Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles

Author:Lamar Giles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

IT TOOK ME TEN MINUTES on my bike, my laptop bouncing in my backpack. Ten minutes of imagining us squeezing in one of those tiny study cubicles in a dimly lit back corner. Two chairs wedged together, shoulders touching. Thighs, touching. While we discussed presentation options. She’d taken the lead by texting me, and inviting me here. She’d decide when things would go further. I was happy to be in her company.

Working my chain through my spokes and frame, I locked my bike down next to a rusted, tire-less ten-speed carcass someone abandoned a hundred years ago. While I did, a familiar minivan turned into the lot, releasing Bobby and Ralph Burton.

“Hey Del!” they said in unison, bounding past me into the library. Their mom gunned the minivan’s engine, gone.

Panicky, I snatched my phone from my pocket, sending a quick message.

Me: Are you here yet?

Kiera: Yes. We are all inside.

We?

Wary, I followed Ralph and Bobby. They led me to a study room packed with my Purity Pledge classmates.

A round table was covered in books and papers. Extra mismatched chairs had been dragged in. When I pushed through the door, I recognized the space fit the bodies nicely, but may have been too small for the Burton Brothers’ Axe body spray. I struggled to maintain normal breathing in a cloud of aerosol masculinity, and I wasn’t the only one, judging by the way others not-so-discreetly pressed hands to nostrils. The jolly brothers didn’t seem to notice, though.

Everyone greeted me, Kiera least enthusiastically, merely tossing a nod my way before refocusing on the open book in her lap. Jameer left his seat at the opposite end of the table from Kiera, pulled me into a bro-hug. “You’re confused, right?”

“Little bit.”

“Sit.” He pointed to an empty chair next to his. On the opposite end of the table from Kiera. I sat.

Shanice chirped, “I say a fashion show.”

Mya rocked back in her chair, her phone in a two-hand grip, only halfway with us. “What’s a fashion show got to do with purity?”

“About as much as a dance number,” Shanice fired back.

Helena and Ralph and Bobby laughed. I found none of this funny.

Kiera spoke without looking up. “I’ve been texting with Sister Vanessa and she suggested we be proactive. She’s expecting us to impress. So, whatever we settle on, that’s where the bar is set.”

Jameer gave a wicked eye roll. “Total freedom to control our message. Y’all got ideas?”

Everybody spoke at once, and I only caught snippets of phrases. Purity comedy routine. Purity choir concert. The only thing anyone agreed on was purity.

With everyone trying to talk over everyone else, the competing voices grew into a loud dull roar, a library no-no. The tattooed librarian from last night was back, her eyes dark and bloodshot, giving us a dirty look through the study room window. Jameer clapped his hands together once, a thunder crack that made me jump in my seat.

“Stop.” He squeezed the word through clenched teeth. The group complied. “We start on paper.

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