I never get back to Mrs. Raskin, and—thank you, God—she doesn’t call me again. September 17 rolls around. My parents have an event to attend for Mom’s job—she teaches writing and rhetoric at the community college—so they’re not going to the Franklin Grove meeting.
“I can skip this thing at the college,” Mom said this morning. “It’s just a reception for a visiting scholar. Dad and I would be happy to go with you to the meeting.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to the meeting,” I said.
“But if you do, we’d like to be there with you, Danny,” Mom said.
“We want to support you,” Dad said.
“A, I don’t think I’m going,” I said. “And B, if I do end up going, I won’t be doing anything that requires support. Really.”
It’s six fifteen. I’m still weighing whether or not to go when my phone rings. I look at the display; no, not the dreaded Mrs. Raskin. Becca.
“I’m an idiot,” she says.
“Hello to you, too,” I say.
“Let me say that again in case you didn’t hear me: Quelle idiote je suis!”
I laugh. “No, I heard you.”
We haven’t talked too much since the second day of school last week when she surprised me with her article idea. We’ve checked in with each other on how classes are going, and that’s about it. Nothing significant, and nothing about putting my life story in the school newspaper.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she says. “I mean, I know what I was thinking. I can’t deny that. I was going to present you and your experience to the world. Or, to the world of Western High School. But really, sometimes I need a muzzle.”
“A muzzle so you don’t say what you’re thinking?” I say.
“Yes. An internal censor. Just, shut up, Becca. Keep it to yourself.”
“But—why would you be thinking about writing an article about me in the first place? I mean, okay, a muzzle. A censor. But you’d still be looking at me and thinking what a good headline I’d make?”
“Becca.”
Still quiet.
“Hello, hello,” I say, “can you hear me, Joe?” This is our private signal, borrowed from Dr. Seuss. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.
“I’m beyond being an idiot,” she says finally. “A très grande imbécile.”
“Well, you don’t have to call yourself names,” I say.
“I think I do,” Becca says.
“Usually, I feel like you push me to do things because you think they’d be good for me,” I say. “But this felt different. This felt like you cared more about your story than me.”
“That’s terrible,” Becca says. “And I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think that. Please forget I ever did that. Please?”
“Okay,” I say. “Apology accepted.”
I tell her about tonight’s Franklin Grove meeting. Becca doesn’t live in Franklin Grove, but in one of the neighborhoods next to ours, so her house didn’t get the notice of the meeting.
“I would have gone with you if I’d known,” she says.
“It’s starting in five minutes. So I think I’ve made my decision to stay away,” I say.
“Maybe—” Becca begins, then stops.
I wait, but she doesn’t say any more.
“Becca, maybe what? Just because I don’t want you to see a headline every time you look at me doesn’t mean I don’t want your opinion. What did you start to say?”
“Honestly, nothing,” she says. “So, are we good?”
“We’re good.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
I promise her we’re good and we say good-bye.
Maybe—I’ll just walk over to the community hall, which is less than ten minutes from my house. It’s a quaint old building that houses a couple of meeting rooms, a couple of offices, a tiny post office, a rec room with an old Ping-Pong table that is very close to my heart, and, of all things, an indoor basketball court. It might seem a strange combination—you want stamps with that free throw?—but it’s part of what makes Franklin Grove Franklin Grove.
The meeting has begun and I can ease unnoticed into a chair in the back row. The five people who make up the Franklin Grove Board are sitting, facing the audience, behind a couple of long tables that have been pushed together. Two men are seated at a long table facing the board members, backs to the audience. One of them is speaking into a microphone, and he has one of those voices that alternates between really loud and really soft, so certain words come booming at us—“LUMENS” and “CIRCUITS” and “SCOTOPIC” and “PHOTOPIC”—while others are lost. He finishes up. Then the other guy at the table talks, reading, as far as I can tell, from a study of the traffic on Quarry Road. Peak hour trips. Directional split. Pedestrian facilities.
Next up are some of the neighbors. Mrs. Raskin is first. I slouch way down in my seat so she doesn’t see me. She says some nice things about the lumens guy and the traffic guy. But what the Franklin Grove Board mustn’t forget, she says, is the need for a sidewalk study. She’s not an expert, she says in a voice that suggests she actually thinks she is, but sidewalks along Quarry Road are absolutely necessary to make Franklin Grove safe for our children and families.
Other neighbors say other things about the benefits of streetlights, crossing signals, and sidewalks. Then old Mrs. Joseph, who lives on Quarry Road, and who probably has been there since the beginning of time, has her say. In her quavery voice, she talks about the character of the Franklin Grove neighborhood and the rustic feeling of its streets. We may be a suburb of Washington, D.C., but we’ve managed to hold on to a smalltown atmosphere and we should be vigilant about maintaining that atmosphere. More artificial light, Mrs. Joseph says, will take away from Franklin Grove’s simple charm. More artificial light means we won’t be able to see the stars. A sidewalk will mean taking down trees and clearing out the brush alongside Quarry Road, and all that means less wildlife.
Some people are shaking their heads at Mrs. Joseph’s comments. I imagine some are rolling their eyes, although I don’t really know, since I only see the backs of people’s heads. I wonder if anyone agrees with her.
Well, yes, others do agree with her. Another neighbor, a younger man, goes to the microphone and says basically the same things that Mrs. Joseph did, only shorter. A woman speaks, and says that not everyone knows this, but the first Littleleaf Linden trees on Quarry Road were planted in 1938 on the twentieth anniversary of the end of World War I in honor of Franklin Grove’s veterans of that war. Over the years, more of the trees were planted to recognize the neighborhood’s World War II and Vietnam War veterans.
“If you go to the archives,” this woman says, “you will see that every tree has a name. A name of a person. Even if you don’t agree that the trees deserve our consideration, think about the people behind the trees. I strongly urge the board not to destroy these living monuments.”
Wouldn’t Humphrey have thought it was cool that the trees had names? I almost want to say something to this tree lady. But I don’t. I just slip home before anyone notices that I’m there.