“Wait,” Jordan said. “I need one of you to help me create a fake online imprint.” CJ and Ava both pointed at Martha. She was good at coding. “Sure,” said Martha.
“Nothing too extreme. It’s just in case he tries to look me up. Give me a different last name. James. It’s my mom’s maiden name. She always wanted her legacy to live on. I’m thinking a LinkedIn profile and some links to clips of mine. But attributed to adult newspapers.” Ava was right. It sounded like porn when you said it that way. “Oh, and I’ll need some help researching the councilman. Past voting record. Donor lists. Everything.”
Ava and Martha both pointed at CJ. Which was fair. She was the best at research. If she could find the time. CJ thought about her already monstrously long to-do list. She had the SAT and APs to study for. College essays to write. She had an interview after school with a volunteer program. The food bank where she used to give her time had shut down over the summer because of budget cuts, and she was itching to do something worthwhile. And, okay, she also wanted it because she was worried about how the gap in her volunteer hours would look to colleges. Now, on top of everything else in her life, Jordan wanted her to do a full background check on a politician. CJ honestly didn’t know how she was going to balance it all.
Ava was usually the first person in her art classroom every morning. Mrs. Simon opened the door one hour before class started, and since Ava still hadn’t worked up the courage to tell her mom that she wanted to apply to art school, she figured it was safer to work on her application portfolio outside of the house.
As the second bell rang, Ava said a quick hello to Isla and Tobin, the class’s other star artists, before hurrying to her spot in the front row. On the first day of school, Mrs. Simon had told everyone to choose where they’d like to sit. Art was the only class where Ava didn’t mind being in the front row. It was the only time she felt okay when people stared. The classroom was divided into pairs of easels, and Ava was the only one without a partner next to her. She didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t because they didn’t like her. It was because they were intimidated by her.
Mrs. Simon paced the room and gave a few instructions before telling the class to pick up their hand mirrors and get to work. Their first project this year was a self-portrait, and Ava found the assignment a little uncomfortable. She didn’t know if all adopted kids did this, but Ava would often stare in the mirror for long periods of time and study her own face. She’d never seen a picture of her birth mother, so she could only imagine that her mother had the same expressive eyes and long lashes, the same small nose and cowlicked hair. Ava’s own face was the only clue she had about what her biological mother looked like.
Ava always wanted her paintings to be about something, so she decided to make this one an expression of the complicated relationship she had with the woman who had given birth to her yet remained a mystery. She decided to paint an image of a female figure looming deep in the background and watching her. Since she had no idea what her birth mother looked like, she would keep the image hazy—a blurred mystery woman.
As Ava painted, she wondered about a lot more than just the shape of her birth mother’s face. The questions floated through her with each stroke of her paintbrush. Was she artistic too? Was it hard for her to make her voice loud enough to be heard in a crowd? Did she sometimes get sad for no reason?
Ava was immersed in her work when the classroom door flew open and broke her concentration. A flustered Logan Diffenderfer walked in. “Hey. Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t know where the art classroom was. Am I in the right place?”
Mrs. Simon looked up. “Yes. Can I help you with something?”
Logan held up a note. “Yeah. I’m supposed to be in this class now. I guess it was the only first-period class with room.”
Mrs. Simon walked over and took his note. After a second, she nodded. “Welcome to Advanced Art, Mr. Diffenderfer. There’s an empty spot up front.”
She directed him to the only open easel in the classroom. The one right next to Ava.
“Turn right in fifty meters.”
The electronic voice of CJ’s GPS belonged to a British woman.
CJ was annoyed by the accent, but she would be late if she stopped to mess around with her phone settings. The British woman was a gift from Martha. CJ had been up late the night before studying for their physics quiz, and she’d been so tired that she fell asleep during fifth period. Hard enough that she didn’t even notice when Martha used her thumb to unlock her phone. While CJ continued napping, Martha changed all of CJ’s settings. She’d meant for it to be funny, and on any other day, CJ probably would have laughed—she certainly deserved it after that whole air horn thing—but she’d cried instead. Martha was so stunned that she immediately apologized and changed everything back. But she’d apparently forgotten about the British woman.
“Keep left at the car park,” said the regal voice.
The e-mail from the college counselor had broken her. She was already worried that she wasn’t good enough for Stanford even before Ms. Fischer’s message arrived in her in-box.
Stanford had been her top choice for as long as she could remember. It was a campus dappled in golden light and lined with palm trees, where nobody laughed when you said you wanted to change the world. They encouraged big ideas, loud ones, disruptive ones. The kind that CJ kept locked deep inside her because she was too scared to say them out loud. She wanted to do something with her life that would matter. Something bigger and more important than painting protest signs and recycling her milk carton. She just didn’t know how. Stanford would give her the tools. It would also give her the credibility to use them. She would never feel like a fraud again.
“In one hundred meters, you will arrive at your destination.”
The destination was the office for Sensational Recreational, an after-school program that taught sports to kids with physical disabilities.
“In fifty meters, you will arrive at your destination,” said the British voice.
CJ was ten minutes early. She should put that on her Stanford application. Always punctual. She reminded herself that the volunteer coordinator had e-mailed her almost immediately after she’d sent her résumé. He’d been impressed by her cover letter. Because that’s the kind of girl she was. The kind who was on time and wrote exceptional cover letters. So what if her SATs were a little lackluster? Even Hermione Granger stumbled from time to time.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the British voice said, and CJ realized that it actually sounded like a grown-up Hermione. It gave CJ confidence. She pulled into the parking lot and paused before getting out of her car. She was going to get this volunteer job and impress Stanford with how beautifully well-rounded she was. But first she needed to Hermione Granger the shit out of this interview. She took a breath, exhaled, and adjusted her posture a bit. This was a thing she did when she was talking to anyone important. Shoulders back, head high, confident smile, and…
She walked across the parking lot and opened the rec center door. A blast of music greeted her.
Duh. Duh, duh, duh.
It was the music from Rocky and it was so loud that CJ actually cringed. Was she in the right place? A sign tacked to the back wall told her that she was.