Page 35 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
I roll my eyes and she laughs. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this from me.” I say it as lightly as I can manage, but the words hurt on their way out. Have I really been so wrapped up in MASH that I missed something this enormous? For nearly three years,it’s been Maren and me. After my catastrophic attempt to branch out at Declan’s party, after losing Miller, narrowing my world to Maren always made the most sense. And now here I am, messing that up, too.
“Her name’s Autumn,” Maren says, and in the same minute I feel my phone vibrate. “I met her on a hike.”
Just brought Vera home, Dad’s sent.Let’s talk tonight.
20
The same day Miller and I book an interview with BuzzFeed, Vera winds up in the hospital for the first time. Her cancer is beyond treatment. She comes home from that two-day stay and moves in with us, which is how I know she’s dying for real.
I was twelve when she did chemo the first time, young enough to be scared in broad strokes that didn’t take specific shape behind my eyelids. Now, every time I try to sleep, the searing details of losing Vera are there waiting for me: her house I grew up in sold to a stranger, the conversations I’ll have about the app she helped me create, every single celebratory dinner for the rest of my life without her there.
Her illness makes Miller bearable only because now something else hurts more. I throw myself deeper into the work, and it helps me forget. We do the BuzzFeed interview over video chat, and Miller makes endearing jokes and I touch his shoulder and when they publish it they call us “Mo” and it sticks. We start aweekly web series,MASH with Mo, and answer questions from other MASH couples. We do interviews with Mashableand Ars Technica.Sawyer finally matches with a brawny tattoo artist from St. Paul and blows up my phone with selfies from their “life-affirming” first date. If she was an ambassador for MASH before, she’s its number one hype woman now.
The energy at the XLR8 offices is off the charts, and Evelyn looks more powerful by the day. Now, MASH can tell you not only your future profession, city of residence, number of children, and perfect match—but also the species and breed of your first pet, diseases you may be susceptible to as you age, and when you’ll retire. Every week, we release a new category.
No one will explain the science to me.It’s solid,the product team tells me every time we add more questions.Checked it with Dr. Wisener.It gives me a near-constant stomachache, but even I have to admit that it’s working: by the last week of October, MASH holds the number one spot on the App Store’s “Editor’s Choice” list.
EvenRocky Mountain Liveinvites us back, a do-over during their Halloween segment on couples’ costumes. We show up on-air as Adam and Eve, the very first couple, a joke Felix finds hilarious. Miller submits his application to Brown backstage in his bodysuit, fake leaves wound across his torso as we wait for our curtain call. I watch him reach for the button on his laptop, setting his shoulders and drawing a deep breath. It’s like he’s alone in the world: techs and producers and god-knows-who flit around him, jostling each other as they hurry past. But Miller’s set apartin the peace he creates for himself. I think, distantly, that I wish I could meet him there. His fingertip hits the button, and he lets out a rush of air. Smiles. When he looks up and our eyes meet, it drops from his mouth.
Our value proposition sells—to anyone looking in at us, we’retruly,madly,deeply. Because there we are: Miller’s warm body against mine onstage, his arm slung around my shoulders, his eyes on me when he laughs, like I’m the person he wants to share every joke with. After slipping that very first time, he’s perfection when we’re together. Smart and attentive and charming as hell. He pokes fun at himself and lifts me up and smiles while doing both. Everyone loves him. After every interview, web series, social post, the internet lights up with his fan club.
Can we talk about MILLERRRRR????
hey @rodev if you ever change your mind, I’ll take Miller off your hands
Only thing stopping me from downloading MASH is I know I won’t match with Miller
And then there’s me, the girl who has him, watching him detangle from me the moment we’re backstage. Cutting his eyes from mine like the rip of a Band-Aid, saying nothing as he walks away. He’s become such a good liar he even has me convinced sometimes—in suspended, sporadic moments I forget that behind the public Miller who loves me is the real Miller who hates me.
As Mo falls deeper in love on-camera, the real divide between us stays gaping and night-black and frigid. There is no air in the space we share. It’s impossible, there, to do something so simple as breathe.
Jazz texts us on a Friday in early November, as Miller and I are walking to his car after school. Maren walks beside us, ever-present film camera looped around her neck. She’s telling us about her weekend plans with Autumn, the band they’ll see live at a club in Denver. Autumn’s a freshman at CU and she’s got Maren absolutely upside down, a fully inverted, giggly version of herself. It’s wonderful and—as Miller drops my hand the second we reach his car—I hate it with a hideous, fire-breathing jealousy. Maren is happy without me. I’m miserable with Miller, and Vera’s home sleeping through her pain medication, and my dad brings up college twice a day.
When’s your winter break?Jazz says. Miller and I pull out our phones to read it at the same time.We have a lot of interest in you two in NYC. Today Show. Jimmy Fallon. MORE.
She’s still typing.We want to get you out there for a week and book a bunch at once. #MO4EVER
I look at Miller, who’s done reading and staring at me over the roof of his car. “TheTodayshow?” he says, and even though we’re our real selves right now, there’s wonder in his voice.
“Hold up.” Maren looks back and forth between us. “What?”
“They want us on theTodayshow,” I say. I reread Jazz’s text just to make sure it’s real. And then I think,We’ve got this. Celeritas is in the bag.
“You’re going to New York?” Maren squeals, swatting me in the arm.
I grin at her. “We’re going to New York.”
But then I go home, energy buzzing in me like the lit fuse of a firework, and Dad shuts it all down with a firm, effusiveno.
My first mistake, I know, is I don’t ask for permission. ItellDad we’re going to New York at the holidays. He’s making soup when I come inside, phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder as he hangs up with Uncle Harding. The door to the back room we converted for Vera is open just a crack.
“TheTodayshow wants us on,” I tell him, breathless with it. I shed my bag, my shoes, and my jacket, leaving them behind me like a trail of bread crumbs back to the exact spot I started fucking this up. “And Jimmy Fallon. And Jazz says there are even more! We’ll go over winter break, for a whole week, and do a bunch at once and there’s nowayCeleritas won’t want MASH after this; we’ll be everywhere, we’ll—”
“You’ll be everywhere,” Dad repeats, cutting me off. He looks up from the soup pot and I swallow, the animal act of it reminding me I’m in a body and I’m someone’s kid and it’s not all up to me yet.
“No, no,” Dad says when he catches my expression. “Don’t let me stop you, Ro. Will you book your own flights, or do I need to do that? And you’ll go all the way across the country alone? Without me or Vera?”
I look across the dining room toward that just-parted door. It’s dark inside, purple-tinged black. Vera mostly sleeps now. In the afternoons a nurse comes by to give her medicine and talk to Dad. Most nights, Vera doesn’t get up to join us for meals.
