Most Likely (Most Likely #1) - Sarah Watson Page 0,6
the word ‘development,’” said Ava.
“Me neither,” Logan agreed. Ava looked at him, and she must have been making a weird face because he said, “What? I’m agreeing with you.” She looked away, and he turned back to Jordan. “What are they developing?”
Jordan followed another link. As her phone loaded, a deep thumping beat boomed from a nearby phone. Someone was playing a song about fighting the power, and a few people started dancing. Cammie Greenstein announced that her parents weren’t home and that her older sister could buy beer. For a second, it looked like the crowd might scatter. But Grayson shook his head. “No. Nobody’s leaving. We came here to do this. We’re doing this.” He drifted over to the fence and seemed genuinely upset as he wrapped his fingers around the links of fence and stared at the jungle gym. It was so close and yet so far away. “Anyone drive a truck here tonight? I say we just ram the whole gate down.”
Jordan groaned. Not at Grayson. She was reacting to something on her phone. “Well,” she said, “I have good news and I have bad news. What do you want first?”
“Bad,” said CJ.
Jordan held up her phone. “It’s a giant-ass office building.”
On the screen was an architectural rendering of a ten-story tower. Martha took the phone out of Jordan’s hands so she could look at it closer. “Assholes,” she said. “They want to put this in the middle of my neighborhood?” She handed the phone back to Jordan. “What’s the good news?”
“There’s a city meeting in three weeks to discuss it. It’s open to the public. Anyone with concerns is welcome to voice them.”
“Good,” Logan said. “Because I think there are quite a few people here who would like to voice some.” He turned to the crowd and put his hands up to his mouth like a megaphone. “Hey! Everybody! Listen up! Cut the music.” The fight-the-power song stopped on his command. “This isn’t over. We’ve got a plan.”
Everyone listened. They hung on his every word. Just like they’d done with Grayson. Ava wondered what it would be like to have a voice like that. Loud and commanding. She wondered how she’d use it if she did.
When Martha got home that night, she found her dad in the living room reading on the couch. Until recently, he’d been on the night shift, but he finally had enough seniority at the warehouse where he worked as a loader to get a more normal schedule. It still wasn’t enough hours to qualify for health insurance, but it was a huge improvement.
“Hey, Patsy,” he said, looking up from his book. Martha knew that she should have outgrown the cutesy term of endearment long ago, but she liked that her dad still called her that. Patsy was the childhood nickname of the woman she was named after. Her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Martha Washington. “Aren’t you back kind of early?”
She plopped down on the couch next to him. “Aren’t you up kind of late?”
Since his shift change, he was usually in bed by ten. Martha glanced at the time. It was pretty obvious he’d been waiting up for her. Maybe her mom wasn’t the only one who was sentimental about the tradition. Her dad closed his book and set it to the side. “How was the big night?”
“It was a total bust, actually. The whole park was closed off. They want to tear it down.”
“Why would they do that?”
Martha picked up the book he was reading. It was a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and when she cracked it open, it had that fresh library-book smell. “Some developer wants to put in an office building. Right in the middle of our neighborhood.”
“This seems like a weird area for an office building,” her dad said.
“I know. It’s such a bummer.” Martha set the book down. “There was still space by your name on the jungle gym. I checked a couple of weeks ago. I was thinking it would have been cool for my friends and me to put our names next to yours.”
Her dad smiled, and Martha remembered the first time she’d learned about the names. She was just a little kid when her parents had taken her to the park and told her the story of the night they carved their names in together. Her dad had held her up so she could trace her fingers around the letters. “Oh well,” he said with nonchalance. “Price of progress, I suppose.”