Jay Asher - The Future of Us

He taps at his keyboard and then rises from his chair, sliding the pencil behind his ear. I follow him around a corner and down a flight of stairs, finally arriving at a long shelf crammed with phone books.

The librarian crosses his arms. “Is there a particular state you’re looking for?”

“California,” I say. “Chico, California.”

“That’s in Butte County, I believe.” He plucks the pencil from behind his ear, studies the bite marks, and then retrieves a medium-sized phone book. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

When he disappears back into the stairwell, I sit cross-legged on the floor and hurriedly flip to the Js. There are hundreds of Joneses in Chico, California. I focus my eyes on the tiny print. Jones, Adam. Jones, Anthony. Jones, Anthony C. Jones, Arthur. They go on forever! But if my husband’s name is Jordan Jones Junior, then his dad must be a Jordan, too. I flip the page, and with a stab of disappointment, I see there’s no one named Jordan Jones.

If there isn’t a Jordan, maybe his dad is listed by his first initial. I glance at the beginning of the Joneses where they list the single letters, but there are tons of Js there. Clutching the phone book against my chest, I run upstairs to find a photocopy machine.

I give the librarian a dollar and he hands me ten dimes. I spread the phone book across the smooth glass of the copy machine, close the top, and drop a coin in the slot. It lands with a tinny plink, and I hit the green start button.

I’M SITTING ON TOP of the half-pipe in Chris McKellar’s backyard. My legs dangle over the lip while Tyson skates up one side and back down to the other. Chris graduated last year, but his parents still let us use the ramp. As usual, almost everyone else on the half-pipe is a senior. They’re okay with us being here, though, because we always bring pizza.

Sitting beside me, a non-skater guy is full of questions. “Why do they call it a half-pipe?”

He’s here with his girlfriend, who just stepped off on the deck at the opposite end.

“Really? You don’t know?” I ask.

“It looks to me like a U-shaped ramp,” he says.

His eyelids are half-mast and he nods slowly to himself. I wonder how much weed he’s smoked today. For whatever reason, I feel compelled to answer him. “If you took another half-pipe, flipped it upside down, then placed it on top of this one, you’d have a full circle, like a pipe,” I say. “Actually, I guess it’d be more of an oval.”

“You know what you should call it then?” His face goes completely serious. “A half-oval.”

I’m tempted to slide down the ramp, grab my backpack, and add this guy to my “I wonder what becomes of…?” list, which is now up to thirty-seven names. It starts with Tyson, then my brother, my parents, and all the way down to this kid in my grade, Frank Wheeler, who once told us that if he’s not a millionaire by the time he’s thirty he’ll jump in front of a bus.

Tyson roars up beside me, rocks the middle of his board against the lip, then rolls back down again. Across the ramp, the stoner guy’s girlfriend adjusts her helmet. When she first showed up last month, no one wanted to give her a chance. But on her first drop she put most of us to shame.

“You should ask your girlfriend to teach you to skate,” I say.

“No way,” he says. “It requires too much balance.”

Tyson skates up close, locking his rear truck against the lip. He extends his arm and I pull him onto the deck.

“Ready?” he asks. “I need to get to work and prep for a party.”

Fifteen years in the future, I wonder if Tyson’s running GoodTimez Pizza. It wouldn’t be a bad job. Free pizza for life sounds like a sweet deal to me. In fact, Sydney and I probably take our kids there on their birthdays.

I drop down the ramp, twisting halfway and ending in a knee-slide.

“What time’s the birthday party?” I ask as Tyson and I push through the side gate.

“Five thirty,” he says. “But I told Kellan I’d meet up for a few minutes before I start. She has a break in her college class and wants to talk.”

I tap the tail of my board against the sidewalk. “What about?”

“Who knows,” he says. “She’s probably pissed at me about something. I can do no right by that woman.”

“You don’t have to meet her,” I say. “Not if she’s just going to chew you out.”

We pause at an intersection and Tyson turns to me with a grin. “But she’s so hot when she’s mad.”

We cross the street and Tyson nods toward the road leading to the cemetery. “Are you up for a quick detour?”

We lean our boards against the cemetery gate and walk along the winding gravel path. It’s odd to think that only a few rows over, near Clarence and Millicent’s final resting place, Emma and I began to pull apart. It was cold that night, so she snuggled against me. It’s not that she hadn’t done that before, but it felt different that time. She asked about the upcoming winter formal and whether I was thinking of going. I wasn’t, but I said that if no one asked her, maybe we should go together. I said it with a half-smile so she could take it as a joke if she wanted. She remained quiet as we walked through the shadow of gravestones, and then finally said, “Maybe.”

I liked “maybe.” I pictured her in the shiny blue dress she modeled for me after a trip into Pittsburgh with her mom. I imagined slow-dancing with her. With that thought in mind, I finally told her I liked her. My heart pounded, and I did what I’d wanted to do for a long time. I leaned down to kiss her.

But Emma pulled back. “What are you doing?”

“I thought maybe—”

She shook her head. “Oh, no.”

“I thought we—”

“We weren’t,” she said. “I couldn’t. You’re… Josh.”

And that’s when everything changed.

It’s been six months since that night, and things are definitely changing again. In fact, they’re changing in ways I never could’ve—

Oh, no.

After school, when I got my skateboard from Emma’s car, something was up. Maybe it was the way she didn’t make eye contact. Or how she said she was going to the library to look something up. Emma is always more specific than that. And if she’s hiding something, there’s only one thing it could be. It’s about her future.

But if Emma’s sneaking around changing her future, she could unintentionally mess up mine. And I love my future! One little ripple started today could create a typhoon fifteen years from now.

I look over at Tyson. His eyes are on the gravestone:

“I need to head out,” I tell him. “I forgot, but I have to check on something. I can try to swing by GoodTimez later.”

“That’s cool,” Tyson says, nodding at me. “I’m going to be a few more minutes.”

I run back up the gravel path. Once I hit the parking lot, I throw my board in front of me and jump on. When I get to the sidewalk, I dip at the knees to make the sharp turn, then push hard down the street, mentally mapping the fastest route to the library.

I TUCK THE PHOTOCOPIED PAGES in my backpack and hurry out to my car. Now that I have a list of numbers to try, I need to buy a phone card and get home as quickly as possible.

Dylan catches up to me in the parking lot. “You must be in some deep thought,” he says. “I was calling your name since you walked out the door.”

I tuck my hair behind my ear. Even though I blew it straight this morning, the warm weather’s making it spring up again.

I normally wouldn’t mind hanging out with Dylan for a few minutes, but I’m in a rush. I know that what I’m about to do is wrong. The ripples throughout my entire life will be huge. So I need to track down Jordan Jones Jr. before my conscience takes over, or before I run into Josh and he tries to stop me.

“Where are you headed?” Dylan asks as we approach my car.

“I need to grab something at 7-Eleven.”

“Any chance you can give me a ride?”

“That’s fine,” I say. “But I’m in a hurry.”

“I can hop out at 7-Eleven and walk from there.”

I unlock my car and we both climb in. As Dylan pulls around his seatbelt, I notice the three books on his lap. Weetzie Bat and two more from the Dangerous Angels series.

“You’re into Francesca Lia Block now?” I ask. “Because I’m pretty sure those aren’t for your little sister.”

“These are for Callie. She’s obsessed with this author. Have you read them?”

I drive across the parking lot. “Who’s Callie?”

“My girlfriend. She lives in Pittsburgh, but she was at the prom with me.”

“Oh,” I say.

“We’ve been together since Christmas. You should see her snowboard. That’s how we met.”

The way he’s talking about this girl sounds serious. I can’t help being a little annoyed, though. The summer Dylan and I were camp counselors, I was reading all the Francesca Lia Block books whenever we had a break. The fact that he doesn’t seem to remember that stings for some reason.

DYLAN HOLDS OPEN the door to 7-Eleven for me. As we say goodbye, I double-check the parking lot to make sure Josh isn’t one of the skaters out there.

At the counter, I debate between a five- and a ten-dollar phone card. I choose the cheaper one, pay the guy, and then walk back to my car.