Cross Country Hearts by Suzanne August

Nineteen

“I prefer Pepsi.”

The following day, I clutch my phone in one hand, my other hand pulling hard on strands of my red hair. “I know about Jasper.”

That’s what I say to Melanie’s voicemail. I don’t text her, instead, I call her with the intent of saying those four words because if there’s anything that’s going to get her to talk to me, it’s the fear of the knowledge I now have.

I took the opportunity to call her when Jasper left to use the bathroom. He comes back into the cabin as I’m finishing up packing, my phone—and Melanie—forgotten in my purse.

“How long does it take to get to Atlanta?” He asks, picking up his bag.

“About two hours.”

He groans.

“At least you’re not the one driving.”

~.*.~

Atlanta is as congested with traffic as Boston and New York were. It was bad planning on our part not to set an alarm for when to wake up, so we didn’t get on the road until ten, and we don’t get into the city until the afternoon. For most of the two-hour drive, Jasper and I get along fine. There’s no awkwardness like the long day of driving yesterday, and only once does Jasper criticize my taste in music. When he hits a random button to change the channel, a random metal song starts blaring through the speakers.

“Turn it off!” I scream.

“It’s better than that stupid kid!” Jasper yells. Or at least, that’s what I think he says. I can’t say I disagree, but still. Jasper turns off the station, sliding in one of the CDs Lila gave him, and then he has to contend with my horrible singing skills. Eventually, probably to spite me and have some fun, he turns the channel back to the metal one.

“Jasper!” I hit the off button on the radio. We’re drowning in silence.

“I can’t tell if there’s no noise or if I’m deaf,” Jasper says.

“You’re deaf.”

He gives me a sour look. “I wish.”

I can’t help but laugh. Maybe a week ago, our banter would have made me uncontrollably angry and annoyed. Now, I enjoy it. Besides, I’ll be the first to admit that my singing can make people go deaf. “Help me look for a parking garage.”

As it turns out, there’s a parking spot outside the Coca-Cola museum, otherwise known as the World of Coca-Cola.

I’m already standing outside the car, driver’s door open, when Jasper says, “There are a million things to do in Atlanta. We’ve never been here, and we’re going to waste it on a museum.”

Jasper is still sitting in the car and hasn’t even unbuckled. I throw an empty water bottle at him. “Get out.”

He grabs the water bottle, throwing it in the back seat. “June!”

“It’s not going to be a waste.”

“I don’t even like Coke. I prefer Pepsi.”

I stare at him. “Don’t say that in the museum.”

“Why? You think they’re going to maul me?”

“Probably. Get out.” I shut the driver’s door and leave him in the car. I could go a day without him, even if we’ve made amends about our past, but I doubt he’s going to spend the whole day in the car. He doesn’t even have the keys to turn on the air conditioning, and I know even him, in his stuffy, black shirts and jeans, wouldn’t be able to last in today’s humid heat.

Sure enough, I hear the car door opening and slamming behind me, followed by running footsteps as Jasper catches up.

“What do you know about this museum?” he asks me.

“Nothing.”

He groans.

He keeps doing that today, and I can’t help but smile in amusement.

I gesture to the building in front of us. “Does your appreciation of art transfer to buildings? ‘Cause that building looks pretty interesting.”

Coca-Cola obviously wanted to look modern, new, and outstanding against all the skyscrapers in the background. A single, massive, glass window tower rises in the middle of the building, and it seems glass windows dominate the outer wall. A sloping slab of cement cuts across the first and second floors. Spanning across the two floors of windows are the two loud words “Coca-Cola.” The museum itself sits in the middle of a perfectly trimmed grass lawn.

“Not really,” Jasper says, taking in the building beside me. “Though, I appreciate the architecture of this building. They went all out.”

I wince when we pay for the tickets, but they’re not as expensive compared to other museums. We are running low on money, though. I’m almost glad we’ll be in Jacksonville tomorrow. Then I remember the screaming I’ll get from my mother when we arrive, and I’m not so glad anymore.

“Oh no,” Jasper groans. “There are huge painted Coca-Cola bottle statues in here.”

“They look pretty cool.” And they are, actually. They stand at various heights in the middle of the lobby. Behind them, lining the wall, are various sized televisions which, at the moment, display “Welcome” in numerous languages.

Jasper looks like he’s going to refute me thinking they’re cool, but before he can, our tour begins. A woman, short, chubby, and cute, stands at the door leading into the next room. As she tells us the history of those bottles—apparently, they’re seven of the bottles that represented different nations during the 1996 Summer Olympics—a group of fifteen people assembles around her. We follow her into the next room, called the Loft, which has various historical Coca-Cola items collected over the decades.

“Is this how you felt when I took you to the Met?” Jasper asks.

I lean closer so not everyone will overhear our conversation. “Technically, I took us to the Met since I drove.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Maybe,” I say. I’m not into art like Jasper is, but I’m also not a big fan of soda anyway, period. I am into history, though, and I like looking at the old Cola advertisements lining the ceiling of the room. To Jasper, I add, “I like learning about the past. This place is kind of interesting.”

“If you’re so into history, tell me something interesting that’ll help me through this.”

I roll my eyes, then think for a moment. “Ever heard of the Roman emperor, Caligula?”

“No,” he deadpans. He stares at me with a blank expression.

“Well, he was this crazy emperor who had his horse elected to the senate.”

“They actually let that happen?”

I grin. “Yeah, but that man was crazy. I think his generals murdered him, eventually. There was another Roman emperor, Nero, who many historians think started this huge fire in Rome. He was ousted from the throne too.”

“Well,” Jasper says. His gaze lingers unhappily on the tour guide. “That’s interesting.”

Someone beside him agrees with him, saying Coca-Cola is a lot more interesting than he thought. I have to hide a laugh behind my hand as the tour guide leads us into the next room, where we are, in Jasper’s words, “horribly subjected” to a six-minute film that shows “moments of happiness” experienced by people. Jasper is rigid through the whole thing. I kind of enjoy it.

As we exit the room, Jasper asks, “Do you know other random facts? Keep telling them to me.”

“Um, well… did you know that our Declaration of Independence in Washington D.C. isn’t the original one?”

“Why would I know that?”

I roll my eyes. “There’s a couple dozen of the oldest copies of the Declaration, but the original one was lost.”

“Hold on.” Jasper grabs my wrist, so I look away from our tour guide and at him. There’s laughter in his brown eyes. “You’re saying that we lost the most important piece of paper in our history?”

“Yeah,” I say, glancing down at his hand wrapped loosely around my wrist. “Nobody is sure what happened to it, but we have the oldest prints of the original.”

“Huh. Enlightening.”

And then Jasper notices me looking down at his hand, and he draws it back to his side, sliding it into one of his pockets. I resist the urge to rub my wrist and follow the tour guide into another room.

“We should’ve gone to the capitol,” I say. I’ve always wanted to go, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it until now. Lincoln’s statue has always mesmerized me, standing on one side of the National Mall. And I’ve always wanted to stand next to it and get a picture of my puny form next to his magnificent marble replica.

“If we went where we wanted to go,” Jasper tells me, “We’d never make it to Jacksonville. Not even by the end of the summer. Know any other facts?”

“Of course.” I pause for a moment, making sure that I’m not too loud as the tour guide spews out some more facts. “Right… did you know that the United States government poisoned alcohol when it was illegal to drink it in the 1920s?”

“Why would I have known that?”

“The shortest war wasn’t even an hour long.”

“Why do you know this shit?”

I shrug. “I like history.”

“Okay.” When I glance at Jasper, he’s wearing a small smile. He says, “Why did this war only last an hour?”

“It was between Britain and an African nation. I don’t remember what happened.”

“It sounds more like one battle than a war.”

“Take it up with the Guinness world record book, King.”

We move onto another room, and while I tell Jasper random facts I’ve known for years, I learn some more random facts about Coca-Cola. The brand did start in Atlanta with less than ten drinks sold a day—and now it’s almost two billion daily.

More than an hour later and into the afternoon, Jasper and I have seen all there is to see at the museum. As we leave, Jasper shouts that he prefers Pepsi over Cola. I gasp, laughing, and have to usher us out of there before any of the staff surrounds us with pitchforks. He’s laughing and doubled over once we’re safely outside.

“You hated it that much?” I demand, but even I have to admit that his outburst was hilarious. I even saw one of the staff rolling their eyes as we left.

Jasper shakes his head, straightening. “I’m starving.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, let’s go.”

The closest cafe is a minute’s walk from the museum. I grab a chair while I let Jasper loose to buy the food. At this point, I’ve figured out that we pretty much have the same taste in food, and while I’m wary in trusting him to grab the right kind of lunch, I figure it can’t be that bad. And when he shows up with two burgers, a large box overflowing with fries, two drinks, and multiple small cups of ketchup, I figure I should keep trusting him with food.

Jasper settles in the chair across from me, and as he divides the napkins between us, he asks, “So, are you going to study history in college?”

I pause in my quest to stuff some fries in my mouth, saying carefully, “I’m not sure I’m going to go to college.”

“No?”

I shake my head. Even thinking about the application process this upcoming fall makes me shudder with anxiety. To change the subject, I ask, “Are you going to study art?”

“Definitely.” His immediate response leaves no room for doubt.

I look down at the table. “I don’t know what to do after I graduate high school.”

“Why not?”

I shrug, stuffing some fries in my mouth. “I don’t know. I’m not into college, at least not right out of high school. Maybe I’ll take a gap year, but honestly, I have no idea what to do with my life.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” He drinks his soda. “So, are you going to tell me why Georgia wanted you to go to the Coca-Cola museum?”

“She’s in love with soda,” I say. “She’s also in love with weird stuff. It’s her hobby. So, say we’d want to go to an aquarium. She’d say everyone does that, and then she’d suggest we go to this place no one’s ever heard of before. She makes life more interesting.”

“A girl with a strong mind,” Jasper agrees.

I frown, and then I hide it by drinking my soda. When Jasper said he never painted Georgia because she’s her own person, I didn’t think much of it. I paid more attention to the fact that he called me Melanie’s obedient soldier. But I guess, thinking back on it, Jasper is right. Georgia has never let Melanie change her. She’ll listen to Melanie’s critiques, and then she just keeps being herself, writing blog movie reviews over playing any kind of sport and wearing the same mismatched outfits she loves.

Georgia could care less if Melanie threatened to ditch her at a party because Georgia doesn’t “look right.” I suddenly wonder if this, if Georgia, is what Jasper thinks of as a “real girl.” It would make sense. Georgia is her own person, and she doesn’t let anyone change her.

Before I ask Jasper what he thinks a real girl is, he asks, “How did you and Georgia meet, anyway?”

I can’t help but smile. I set my drink aside. “First grade. She stuck a crayon up my nose.”

Jasper bursts into a laugh. I’m so surprised by his reaction I sit back in my chair and stare at him with wide eyes. When he sees my expression, he waves a hand. “You said it with a straight face. Like there’s nothing unusual about that.”

Mostly I’m surprised he could ever burst into a laugh at something I’ve said. “She thought I stole her crayons and paper. She took the one I had right out of my hand and stuck it up my nose. Mrs. Grayson put her in the time-out chair, and when it was all said and done, I told her I had stolen her crayons. Then I gave them back.”

“And you both were friends, just like that.”

My smile turns into a genuine grin. “No. Georgia punched me, and Mrs. Grayson sent her to the principal’s office. Then we became friends.”

Jasper continues to laugh, picking up his burger. “I get the feeling that Georgia and my friends in Maryland would get along just fine.”

An immediate image of Georgia holding Ren in a head hold—probably because he’d have the audacity to flirt with her—while Lila cheers her on emerges easily. I have to agree with Jasper. Georgia would absolutely get along with those maniacs, and probably because she’s a maniac too.

“Now.” Jasper’s mouth is full of food, and his words come out muffled. “You have to tell me why she’s named Georgia.”

“Oh, that’s simple too.”

“I bet I can guess.”

I laugh. “She wasn’t conceived in this state if that’s what you’re going to guess.”

Jasper lowers his head, defeated. “All right, so I can’t guess.”

“It pretty bizarre,” I admit. “Her parents have only been to Georgia once. They’re both from South Carolina, though.”

“Really.”

I nod, then I realize all my fries are gone. Jasper still has some, so I steal one of his. He swats my hand away as I say, “Her parents dated in high school but broke up when they went to different colleges. Then her mom was going to get married to some guy she met in college after only six months of dating. She invited her ex to the wedding—which was here, in Georgia.”

A slow grin grows on Jasper’s face. “I can figure out where this is going to go.”

“Yup, so her dad arrived at the wedding. This is only a year after they broke up, and they were only twenty years old. Her dad confesses his undying love to her mom, and then right then and there, instead of marrying her intended groom, she marries Georgia’s dad. It was a huge scandal.”

“And they’ve never been back to Georgia?”

I shake my head. “No, but Georgia was born two years later, a couple of months after they graduated college. They named her after the state because it was the start of their ‘true’ romance, and not the dumb, immature one they had in high school.”

“That is bizarre.”

“Georgia’s pretty proud of it. She says it’s the love story of a generation.” I try to snatch another fry, but Jasper’s more vigilant this time.

He scowls, though it’s not serious. “First, you’re stealing crayons, and now you’re stealing french fries?” he accuses. “Get a life, Judith Pierce.”

“Actually, I seem to remember a certain person paying for these fries.” I manage to snatch one. “So, I think I’ll be taking some.”

“My uncle is sending me more money tomorrow!”

“Uh, I think we’ll be in Jacksonville by then.”

He mumbles something, but I can’t untangle the jumbled words into something comprehensible. I move on. “You know, Georgia tried out for the swimming team once. Her freshman year, I think.”

Jasper pauses, and while he’s probably trying to remember this, I’m able to dump a large load of his fries onto my plate. Jasper glares at me and edges his plate closer to him and out of reach from me. He says, “I remember that. I thought she made the team, but she never swam.”

“No,” I agree. “She complained that it was too much work, so she quit.”

Jasper laughs, but because he’s eating another fry, he chokes on it. Then he’s waving his hand to tell me that he’s fine before I’m able to try the Heimlich maneuver. His eyes are watering, and his throat is scratchy when he replies. “I love swimming.”

He pauses and rubs his hand over his Adam’s apple.

“I can tell.” When he raises a questioning eyebrow, I explain, “Your hair is still bleached.”

He runs a hand over his short, bleached blond hair and grins sheepishly. “I’ve known how to swim since I was two. Carlisle was the captain of the swim team at our school, you know, back when I was still in middle school. He broke records.”

“April hates swimming.”

This time, both his eyebrows shoot up. “Carlisle used to tell me he’d never date a girl who couldn’t swim.”

“Oh, April can swim,” I say. “She just hates to.”

“Carlisle will probably change that,” he warns me. “He can change anyone’s opinion on swimming.”

I steal another fry.

“Would you stop doing that!”

I laugh. “They’re pretty much gone anyway—”

“Thanks to you!”

“—so let’s get out of here. Know any other interesting places in Atlanta?”

Jasper glowers, but then he says, “Well, when you were busy learning all there is to know about Coca-Cola, I looked up someplace in Atlanta.”

I lean forward. “Well?”

“The Center for Puppetry Arts,” he declares. “The largest organization in America dedicated to the art of puppetry.”

I stare. “What?”

He points. “You subjected me to the Coca-Cola museum because of Georgia’s whim. Now you have to suffer this with me.”

I stare at him, and then I stare some more. Then I realize I’m staring and, just like that, I grow uncomfortable. I realize that Jasper and I have spent the entire day without arguing—not seriously, anyway. We’ve talked, and we’ve shared. There’s a comfortableness that wasn’t there yesterday when we spent most of the day in awkward silence.

I realize I enjoy Jasper’s company, even without the presence of his crazy friends, to make it easier to be around him. I want to hang out with him. I want to know more about him. I am leaning and angled toward him instead of trying to put as much space between us as possible. He has a draw that is impossible to ignore, and I can’t take my eyes away from his chocolate-brown ones.

“You can’t say no,” Jasper says, grin lopsided and eyes mischievous. He has ketchup on his black shirt.

I realize that, in different circumstances, Jasper and I could’ve been good friends. Great friends. Not only do I warm to that feeling, but I like it intensely. I’m not sure what that means.

“Pierce.” Jasper is looking at me now, hard. “June?”

“Yeah,” I say, and I try to sound defeated, even as I’m anything but. “Let’s go.”