Off the Record by Camryn Garrett (read more books TXT) 📕

“Closed in?” He makes a face and a few people laugh. “And that’s before he has this horrible experience at the camp, where again, he’s like the only Black person. He’s with other queer kids, but they’re not…they don’t have the same experiences. Peter finds a sort of community with them. It’s just, if they were to have certain conversations…they probably wouldn’t go the way he hopes. And I think he knows that, even as he makes friends with Emma”—he points at Penny—“and everyone else.”

People nod, jot things down, but I’m frozen. Alice glares at me.

“Um,” I choke out. “Thank you.”

Dennis glances at Marius and then at me.

“Of course,” he adds, “this isn’t really a story about race. Marius just happens to be Black. Peter, he wasn’t—he wasn’t written with any race in mind. He’s supposed to be a character anyone can relate to.”

Penny rolls her eyes. I bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“Right,” one of the other Black journalists says. “Jumping off of that point…”

Her question fades out as I jot down as much of Marius’s answer as I can remember. When I glance up, he’s still looking over at me. He smiles. I smile back.

@JosieTheJournalist: love it when people forget about me. truly. it’s the best

The next day is more of the same. We’re invited down to the conference room, but instead of lunch, we’re served breakfast: fluffy little pastries and tea and all sorts of fruit.

“Is this Texas culture?” I ask Alice. She loads her plate up with everything and flags down the waiter for more coffee every time he comes within a ten-foot radius.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I always thought Texas culture was Juneteenth and Beyoncé.”

That’s…not too far off from what I thought, honestly.

Today, instead of breaking into roundtables, people are called for individual interviews with the talent. That means it’s taking a lot longer for people to be escorted out. I’ve already had a full cup of coffee and Alice has had three. Now I’m even more jittery than usual. Part of it is definitely the coffee, but it’s also because I’m supposed to interview Marius again.

I shouldn’t be this nervous. This isn’t the first time I’ve interviewed Marius on this trip, and it won’t be the last. It’s just…I don’t think I’ll be able to disconnect. If he’s nice, I’ll be filled with pleasant feelings, and I’ll beat myself up about having a crush. If he’s rude (which I sincerely doubt), I’ll feel bad about that, too. And now there’s even more pressure to make sure my questions are good. Is he going to be comparing them all to the one I asked at the press conference? The one I thought of off the top of my head?

Alice taps down on my phone, making me look up.

“Do you need me to come in with you?”

“Why?” I ask genuinely. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

“I’ve been hanging out with some of the interns.”

She points a thumb toward a table several feet behind us. Instead of casually dressed journalists with their noses in notebooks, this table is full of young people wearing suits or skirts, most of them gray. They chatter to each other and sip from coffee mugs. All of them have name tags on their lapels.

“Interns?” I repeat. “Since when…?”

“I need something to do when you’re not around.”

Alice doesn’t look up from her phone. At the intern table, another girl pulls out her phone, looks down at it, and laughs.

How is Alice making more friends than I am? I mean, this isn’t even about making friends, but somehow Alice is doing it faster than me. She’s always been like this—bonding with people after a three-minute conversation, while I struggle to even keep a conversation going for three minutes. I kind of hate her for it.

Chill out, Josie. I force myself to take a deep breath. Even though it sucks to admit, Alice needs something to do while she’s chaperoning me.

“Oh,” I say. It comes out harsh and awkward. “Um, so what are your friends like?”

Alice glances up, quirking an eyebrow. “Do you really care?”

“Yeah!” I say. “Why wouldn’t I?”

She narrows her eyes so slowly that I feel myself squirming in my seat. Finally, she opens her mouth to say something, but she’s interrupted by a man appearing next to our table.

“Josephine Wright?” he says. “You’re up next.”

I clear my throat and pick up my bag. Alice shoots the peace sign at me, sliding out of her seat. For a second, I think she’s coming with me, but then she’s grabbing her bag and going over to the intern table. The other girl with the phone glances up and smiles, saying something to the rest of the group. Smiles spread around the table. Alice grins.

How does she do that? It’s so unfair.

“Miss Wright?” the man says. “Right this way.”

I glance back at Alice one more time. She’s leaning against the girl’s chair, laughing loudly about something. No one else in the room even seems bothered by how loud she is.

I’ve always prided myself on being different from Alice in pretty much every way. She’s tall and thin, while I’m short and fat. She wasn’t interested in grades when she was in high school, but I was. She was in a ton of extracurriculars, like student council and yearbook, while I mostly stayed at home, working on articles for the school newspaper. She’s always had a lot of friends. I haven’t. It doesn’t normally bother me, but right now I’m jealous. I’m jealous of Alice, and I hate it.

The room is like the one where we did the roundtable, except the table is smaller, and there are people brought in, one by one. A PR person actually sits at the table with us. As I set up my notebook and recorder, I feel her studying me. My neck starts to sweat.

Art Springfield