Finding Jupiter - Hardcover

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KELIS ROWE lives and writes out of her home in Austin, Texas, suburbia and spends her summers traveling with her husband and son. During her past life as a market research analyst, Kelis kept her creative juices flowing after-hours as a blogger and YouTuber, which included a two-year stint as one of twenty national Clinique Beauty Brand Insiders and a brief assignment as an Austin Honeybee for Honey Magazine. Kelis grew up in Memphis, where she had her first big love as a teenager. She did not see herself or her big love reflected in the pages of a YA novel at the time and now writes contemporary YA to give Black young people more reflections of themselves and their love to enjoy. Follow her at @KelisRowe on Twitter and Instagram.

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ONE
Ray
22 DAYS

I’m finding poetry in the pages of The Great Gatsby this summer. My copy from middle school has started to fall apart, so I’ve ripped out my favorite set of pages and have glued some of the finished pieces into my journal. Gatsby’s life was utterly unfair, and it came to an end because of circumstances that were far out of his control. I can relate. For my found poetry, I’m drawn to the parts of stories where the writing is on the wall and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Gatsby’s goose is cooked. He’ll never get what he wants most.
What do I want? Just once I’d like today to be about the day I was born, not the day my father died. 
Sitting in the tree house he built for me, I push away thoughts of him dying while I was entering the world. I unravel my turquoise earbuds, start my James Taylor Essentials playlist, and try to focus.
A calm washes over me as I study the page that I’ve taped to a larger piece of white paper. On this page, Tom Buchanan is closing in on Gatsby’s lie, quizzing him about his days at Oxford as Daisy interjects about a mint julep. Shit’s about to hit the fan.
Mr. Nobody.
I write it in pencil on the side of the page. I go back to the top of the page and scan, waiting to find words about Mr. Nobody. I list them as I go.
smiling, snapped, politely, content, desperately, nowhere, alone . . .
I read the list over and over again, until some words fall away and others seem to float above the page. With each pass, more words join in, calling out to me as the poem makes itself known. Then, finally, the found poetry has found me.
Smiling faintly,
I’ll wait desperately to please Mr. Nobody.
Me, with him,
Standing alone.
I draw cloudy circles around the words that call to me, in order as they appear on the page. An image of a girl standing alone comes to me and I begin to sketch. When I’m done, I’ll use black ink pens, oil crayons, and a Sharpie to finish it, but that will have to wait. It’s almost time for me to pick up my roommate, Bri, from the airport. In three years of boarding school, this will be her first time coming here. I’m excited to see her, but nervous, too. My neighborhood is worlds away from her fancy Maryland digs.
I’m almost finished packing my things away when I hear Momma’s voice.
I pretend not to hear her. I know she’s standing at the foot of the tree-house ladder, but I wait for her to call twice before I shuffle to the entrance and look down. I keep my headphones on, on purpose.
She smiles at the sight of me, which has the annoying effect of making me smile back. She taps her ear. I take the hint but make a show of stopping my playlist and tugging at the cords, popping one of the earbuds out of my ear.
“Happy birthday, baby.” She holds up my favorite tumbler, purple with pink stars, filled with fresh lemonade.
“Thanks, Momma. One second.” I toss my pencil pouch into my backpack and climb down the ladder. She kisses my cheek as I take the cup.
“I can’t wait to see what you’re working on. I’ve always been amazed at how you turn those words into art,” she says.
I take a sip of lemonade and avoid making eye contact with her.
“You excited about Bri coming today?”
“Yes,” I mumble as I remove the other earbud and wrap the cord around my cell phone.
“What time you planning to head to the airport?”
I shrug and check the time on my phone before shoving it into the back pocket of my jean shorts.
“You call yourself trying to give me the silent treatment or something with all these short nonanswers?” There’s a smile in her voice.
“Maybe.” I take another indignant sip of lemonade.
Momma chuckles and pinches my cheek with the backs of her fingers.
“Ray, you are something else— a ray of sunshine this morning,” she teases. “Come on.” She bumps her arm to mine. “Come help your old momma pick some lavender. You still have a little time before you have to go?”
I follow her through the opening of the garden. The air is thick with the scent of rosemary, lavender, and lemon blossoms. We make quick work of cutting lavender stems and laying them in a basket. My mom ties the cut end of three sprigs together with a small piece of silver ribbon, for my father’s headstone.
“Can I go now?” I ask, with a hint of exasperation.
“Ray, I haven’t asked you to visit your dad’s grave since you turned twelve.” I can tell she’s about to go into one of her long monologues, but I refuse to feel guilty for not mourning a person I never knew.
“This is your last summer in high school. You might not even be here next summer. I wish you’d go to the cemetery before you head back to Rhode Island. Those visits used to mean so much to you.”
“The first few years you took me there, I thought I’d get to meet him, maybe get to know him.”
I was clueless. He was a nurse. He liked Bob Marley and Caribbean food. That’s all I know about him. She’d told me he’d become a star in the sky the night I was born, and so we’d stargaze and pretend to talk to him. Then on my birthday we’d make this big picnic to go visit Daddy. When I was really little, I thought he’d come out of his grave once a year like Santa coming down from the North Pole. I felt ridiculous when I realized the truth.
“Momma, you knew him. I never will. I don’t see why I should go.”
My mom doesn’t look up from her hands, and I feel like shit. “If you hurry, maybe Bri won’t have to wait for you too long outside baggage claim,” she says.
“You sure you don’t want me to drop you off on the way?” I offer as an olive branch.
“No, baby, I’m good. It’s on the bus route to work. I’ll be fine. You go on and get Bri. Y’all have fun skating tonight.”
I want to explain to her that I don’t think she’s weird for returning to his grave every year. I get it—her life changed more than anyone’s that night. She became a widow and a mother in a single moment. I want to tell her how much it sucks that my birthday can never just be about me. I walk away and look back as she absentmindedly wraps silver ribbon around more lavender. I’ve said enough. Instead of telling her that she’s already made one of those, I head inside the house.
“Best birthday ever,” I say after I slide the patio door closed.
Briana is all gloss and polish against the dingy backdrop of the Memphis International Airport—like a colorful image cut from a fashion magazine, fixed onto newspaper, and then shellacked. It’s only been two months since we left school, but it seems longer. She notices me waving and, just like that, she’s three-dimensional again, waving excitedly and picking up her carry‑on. I don’t even make it around to open the trunk before her arms are around me.
“Hey, girl, hey!” Her mass of curly hair presses into me. Briana usually smells like something sweet or edible or both. Today it’s wildflowers. “Scent is tied to memories,” she said on move‑in day freshman year, while unloading her arsenal of perfumes onto her hutch. “I want to be unforgettable.”
Bri is taller than most girls, but still not as tall as me. Her hair is a glorious mass of tumbling coils down her back, and I’ve never seen a more radiant smile outside of a Disney animated prince. And she laughs like a charming hyena. She’s unforgettable the moment you...