Chapter Three Fine
Because it was their last act as Collage editor in chief, they wanted to do it Correctly—so Mal brewed the best pot of coffee they could.
Ms. Merritt had gotten a special bag of pumpkin-spiced grounds for the occasion.
Today, Mal didn’t even care if enjoying those cinnamony, seasonal flavors made them basic.
For one, they were never really sure what “basic” even meant, aside from being a way to judge people for liking what they liked.
For another, even if they were basic, today they were going to lean into the warm, comforting fall vibes as hard as they could.
Fall was Mal’s favorite season: crisp like the crunch of leaves beneath their favorite boots and cool enough that they could wear layers without sweating through them.
If they were going to face the funeral of their only extracurricular—something they were still decidedly one unplanned-for moment from melting down about—they were going to do it with a cup of pumpkin-spiced comfort in their hand.
Sometimes they felt like a bad bisexual for loving hot coffee so much. It felt like mutiny to break with the iced-coffee stereotype. But iced coffee often came with a higher price tag, and hot coffee was cheap—or, like here in Ms. Merritt’s office, free. Free was Mal’s favorite price.
But not even free pumpkin-spiced coffee could uncancel Collage.
Slowly, other students started to trickle in.
Mal took their time setting up the snacks: the ham and cheese roll-ups they’d made with Maddie last night; the hand-decorated cupcakes Ms. Merritt’s daughter had made on a day trip home from college; the fruit tray Parker had apparently dropped off before school, all its melons cut into cute bear and cat shapes with little cookie cutters.
When everything was in place, Mal hovered nearby, too anxious about being there at all to make eye contact with the staffers who filtered in and out, grabbing plates and cups of coffee.
Once everyone started to settle into seats, Mal grabbed their own plate, refilled their comfort cup of cinnamon-and-nutmeg-spiced coffee, and went to settle too.
Altogether, only six other people had shown up.
They all sat in the circle of dragged-together chairs that Mal had helped arrange.
Mal hadn’t expected the whole Collage crew to turn out, but they had expected more than…
this. Mal frowned, cupping their coffee in their sweaty palms. They took a sip, hoping the heat and the swirling spice would ease the cold disappointment settling into their stomach.
Somehow it only made them feel colder. Collage deserved better than this.
Still, it did feel a little strange to end the magazine’s run with everyone together in one room, even if “everyone” was only seven people.
Collage had always taken place remotely—from the paper submissions of its inaugural issue in 1976 to the open inbox of last spring’s issue.
Working remotely made it easier for Mal (and, they assumed, for the other student editorial staffers, though they’d been the only one since the previous editor in chief ditched her duties last fall in order to spend more time with her boyfriend) to do their job: reading each submission, then carefully combing through them for grammar, usage, and story elements that needed fixing.
Mal had worked on the editorial side of the magazine since sophomore year, when Ms. Merrit allowed them to shift over from staff writer, so picturing James King and Nylan Hassan made them think first of bylines.
Seeing the staff as people rather than words on a page gave Mal a heart-racing, nervous feeling they hadn’t expected.
“So, what I thought would be nice,” Ms. Merritt began, when the embarrassingly small crew had quieted, “is if we spent some time together and celebrated everything the Collage was. What it meant to us. What we’re proud of.
To start, I am so proud of all of you—of all the work and words you’ve put in.
What about you?” Ms. Merritt opened her hands to the group, welcoming memories.
“I’m proud of Through the Garden of Gems and Dahlias, obviously,” Stella volunteered first. She twirled the end of her thick, Katniss Everdeen–style braid around her finger, like she was trying to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal. “And that it’s the longest-running serial feature we had.”
Of course she was. Mal bit the inside of their lip, then took another sip of hot coffee.
Ms. Merritt smiled encouragingly. “I’m proud of that, too,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Stella, and she winked. “When it’s published, I’ll make sure to include you in my acknowledgments.”
Mal huffed.
“I think I’m most proud of the poems I did at the end of last year,” Nylan spoke up, smoothing her lilac hijab like it might smooth the slight edge of nervousness in her soft voice. “The ones about spring. I was reading a lot of Whitman then, and I think it really shows—in a good way.”
“Yeah, those were rad,” Emerson agreed through a mouthful of cupcake. The bright red icing was already staining her lips. Mal raised their eyebrow, unable to help noting that the color suited her.
“Yeah, I think that’s my favorite issue too,” agreed James, who sat to Mal’s left. “My piece in that one was really strong.”
Mal had to agree; it had taken a bit of red ink, but it was the best of his stories they had read.
James wrote very literary fiction, the sort of thing that ended up getting studied in English classes.
Mal didn’t always understand his metaphors, but they could absolutely relate to being the fat kid on the school bus, like the main character of the story in question.
Ms. Merritt nodded. “That was such a strong issue.” She looked across the circle at Kodi, who today wore her mid-length locs tied back and a loudly patterned button-front shirt. “What about you, Kodi?”
“I think my favorite was the fall issue last year, actually,” Kodi said, carefully wiping crumbs off her fingers and onto her plate as she spoke.
“The whole thing was so edgy. Like… Parker’s sci-fi story about the alien who landed at Florence Mall on Black Friday?
” She made brain-exploding fingers by her temples.
Mal remembered that story too. It had been an absolute beast to edit—so many broken rules.
Parker laughed, nodding. “Right, and the poor boi could only communicate through ads from the stores!”
“That whole issue was bomb,” said Kodi. “Mal, you really killed it on that one.”
Mal blinked, surprised.
“Thanks?” They hadn’t meant for it to be a question.
Though they probably wouldn’t admit it out loud, they had worked harder on that issue than any other.
For one, they had just stepped into their more active editorial role, and they remembered feeling that because they were now Almost Official, they really had to prove themself to the Collage team.
For another, fall was their favorite, so they wanted to give it extra sparkle.
“I think that’s one of my favorites too.
Everyone wrote really cool stuff for it. ”
“Oh! We can’t forget the fall issue freshman year, when we were all babies,” Emerson chimed in, leaning forward in her chair, her face much too animated for Mal’s taste.
And then the group was off again, bouncing around through the last several issues and occasionally to ones only the seniors would remember: the story James had written about being gay in Kentucky that won a local student-fiction award; the first installment of Stella’s serial and how it had been the highest circulation Collage had seen in years; Emerson’s first blackout poem and how much persuasion it had taken to get Ms. Merritt (and Mal) to print it.
Mal didn’t talk much, just clung to their coffee, letting the warmth of the cup and the rich scent of cinnamon ground them.
Maybe they had missed out by not doing this more over the years—by not getting all of them together like this.
On the rare occasions Collage had proper meetings, it had always been to talk business: to pitch stories, assign duties, select themes.
It always felt like work, because it was.
But this—sitting around and talking about memories together—felt more like hanging out with Maddie than like work…
except the topic shifted to soccer exactly zero times.
It reminded them, in a strange way, of their eighth-grade lunch table—well, their first eighth-grade lunch table, when Maddie was still a year behind them.
Their friend group had been small then—about the size of the Collage stragglers, really.
Like now, Mal had not always been an active part of the conversation, but they were always included. Always part of the group.
It was… nice, feeling like that again. And although Mal would still miss the solitude of the editor’s desk, maybe they had been missing out on this the whole time. Maybe Collage could have given them more than just a Common App activity and words on a page.
And now they would never know.
Realizing this—what they had, and that it was nice, and that it was about to disappear forever—made the overwrought, dizzy feeling Mal had been staving off all week crescendo into a roar.
Suddenly, it was as loud in their head as the day the magazine had been canceled.
A familiar feeling of panic rose in Mal’s chest along with the volume of their thoughts.