You Should See Me in a Crown(54)
When I walk into school on Monday, things feel different. There’s an energy in the air that excites and terrifies me.
Robbie is standing at my locker with a smile when I show up.
“Sis,” he starts, shutting my locker door for me after I grab my AP World History textbook. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
He pulls me toward the Commons. Just like we’d hoped, like I’d planned, a huge crowd has gathered in front of the glass wall. And they’re completely buzzing, talking and snapping photo after photo. My first instinct is to run, to hide. But my second, the one that’s even more dominant, is to look for Amanda. My heart sinks when I can’t locate her face in the crowd.
The crowd breaks just enough for me to see what everyone is staring at, and Britt’s handiwork is even more incredible now than it’d been last night. It looks like it could be right on the glass, but in an effort to save the janitorial staff undue stress, Britt’s managed to do it all on a series of those massive papers that come on a roll you find in art classrooms.
After I left Gabi’s, I told Britt I was ready to shake up my campaign, and she was immediately on board.
Jordan kept his promise to help however I needed—it was practically three in the morning when he met us at the school with his key, courtesy of being the trustworthy and almost-famous D1 recruit and football team captain—and Britt and I got to work. I didn’t do much but help her hang the paper and hand her a new brush when she asked for it. But somehow, Britt created something Banksy couldn’t have dreamt up. You know, if Banksy was invested in doing vaguely anarchist prom displays instead of anti-capitalist, anti–state surveillance street art.
In Britt’s signature style, there’s a huge, eerily realistic black castle, one that looks like something out of a horror movie instead of a fantasy. And right in the center, in loopy white script so perfect the words seem almost comically out of place:
She finished it all with a gold crown hanging off one of the turrets. The same gold crown that adorns all my posters and fliers.
Last night, as she finished it, me and Jordan stood by and marveled at what she’d managed to do.
“Whoa, Luca!” Jordan whistled from his place leaning against the wall. It was pretty dark in the Commons that late at night, but the flashlights on our phones offered just enough light for Britt to get to work. “This is dope.”
“But won’t that be too obvious?” I asked as she finished with a flourish. I was hesitant about using the crown imagery, worried that any misstep might bring Madame Simoné and Principal Wilson knocking down my door and pulling me from the race, but in the end, there was no other option. “I know we need people to connect me to this somehow, but I don’t know … Is this not just asking to get me booted?”
I rubbed my forehead, leaving behind some stray black fingerprints from the paint.
“All guerilla art needs a calling card, Lizzo.” Britt looked at the display and then back at me. “But we do what you want here. You don’t want the crown, I’ll scrap it and start over.”
Jordan came to stand next to me, looking up at what we’d managed to do. He bumped my shoulder with his own.
“You’re scared because this is different,” he said so that only I could hear him. In an instant I was backstage with him again at our last concert together, our faces close and hearts beating loud. “But this”—he gestured between our bodies and then to Britt—“this is the same. We got your back, Lighty. Whatever goes down, it goes down with all of us.”
And now, in the light of day, I’m grateful for the decision to let the crown stand, because as one person notices me standing next to Robbie, so does another. And another and then another, until it seems like the dull roar of conversation has all but disappeared. The people who had been taking pictures of the mural for Campbell Confidential have turned their cameras in my direction. A mix of surprise, annoyance, and respect plays across the different faces.
As they’re looking at me, I look down at my phone. I take one deep, calming breath, and I press send on the Campbell Confidential post that I’ve been drafting since last night.
Robbie crosses his arms and smiles at me.
“You still worried about that ranking?”
And I feel it, that explosive and dangerous sensation of hope that I’ve been afraid of. Maybe I do have a chance, a real chance, to be queen. Without the games, without trying to mold myself into the box of what a queen has always been.
I hate that it took me so long to realize it, that I’ve let all the garbage like popularity and Campbell’s antiquated ideals keep me from understanding the truth.
I never needed this race or a hashtag or the king to be a queen.
I was born royalty. All I had to do was pick up my crown.
I’ve only been to Principal Wilson’s office once before, to collect some donations for Key Club junior year, but it feels almost familiar as I look around the space. It’s so stereotypical, I’ve seen it a hundred times: three framed pictures of his wife and kids beside his iMac, a shiny brass nameplate perched on the edge of his big wooden desk, two degrees from Purdue University on the wall. And to top it all off: the pinched expression of a man who hasn’t had his morning coffee or taken a poop in days. The thought almost makes me laugh as I ease into one of the two chairs in front of him.