The waiting room was crowded. We’d be here awhile. After we checked in and settled into our seats, Matt leafing through and tossing one magazine after another, I imagined that tube, too. Marked with his name, all his fate contained within it.
“Next month, Theo’s coming home for the summer.” I knew I was chatting to distract myself. I’d told Matt a little bit about Theo and me. I really didn’t want any more secrets with Matt.
“Oh, yeah?” Matt tossed his magazine on the table. He seemed glad for the distraction of some conversation, too. “Have you broken it to Mimi?”
“Not yet. I’m going to tell Gage first. See how she thinks I should approach.”
“Yeah, maybe it’ll be easier if she gets good news from Berkeley.”
“Ugh, I keep forgetting college acceptances went out this week.” I slumped back in my chair. Was I getting in anywhere? Nowhere? I’d finished the RISD application, too, but I hadn’t pulled the trigger on mailing it, and I wondered if I ever would.
At my side, Matt had become very still, impassive, yet looking so sweet and soft and young, drawing me back, as he often did, to the first moment of our meeting, all those years ago. That inexplicable spark in me when I’d first caught sight of him at the mixer. The cartwheeling sense that he was about to fall into my life just like that crooked little fire-opal heart, loose and precious and not yet fashioned into any traditional, predictable shape.
I reached up and brushed my fingertips light against the nape of his neck.
“I’m so afraid, Lizzy,” he said suddenly, turning to me, his eyes holding all that wildness of his soul. “I’m not ready for the wrong answer.”
“Neither am I,” I admitted.
“I’m glad you’re here with me.”
“Me, too.” I threaded my fingers through his, and then he closed his eyes, and I closed mine, and we waited together for whatever came next.
Acknowledgments
It takes many people to make a book! A big thank-you to:
Elise Howard, brilliant and beloved, for your razor-sharp insights and delightfully unexpected editorial what-ifs. From our thinking-out-loud lunches to the elegant precision of your letters, comments, notes (and notes on the notes)—all the way down to the very last round on the whole kit and caboodle, my heartfelt thanks.
All the wonderful people at Algonquin Young Readers, where I feel so lucky to have landed: Sarah Alpert, Jodie Cohen, Brooke Csuka, Debra Linn, Ashley Mason, Michael McKenzie, Lauren Moseley, Craig Popelars—what an amazing group. With an extra thanks to Robin Cruise and your copy editor’s eagle eye. It was so fun homing in on the big eighties together.
Emily van Beek, my agent, and to Folio Jr. It’s been such a pleasure to work in partnership-friendship with you, Emily, and I am always so appreciative of your advice and expertise. Thank you!
My writing community—ever-texting with Julia DeVillers, Sarah Mlynowski, and Christina Soontornvat reminds me how lucky I am to be in this business. And big cheers to my YA writing lunch bunch, in no order (but plenty of disorder that keeps the day so bright)—Jen Smith, Micol Ostow, Anna Carey, Lynn Weingarten, Michael Buckley, Morgan Matson, Robin Wasserman, Bennett Madison, Siobhan Vivian, Melissa Walker, and an extra big thanks to Jenny Han, night owl extraordinaire.
My dear friend Courtney Sheinmel. I’m so grateful for your notes on the political and social climate during the AIDS crisis, and our conversations were such a bonus to this book. I know your thoughts came from a deep, personal place—thank you for your wisdom.
Priscilla Sands, my mother, who taught theater at my high school, and who couldn’t be more philosophically different from Lizzy’s mom. I have friends who hold cherished eighties memories of Mom taking students via minivan into Philadelphia for performances of The Normal Heart, facing down all attendant controversies, so firm was her faith that this play deepened our understanding of a plague that devastated and stigmatized too many. While her pre-GPS sense of direction might have made these journeys extra challenging, she was always steadfast in her compassion, empathy, and trust that art sees us through the darkest hours.
Published by Algonquin Young Readers
an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2018 by Adele Griffin.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Connie Gabbert.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
eISBN 9781616208332
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055474
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