Each one of them was a possibility, a different fork in the road. Each one had the potential to make me into a different person.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about them in groups first. Community colleges. State schools. Private universities.
Then I ranked them from likelihood of my acceptance, which coincidentally was the same order as when I ranked them in likelihood I’d be able to afford going.
Then I ranked them as distance from Acadia.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I remember Ciara getting her scholarship packet from Tufts. She had already been accepted to a few places, had already gotten a great scholarship offer from the University of Illinois. She would have to make a decision. But when that stuff from Tufts arrived … I knew it wasn’t really a decision at all.
I remember googling the distance between Acadia and Boston. It was a sixteen-hour drive. If I needed her, there would be sixteen hours’ worth of road between us.
I had spent my whole life with her sleeping in the bed across from mine. Until suddenly she wasn’t.
There was Skype, though, and phone calls.
There were texts.
eleven
Sophie:
Do you ever feel like you have two lives now?
Ciara:
Girl it is LATE
Shouldn’t you be sleeping?
Sophie:
Shouldn’t YOU?
Ciara:
I’m in college, it’s allowed I woke up at noon and ate cocoa puffs for lunch Why are you still up? Everything okay?
Sophie:
Yeah just thinking
Do you ever feel like you have two lives?
Is that what happens when you leave home?
Ciara:
Hmmmmm No
Same life. Just relocated Sophie:
But you belong to both places
Or do you not feel like that anymore?
Like home isn’t home
Ciara:
These are deep questions for this time of night Sophie:
It’s this time of night that makes me think them, lol Ciara:
Well let me think
I would say home is still home But this is home too
So like two homes, but one life Sophie:
Do you like it better there though? Is one home better than the other?
Ciara:
It’s different
I like it a lot
But that doesn’t mean I like Acadia any less After all, you’re there
Sophie:
And mom and dad
Ciara:
And mom and dad too
Now get some sleep!!
Sophie:
Okaaaaaay
Ciara:
Miss you lots
Sophie:
twelve
I sent a message off to the chat the next day: Let’s meet at TZ2. Want to talk about fundraising stuff. I wanted everyone there at one time, ready to hear my plan.
Brit, Dash, and Flora were seated on the lumpy old couch, Terrance and August in a couple of plastic lawn chairs. August hadn’t been inducted into the WHERE WILL YOU SPEND ETERNITY group chat yet, but I texted him separately—Want to hang out at Terrance and Dash’s house?
So he had his first introduction to Teen Zone 2—the pole shed tucked in one corner of the Cunninghams’ backyard, the fence on one side, a tall elm on the other. It was pretty decently sized, red with a white garage-style door that we left up when the weather was good.
“Why do you call it Teen Zone Two?” August asked.
“Teen Zone One was already taken,” Brit replied.
“It’s not Teen Zone One, it’s just Teen Zone, period,” I said.
“Like how it’s not The Fast and the Furious One,” Terrance supplied.
Dash nodded. “Or how it’s not Star Wars One.”
“No, it’s definitely called Star Wars One,” Brit said, just to be contrary.
“It’s named in tribute to the youth corner at the library,” I told August.
“Star Wars One?”
“Teen Zone Two.”
“That makes more sense.”
“Nothing about this makes sense.” Brit looked at me. “Why are we here again?”
“Okay.” I moved to stand in front of the open door to address everyone. “I’m guessing you’ve all seen my idea for fall festival.”
Terrance nodded. “We build giant corn effigies and people pay to burn them in an empty field.”
“That’s not—”
“I love it. Sold. Fuck yeah,” Brit said.
“About Megan Pleasant,” I said. “About how we should invite her to play a fundraising concert at Fall Fest.”
Brit made a face. “Oh, that idea.”
“Why don’t we just propose it to the booster club?” Terrance asked.
“Because I think this would be a fun thing for MPASFC to take charge of. We could bring it to the booster club if we manage to get a lead. And if not, then we’ll just … pretend it never happened.”
“Sophie’s super good at that,” Brit said to August, and I threw a pen at her.
“What’s your plan?” Dash asked, kind enough to stay on topic.
“Well, it has multiple steps,” I began.
“Of course it does,” Brit interjected.
“I made a presentation.” I went over and opened up my dad’s laptop where it sat atop the Ping-Pong table.
“Nooooo! Sophie!” Brit threw the pen back at me. “This is summer vacation! No PowerPoints, geez.”
“But … it highlights all my points.”
“Condense your points.”
I sighed and closed the laptop.
“Okay. A multipronged approach. First, social media outreach—I already started that. We contact Megan on every social network possible. We don’t spam—like we don’t want to be obnoxious—but we politely mention our situation and ask her if she’d be interested in coming to town. And we talk about how important it is to us to go to the parade, and how great it is for Acadia, and how much we love her.”
“This is so many words,” Brit said.
“The PowerPoint has visuals; it would make it easier to remember—”
She waved a hand. “Second prong.”
“We look for local contacts. She grew up here. Her family moved away, but they must still keep in touch with people. Someone here might be able to get in contact with her, or her parents. Someone’s gotta know something.”
“So what?” Terrance said. “We go out and interrogate people for info on the Pleasant family?”
“We go out and politely ask around.”
“You’ve said ‘politely’ twice now,” Brit said.
“Yeah. For your benefit.”
She looked scandalized. “I’m a delight.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Third prong,” Dash prompted.
“Megan is playing at the Illinois State Fair this summer. We could get tickets and go, and like make signs or something, try to get her attention. Especially if we can drum up some buzz online, she might notice us, and maybe we could try to convince her in person.”
“This all sounds like a lot of work,” Brit said.
“Everything worth having is worth working for,” I replied, and she groaned.
“Oh God, what’s next? ‘Good hustle’? ‘Let’s light a fire under them’? You sound just like my dad.”
“Who do you think I got it from?”
“I mean, definitely not your own dad. He’s too chill to be spewing bullshit like that.”
We sat around the garage after that, after everyone added Megan Pleasant on every social network we could think of, and I read them a new email I had drafted as an example for what we’re going for in our messages to Megan.
Finally Brit declared, “Enough already. Let’s do something.”
I frowned. “This is something.”
“Something fun. No one has to work for once. Let’s go somewhere.”
“How about a movie?” August suggested. He had been pretty quiet throughout the brainstorming session. “Is there a movie theater around here?”
“The Movie Dome, in Fall Creek,” Dash said.
“Six majestic screens,” Terrance said. “Bring your own candy, because the shit in the case is as old as we are. No one’s paying five dollars for some ancient-ass Twizzlers Twerpz.”
“Do they still make those?” August said.
“They definitely do not,” Terrance replied.
August smiled. “How far is it?”
“Like half an hour,” Flora replied.
He looked surprised, just briefly, but Brit caught it.
“What, were you lousy with movie theaters back home? Was there one on every corner?”
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “There were ten movie theaters per square block.”
“But seriously, does living here totally wig you out?” Brit asked. “Does everything seem so far away?”
“I don’t live here,” he replied. “Just visiting.”
Brit opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, Flora interrupted—gently—with movie options.
We found one that we all agreed on, and only realized there was a problem when we reached the Cutlass—it only seated five.
“Just squish in,” August said. “We can fit four in the back.”
Brit shook her head. “Not happening. Who stays?”
“I can,” Flora said.
“I’ll stay too,” Terrance volunteered.
Flora frowned. “Well, then I’ll go if you’re not gonna.”
“But who will keep me company?”
Flora looked at Brit, who looked at me.
I knew I couldn’t borrow my dad’s car at the moment. “I’ll stay,” I said. “You guys go.”
“No, because you’ll just update your sad PowerPoint and compose tweets to Megan Pleasant, and that thought is too depressing for me to handle on a fine afternoon like this. Flora and Terrance stay. This is a seniors-only movie excursion.”
We weren’t seniors yet, technically, according to The College Collective. This summer was labeled JUNIOR YEAR, JUNE–AUGUST, after all. We were in the eve of senior year.
I didn’t point that out, though, and Flora just sighed. “Fine.”