{"product_id":"we-were-promised-spotlightsisbn-9781524738532","title":"We Were Promised Spotlights","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Miseducation of Cameron Post\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eEverything Leads to You\u003c\/i\u003e in this queer young adult novel. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHopuonk, Massachusetts, 1999 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTaylor Garland's good looks have earned her the admiration of everyone in her small town. She's homecoming queen, the life of every party, and she's on every boy's most-wanted list.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeople think Taylor is living the dream, and assume she'll stay in town and have kids with the homecoming king--maybe even be a dental hygienist if she's super ambitious. But Taylor is actually desperate to leave home, and she hates the smell of dentists' offices. Also? She's completely in love with her best friend, Susan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSenior year is almost over, and everything seems perfect.  Now Taylor just has to figure out how to throw it all away.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLindsay Sproul's debut is full of compelling introspection and painfully honest commentary on what it's like to be harnessed to a destiny you never wanted.\"A bold new voice.\" --\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Frank and honest.” –\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003eLindsay Sproul, originally from Marshfield, Massachusetts, is currently a creative writing professor at Loyola University New Orleans. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from Florida State University, and has received fellowships from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and The MacDowell Colony. Her fiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eGlimmer Train, Epoch, Witness, The Massachusetts Review\u003c\/i\u003e and other publications. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Secret Bathroom\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI went into the bathroom outside the gymnasium, which was all decorated like “An Evening in Paris,” because I knew I was going to throw up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt was the secret bathroom, the single-stall one tucked behind the staircase, where you went if you didn’t want to be seen or heard. When I got inside, Corvis McClellan was there, smoking a cigarette.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI hated Corvis McClellan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI mean, I was supposed to hate her. Only I was starting to miss her now that it was senior year and everyone was getting ready for graduation. She used to be one of us. Every day at recess, we played four square—Susan Blackford, Heather Flynn, Corvis, and me—but that ended in seventh grade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCorvis gave me a pitying look.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“That homecoming crown looks stupid on you,” she said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI gripped the side of the sink, trying not to do this in front of her. Corvis wasn’t a person I wanted to throw up in front of.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe crown was floppy and made of the same cardboard as the Burger King ones, only it was spray-painted gold and had a tiny Eiffel Tower on the side, which was pushing my ear down. She was right. I looked like a dildo.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What are you even doing here?” I asked her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCorvis should have been insecure, but she wasn’t. She had jaundiced-looking skin, lips that were too small, and hair that was always greasy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy date, Brad O’Halloran, was just voted homecoming king. I let him go down on me a month before in the back of his Datsun, and a few days later, my vagina felt like it was full of fire ants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI ran into Corvis in the waiting room of the gynecologist’s office next to the plasma donation center in the strip mall by the highway. I was sitting there with a pamphlet in my lap that said\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003egenital herpes and you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe looked up from her book and gave me a tight smile. “Nice going,” she said, and I wanted to murder her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Are you going to barf?” she asked me now. My crown was slipping off.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe put her hand on my back and moved it in slow circles. We hadn’t touched since seventh grade, just after she passed me the note I used to destroy her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI could have held it down before that, but her touch made me feel green. There it was, my dinner, regurgitated in hot chunks in the sink.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen I was done, we sat on the cool tile of the floor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Why are you being nice to me?” I asked her, wiping sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe shrugged.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I don’t know,” she said. “You look like shit.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe real problem with Corvis was that she knew. She knew I dated Brad because the other girls wanted him, and I wanted the other girls.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI wanted my best friend, Susan, to hug me for a really, really, really long time while I buried my face in her stomach and Melissa Etheridge played in the background. I wanted her to drive me to California, and then I wanted to die in her hair.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Want a cigarette?” Corvis asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I want . . . a scar.” A big, terrible-looking one that would make people afraid of me but not feel sorry for me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo far, no matter what was going on in the world, no matter which unpronounceable countries were at war, Corvis had always been there, wearing her backpack covered in patches.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut not for much longer. Corvis got good grades, and even though she wasn’t pretty, she had that rare glow of a special person, or at least a person who believes she’s special.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe looked like someone who’d just set her house on fire. She looked like someone who was going to ride away on a horse and never come back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI imagined her leaving, spending nights in a long chain of different states, in stale motel rooms where headlight beams crawled across the walls, and she would have girlfriends, and she would not be ashamed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter she left, I would be stuck with all the assholes who loved pretending that the gymnasium really \u003ci\u003ewas\u003c\/i\u003e Paris, who thought I was lucky for being pretty. Maybe I would start to believe them after a while.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI looked like a homecoming queen. Probably someday, I would be a dental hygienist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You’ll be okay,” she said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI didn’t believe her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere was such a private peace in her eyes. I couldn’t know how she got to where she was now. I could only see that she was there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Cliff\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTaylor Garland. The other kids said it all the time, my name. I was like a brand. My mother was too—Sandra Garland, the queen of Hopuonk. She didn’t let me call her Mom, so we were on a first-name basis.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Taylor!” someone shouted—a girl’s voice. Maybe Heather? PJ? Or one of the wannabes, like Bridget Murphy or Jessica O’Grady?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI sat in the parking lot, rubbing my temples. I didn’t want anyone to see me with Corvis in the bathroom, so I took off. The music from the dance still beat in my chest. I was pretty sure my underwear was showing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Taylor!” A guy this time, then more joined in. They followed me around, their collective voices like a giant mouth. Always hungry, always wanting, always asking.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven though the dance was still supposed to be in full swing, a sudden crowd had formed around me, sweating, needy, and helpless in their sequined dresses and rented tuxes, now reeking of vodka. I tucked my dress between my legs and looked up at them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery small town needs a star. Our football team was total crap, and nobody outside of New England cared about lacrosse or girls’ field hockey. So I was the star, just like Sandra had been.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Hopuonk, Massachusetts, the star is the queen. I used to think queens were rulers, but now I see that they are figureheads.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Are you okay?” Brad asked, reaching for my shoulder. He stood tall and clean-looking, his biceps visible through his tux, his hair combed like a Ken doll’s. I dodged his hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Are you drunk enough?” asked Heather, captain of the cheerleading squad and expert at backflips and punch fronts, pulling a flask out of her clutch. She leaned against someone’s rusty car, her red sequined dress cut so low that it came dangerously close to showing her nipples.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Are you going to Scottie’s after-party?” asked PJ Greenberg. She was our school’s drama star, and she followed me around constantly. Even though she was talented, drama wasn’t exactly considered cool. Pink lipstick was smeared on her teeth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSusan stared at me, waiting. Her floor-length tube-top dress hugged her hips, and her eyelashes made me want to cry. She shivered, and I thought that no one so perfect should ever be cold. I reached for her hand, and she pulled me up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScottie Mahoney’s after-party was the last place I wanted to go. I wanted to do something different for once.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI should be running through a field,\u003c\/i\u003e I thought. \u003ci\u003eI should be gambling away my work money. I should be hitchhiking to California. I should be doing anything but this.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No,” I said. I adjusted my crown, which promptly drooped again. “I have the best bad idea.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey stared at me, waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Fuck Scottie’s party,” I said. “We’re jumping off Fourth Cliff.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBridge and cliff jumping were big in Hopuonk, just like bonfires on the beach and drinking in the woods on the fire trails. Fourth Cliff was the highest, the most dangerous—the cliff none of us had jumped from yet. It was the cliff someone’s drunk uncle had supposedly died jumping from after a school dance in the 1960s. I pictured the dead uncle, glowing like a white stone in the sand at night, his denim jacket that looked slept-in, his cleft chin, his expression tinged with rage and wisdom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey all stared in disbelief. I realized that for me, it was a game, to see how far they’d follow me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI didn’t want to go home. I wanted to create a story with a big enough climax for it to end with me sleeping in Susan’s bed. Something risky enough that I could ditch Brad.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStanding in the parking lot, with everyone staring at me, I thought, \u003ci\u003eMaybe I’ll die jumping off Fourth Cliff, and maybe it will feel amazing, like turning into glitter and then disappearing forever.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Come \u003ci\u003eon\u003c\/i\u003e!” I said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEveryone started piling into cars, tulle spilling out of closed doors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSusan clung to me as we walked to her car, her tight dress hugging her ass and clinging to her legs. Dark tendrils of hair slipped loose from her bun and curled in the salty air, defying her hair spray. Me, Susan, and Heather drove to the dance together in Susan’s car at my request. After we took photos at the pre-party, I wanted to escape from Brad, though I pretended it was because we needed girl time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI checked for Brad and spotted him far behind us, watching me but still climbing into Jake Finnegan’s pickup.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI scanned the parking lot again, checking for Corvis.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I don’t think we should do this,” Susan whispered. “Are you sure we should do this?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere was Corvis, pressed against her passenger-side door, making out with Kristen Duffy, the tuba player. Kristen’s hand cupped the back of Corvis’s neck, and Corvis had her arms around Kristen’s back, where the cheap black lace of her dress bunched around her love handles. My stomach burned.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“One hundred percent,” I whispered back to Susan. “You’ll love it. You’ll shit a million stars.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCool girls whisper. I learned this in first grade. Also, cool girls drink vodka until they’re sick and someone has to take them home. On Mondays, cool girls whisper about who drove them home, and how they were too drunk to remember anything.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause we were still in high school, we were allowed to cling to each other. But I knew this would end, because Sandra never clung to anyone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSandra still whispered, though. That’s how the mystery of who my father was stayed alive, like the breath of a sleeping cat. The suspicion of truth in my story—despite the near impossibility of this truth—was one of the reasons I suspected I stayed popular.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother reason was that I crushed people, like I crushed Corvis in seventh grade. She no longer seemed crushed, though, which both infuriated me and made me want her back. I either wanted to be her, be near her, or crush her again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI took shotgun in Susan’s car without paying attention to who else was there, since I knew none of them were Brad.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Look at Corvis McClellan,” Heather said from the back seat. “That’s a wicked disgusting display.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI put my hand on Susan’s thigh as we watched Hopuonk go by out the window: The maple trees and the winding roads full of sand and broken oyster shells. The slanted colonial houses that needed paint jobs, and the rusted-out cars that sat in driveways up on cinder blocks, waiting to be fixed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSo\u003c\/i\u003e gross,” I said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn her attempt to drive while drunk, Susan ran a stop sign, then pressed the brake afterward. That seemed like a metaphor for my life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHeather shuddered, opened her dainty little flask, and took a long sip of whiskey. Somehow, her lipstick was still perfect, her freckles still covered with foundation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“If I ever get as fat as Kristen or as ugly as Corvis,” she said, stretching out in Susan’s back seat, “just shoot me and dump my body in the South River.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Only if you promise to do the same for me,” I said, reaching for the flask.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI never had to buy my own alcohol.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mean,” said Susan, and that word hung in the air.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough the rearview mirror, I watched Heather’s bright-red lips curl into an approving smile.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"G.P. Putnam's Sons","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304175849701,"sku":"NP9781524738532","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781524738532.jpg?v=1730756543","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/we-were-promised-spotlightsisbn-9781524738532","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}