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“Juniper? Juniper! H-E-L-L-O, earth to valedictorian!” Robin shouts through the ambient noise of the café, emphatically waving a hand in front of her best friend’s face. “C’mon, you said you’d have your speech done by the end of the week, and it’s already Friday!”
Distantly, Juniper can hear it, register the words, and understand their meaning; she’s behind, it’s unusual, and Robin, with her chipper (if not a bit overbearing) energy is doing her best to motivate her normally highly motivated best friend.
But it doesn’t help.
She stares at the paper that has words she still hasn’t revised since October. It almost feels wrong to do so, considering the last time she looked over it, Professor Courte was marking it up with red pen chuckling, “Keep it simple, Woods.”
“Let it go, Robin,” Hugh chides, scrolling through news articles on his phone. “She’s clearly not feeling it. You can’t force greatness,” he adds, preening himself a bit, as if to imply he’s not talking about Juniper anymore.
“I really don’t know,” she says, looking down at double-spaced Times New Roman annotated in red writing that will never be scrawled again. “Professor Courte said that it had a lot of potential but that it was… impersonal.”
“Well, you might want to make it personal quickly,” Hugh says, gently this time. “You’ve got two weeks before graduation. I know it can’t be easy, writing it after all this time, but… this is your legacy, you know.”
“I know!” Juniper groans, threading her fingers through her thick, curly hair— as if she can pull the hesitation out of her brain if she just pulls hard enough. “I…” her face falls, “I just… it feels like if I change it, I’m leaving her behind. And it feels like a disservice to everything she did for us. Not just for me, but for the school.”
He takes a sip of his hot latte— who drinks a hot latte in April? — and shrugs. “It’s not a disservice. Look. Professor Courte was the type of woman who valued hard work above all else,” he says, eyes flitting down and voice low. “I really think it would be more of a disservice to not make that speech the best it can be just because you’re hung up on the loss.”
“He’s right,” Robin chimes in. “Here, lemme take a peek at that.” Juniper slides the papers over to her, pouting. “Woah. That is a L-O-T of red pen.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should just rewrite it?”
“I—”
“Come on!” Robin shouts, and this time, she’s actively shushed by the old woman at the next table over, who mumbles something about “whippersnappers and their lack of consideration for the elderly.” After sheepishly rubbing her neck and yelping out an apology, Robin whispers, “It could be a big symbolic moment! High art!”
Juniper considers it for quite some time— on one hand, she could just edit the current speech that Constance Courte shot the breeze with her about not eight months ago with jokes about how for someone that hadn’t secured her valedictorian spot yet, she was awfully confident. On the other, though, she could risk a tight deadline in an attempt to draft something that might make Professor Courte proud.
Was there really any decision to make to begin with?
“You’re right,” Juniper says, the red pen and black ink making their way to the back of her mind. “I think I know how I’m gonna write this.” She looks up and her two best friends, who look at her with some odd dovetail of confusion and concern. “Thank you.”
The day comes quicker than she ever imagined it would.
“You really do look beautiful,” her grandmother says when she walks downstairs decorated with a dozen stoles and cords. “You’re your mother’s spitting image. Still got your dad’s wild hair though,” she adds, smoothing hands over the curls in question, to Juniper’s delighted giggles.
“Grandma, I think you’re really making way too big a deal about this.”
“Bull, Junie. It’s not every day your only granddaughter graduates from one of the most prestigious legal academies in the country. And as valedictorian!” She cups her granddaughter’s cheeks— a bit of a stretch for her short arms. “I am so proud of you.”
Robin and Hugh are right on time to pick her up in the latter’s minivan, Robin holding a grad cap adorned with painted sunflowers in her hand. “I hope you like it! You said I could take artistic liberties, so… here you go!” she squeals.
“Oh Robin, it’s perfect,” Juniper says. “You really got those lines cleaned up.”
“Check the O-T-H-E-R side!” Robin chirps with a wink and pointed finger. Sure enough, on the underside of the cap, on the point that sticks out, there’s a small red handshake insignia painted where only the wearer could possibly see it. Robin holds out her own cap, which has an identical design.
“You are the best friend ever,” Juniper giggles. After helping her grandmother into the back seat along with Robin’s parents, Hugh pulls out of the cottage driveway with little effort and gets back on the highway.
“So, how’d that speech turn out?” he asks, and in that moment, Juniper can’t help but realize that Hugh really is just her older brother in a pretentious man’s clothing.
“Really good,” she replies. “You’ll see.”
Even after two years as Student Council President, Juniper’s not afraid to admit to herself that crowds still terrify her.
She looks out at the sheer sea of guests in the bleachers of the stadium and graduates sat across the field in gowns identical to hers, and for a moment, time slows down as she freezes at the podium, the introductory applause gradually fading out until only a few claps remain in the stands.
Her eyes follow the sound to see a mass of black and white seated immediately to the right of a girl with hair as red as her suit is yellow. A few people over, her grandmother is recognizable only for the fact that she’s the only person in the crowd holding a floral umbrella over her head to shield herself from the heat of the sun in the cloudless sky— or rather, Hugh is holding it over both of them.
Robin sits in the crowd, giving a thumbs up and a wide smile, as if to say, “You can do this!” Next to her, Myriam sits in her box, but sticks an arm out to give a thumbs up of her own.
Finally, her eyes track to back to her left, where an empty chair sits surrounded by flowers.
She takes a deep breath, and each second stops feeling like an infinity.
It’s time to move on.
“Friends, family, faculty, distinguished alumni and guests, I’d like to thank you for joining us as we celebrate the Themis Legal Academy graduating class of 2028. This year has been one to remember, for better or for worse.
“Originally, as I was writing my valedictorian speech, my primary goal was to leave you all with words of wisdom that we can all carry throughout not just our careers, but the rest of our lives. I had anecdotes and metaphors and all sorts of devices prepared to get my message across, and I was sure at least one of them would serve my purpose without putting you all to sleep,” she explains with a self-deprecating smile.
A few laughs.
“But, after I completed my first draft, I brought it to my mentor, who, in the kindest way possible, told me it was horribly boring,” she says, holding up the speech marked in red pen, and as if on cue, the scattered laughs become a roar. It dwindles after a few moments, and she puts it away.
“Needless to say, a few dear friends of mine agreed with her assessment of my speech as ‘impersonal.’ That night, I went home, and thought to myself— what makes a speech personal? I’d already prepared stories about my time at Themis Legal Academy to convey a certain mood of liminality, but when I happened upon the answer to my question, I realized I was going about this all wrong.
“A personal speech is one that dives deep into human nature itself, and that, I think, is crucial advice for any endeavor. We’re often told that the best verdicts, the best cases and arguments, are based in logic and evidence, but today, as I stand here before you as your valedictorian, I can’t help but think otherwise.”
A pregnant pause is interrupted only by a baby’s wail that’s quickly silenced.
“I think, in recent years, we’ve focused on objectivity so much that we’ve forgotten that law, at its core, is a discipline of the humanities. I think we’ve very much forgotten that principle in our everyday world as well. But it is only through a determination to understand and listen to other people— especially those who have suffered the failures of the systems that govern our society— that we can create meaningful change.
“Constance Courte, my mentor with the red pen, was a woman who understood this concept intimately. She viewed her students not as future prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges who would fight for their verdicts, but as students of law who had the power and ability to change the world through compassion, guided by a never-straying moral compass. She understood that not everything is black and white but balanced her leniency with a desire for fairness and honesty.
“Despite the positive impact and lasting legacy that Professor Courte left not only on this institution, but through her work in the courtroom,” she swallows, “her life was cut short by a man who sought to propagate the idea that our legal system is a competition rather than a collaboration.”
The silence becomes tense, a few people nervously fiddling with their tassels and families in the stands squirming.
“It’s not comfortable to address things like corruption or our own mortality,” she assures firmly. “It’s not comfortable to admit that our world as it stands needs to be reimagined on a foundation of humanity above all else. But it is necessary. Whether it’s in a speech, or in law, or in life, it is only through discomfort and a willingness to learn from mistakes that we can hope to find the truths that we’ve sought for centuries. We’ve been stuck for years in the darkness, but it is now time for us to bring change and light to the world around us.
“We’ve all been lucky enough to have not only the support of our classmates, but our friends, family, and faculty. I was lucky enough to study under Professor Courte’s mentorship to prepare myself not only for a career in the courtroom, but to help our class chase our vision of a better society. I’d like to dedicate a moment of silence not just to her, but to everyone who’s fallen victim to the unbalanced weights placed upon the scales of justice while fighting for a brighter future.”
Once again, time slows down. She counts each second in her head, but the duration of each moment seems to stretch longer and longer as she feels the curtain of sorrow blanket itself across the field.
Someone sneezes at 51 seconds, but she holds out for the remaining nine.
It’s what Professor Courte deserves.
“The truth is, without the hard work of those like Professor Courte, we would all be sitting in that complacent silence forever,” she continues, voice shaking at the start. “I say this not to make them martyrs, but to remind everyone here that someone must fill their shoes. Someone must be willing to accept the torch, to accept discomfort, and shine light where it hasn’t been seen in a long time.
“My parting words to my fellow graduates and our esteemed guests are this: it is impossible for one person to bear a torch forever. Let us all work together, build upon our strengths, and support one another with faith and compassion as we step into the world to advance the work of those who came before us and to leave a meaningful legacy behind. Thank you.”
The adrenaline leaves her, carried on only by the emphatic applause that follows as she keeps her composure all the way back to her seat.
Then and only then, as the next speaker takes the podium, does she allow silent tears to fall.
That night, for the first time since she found out about Professor Means’ bribery, she has a dream.
She’s standing in the art room, the earthy but refined smell of natural clay permeating the air, bright colors on canvases dotting her peripheral vision.
“You know, when I said make it personal, I didn’t mean about me,” an alto voice chuckles from the other side of the room.
Juniper turns her head, and can’t help but gasp— of course, some part of her brain vaguely registers what’s happening as nothing but temporary, but for a moment in time that feels like forever, Constance Courte sits with her ankles crossed on her desk, holding a small stack of papers in her hand. When she looks up to what’s likely Juniper’s gaping shock, she quickly adds, “I’m kidding! I’m kidding. You know, I wish I could’ve graded your papers for just a bit longer. You really are an excellent writer,” she says, rifling through the pages. “I think this is your best work yet.”
“P-Professor, I—”
“I know,” she says. “But you did just fine without me, didn’t you? Like you said, you’re not leaving me behind. I’m always gonna be here, guiding you. Right up here.” She taps her head.
Faintly, Juniper hears her grandmother calling from the kitchen downstairs. The kettle whistles slightly louder.
She has to go.
“I don’t want to go,” she says. “I… I’m still scared. Professor, I know everything I said is true, but…”
“Juniper,” Professor Courte says, standing from her seat and walking over to place a hand on Juniper’s shoulder. “You are one of the most tenacious students I’ve ever had. If anyone has the courage to persevere, it’s you.”
“Junie! Junie, dear, the tea’s ready!”
“You have to go.”
Juniper wipes her tears. “Thank you, Professor. For everything.”
“No, thank you. You’ve taught me just as much as you’ve learned from me. I’m proud of you.” She chuckles. “Go on, make some change. Do good things.”
As Juniper tumbles out of her slumber, the last thing she mutters is, “I will.”