Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

Tania with retribution in her eyes and Alan with a smirk. "I'm so sorry!" he blurted. "I just— keep screwing this up and I don't know why."
    "Anyone know any math majors?" Mallory asked, looking around at the filling coffee shop.
    "College students," Alan sneered. "Always specializing. It's just trig." He snagged the book and pulled it to him, then held out a hand for Lance's work. Scanned it for a moment then nodded. "You've got your terms mixed up. Remember soak-a-toe?"
    "…no?" Lance answered.
    "It's the relationships in a mnemonic," Alan said, snagging a piece of paper from the sheaves in front of him. He ripped it in half, wrote on the blank bottom. "Sine equals opposite over hypotenuse," he said. "Cosine equals adjacent over hypotenuse. Tangent equals opposite over adjacent. SOHCAHTOA. Or as I remember it," Alan smirked at Tania, "Some Old Hippy Caught Another Hippy Trippin' On Acid."
    "Alan, you're a bad influence," Tania grumbled.
    "But now he can do his homework, and that's good! Right?" Alan handed the book, the work, and the note back.
    "Whoop!" someone yelled, and liquid splashed across Alan. Cold coffee, ice cubes, whipped cream— in his hair, over his blazer. Onto Tania's notes and Matt's, and Lilia's cookies. Mallory snarled and shot out of her seat, but there was no knowing where it came from. The same four jocks were there, but so were lots of other people, many of them laughing.
    I hadn't been in a fight since the seventh grade, but if I could have taken those jocks one at a time…
    "Bastards," Mallory came back with handfuls of napkins. "Let's meet at my house from now on."
    "Fuck the closet," Alan shot back, dabbing at papers while whipped cream still stuck in his hair. Mallory tried to wipe it out and he jerked away from her.
    No one wanted to end the meeting like that, but when every attempt to lighten things up died a quick and ugly death, we had to give up. Usually we all drifted out in much the order we'd drifted in, but that night Tania, Lance, and I walked Alan and Mallory to her car.
    Alan didn't say anything but mumbled "good nights."
    I'm not much for fantasies, but I spent the night at work thinking about smashing some jackass a good one right in the teeth.
    Thursday afternoon Alan posted another clip, this one interviewing Mrs. Brooks.
    "Josephine and Birdie were great friends, all their girlhood years," she told the camera. "They shared every secret, so when Josephine's fiancé worried her, who else would she turn to? Birdie believed he had another girl, and they made a plan to catch him at his gallivanting. And that's how Josephine Streeter and Birdie Williams saw four white men slaughter and burn eleven Negroes, desperate men and women and even babes, and bring down a church to hide their sin."
    Mrs. Brooks went on, her cheerful face at odds with her words. The clip cut to pictures. Somehow Alan had found an artist to supply drawings like those of court reporters, adding both visual impact and solemnity to the story as Mrs. Brooks told it.
    "Alan," Mallory said in the first comment, "do I say it again? AMAZING. This project is going to rock!"
    "Tell me," Tania said, "that every single piece of paper and story you get from Mrs. Brooks is going to a museum. Tell me you are taking proper care of the artifacts in the meantime. Tell me that, please, Alan. Now."
    "Of course," read the comment next to the pink toenails. "I've finally got her convinced that's where they belong, before she passes on and they can't ask her questions. But thanks, guys, for thinking I'm an idiot who didn't know what we stumbled on here. [edit: thanks, Mal.]"
    "It never occurred to me that you might fail to take care of historical documents," I typed because I wanted to, then I deleted it. Instead I posted, "Brilliant work. Your eye for editing is exceptional."
    Later I got a notification that Alan had replied, "Thanks, Dad."
    Friday night was Homecoming. Normally on celebration nights my station was pretty quiet, since it was close to the university and on holidays most of the students weren't. On Homecoming, though, everyone was near the university. Ebony worked with me half the night, and I still never had time to even glance at a book.
    By nine-thirty things had slowed enough Ebony could go home. Sales were still enough to keep me moving though, so when ten-thirty hit and I hadn't seen Alan, I thought Quikburger must be dealing with the same mob I was.
    At eleven-thirty I figured I'd missed him. He