Page 1 of The Save

Chapter

One

February 1995

My fingers tracedover the application packet. The Rhodes Scholarship. A prestigious award for academic excellence. Leadership. Character. Commitment to service.

Zero pressure.

For a second, I wondered why I’d even picked up the application. The University of Oxford was after geniuses or future prime ministers. People who ran nonprofits out of their dorm rooms, not mixed-race women from Cow Town. Even if they did happen to be excellent at math.

I flipped to the front page and started to read with my purple pen at the ready. International post-grad study. The idea sent tingles to my toes. While I’d at least crossed the Canadian border and even an ocean thanks to the trip to Hawaii I took with my mom last Christmas, I’d never travelled abroad. My mom had never travelled abroad. Quebec was the closest thing to European culture either of us had experienced, and I was itching to get out, and fall would be a perfect time.

I highlighted a few dates and application requirements, then set the packet down on my newly thrifted computer desk when I got to the section on extracurriculars. It was shocking how quickly my sense of self disintegrated with one bolded headline.

My grades were perfect. I was on the Dean’s list. I’d just submitted a paper that made my differential equations professor raise both eyebrows and mutter, “Impressive.” The best compliment I’d ever received from anyone in the math department. I’d done everything asked of me with flying colours, but leadership? Service? I wasn’t exactly organizing protests or feeding the homeless. Unless you counted feeding Sharla and Crystal for three weeks last fall when they forgot to grocery shop.

I glanced at the little corkboard above my desk. Pinned to it was a faded postcard from Maui, a colour-coded study schedule for finals, and a photo of my mom and me from Christmas—both of us in leis, her arm around my shoulder. She’d cried when I told her I wanted to apply for grad school overseas. Not just because she didn’t want me to go, but because there was no way in hell she could afford it. I’d paid my own way here at Douglas with scholarships and summer work. Without the Rhodes, we both knew this dream was dead in the water.

I reached for my pen again and tapped it against the corner of the pamphlet.Get involved. Show initiative. Serve the community.I had six months until I needed to submit. Six months to figure out how to pad my resume and?—

A knock rapped on my half-closed bedroom door, followed by a creak as it swung wider. “Please tell me you’re not double-checking your GPA calculation for fun again.”

I looked up to see Tash standing there, one hand on her hip, the other holding a Diet Coke can with a blue-and-white-striped straw poking out. Her curly red hair was twisted up with a pencil, and she was wearing a Velvet Underground T-shirt that was technically mine.

I sighed. “Not for fun. For existential clarity.”

She stepped inside, her toenails the colour of caution tape today. “You know what would give existential clarity . . . ”

I grinned. “I’m not sleeping with Garrett.”

Tash chortled and yelled out the door, “Sorry, G! It’s a no again today!” She waited for the front door of the apartment to slam before flopping onto the bed.

Tash was an art history major and, after backpacking through Europe the previous summer, was convinced a study of emotionally repressed oil paintings was the only path to true enlightenment. Garrett was her best friend. Who also happened to have an enormous, very public crush on me. If he didn’t smoke weed like it was his daily multivitamin, I might have been interested.

She reached out and plucked the Rhodes pamphlet from my desk. “Oh, we’re in scholarship crisis mode. Excellent. Should I grab snacks or are we skipping straight to wine and despair?”

“Neither.” I snatched it back. “I’m just considering my options.”

“Babe, you have plenty of options that don’t involve jumping through bureaucratic hoops.”

I gave her a look. We’d had this conversation before. Tash insisted I only needed seven hundred dollars for a plane ticket and a good backpack to do all the studying in Europe I needed. I was convinced I’d be snatched and forced into sex trafficking if I spent the night at a hostel.

So, we were at an impasse.

I slumped down beside her, leaning back on the decorative pillows I’d had since I was fourteen. “You’re connected to the world of social justice. Any causes I can start a rally for? A committee I can join?”

Tash snorted. “I hear the Manatees are having a moment.”

I blinked. “Fighting for . . . their land rights?”

“They’re sea creatures. Like whales, but cuter. Nipples in their fin crotch.”

I made a face. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d be into.”

Tash dropped the packet. “What, fin-crotch nipples or saving sea creatures?”

I laughed. “Both. Either. Ugh. What am I going to do?”

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