Brighton
2:15 p.m. --- 22 hours, 45 minutes left
Amelia pulls me to the side of the hall as soon as class is over. “Let’s go get mochas and talk. I know you’re stressing.” “Can’t. Friday—manicures with Mom.” My answer is quick, my mind immediately shuttering off tempting thoughts of sinking into a cozy chair at Bean Haven and having an honest conversation with Amelia. “Thanks, though.”
“I think she’d understand if you wanted to skip this week.”
“I really can’t. I can’t mess with her routine right now. She’s . . .” I flutter my hand and try to think of the right word, “fragile.”
“And you’re not? B, you—”
“Brighton! There you are!” Silvia’s a sophomore, but I work with her on yearbook and dance committees. She moves a million miles an hour—both on and off the soccer field— and speaks everything with exclamation points. Her energy is contagious . . . normally. “Did you get my texts? I need help on my lab report!”
Amelia frowns. “We’re kinda in the middle of some- thing.”
“Oh, sorry! I know, it’s Friday afternoon—finally! You probably want to leave. It’s not due till Monday. Want me to e-mail what I have and we can meet up tomorrow?”
“Can’t you ask someone else?” Amelia suggests. I know the hand she’s put on my arm is supposed to be supportive, but it feels like yet another weight, another demand, another expectation.
“Mr. Leland told me to ask Brighton. But I guess if you don’t want to . . .” I hope the statement ends with “I’ll ask someone else” or “I’ll figure it out,” but Silvia just shrugs and sighs.
“She doesn’t.”
“Amelia!” I exclaim.
Silvia takes a step backward, but I protest, “It’s all right. Really, it’s okay. Show me now.” I squeeze Amelia’s arm and give her an apologetic look. “Have fun tonight with Peter.”
“Call me later.” It’s a command, and I nod before I follow
Silvia toward the computer lab.
“Brighton!” Jake Murphy calls down the hall. “What time should I be at the library on Sunday?”
I don’t want to yell, so I hold up eight fingers. “Eight a.m.? You’re killing me,” he bellows.
“I try,” I say, shooting finger guns in his direction.
This earns me one of his booming laughs and a “For you, my coffee and I will be there. Large. Coffee.”
Ellie Cooper stops me next, and it’s hard to maintain a smile. Just this once I’d like to get from point A to point B without having twenty conversations. Invisibility sounds like the most desirable of superpowers—I’ll have to ask Peter which radioactive creature needs to bite me.
“B, I’m going to be a little late on Sunday. Tennis lesson.”
“That’s okay. We’ll probably be at the library until noonish.”
“Great! I’ll be there by ten. At the latest. Who’s coming?” The list is at the bottom of my bag—and if I pull it out, she’ll want to talk about everyone on it. So I wink. “Wait and see.”
“You’re the worst. Ugh, okay, I guess I’ll be patient. Oh, almost forgot, Mr. Donnelly wants to see you before you leave.”
“He does?” Mr. Donnelly is the Key Club advisor. I’m sure it’s nothing, just some last-minute reminders about the book project, but it’s yet another thing between me and my car. I pull on a smile. “Thanks, Ellie. See you Sunday.”
Three interruptions later, we finally reach the empty computer lab. Silvia inserts a thumb drive and pulls up her lab report. My chest tightens when I look at the screen. She’s normally a good student, but her equations are a mess. This isn’t going to be simple or fast. I look at the clock and pull out chairs.
“Silvie, this is kind of . . .”
“A disaster?” she suggests. Laughs. Then drops her head into her hands. “Ugh, I know! I was just so distracted!”
“Well, it shouldn’t take us too long. Let’s get started.” I scroll down the pages looking for something to compliment. I know from yearbook that Silvia needs to hear something positive before a negative. “Your conclusion is solid; we just need to swap around some of the chemical names and results in the procedure so they match.”
"Yeah, I copied most of that from Izzie. I just couldn’t pay attention today!”
“Then we’ll need to change the wording, or Mr. Leland will notice.” I take the mouse and start this process.
She sighs. “Sorry! You’re probably totally impatient to get out of here. But, honestly, this is not my fault. Anyone would have flaked in my situation.” She looks at me and raises her eyebrows, waiting for me to ask.
I swallow my sigh and let go of the mouse. “Everything okay?”
“Adrian! Forrester!” She says this like it’s an answer, but I’m not sure how it matches my question. When I shrug, she continues. “Do you know him? Super tall? Super blond? Super hot? Both our lab partners were absent, so Mr. Leland paired us up for this . . .”
She stops talking and stares dreamily at the computer screen.
“And?” I prompt.
“Oh! And nothing.” She frowns. “But, gah, he’s too adorable! He’s wearing this yellow polo today, with a blue stripe that is the exact same color as his eyes. How am I supposed to pay attention when he’s wearing that? And he was telling Max at the next table about his new car—he just got his license. I’d die to be his copilot!”
I don’t have time to be relationship therapist and chem tutor, so I offer the obvious solution and hope we can move on. “So, why don’t you ask him out?”
Silvia laughs and plays with the mouse. “Yeah, right! We’re not all you. I could never. When it comes to Adrian, I’m just . . . hopeless!”
I’m not going to bite this time. I’m not going to play Who’s More Popular or list the reasons any guy would be lucky to date her. I know she expects this, and it would only take a blink to conjure up the words.
But I can’t. I just can’t.
“Well, then, let’s focus on something less hopeless, like getting you an A on this lab.”
It’s kinder than what I’m thinking—it must be nice to have your biggest problem be a hot lab partner—but my tone is sharper than I intend.
Silvia’s face crumples. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. You can go. I’ll—I’ll stop being so stupid and figure it out.”
My stomach clenches. Hurting her feels like punching myself in the gut. “Oh, Silvie, I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” I give her a one-armed hug and say what I should have said the first time.
“Any guy would be lucky to have someone as adorable, funny, and wonderful as you. Your snickerdoodles alone would make most guys drool—combine those with how pretty you are, and how nice? If Adrian hasn’t noticed, then he’s the one who’s stupid.”
“Yeah. Sure. Thanks.” But there aren’t exclamation points on these sentences. She turns her face toward the screen. “I’ll get started so you can get out of here.”
I’m trying not to watch the clock, and not to guess how long everything will take. I’m impatient—I don’t want to keep repeating myself for Silvia or go make small talk with Mr. Donnelly—and knowing that makes me feel worse. I adore Silvie. I like tutoring. I love organizing service projects.
At least, I usually do. I should probably apologize again, make sure she’s okay, but she’s finally focusing on the computer screen and it’s taking all my energy not to clench my hands into fists, so I don’t interrupt.
“Great!” I tell her. “You’re getting it.”
My job is purely moral support, company, and prompts to keep going. A talking doll could do this job—probably better than I could, since a doll wouldn’t have snapped at Silvia. A doll wouldn’t make Silvia feel like she had to apologize for every question or thank me for every answer.
It takes me until she hits print to convince her that I don’t mind, that she’s not stupid, and really, I’m not annoyed with you. How could anyone be annoyed with you?
Silvia thanks me again, and hugs me. “I mean it, B. You’re the best! I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about this over the weekend.”
“Anytime.” I hug her back. “But I should get going if I’m going to catch Mr. Donnelly before he leaves.”
As I walk down the hall I catch sight of a tall guy wearing a yellow polo with a blue stripe standing at a locker. I’m only two doors from Mr. Donnelly’s room, but I’m still suffocating on computer lab guilt, so I pause and smile at him.
“Hi! Adrian, right?”
He looks startled, then grins. “Yeah. Hey, Brighton. I didn’t know you knew me—I guess from that animal-shelter thing earlier in the year?”
“Of course!” I agree. “Anyway, could you do me a quick favor? Please?”
“For you? Yeah. Sure! What’s up?” He pops the tab on a can of Red Bull and takes a sip.
“Do you know Silvia Lombardo?”
“Tall, bouncy girl with brown hair? She’s in my chem class.” His locker is still open, and it’s a mess of energy drinks, papers, Sharpies, and a trio of Cross Pointe High hooded sweatshirts.
“Great! I forgot to tell her what time Key Club is meeting Sunday, and I’m already late for a meeting with Mr. Donnelly. Would it be a huge inconvenience if I ask you to run back to the computer lab and tell her it’s at eight a.m.?”
“Is that the library thing? I’m going to that.”
“Fabulous!” His name is so not on the list in my bag, but I’ll take all the recruits I can get—plus, Silvia will be thrilled. “And did I hear you just got your license?”
“Yeah. Yesterday.” He blinks and stands a little taller, leans toward me. “I can finally use the parking space my parents reserved for me. Crazy, right? Them paying for a space I only get to use a dozen times before summer break—not that I’m complaining.”
I’m supposed to giggle or roll my eyes at his parents’ excess, but really I want to yank the Red Bull from his hand and chug it. Hope that there’s enough caffeine in the can to get me from now until whenever I can collapse on my bed.
I giggle.
“You know—” He shifts his weight and puts a hand on my arm. “I’m old for a sophomore. My parents kept me back in kindergarten, so I’m practically a junior. If you want to see my car—”
If Silvia walked by right now, she’d be crushed. I’m not flirting. I don’t have a quarter of the energy required to flirt. I have less than zero interest in flirting with Adrian, but he thinks I am. Instead of helping Silvie, I’m making things worse. I pull my arm away from his hand.
“You know what would be awesome?” I don’t pause for his answer. “If you could carpool on Sunday. Since you can drive and most sophomores can’t—and there’s not much parking there. Maybe you could drive . . . Silvia?”
“Silvia?” He steps back, message received. “Yeah, I could totally do that. I’ll go find her for you.”
“Thanks,” I say, turning down the hall. “You’re the best, Adrian! See you Sunday.”
Mr. Donnelly’s shuffling through stacks of student work, moving piles back and forth on his desk and looking through his bag. He’s so absorbed in this process, he doesn’t acknowledge my knock or notice when I cross the classroom to stand on the other side of his desk. I shift my weight a few times, check the clock on the wall above the projection screen, and finally fake a ridiculous-sounding cough.
He looks up and adjusts his glasses. “Oh, Brighton! Sorry, I didn’t hear you. I can’t seem to find the list of volunteers for Sunday.”
“I have it. Remember? You gave it to me yesterday.”
“Did I? Well, I’ve got a few more names for you to add. Where did I put that note?”
My heart picks up a beat, and for a moment it’s easy to ignore that the clock is ticking away my downtime while Mr. Donnelly rejects a variety of illegible notes on scraps of paper. Could Jonah have changed his mind? If so, I can just apologize in person at the event.
“Here it is: Mallory Freeman and Jake Murphy. How many volunteers does that put you at?”
I swallow and bite the inside of my lip. Not Jonah.
I need to sit. Now. Like disappointment has a weight to it. A weight heavy enough to make my knees refuse to hold me up. I lower myself onto a table and steal an extra moment by pulling the sign-up sheet out of my bag and adding their names. Adrian’s too.
It’s not just Jonah I’m upset about. It’s my dad. Every- thing seems to be leading back to Dad right now.
I take a deep breath and count the names on the sheet. “Twenty-two. That’s plenty, even if a few of them are no- shows.”
Mr. Donnelly nods and pulls a coffee-stained catalog out of a drawer. It figures he knows exactly where that is, and he even has a sticky note marking the page. He flips it open, and I’m faced with a glossy photograph of the plaque I picked out back in October: green marble mounted on dark cherry wood. The words engraved in gold. A row of people holding hands across the bottom that look like the chains of paper dolls I used to cut out and decorate in elementary school.
It’s perfect—an exact duplicate of the plaque already hanging in the lobby outside the main office, the one inscribed with my father’s name—but that doesn’t matter anymore. Ninety-nine point whatever percent isn’t good enough.
“Brighton, the deadline for club purchases is next Thursday.”
I nod and tighten my fingers. The date is circled on my calendar at home.
I look at the wording I’d deliberated over this fall—it’s printed on the sticky note, just waiting for an order that won’t be placed:
Cross Pointe Key Club
100% Participation Award
2013–2014
Club President: Brighton Waterford
Club Advisor: Mr. Donnelly
Making the world better, one day at a time.
“I’ve got a lot riding on this. Principal Jencks and I made a bet, you know.”
“You did?” I ask.
“If you pull this off, I win—and my schedule next year will have a coveted end-of-the-day prep period. If we don’t get a hundred percent student participation, I lose. And then I’m in charge of coordinating the halftime bake sales at all the football games. Please don’t make me lose. I can’t cook.”
“I’m trying.” I want to tell him I don’t need the added pressure. That I’ll make all the cookies, cupcakes, sugary whatevers he needs next fall, but I can’t do this.
“I know you are.” His face softens into affection; he’s never made it a secret that I’m one of his favorite students. It’s a blessing that often feels as heavy as a burden—especially now, when I want to make him happy but can’t. “You remind me so much of your dad—and if Ethan were still alive, he’d be so proud of you for doing this.”
I’m used to people comparing us, and I know Mr. Donnelly went to school with Dad, so it shouldn’t surprise me, but I’m unprepared, caught off-guard, and a soft “I hope so” escapes my lips.
“Of course he would. I’m sure I’ve already told you all this: how he was a couple grades above me, but he knew everyone, and everyone wanted to be his friend. He was such a leader—like you—I think if he’d wanted us to dye our hair green instead of raising money for starving Ethiopians or Mexican earthquake survivors, we would’ve done it. You couldn’t listen to him and not get caught up in his enthusiasm. There’s so much of him in you. You are his legacy.”
I suck my bottom lip and refuse to let myself blink. If I don’t shut my lids, then my eyes are just glistening. It’s not the same as crying. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to hear that. Or how much it would hurt.
It’s not that I don’t want to answer, thank him. It’s that I can’t.
After several weighty seconds, Mr. Donnelly nudges a box of tissues in my direction and clears his throat. “So, have you had any luck with our little situation?”
I twist a tissue in my fingers while I take some steadying breaths. I doubt Jonah Prentiss would appreciate being referred to as a “little situation”—or maybe he wouldn’t care, just like he didn’t care about harbor seals, drinking water in Africa, litter along the highway, or any of the other causes I’ve invited him to help out with.
“He’s busy on Sunday. Sorry.”
Mr. Donnelly sighs and slides the catalog another inch or two closer to me. “It’s always hard when new students move into town; they don’t understand the Cross Pointe philosophy of giving back to the community. If Brighton Waterford can’t convince him to participate, that says it all. Some people are takers, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
For a moment I’m relieved. There is nothing I can do. Jonah is just a taker. There are no magic words I can use to persuade him to volunteer. The whole situation has gotten overhyped and out of hand.
Mr. Donnelly continues, “You know, maybe if I talked to him . . . It’s not too late: we could get him to commit to tutoring someone during finals or we could stretch the rules a little and get him to sign up for a summer service project after he graduates. Maybe if I tell him how much it means to you. We could even talk to him togeth—”
I shake my head so emphatically that Mr. Donnelly stops midword.
“No. Really. You don’t need to.”
The last thing that would work is Mr. Donnelly cornering Jonah and telling him to do it for me.
If I could just figure Jonah out: who he is, what he likes, why he refuses to play by the same social rules as everyone else.
“We’ve worked so hard on this all year—I’d just hate to see all that effort go unacknowledged if you fail.”
I flinch at the words “you fail.”
He smiles reassuringly. “And I’d really hate to have to figure out how to turn on my oven.”
“I’ll try, but . . .”
I look down at the catalog again. Mr. Donnelly spins the picture so it’s facing me.
“Don’t give up hope just yet. There are still a few days until that ordering deadline.” He taps the photo. “I have faith in you. I still think we’ll be ordering this, and the Waterford volunteerism legacy will continue. Your dad wouldn’t give up, and you won’t either.”
I stammer a thank-you and leave the room. I want to give up.
But I can’t.
My father’s the only one who’s ever done this: gotten the whole school to volunteer. And Mr. Donnelly’s right: Dad never would’ve given up on 100 percent; he never would’ve given up on Jonah.
I spin the ring on my finger—I have no idea how I’ll change Jonah’s mind, but I won’t disappoint Mr. Donnelly. I won’t fail my dad.
The hallways are nearly deserted, and I’m grateful. I’m itchy in my skin, fidgety in ways I haven’t been since I was little and Mom lectured me about standing still. I need to keep moving, keep making progress toward home. Take a few minutes in my room, maybe even climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.
But Amelia’s Land Rover is still in the parking space next to my car: the Audi Roadster my sister, Evy, picked for her sixteenth birthday four years ago. I hate how conspicuous it is—like a bright red jelly bean. I open my door and climb in, lowering my window when Amelia opens her passenger door to talk. Peter’s behind the wheel. He calls his greeting across her and turns down the radio.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” I say, but I’m touched that she did. She shrugs this off and asks, “What time is the memorial tomorrow?”
“One.” It’s that squeaky voice from English class.
Twenty-one hours and fifty-six minutes from now. Not enough time to prepare.
“Want me to come over before?”
I wish I could get out of the car and hug her, but I can’t without crying. If Amelia sees a single tear, she’ll never let me leave. And my mom needs me. “Thanks, but that’s okay— I’ll see you at the church.”
She ducks under the shoulder strap of her seat belt to lay her head on Peter’s shoulder. “If you change your mind, call me. And call me later.”
“Sure. Have fun tonight.”
But her attention’s on Peter now.
I watch them for a minute before I raise my window and put the car in reverse. It only takes six minutes to drive home; I still might have fifteenish minutes to decompress if Mom’s running at all late.
After eight minutes of impatient stop signs and pausing to let joggers, dog walkers, and baby strollers cross at every corner, I pull into the driveway and hit my garage door remote.
Mom is waiting at the top of the stairs. She’s still in a gray pencil skirt and white-collared blouse, but she looks rumpled. Her sleeves are rolled up, and wisps of dark hair have escaped from her bobby pins. So much for fifteen minutes. Or even five.
I want to turn around and retreat to my car, to make up an excuse and go get the mail—anything to create just a minute of me time. Instead I notice her nervous energy, the way she’s half reaching for me, as if she’s going to pull me up the last step and into the kitchen.
I take a deep breath, close the space for a quick hug, and manage a calm voice: “You’re home early.”
She laces her fingers together and looks down at the toes of her pumps. “I took a half day. It was too hard to focus. I keep thinking about tomorrow. I need everything to be perfect for your father.”
I look beyond her shoes to the mess she’s already created in the foyer: her coat slung over the banister, a coffee mug on the antique bureau, her purse on one stair, her briefcase on another, and her keys—for some reason—on the floor.
“How about we stay home? I’ll make tea and you can change out of your work clothes.”
Mom looks up. Almost-formed tears cling to her eye- lashes as she blinks with surprise. “But it’s Friday, we’ve got manicures. And look at that chip on your nail.”
“I can just touch it up. We could reschedule. What if we go on Monday?”
“We always go on Friday. We’ve got appointments.”
I open my mouth to protest, but a smudge of mascara under her left eye stops me. She’s been crying. “Okay.”
Mom nods. “Go on, put away your bag, then we’ll leave.”
I obey, climbing the stairs to my bedroom, hanging my bag on its hook on the back of my door, swapping my wallet and phone into a purse, and grabbing that instead. I allow myself one forlorn glance at my bed, flipping over the pillowcase so I can’t see the mascara tear stains from last night. Then I head downstairs to where Mom is waiting, keys in hand.