The closer we get to Lake Champion, the less exhilarated I feel. I’m not ready to see my sister. I don’t want one of her inspirational speeches. And I don’t know if I can pretend to be enthralled by her many new accomplishments. I love Piper, and I’m proud she’s doing so amazing. But if I had a dollar for every time I’ve felt less-than-amazing in comparison, I could buy the Blessing garden myself.
Truman has his laptop out, legal pads spread all over the dash, and he’s helicoptering that black Sharpie around his fingers, only stopping to write down notes. When he’s not taking notes, he’s rehearsing his points to the air. I don’t interrupt—I’m not up for conversation anyway. He and I are both in our own worlds, each nursing our own anxieties.
We follow the afternoon traffic into the city, then follow the road signs to Baldwin. The tournament is being held at the university’s fine arts center, with competitors staying at the dorm on the other side of a grassy quad. The streets around the campus are clogged with buses, and everywhere you look are groups of people carrying briefcases and backpacks, everybody sizing everybody else up. It’s like a show choir competition, only our show choir has never advanced to a meet this big. I take some photos with the camera Ms. Stephenson loaned me. I do a few interviews. I get a rundown from Mr. Milliken on how everything works. Then I have a lot of time to kill while the team gets registered and checked into the dorm.
I find a place near the auditorium and sit on a bench with my phone. When I wake it up, a handful of texts from earlier in the day pop up. One of them is from Harper.
Her mom told me she’d be returning to school, but I haven’t seen her all week. Monday I went to her house and promptly left when I saw Jordan’s car in the drive. Tuesday her mom said she was at therapy. Wednesday she was too tired to hang out, and then I had to get ready for this trip, so this is the first I’m hearing from her directly since prom.
My phone burps out another old text.
There are two missed video calls, as well. When I call back, Harper’s face is fuzzy and the sound is scratchy, but at least we’re finally connected.
“Hey, Skyler!” she says. “I missed you today!”
It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve been trying to see her all week, and now that we’re finally speaking, I’m angry.
“So I see you’re talking again,” I say.
“Yes…” She looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry about prom. The new medication I’m on gives me these wicked mood swings.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Better.”
“Good.”
“Hey, are you fighting with Jordan? She’s mad at you but she won’t tell me why.”
“It’s nothing.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to ward off the headache starting behind my eyes. “Don’t worry about it.”
“If it’s because of me, you can say so. You don’t have to protect me. I’m not a baby.”
Was the fight about Harper, though? Harper was definitely the spark, but by the time I left Jordan in the hospital driveway, it felt like we’d gone someplace far deeper. One thing I do know: Harper doesn’t want anything to do with the reunion site. Harper shouldn’t know about what it’s shown me lately. And since all that is tied up with everything else, I don’t think it’s something I should talk about at all.
“It’s just the usual stuff,” I say. “You remember how Jordan and I used to go at it.”
“It was never like this, though.” She frowns. “You both treat me like I’m going to jump off a cliff if someone tells me something difficult.”
“Well, to be fair, Harper, you did attack a bulldozer.”
“Yep. You know what? I humiliated myself in front of everybody, and now I’m never going to be allowed to forget it.”
“But you went two whole days without talking.”
“Look,” she says. “I get that people are worried. If you’re worried, think about how I feel. My emotions are all over the place, and the things that are supposed to be helping have side effects, and it’s hard. But you treating me like some fragile flower isn’t going to fix what I have to do. I love you, Sky, but it’s just not that easy.”
Speaking of things Harper has to do, a question pops into my head.
“How’s your homework? You know, your action plan?”
She says, “Fine.” But the irritation in her voice makes me want to keep pressing.
“I mean, you always tell me about it, and you haven’t lately, so…”
“I’m doing it now.”
“But you weren’t?”
“I don’t know.” She pushes her hair out of her face. “Sometimes I don’t do things even when I know they’re good for me. I would think you of all people would understand that.”
One thing that hasn’t changed about Harper is her ability to cut to the bone. It’s almost as if the universe is staring right at me when a text comes in from Dad.
“Harper, I have to go. I’ll tell you what I’m doing here when I get back, okay?”
“Fine,” she says. “Have fun with Truman.”
I try to text Dad back, but it won’t go through. I consider texting Jordan, but I don’t feel like listening to any more of her realness. I get to my feet and shake out my arms, my legs, my butt. I have to clear my head.
I make my way through the crowded lobby, and once I’m outside, I want to walk. Striding down tree-lined sidewalks, I watch the college kids studying on the lawn and hanging around outside the dorms. This is a gorgeous campus—much nicer than State, and a lot harder to get into as well. A guy runs in front of me, chasing a Frisbee. He catches it, then falls down on a blanket where two girls have been reading under a tree. This is the kind of thing I’ve always pictured when I’ve imagined what college would be like. If the reunion site is right, and if I can’t figure out how to do better in math, then that vision probably won’t include me.
I head back to the fine arts building, where I find Truman on a bench in the quad, bent over his black notebook, pen spinning around and around on his fingers.
I take a photo with Ms. Stephenson’s camera, then sit next to him.
“This much focus and dedication should be captured for posterity. Do you want to be in the yearbook?”
He puts his pen down. “Why not? Maybe it will help my nerves.”
I get out my reporter’s pad and a pen. With my phone so unreliable, I’m doing things the old-fashioned way.
“So why debate?” I ask. “What’s the appeal?”
“Debate is a time-honored exercise in eloquence, sportsmanship, and discourse, allowing participants to hone and perfect both their research and public speaking skills, enabling them to persuasively prevail in any setting where an exchange of ideas is warranted.”
My hand cramps trying to keep up.
“I need some ranch dressing and croutons to go with that word salad, Truman. You lost me at eloquence. Try normal people language. Why do you love debate?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
“But your sculptures are better. You should be making those all the time.”
“Art isn’t exactly a prestigious career.”
“So prestige is what really matters to you. Nice.”
“You’re asking me why debate. I should be asking you why not debate? You were amazing at the city council hearing.”
“Eh…” I stretch out my legs, peering across the quad to see that the girls with the blanket have gone inside. “I don’t think you want to use that as proof of my mad skills. Isn’t debate about convincing people? If I’d done a better job of that, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I don’t think that’s really what’s bothering you, though. I think you’re resisting simply because it was my suggestion.” He flips over a new page in his notebook and starts to write. “Resolved: that Skyler has a bad attitude about debate because she has a bad attitude about me. Do you want to argue neg or aff?”
“Negative, obviously. I don’t have a bad attitude about you. I have a perfectly justifiable dislike based on years of experience. I’m sorry if debate is a casualty of that.”
Truman jots this down, punctuating the last sentence with a big, bold period.
“Make three key points about why you dislike me and back them up with evidence.”
“Oh, this will be easy. Number one: You’re irritating.”
“Evidence?”
“You’re sitting right there. You’re irritating me. I don’t have a mood-reading machine to prove it, so you’ll just have to take my word on this.”
If I did have a machine to quantify my mood, irritated wouldn’t be the readout. My skin tingles, but not in the creepy way it used to around Truman. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re four hours away from our regular lives, but I’m having a good time talking with him—maybe even more than a good time. I sort of want to kiss him right now.
“So your first point is that I’m irritating,” he says. “What’s your second point?”
Just as I prepare to launch into my second point, my phone pings.
“Do you want to check that?” he says.
“It’s probably my dad harping on my trig grade again.” I peek at the screen and see a notification about some new message board posts. “Wait, it’s not my dad, it’s the other current bane of my existence.”
“The reunion site?”
“Sorry, I know it bugs you.”
“Actually…” He peers at me from under a flop of hair that’s fallen into his eyes. “You said you could see other peoples’ futures. Can you see mine?”
“I mean, I can only see whatever people decide to post at any given time. And things are always changing.”
“Could I see it?”
“I thought it freaked you out.”
“I’ve been thinking maybe I should get over it. To be honest, I’m nervous about how this whole thing is going to go, sneaking out to see my aunt and then the tournament tomorrow. I guess I could use a little reassurance.”
“Okay, well…” I give my phone a shake. “Let’s see if I can even get the thing up. My phone is literally gasping its last breaths right now.”
The reunion site doesn’t look much different from the past several times I’ve checked it—same swanky party, same shiny new Alton. There’s the album of reunion photos, and the “School Days” album, which consists of all the photos our future classmates are posting of our Present-Day selves. And then there’s that new message board—the one that’s been sending me notifications all day.
“So at one point, there were actual bios here,” I tell Truman as he scrolls. “You were this amazing world traveler.”
“What was my job?”
“I don’t remember.”
He looks at me, annoyed. “These are important details, Skyler.”
“Well, if I’d known you were going to all of a sudden be interested, I would have taken notes.”
Truman can’t find himself on this new website, and I can’t find myself either. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the old site. It was so detailed and nicely put together. Future Jordan was creating the site when I first accessed it, now apparently she’s not. And I can’t find Harper, either. Maybe in this new future, none of us are friends anymore.
When Truman gets too frustrated, I take the phone and open up School Days.
“The good stuff appears to be in here now,” I tell him. A ton of new photos have been posted—people messing around in the commons, cheerleaders at games, sports teams posing together. I scroll a bit, then, “And well, well. What do we have here?”
“What?” says Truman. “What is it?”
“Here you go. See?”
It’s a group picture of the debate team with Truman front and center, a state championship banner behind them like the one that hangs in the lobby right now. Several of them hold trophies, including Truman, who holds the biggest one of all.
He breaks into a grin. “Wow. That’s…I mean, not that I’m surprised, but still, wow. So it’s all going to work out then.” And now he’s hooked. He taps and scrolls and taps and scrolls until he opens up the new message board. More tapping and scrolling, until…“Wait a minute. What’s this?”
He opens the thread, and I read over his shoulder.
“Oh my God.” I remember Truman rattling off his plans that day at my house, telling me about his goal to work for Stevens someday.
The thread has fifteen responses already.
Truman looks green as he reads. I reach out to touch his arm.
“Are you okay?”
He gives me back the phone. “Why wouldn’t I be? Everything is going to happen just the way I’ve planned it.”
“You aren’t planning on taking part in criminal activity, are you?”
“This kind of thing happens all the time in politics. There are misunderstandings and gray areas, and often these kinds of scandals are manufactured by political rivals. Most likely, he’ll be cleared of all charges. If I’m working for him, I’ll see to it that he is.”
“So you’re okay with this?”
“A little scandal is to be expected at this level of achievement.” Truman’s voice now is firm. “I’m going to have to make some compromises, clearly.”
Yeah, I think. Compromises to your integrity.
Truman’s entire team is out on the quad now. Mr. Milliken shouts that it’s time to get dinner. “Skyler,” he says. “Are you joining us for food?”
I can’t say no, even though I don’t have an appetite anymore. I’m supposed to be reporting on all the weekend’s activities, plus Truman and I aren’t due to go to Piper’s until much later. It’s only five o’clock now. I tell Mr. Milliken I’m coming, and I tell Truman I understand when he tells me he has to spend some time with his teammates; then I sit by myself at the head of a long table in a pizza restaurant, watching him hold forth over at the other end. He’s in full Team Captain Mode, doing his classic pompous Truman act. Inside the pocket of my jacket, I find little Miles—the sculpture he gave me earlier today.
I run my fingers over the smooth bumps of Miles’s face. No one knows this other side of Truman, and who knows if they ever will? According to the reunion site, he’ll go from victory tomorrow to whatever other achievements he’s destined for, all the way to a level so high that he will wind up getting accused of national election campaign violations.
My phone shows that I, on the other hand, am still an Instagram housewife, apparently with a lot of time on my hands to post inspirational quotes. The latest is superimposed over a photo of a highway stretching off into a sunset. Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. —Robert Louis Stevenson
“Oh, shut up,” I tell Future Me. My phone answers by blinking off and refusing to power on again.