The Latte Rebellion (7 page)

I knew I should be outraged about it. After all, I’d yelled at Roger Yee for less. But mostly, after everything that had happened, I felt numb. And I felt scared.

“We will now hear from a number of witnesses who will shed light on the circumstances prompting this disciplinary hearing,” the hearing officer said when he returned to the podium. He coughed like my Old Geezer of a car when I start it on a cold morning. “I’d first like to call Ms. Carey Wong.”

Now I felt nauseated.

Carey had told me that the school board had called and asked her to give testimony, but it was still a shock to see her, dressed to kill in her tailored, gray-blue linen jacket and black dress pants. I’d helped her pick out those clothes during a shopping trip last summer, but she seemed like a different person now, standing there tensely in front of the hearing panel. A person with red, puffy eyes and a clenched jaw; a person with apprehension oozing from every pore.

“Ms. Wong,” the hearing officer said, “you’ve already told us in a separate statement about your involvement in the Latte Rebellion group. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Ms. Jamison’s role in the events.”

“Yes, sir,” Carey said, her hands trembling at her sides. She didn’t look at me.

I sucked in a sharp breath. I had no idea Carey had given them any kind of advance statement. She hadn’t told me.
Why
hadn’t she told me?

Had she said it was all my fault? I couldn’t let myself believe that. I glanced at her parents in the audience—Dr.-Wong-the-Dad (a pediatrician) glowering in his suit and tie, Dr.-Wong-the-Mom (a professor of Asian art) looking pale and anxious—and I couldn’t be sure of anything.

“My question for you, Ms. Wong, is straightforward. You were present during the planning and perpetration of the rabble-rousing.” I heard someone in the audience snort with laughter. “Did Ms. Jamison knowingly violate school rules and school district policy as described in the charges against her?” He looked at her, his unibrow bushier than ever as he frowned at her.

“Knowingly?” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“Yes, knowingly,” the hearing officer repeated. “Answer the question, please.”

“I guess it depends on how far back you go. When we started, we didn’t know it was against the rules. But later on …” There was absolute silence in the room as Carey finally turned to me and said, “I’m so sorry, Asha.” Her eyes were pleading, and I knew then that she wasn’t going to hold anything back.

I could hardly hear what she said next. At first I was so furious I thought I might pop a blood vessel, and I resisted the urge to clamber over the wooden table in front of me, grab her by her linen lapels, and shake her. How hard could it be to just say we didn’t know we’d be breaking any rules and leave it at that? It wouldn’t make any difference to her. She hadn’t even gotten suspended after what happened, while my entire high school career was on the line.

The worst part of it was, she was supposed to be my best friend, my partner in—well, crime. And thinking about that just made me despondent. Why did she have to go all “I cannot tell a lie, I did chop down your cherry tree” on me? Wasn’t our friendship worth more than that? As I gritted my teeth, focusing intently on not completely breaking down right here in front of the school board, the disciplinary hearing officer, and a rather sizable cross-section of my classmates and the general public (not to mention that pesky newspaper reporter), Carey said something about never intending to make trouble but getting carried away.

Carried away. “Careyed” away. I almost felt like laughing hysterically, at the same time that my eyes stung with unshed tears. On top of my fear that I wouldn’t have a college career after today, now I wasn’t sure I’d have a best friend, either. But I had to stay calm. It was only nine o’clock, the next coffee break wasn’t for another hour, and there was still a long way to go.

4

Welcome to a very special Students for Social Justice seminar!” The auditorium erupted into rowdy applause, and the club president, the short guy with the long blond ponytail who’d led the earlier meeting, made a shushing motion with his hand. I looked sideways at Bridget, ready to make a sarcastic comment under my breath, but she was staring raptly at him. I looked at him again. His hair was dull and ratty under the fluorescent lighting, and he had a big smudge of blue marker on his forearm from where he’d brushed against the dirty whiteboard behind him.

Nope, didn’t see the appeal. When I glanced back at Bridget, though, I was surprised she wasn’t actually drooling.

On my other side, Miranda—who’d been dragged to the meeting with almost no visible reluctance—was equally transfixed, though without the goo-goo eyes.

I sighed to myself.

“Without further delay,” ponytail-guy said, “please give a warm welcome to Greg Androvich and Thad Sakai, who drove here all the way from UC Berkeley to discuss Community Outreach and Social Responsibility.”

I didn’t even look up. The first ten minutes were all about thank-yous and what-an-honors and names of professors I didn’t know but the audience seemed to. I spent the time productively by doodling the Latte Rebellion logo in black ballpoint pen on the back of my hand.

Then, a few minutes later, a booming voice took over at the podium, eliciting a lot of enthusiastic noises from the audience. I couldn’t help sneaking a peek. Greg, the first speaker, was dark-blond and lanky with little round glasses. He was talking passionately about a series of community clinics that he and Thad wanted to put together for rural and poor neighborhoods. They were modeling it after a clinic in East London.

London. I thought about that for a minute.

Big Ben. The Tower of London. Culture, nightlife, and guys with really hot accents. In short, a prime vacation destination. If our T-shirt scheme really took off … could we get as far as England?

I got a little sidetracked daydreaming about cruising down the Thames River, but when Greg yielded the floor to Thad, I started doing some rapt staring of my own. He had short, dark, spiky hair with the tips bleached, tan skin, bright blue eyes, and a quick impish grin. Carey would have called him an “über-hottie” for those eyes alone.

To be honest, I didn’t hear a word he said, and after the seminar concluded I stood there next to my seat musing alternately about the apparent superior attractiveness of college guys, and the potential cost of plane flights to England. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there spacing, waiting for Bridget to finish glomming onto the Students for Social Justice ponytail guy. But I was snapped right back to reality by Miranda, who had materialized in front of me as if by magic. She was congratulating the first speaker, Greg, and Thad was standing right there next to him. Smiling. At
me.

Miranda smirked at me knowingly. “So, what did you think? Pretty riveting stuff, right?”

“Glad you guys liked it,” Greg said. He seemed to be pretty taken with Miranda; he couldn’t stop looking at her waist-length braids. Thad, meanwhile, seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

“It was great,” I said, a little dazed. What did
I
have to say to
him
? Apparently nothing, since I stood there like an idiot. His eyes were very, very blue.

“Thanks,” Thad said, beaming. “So, do you guys go here?”

“We’re just here for the seminar. We’re seniors at University Park High here in town,” Miranda blabbed, before I could think of something more impressive. I shot her a glare that she blithely ignored. “I’m Miranda, and this is my shy friend Asha.”

“She doesn’t seem so shy to me,” Thad said in a friendly tone. I looked down, hiding the furious blush darkening my cheeks.

“Yeah, you just have to get to know her,” Miranda said.

“Is that so?” Thad looked at me intently.

I cleared my throat and was about to change the subject when Miranda said, “Well, I have to get going. See you at school, Asha.” Greg said, “It was nice meeting you guys,” and both of them wandered off.

Miranda was leaving me
alone
with him. Clearly, I needed to have a serious conversation with her about subtlety and its various uses. And Bridget was still busy chatting up ponytail guy over by the whiteboard. For a second I wished Carey were here, but then, disloyally, I decided I was glad she wasn’t. She’d probably just add him to her man-harem and I’d be left with no one.

“So what college do you think you’ll go to?” Thad asked, looping his thumbs casually into his jeans pockets.

Of
all
the things for him to ask me.

“I’m applying to a few different ones,” I said. “Berkeley … Stanford … Harvard. Robbins College.”

“Robbins College, huh? That’s in a really nice part of Berkeley, and it’s got a great School of Social Welfare,” he said approvingly. “Sounds like you have everything all planned out.”

“Sort of.” I grimaced. “I have the applications almost done, anyway.”

“The all-important first step. I was pretty disorganized—it took me a year of going to community college to figure out what I wanted to do.” He smiled sheepishly.

“I’m not really
that
organized,” I said. I didn’t elaborate, but truth was, I had no idea what I wanted to study. Not only that, but this was the first I’d heard of the School of Social Welfare. Time to get the conversation off of me. “So, what are you studying?”

“I’m planning to double major in Economics and Public Health,” Thad said. “The major advisors already said they’d accept our clinic project as an independent study.”

“Wow,” I said. “Sounds hard. But worthwhile.”

“I don’t know about ‘worthwhile.’ ” Thad smiled. “I just think people really need this kind of thing, and Greg and I have some good ideas. We think we could manage to make a living off it.”

“That’s great,” I managed. I didn’t know what else to say. I had a ridiculous urge to babble on and tell him that I’d love to help, that maybe if I was living in Berkeley next year I could somehow be a part of it. Part of something that really had meaning.

Maybe there was something to this social justice thing after all. I know it wasn’t just that Thad had the nicest smile I’d ever seen … but that didn’t hurt.

What he’d said made me think of Miranda’s words last week, about people maybe being truly interested in the Latte Rebellion because it filled a need the other clubs at school didn’t address. What would happen if we
gave
the Latte Rebellion some meaning, beyond just the shirts? What harm would it do? We’d still get to take our vacation (maybe even to London, I reminded myself), and we’d be doing a good deed at the same time. I bet Thad would approve.

“Well,” Thad said, after we’d stood there awkwardly for a minute. “I should round up Greg, since we have an hour’s drive back.”

“Okay. I should probably go too.” I looked at him a little regretfully. “It was nice talking to you. Good luck with your … clinic thing.”

“Yeah, thanks …” He hesitated. “Maybe I could give you my phone number? In case you have, you know, any questions about colleges or about Berkeley.”

I felt a flutter in the pit of my stomach. “Uh, sure. That’d be great.” I got my phone out, and he typed in his number. He passed the phone back to me, and before I had a chance to react, he’d taken my hand for just a moment, not quite a handshake. His hand was warm, and I felt that warmth spreading from my fingers into the rest of my body. Then he let go. I dared to take one last, quick look into those blue eyes of his before walking over to retrieve Bridget.

I breathed in the crisp autumn air as Bridget and I walked along one of the tree-lined pathways next to the U-NorCal political science department, where the seminar had taken place, on our way to grab a snack before I drove home. The smells of pine and eucalyptus were all around us, and people were walking here and there with backpacks. A lone jogger swerved past, the streetlights reflecting off his sneakers. It was a perfect night. Even the seminar hadn’t been too bad. After all, I’d met Thad, and I’d gotten some interesting ideas for furthering the cause of the Latte Rebellion—for making it into something more than just a soulless moneymaking endeavor. A pretty successful outing overall, I had to admit.

Except that I didn’t belong here, on this campus. This wasn’t my element. Not yet.

“I cannot
wait
to go to college,” I said, sighing. “I’m so sick of high school.”

“Sorry, kid,” Bridget said. “It’s not over yet.” She smiled over at me sympathetically.

“Yeah.” And boy, was I sick of people smiling at me like that. I stared ahead into the darkness. Screw sympathy. I was ready to be done with this part of my life. I wanted,
needed
, to be doing more. To
be
more.

“Believe me, I understand,” Bridget added, reaching over and giving my arm a quick squeeze. “And yes, going away to college has a distinct upside. Though I do miss my dad’s four-cheese lasagna.”

“Only because gourmet cuisine isn’t your specialty.”

“Oh, like
you
can cook.” Bridget exchanged waves with a well-dressed couple passing by, a petite blonde wearing a shiny Chinese-style
cheongsam
jacket and an Asian woman in a sleek black pantsuit. “When you’re all moved out, you’ll learn to truly appreciate the finer qualities of the pre-prepared meal.”

I felt a twinge of impatience. “Well, at Robbins the dining hall has gourmet chefs, so if I go there I won’t
need
to cook.” I remembered what Thad had said about the School of Social Welfare. I was embarrassed not to have heard of it, but after tonight I had to admit I was a little intrigued.

“Well, la-di-da,” Bridget said, laughing.

By then we’d reached the sidewalk at the western edge of campus and crossed the street to the busy shopping district. The first café we passed was closed, and Bridget quickly vetoed all the fast food places.

“How about there?” She pointed at Mocha Loco. I glowered for a second, then checked myself. This would be a good opportunity to ask Leonard if anybody had approached him about the Rebellion sign we’d posted there, or if he knew of anyone else who wanted to buy a shirt.

It was a lot quieter inside than it was the first time I was there; there was no live music tonight, and it seemed like more people were interested in studying than talking. The lights were brighter, and the room was filled with the warm smells of brewing coffee and toasted bagels. Walking in with Bridget, who acted like she belonged there, I was a lot more relaxed.

When I saw Leonard sitting at a table near the register, I didn’t even flinch. After meeting Thad, he didn’t seem nearly as cute as before; in fact, his nose was a little stubby and his ears stuck out. How had I not noticed? Then I froze. Leonard wasn’t alone at his table. He was clearly giving the eye, half-lidded and smirking, to someone sitting to his left.

That someone was a girl.

A girl I happened to know very, very well.

I must have gotten a strange look on my face, because Bridget raised her eyebrows at me and then followed my gaze.

“Hey, there’s Carey,” she said. “Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you guys that my shirt got here today and, you know, I’m really impressed.”

“Yeah,” I said, and trailed off, an acid feeling in my stomach. Carey had lied to me. She’d said she had to study and catch up on all the homework she was behind on because of the Rebellion. I should have realized it was a flimsy excuse.

I stared at her hard. To be fair, she did have books and papers on her table, but her eyes were fixed on Leonard. One thin, graceful, piano-playing, perfect finger was tracing his Chinese-character tattoo.

I shifted uncomfortably. She had a right to do whatever she wanted. I couldn’t stop her. I just wondered why she hadn’t told me.

“Let’s order something. I’ll have a latte in honor of your cause,” Bridget said, hustling me up to the short line at the cash register.

“But—” I said, ineffectually. I knew I would have to talk to Carey sometime, but before we even got to the counter, she looked up.

I glared at her, shooting angry vibes out of my brain like little cartoon lightning bolts. Then, the surge of anger was gone almost as soon as it had come over me, and I just felt deflated.

“Hi,” I said, tiredly. “What brings you here?” I shot a pointed glance at Leonard, who had gone behind the counter to help the cashier.

“Um, hey, Asha,” Carey said. At least she had the decency to look embarrassed. “Ben is having a slumber party with two of his friends tonight and they’re watching zombie movies. Hard to study calculus when you can hear guts being ripped out and strewn across the post-apocalyptic landscape.”

“Okay,” I said. Ben was the oldest of her brothers, age eleven. It was a pretty good excuse, but … I was still annoyed. Not to mention that it was a known fact that cute guys were not an effective study aid.

“I hope you’re getting a lot done.” I looked at her nearly blank math homework.

“Yeah,” she said, blushing harder. “Kind of. Hey, how was your seminar thing?”