Chapter Eight

This is not a date.

One failed stakeout and a run to the Shake Shack doesn't make JoJo and me anything but coconspirators who can finish off three orders of spicy cheese fries. Tonight is just another strategic meeting of the Find Maxine Blum Club.

So ask me why I'm running around my house like an anxious chicken at quarter to seven. Picking stuff up only to put it down an inch to the left, setting drinks on the counter next to the pickle chips just to shove them in the fridge a minute later to keep the cans cold, tucking away anything particularly embarrassing in my bedroom. I plunge my granny underwear to the bottom of my laundry basket. The only moment I stand still is to text Zaynah back, belatedly:

Zaynah: What are you up to tonight? Want to go to the Fry Basket?

Zaynah:?

Zaynah:Helloooo El?

EL:Sorry, my parents want me to stay in. Tomorrow?

I drop my phone back on my nightstand, not sure why I've lied to my best friend, except that I don't think my nerves could handle a bunch of looky-eyes emojis and question marks. And because this is not a date.

By the time the doorbell rings, I've worked up a sweat even with the AC roaring to keep up with the heat wave outside. I towel my forehead on the hem of my cropped floral tank—but not like kitchen-curtains floral, like I don't assume there's anything happening here just ‘cause we're girls and we're gay but I can't help it if I look pretty tonight floral—and catch my breath before opening the door.

Of course, JoJo looks exactly how she did at Clearview this afternoon in cut-off denim shorts and a faded, oversized ringer tee, hair half-fallen out of its jumbo claw clip, a fabulous new beaded bracelet still tied around her wrist. See? This is definitely not a date. But she beams up at me from my porch like she's skipped dinner and I'm a welcome helping of spicy cheese fries, which makes my heart do silly things.

I guess I stand there trying to quiet it for a moment too long, because JoJo has to ask, "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course." Stepping aside, I tug an elastic out of my back pocket and scoop my hair into a super-short ponytail, undoing the half hour I just spent baking beneath the iron to curl it, while JoJo kicks off her sneakers. "Did you eat already?" I ask. "We have pickle chips."

The height of romantic gestures.

"I ate," she says, "but I could drink. I rode over, obviously, and it's hotter than hell's ass out here."

Behind JoJo's shoulder, I see her bicycle on its side on our front lawn. "Oh my God, I should've offered to pick you up!"

"Well, pour me some soda and make it up to me," she says. And then she winks.

I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts as I lead her toward the kitchen. JoJo glances around us at everything I stopped noticing long ago, but now, I wonder what she thinks of it all. The SHALOM cross-stitch in the hallway. Mom's yoga candles (which I'm pretty sure she bought from a white woman's Etsy shop). The bowl on our kitchen counter overflowing with Dad's freshly picked onions, even though nobody in the house likes them very much. JoJo stops in front of the fridge to look at a photo of me and Zaynah that's been there since sixth grade. "Eliana Blum, you were adorable," she declares.

"Look away," I insist, wincing at the version of me in the picture. All braces and elbows and my long, frizzy hair before I discovered leave-in conditioner. "We'll take some stuff up to Max's room—if my parents come home early, they won't bother us up there."

I'm anxious, all of a sudden, about showing her the attic. What if JoJo hates it? What if she sneers at the egg yolk–yellow walls the way she once sneered at Dell's Hollow? I think that might kill me.

But she doesn't. Loaded with Coke cans and snacks, we make our way up the attic's spiral staircase and shove through the shower curtain, and JoJo whistles appreciatively. "Wish I had a space like this. It's pretty tight at Grandma's right now. Like I'd sell my soul for a closet. Or a nightstand that didn't double as a sewing table. But this is really cool."

"It is," I agree, relieved. "And look." I crawl across the daybed to tap the poster behind it, where a few clippings and pictures cling to the wall.

"Our girl!"

It is, in fact, our girl: Leticia "Letty" Ortiz, arms crossed and smirking in front of her bike from F9—the Harley-Davidson Sportster Iron—against a backdrop of billowing red smoke.

"Why's it in Japanese?" JoJo asks, and laughs.

"They didn't make this one in America. Max had to order it from some fan site, and bring it home from school for me at Hanukkah, but I wasn't brave enough to put it in my room. So she hung it up here and said I could visit Letty when I wanted."

JoJo picks up one of the leftover World Market candles still clustered atop the old bureau by the door, giving it a sniff—that's a good one, clementine and honey. "Do your parents … Do they not know?"

"Now they do," I'm quick to reassure her, not that it should matter if they didn't. "Not back then. That was, like, four years ago? I was in my brief Aaron Fuller era. Max knew, obviously. I still thought maybe I was bi?"

"But you're not?" She sets the candle down and picks up another, patchouli and cucumber, which isn't such a good one. Her nose wrinkles cutely.

"I'm pretty sure I'm a lesbian. Like, as much as I can be sure. Anyway, I've had girlfriends since, and Mom and Dad know about them. There was Danielle Pérez for a couple months, and then I dated Abby Bacon for a year and a half." We used to joke about me, a Jewish girl, putting Bacon in my mouth, even though we never went that far. I flush a little to remember it with JoJo so close by. "I don't have a girlfriend now, though. Um, what about you?" It's not a slick segue, but she never did answer the question I asked outside Riley's filthy apartment.

Done with the candles, she crosses the attic and drops down on the daybed beside me, propping herself on her elbows and tipping her head back to let the sun through the skylights shine down on her, like a satisfied cat. "No girlfriends. Not, like, steady ones. No boyfriends, either."

"Now, or never?"

"I was pretty busy with training, and racing, and traveling with my parents and the pit crew." Her closed eyelids scrunch for a second, but she sounds fine when she continues. "I am bi, though, and I've dated boys and girls and nonbinary people. But just like, casually. For fun." Opening one eye to squint up at me, she challenges, "Is that a problem?"

"What? No, why—of course it's not a problem," I splutter. "Not for me." And why would it be, Eliana, when this isn't a date?

"Hey!" JoJo leaps off the bed, startling me when I'm already on the back foot, as Dad would say. "Does this thing work?" she asks, crouching over the Wii console on the floor beside the small TV and stand.

"Um, yeah. It's a little old, from when I was in elementary school, but it works. I haven't played in a while. We've got Mario Kart for it, though," I say, happy enough to change the subject.

JoJo glances back at me, grinning. "How about a race?"

"Aren't we supposed to be like, scheming right now?"

She waves her hand. "We're excellent drivers. We can totally scheme and race at the same time."

It takes me a few minutes to get things going, plugging in controllers and cables. While I work cross-legged on the floor, JoJo helpfully sums up our situation. "So Riley has Max's jacket for sure, and maybe information about how to contact her. Unverified, of course. But he won't give it to us unless we race him for it. And you said you don't want to race the R1—"

"I can't race the R1," I correct, untangling the input cable.

"But I thought Max taught you?"

"She taught me to drive it. She used to take me to this abandoned half-built neighborhood development outside Dell's Hollow, and I drove on the highway there and back. But I can't ride it like she can. I couldn't even race the Husqvarna like she could, and the R1 is so much bigger and faster. And I can't lose her bike—even if we found her some other way, she'd throw me in the Boston Harbor when I told her."

"I bet she wouldn't," JoJo says gently. "But okay, the point is, racing the bike is out. So we ask if Riley would accept different terms. Not bikes, but cars."

Mario Kartloads at last, the opening theme blasting louder than I'd expected as Mario and Luigi jostle each other on-screen. "You said you have a car?" I ask, sitting beside her and handing over a Wii Wheel. "But it doesn't run, and you don't have a license."

"There are some obstacles, yes," she admits.

We choose our characters: King Boo for me, Princess Peach for her.

"So whose car is this?" Maybe I've made peace with the fact that JoJo is trouble—fun trouble, mostly—but I'm not about to steal a vehicle with her, even if she'd look extremely hot in Letty-style heist getup. I have the volunteering club to think about, and college applications, and good God, my parents … I don't even want to picture the looks on their faces. It'd tear down every brick in the wall of trust that took years for me to build, painstakingly convincing them with every perfect test score and responsible choice that I wasn't like Max even before they kicked Max out, because things had been rough between them for a while—since Max set her heart on going pro, at least. And all that time, I knew in my bones that of course I was no Maxine Blum. She's got talent and guts, while I've got … prep courses and dental floss.

"It's my car," she insists, "because it was my mom's."

I look at JoJo.

She determinedly does not look back at me—just says, "Pick the Special Cup, not the Star Cup."

I'm terrible at the Special Cup (it's not like my dirt bike skills really transfer), but I switch courses on-screen, then carefully ask, "What kind of car is it?" as our characters materialize in the Dry Dry Ruins.

She shifts on the bed to get in driving position, and her bare leg presses hot against mine, our knees lightly overlapping. Though I expect her to, she doesn't move hers away.

I don't move, either.

We launch off the starting line on the green light and past the Yoshi Sphinx, zooming through the golden sand and dodging falling pillars and a Pokey while JoJo explains herself.

"It's an AMC Hornet SC/360."

"Is that a … fast one?"

JoJo snorts. "It is indeed."

"Why is it at Jolene's?"

"Mom was storing it at Grandma's garage. It's been there a few years now—like I said, it doesn't run right now. But it was always Mom's favorite. She named it Betty. Mom grew up poor. Like she used to tell me there was dirt-poor, and then there was Appalachian-kid-in-the-mountains poor, and then there was what she had experienced. Both her parents were addicts, and she was raised by her great-aunt Betty, who was always out of work. They spent most of Mom's childhood in a run-down trailer that had no running water, and Mom went to school in the same clothes most days. But she loved her great-aunt Betty. And they loved nothing better than to watch NASCAR at the restaurant where Mom started working on weekends. Then one day, despite all odds, a NASCAR driver actually came into the restaurant. Somehow, they started talking, then they started talking shop. He was so impressed by everything she knew about cars and the circuit, he asked her to join his pit crew for the weekend, then permanently. Mom was sixteen. And the rest, as they say, is history. You can read about it online."

And I have. There were many, many news stories about JoJo's mom's meteoric trajectory from pit crew to practice driver to actual NASCAR racer. She'd come out of nowhere and, the minute she turned eighteen, started beating everyone else almost immediately. Sponsors fell over themselves trying to sign her and she was winning races months after starting out. But none of that explained the Hornet, or why it didn't run.

"Where does the Hornet come into this story?"

"Ahh," JoJo says, her voice soft as she concentrates on Mario Kart for a moment. "Right, the Hornet. Mom always promised herself she'd get that car if she ever had enough money. She used to keep a picture of it on her wall as a kid, and Great-Aunt Betty, who didn't live long enough to see Mom race, said it wasn't the most popular, but it was the finest car in the world. Mom bought it for herself after she won her first race, and it broke down once in Dell's Hollow, which was how she met Dad. It's not run in a few years, because we were busy with racing … and then Mom was gone … and it's still here. But I think I can get it running. We just need to get the keys."

I want to hold JoJo's hand, or thank her for sharing her mother's story with me. But I don't want her to think I'm pitying her; I would hate that, if it were me. So instead I ask, "Where are the keys?"

"In Grandma Jolene's safe, in her office. She'll let me work on the car with them, but she locks them up there, so no one will steal the famous car that belonged to DeeDee Emerson."

"How are we going to get the keys, then?"

"I have some ideas." JoJo shrugs. "But first, I have to get the Hornet running. Once we do that, we can worry about the keys."

"What's wrong with it?"

JoJo's eyes light up as she launches into a gearhead nerd-out about fuel injectors. As JoJo's been talking, I've tried to stay on track while avoiding the Pokeys that flail toward me every time I drive nearby. Meanwhile, as Princess Peach, she's been exploiting every half-pipe and dash panel. Predictably, she speeds through the finish line while I'm still gingerly picking my way across the sand. I don't think I could've beat her, even if I wasn't distracted by her wild plan—and a little bit by the feel of her skin still against mine.

But now, with no game to pretend to focus on, I have to push back. "JoJo, your mom's car isn't a fair exchange for a jacket," I state the obvious. "Or an address, if we're lucky."

"Of course it's not. So doesn't that tell you something? You really think I'd race if I wasn't sure I could beat that guy?" She flashes the cocky smile I remember from the go-kart track: a smile that was well-deserved.

"Maybe not. But still. I'm not gonna let you risk it for Max. It's not worth it."

"Well, I'm not doing it for Max; it's for you. Like I said, it's hardly a risk if I know for a fact that I can win. And anyway, I do think you're worth it. So promise you'll consider it, okay, Detective?" She reaches over to press Play on my controller, and we're dropped down onto the infamous Moonview Highway track. The traffic light turns green and, just as with the last game, she hits the accelerator at the exact right moment to take off with a boost.

I don't take off at all.

Instead I do one of the bravest things I've ever done, which is probably a low bar. I mean, I wasn't brave enough to hang a picture of Letty Ortiz in my bedroom. I wasn't brave enough to keep it pinned on the track. I wasn't brave enough to break up with Abby Bacon even when she barely answered a text for the last month of our relationship, or after I saw her at the Cineplex with Charlotte Masciarelli when she'd claimed she was busy helping her aunt wash her dogs. I wasn't brave enough to demand that Max stay with me, or to demand that our parents let her stay, because I needed my big sister and that was all that mattered.

But I'm just brave enough to lean in—slowly, so she can see it coming and dodge if she wants—and ask JoJo Emerson-Boyd once our lips are inches apart, "Can I kiss you?"

She nods, her signature grin dimpling her cheeks.

JoJo tastes like Coke and pickle chips and summer, like … I don't know, like that feeling of being a kid and playing outdoors past what should be your bedtime on a night like this, the sky still impossibly blue and bright, feeling safe and excited at once. A feeling you don't even know you're gonna spend your life chasing. I haven't felt that way in a long time, but I do now as I slip my fingers through the hair that's fallen from JoJo's claw clip, and she tosses her own controller aside to cradle the back of my neck and pull me down.

Princess Peach shrieks on-screen as something blasts her off the road.

We break apart, giggling, and JoJo's green eyes shine in the sunset glow of the skylight. She smirks (smirks!) before scooping up her Wii Wheel once more. "Pick up your controller, Blum—I bet I'll still beat you."

I do, though King Boo still hasn't left the starting line. "So … is this our first date?" I ask, my lips feeling slightly like somebody else's lips, somebody braver and happier and luckier than me.

"No, silly," she says as she laps me. "This is our second."