Kings of B'More: List 2

He wasn't sure what Ferris Day would entail, but he was certain his parents wouldn't approve of any activities that were actually fun.

However he finagled it, he had to be sure his parents and Linus's dad didn't catch on.

This was his plan, and he was an impish delight.

Suddenly, it all became clear to Harrison, and he thought in quick succession Oh yes! and then Oh no!

Harrison mulled that over. He wagered he understood roughly 73 percent of what Mondale said most of the time.

But, fun fact: Writing a thing down and doing it are completely different undertakings.

Harrison realized that he simply could not do it alone. There was the matter of their job schedule and the matter of their parents—both seemingly insurmountable.

"You can just tell me what you're thinking," she said, warily eyeing his title screen, which had a pixelated photo of Harrison and Linus and the title "FERRIS DAY" across their faces.

Aparna pulled off the tie holding her black hair in a neat ponytail and deftly started braiding.

"How is that even possible, logistically?"

"So this day is going to help you figure it out?" she asked, thankfully ignoring the fact that Harrison had slipped and called the other Aparna, Aparna Ramamurthy, by the unfortunate nickname given to her at school: Cool Aparna. Unfortunate, that is, for Aparna Aiyar, who, the nickname would infer, was not cool.

"I'm shocked that two Black queer boys from Baltimore don't have the same agenda as two white straight boys from the suburbs of Chicago in the eighties," Aparna said facetiously.

I'm finding the cost of the commuter train so I can add it to the itinerary I'm putting together.

Harrison, chastened, flopped back on Aparna's bed.

He had asked Linus if he thought Sheree and Obed were obsessed with him, and Linus had succinctly replied, "No."

She'd arranged herself into a perch on her bed, shoving to the side her laptop, a headlamp, a few rolls of gaffer's tape, a stack of books, an apple, three fancy candles still wrapped in plastic, and a home speaker system.

She drew her knees up to her chest, looking, Harrison thought, like some kind of forlorn figure in a painting you'd see at an art museum.

The guys stared down like angels on poor Aparna as she lamented having to go shopping.

"Every single one a costume piece from her middle-aged lady store. I look like a teller at a bank. I told her, 'Mom, I'm at a mall selling lotions that do not smell like anything that can be found in nature. This aesthetic is very Millie Dillmount on the first day of work.'"

Harrison had once made the mistake of labeling Aparna's propensity for wearing all-black all the time as goth.

Aparna had never looked at him with any expression more scornful than light confusion. Bemusement, one might say if one recently spent months learning new words for a test that purported to affect the rest of your life.

Aparna had never looked at him with any expression more scornful than light confusion. Bemusement, one might say if one recently spent months learning new words for a test that purported to affect the rest of your life.

Though they'd always feigned annoyance with each other, before she'd gone to college, the wall between them hadn't been there.

They talked at home, but it was in those texts that their relationship flourished.

He'd do anything for Linus, but his allowance was a pittance.

"I mentioned to him that I was planning on applying to colleges, and he told me that there would be no higher education after the Reckoning."

He didn't have time for small things when he was on the cusp of such greatness.

He'd gone with Harrison and the cast to the diner after the opening-night performance and then curled up in the booth with Harrison's phone, googling "Jewish life in Ukraine," "the history of pogroms," and "the painter Marc Chagall."

"You never say anything, Harrison. But what you don't seem to understand is that your face gives you away left, right, and center." Harrison suddenly felt exposed by every benign thought he'd ever had and implicated by the less- benign plan that he was desperately anxious to enact.

"You never say anything, Harrison. But what you don't seem to understand is that your face gives you away left, right, and center." Harrison suddenly felt exposed by every benign thought he'd ever had and implicated by the less-benign plan that he was desperately anxious to enact.

She sprinkled the almonds on top of the truly unwieldy mound of grains, fruits, seeds, and mush in her bowl, and headed out back.

He pulled his head through his shirt the rest of the way and peered out his bedroom window in time to see Corrine's car pulling away and Harrison watching it go before surreptitiously peeking into the two bags he was carrying.

"It's inspired by a TV show trying to get people to watch and then stream," Harrison replied.
"You're too cynical."
“I'm cynical? Your favorite song is from the deadliest war on American soil."

Being inconspicuous is a superpower in stage management and in copyediting. Maybe in life, in general.

Linus would ask him why he never acted on them, and Harrison would wave him off any time he tried to broach the subject.

But he had a plan, and he had to focus on that with the plucky determination of a musical theater leading lady, usually played by Cool Aparna.

But now Harrison and Linus had exited the train station and waited in the area in front of it, which Linus had informed him was called a portico.

Harrison sent a barrage of texts, asking all the very pressing questions that came to mind: when would he be back, what were they supposed to do until then, how far was Virginia from there, what kind of fish, and what about Ferris Day?

In any case, there was no Dario and they were in DC for no reason and he had failed, utterly, already.

Out of habit, I rode the escalator up to the second floor and wandered into the Potions location, which was teeming with tourists.