Ask the Passengers
Page 1

ASTRID JONES SENDS HER LOVE.
EVERY AIRPLANE, no matter how far it is up there, I send love to it. I picture the people in their seats with their plastic cups of soda or orange juice or Scotch, and I love them. I really love them. I send a steady, visible stream of it—love—from me to them. From my chest to their chests. From my brain to their brains. It’s a game I play.
It’s a good game because I can’t lose.
I do it everywhere now. When I buy Rolaids at the drugstore, I love the lady who runs the place. I love the old man who’s stocking shelves. I even love the cashier with the insanely large hands who treats me like shit every other day. I don’t care if they don’t love me back.
This isn’t reciprocal.
It’s an outpouring.
Because if I give it all away, then no one can control it.
Because if I give it all away, I’ll be free.
1
YOU’D HATE IT HERE.
MOTION IS IMPOSSIBLE. That’s what Zeno of Elea said. And though I’ve disagreed with the idea every day this week in humanities class, sometimes I think I know what he meant.
It’s Wednesday, which is lit mag day. Justin and Kristina are ten minutes late. They are always ten minutes late. This doesn’t bug me. I’ve learned to expect it. And if I run out of submissions, I can always work on layout or advertising or just sit here and read a book. Justin and Kristina have all kinds of stuff to do after school. I just have lit mag.
When the two of them finally arrive, they walk through the door holding hands and giggling. Justin has his SLR digital camera around his neck like always, and Kristina is in a pair of yoga pants and an oversize Yale sweatshirt. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail.
“Sorry we’re late,” she says.
Justin apologizes, too. “I had to take some candid shots of the usual suspects: Football practice. Cheerleading. Hockey team running their laps. Yearbook crap.”
“I went with him to help,” Kristina says. “Could Aimee Hall be any more obvious?”
Justin laughs. “She actually posed for me hugging her tennis racquet.”
“It was gross,” Kristina says, adjusting her ponytail by grabbing two sides and yanking on them to center it on her perfect head.
When the townies talk about her, they say: You know that’s her natural color?
They say: I bet her and that Justin Lampley will have some damn pretty kids.
They say: I can’t figure out why she hangs out with that weird neighbor girl.
That’s me.
“We’re going up to Sparky’s before they close for the season. You in?” Kristina knows the answer to this, but she asks it anyway. And she knows that I’d kill for a Sparky’s root beer float, too.
“Can’t. School night. You know the deal.” Jones family small-town rules: no going out on school nights unless for clubs, sports or other school-related activities.
“Maybe Friday, then? It’s their last night. It’ll be packed, but worth it,” she says.
“Uh, Kris, we have a double date on Friday night,” Justin says.
“Oh, shit. My bad. Can’t do Friday. Double date.”
It’s so cute, isn’t it? It’s so 1950s. When I hear them talk like this, I close my eyes and picture Kristina in a blue chiffon dress that poufs out right below her knees, pearls and satin heels. I picture Justin in tightly tailored pegged pants. They are at a sock hop, jitterbugging.
People say: Did you hear those two double-date every Friday night? Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?
Justin looks at his watch. “Are you done or what?”
I show him the empty submission box, and he pulls out his phone and starts to wander toward the door.
“You need a ride home?” I ask Kristina. She looks at Justin, who is already texting Chad. We know it’s Chad, because Justin gets this look on his face when he texts Chad.
“Sure,” she says.
Justin is laughing at whatever clever text he just received and doesn’t even hear us. By the time I turn off the lights in Ms. Steck’s room, we’ve managed to nudge him into the hall and lock up. When we say good-bye, he grunts, thumbs typing furiously on his little iPhone keypad. Kristina says she has to grab something from her locker before we go and she’ll meet me in the parking lot, so I stop at the bathroom and my locker, too.
By the time I get outside, I see Justin and Kristina standing by Justin’s car in the parking lot, talking to a gaggle of their sporty and popular friends. Everyone is nice to Justin because if he likes you, there’s a better chance you’ll end up in the yearbook. If he doesn’t like you? Let’s just say Justin can make you look really good or really bad in a picture.
Justin and Kristina have been doing this dating thing since mid-sophomore year, so the people-being-overly-nice-to-Justin thing extends to her. Sometimes, it even extends to me, too, if I show up at times like this when they are mobbed in the parking lot, but today I don’t feel like it. They’re all probably saying, “Hope you win Homecoming king and queen! You’ve got my vote!” and stuff like that. I decide to get in my car and wait for the activity buses to leave. I reach into the glove compartment for a bottle of Rolaids and shake out three to chew on.
We say good-bye to Justin once the buses clear, and drive down Main Street of Kristina’s historic town. I don’t call it my town because I don’t think of it as my town. I still remember living in New York City, and loving the smell of the sweaty steam coming through the subway vents, and the vendor carts full of boiling hot dogs. That’s my town. Not Unity Valley.
Unity Valley is Kristina’s town.
Unity Valley is now my sister Ellis’s town, even though she was nine when we moved and totally remembers life in New York.
Mom says: You two have a chance to really fit in here. Your father and I will always stick out because—well, you know—because of our education and our way of thinking. But you two can really be small-town girls.
Ellis bought this. She’s living it. As far as I can tell, it’s working for her.
Mom says: We have so much more space here! The supermarket is so big! The roads are safe! The air is clean! The schools are better! No crime! And the people here stop and say hello!
Sure, Mom.
They stop and say hello, and then once you pass, they talk the back off you like you were nothing. They assess your outfit, your hairstyle, and they garble what you say so it comes out ugly. If I don’t hear it firsthand, I hear it secondhand.
About black kids: I hear that Kyle kid got himself a scholarship. Had to be black to get it. I can’t see how that’s fair. Jimmy Kyle got that scholarship to Villanova because he’s a straight-A student and wants to go to law school.