I was strangely optimistic that afternoon, maybe because I’d gotten 95 percent correct on my sexual harassment training. “We need to remember that Black people lived under authoritarianism in this country already. Our parents, grandparents. Somehow they got through it. And they were like us. They were just as scared. But we’re here because being scared didn’t stop them.”
I could hear Jay smile when he said, “When did you become Little Miss Voice of Reason?” It made me smile.
“I’ve always been Little Miss Voice of Reason. That’s why I knew our democracy would be dead by this year.”
“It’s not dead, it’s in a coma.”
“Okay, this shit feels dead to me.”
His laugh rang out. I was smiling so hard now that a teenager in the seat across from me looked like,omg, cringe.
“I still have hope,” he said.
“Save it for your convention speech.”
The phone was far away from his mouth. “Wait, I’ve already written it! Do you want to hear? It needs work but I have seventeen years to get it together.”
“Already written what?”
“My Democratic convention speech.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
He pulled over to read it to me. I had to admit, it wasn’t bad.
I felt myself start to tell him I was ready, I was ready to try.
And then my phone vibrated.
It was Tristan.
Seeing his name on my screen, I couldn’t help it: my heart leapt, bounded, soared.
Chapter 60
My body was a bundle of nerves walking to meet Tristan at Tryst, the coffee shop’s name now hilariously on the nose to me. This was the longest we’d gone without seeing each other.
Dropping my bag in an empty chair, I said, “You didn’t tell me you were going to LA.”
“It was last minute. Jay was pretty stressed, you know. He didn’t have any food in his house. I brought him some groceries. I was actually gonna ask you about that.”
I wasn’t sure how much to reveal. We felt oddly allied then, like two friends banding together in concern for another friend. I wanted to stay in this feeling of alliance. “I think he’s worried about his dad, his cousin, you know, and just”—I waved a hand—“everything. He was all right when I spoke to him yesterday.”
“So you guys are back to normal, I guess.”
“No.”
Tristan nodded but didn’t seem to believe me. “At least I convinced Mr. Wright to go to the follow-up appointment I made.”
“Who knew you were a caretaker?”
He rolled his eyes, unwrapping a salmon bagel. But when he glanced up at me, everything about him was soft, his eyes, his mouth, as though in an act of repentance.
“Did you know that Georgetown professor who got detained last month?” I asked. “I felt like that one flew under the radar.”
“Not personally. But it’s terrifying, I mean they’re just picking up people off the fucking street, wearing sweatpants, like, how do you even know they’re who they say they are? And the guy they accidentally sentto El Salvador, like?” He paused. “It’s—I mean, if people were looking for some sort of turning point—”
“This is it.” We looked at each other as if to acknowledge, silently, the scale of it.
