Freshman for President Page 9

  “What if they get into an accident when it does?”

  “That won’t happen.” Milo was still grinning to himself.

  Eden didn’t seem to believe him. “Seriously, Milo. You have to think these things through. Everything we do is going to be put under a microscope now that we’re running a national campaign. The bad stuff and the good stuff. Like when we let the kids ride on our float. Some people probably thought we did that to score points.”

  “But we did it because they were baking, not because of the campaign. We can do nice stuff without it being all about the campaign.”

  “Didn’t that thought cross your mind for just a second? That it would look good for us to be nice to the kids?”

  “I guess so,” Milo admitted, after he’d thought about it for a moment. “But it’s still not the main reason why we did it. We’re nice people.”

  “Most of the time, yeah. But sometimes we have to play the game just like everyone else is, especially in this campaign.”

  “So are we nice people who happen to be campaigning, or are we politicians who do a couple of nice things on the side?” Milo was frustrated. He knew he wasn’t perfect, but he also had never thought of himself as a jerk or as someone who did nice things just for show. Maybe some things, yes, but that was part of being a teenager. Part of being a human being.

  “That’s the question.”

  “This is getting more and more fake,” Milo said. “And we’re not even in the big time or anything. Can you imagine how crazy that would be?”

  They were both quiet for a few moments. Milo used his litter gun as a rake to scoot some aluminum cans into his bag. He was thinking about all the candidates he’d watched on TV, kissing babies and shaking hands, and he realized he’d assumed things about them too. He’d assumed they didn’t care about teenagers and that everything they did was for show. Maybe he’d been right, but maybe he hadn’t. How could you know?

  “Wasn’t that nice of McCall to come this morning?” Eden changed the subject.

  “It was nice of everyone to come help,” Milo said evasively. McCall was on the tennis team with Eden and had been helping out with the campaign lately. He had had a crush on her the year before and Eden wouldn’t let him forget it.

  “Don’t try to avoid the question. I know you think she’s cute,” Eden teased.

  “Maybe.” Milo played along. “I don’t know. Do you and Spencer have something going on?”

  “Me and Spencer?” Eden sounded incredulous. “He’s way older than I am! He’s in college! And in case you haven’t noticed, he really likes Maura. Why else do you think he came to the parade and rode in the truck today? He just wanted a chance to talk to her.”

  “Yeah. I noticed that. I hope he knows he’s wasting his time.”

  They heard the grinding of gears somewhere nearby. Great. Logan and his friends must have discovered the firecracker. John’s truck came into view and he swerved closer to the sidewalk. This time, he didn’t make the mistake of stopping, but as the truck passed, a string of obscenities rang in Milo’s ears. Milo filled his lungs to yell something back, but he breathed out again without saying anything. And then they were gone.

  Eden looked at him.

  “I guess you don’t need to worry about Logan,” Milo told her. “It looks like he didn’t crash after all.”

  “And you didn’t yell anything back. I’m proud of you.”

  “That’s something I don’t hear every day. Usually you’re after me to do more research or come up with more ideas.”

  “I don’t get after you that much!”

  “Try every day,” Milo teased. The sky was getting darker. He looked over to see Jack and Paige walking quickly toward them.

  “I think we’re about done here,” Jack called out. “This thing is about to hit.”

  He had just finished speaking when the thunderstorm crackled to life, lightning cutting across the sky. The first flat hard drops of rain slapped on the pavement, on the fliers in their hands, on their faces. The smell of rain and sage and pine and clean desert dirt rushed in, better than any other smell Milo could imagine.

  A jingling sound came from behind them. Eden’s dad had opened the drugstore’s front door. “Come on in,” he urged them. “That lightning’s pretty close.” The lights of the pharmacy flickered behind him.

  Mr. James told them to help themselves to the ice cream while they waited for him. “I have to compound a few more things. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”

  Milo watched him walk back to the pharmacy counter. He knew Mr. James knew more secrets than almost anyone in town. He knew which teenagers were on birth control. He knew which people in town tried to get more drugs than they should, and he had to report them. He knew which acne medications the kids at Sage High were using. He knew what medications people were taking to get them through the day. He knew a lot. But he never let that knowledge change how he treated people. He was nice to everyone.

  Mr. James was a good man.

  Milo and his friends crowded behind the counter, laughing and teasing each other as they all made their signature concoctions. Jack had a three-scoop bubblegum ice cream cone. Milo had a root beer float. Paige had a butterscotch fizz with crushed Andes mints on top. Eden had tried every flavor in the store, several times, but her favorite was rainbow sherbet. She always ate the green sherbet first, then the pink, then the orange.

  The storm was as brief as it was sudden, just as most of the thunderstorms in Sage were. The rain spent itself on the buildings and streets; the lightning moved on to distant places. Twenty minutes after the first onslaught of frantic drops on pavement, only the perfect smell of rain and a few clouds remained.

  They rolled down the car windows and breathed in the rain-washed air as Mr. James drove them over to Paige’s house. By the time they were climbing up onto the asphalt-shingled roof, the clouds were almost gone and darkness and starlight had taken their place.

  When they reached the roof, Jack immediately sprawled out on it, even though it was still wet from the rain. “I feel fat and happy.” He patted his stomach and let out an enormous burp. Paige slapped his arm and Eden told him he was disgusting. Then everyone sat in silence, waiting.

  A few minutes later, the first firework shot into the air. A bloom of gold and white exploded into the dark sky, showering down a rain of sparkling light. They could hear the sounds of the people in the stadium applauding and cheering, muted from the distance. Patriotic music was playing over the sound system, sounding scratchy and far away.

  Over and over again, the sky exploded with colors. Yellow. Green. Red, white, and blue. Jack, Milo, Paige, and Eden whooped and cheered. Gold and white again. More red, white, and blue. The grand finale: red white blue gold blue white red cheering cheering cheering. Smoke.

  It was over. When the smoke had settled, there was nothing left but the stars.

  Chapter 12

  August

  On the screen of Mrs. Wright’s laptop

  Teenage Depression

  If these signs of depression persist, parents should seek help:

  • Frequent sadness, tearfulness, crying

  • Hopelessness

  • Decreased interest in activities, or inability to enjoy previously favorite activities

  • Persistent boredom; low energy

  • Social isolation; poor communication

  • Low self-esteem and guilt

  • Withdrawal from friends and family

  * * *

  Their voices were low and urgent, rising and falling. Milo could hear his mother saying, “We’re worried about you,” and his father saying, “We need to make a change. The way things are going isn’t working.” The only voice he didn’t hear was Maura’s, either because she was speaking very quietly or—more likely—because she
wasn’t speaking at all.

  Milo was trying not to listen, but the walls were thin and his house was small. His bedroom was next door to Maura’s room, where his parents had cornered her after dinner.

  His father had raised his voice a little. He didn’t sound angry, just frustrated. “It’s unhealthy. You can’t stay home so much. What happened to all your friends from high school?”

  The silence stretched on. Milo couldn’t tell if Maura had answered or not.

  “We really appreciate everything you’re doing to help Milo, but we want you to take some interest in your life, too,” his mother said. “Would you like to take a class at the community college in the fall? There’s still time to enroll.”

  Yesterday, Milo’s mom had asked him to get her laptop for her. The screen had been opened to an official-looking website about teenage depression, and Milo hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind since. For a split second, he’d thought his mom meant for him to see it as a joke, since he sure wasn’t depressed. Then he realized she hadn’t meant for him to see it, and it definitely wasn’t a joke, and she was worried about someone else. The other teenager in the house.

  Funny, but he never thought of Maura as a teenager these days, even though she was nineteen.

  Milo finally dug his iPod out of his backpack and turned on a Killers song so he wouldn’t be eavesdropping anymore. The music filled up every little part of his brain and kept his parents’ words from coming in and hiding out to haunt him later.

  Milo had always taken for granted the fact that he had a pretty fun, normal family. He hadn’t known how lucky he’d been until something had gone wrong. It was strange how quiet the whole thing was. He’d always imagined that when your family fell apart, it would be loud and dramatic.

  He hadn’t imagined that it would happen silently, while they all watched, helpless.

  * * *

  Milo didn’t hear his mother knock. He just saw the door opening out of the corner of his eye. His mom came into the room and sat down on the bed, gesturing for him to turn off the music. He did.

  “Hey,” she said. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure.” He knew she must want to talk about Maura. They’d spent all of dinnertime talking about the latest campaign developments. And other than that, there wasn’t much going on in his life to require a parental visit to his room. It had to be Maura.

  “Does Maura ever talk to you?”

  “Not really.” Milo decided to be honest. “Not really at all.”

  “What about Eden? Does she talk to Eden?”

  “Why would she talk to Eden?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” his mom said, looking tired. “Eden’s friendly, she’s a girl, I thought maybe . . .”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I just want her to talk to someone. I know something’s wrong, but she hasn’t let it out yet to anyone. But it has to happen sometime. She can’t go on like this.”

  Milo didn’t say anything. His parents kept saying Maura couldn’t keep going on like this, and Maura did keep going on like this.

  His mother sighed, then looked at him. “She’s spending more time with you than anyone else. It might be you she finally confides in.”

  Milo hadn’t thought of that possibility. It seemed unlikely, since she’d never confided in him before, when her life was fine, when they used to talk all the time and tease each other. There was too much of a gap in age, and Maura had always thought of Milo as her baby brother. Milo realized that the thought of her confiding in him was even more terrifying than the silence. He didn’t think Maura would ever talk to him and tell him what was wrong, but what if she did?

  And where was Maura, right at this moment? Was she listening to this conversation on the other side of the wall?

  “I need to get going,” he told his mom. “I’m supposed to meet everyone at Eden’s house to plan our next move, and I’m late.”

  “Okay, honey.” She picked up his earphones. “Do you mind if I listen?”

  Milo shrugged. “Fine with me.” Then he warned her, “But the volume is up pretty loud.” She laughed and followed him into the living room to say good-bye. He left her sitting on the couch, listening to his music, probably trying to find out something about him since Maura was a mystery.

  * * *

  Eden’s street was as familiar to him as his own, just one block away. He knew where the cracks were on the sidewalk that would give his bike a little jump. He knew which yards had dogs and which didn’t. He knew what color the bright purple house on the corner had been before it had been purple (turquoise green).

  It was turning to dusk but wasn’t dark yet, so Milo could see all the kids in his neighborhood out on their bikes, running through their sprinklers, getting yelled at by their parents for going too close to the street or for tormenting their siblings. Two toddlers across the street were wearing their swimming suits and shrieking as they ran through the sprinkler spray. The littlest one, with a bit of a pot belly, stuck out his tummy to be hit with the water and laughed so hard Milo could hear him from across the street.

  Milo loved summer.

  Jack and Paige weren’t there yet. Milo found Eden sitting in the backyard. The James’s had a vegetable garden where they grew a few things. Zucchini, mostly. And pumpkins, which they usually carved on Halloween night.

  They also had a rose garden. Keeping it alive amounted to a lot of work. There was one rosebush in particular he knew was special to Eden. It grew bright pink roses, and the name of that variety of rose was the Eden Rose. Before she died, Eden’s mother had planted those roses for her daughter. Milo didn’t know the stories behind the other roses in the garden. It seemed to him that most of them must have to do with love—why else would Mr. James and Eden work so hard to keep them growing?

  “Which one is yours?” Milo asked, sitting down next to Eden and gesturing to the roses. They weren’t blooming yet, so he couldn’t remember which plant it was, exactly, without the signature bright pink blooms. They all looked alike to him—thorny and green-leaved. “Is it this one?”

  “Almost. It’s this one.” She pointed to the bush next to the one he’d singled out. “It had an aphid problem, but we seem to have taken care of it for now.” She paused. “I always worry when something goes wrong with it. It’s stupid, because I have other things that belonged to my mom and that she made for me. But this is the only gift from her that’s . . . alive.”

  “Did she know she was dying when she planted it?” Eden’s mother’s cancer had been fast-moving. She had lived only two months after her diagnosis.

  “No. She did it for me before she knew she would have to leave me. So I was important to her even before she knew we wouldn’t be together for long. I know that, but it’s nice to have proof.” Eden flicked a bug off a rose leaf. “Sometimes all I can remember is the last few months, but there were five years before that. I wish I could remember those too. I wish I had five-and-a-half years’ worth of memories, but I don’t, because I was too young to keep it all.”

  Milo didn’t know what to say. They sat together in silence for a minute. Then Eden spoke.

  “Do you know the name of this rose?” she asked him, pointing to another bush. “This is the one that’s dark red when it blooms.”

  “Ummm . . .” Was this a rhetorical question? Of course Milo had no idea.

  “It’s a Lincoln Rose. They have roses named for a lot of the presidents. Mostly Republicans—I think there are only three Democratic presidents who’ve had roses named after them. Anyway, maybe you’ll have one named after you someday.”

  “It probably wouldn’t smell very good,” Milo said, with an attempt at humor.

  “You know what the different colors mean, right?”

  “Not really. Love?”

  “That’s what red roses mean. Y
ellow means friendship, white means innocence or remembrance. Peach means sympathy. Orange means desire. And if you give someone a purple rose, it means you’ve fallen in love with them at first sight.”

  This could come in useful someday, Milo thought. “What does pink mean?” he asked. “Like your rose. What does that mean?”

  “Well, if you were giving someone a pink rose, you’d be expressing admiration. Or gratitude.”

  “Most guys don’t know this stuff, though, right? Just florists. And maybe some girls.”

  “You’re probably right,” Eden said. “So now you’re ahead of the pack. You can thank me someday, when you have to give a girl some flowers and you’ll be able to get the meaning right.”

  “Girls don’t usually care, though, do they? I mean, it’s the thought that counts.”

  Eden sighed. “Right. But the more thought you put into it, the better.”

  Milo grinned to himself. For guys, the opposite was true. The less time you had to spend thinking about something or coming up with a gift idea, the better. Even if you really cared about the person, coming up with a good gift could be agony.

  He was pretty sure, too, that most guys just bought what they saw in the ads or what looked good in the store. His dad, for example, couldn’t have possibly known that orange roses meant desire when he gave Milo’s mom a bouquet of them for her birthday. On the other hand, maybe he did. Gross.

  Eden looked at him. “Should we go inside to wait for the others? It’s getting kind of dark.”

  “Nah.” Milo shook his head, still trying to erase the image of the orange roses from his mind. “It’s nice out here. There’s only so many summer nights left, and I have a feeling this might be kind of a crazy fall.”

  “I have a feeling you might be right.”

  Chapter 13

  August

  Reasons Milo J. Wright knew summer was over

  1. He was wearing clothes that basically matched, and that didn’t have any grass stains.