Future Perfect (24 page)

L
aura licks the spoon clean and drops it into the sink. She is back for the second half of the year. We've finished filling the empanada dough, and I'm brushing the tops with egg. “So, no plans. None plans. No, none plans at all?”

“None plans,” I say, shifting over a row of dough balls to fit the next on to the pan.

She high-fives me. “That's a good plan,” she says.

“You should do Peace Corps,” Jolene says. She's sitting on one of the stools, watching us work. She's cut her hair short, a spiky pixie that makes her eyes look huge. “Not that I want to give you advice,” she says.

“Maybe,” I say.

“What does your grandmother say?” Laura says.

“Nothing,” I say. She has not spoken to me since we checked out of the hospital. She brought me home and fed me broth and put me to bed. I slept for three days. When I woke up, there was
porridge and tea and more soup in the cabinet and she stayed in her office all day, and I couldn't bring myself to go up that extra flight of stairs.

“She'll be proud of whatever you do,” Laura says. “She just won't say anything.”

I don't answer her.

“You could move to New York with me,” Laura says brightly. She narrows her eyes at Jolene. “Are
you
still going to Sarah Lawrence?” Jolene grins, happy like a kid, and nods.

“I would like to maybe go to New York,” I say. I open up the oven when the preheat timer goes off, and slide the trays in. “I don't know what I want.” It is a feeling that is awful and wonderful at the same time.

Laura starts talking about the apartment we can share in Queens, which is the new hip place because Brooklyn has been priced out and Manhattan is where all the rich people live now, and then the empanadas are ready and we eat them with our fingers in the parlor with the television turned on, but muted. Laura falls asleep facedown on the rug with Toby tucked under her arm and Jolene is curled up in the armchair and Annabelle Lee is snoring in the crook of her knees.

I pull myself up and take our plates to the kitchen. Soto pads behind me, nudges her head under my hand.

“Hello, beautiful puppy,” I say to her. I lean down to kiss her head. She follows me up the stairs, climbs onto the bed, and
watches me as I rummage through my drawers. I pull out my box of stationery, a pen. I set a card in the middle of the desk. I write,

Clara Ruby Elizabeth Rumsen Perkins

Good for one talk about the future

Her light is on when I reach the top of the stairs. She's sitting in the corner armchair with an afghan over her legs. She is as beautiful as ever, her hair glowing silver in the lamplight. I knock. She looks up at me, puts her book down. I extend the card to her, and she looks at it for a long moment before she looks back at me, reaches out, and takes it from my hand.

I
would like to first of all acknowledge that I am among the luckiest of humans and I am so grateful.

This book wouldn't exist without my amazing agent, Cheryl Pientka, who said,
You should be writing YA
.

This book also wouldn't exist without the lovely Claire Zulkey, who asked me over the course of an interview about my first book, “What are you working on next?” I responded, chirpily, “A young adult novel!”

This book certainly would not exist without my brilliant editor, Kristen Pettit, who made me burst into tears on the California Zephyr train somewhere between Salt Lake City and San Francisco, as I read her first email to me. She wanted that YA book, and then helped make it far better than I could have hoped.

This book couldn't exist without beautiful Monique van den Cullen, who has always been my model for body confidence and self-esteem, and who has been bitching with me about the need for awesome fat protagonists in books for, like, 20 years. Hers is next, you guys.

This book shouldn't exist because I went through an infinitely
long existential crisis trying to write it, trying to make it
right
, but the so-astonishing Karen Meisner put her arms around me literally and figuratively and helped me keep all my pieces together.

This book almost didn't exist because still I froze and stared wildly around me, startling at bright noises and loud lights, but my gorgeous Kelsey Van Tassel, of the greatest name and the loveliest heart, showed me the past, the present, and the future. Her love and support and belief in me are some of the greatest gifts I've ever been given.

This book went on to exist because the beautiful and gifted Sage Romano kept kicking my ass and taking my name and providing me with an extraordinary, inspiring example of an incredibly hardworking, dedicated, talented writer.

This book, now in existence, would not be nearly so beautiful without the amazing talent of Sarah Kaufman, whose patience was endless and whose design just glows, and Ellice M. Lee, the immensely talented layout design artist who made it just as pretty on the inside.

This book would not be so cohesive, smart, grammatically correct (will I ever, ever be able to figure out
lay
and
lie
or will I die ashamed?), and error free without genius copyeditor, Claire Caterer; razor-sharp proofreader, Tania Bissell; and production editor, Alexandra Alexo, who orchestrated the whole thing. You are completely the best.

The whole process of publishing a book, from submitting
a manuscript to answering dumb author questions like “What? An author questionnaire?” to shifting around covers and flaps and copyedits and page proofs and all the endless important bits, wouldn't have gone so smoothly and happily and well without the basic awesomeness of Elizabeth Lynch.

I wouldn't exist without my very cute mom, from whom all the things I am have sprung. She has always tried to protect me and has always loved me fiercely.

So much love and many thanks for above-and-beyond kindnesses, support, giggle-snorts, and general wonderfulness to: my aunt, Elizabeth Fitzgerald; my brother, Ken Larsen, sister-in-law, Carrie Ellman, and perfect nephew, Oliver; the astonishing Alex Duke; oldest friend, Rodrigo Trujillo; quietly and enduringly supportive Justin Pierce; ridiculously beautiful-faced and -hearted Jenny Shaw, Kristin Guthrie Brandt, Brooke Duncan, Brittany Woods, and Heather Haskett; immortal beloved Amy Hawkins; and the very attractive Jeff Dillon, who has many excellent qualities.

If I have forgotten anyone, it is because I have a mind like a steel sieve, and I am sorry and I love you because you are a perfect you, inside and out.

PHOTO BY KAREN MEISNER

JEN LARSEN
is the author of the widely acclaimed adult memoir
Stranger Here: How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed with My Head,
which chronicles her own real-life journey with weight-loss surgery. This is her first work of fiction.

WWW.JENLARSEN.NET

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.

COVER DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY SARAH NICHOLE KAUFMAN

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

FUTURE PERFECT
. Copyright © 2015 by Jen Larsen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Larsen, Jen, 1973–

       Future perfect / Jen Larsen. — First edition.

              pages       cm

       Summary: “Ashley is offered the chance to have weight-loss surgery by her exacting grandmother, who promises to provide tuition to her dream college in return” — Provided by publisher.

       ISBN 978-0-06-232123-7 (hardback)

       EPub Edition © September 2015 ISBN 9780062321251

       [1. Self-esteem—Fiction. 2. Overweight persons—Fiction. 3. Grandmothers—Fiction. 4. Single-parent families—Fiction. 5. Weight loss—Fiction.] I. Title.

15  16  17  18  19    
CG/RRDH
    10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

FIRST EDITION

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