It’s hard for me not to get too carried away, though, as we walk farther down the street. Every single light pole has a Pride flag waving underneath. Nearly every storefront is sporting some kind of rainbow. This has to be a sign. It’s hard to believe, even two years later, how much I desperately want this all to be a sign.
But if Castro Street seems like a yellow brick road…theso-called secret path between Seventeenth and Eighteenth is no Emerald City. It’s not even an Emerald Hamlet.
“It’s just a parking lot,” Julia says as we round the corner.
“Of course it is,” Sunny mutters.
My shoulders sag as we stare down the alleyway. My brain is spinning out like a car caught in mud. I can feel the ignition kicking, can feel the wheels trying to get to another point. But all that work just goes in circles.How could we have been wrong?The flyer was too spot-on for us to be wrong.
Gabriel points over the parked cars. “There are a couple trees back there,” he says.
We glance at each other and trade nods. We’ve come this far, after all.
We slip into the alley and hurry toward the parking lot. Julia clutches her backpack to her chest and runs. Gabriel hunches halfway over as he follows on her heels. Considering it’s midmorning on a Sunday, we all probably look ridiculous.
Once we reach the end of the alley, we see firsthand how closely packed all the cars are together. Even the trees Gabriel pointed out are wedged between the asphalt and the vine-covered wall encircling the lot. I shimmy past the noses of two cars to stand next to one of the trees. There’s not really any “shovel prospect,” as Cam used to call it. Everything is way too crammed together to dig in, let alone bury a treasure. I lean in closer to check out the tree roots.
The second my hand touches the earth, a blaring alarm shatters the air to pieces.
Chapter Six
The only sound louder than the car alarm is Sunny’s scream as she essentially jumps out of her skin.
Julia dives behind the next car over. Gabriel clamps his huge hands right over his hood and pulls it down over his face. For my part, all I can do is look back over my own ass at the source of the alarm.
An old man with shock-white hair stands at the other end of the car I’m currently crouched in front of. He clicks his key fob again, and the alarm stops with a single chirp. Despite the over-the-top reactions from Sunny, Julia, and Gabriel, the man’s focus is directed entirely at me.
I stand up straighter.
“I’m so sorry,” I say quickly. I realize then that I sound like I’m saying sorry for trying to break into the man’s car. I motion toward the tree. “I was actually looking for…I didn’t mean to get close to…”
The man blinks at me. He walks around the car to my side.
“I know you,” he says, his voice tipping into surprise. “You’re that kid from the museum.”
I consider responding that, actually, I’m seventeen, and there are tens of museums in this city that I’ve visited many times. I am simply notthat kidfromthe museum.
But then I recognize him too. He’s an Asian American man with perfectly arched eyebrows and rounded cheeks. He grins, revealing the same brilliant, boxy smile I remember from two years ago.
“You’re the volunteer,” I say, “at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.”
The man points to his chest. “Mr.Wong.”
“Mr.Wong,” I echo. I motion toward the cluster of hunching teenagers. “I’m Ivy. This is Sunny, Julia, and Gabriel.”
Mr.Wong looks at the group, then turns back to me. “Where’s the other girl?”
“No,” I snap impulsively.
My chest tightens. I never know how to react in situations like this. I haven’t mastered the art of correcting someone in the kind of easy way where the conversation can move forward immediately after. I tend to face-plant right back into my own past, circling through the same unresolved feelings of stupidity and humiliation.
Despite everything that Cam’s done to me…I still have this horrible lump of guilt for not realizing he was, of course, transgender all along. Not that Cam gave me much of a chance to support him. He came out a whole year after ending our friendship. Even so, I feel like such an idiot wheneverI have to address this. How could I not have seen? Why was I such a dumbass when it came to my own best friend? The questions begin to spiral like a whirlpool, and then I’m standing there, drowning in yet another internal crisis, while the other person looks on, utterly flabbergasted.
Which is about the way Mr.Wong looks at me right now.
“He wasn’t a girl,” I say finally.
Mr.Wong nods slowly. “I understand. My apologies. But I do remember you both. Very passionate. Very intelligent. Looking for some kind of clue from a book, if I remember correctly.”
