I didn’t know Andie super well—I’d been a sophomore at Stanwich High when she was a senior. But after her father won in November, I’d reached out, to see if she’d be willing to do an interview with the Pilgrim. She’d agreed, and the feature I’d written on her for the paper—Walker Hits Her Stride—about her relationship with her dad, her life at Yale, her boyfriend who was a fantasy novelist, had been picked up by some national outlets, which had pretty much been the highlight of my year.
Now, I gave her a quick smile and a nod as she passed, and she returned it automatically, then stopped, tilting her head to the side. “Hey,” she said, looking at me. “It’s Charlotte, right? From the paper?”
“That’s right,” I said, trying not to be too pleased that she remembered me. Politicians’ kids were probably taught to do that kind of stuff automatically.
“Well, it’s nice to see you again,” she said, then seemed to notice the three other people who were watching this exchange. “Hi, I’m Andie Walker,” she said to the collective group. She gestured to the cute, glasses-wearing guy next to her. “And this is my boyfriend, Clark McCallister.”
Both Rodney and J.J. made a weird strangled sound, like they’d simultaneously gotten something stuck in their throats. I looked at them, wondering what was going on. “You guys okay?”
“You’re . . . ,” Rodney started, his eyes wide. “You’re C. B. McCallister, right? The novelist?”
Clark smiled. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “That’s me.”
“Okay,” J.J. said, walking up to him and tugging him a few steps away, not seeming to notice—or care—that Clark was still holding Andie’s hand. “So, I have to know about the ending of Realm. There’s going to be another one, right? You’re not going to leave us hanging like that?”
“The new book comes out in a month,” he said, and I saw Andie shoot him a small, proud smile. “It’s probably a five-book cycle now, not a trilogy. And I promise all your questions will be answered.”
“But tell me,” Rodney said, joining them a few steps away from the rest of us, “because I never quite understood Ward’s backstory. Was he supposed to be evil from the beginning?”
Andie turned back to me, shaking her head. “This could go on for a while.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” Linnie said, glancing over to where their three-person group had moved even farther away, and it looked like J.J. and Rodney had Clark cornered, both of them asking him questions simultaneously, J.J. gesturing wide as he did so.
Andie waved this away. “It happens a lot. His book tour was insane.” She turned to me with the practiced ease of someone who’s gotten very good at small talk with people she didn’t really know that well. “So where are you going to school next year?”
“Here,” I said, then shook my head a second later. “I mean Stanwich, not the Pearce.”
“Oh, cool,” Andie said, nodding. “That’s where Clark went. He was there for a year before he transferred to Yale. I know he really liked it.”
I nodded, and before the silence that fell got too awkward, I gestured to my sister. “So, Linnie’s getting married tomorrow.”
“Congratulations,” Andie said, then paused. “Wait, I think that’s for the groom. Best wishes?”
“Either one,” Linnie said with a smile, but then it faded as she looked down at her watch. “There’s a ton to do, so I’m hoping we can sneak out of here soon.”
“You’re not going to stay and see the exhibit?” I was well aware of the schedule we were on, but I’d imagined all of us looking at the comics and the art that depicted our family, walking through the rooms of the exhibit together.
“I can come back another time,” Linnie said, raising an eyebrow at me, “you know, when it’s not the day before my wedding.”
“I actually don’t think we can stay either,” Andie said. She looked over at her father and I could see the governor shaking hands with both my parents—it appeared that the photo taking had finally come to an end. “I know my dad has a fundraiser to get to.” She walked a few steps away and tugged on Clark’s hand. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but we need to get going.”
Clark just looked at her. “You just want to see Duke, don’t you?”
“I haven’t seen my dog in two months!” she said. “And video chatting just isn’t the same.”
“She loves that dog more than me,” Clark said to J.J. and Rodney, shaking his head.
“Were you waiting for me to disagree with that?” Andie asked, and Clark laughed as the governor approached us.
“Hello,” he said with a wide smile that I recognized from the cover of Newsweek when he won his election. “You must be the rest of the Grants.”
We all just stood there looking at him for a moment, and it was Linnie who remembered her manners and stopped being impressed the fastest. “Thank you so much for coming, sir,” she said.
“It was my pleasure,” Governor Walker said easily. Then he dropped his voice a little lower, leaning closer to us. “I’m actually a big fan. I read it every morning, right after the political news.”
“This is true,” Andie said. She raised her eyebrows at her father. “We good to go?”
“She misses her dog,” the governor said with a smile. “And unfortunately, I’ve got a schedule to keep. It was nice to meet you all. Take care!” He gave us a politician’s smile and he, Andie, and Clark headed for the exit, the governor laughing at something his daughter said and his security team following behind them at a discreet distance.
“Hey.” I turned to see Danny at my elbow. He nodded toward the gallery where the exhibit was. “Want to get a private showing?”
I looked over at it, at the official-looking ribbon still stretched across the entrance. “Are we allowed?”
Danny just gave me a smile. “Follow me.” He started across the marble lobby toward the exhibit. “Now,” he said, lowering his voice as we passed a guard in a museum blazer who seemed more interested in his phone than in paying attention to what was happening to the priceless art around him. “What did I always tell you about sneaking into places?”
“Frown and walk fast,” I said automatically.
“Exactly.” We picked up our pace, and with a great deal of authority, Danny walked right up to the rope and lifted it for me to duck under, then followed behind.
I took a few steps into the gallery, letting my eyes adjust—it was a little darker in here than in the sun-filled lobby, lights positioned at intervals and shining on the artwork. Danny had walked ahead to where the exhibit started, and I hurried to catch up with him.
“Look,” he said quietly to me, and I turned to face the wall in front of me, feeling my breath catch in my throat. Covering the whole wall, much more than life-size, was a picture of the Grants. It was the most famous picture of the fictional family, the one that still ran as the strip’s header, from when my oldest siblings were teenagers and I was six. It was a family portrait gone wrong—my character tipping nearly upside down over Donny’s arm while Lindsay shoved A.J., and Mark secretly fed cookies to Waffles. Geoff, the character based on my dad, was the only one who didn’t seem to notice the chaos around him and was smiling broadly at the camera.
MEET THE GRANTS, read the sign on the wall, THE FAMILY YOU NEVER HAD.
“Wow,” I said, looking around. There was text on the wall—going through the history of the strip, how my mom had started it when she was still working as a librarian, drawing pictures to entertain toddlers Danny and Linnie. How it had grown in popularity over the years, finding a global readership.
I walked farther into the gallery, looking around, trying to take it all in, even though I knew it wasn’t possible on a first viewing. The whole thing was overwhelming. Because on every wall, there we all were. The exhibit looked like it was presented in chronological order, starting with my mom’s early sketches, the first comics, and then the strip throughout the years, interspersed with other exhibits showing the rise of GCS—the magazine profiles and mentions in pop culture, pictures from late-night hosts’ monologues, the T-shirts and lunch boxes and stuffed Waffles toys, the stills from the very short-lived Grant Central Station cartoon, which had only ever aired in Canada.