going well.”
“Yeah, it’s been pretty cool. We got like eleven people on Sunday.”
“Alina says you and Maya are getting along.”
I flip my phone facedown abruptly. “What did she say?”
Mom glances at my phone, smiling slightly. “Nothing in particular. She just mentioned Maya seemed to be enjoying the process. I’m just so glad, Jamie.” She pats my shoulder. “I think all this speaking practice is really going to help you prepare for your toast. And once you conquer that, the sky’s the limit. I know you used to talk about running for office one day . . .”
My stomach drops. I guess a part of me was hoping Mom would be so impressed by all my canvassing that she’d give me a pass on the bat mitzvah. But nope. She’s like the mouse from those picture books. You give her a cookie, and she wants milk. I bust my butt doing spreadsheets for Rossum, and she wants me to canvass. I canvass, and somehow that’s practice for speaking in front of hundreds of people. And apparently the next step is me running for office, because we all know that would be a chill and vomit-free situation.
I mean, can you imagine me trying to give one of those mega-inspirational mic-drop Rossum speeches? Sure, I could drop a microphone. Because my palms would be sweating too much to hold it. And if I actually managed to choke any words out, I’d be a gaffe machine. Seriously, I wouldn’t just lose my election. I would call it an erection. And then I’d lose.
But the worst part is, Mom’s not entirely off base. It’s not like she’s pulling this political stuff out of thin air. Do I still daydream sometimes about running for office? Yeah. Have I ever typed out Rep. Jamie Goldberg (D-GA), just to see it in print? Maybe.
Sophie says I’m secretly, and I quote, “a power-hungry mofo.” But it doesn’t have anything to do with power. At least not power for its own sake.
I want to be a history changer. I want to help draw the timeline.
And I know—I know—you don’t have to be a politician to do that. There are a million ways to change the world quietly. No charisma necessary. No need to be the charming, bright-eyed candidate working the room at campaign events. No need to give some showstopper speech on the Congress floor. I’m not that guy. I don’t have to be that guy.
I want to be that guy, though.
I’d rather be him than me.
I wait until Mom’s gone before flipping my phone back over, which probably looks extremely shady. But I swear it’s not like that. It’s just that Maya finally accepted my Instagram follow request, and even with my mom there, I had to sneak in a quick scroll. But now that she’s in the living room looking for a DJ who won’t be journeying to find love this month, I can finally take a real look.
I tap back into Instagram, where Maya’s page is already open, arranged into the standard stacks of squares. It’s not the kind of account with a careful, planned aesthetic, or even a general tone and mood like Grandma’s InstaGramm. It’s really just Maya’s life. There’s a selfie with sunglasses, a close-up of a raggedy, well-loved Elmo doll, and, scrolling back a little, a bunch of pictures with the curly-haired friend I saw her with at Target. Her friend Sara, I now know. And there’s even a close-up of one of the Rossum walk pieces we’ve been distributing, posted Sunday afternoon—which means I must have been right there when she posted it. The caption says, awesome Rossum day.
I can’t help but smile when I read that.
But my favorite picture—the one I keep coming back to—is this black-and-white close-up selfie. Just Maya’s face. Her dark hair hangs past her cheeks, wavy and long enough to fall out of frame. She’s smiling slightly with her mouth closed. But her eyes have this glint—not like she’s mad. More like she’s silently teasing someone.
It’s, uh. Not a bad look.
Then, out of the blue, as if I conjured her with my own thoughts—she texts me.
That’s never happened before. I mean, we’ve texted. But unless you count the initial This is Maya Rehman text from when we first exchanged numbers, I’ve always been the one to initiate contact. But this? This is an actual, spontaneous, non-logistical Maya text, popping onto my phone screen like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I almost drop my spoon.
InstaGramm