardest part for Jordan was that his complaints sounded legitimate. Late-night drug deals. Needles near the play equipment. He didn’t feel safe letting his daughter play there anymore. Jordan closed the file. “Thank you for this.”
This was Martha’s neighborhood. It was so hard for her to see that it had gotten that bad.
“I know it’s not what you wanted to see,” he said.
Jordan tried to pretend like she didn’t know what he was talking about. “I’m a journalist. I’m just here to report the truth. And this is the truth, so…”
He raised a dubious eyebrow. She leaned back. There was no point in lying anymore. “Fine,” she said. “I hoped my article would save the park. Sue me.”
Scott smiled. “Well, since we’re speaking off the record, I guess I’ll admit something too. You had me worried for a minute.” She looked up. “In our first interview. When you brought up the thing about the timing of the park ordinance.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “I’ve done a couple of interviews about the park now, and no other journalist has made that connection. You know how to dig. You’re also very good at being intimidating.” He added that last part with a smile, and Jordan sat up a little straighter.
“Really?”
“God, yes.”
She let the compliment wash over her. It almost made up for the disappointment she felt now that her article was a total bust. Almost. “I really wanted this piece to work,” she said. “I know journalists aren’t supposed to let their own opinions influence them, but I can’t help it. I don’t see how closing the park is a good thing. Don’t you think the kids in that neighborhood deserve to have somewhere to play?”
Scott shrugged, though not in a dismissive way. Like he was thinking. “I do think the office building is the right call here. That area needs the economic boost. But between us, it does make me nervous when we start closing parks.”
“Why can’t you put it somewhere else? Couldn’t you do that?”
Scott laughed.
“What?” Jordan asked.
“One, it’s not that easy. It’s a major project with money and red tape. And two, me? I’m flattered you think I have that kind of power. I know I seem like a big deal, but I’m not. I’m basically a glorified assistant. I’m nobody.”
“You’re not nobody.” He met her eye, and she felt her cheeks turn warm. She looked away. “I just mean, you have the ear of the councilman.” Jordan couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she had that kind of access. “You could talk to him.” She finally got the courage to look back up. Scott had a faraway look on his face. Like he was imagining something. “What is it?” Jordan asked.
“I was just thinking about what you said. Why couldn’t it go somewhere else?”
His words gave her hope. A tiny little sliver of it. She let him keep thinking. She let him process it.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe.”
Maybe was enough. She would take it. “Well,” she said, “I guess I should probably go.”
Scott nodded. “Yeah, me too.” But neither of them stood. “Unless… did you maybe want to stay for a drink?”
Jordan looked up. His question surprised her, but not in a bad way. She realized that she did want to keep talking. Staying for one drink wasn’t a problem. Was it? She could order a Coke. It was good to keep a professional rapport.
“Sure,” she said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THAT SATURDAY, CJ took her SATs for the third time. As soon as they were over, she texted Wyatt and asked him if they could meet up. She was still in a fog from her test, but this was just as important. She got to Starbucks a few minutes early and looked around for a place to sit. She was annoyed to see that both of the handicap-accessible tables were being used by people who clearly didn’t need them. She thought about saying something, but in the end, she settled for an empty four top at the back of the store. When Wyatt arrived, CJ stood up.
“Clarke,” he said. “You don’t have to stand.”
“Blame my dad. It’s how I was raised.”
“Well, I hope you won’t be offended if I don’t do the same.”
She smiled awkwardly. Then she said, “Do you want a coffee?” at the same time that he said, “So, you’re quitting, aren’t you?”
She looked down at the table. “I think it’ll be better for everyone. Especially Dakota. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“You’re not the center of the universe, Clarke.”
That made her look up. “What?”
“You seem to think you’re the source of her problems. Or that you’re a failure because you couldn’t fix them. Sorry. You’re just not that powerful.”
She folded her hands and looked down at them. “I want you to be able to bring in someone who isn’t terrible at this. Someone who knows how to say the right things. I’m just making everything worse.” When she looked back up, Wyatt was staring at her, completely unmoved. “Come on, I’m trying to quit with dignity here.”
“Well, you’re doing a terrible job of it. I don’t accept your resignation.”
Someone had carved her name into the table—Laura—and CJ traced her fingers along the lines. She wondered who Laura was and why she’d left her name behind. It made her think about the park. Another thing she couldn’t solve.
“Come on, Clarke. I’m not letting you off the hook. Now come outside with me. It’s a nice day.”
Wyatt pushed himself back from the table and CJ followed him out the door. The sidewalk was too narrow for them to move side by side so they used the bike lane instead.
“That thing that happened in the parking lot,” Wyatt said. “With the swearing and the screaming…”
“It was my fault,” CJ said. “I totally own that.”
“Again, Clarke. You’re just not that powerful. Besides, here’s what I don’t think you get. She needed that. She needed to scream.” He looked over at her. “And for what it’s worth, I think I did too.” CJ saw that his brown eyes were deep and complicated. “You don’t know this because you’ve never asked. And I’m guessing you’ve never asked because you think it would be impolite, but I haven’t been in this chair for all that long.”
CJ had noticed the scars on his arms and the one down the back of his neck, so she’d assumed there had been some sort of accident. “I have wondered. And you’re right. I did think it was rude.”
“I know, Clarke.” He said it without judgment. “A lot of people do. Sometimes the politeness just makes it harder, though.” He smiled at her. “So, is there anything you’d like to ask me?” His expression was warm. This wasn’t a trick.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Well, the short answer is extra-long sheets.”
“What’s the long answer?”
“I had just moved into my dorm room at Ohio State. But the thing you might not realize is that college dorm beds need extra-long sheets. Honest to god. It’s the craziest thing you’ve ever heard. But you need them. I was driving back from Bed Bath & Beyond. A guy in a minivan blew thr
ough a red light. I never even saw it coming.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? You weren’t driving.”
CJ shot him a look. “If I have to ask questions that make me uncomfortable, you have to stop making jokes.”
“Fair,” he said. “That’s very fair. We all have our coping mechanisms.”
They heard a bike behind them and moved to the side of the road until it passed.
“One of the things they tell you when you wake up and they drop the news that you’re never going to walk again is that everybody thinks that they’re going to be the miracle. Everybody thinks they’ll be the one to defy the odds.”
“Is there a chance? That you’ll be able to walk again?”
“Do you believe in Santa?”
CJ looked over. She correctly assumed that this was not a real question.
“The injury is at my T10 vertebra. So barring some sort of Christmas miracle, it’s not really that likely. They tell you not to pray for a miracle because the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can start to grieve. And the sooner you grieve, the sooner it gets easier.”
“When did you start to grieve?” CJ asked.
Wyatt looked at his watch and pretended like he was doing math in his head. “When was that thing in the parking lot?”
She glanced over at him. “Are you being serious with me or are you joking again?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “A little of both, to be honest. I’ve accepted I’m not the miracle. But I don’t know how much I’ve grieved. So I have to say, screaming my feelings out in a parking lot felt pretty fucking good, actually.”
He smiled and she smiled back.
Wyatt had taken the bus to get there, so CJ offered to give him a ride home. She asked him if he needed help getting into the car and he said yes. He showed her where to stand and how to hold her arm so he could steady himself against her. She could smell the clean soapy scent of his hair and the sweetness of his fabric softener.
Wyatt lived with his parents in Gates Mills, a nice community about twenty minutes from where CJ lived. She pulled into the long driveway and turned off the car. She took his wheelchair out of the back seat and unfolded it for him. Then they repeated the same process that they’d done before, only in reverse this time. Wyatt leaned against her, and his skin felt smooth and warm. He wheeled himself up the metal ramp that extended the length of the porch steps. A faded Ohio State football flag flapped in the breeze. From his doorway, Wyatt paused and turned back. “Hey, Clarke. How’d your SATs go?”
She was surprised he remembered. She’d brought it up only once and barely in passing.
“It’s just a stupid test,” she said. “It’s not important.” He stared at her in a way that told her he knew she was lying. “Okay. Fine. I care. A lot.”
“And?”
“And I think I did really well this time.”
It was the truth. Everything about the test felt different this time. Her hard work had paid off. She could feel it in her bones.
“Good for you, Clarke,” he said. “I’ll see you Monday.”
As she said good-bye, CJ realized how glad she was that he hadn’t let her quit.
Ava frowned and checked the time when she heard the doorbell ring. It was a few minutes after eleven and Jordan was officially late. She knew it wasn’t her at the door since Jordan never used the bell, preferring instead to slap her palm against the side window like an octopus in the way that had been an inside joke for so long that nobody could remember how it started. Ava unlocked the door and opened it. Logan Diffenderfer stood on the porch. “Hey,” he said.
Ava didn’t know why she’d agreed to this. Jordan hadn’t even really asked. She’d just told Ava that she was going to write an article about her painting getting accepted into the Coventry Art Gallery. Ava hated being the center of attention. She hated the idea of being written about. She hated being photographed. Especially when it was Logan Diffenderfer doing the photographing.
“Jordan’s not here yet,” Ava said.
Logan adjusted the camera bag that was over his shoulder. “That’s okay. I didn’t even know she was coming. We don’t need her or anything.”
He didn’t need her. But Ava did. The idea of being alone in her house with Logan was too weird, too awkward. She’d made Jordan promise to be there for the photo shoot.
“Could I maybe come in?” Logan said.
Ava opened the door and ushered him inside. He followed her into the living room. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.”
“So where’s your painting? Where are we doing this?”
“The sunporch probably has the best light,” Ava said.
“The light doesn’t really matter. I can work with anything. I’d rather the photo tell the real story. Where do you usually paint?”
“Um.” Ava checked her phone. Nothing from Jordan. “My easel is in my bedroom.”
“Cool,” he said, and waited for her to show him the way.
She led him down the hall and he followed her inside. Her eye went straight to the bra lying on the floor by the closet. It was her cute pink one. She didn’t know if that made this more or less horrifying. “Maybe we should wait for Jordan, though.”
Logan set his camera bag on the floor and unzipped the main pouch. “Why?”
“Uh…” As soon as his head was down, Ava snatched the bra off the floor and threw it in her closet. She scanned the room to make sure there wasn’t anything else embarrassing. Oh, nothing big. Just her antidepressant medication right there front and center on the dresser. Ava was going to kill Jordan. She wrapped her palm around the orange bottle and pressed it to her side. “I have to grab the painting,” she said. “It’s in the sunporch. Since I thought we’d shoot in there, so…”
“No problem. It’ll take me a minute to get set up.”
Ava backed out of the room. As soon as she was in the hallway, she shoved the pill bottle into the decorative vase that sat on the entryway table. She hurried to grab her painting, checking her phone again as she did.
Logan was standing at her easel when she came back in. It made her chest physically tighten when she remembered which painting was there. Of all the things in her room that made her feel exposed, this was by far the worst.
“This is incredible,” he said.
She nodded and mumbled a thanks. It was a church, simple and plain yet oddly beautiful.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Mexico City.”
She was painting it from an image on a postcard that was clipped to her easel.
“You’ve been here?” he asked, pointing to the postcard.
“No.”
She didn’t elaborate.
“Oh-kay,” he said.
“I’ll move it so we can put my gallery painting here.”
It was hard to get a good grip on the canvas while it was still wet, and she accidentally knocked it against the edge of the postcard. It fluttered to the ground and landed message side up. Logan bent to grab it. “Don’t!” she shouted so loudly that it startled them both. “Don’t read it!”
“I wasn’t!”
“Don’t look at it.”
“Okay!”
Logan looked at the ceiling. Out the window. Anywhere but down.
Ava laid the canvas on an old towel that she kept for this exact purpose. Then she picked up the postcard and put it away in the closet. Logan was still staring at the ceiling. “Can I look now?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not even gonna ask,” he said.
Good. Because she wasn’t going to tell him. She set her gallery painting on the easel. “Let’s just get this over with,” she said.
It’s not like Jordan meant to forget about Ava. She just lost track of time. Her dad was helping her with her college essays, and even though he could be brusque with writing advice, he was really good at it. She was trying to write an essay about why she wanted to attend Northwestern and was having a surprisingly hard
time coming up with a good answer. She knew they had a good journalism program and she’d seen the campus once and she liked it. Her dad didn’t think it was a good enough answer to set her apart from the pack.
“Because one of their school colors is purple. And that’s my favorite color?” she offered up hopefully.
Her dad told her to put some more thought into it. Jordan didn’t get very far into the thinking process before her phone chimed.
I can’t stop thinking about what you said.
The number wasn’t saved in her phone, but she knew exactly who it was. Scott Mercer. She could see that he was still typing. A second later, another message appeared.
You’re right. That neighborhood does deserve a park.
More typing and then a third message.
Can you talk?
Jordan looked over at her dad. “I’ll be right back. I have to do something.”
He waved her away without even looking up from the computer screen. Jordan texted a response.
Give me thirty seconds.
She went into her bedroom. She wanted to be near her whiteboard. And she wanted privacy. She took a breath and dialed.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey. So you’ve been thinking about the park?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “But this has to be completely off the record. Is that cool?”
She wondered why he was calling her, then. “Okay.”
“I wish,” he said. “I wish the councilman was handling this differently. I wish he could see that the park has value for the community.”
She stared at her whiteboard. “Why doesn’t he?”
She heard Scott sigh. “How much time do you have?”
Jordan stretched out. “I’ve got all the time in the world.” Then she remembered where she was supposed to be. “Shit!” Jordan bolted up. She’d forgotten about Ava.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Jordan scrambled to find her shoes. “I’m late. Oh my god. I’m so late for something.”
She almost fell over as she pulled one of her boots on.
“I hope it’s not important.”
“It is. It’s very important. My friend is going to kill me.”