Girls in Charge (10 page)

“We're here, Jem,” Kate said.

Almost everyone else was up and gathering their things. I did the same. Kate handed me my purse and I stepped down the bus steps onto the hotel's curved driveway. We filed inside through an enormous revolving door. The hotel lobby seemed like an airport concourse, with just as many comings and goings. People checking in, luggage carts whizzing by, three restaurants within view, escalators going up, and three different banks of elevators. The hotel was so huge that it wasn't like there was one elevator that went to every floor. There were fifteen elevators and they all served different floors. You had to pick the right one.

Ms. Russo stood in the lobby with a
MARGARET SIMON MIDDLE SCHOOL
sign attached to a tall pole. We all gathered around and Mr. Ford used a bullhorn to direct us to the next step—getting our room keys and getting settled in. Then after lunch we were going to the Statue of Liberty and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, followed by dinner in Chinatown. The nighttime hours were “on your own,” but that meant on your own along with your chaperone—one adult for every four students.

The throng of us ran for the escalators and elevators as soon as we were dismissed. Hurray for us, we got on the right elevators—the one for floors 18–26. It zipped us up to the twenty-first floor so fast that my ears popped. Trailed by our chaperone, Mrs. Pinsky (and her zebra-striped luggage), we found our room down a long hallway. We had scored the ultimate in field-trip luck. Our request that we all be together was granted and our fourth member was Bet.

We had two rooms, with a door that linked them. The rooms were sleek and modern, not unlike the decor in our Pink Locker Society office. But they were also compact and space-efficient. A curved desk fit just-so near the window, and the two beds were high and thick with fluffy white bedding. The bathroom was modern with a tall curving faucet for the sink and outfitted with organic fig shampoo and cherry blossom soap.

“J'adore
the view!” said Piper as she flung the curtains open a little wider on Fifty-third Street below. “Mom, what's the French word for view?” Piper asked.

“
La vue,
I think,” said Mrs. Pinsky. She had set her zebra suitcase up on the luggage rack and was now browsing the hotel's spa menu.

I wished that my bedroom window back home opened up to a view like this. Everything about New York was bigger and more fascinating than anywhere else, especially home. If you haven't been there, go as quickly as you can! And yes, it is as unbelievable as it looks on TV. If I lived in New York City, I'd never, ever get bored. How could you?

I guess the nap on the bus had done me good. I was sad about Jake—sad because I knew I hurt his feelings. But I was also majorly relieved that I had taken care of that unfinished business. It was beyond good to see so many new things. There was no end to the distractions—people, buildings, taxicabs, street vendors, different smells, and store windows. For at least an hour, I completely forgot about my mom back home about to have twins. When I texted her, she answered right back:
still pregnant, have fun
.

As our group walked to find some lunch—pizza, of course—I couldn't help but daydream. What would life would be like if I moved to New York City and went to high school there? There was something about the place that just begged you to leave everything behind and start fresh, become a New Yorker. Which—funnily enough—was the theme of the afternoon.

You can start no fresher than to be an immigrant, leaving your country in, say, 1900, and coming through Ellis Island. I should have brought a jacket for the boat ride, which chilled us but provided an excellent view of the New York City skyline. And perhaps I should have worn more comfortable shoes, not strappy sandals, for the climb up, up, up into the Statue of Liberty. We took photos from every conceivable angle: from high up in the crown, looking down, to lying down on the grass beneath Lady Liberty. It was very hard to get her—head to foot—in the shot. The more we cut off her head or cut her off at the knees, the more uproariously we laughed.

The boat ride also gave us lots of time to talk about the PLS. We went down below and sat at a table with Ms. Russo.

“Seems too bad that just when the PLS is recognized, we have to move on and graduate,” Kate said.

“Don't see it that way,” Ms. Russo said. “Be proud of the work you did and how you got the PLS to this point.”

“Mrs. Percy said something about announcing us at graduation. Is that going to happen?” Piper asked.

“That'd be too weird,” I said.

“Would it?” Ms. Russo asked. “Because I think it would be fitting for you to be recognized. Perhaps you can introduce next year's Pink Locker Society members, too.”

“People can't know who we are,” I said.

“Even though there's not much time left, that could be a pain, actually,” Piper said. “If people knew who we were, they'd be bugging us and everyone would want to see the office.”

“True. But maybe there's some middle ground?” Ms. Russo said. “Think about it.”

“We will,” I said. “And I guess we have to finalize our replacements.”

“Yes, I'd get on that ASAP,” Ms. Russo said. “And are you all set for tomorrow—for your presentation with Forrest at the Tomorrow's Leaders Today conference?”

“Just about,” I said. This was like saying “I'm almost there,” when I hadn't even left my house.

Enough stalling,
I thought. Time to find Forrest and make a plan.

 

Twenty-nine

I surveyed the entire ferry looking for Forrest. I would have texted, but our teachers had the brilliant idea that we couldn't use our phones (except to take photos) during the entire field trip.

“Be where you are, people,” Ms. Russo said. “Experience New York, not your cell phone.”

That was all well and good, but now I was experiencing New York in a bit of a panic. Shortly, we'd be at a museum and then we'd be dining in Chinatown. After that, I knew it would be late. I had left approximately no time for Forrest and me to work on this presentation.

“If you wouldn't have volunteered to work with Forrest, you wouldn't have gotten stuck making this big presentation,” Piper said with a wink.

True enough. Kate offered to help, but it was one of those times when it was easier just to do it yourself than to involve a lot of people. I didn't want to involve Forrest, either. But we were stuck doing a joint presentation because the Tomorrow's Leaders Today organizers had insisted our talk be relevant to both girls and boys. On the agenda they sent, it was titled “Pink Locker, Blue Locker: Peer-to-Peer Intervention for Middle Grade Students.”

I still didn't know what to expect from the Tomorrow's Leaders Today conference. The only people I had known to go to this conference were eighth-graders in overdrive. You know the ones—they've won every conceivable local award and scholarship. Many are their newspaper clippings. Their parents are likely to be super-duper-involved in their lives. Sometimes, they are immensely talented in science or already know how to speak Russian. Perhaps they've identified a need in the community—say, warm pajamas for needy kids—and they've mounted a drive to correct this problem straightaway.

Adults love these students, who are on a straight road toward whatever university or life path they'd like to select. I think of them as grown-ups disguised as eighth-graders. It wasn't that I didn't like these people—I mean, technically, Bet was in this category. It's just that I couldn't understand how they had figured out their life's passion so quickly. I was just Jemma and, let's face it, I had stumbled into the Pink Locker Society.

Fortunately, I also stumbled into Forrest when we were filing into the Chinese restaurant. It was ablaze with red lanterns and pink tablecloths and smelled nothing short of heavenly to weary, hungry travelers.

“After we get back to the hotel, we've gotta do this,” he said.

“Yes. Perfect. Meet you in the lobby.”

And then he was gone again. Mrs. Pinsky gathered our group and pointed us toward Ms. Russo's table, where she was already pouring us warm cups of tea. Weirdly, Piper was not at our table.

“I saw her on the bus. She must be here somewhere,” Kate said.

We scanned the restaurant for her and came up empty, until Kate pointed her out across the room. She was sitting next to Forrest, who was sitting next to Taylor. Piper and Forrest seemed to be talking conspiratorially, as if they didn't want Taylor to hear.

So, this meant only one of two possible things:

1. Piper and Forrest were getting back together.

2. Taylor and Forrest were getting back together. Remember how protective he was about the bullying?

I looked down at my wrist for my soda tab bracelet. It wasn't there. I had left it behind like more than a few other things I forgot at home (my straightening iron and my lip balm, to name just two). OK, I thought, I don't need the bracelet to remind me of my five goals: being a good friend, becoming a good big sister, running, the PLS, and stopping the whole Forrest thing.

In these last months, I had succeeded at almost all of them, almost all of the time. I decided not to give up. I turned my attention from Forrest to my tall Chinese menu, which served as an excellent screen between me and the rest of the restaurant. I immersed myself in its pages, its multiple sections and sometimes-confusing descriptions of the dishes.

There were twelve soups listed, including shark's fin. Should I stick with something traditional, like kung pao shrimp, or go out of my comfort zone and try pig's belly with preserved mustard greens? There was always whole fish, Hunan style. Or maybe I'd ask the waitress to explain the difference between Double Delight, Triple Delight, and Double Winter Delight. I also considered how I'd enjoy the shock value of ordering boneless duck feet with black bean sauce. But I was hungry and I couldn't imagine boneless duck feet being very filling.

Just as I was settling on chicken with ginger and scallions, Piper returned to our table.

“What's everyone ordering?” she asked.

“I'm getting the vegetable lo mein,” Kate said.

“Where'd you go?” Mrs. Pinsky asked.

“Um, I had to talk to someone. About something,” Piper said.

“Well, that's nice and vague. What are you getting? The waitress will be right over,” Mrs. Pinsky said.

“I don't even need to look. I'm getting the orange chicken.”

I didn't chime in with what I was planning to order. In truth, I was pouting, but no one noticed. The restaurant was noisy, our table was large, and there were lots of other talkers. Bet, for instance, was deep in conversation with Ms. Russo about
You Bet!

“All I'm saying is, if the PLS is a recognized club, why can't I show the episodes that Principal F. wouldn't let me broadcast before? I think I should be allowed to do it before school lets out.”

Of course, Ms. Russo agreed that she should be able to.

“Principal Finklestein has been giving in on a lot of issues this week. I'm just not sure you're going to convince him on that one,” Ms. Russo said.

 

Thirty

Back at the hotel, the adults wanted us in pajamas with heads on pillows by eleven. But we sensed the tiredness of our chaperones; it was like a window of freedom opening. There was talk of watching movies, finding the hotel's game room, and, for the truly fired up, the swimming pool. But Forrest and I had homework to do. I started to resent this whole conference and how it was going to force us to miss the Empire State Building and the tour of Radio City Music Hall.

“I can't believe we have to do work right now,” I said when Forrest found me in the lobby.

“Sucks, right? Maybe it won't take that long,” he said.

I had started making some notes on the back of a Statue of Liberty pamphlet, but it wasn't much. We walked toward the elevators and I remembered that I needed to get the laptop from my room. Forrest pressed the up button and shoved his hands into the pockets of his army-green shorts. He looked nervous, which was a switch because it was usually me who was all weird around him.

“I, uh, have something to say to you, Jemma,” he said.

I turned to him and the elevator doors opened.

“Hold up!” Luke Zubin yelled from across the lobby.

With him, about half of the Margaret Simon baseball team crashed toward us and joined us in the mirrored elevator.

“We're going swimming, McCann. You comin'?”

“Can't,” Forrest said.

“Uh-huh,” Luke said, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive way.

Was this a reference in some way to Piper, or Taylor? Or even both of them? I instantly guessed that what Forrest was about to tell me had something to do with one of them. Just great.

A handful of the team got out on seventeen, but the rest were apparently with us all the way to twenty-one. When it was my floor, I said I could handle it and just meet him in the lounge—a kind of living room we had scouted earlier in the day.

“It's all right. I'll come with you,” he said.

“Okay.”

The hallway was clear, but he didn't say anything more. I knocked on the door, got my computer, and told Mrs. Pinsky where I'd be.

“Good for you, Jemma. The rest of them are just goofing off tonight,” she said.

Oh, how I wished I could also be goofing off. Aside from the awkwardness with Forrest, I didn't know if I could focus my mind on the task. Something about New York left me so overstimulated that my brain just wanted to shut down for the night. A swim and a movie sounded perfect.

Forrest and I were not alone in the lounge, a cozy space with soft red couches, TVs, and an elegant glass water dispenser with a silver spigot. Inside, slices of lemon and lime floated in the chilled water. Bet was there, shooting video of some chorus members singing an old song about New York and how if you could make it there, you could make it anywhere. Nearby, an intense game of Nerf basketball was just getting started. Not a grown-up in sight.