Hello (From Here)

Chandler Baker is the author of five young adult novels, including This is Not the End. Her adult debut, Whisper Network, was a New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, and her follow-up, The Husbands, is slated for summer '21. Chandler lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and two young children. She can usually be found listening to audiobooks at two times the normal speed, overspending at bookstores, or obsessing over true crime. Wesley King is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including the Wizenard series with Kobe Bryant, the Edgar Award-winning and Bank Street Best Book of the Year OCDaniel, and the Junior Library Guild selections The Vindico and The Feros. He lives in Nova Scotia, as well as on a 1967 boat that he's sailing around the world.

chapter one

Max

Conventional wisdom suggests that, when the world finally does begin to fall apart, love will be the only thing left that really matters. Petty grievances will fall away. You won t remember who called you Maxi Pad for the entirety of sixth grade (Logan Bennett) or how much money is in your bank account or the hours spent studying for that one calculus exam you almost failed. Instead, you will spend time with loved ones. Hold them close. Be present. Let them know that you care. And so, I guess, that s more or less how I came to be price-­comparing boxes of condoms for my seventy-­seven-­year-­old customer, Mrs. Phillips, at the start of a global pandemic.

This is what it s come down to. Me, standing in the Family Planning aisle of the grocery store debating the merits of flavored versus colored versus ribbed varieties ­trust me, I am so not qualified for this ­and guarding my grocery cart like a lion over its kill. I first took an afterschool job as a personal grocery shopper eight months ago and never have I seen Vons like this. It s only been a couple hours since Governor Newsom announced a shelter-­in-­place order effective tonight, but already the checkout lines stretch past the soda aisle, and if you want hand sanitizer that badly, you might not want to get too attached to your kidneys.

The canned beans shelves ­wiped. Frozen pizzas ­wiped. Cleaning products ­wiped, wiped, wiped. It s as if there s a hurricane, a wildfire, and a blizzard all hitting at once and the entire county has decided to doomsday prep.

I run through the lists of today s clients, circling the items I still need. Listen, I m not here to judge anyone s life choices, but, Mr. Culver, are three different types of soft cheeses and organic pomegranate seeds, like, really priorities right now? I make my best guess for Mrs. Phillips, which is all I can do, given the woman still doesn t know how to text, and make my way through the maze of shoppers who are demonstrating the whole spectrum of concern levels. I weave around a woman sporting those rubber yellow gloves meant for washing dishes and a dad in shorts and flip-­flops licking his thumb and wiping food from his toddler s mouth all in one aisle. When I can t get through a traffic jam in front of the garbage bags, I take the long way through cosmetics toward the back of the store.

Miss! someone calls out from somewhere between canned goods and chips, and I m 99 percent sure that he s not talking to me because I have a messy bun and a hole in the armpit of my favorite T-­shirt andMiss is some country club shit. Uh, miss. Hello, I m talking to you. Excuse me. You can t do that. A boy taps me on the shoulder and when I turn around, I see that we are the exact same height, looking eye to light blue eye, a detail that I only notice because, first of all, I m not oblivious, and, second of all, he is all up in my business.

Excuse you, I say, but with attitude, and while trying not to notice the passersby staring me down like I m trying to shoplift an entire case of frozen pizzas. Socialdistancing. I shoo him back.

He hooks his palm around the back of his neck and stares down the Salty Snacks aisle. Oh, um, sorry, but you re not supposed to hoard . . . toilet paper.

I m not. I lean my elbow on the cart handle, mentally tap-­tap-­tapping as a frantic shelf-­stocker in a black apron and an Ask Me about Super Savings button rushes between us.

I know you re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I m sorry. I have this guy pegged. My age, floppy red-­brown hair, nice teeth, th