Chapter Nineteen What Mal Cares About
Thursdays were usually zine days, the one weekday Mal was guaranteed a full evening with Emerson.
They had wanted to get back to the editors’ desk since Sunday—strictly, they told themself, because there was so much work that needed doing, and not at all because of their exciting new extra-extracurricular activity (kissing Emerson).
It hadn’t happened again—yet—but Mal very much wanted it to.
But today Maddie had soccer practice, and with both their parents otherwise occupied, it was on Mal to accompany her.
With their backpack full of homework to keep them occupied and a crisis developing in real time over the e-mail chain they had open on their phone, Mal waited for Maddie to come downstairs.
Only she already had, apparently, a few minutes ago.
“Hello, Earth to Mal.” Her voice broke through Mal’s focus on their screen, where their thumbs pounded away at a reply. “I’m ready to go when you are.”
“Okay, yes,” Mal said, not yet looking up.
“Let me just—” For a few quiet, frantic moments, they hammered out the rest of their e-mail and then, with a suffering sigh, hit send.
“Sorry,” they said. “My fiction feature writer is refusing literally every single markup on her story for this issue and citing creative differences. I’m trying to talk her down. Ready?”
Yes, Maddie was ready; her soccer bag was flung over her shoulders, her practice jersey on. Still, she just stood there, staring at Mal across the kitchen, until she cocked her head to the side and said, “I feel like you don’t even care about soccer anymore, Mal.”
Mal snorted. “I don’t care about soccer.”
There was a beat of absolute silence, save for the swish of Mal’s thumb against their phone screen as they refreshed the MixxedMedia e-mail, waiting for stellaforstar@ to show up in bold at the top. Then, deathly quiet, Maddie said, “What?”
“I’ve never cared about soccer, Maddie.” Mal looked up, confused by the expression on Maddie’s face. “I haven’t not learned all the positions and plays because I’m stupid.” Mal laughed. “It’s not something I super care about on its own. But I super care about you, and you play soccer.”
“I’m…” Maddie’s eyebrows wrinkled together. “I don’t know what that’s even supposed to mean.”
“It means I love you, duh,” Mal said, still refreshing their phone. “You’re the important part of most of the stuff we do together.”
“What? What are you saying, Mal?” Maddie asked, her voice flat.
“That the reason I have fun when we do stuff is because I’m doing it with you?
” Mal still wasn’t sure why Maddie wasn’t getting it.
To them, this had always been a given. “Like, I don’t super care about baking shows either, but I’ll watch them for a hundred hours with you because I know you do, and it makes me happy that you’re happy.
” This was true; the best part of anything they did had always been Maddie: watching her smile, seeing her winning.
It felt good to finally say that part out loud, to acknowledge that Maddie was always the reason.
And so it came as a surprise to Mal when their sister cocked her head to the side and said, “That’s… really fucked up.”
“What?” Mal balked, dropping their phone on the table. “No, I—”
“You’ve been doing shit you don’t care about all this time just because you think it makes me happy?”
“I mean, yeah.” A soft panic surged through Mal. At their sides, their hands opened and closed in rapid succession. “I guess?”
“What are you going to tell me next, Mal?” Maddie pulled her soccer bag around her front, wrapping her arms around it. “You’re going to University of Kentucky because of me?”
“Yes?” This had never been a question for Mal. The only thing waiting for them in Lexington had always been Maddie—had been them getting out of Covington together.
“Wow,” Maddie said.
“I don’t understand why this is making you upset,” Mal said—they really didn’t. All this time, Mal had been sure they and Maddie were on the same page about all of this. But the way Maddie was reacting now made them wonder if they’d even been reading the same book.
“You know, I have to go,” Maddie said, pulling her bag back around and heading toward the door.
“Okay,” Mal said, starting to follow her.
“Don’t, Mal.” Maddie turned back around sharply, raising her hands defensively in the space between them. “I can do this on my own.”
“I know.” Again, they had thought this was a given—like Mal showing up anyway, to support her.
“Go do your zine things.” Maddie waved a dismissive hand. “I know that’s where you’d rather be anyway.”
That wasn’t untrue. But it still stung.
So did Mal’s next question. “Are we… fighting?”
Maddie snorted a cold laugh, shook her head. “I don’t know, Mal. Are we?”
Mal suddenly felt icy. They suspected it had little to do with the draft coming in from the kitchen door. “Maddie.”
“It’s fine, really.” Maddie put on her brightest, fakest smile. “This just… gives me a lot to think about, and I think I can do that best on my own. I’m not mad, I’m just—”
Maddie pursed her lips, gave Mal a look they had never seen before: considering, a little wet-eyed, a little sad.
Whatever she was, though, Mal would have to find out later. Maddie turned and left, closing the kitchen door behind her and leaving Mal alone in her wake.
“Is it me, or is this November issue much easier?”
Mal cocked their head, fingers pausing over their ancient laptop.
They didn’t need to turn to pick out Nylan’s smooth, high voice from the small group gathered behind them at the worktable.
Parker’s was much louder and had a little rasp at the edges; James’s was measured and masculine; and Emerson’s was comfortable and familiar: brash and brazen and just right.
“Yeah,” Emerson said—there it was, warm in Mal’s ear, making them smile despite the storm that still simmered inside of them. “I think it might be?”
Was it? Mal frowned down at their screen, where Alex’s essay about the language of queer shoes shone back at them.
Alex’s work was surprisingly easy to edit; he liked grammar almost as much as Mal did, or at least he had a strong command of commas.
Still, Mal meddled with them, trying to find things to fix—trying to push Maddie’s echoing words out of their head.
It was almost working.
But it wasn’t just editing that felt easier this time.
Nylan was right. Mal had originally chalked it up to knowing what they were doing now, but it had to be more than that.
It was almost as if MixxedMedia challenged them to be better in ways that Collage hadn’t.
With Mal in charge, and each of them having equal ownership of what they put out, Mal supposed they were all trying harder.
They had to; the zine’s success rested squarely on their own shoulders.
That purpose—and that responsibility—somehow made it easier to get things done.
“Yeah,” they finally agreed, quickly uploading their edits to VansTheMans.docx and e-mailing it back to Alex before closing their laptop. “I think we’re good at what we do.”
It was the first time Mal could remember saying that about something they did. They smiled to themself.
Turning from their laptop, they scooted their comfy, armless editor’s chair a few feet across the hardwood floor to join the staffers at the worktable, Emerson wheeling along right behind them.
This afternoon, it was less a worktable and more a snack table; Emerson offered half of her strawberry Pop-Tart to Mal, and Nylan slid a piece of cheese on a cracker across the table.
“Try it,” she said. “It’s stinky but really good.”
Mal eyed it, then shook their head.
“More for me, no worries,” said Parker, giving Nylan a smile before grabbing the cracker and popping it into their mouth.
“We’re going to have to change the sign to say ‘SnackMedia Zine Lab,’ ” Emerson said, taking a cracker Nylan offered, “since that’s mostly what we’re doing nowadays.”
“For now,” Mal said. “It’ll be crunch time soon enough.” This worry let the storm clouds lurking in the corner of their mind loom a little closer. Mal frowned.
“Not soon enough for me,” Emerson said, chewing. “I’m getting itchy for something to do.”
“You can do my mini zine,” James volunteered, reaching for some cheese.
“I can’t wait for the zine fest at Haint History Festival,” Parker said. “This time of year is like my Christmas—I go hard for Halloween shit.” They shot Emerson a tentative look. “I’m honestly a little bummed we’ll be working and not out doing Halloween stuff together.”
“I have a solution!” Emerson interjected, breaking into Mal’s thoughts with a voice so loud someone working in the performance hall cleared their throat pointedly. “I’m about to lay down some real Hannah Montana shit. Are you ready?”
“Some real what?” Mal asked.
“Hannah Montana, Mal! A literal classic and meme gold.” She made grabby hands at Mal and sang what they guessed was a theme song, about having the best of both worlds. “Big ?por qué no los dos? energy. You ready?”
Mal shook their head, laughing. “Okay, lay it on us.”
“We dress up anyway.”
“Can we even do that?” Nylan asked.
Emerson shook her hands at the table like she was begging for them all to catch up.
“Yes! That’s, like, basically what Haint History Fest is for.
It’s a spooky craft-fair-slash-snack-a-thon moment, with food trucks and vendors and—best of all—a big bonfire where you make free s’mores.
Also probably ghosts? It’s to celebrate all the ghosts in the Village. ”
“There are ghosts in Mainstrasse Village?” Parker asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Those houses were built in like the 1800s,” Emerson said. “If you don’t think people died in them and haunt them, you’re joking yourself.”
Mal snorted—but Emerson made a good point. Most of the houses in Covington were built around the turn of the century. If there were such a thing as ghosts, this city seemed like the sort of place they’d hang out.