You Go First

Ben Boxer, who is 11 and lives in Louisiana, is an avid online Scrabble player. He’s currently in second place on the game’s leaderboard but is determined to beat Lottie Lock (Charlotte) and reach first place. Ben and Lottie play each other often and also text each other and have a friendly rivalry. Ben’s username is Ben Boot, after a Ravenclaw character from Harry Potter named Terry Boot. Ben identifies as a Ravenclaw.

Ben beats Lottie and moves up to first place on the leaderboard. He’s extremely proud, so he immediately goes downstairs to tell his parents. However, they say they have something to tell him. Ben assumes they’re finally moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his parents both attended college and where they sometimes talk about moving to. Ben’s never been to Michigan but he imagines it’s better than Louisiana, so he’s excited. Instead, Ben’s parents announce they’re getting divorced.

A divorce makes no sense to Ben because his parents have a lot in common and he’s never seen them fight. Ben’s dad says relationships “evolve,” but Ben doesn’t think divorce is like evolution at all. Ben wonders how long ago his parents decided to get divorced. His dad will be moving into his own apartment soon and Ben will stay with his mom, but they say Ben can call his dad or go to his place anytime. Ben’s parents invite him to ask questions or say whatever he needs to, but he stumbles over his words and simply tells them that he’s in first place in online Scrabble.

Still in the hospital, Charlotte imagines dissecting a starfish, but it quickly disappears and is replaced by her father because surgery is too similar to dissection. Charlotte recalls going to the art museum in Philadelphia with her dad, who hyped up the Gaugin paintings, but when Charlotte looked at them, she didn’t understand why they were a big deal. Charlotte used to think her best friend, Bridget, would be a better daughter for her dad because she loves art. Charlotte doesn’t want to see her dad in the hospital room, so she waits outside while her mom goes in to see him.

Ben thinks his parents are devolving rather than evolving. They used to be simple individuals and evolved into a complex unit when they got married. Now, by getting divorced, they’re regressing into simple individuals, and they’re “[n]o longer a family” (23). Ben locks his bedroom door, even though he doesn’t usually do that. He thinks he should call somebody because that’s what people do when they have important news. He scrolls through his contacts and realizes he has nobody to call. He used to be friendly with some boys named Kyle and Adam, but they never hung out outside of school and don’t really talk anymore. One time, Ben saw a girl named Sherry Bertrand cheating off Kyle’s test and told the teacher. Shelley failed the test, cried, and got picked up early from school. Other kids called Ben a “tattletale,” but Ben thinks it was unfair for Shelley to steal the answers when Kyle studied hard to learn them.

Ben thinks it’s “pathetic” that he has nobody to call and wonders who he’ll call in the future if he wins the lottery or has an important announcement. His grandparents live in another state, and he only sees them at Christmas. He doesn’t know what Christmas will be like now that his parents are getting divorced. Ben thinks maybe he’s devolving, too; instead of having two parents and two semi-friends, now he has “no parents” or friends.

He texts Lottie and suggests talking on the phone, even though they never have before. She agrees, so he calls her. He wants to tell her about his parents’ divorce and lack of friends, but he feels like it’s too much for their first phone call, so he says he’s running for student council, something decides to do in the moment. He asks if she has any news, and she says she gets to dissect a starfish soon.

Charlotte wishes she had a nickname, but she doesn’t have any friends besides Bridget, and everyone calls her Charlotte. She chose “Lottie” as her online Scrabble name because it’s one of the nicknames she’d like to have in real life.

Charlotte’s mom brings her home and returns to the hospital, so Bridget comes over. They sit on a stone wall that separates Charlotte’s yard from the neighboring Riveras’ yard. Bridget picks a pear from the tree even though Charlotte’s mom hates it when they pick pears before they’re ready. She complains that Charlotte’s parents are “old-fashioned” because they are as old as Bridget’s grandparents. Charlotte lies to Bridget and says she couldn’t see her dad because the minimum age to visit the ICU is 13. She says she’ll visit her dad when he gets moved to a regular hospital room.

Bridget is envious that Charlotte got to go on a field trip to see Van Gogh paintings at the art museum with the Talented and Gifted program. Charlotte suggests they play Scrabble, but Bridget doesn’t want to because Charlotte will definitely win. She wants to use Charlotte’s dad’s binoculars to spy on Charlotte’s neighbor, Mateo Rivera, a high-school boy whom both girls have crushes on. His younger sister, Magda, is in the Talented and Gifted program with Charlotte and is bullied a lot with the nickname “Mad Magda.” Charlotte lies and says she doesn’t know where her dad’s binoculars are.

Magda comes outside and asks about Charlotte’s dad. She quotes a Wallace Stevens poem about pears, which Charlotte recognizes because she copied the poem into a birthday card for her mom once to go with a pear painting that her dad gave her. Magda tells them that she can photograph a leaf and an app will tell her what sort of plant it’s from. She goes back inside, and Charlotte reflects that some nicknames, such as “Mad Magda,” are undesirable.

Ben wonders if his parents ever argued about him and whether that’s why they’re getting divorced. He stays in his room for a long time because the room makes sense to him; it is “in stasis,” and nobody is getting divorced in there. Ben’s mom asks if he wants to talk, but he says no. He feels like his world is falling apart and that the student council race is the distraction he needs.

Charlotte recalls how she used to play Scrabble with her dad. He taught her the game at age seven, and they started playing it so often that it stayed on the dinner table rather than going back into the closet. Last year, Scrabble disappeared off the table one day and went back into the closet. Charlotte and her dad had stopped playing as often because she got too busy. Now, she regrets rejecting his offers to play.

Charlotte’s parents met in their forties when they were touring an old mansion in Rhode Island. They both attended Ivy League colleges and got along well.