“You’re a high school student, not a marketing exec. Do you even own a T-shirt?”
I’m distantly conscious of how dumb it is I came out here to question Ethan about his revision and ended up in a heated debate about our clothing. Yet I can’t help myself. “Do you?”
Ethan doesn’t reply right away. In the pause, I hear a voice behind me. “I, um—” It’s one of the junior editors, who I find watching me and Ethan with hesitation. “I need help with the page-design program.”
I refocus, annoyed I needed the interruption from features editor Julie Wang to return me to reality. I notice a couple other staffers watching our conversation, their expressions variations of nervous and annoyed. The other senior editors generally regard us as a necessary evil for the awards we help the paper win. The underclassmen haven’t gotten used to us yet. I fire Ethan a final glare, which he doesn’t notice, having returned to his gov reviewing. The familiar tremors of something beyond competitiveness begin to quake, but this time, I’m just in control enough to put them to rest.
I settle for flicking the tip of my pen onto the paper he’s reading. “Today,” I say. “Blitz.”
He doesn’t look up. “Fine.”
Twenty
I LOSE THE BLITZ.
Fuming quietly on the curb after class, I pull out my phone to call my Uber, putting in the location of the park where we’re meeting the DJ.
“I suppose we should ride together,” Ethan says, walking up to me.
I don’t look up. “Why?”
“We’re literally going to the same place, Sanger. Seems wasteful.”
Admittedly, I have run out of allowance for the month. I don’t care. Dipping into my own savings is definitely preferable to eight avoidable minutes in a car with Ethan.
“Even the shortest recess from you is the opposite of wasteful,” I reply, hitting the button to request my ride.
“Embarrassed about losing last period? I get it.” He takes out his phone, presumably requesting his own ride.
“You didn’t even write five paragraphs on the long-answer. Who turns in an exam with a four-paragraph essay?”
Ethan’s fingers freeze on his phone. “Eyes on your own paper.” His voice is low. I’ve struck a nerve.
“Hey, an A-minus is nothing to be embarrassed about, Ethan.” I walk a few feet away, putting cool distance between us as I watch the 2010 Ford Focus’s progress on my phone.
Ethan doesn’t move. He stares at his own phone, presumably following the progress of his Uber. It pulls up first. Without even glancing in my direction, he gets in, flinging his shoulder bag into the seat like he’s in some great hurry. I wait a few minutes for my Uber, which is navigating the complicated obstacles of students flocking to their cars and parents driving into the parking lot for pickups.
When I hop in, I feel my phone vibrate. I glance down, reading the message from the lock screen. It’s from Ethan.
ETA 3:22.
I realize in a flash why he hurried into his Uber. The blitz is evidently not over. He wants to be first to the park. It’s immature and idiotic, racing the mean streets of San Mateo County to reach our reunion vendor first. And right now, I’m all in.
I check the Uber app, which informs me my ETA is 3:24. “Turn here,” I instruct the driver. “It’s faster.” We cut on to one of the residential streets near the school, and I write Ethan a quick text.
I’ll be there at 3:21
Using every shortcut I know and crosschecking the route with multiple online maps, I find our way to the park, passing Dylan’s house, the Whole Foods, and the elementary school. When we pull up, I catch sight of Ethan out of the corner of my eye. He’s arrived at the exact same time.
I walk in the direction of the music I hear pulsing over the green inclines of the park, quickening my pace when I notice Ethan picking up his. We’re supposed to meet the DJ at the food truck she’s playing from, but I don’t know where the truck will be, exactly. If I follow the electronic rhythms reverberating over the hills and past the people playing Frisbee, I’ll end up where I need to be.
Ethan and I hurry in lockstep up the nearest hill, both of us stealing glances at the other’s pace. I reach the top seconds before him. My thighs burn, which I ignore because from up here, I can see our destination.
Parked near the picnic tables, the food truck is drawing a small crowd for its signature product—dessert hot dogs. Parents with strollers and groups of teenagers leave the window holding Twinkies halved to resemble buns with pieces of licorice or strips of brownie down the middle. The truck is painted entirely white, except the name scrawled in black on the front. SWEET WIENERS, reads the thick, marker-like lettering.
I cut Ethan off rounding the back of the truck, where I find the DJ booth inside the open rear doors. Soulful vocals over a skittering beat vibrate from the speakers, and a twentysomething girl with dark hair and copper skin stands in between them, her hands deftly navigating the keyboard of her computer and the knobs of her turntable. She’s slim, with big plastic glasses, and wearing a white, well-fitting SWEET WIENERS T-shirt.
I shove my hand out. “Avery Tran? I’m Alison.”
Avery doesn’t shake my hand. Hers remain working the controls on her station, like I should’ve realized they would. Feeling dumb, I withdraw my hand.
“You’re the Fairview girl, right?” Avery asks. Her hat, I notice, reads DJ RAVERY. I nod. Her eyes dart to Ethan, who appears to be reading her shirt with faint amusement. “Yeah, yeah,” she says dryly. “It’s a job, okay? Getting gigs isn’t easy in a white-dude-dominated industry. Which is why I was hype to get your email. The date’s May ninth, right?”
“Yeah. May ninth,” I say. “We haven’t officially found a venue yet”—I glare at Ethan—“but we wanted to confirm important items. The music first and foremost.”
“Definitely,” Avery agrees. She describes her reasonable rates and hours and her electrical outlet needs, and while she speaks, I find I’m impressed. She’s effortlessly professional. Multitasking with ease, she modulates the music as she runs through the details for us. “Reunions are awesome to play,” she says once she’s laid out the logistics. “Excellent throwback options, and a really drunk crowd.”
I grin. Ethan, however, laughs. It’s jarring, and I jerk involuntarily to look at him. I can’t remember him laughing genuinely, without sarcasm, instead of as a cruel punctuation mark.
“Yeah, we’re depending on you to make the night fun,” Ethan says, his voice easy, light with flippant charm. It’s a version of Ethan I rarely see, one that leads me to wonder who he is when we’re not competing. “I mean, Sanger’s not,” he adds. “She’s incurably dull.”