I Kissed Shara Wheeler(94)

Rory stares at him from across the room with wide eyes, like he’s never seen anything quite like him before. None of them have, really. There’s nobody like Smith Parker.



* * *



At the dealership across the highway from Willowgrove, Brooklyn descends on them with a clipboard before Chloe’s even shut the door of Rory’s car behind her.

“Do we all have our caps and gowns?” she asks. “Again, do we all have our caps and gowns? Rory?”

“It’s not even a real graduation, Brooklyn,” Rory grumbles.

“Not without caps and gowns it’s not,” Brooklyn says. It looks like it’s going to be a standoff between an unstoppable force (Brooklyn’s dedication to micromanaging anything that can possibly be micromanaged) and an immovable object (Rory’s refusal to do anything he is told to do, ever) when Smith appears over Rory’s shoulder.

“He has it,” Smith says, cheerfully slapping a folded gown and mortarboard against Rory’s chest. “Forgot it in the car.”

“I’m not wearing it,” Rory says.

“Yes, you are,” Brooklyn argues.

“It looks cute on you,” Smith says.

“Ugh.” Rory rolls his eyes so hard that his whole head goes around in an annoyed circle. “Fine.”

“Good,” Brooklyn says. She spins, cups her hands around her mouth, and yells, “They got theirs!”

Summer, who is standing on top of an ice chest in the middle of the lot with a megaphone in one hand, says through the crackly speaker, “Thanks, Brooklyn, but you really don’t have to take this job so seriously.”

“Agree to disagree!” Brooklyn yells.

Georgia’s standing next to Summer’s ice chest with a tank of helium. Summer leans over and holds the megaphone in front of Georgia’s mouth.

“Hey, Chloe,” she says into it.

Brooklyn puts them to work. Most of the cars have been moved to the back lot to make room for a small stage and a single mic stand, the former on loan from Summer’s parents’ church and the latter from Rory’s A?V collection. Ace and Smith and all the other jocks are tasked with the manual labor of setting up chairs and tables, while Ash and the art club kids hang up signs and Benjy directs some of the choir contingent in assembling a balloon arch.

Across the two-lane highway, the rest of the class of ’22 starts pulling into the student lot, posing for pictures outside the auditorium in their caps and gowns. A few of them stop to stare over at the dealership, where a pink-haired Shara is on Smith’s shoulders, hanging a sign that says BLESSED ARE THE FRUITS with FRUITS in glitter glue. That’s got to be one of Benjy’s.

This is part of it, after all. There will always be people who like Willowgrove the way it is. The Mackenzies and Emma Graces and Dixons, the Drew Taylors, but also the quiet kids who feel safe there. Some of them have been in so deep for so long, they’ll always be happier like this. Some of them are too scared, or didn’t want to have that conversation with their parents. Some of them will reconcile these two sides of the highway in their hearts years from now.

Chloe’s starting to understand. She can climb on a stage in a parking lot and try to change something, but she can’t decide the rest for anyone else.

While Brooklyn has the assigning and assembling and decisive pointing covered, Summer plants herself in front of the local TV news crew as soon as they arrive. Her dad stands at her shoulder while she aces the interviews and smiles her pretty, dimpled smile. When asked, he explains that his business is happy to provide a place for anyone to stand up for something.

“Ever thought about being a politician’s wife?” Chloe whispers to Georgia as they tie off balloons. “Summer’s kind of crushing this.”

“Nah,” Georgia says. “If I wanted that, I’d date Brooklyn.”

Chloe glances across the lot to where Brooklyn is shouting at a bunch of band kids. “Yeah. That girl is going to be a White House intern before she’s old enough to buy beer.”

Georgia laughs and starts measuring out ribbons. “Where are your moms, by the way? Didn’t you say they were coming?”

“Yeah,” Chloe says. She glances at her phone. “They should have been here by now. I wonder—”

Before she can finish the sentence, her mom’s work truck comes trundling up to the lot.

There are cardboard boxes sliding around the bed, and when it pulls up closer, Chloe can see three people in the cab. Her mom parks beside the TV news van and climbs out in her nicest pair of coveralls, followed by her mama, and then—

“Is that Mr. Truman?”

Chloe passes her balloon off to Georgia and jogs over.

“Sorry we’re late!” her mom says, circling around to the back of the truck and unlatching the tailgate. “We had to pick some stuff up at the last minute.”

“Mom,” Chloe says, “what did you do?”

Mr. Truman reaches into the bed and slaps one of the boxes.

“She knows a guy who has access to the school on weekends,” he says. “I’m not saying that guy is me, but, you know. Always helps to know a guy.” He picks up the box and grunts. “Jesus Christmas, this is heavy.”

Mr. Truman and his imminent back sprain shuffle away as Chloe’s mama joins her at the side of the truck.