A surprised expression washes over Rooney’s face. She looks at her plate of scattered waffles like she’s reading tea leaves. As if the bites hold all the answers. And then she smiles.
“Jackson No-Middle-Name Liu, you’re a genius!” Rooney says with excitement. “I want to wrap more than dessert.” She taps thechocolate shell encasing her red bean ice cream. “The Hollywood Sign. That’s what I want to wrap. It’s something that hides in plain sight, and I want to make it be seen again.”
My jaw drops but no one else even blinks. There’s risk, and then there’s risky. Risk with the law and risk being on the mountainside. But I don’t say any of this because everyone is nodding and smiling. They’re saying supportive words, even.
“There’s no way you could wrap that all by yourself,” Toby says, offering up a hopeful deterrent.
“True. I guess I won’t be doing that anytime soon,” Rooney says. “It would take me days.”
Gong Gong’s face lights up. “I love a little bending of the rules every now and then. I would help you if I could. I once took a moon jelly home from an expedition.”
I make a face and ask a clarifying question. “You stole a jellyfish?”
“He was alone, and I wanted to give him a home,” he says. “I called him Jelly Belly. Eventually someone found out, and I had to return him. Sometimes bending the rules isn’t so bad. Giving him back was a sad day, but Jelly Belly kept me company through some hard times. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”
My eyebrows pinch together as I process this. Rooney is feeling a different kind of inspiration. The last thing I want to do is take that away. Maybe this is where I can even be the ultimate team player. Show my support for her not just through tests but through action. If this is what Rooney wants, this is what I want. It hits me that I would scale a mountain for this woman. I would even risk getting in trouble with the law for her. Why would that be? Unless…
Unless it’s because I love Rooney. I am not allowed to love Rooney. A light sweat breaks out all over my body. I press my clammy hands together. I overthink everything. But I don’t have to overthink this. I love Rooney.
“I’m in,” I say, the words leaving my mouth before I have chance to stop them.
Now the group looks surprised. They also look impressed.
Rooney looks at me with exploring eyes. “You want to help me wrap the Hollywood Sign?”
“You could use the extra hands, right?” I say.
Rooney’s face softens.
Next to her, Gong Gong smiles. Something behind his eyes tells me that he’s happy to see this side of me. This is a side of me I didn’t even know existed.
“If Jack’s going to help, I also want to,” Maria says. “I want to be part of Red String Girl history.”
“Isn’t it illegal, though? Can’t you go to jail?” Toby asks, looking slightly pale.
“It’s trespassing. You’ll be in more trouble if you damage the sign,” Gong Gong says.
He says this like it’s nothing. Why is he saying this like it’s nothing?
“So whatever you do, don’t damage the sign,” Mac echoes.
“I’m in, too,” Brian says. “I never thought you’d do this, Jack. So cool. My uncle went to Caltech in the late eighties when a group of students pulled a prank and changed the Hollywood Sign to read ‘CALTECH.’ He still wishes he were a part of it. The police were there and everything, but they still completed it. Apparently, the police sergeant even said that they did a good job. Can you believe that?”
“That was the eighties,” Toby says. “I can’t imagine we’d get a pat on the back for doing something like that now.”
“If you get caught, Rooney, you’re going to be exposed,” Nell says with concern. “That’s the opposite of hiding.”
Rooney shakes her head. “I don’t want to hide anymore.” As shesays this, she slams her spoon against the chocolate shell. It cracks open, the ice cream underneath revealed.
Rooney is willing to shed her hidden identity for this art piece. There has to be more behind it than just not wanting people to see her being born. She was known for it once, and she shares her mom’s last name so it’s not like people don’t know she’s Wren’s daughter. What else is in that video?
She looks around at all of us, locking eyes with me. “I am so appreciative of the support, but no one should feel like they have to do this with me. NASA will get me to the edge of space, but I need something else to catapult me into the exosphere. It’s time that I take a risk.”
Chapter 25
ROONEY
We’re way past The Dumpling Hours,” Jack says as he wraps red fabric cut into two-foot-wide strips around the base of the first “L” of the Hollywood Sign.
