This could not be happening. This seriously could not be happening. Ava turned to her right and found Logan Diffenderfer staring at her. “Well,” he said, “this should be real fun.”
“What the hell is Ava’s problem?”
Jordan closed her locker door to find Logan Diffenderfer on the other side of it.
“Seriously, why is she always such a—” Jordan’s eyes widened and then narrowed in a way that made Logan’s mouth snap shut.
“Such a what, Logan?”
“I’m always nice to her and she always treats me like… like I killed her puppy.”
“She doesn’t have a puppy.”
“You know what I mean.” Jordan pulled her backpack over her shoulder and started walking. He followed. “Come on. Why is she like that?”
Jordan wished she could just tell him what Ava had overheard. He wouldn’t take delight in knowing that he’d hurt her. He’d feel awful. This is the part she wished Ava could understand. He was a guy who said a bad thing. He wasn’t a bad guy. But as much as she wanted to tell him, Jordan couldn’t violate Ava’s trust. “I have no idea why she doesn’t like you,” Jordan said.
Logan sighed. “You’re lying.”
Jordan’s phone buzzed with an incoming call. She glanced at the number. “Oh my god!”
“What. Who is—”
“Quiet!” She cleared her throat. Then cleared it again. Then she took a deep breath and answered. “This is Jordan James,” she said as calmly and professionally as possible.
“Jordan James?” Logan repeated. “Who are you talking—”
Jordan put her hand over Logan’s mouth. He looked surprised. Far too surprised to try to move it.
“Good afternoon, Ms. James,” said a male voice.
It was the councilman. Oh my god. Her heart was pounding. She’d only submitted the press request this morning. She hadn’t expected to hear back so quickly.
“Jordan is fine.”
“Hi, Jordan. My name is Scott Mercer.”
Jordan deflated slightly but recovered. “Oh. Hello… Mr. Mercer.”
“Scott’s fine. I’m the legislative deputy to Councilman Kenneth Lonner. The councilman is buried in committee meetings about the billboard ban, so I’m afraid he won’t have time to speak with you about the park.”
“Oh, okay.” Jordan cringed. Not only at the way her voice sounded, young and kid-like, but at the words. A real journalist wouldn’t take no for an answer. A real journalist would press. “Well, what I mean is, if that’s the case, I’ll have to run the article without a comment from him. And given the nature of what I’m running, I would expect that he’d like a chance to respond.”
Logan tilted his head curiously to the side. Jordan’s hand moved along with his face.
“I see,” said Scott Mercer. There was some movement on Scott Mercer’s side of the call. Some typing. “Uh… can I put you on hold for just a second?”
“That would be fine.”
Jordan heard the line click. She took her hand away from Logan’s mouth and did a little excited dance right there in the hall. “Oh my god. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.”
Logan wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “What the hell is—?”
Jordan slammed her hand back onto Logan’s mouth as the line clicked on.
“Jordan? Are you still there?” said Scott Mercer.
“I’m here.”
“Here’s what I can do. As the councilman’s legislative deputy, I’m well versed on the development issue and have been authorized to speak for him.”
“Oh,” Jordan said. “That would be an, uh, amenable solution for me.”
“Does Thursday at eleven AM work for you?”
“Absolutely,” she said quickly, before remembering that she would be in school at eleven AM. “Oh wait. Sorry. I just consulted my calendar, and I have a prior, um, engagement.” He didn’t need to know that her prior engagement was AP English.
“What about three PM?”
Jordan considered. It was perfect. The newspaper office would be empty and quiet after school. She could do the call from there.
“Three PM will work fine.”
“Fantastic. Is this number a cell phone?”
“Yes. So you’ll call me here? Or should I call you or…”
“I’ll text you the address of the field office. We can meet there.”
An in-person meeting? That would never work. The whole idea was that she didn’t want him to see how young she was. “Actually, um—”
Brrrrrring!
“What is that?” asked Scott. “It sounds like a school bell.”
It was a school bell. It was ringing right over Jordan’s head. “Thursday will be great see you then thanks bye!”
She hung up as fast as she possibly could. Logan removed her hand from his mouth. “What just happened?” he asked.
Her heart was pounding. It would be fine. She could make it work. She could make herself look older. She could cut her last class of the day. That would give her more than enough time to drive across town. It was US History and she could always get the notes from Ava. Actually, CJ took better notes. This would all be totally and completely fine.
“Um, Jordan,” Logan said. “Did you just imply to that person on the phone that you had damaging information about the development?”
Oh, right. She’d done that too.
“Shit,” Jordan said.
That afternoon, CJ studied for her SATs at the desk she’d inherited when her oldest sister left for Brown. Jordan had begged all of her friends to go shopping with her that day. She needed to buy an outfit that would make her look old enough to interview someone called a legislative deputy. Ordinarily, CJ would have let herself be dragged around the mall, but the SATs were only a few weeks away. She had to say no. Ava was busy too, and that left poor Martha to take one for the team.
CJ flipped through her giant stack of vocabulary flash cards and stared at one of the words. “Arboreal.” She felt like an idiot for not remembering what it meant. She flipped the card over and read the definition: Of or relating to trees. CJ tried a trick she’d learned in her prep class and visualized the meaning of the word. She imagined the old maple tree in Memorial Park, the one they’d picnic under in the summer and that turned brilliant shades of orange and red in the fall. CJ wondered if they would have to cut it down to make room for the office building. Probably.
Now that she was thinking about the park, something nagged at her. The developer had cited the park’s declining popularity as a reason to close it. She claimed that attendance had dropped off significantly in the last ten months. CJ had taken the developer at her word, but now that she thought about it, it didn’t seem true. She drove by on the way to Martha’s all the time, and the park was always filled with kids. She went online to see if she could verify the attendance numbers and stumbled onto something very interesting. The park hours were different now. It used to be open until ten PM. That had changed recently. Ten months ago, to be exact. Now the park closed at sunset. In the winter, that could be as early as four PM. There was more information and CJ kept reading.