I mean, this is incredible. I actually flipped out for a second when I got the NorthStar email. I actually cried a little. I’ve never been to a professional corporate meeting before, and I’m so excited to go in person to the offices of NorthStar Enterprises and represent Vander and our student body and meet with someone who might actually be able to help us take things to the next level. I feel like, in all honesty, I’m exactly the right person to build this relationship.
When I think back on it now, last year’s Fall Formal was really an incredible turning point for me. It was the first time I understood that I could have both Jesse and the rest of my life and one didn’t have to destroy the other. It was the first time I realized that corporate sponsorship could change the whole way student council does business. And at the end of the night, as I was slow dancing the last dance before clean-up in Michael’s arms, I told him I was going to run for student council president this fall, and he said he would support me and my dreams no matter what. He told me I should always shoot for the stars.
We campaigned really hard this September—I’m really proud of how hard me and Michael worked. And even though Melissa Formosa got president, and I only ended up getting vice president because Julie Dressel quit at the last minute to focus on soccer, everything worked out perfectly in the end. Vice president has turned out to be the best possible role for me. It lets me do a ton of work behind the scenes that actually has a huge impact on the school, work that I might not have time to do if I were president. This corporate sponsorship idea is just one example. Now that I’ve been vice president for a couple of months, I’ve learned that a lot of the real power in school happens behind closed doors, where the general public doesn’t even see it. I’ve realized that I’m right where I want to be.
5
Jesse
It’s so early there’s still a silvery sheen of dew on the grass around Vander High. The Saturday morning sun is a puddle in the dingy sky, and Jesse stands in its watery light watching her mother’s car recede down the access road away from school. She has five bucks, her phone, her notebook, a pen, and her Swiss Army Knife in the pockets of her cargo pants and a crumpled sack lunch in her hand. She didn’t watch her mother pack it, but she’s guessing it’s the health-food version of death-row cuisine: five rice crackers in a used Ziploc bag, soggy bulgur-wheat salad in a curry-stained Tupperware container, two leathery dried apricots in a paper towel, as appetizing as a pair of shriveled human ears. “Enjoy,” her mother said to her grimly as she handed it to her through the passenger’s-side window. “Call me if they violate your human rights. I’ll see you at five.”
It’s weird to be at school on a Saturday. Empty of inhabitants, it feels creepy somehow, like an abandoned factory, a ghost town. The reflective windows look dead to Jesse, concealing nothing behind them but desks, blackboards, and silence.
Jesse sits down on the damp wooden bench under the crab-apple tree by the side door. She’s supposed to meet the ASP supervisor there “promptly at 8:00 a.m.,” the disciplinary ticket reads in Snediker’s unnervingly tiny, square-cornered handwriting. The bench is deeply grooved with gouged-out graffiti—LOVE YOU MATT—SK8 OR DON’T—JIZBIZ WAZ HERE—SENIORS 4EVA—and Jesse fingers the smooth bullet of the Swiss Army Knife in her pocket, imagining for a moment what it would feel like to carve JH LOVES EM into the bench. She closes her hand around the knife, then feels a hot flush of embarrassment even thinking about doing such a thing. She pulls her hand out of her pocket, wiggles her toes around vigorously inside her boots to distract herself from the thought of Emily.
A car turns onto the access road and wends its way toward Jesse, a beat-up pea-green hatchback, crazy with hippie bumper stickers, traveling in a cloud of bouncy music that gets louder and clearer the closer it comes. It accelerates to a squealing stop in front of Jesse’s bench and the passenger’s-side window rolls down jerkily.
“Halberstam?” a small, bearded, long-haired elf in a black ski hat yells out cheerfully from the driver’s seat. Jesse nods.
“Where’s Meinz?” he yells. Jesse shrugs, not sure what this means. The music—plinkety, happy, banjo-y—is up so loud on the car stereo that even from twenty feet away Jesse can make out every word. “I will get by,” the singers promise in crooned unison.
“Parking,” the elf yells, and waves enthusiastically, like a little kid. Automatically, Jesse waves back, then thinks, Why are we waving?