The Ducks of San Sebastian

Chapter 12

Marco's first day of being a Beta had been much like his past life as a Gamma. Nobody saluted him, not even the cashier at his usual grocery store, and most certainly not his parents. What was the point, then, of being a Beta, he asked himself sarcastically—all he had to show for it was a more expansive TigerTalk profile. Perhaps they would use his story in a newsletter to say that it was as they had always said: everyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they truly wanted (minorities included!).

"You've been going out with that Jessica girl a lot lately," Marco's mother observed. "I'm not going to judge or anything, but—"

"We're just friends. It's only because Priya is always out with Kenny and Isaac is always doing stuff at Heller that we go out so much," Marco explained.

"Why don't you have more friends then? Why is it just those three?"

"They're my closest friends."

"Why doesn't Jessica have more friends? She's such a nice girl, surely she could be hanging out with other people too."

"I think she does."

"So why don't you?"

Marco could have said something smarmy like "well, my other friends aren't Alphas," but even if that were true, it missed the point. And it raised another point: he was tied with Isaac now. There were more granular aspects to what made a good person besides one's rank, but in the eyes of the law they were equal. Little things like the law never stopped the club, but it was still a funny thought, that a slacker like him was as good a person as Isaac.

Jessica picked him up at the agreed-upon time, after his mother had asked again why he couldn't at least invite her over for dinner if he was going to make her be his chauffeur.

"Congratulations again on becoming a Beta!" she said from the driver's seat. "I was going to buy you balloons, but I forgot."

"I appreciate the thought."

"I like this neighborhood," Jessica continued. "It's a bit boring. But it's cozy."

"What's prompted all these insights?"

"I don't know, I've been thinking about a lot of things lately. Because of your promotion, because you and Isaac and Priya and all my other friends are doing so much. Have you ever seen any of those teen coming-of-age TV series, where I don't know, they sit around discovering alcohol for the first time and complaining about how nobody else understands them?"

Marco nodded.

"Those are the series I like. I really resonate with them. I like books, and yeah there are good books out there, but it feels more multi-dimensional when you can see people on the screen that look like you. We need more of that in the club."

"You think we need more people living their bildungsroman arcs?"

"What's that mean?" Jessica asked.

"You know, coming-of-age. Ms. Baldwin used that term once. Or maybe it was a club lecture."

"You're so smart! I knew you were a Beta at heart."

"Thanks."

"You're lucky you aren't an Alpha. The newsletters they send out are so boring. There was this really terrible joke in this morning's."

"I bet I can guess it," Marco said. "Why does the Norwegian navy have barcodes on the back of its ships?"

"Woah, they send the Betas the same joke?"

"I told President Haneul that joke yesterday."

"I think it's kind of clever, actually: 'scan-the-navy-in.' Maybe it's the sort of joke you have to tell aloud for it to make sense."