One last stop, p.37
One Last Stop, page 37
“Yes,” August says gently. Jane’s hand slides over the back of hers. “Of course I will.”
* * *
A week later, just in time for Christmas, Isaiah drives them to the bus station, Wes in the front seat and the rest of them crammed four-across in the back.
“You’re gonna do great,” Myla says, leaning across Niko to pinch Jane’s cheek. The silver band flashes on her third finger; she and Niko wear matching plain engagement rings now. “They’re gonna love you.”
“Of course they’re gonna love her,” Niko says knowingly. “Did you guys pack snacks?”
“Yes, Dad,” Jane and August monotone in unison.
“Bring me a souvenir,” Wes calls from the front seat.
“Salt and pepper shakers,” Isaiah adds. “We need salt and pepper shakers. Shaped like the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“We don’t need those,” Wes says. He’s been spending more and more time across the hall at Isaiah’s. When he does come home, it’s usually to wordlessly leave a dozen homemade cupcakes on the kitchen counter and vanish back into the night.
“But I want them,” Isaiah whines.
Wes pulls a face. “Okay. Salt and pepper shakers.”
They roll into the bus station ten minutes before the bus is set to depart, Jane’s hand clenched around their tickets. The other four kiss them sloppy goodbyes and wave them off, and they haul their backpacks up and head for the bus doors.
Jane hasn’t worn her ripped jeans or jacket for weeks, settling instead into black skinnies, billowy button-downs, crew neck sweatshirts. But today, her skinnies are paired with the leather jacket from ’77, laid across her shoulders like a second skin. She hasn’t mentioned it, but August thinks she’s hoping it’ll help.
“So, this guy,” Jane says, “Augie’s old boyfriend—he really has my records?”
“Yeah,” August says. She called him when Jane bought the bus tickets, and he’s agreed to meet up with what he’s been told is Jane Su’s second cousin. He’s also meeting August’s mom, who’s flying up to spend the holiday in California and get introduced to August’s girlfriend. It’s a big week. “He said they came in the day Augie left. He never got rid of them.”
“I can’t wait to see them,” Jane says, bouncing restlessly on her heels. “And meet him. And meet your mom.”
“I’m personally looking forward to this life-changing crispy chicken family recipe you keep telling me about,” August replies. Jane’s parents’ restaurant in Chinatown is still open, it turns out. Jane’s sister Barbara runs it.
Jane bites her lip, looking down at the toes of her boots. They’re new—heavy black leather. She’s still breaking them in.
“You know,” Jane says. “My family. If they … well, if it goes okay, they’re gonna call me Biyu.”
August shrugs. “I mean, it’s your name.”
“I’ve been thinking lately, actually.” Jane looks at her. “What would you think about me going by Biyu all the time?”
August smiles. “I’ll call you anything you want, Subway Girl.”
The line keeps shuffling forward until they’re the last ones outside the bus, clutching tickets in clammy palms. Maybe it’s insane to try this. Maybe there’s no way to know exactly how anything will turn out. Maybe that’s okay.
At the door, Jane turns to August. She looks nervous, a little queasy even, but her jaw is set. She lived because she wanted to. There’s nothing she can’t do.
“There’s a very big chance that this could be a disaster,” Jane says.
“Never stopped us before,” August tells her, and she pulls her up the steps.
* * *
Letter from Jane Su to August Landry.
Handwritten on a sheet of lined paper ripped from August’s sex notebook, which Jane was definitely not supposed to know about, secretly tucked into a jacket pocket the night of the Save Pancake Billy’s House of Pancakes Pancakepalooza Drag & Art Extravaganza. Discovered months later on a bus to San Francisco.
August,
August August August.
August is a time, a place, and a person.
The first time I remember tasting a nectarine, my sisters were too small to be allowed in the kitchen. It was only my dad and me in the back of the restaurant, me propped up on a prep table. He was slicing one up, and I stole a piece, and he always told me that was the moment he knew I’d be trouble. He taught me the word for it. I loved the way it felt in my mouth. It was late summer, warm but not hot, and nectarines were ripe. So, you know. August is a time.
The first time I felt at home after I left home, New Orleans was dripping summer down my back. I was leaning against the wrought iron railing of our balcony, and it was almost hot enough to burn, but it didn’t hurt. A friend I hadn’t meant to make was in the kitchen cooking meat and rice, and he left the window open. The steam kept kissing the humid air, and I thought, they’re the same, like the Bay is the same as the River. So, August is a place.
The first time I let myself fall, it wasn’t hot at all. It was cold. January. There was ice on the sidewalks—at least, that’s what I’d heard. But this girl felt like nectarines and balconies to me. She felt like everything. She felt like a long winter, then a nervous spring, then a sticky summer, and then those last days you never thought you’d get to, the ones that spread themselves out, out, out until they feel like they go on forever. So, August is a person.
I love you. Summer never ends.
Jane
new york > brooklyn > community > missed connections
* * *
Posted December 29, 2020
Looking for someone? (Brooklyn)
We all have ghosts. People who pass through our lives, there one moment and gone the next—lost friends, family histories faded through time. I’m a freelance researcher and investigator, and I can find people who’ve slipped through the cracks. Email me. Maybe I can help.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Where to begin?
Like this book, these acknowledgments have gone through multiple drafts. An earlier version was about the anxiety of the sophomore slump, but I decided that one was a bit of a downer. What do I really want to say about this book? That it was hard to write? Of course it was hard to write. It’s a romance novel that takes place on the subway. Like, come on.
The truth is, even when this book was trying to kick my ass in a Waffle House parking lot, I loved every second, because it is the weird, fun, horny project of my heart. I still can’t quite believe I got to do it.
I love this book. I love August, with her cactus spines and her dreams of a home, and Jane, my firecracker girl who refused to stay buried. I love this story because it’s about finding family and finding yourself against all odds, when the world has told you there’s no place for you. I love this story because it’s an Unbury Your Gays story. I’m so thankful for the chance to tell it. I’m so thankful you, reader, have chosen to read it.
So many more thanks are due here. First and foremost, I have to thank my tireless, thoughtful agent, Sara Megibow, for always being there to support me personally, hold my heart, and fight for my best interests. There’s no one I’d trust more to advocate for my work. A million thanks to my editor, Vicki Lame, whose response when I pitched her a lesbian time travel subway rom-com was, “This is so weird. You should do it.” To my team at St. Martin’s Griffin, including DJ DeSmyter, Meghan Harrington, and Jennie Conway, as well as my wonderful production editor, Melanie Sanders; cover designer, Kerri Resnick; illustrator, Monique Aimee; and Anna Gorovoy, who did incredible work on the interior pages; and sales and marketing and booksellers and bloggers and everyone who had a hand in sending this book out into the world.
To my best friend and most indispensable guide through plotting, Sasha Smith, thank you so much for your mom’s potatoes. Endless thanks to my early readers: Elizabeth, Lena, Leah, Season, Agnes, Shanicka, Sierra, Somaya, Isabel, Remy, Anna, Elisabeth, Rosalind, Grace, Leah, Liz (yes, three separate Elizabeths read this book, and yes, two out of three have wives), Lauren (third Elizabeth’s wife), Courtney, Vee, Kieryn, Amy, and more. To the authors who so kindly and generously read and blurbed, including Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, Sara Gailey, Cameron Esposito, Julia Whelan, and Meryl Wilsner: I look up to each of you so much, and I’m still so stoked that you liked my book. To my perfect audiobook actress, Natalie Naudus, thank you for bringing my girls to life. So many thanks to my friends in the industry for making all this so much less scary—you know who you are.
To my thoughtful and thorough sensitivity readers, Ivy Fang, Adriana M. Martínez Figueroa, Gladys Qin, and Christina Tucker, thank you for your time and your care. Hugest thanks due to the resources I used for research on this book, including but certainly not limited to Stone Butch Blues, Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation, The Stonewall Reader, the New York Public Library’s Stonewall 50 installation, Jarek Paul Ervin’s article on queer punk in 1970s New York, and the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco.
More thanks than I can express to Lee and Essie, who welcomed me into their home for dinner while I was revising this book and let me in on a real-life story of two women who fell in love in the 1970s and have endured to the present. It meant the world to me. I hope I managed to infuse even a little of what I saw in both of you into this.
To my family, thank you for building me into a person who chases something when I want it. Thank you for the vocabulary to talk about love and the capacity to feel it. To my FoCo fam and my NYC fam, thank you for afternoons in the garden and socially distant picnics in the park, for being a constant foundation of warmth and care.
To K, thank you for believing in me, for always having my back, and for all the sponge cakes. You have given me things I thought would only ever exist in fiction for me. I love you.
To the queer reader, thank you for existing. So much of this story is about building a community. I’m so happy to be in community with you. Be defiant. Love yourself hard. Take the energy in these pages and get involved in your direct physical community. Take care of one another. Know that you are wanted and loved and awaited by millions of us.
To every reader, I’m one of many, many but not enough queer voices in fiction. Each of them deserves to be heard. When you close this book, seek out a queer author you’ve never read before and buy their book. Don’t begin and end with any one work. There are so many to love, and supporting them creates a space for even more queer authors to print their words. Also, support your local Black-owned diner or your local Chinatown or your local drag bar.
Thank you so much for letting this book exist. For seeing me. For seeing this story. I’ll see you in the next one. Until then, fight like hell and be good to those you love.
ALSO BY CASEY McQUISTON
RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Casey McQuiston is a New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies and a pie enthusiast. She writes books about smart people with bad manners falling in love. Born and raised in South Louisiana, she now lives in New York City with her poodle mix/personal assistant, Pepper. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgments
Also by Casey McQuiston
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Griffin, an imprint of the St. Martin’s Publishing Group
ONE LAST STOP. Copyright © 2021 by Casey McQuiston. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
Cover illustration and title lettering by Monique Aimee
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: McQuiston, Casey, author.
Title: One last stop / Casey McQuiston.
Description: First edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020056428 | ISBN 9781250244499 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781250760333 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3613.C587545 O54 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056428
eISBN 9781250760333
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: 2021
Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop
