She smiles just a little. “Are you going to let me in or what?”
I step back and she crawls through the window gracefully.
“You’re good at that.”
She shrugs. “If the Shamrocks left me with anything, it was balance and leotards.” She sits down on my bed. “We need to talk.”
I pull on my fuzzy pink robe and plop down beside her. “I’m so glad to see you,” I say. “And I’m so sorry I never—”
She shakes her head. “First, you really don’t have anything to apologize for. Second, we’re gonna have to save the heartwarming reconciliation for later, because we’re on a time crunch.”
“What?”
“It’s a seven-hour drive to Austin.” She glances at her phone. “It’s just past midnight. Once you pack a bag and we get on the road, it’ll be quarter to one. With stops, that puts us getting in around nine.”
My eyes go wide. Did she hit her head? “Austin? What are you talking about?”
She takes both my hands in hers. “We’re getting you into that damn broadcast journalism camp, Millicent Michalchuk.”
“They already rejected me,” I tell her.
“No,” she says. “I reject them rejecting you!”
“What would I even say?”
“How about ‘My name is Millicent Fucking Michalchuk, and you made a mistake. Lucky for you I’m here to help you make that right.’”
I smile. “Well, maybe without the F-word.”
“We’ll figure out the details on the way. The point is, I checked online, and applicants who have been accepted have until tomorrow to respond, so I figure if we can make it there by then, we still have a chance.”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “My mom already paid the deposit at Daisy Ranch, and she would kill me if she knew I ran off to Austin in the middle of the night.”
Callie takes my hands again. “Millie, you are the most badass person I know. Your mama would be disappointed in you for doing pretty much anything she herself hadn’t specifically planned out for your future. But you’ve got to live the life you want. Not the one she thinks you should.” She closes her eyes for a moment and bites down on her lip before continuing. “I’ve never had much faith in religion or school or heck, people. But, Millie, I have faith in you. People aren’t always gonna get it right on the first try. They’re not always gonna say yes when they should. And sometimes you just gotta swallow rejection and move on, but sometimes you have to refuse to take no for an answer. For the next twenty-four hours, ‘no’ is not in our vocabulary.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Give me a minute to pack a bag and grab my keys. Guess we’re driving to Austin?”
“I promise to keep you awake the whole time and sing whatever music you choose as loud and obnoxiously as I can.”
“Deal,” I say. “Austin or bust?”
“Austin or bust.”
After packing my lavender overnight duffel bag, I sneak out through the garage, which I open manually to cut down on noise, and meet Callie in the driveway. She’s got a small backpack and two bags of chips.
“I should grab some bottled water for us,” I whisper as I open the van for her.
I make a quick trip inside and grab an armful of water bottles and a few bananas, because if I’m really doing this, maybe a little extra potassium wouldn’t hurt.
We settle into the car and I check every single mirror twice and then I turn the ignition. My parking lights come on, illuminating the figure standing just in front of the hood. I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or what, but my nerves have taken a hike.
“Millie?” my dad calls.
I gasp. Crap.
“Let’s just go,” Callie says. “We can explain later.”
Dad stands in his sleep pants and DAD OF THE YEAR shirt I made him in middle school using iron-on letters. I can’t imagine just leaving him here without even a brief explanation. “Give me a minute,” I tell her.
She grips my shoulder. “You’re doing this for all the right reasons, Millie. Don’t forget that.”
I turn off the car and get out.
Dad rubs his eyes. “Where are you going at this hour?”
“I’m going to contest my rejection from the UT broadcast journalism camp.”
“You’re . . . you’re going to Austin? In the middle of the night? Millie, that’s a six-hour drive!”
“Closer to seven hours,” I correct him.
“What’s seven hours?” My mom appears behind my dad, framed by the door leading into the house. She pulls her robe—a perfect match for mine—tight over her chest. I can see the fuzzy sleep still there in her eyes as she looks from my dad to me to the van to Callie sitting in the passenger’s seat. “What’s going on here? And why is that girl in our van? Millie, what are you doing?” With each word, the panic in her voice builds.
“The drive to Austin,” I say. “It’s seven hours. I’m driving to Austin with Callie to protest the decision from the broadcast journalism camp.”
Mom takes a step closer to me. “Oh, honey, we’ve already talked about this. You’re going back to Daisy Ranch.” She looks to my dad for backup. “This is the summer. I can feel it. Isn’t that right, Todd?”
But my dad says nothing. He won’t even make eye contact with her.
I brace myself. “I’m going,” I tell her. “I can’t live with myself if I don’t at least try.”
She takes another step closer, and this time she puts an arm around me, but my shoulders are stiff and unforgiving. “My Millie, my sweet Millie. They passed on your audition tape. They said no for a reason.”
I take a step back, out of her reach. “Then I at least deserve to know why.”
Her expression hardens. “I forbid this,” she says. “I forbid you from driving to Austin with that girl—the same girl who destroyed your uncle’s place of business—in the middle of the night.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to hurt my mom, but I don’t know how else to make her understand. “This isn’t about me,” I tell her. “That’s not why you’re trying to stop me. This is about you and trying to shape me into the person you always wanted to be. But I’m not you. I love you. But I’m not you. I can’t spend the rest of my life obsessing over diets and searching for the miracle fix.”
My mother is shocked. She looks like I just slapped her in the face with a frying pan.
“Mom,” I say. “Think of all the energy you’ve spent trying to lose weight. It’s who you are. It’s your whole identity. But it doesn’t have to be. Dad loves you. And I do too. And it’s certainly not because of your low-carb lasagna.”
Her whole face looks like she’s about to either erupt in anger or crumble entirely. “This discussion is over,” she says, overenunciating every syllable through gritted teeth. “Back inside. Your father will drive Callie home. And we will certainly have a word with her parents.”
“No.” My voice is firm. “I can’t live with the person you want me to be. Especially not when I know exactly who I want to be.”
“Millicent. Amethyst. Michalchuk,” she says through furious tears now.
“Millie,” my dad says.
I almost forgot he was there.
“You have money for gas?” he asks. “Meals?”
I nod, trying my best to conceal my absolute glee. Mom might be wrong, but there’s no use rubbing it in her face. “Yes, sir.”
“You go there. Stop if you get tired. I don’t care if you have to charge a hotel room to your emergency credit card. I want a phone call every hour. I don’t care what time it is.”
I nod, forever thankful to him for this one moment. Dad has never been the type to speak over Mom or undermine her parenting decisions, but if he’s going to step on her toes, I’m so glad he chose this moment to do so.
My mother guffaws. “Todd, you can’t be serious.”
He turns to Mom. “As serious as I was the day I married you.”
Oh, he’s definitely sleeping on the couch tonight
.
I hug my dad. “Thank you,” I whisper.
My mom stands there, her lips stiffly pursed and her arms crossed.
I hug her. It’s like hugging a dang stone pillar, but I hug her. “I love you, Mom.”
She doesn’t say anything back.
I get in the van and back out of the driveway, always careful to watch my mirrors.
“Buckle up,” I tell Callie.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I wave to my parents as my dad closes the garage door. The moment they’re out of sight, I hit the gas. “Yes.” I wipe away the last of my tears. “I’m okay.”
She rolls down the window. “Austin or bust!” she howls.
I roll down my window, too, and take one hand off the wheel, which I rarely do. My arm hangs out the window as it slices through the warm air, and I leave town with Callie Reyes under the cover of night. I’m okay.
Callie
Thirty-Six
For the first two hours of the drive, the energy pulsing between the two of us is absolutely tangible. I navigate and play DJ while Millie belts along to old Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, and even a little Dolly Parton, which Millie swears helps her channel her bravest self.
Around hour three, we stop for gas and a few snacks, including one of those bouquets of Tootsie Pops. I’ve made this drive a few times with my family, so I know that there’s not much but flatness and a little bit of hill country just outside of Austin, but making this drive at night feels like we’re speeding through a velvety black hole. Out here there’s nothing but the random town every once in a while, and sporadic truckers making the long drive across Texas.
As we’re pulling back out onto the road, Millie reaches for the volume to turn the music back up, but I hit the power button. I don’t want to distract her from the task ahead, but I also have something to say.
“I shouldn’t have blown up at you the way I did,” I tell her.
“But I should’ve just told you. Early on. I could’ve gotten it out of the way.”
“I can see how you would be nervous to do that, though. I’m not what you would call easygoing.”
She laughs. “Well, yes. But that’s exactly what I like about you. You’re intense, and you don’t care if other people know it.”
I laugh. “I don’t know that most people would call those desirable qualities.”
Millie shakes her head resolutely. “Do you know how many people spend their whole lives pretending they don’t care? You’re not like that.”
I sigh. “Well, I do care a little bit, I guess. I just wish I hadn’t released that list of secrets.”
Millie’s lips turn downward. “Me too. I feel awful about that, I do.”
“It’s not like those girls didn’t screw me over. They let me take the blame for the whole team. But . . . I don’t know. What I did . . . was wrong.”
“Maybe you could make it up to them,” says Millie.
I laugh. “Like how? Become their water girl?”
“I do think you’d make a really cute water girl, but no, I mean something different. Like, it sucks that the gym had to drop its sponsorship and it sucks that y’all reacted the way you did, but neither of those things are the real problem.”
“Try telling Inga that,” I mutter.
“The real problem is that the school board budgets so much for the football team and all that’s left for everyone else is peanuts! The Shamrocks have the best competitive record of any team on campus. Y’all should have been way better funded. Frankly, it’s bull—”
“Shit!” I shout. “It’s bullshit!” She’s right. That is the real problem. I’ve been saying it for years. The whole team has. But no one would listen.
“Well, I was going to say bologna, but it is also bull doo-doo.”
“But what can I even do about that?”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching local politics, it’s that decisions are made by those who show up.”
“Okay?”
“And no one shows up to school board meetings,” says Millie.
We spend the next few hours hashing out talking points if I do decide to speak in front of the school board. I’m doubtful, though. To them, I’m just the girl who trashed a local business. Why would they listen to me? When I change the subject and ask Millie about her mom, she goes quiet, which is entirely out of character, but I don’t push.
Soon we’re lowering our visors and reaching for sunglasses as we drive into the sunrise and closer to our destination.
The traffic in Austin is awful, and I’m not just saying that because I live in a town where the biggest traffic jams are caused by school zones and the rare busy drive-through lane overflowing into the street.
Mama says Austin was made to be a tiny-big city, but now it’s trying to be a big-big city in tiny-big-city pants, which actually makes some weird kind of sense.
Millie is the model driver, of course, and turns down the music. Both hands are wrapped so tightly around the wheel her knuckles are turning white.
When we finally do exit for the university, Millie and I both marvel at the size of the campus.
“I think this place is as big as all of Clover City,” I say.
“I think you might be right.”
We take a few wrong turns before finally finding the School of Journalism, but parking is another story. The nearest parking is almost a mile away from the actual building.
“Wow,” says Millie. “If having a car in college requires this much effort, I think I’ll ditch the van for a scooter.”
And for just a brief moment, I picture a future version of Millie zipping all over Austin on a baby-blue Vespa. “You’d be a vision,” I tell her.
She maneuvers the car into a parking spot and pulls the parking brake. “Well, before that happens, I have to make myself presentable.” She looks around the lot. “Keep an eye out while I change in the back?”
“What else are friends for?”
While she wrestles around in the back, I check my phone. There’s only one message.
MAMA: I read your note. We will talk when you get home. I spoke with Millie’s parents. Please be careful. This doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble.
I breathe a sigh of relief. That wasn’t so horrible. I’m definitely grounded again, but I can live with that.
“Okay!” Millie says. “Let’s do this.”
When she hops out of the van, Millie’s wearing Mama’s red lipstick and a black dress with daisies all over. “Wow,” I say. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in black.”
She nods seriously. “I wanted to go for something that said serious but fun.”
“Serious fun.”
“Precisely. And the daisies felt like the perfect amount of irony.” She takes a deep breath. “We gotta move before I lose my nerve.”
We walk through the campus and find our way back to the journalism building, and as we stand at the steps, unsuspecting students stream past us. They’re all so close in age to us, but somehow so much more grown-up.
I squeeze Millie’s hand.
She nods, and we walk in shoulder-to-shoulder, straight to the faculty offices.
We stop in front of the office of Dr. Michelle Coffinder.
Millie squares her shoulders and lands three solid knocks on the door.
After a moment, a younger, round Asian woman opens the door. She wears a black-and-white checkered pencil skirt and a pineapple-patterned neon-yellow blouse. Her curly, short turquoise-streaked hair frames her face, while managing to be unruly yet cool.
I watch as Millie’s face basically turns into the heart-eyes emoji. If this is Dr. Coffinder, she’s also Millie’s long-lost edgier twin.
“Dr. Coffinder?” Millie asks in confused wonder.
The woman lets out a full belly laugh. “Oh, hell no. I’m her TA.”
“Oh, right,” says Millie. “Of course. Well, I’m here to speak to Dr. Coffinder.”
The door swings open to
reveal a tall, thin but muscular guy with sandy-blond hair. If this guy isn’t already on the news, he will be one day. “Do you have an appointment?” he asks.
“N-n-no,” says Millie, suddenly cowering.
“But it’s an emergency,” I interject.
The guy looks dryly from me to Millie. “What?” he asks. “Daddy’s gonna ground you all summer for failing mass comm?”
“Actually, we’re not students,” says Millie. “I’m here to speak to Dr. Coffinder about the summer broadcast journalism camp for high school students. She’s the head of the program.”
Something clicks for both of them, like they suddenly recognize her.
“Grant, Iris, I’m taking an early lunch,” a lofty voice void of any accent calls, before a petite woman with quintessentially Texas hair appears from an adjoining office. “Well, this is quite the traffic jam,” she says, motioning to the four of us in the doorway.
“Dr. Coffinder,” says the girl who I’m assuming is Iris. “These girls are here to see you, but they don’t have an appointment.”
Dr. Coffinder turns to us. The curls of her blond hair are so perfect I swear she must sleep with Coke cans in her hair. She wears a cream pencil skirt with a tulip hem, and a silk sleeveless burgundy blouse shows off her well-defined arms. Even I’m a little intimidated by how perfect she is.
“Girls,” she says, “I can’t do anything once grades are posted. I gave plenty of chances for makeup work. If you failed, you’ll just have to spend another semester with me.”
“No,” says Millie. “This is about the summer program you run for high school students. Please.” Her voice is even, yet urgent. “I just need a moment of your time.”
Dr. Coffinder. “And you?”
All eyes turn to me. “Emotional support.”
Dr. Coffinder thinks for a moment. “You’ll have to make it quick. There’s a taco truck calling my name, and when they run out of their barbacoa, that’s it. They close up shop for the day.”
Millie nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
Millie
Thirty-Seven
I leave Callie in the front office where the TAs work and follow Dr. Coffinder into her office. I wish I didn’t have to do this part on my own, but I do.