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Sam flips on the car radio. It’s set to some news program where the hosts are talking about the protest in Newark. The cops are claiming a riot broke out, but several YouTube videos show peaceful demonstrators being arrested. Some are still in custody—the numbers remain uncertain. The whole conversation deteriorates into jokes about girls with naked hands.
Sam changes the channel abruptly. I look out the window to avoid meeting his eyes. We stop at an auto parts store for a package of fuses and a new battery. Over the piped-in elevator music, he explains how to install them. I act even more incompetent with cars than I am, mostly to annoy Sam into laughing.
Minutes later, we pull into Daneca’s family’s fancy Princeton driveway. A guy in a green uniform is dusting the lawn with a leaf blower. In the back I can see Mrs. Wasserman in her garden, cutting a dark orange sunflower. She’s got a basket of them on her arm and waves when she sees us.
“Cassel, Sam,” Mrs. Wasserman says, walking over to the gate. “What a pleasant surprise.”
I thought people didn’t say things like that in real life, although I guess there are exceptions for people who live in houses like hers. Mrs. Wasserman doesn’t look as elegant as she sounds, though. Her cheek is smeared with dirt, her green Crocs are ragged, and her hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail. Somehow, though, her lack of effort is even more intimidating.
She doesn’t look like a tireless campaigner for worker rights. You wouldn’t figure her for the person who admitted on national television to being a worker. But she is.
“Oh, hi,” says Sam. “Is Daneca home?”
“Inside,” she says, and holds out the basket of flowers. “Can you two take these to the kitchen? I have to get the last of the zucchini. No matter how few you plant, somehow they always come in at once and then you have too many.”
“Can I help?” I ask impulsively.
She gives me an odd look. “That would be great, Cassel.”
Sam takes the basket of flowers and shakes his head at me, clearly guessing that I’m trying to delay answering Daneca’s inevitable questions.
I follow Mrs. Wasserman into the backyard while Sam goes inside. She picks up another basket from a pile of them inside a shed. “So how are things? I heard about Ms. Ramirez’s resignation. It’s ridiculous what that school thinks it can get away with.”
The garden is idyllic and huge, with lavender plants and blooming vines crawling up pyramids of woven sticks. Tiny red cherry tomatoes cover one raised bed, while another is bright with summer squash.
“Yeah,” I say. “Ridiculous. I was wondering, though. There was something I was hoping to ask you.”
“Of course.” She gets down on her knees and starts to snap off striped green vegetables with a twist of her garden-gloved hands. The zucchini grow from the center of a large leafy plant with yellow flowers and seem to just sprawl heavily on the ground. After a moment I realize that offering to help her means I should be mimicking what she’s doing.
“Um,” I start, bending down. “I heard about this thing—this organization the federal government has. For worker kids. And I wondered if you’d heard about it too?”
Mrs. Wasserman nods, not bringing up the fact that the last time I saw her, I was insisting up, down and sideways that I wasn’t a worker and wasn’t interested in them either. “No one will confirm much about it, but anyone trying to legislate in favor of protections for worker kids runs into government push-back concerning their own program. I’ve heard it called the Licensed Minority Division.”
I frown over the name for a moment. “So is it legit?”
“All I know,” she says, “is that I used to correspond with a kid about your age before he got recruited by them. I never heard from him again. Worker teenagers are a valuable resource, until the blowback cripples them—and the LMD tries to recruit before the mob does. The LMD goes after other workers—sometimes for legitimately terrible crimes, sometimes for minor infractions. It can sour the soul. If someone told you about the Minority Division, then you need a lawyer, Cassel. You need someone to remind them you’re still a citizen with choices.”
I laugh, thinking of the holding cell, thinking of all the people who might still be in it. But even if I believed citizens had choices, the only person with any legal expertise I know is Barron, and all he managed was a couple years of pre-law at Princeton. Mom has a lawyer, but I can’t pay him the way she does. Of course, there’s Mrs. Wasserman. She’s a lawyer, but she’s not exactly volunteering. “Okay. I’ll try to keep my nose clean.”
She pushes back a lock of woolly brown hair and manages to paint her forehead with dirt. “I don’t mean to say that they aren’t a worthwhile organization. And I’m sure that some kids wind up with fine, upstanding government jobs. I just want us to live in a world where worker kids don’t have to play cops or robbers.”
“Yeah,” I say. I can’t imagine that world. I don’t think I’d fit in there.
“You should go on into the house,” she says, and then smiles. “I can manage the rest of the vegetable picking.”
I stand up, understanding a dismissal when I hear one.
“I didn’t know what I was,” I say, swallowing hard. “Before. I didn’t mean to lie to you.”
Mrs. Wasserman looks up at me, shading her eyes with one gloved hand. For the first time in this conversation, she looks rattled.
* * *
Daneca and Sam are sitting on stools at the massive island in her kitchen. Resting on the marble counter in front of him is a glass of iced tea with a sprig of actual mint stuffed into it.
“Hey, Cassel,” Daneca says. She’s wearing a white T-shirt and jeans with knee-high brown suede boots. One purple-tipped braid hangs in front of her face. “You want something to drink? Mom just went to the store.”
“I’m good,” I say, shaking my head. I always feel awkward in Daneca’s house. I can’t help casing the joint.
