The Latte Rebellion (5 page)

“Sounds pretty lucky,” Carey said. “I heard horses are supposed to be intelligent and sensitive.” She looked up at Leonard through slightly lowered eyelashes. “So what’s your major?”

“It’s my first semester, but I’m thinking about philosophy. I’m reading Kierkegaard’s journals for a class, and they’re really thought-provoking.” Absent-mindedly, he took our two coffees from the barista and set them on the counter.

“Wow, Kierkegaard,” she said, nodding. “Have you ever read—”

Ugh.

“So, this was fun. Thanks, Leonard.” I grabbed my coffee and pulled on Carey’s arm before I became the first person in recorded history ever to die of nausea. She simpered at him as we pushed our way out of the crowded café.

“What’d you do that for?” Carey glared at me as she yanked open the passenger-side door. “He was nice.”

“We have nine more cafés to visit. We can’t afford to chit-chat at every single one of them.” It was sort of sickening watching her in action sometimes. Especially when you were the one who faded into the background as a result. I started the car and pulled back into traffic, narrowly missing a girl with a humongous backpack riding a bike.

“Chit-chat? Please. You sound like a schoolmarm,” Carey said.

“The word ‘schoolmarm’ makes
you
sound like a schoolmarm.”

“I seriously think you’re just jealous of me. Me and Leonard.”

“Now you’re goading me.” I sighed.

“It’s my job. Some of us take our work seriously.”

“That better not be a veiled reference to Calculus,” I said. But I relented and smiled over at her. She laughed and poked me in the arm. We were both starting to spaz out on coffee already, with nine stops to go.

The rest of the evening went pretty much the same way; sometimes we didn’t need to approach the cashier to hang our flyer and sometimes we did, but at each stop we ordered a latte. Counterproductive, maybe, since we wanted to
make
money, not spend it, but it seemed fitting. After we’d each had two coffees, we dumped the rest we bought, but it had become like a superstition to buy one so we had to do it. We kept the cups as souvenirs.

“Too bad we don’t have, like, a club hideout. A secret meeting place,” I said. We were getting silly by now. “We could decorate it with garlands of empty coffee cups.”

“You mean like my brothers’ tree house? Adorned with empty candy wrappers?”

We both laughed. “Yeah, I guess it’s dumb,” I said. “We don’t need a hideout. After all, we’re a secret Rebellion. We’re already hiding in plain sight.”

“We’re all around you and you don’t even know it,” Carey intoned in a
Twilight Zone
voice.

“Exactly! Hey, maybe we should be dressing up like our alter egos.”

“No offense,” she said, still laughing, “but I don’t want to look like the female Clark Kent.”

“Not like Clark Kent. We’re more like … the Masked Mavens of Mayhem,” I said in a spooky whisper.

“Out to subvert the dominant paradigm?”

I bounced a little in my seat. “You know,
that
would make a great propaganda poster. We should totally make some like that.” I was inspired, envisioning our logo causing havoc (or, more likely, mild puzzlement) at places like bus shelters and U-NorCal lecture halls.

“Or at least we could make some web graphics that people could put on their own sites,” Carey said, ever practical. “I’ll ask Miranda about it.”

“And speaking of the website, we should put up a guest book so people can tell us what they think of the shirts.”

“Now you’re talking,” Carey said. “Hang on, let me write this down.”

That’s right—the tactician had had her moment of brilliance, but this was the idea-girl’s turn to shine.

I grinned into the darkness of the car, the streetlights blurring past on either side as I accelerated down Bracken Street. Energy crackled through me like a live wire. By all rights I should have been exhausted, but for the first time, I had complete confidence we were going to pull this off after all.

“I don’t know
where
she is,” I told my cousin Bridget as I paced back and forth outside the doors of the tall, concrete Livermore Building. The edifice was imposing compared to the peeling-paint-and-dingy-stucco one-story buildings on the University Park High School campus, a contrast which didn’t help my nervousness any. I took my cell phone out; no messages. “She said she’d probably come. I guess she didn’t exactly commit, though.” I looked at Bridget apologetically.

“No big deal, like I said.” Bridget slung an arm around my shoulders. “Just give her a call and let her know we missed her, and meet me inside, okay? I’ll be talking to my friend Jed. Tall. Beard. Birkenstocks.” She gave me a bone-grinding one-armed hug and left, her tall, wiry frame disappearing through the glass doors.

Bridget was only a freshman at U-NorCal, but she already seemed confident enough to rule whatever room she walked into. Whereas I was a little shaky inside at the mere thought of being probably the only high school plebe in a sea of worldly college students.

I leaned against the cool concrete wall of the building and speed-dialed Carey’s number. It went straight to voicemail, her terse “This is Carey Wong, leave me a message” hardly giving me enough time to formulate what I wanted to say.

“It’s me,” I said. “I’m here at U-NorCal. I, uh, guess you aren’t coming to the Students for Social Justice Meeting. I thought you wanted to go, but anyway …” I frowned up at the tall sycamore tree looming over the sidewalk, the bike rack full of locked-up cycles. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

I was confused. This should have been right up Carey’s alley, what with her obsession with extracurricular activities and her quickness to point out when people were being racially insensitive—the pool-party incident was a case in point. But instead, she was nowhere to be found.

I couldn’t keep waiting for her out here, though. Whether she was going to come or not, I needed this meeting. I’d dropped being a tutor at the end of last year and I was desperate for some kind of extra activity to pad out my college applications. When I called to ask Bridget for advice, she suggested … this, assuring me it wasn’t just for U-NorCal students.

Could’ve fooled me. If there were any other high school students here, like from Seward High or something, they blended in a lot better than I did.

I followed Bridget, easy to spot in her blue tie-dyed bandanna and paint-spattered jeans, as she strode confidently into the auditorium-sized classroom. While she stopped to talk to a dreadlocked guy in a worn-out Greenpeace T-shirt standing by the wooden lectern at the front, I stared uncomfortably at the floor and hoped I didn’t look too out of place in my dorky preppy ponytail and striped sweater.

I doubted I’d be able to contribute much to the meeting. What did I know about social justice? I should have just joined the stupid Asian American Club, except that Roger Yee was President and he probably would have drummed me right back out again for being “barely Asian.”

Stupid Roger. I tried to stand up straight and look assertive, even if I didn’t feel it. This was the best choice I had. And it was just for a few months. I could do this.

“Konnichiwa!” said a bright, chirpy voice. I glanced around and saw Darla, Bridget’s roommate, and resisted the urge to cringe. Despite the greeting, Darla was not Japanese by any stretch of the imagination. “Random” was the most appropriate description—or, if you were being nice, eccentric. She had Japanese anime posters plastered over most of their dorm room. That wasn’t too weird; what
was
weird was that she had
action figures
. Lots of them. Posed in elaborate scenarios from her favorite anime shows.

“Hi, Darla.” I tried not to sound too sour.

“How’s it going, hon? You applying to colleges yet?” Infuriatingly, she winked at me through her fire-engine-red-framed glasses.

“Yes,” I said. I hoped my lack of conversation would send a clear hint.

“That’s just
great
,” she said. “You’re going to
love
college. You—”

“I think we should take a seat,” Bridget said dryly, showing up in the nick of time.

“Oh! Right. Here,” Darla said, indicating a few desks in the front row. I groaned.

“Don’t worry.” Bridget patted me on the shoulder. “Nobody’s going to call on you.”

“Good,” I mumbled, and sank down in the seat as far as possible. Next time I’d have to bring Carey with me if I wanted to survive … if there was a next time.

“So,” Bridget said, settling into the seat next to me and retying her bandanna around her wavy brown hair. “How’s your T-shirt thing going?”

“Not bad.” I dared a quick glance around the room. There were lots of dreadlocks, Indian prints, and black turtlenecks in attendance. “Listen … do you think you’d be willing to put up a few posters around campus for us? We’d appreciate the contribution to our vacation fund.”

“Sure. You know, your logo’s very catchy. It’s a fun idea. I hope you guys can manage to earn the cash—that would be great for you.”

“Thanks. I owe you big-time,” I said fervently. “When Carey and I are rich and famous businesswomen we’ll buy you a Mercedes.”

“Fab. Just what I always wanted.” Bridget laughed.

“C’mon! You should feel privileged to be a part of such a stupendous idea from the ground up.”

“Right,” Bridget said. “Although …” Here she paused thoughtfully. “Really, you have some good ideas in that manifesto of yours. I mean it. I think tonight’s meeting might be of interest if you ever decide to … you know. Be more active about it.”

“Active? Please.” Carey and I fully intended to make this as easy as possible for ourselves. Additional activity wasn’t really on the agenda. But with Bridget sitting there next to me, looking enthralled as the Students for Social Justice president—a guy with a scruffy ponytail—went on and on about community organizing and grassroots activism, I tried my best to listen.

Eventually, Bridget’s friend with the dreadlocks went up to the front to talk about a seminar that Students for Social Justice was hosting in a couple of weeks: two guys from UC Berkeley who were planning a public health outreach program were coming here to speak about their project. It was all very noble, but I wasn’t sure it related to what Carey and I were doing, despite what Bridget said. Sure, it would be nice if we managed to raise a little awareness of mixed-ethnicity people, but basically, we were selling shirts. A community health clinic made the Latte Rebellion seem like small potatoes. Small,
selfish
potatoes.

Still, I let Bridget and Darla talk me into coming to the seminar, and I promised I’d try to bring my friends—“try” being the operative word. I had no idea what Miranda would say, and Carey—well, apparently Carey had a packed schedule of her own. My parents, at least, would approve. They figured Bridget was a good influence on me, though I was pretty sure Students for Social Justice wasn’t what they had in mind.

I will say one thing about the evening: It sure blew the Inter-Club Council picnic out of the water.

As it happened, I had to wait until Monday to talk to Carey. Her whole family went out of town to a wedding over the weekend—her alleged reason for not answering her phone Friday night—and I had to put in some face time with the relatives.

Since Nani was still visiting, and my Nana had come up to join her for the weekend, my mom and dad threw a big dinner shindig Saturday night with all the relatives within an eighty-mile radius. I must have spent five hours washing pots and pans on Sunday, but that was painless compared to telling every single person at the party, from Mom’s brother Uncle Raj to Dad’s great-aunt Eva, that (a) Yes, I’m applying for colleges; (b) No, I don’t know what I want to major in; (c) The official list is Robbins, Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley; and (d) I won’t hear the results until much, much later, so don’t ask. Going back to school on Monday was a relief after running the interrogation gauntlet.

“These are funny,” Carey said, looking over the six poster ideas I’d scribbled on the back of an old practice quiz. We came up with four more slogans together during French class, texting them to each other and giggling when elderly Mrs. Vo wasn’t looking.

Latte Rebellion Official Propaganda Slogans

1. We are all around you and you don’t even know it.

2. Ask not what the brown can do for you but what you can do for the brown.

3. Fear the Latte.

4. Lattes of the World, Unite!

5. Wanted: Rebellion Sympathizers. Must love coffee.

6. Buy our T-shirts! Please! We need money!

7. The time is now. The color is brown.

8. It’s all about the latte.

9. Forget “got milk.” It’s time for the juice.

10. Ecru. Tan. Sepia. Sienna. Mocha. You.

“Yep, we are brilliant,” Carey said, laughing, after she re-read our ideas aloud in the car after school.

“We
are
brilliant. It’s kind of too bad we decided to remain mysterious, really. We could seriously have a million-dollar idea on our hands. Even Bridget liked it, and you know how much of a cynic she is.” I drummed my fingers on the dashboard. “Speaking of which, Bridget is still on board. She said she’s fine with putting up posters around the university.”