A waitress wearing frosted pink lipstick made her weary way across the restaurant, water pitcher and menu in hand. Her name tag said Becky.
“Nothing for me.” I rested my chin on my hand, gesturing grandly to Adam as she filled my plastic cup. “I’m just here to be interviewed for an article.”
The only reaction I got was an eye roll before she returned to her lonely post at the counter.
Adam slammed his finger down on one last key and pulled the computer lid shut. I was about to remark that he’d probably caused the screen damage himself with his virtuoso typing style, but then he grinned, and I found myself incapable of doing anything but grinning stupidly back. He had a startling smile, sudden and breathless, like a little kid who’s been handed a bunny. His glasses slipped a little, and I had to remind myself that it would be inappropriate to reach across the table and slide them back into place.
“Okay, hi,” he said.
“Hi yourself.”
“You sure you don’t want anything?”
“Nah.” I hadn’t brought a wallet.
“My treat.”
I spun so fast the booth squeaked. “Actually, Becky, some coconut cream pie and a ginger ale, thanks!”
The waitress sighed a yes.
“And I’ll take some more . . . um . . . coffee.” Adam stared into his empty mug as if unsure of what he’d just consumed.
“Is this another school assignment?” I asked. “Am I the follow-up to your award-winning cat boutique exposé?”
“Something like that.”
Adam fussed with his phone, then slid it away. There was a red dot flashing. Was he already recording? I smoothed my skirt in readiness.
“My assignment this week was to report on a routine government meeting,” he said, his pen tapping against the table in a syncopated rhythm, making him sound like a beat poet. “You had to come back with a story, no matter how boring the context. When I drew ‘School Board Meeting,’ I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stay awake long enough to find anything worth writing about. But then . . . you showed up, thank you.”
I wasn’t sure if that last bit was to me or to Becky, who was filling his mug, because his eyes were locked on mine. Hot-glued.
“You saved the day,” he said, setting down the pen. “For me, anyway. I was sitting there mentally outlining a story on the death of high school wood shop, tying it into faltering American exceptionalism and the decline of the working class.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. But then you stood on a chair. And there was my story.”
“Glad I could help.” I would have kept staring at those eyes of his—rich brown framed in black—but my pie had arrived, and man it looked good.
“So. Daisy.” Adam knocked back his coffee, then recoiled with a grimace. I handed him my water and he downed it in three sips. He shook his head, recovering. “Wow.”
“The coffee’s not good here.”
“I’m realizing that.”
“I was surprised you asked for more.”
He sniffed his cup as if actually considering another sip. “Caffeine’s more of a need than a want at this point. And . . .” He tilted the mug to display the branded logo: Moonlight Coffee Shop. “You’d think?”
I nodded in sympathy. “They should call it the Moonlight Mozzarella Stick Shop. Not that catchy, though.”
“Ha!”
It took me a second to realize that that was Adam’s laugh—a single “Ha,” as if he were imitating the sound of someone laughing. This was a thing with him, then. I had to take another bite to keep from giggling.
“Are they good here?” he asked, head craned like he was dubious.
“Um . . . incredible. And I’m picky.” I put down my fork and leaned closer. “I can always tell when a mozzarella stick is going to be a disappointment. There’s something a little sad and soggy about it. Not quite golden enough. Not enough steam. Or too much, so the inside is runny and bubbling over and the outside is, like, null. These are always—always—perfect.”
The diner was unnaturally silent when I finished my testimonial. I turned to see Becky watching me with wariness bordering on fear.
Adam looked unfazed.
“Okay!” he said, picking up his pen and click-click-clicking the end of it. “So you have strong feelings about mozzarella sticks.”
“All fried foods, really.” I needed to stop talking, or all of this was going to go in the article.
“What else can you tell me about yourself? Hopes, dreams, favorite band?”
He was probably kidding about that last one, but it was the easiest to answer. “Kudzu Giants.”
His face dropped. “You like them?”
“Uh, yeah, who doesn’t?”
“They’re all right. I guess.”
How had I gotten that question wrong?
“Hopes and dreams, then,” Adam went on, pulling out a notepad. “Career goals? College plans?”
“Hannah and I are going to apply to a bunch of schools in major cities and pick one to go to together . . .”
Adam looked confused. “Hannah?”
“My best friend.”
“Ah.”
He’d started writing, so I added, “Hannah von Linden. Lowercase v. She came out a few weeks ago, actually. If you wanted to interview her too, I could set that up?”
His mouth twitched. “That’s okay. You were saying?”
“Right. So we’ll room together in LA or London or New York . . . maybe San Francisco, although I’ve heard it’s weirdly cold there. And then, after graduation, I’ll probably try out a bunch of different professions to see which one calls to me. Right now, I’m thinking I’ll start with architecture.”
Adam opened his mouth but no reply came out.
“As an intern,” I clarified. “You need an advanced degree to actually design buildings, I assume. So I’ll just learn the ropes at some firm and then maybe try out zoology? Or costume design. I’ll have to see what I’m really passionate about.”
“Makes . . . sense?” He cleared his throat. “Obviously gay rights is an issue you feel passionately about.”
Adam’s voice had abruptly deepened, like he’d prepared that segue in advance. Was this his Reporter Voice? Like Batman Growl?
“Yes,” I answered, setting down my fork, and damn if my voice didn’t just get deeper too. “But it’s about more than gay rights. It’s about the basics of how we treat each other. If you’re telling a group of students that they don’t have the same rights as all the other students, then you’re creating an unlevel playing field, and that’s not what America is all about!”
That was loud. Adam pretended not to notice.
“Was this something you decided to tackle on your own?”
“No, I’m speaking out on behalf of my school’s LGBTQIA Alliance. We’re pretty active—”
“How many members?” he interrupted.
“Six,” I calculated. Then I added Hannah. “Seven.” And Natalie, I supposed. Blah. “Eight.”
He blinked, pen hovering.
“Eight,” I repeated firmly. “And we’ve got a lot of supportive friends and family behind us.” I didn’t want it to sound like we were powerless. “Like hundreds. Of supporters.”
“But the idea? To fight the rule . . . ?”
I smiled. “Yeah, that was me.”
Scribble scribble. This was fun.
“Can you share any details about your plans for the alternative homecoming event?”
“As a matter of fact, I can!” I stole a bite of pie, a mini-celebration of what I was about to reveal. “We’ve found a local nonprofit that’s eager to help. They’ve got a venue for us to use, free of cost.” I leaned in to whisper. “It’s hush-hush at this point. As you saw at that meeting, there are a lot of people in the communit
y who would love to shut us down, so I really shouldn’t talk specifics.”
“Got it.” Adam’s eyes narrowed playfully. “So what’s the name of the nonprofit?”
Mine narrowed back. “Nice try.”
He laughed again, that single, sudden, “Ha!”
I giggled involuntarily, then took a bite of pie to stop. What was going on with me? If this was the start of a crush, it needed to stop, posthaste. Whatever Adam’s type was, it certainly wasn’t an average-except-for-her-odd-hair high school junior of middling intelligence, no discernable talents, and questionable charm. I could see him going for a goth feminist-theory goddess. Or a world-weary singer in a smoky, run-down lounge. Or even a perky blond cheerleader— although he’d hate himself for it a little.
Adam flipped his notepad over and started filling another page. His fingers were ink-stained and restless. I pictured pressing my own hands against them so they would settle down.
Adam stopped scribbling and peered up at me. “I want to ask . . . and please forgive me if I’m prying.”
My heart thudded for no particular reason. I nodded for him to ask.
“How long have you been out of the closet?”
Oh, right. That. “I’m straight.”
“You’re . . .” His eyebrows shot up. Then he sank against the banquette, scratching his cheek. “Okay.”
“Is that bad?” I forced a smile.
He took his sweet time answering.
“Huh.” He squinted at his notepad as if deciphering a code on it.
“If you want, you can put that I’m asexual.” I peered around to see what he was writing, but he angled the page away from me. “It’s part of the QUILTBAG spectrum?”
He blinked in confusion. “So you’re really straight?”
“Last I checked.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Um?”
“Not for the article. I’m just . . . yeah. Curious.”
For somebody curious, he sure was avoiding eye contact.
“Why?” I leaned over the table, putting on a fake-sultry drawl. “You interested?”
He went beet red. Jeez, was it that embarrassing a prospect?
“Yeah, no, I, uh.” He swiped his hand through his hair. “I was just wondering how he felt about all of this.”
“My boyfriend doesn’t feel anything.”
Adam started to write that down, his shoulders sinking.
I squinted at him. “Because he doesn’t exist.”
He glanced up. “Right. Oh! No boyfriend, then.”
Adam’s lips parted like he was about to say something else. He didn’t. A few seconds passed, and I realized if I didn’t do something, we could be stuck in this freeze frame forever, so I glanced at my wrist as if there were a watch there.
“Is this enough for an article?” I grabbed my bag, pulled out a random receipt and scribbled on the back of it. “I actually have to run. But here’s my email. And my number. If you need me, for whatever reason.”
I felt instantly stupid for offering it. Should I have waited till he asked?
“Thanks.” He rose when I did. “You off to a planning meeting?”
“No,” I said. “Well, sort of. A football game. I need to . . . um . . . research homecoming conventions? I’ve managed to avoid going to any school sporting events my entire life, so, yeah.”
“Research.” His mouth teetered on the edge of a smile.
“Exactly.”
For some reason, I didn’t want to bring up QB. Probably because he was humiliating. Plus I’d just said I didn’t have a boyfriend, which was true, but also complicated by the fact that I’d be an official Pirates wench-on-the-sidelines for the next three hours.
“High school football. Wow.” Adam acted like I’d said I was going to see a Sumo match at my local dojo. “I’ve never been to one of those either.”
“Really?” Call me hypocritical, but that struck me as weird. “You did graduate high school, right?”
“Yeah, but in New York. Brooklyn,” he clarified, his chin rising on the word. “It was a magnet school. Not the most sporty environment.”
The way he said “sporty” made me think of a Ralph Lauren catalog. He shuffled, put his hands in his pockets, and I realized he was waiting for something. An invitation?
“Do you . . . want to come?” As soon as I said it, I felt the diner tilt infinitesimally, like I’d upset the balance of the universe.
“I . . . uh . . .” He watched me and I thought for a few fraught seconds that he might say yes—but then his smile curdled into a smirk. “I’m kind of done with the whole high school thing at this point. But thanks.”
My exterior remained placid while, inside, I shriveled into a raisin. Wow did I misread that situation.
He slid twenty bucks under his coffee mug, massively overpaying, and motioned for me to walk out ahead of him. I stomped off under my own steam, not turning back lest he see my mortified face.
But as we stepped out onto the humid street, the palms above us whispering with the breeze, he cornered me for a handshake.
“Thank you, Daisy,” he said, his glasses sinking in the heat. “That was a very entertaining interview.”
My scowl melted despite my best efforts to keep it in place. Why were we still shaking hands?
“Glad I could oblige,” I said.
“‘Oblige,’” he echoed, drawing the word out like a song. He backed away with a grin, his fingers slipping from mine. “Such a great accent.”
I don’t have an accent, I thought, but by the time I caught my breath enough to retort, or to giggle, or to cry out “When will I see you again?” he’d already disappeared down the block.
13
As soon as I stepped onto school property, I felt the wrongness of this evening pulsing around me. It was Friday night. And I’d gone back to school. To watch a football game.
A little girl wearing a Pirates T-shirt bounced off me in her rush to join her equally fan-spangled family, and suddenly, I found myself pulled with the tide toward the ticket booth. On top of every other indignity, this was going to cost me four bucks.
The freckly sophomore manning the booth glanced up as I was trying to hand him my wadded cash.
“Daisy Beaumont-Smith?” he asked, staring at the blue ends of my hair.
“Yeah?” I shuffled, wondering if he was about to chuck his Gatorade at me, and if so, which way I should dodge.
“No charge for you.”
He up-nodded knowingly. Knowing what, exactly? I grimaced a smile, pocketed my cash, and continued past him, mentally reciting my new mantra: “This is not a date, this is not a date, what am I doing here, this is not . . .”
I climbed the stands to a comfortable distance from the field, and let people fill in around me. I wished Hannah were here. We could critique the stretching techniques of the opposing team’s cheerleading squad, or share a “To Benefit the School Band” popcorn, or give each other a meaningful look and by silent assent get up and out of here.
But she was busy tonight. With someone else. Eating fried foods. Watching a movie. Probably one I wanted to see and would now have to rent by myself. Stretching out on her downstairs sofa, ignoring Mama Tan’s comments about their food choices, giggling at some inside joke, building walls around themselves to keep pesky people like, oh, me out.
Swallowing bile, I texted her. “You’ll never believe where I am . . . cheering on the Palmetto Pirates! Woohoo?”
It took her six minutes to reply with, “Cool!”
That wasn’t much of a response. Not even an accurate one. Sitting here was the most uncool thing I’d done in recent memory. And Hannah of all people should have been the one to call me on that.
The crowd was pretty full by now. To my immediate left and right were two groups of rowdy freshmen who
kept leaning over me to shout at each other. I almost offered to move, but that would have put me at the end of the row, where they might knock me off the bleachers with the force of their New To This School enthusiasm.
“Daisy!”
Sophie waved from the top row, where she was sitting with a bunch of her natural-fiber friends. They looked as out of place as I felt. I waved back, wondering if they came to every game or if Sophie was doing what I’d claimed to be doing, helping our cause by researching homecoming traditions. That’s what I had to assume Raina was up to when I spotted her two tiers down with a middle-aged gentleman in a Duke windbreaker. Her father! Raina did have parents! Come to think of it, now that I was in CIA mode, was that Jack with his family on the opposite side of the field? They looked surprisingly nice. And, way over yonder, yep—Sean Bentley, trying to politely extricate himself from a conversation with a cheerleader from the rival team.
I was just realizing that the only one missing from our club was Kyle, when I saw him clamber up the bleachers with his own family, all of them dressed in Pirates gear, his younger brother waving a school pennant.
They really were all football fans. They had authentic school spirit. Was it catching? If so, I was about to find out.
The field’s speakers roared to life and everyone cheered, drowning out the mumbled announcement and generic sports music that followed. I stood with the crowd and watched our terrible football team race onto the field from the locker room.
As soon as he hit open air, QB turned to the stands. When he spotted me, his face lit up—a little. He jogged to join the team and kept scanning, his smile dropping a centimeter with every stride.
The game was what I’d expected. Lots of half standing, then sitting with a communal groan as the other team’s pockets of fans went wild. We lost. We always lost, so I’d come prepared, knowing this would be more tragedy than comedy. The point wasn’t the happy ending. It was the struggle.
QB looked so dejected after the game that I decided to tell him this on my way out. It sounded appropriately inspirational. But while I was tiptoeing down the bleachers in my interview skirt, QB got the first word in.
The Inside of Out Page 11
