by Len Vlahos
Shea, who is wearing a short plaid skirt, a white ribbed sweater, and white tights, walks to our table. Is that what she was wearing in history class? How did I not notice her outfit before? It transforms her from beautiful to hot. Plus, I’m not sure, but I think she’s walking in slow motion.
“Hi, Quinn,” she says. Her voice has a little rasp that makes me shiver every time I hear it. “What’s up?”
I look at Shea, and then at Leon, Jeremy, and Luke. The silence is long and awkward enough that Shea rests a hand on our lunch table, looks me dead in the eye, and says, “You know, this is one question they can’t ask for you.”
Did she just say what I think she said? Does she want me to ask her out?
“Ha!” Leon snorts. I kind of want to kill him. Or maybe hug him. I’m not sure which.
Either way, there’s no escape now.
“Would you . . . would you . . .” I’m so afraid finishing the sentence will cause me to faint, the actual words seem to get stuck.
Instead of torturing it out of me, Shea just laughs. She removes a pen from the small backpack slung over her shoulder and writes her number on a napkin: 555-373-7373. Even her phone number is perfect.
“I’m free Wednesday after school.”
I watch her leave, my jaw hanging somewhere between my collarbone and my solar plexus. She turns her head back over her shoulder and gives me a wink. An actual wink. Then she and her friends go through the door out of the cafeteria and she’s gone.
03
The last time I saw my father alive, the moment he finally left us, I barely recognized him. He was only forty-two, but he looked twice that—like a wraith, like he was fading out. The worst was his eyes; they were vacant, already dead. Then, with my mom, my little brother, and me by his side, he just stopped breathing and was gone. No fanfare, no drama, just gone.
When my mom called me into what had been my dad’s home office exactly one year later, I figured she wanted to check on me, make sure I was handling this most horrible of anniversaries okay. But Mom was standing by the desk with her hand over her mouth, and there on the computer screen was the dad I wanted to remember. He was sitting on a stool in that very same room, his healthy, rosy-cheeked face frozen in a wry smile. Behind him was our backyard, the grass thick with the green of spring. Dad was wearing tan khakis and a blue button-down shirt, his only piece of jewelry his wedding ring.
My mother leaned forward, pressed the space bar, and what I had mistakenly thought was a photo became a video.
Hi, Quinn, it’s Daddy.
The moment my dad’s face and voice came together on the screen, I lost it. I began bawling and saying his name—“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”—over and over again.
And then I fainted.
When I woke, I was on the floor, my mother leaning over me, her eyes red and swollen.
“How long?” I asked
“Five minutes. I was just about to call 911.”
By that time we had grown used to the vasovagal syncope, but five minutes was a long episode and I knew it. “I’m okay,” I told her as she held a cup of water to my lips. She must’ve gotten it while I was unconscious.
I sat up and saw the image of my father paused on the screen. I looked at my mother.
“I’m sorry, Quinn,” she said, understanding my silent question, “I think it’s too much for you.” She leaned forward to turn the computer off, but I grabbed her wrist and screamed “NO!” as loud as I could. Mom took a step back, flummoxed, unsure what to do.
“I want to see Daddy,” I told her, and started crying.
“But what if you—”
“I won’t,” I said through gasping sobs and tears, “I don’t care!”
My mother looked at me for a long time, and then she let the message play. I remember how proud I felt—how proud I thought my dad would be of me—at making it through without losing consciousness. When it was finished, Mom and I watched it again. And again. And again. We watched that video a dozen times before we had both stopped crying. It wasn’t until Jackson, three years old at the time, woke up from his nap with cries of his own that we were brought back to the present.
I watched that recording so many times that day, I committed it to memory:
Hi, Quinn, it’s Daddy. It’s been one year to the day since I left you, and I want to tell you how sorry I am I had to leave. I really, really am, Quinn. I want nothing more than to be there with you and Mommy and Jack right now. But I can’t.
I saw him starting to choke up, but he managed to shake it off.
It was my turn to go to heaven. And when God picks you to go to heaven, you have to say yes.
Something about that didn’t sound right to me, but I kept it inside. Even as a little kid I didn’t know what to make of the whole God thing. I still don’t.
I’m lucky, my father continued, I have time to prepare. That’s why I’ve left you this message. I hope that’s okay.
I nodded. My dad knew I was the kind of kid who needed things explained to him. I had an aversion to transitions, and the clearer the warning about change, the better prepared I was.
I want to share with you something I’ve learned in my life, something to help you in your own life. Even though I can’t be there with you, I want to help you. Is that okay?
Again, I nodded.
Good, he said, as if he’d seen my unspoken answer to his question. The one thing I want you to remember for the rest of your life is this: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. He let the words hang in the air and paused, staring through the camera right into the core of my being. That means you should treat people exactly the way you want them to treat you. If you don’t want Tanner at school to push you and knock you over, then don’t push someone else and knock them over.
Tanner was a boy in my first-grade class. He was six months my junior but a head taller than every kid in our grade. On more than one occasion I found myself on the ground looking up at his stupid, smiling face.
One day, a note came home from my teacher telling my parents I had pushed another, smaller boy—Lincoln—to the ground. My father was furious. But he didn’t show his wrath with venom. He sat me down, and talked to me as if I were an adult. Or that’s how it seemed. “You know why this was wrong, don’t you, Quinn?” I wound up crying in his arms and saying “Sorry” over and over.
Or when Jackson takes one of your toys (a daily occurrence), taking one of his only makes the problem worse. Treat other people the way you want them to treat you. Do unto others. Say it with me.
And I did. On each viewing of the recording I repeated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It became a kind of incantation.
After intoning this magic phrase, my father pulled out his guitar. Of all the things I loved about my dad, I loved it most when he would play the guitar for us. It was part of the fabric of our house: Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan.
On the message he sang a song that he’d been singing to me my entire life. It was a song he wrote, I was told later, when my mom was pregnant with me.
Remember, life’s not about the money
The important things are not things
So just listen to this lesson and remember
The important thing, is to sing.
Always sing.
That’s the one thing
The promise we’ll keep
To sing this lullaby
Because you’re our little lullaby.
Watch this message when you’re feeling lonely, and talk to me as much as you want. I won’t be able to answer, but I can always hear you up in heaven. I love you, Quinn. You’re my little lullaby.
Then he pressed a button on some sort of remote and the screen went dark.
It was only four p.m. when Jack woke from his nap and started crying, interrupting Mom and me from that last viewing, but I crawled right into bed. I fell asleep muttering, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
I woke up a little whi
le later and heard my dad singing again. At first I thought I was dreaming, but when I crept to the door of the home office, I saw Mom with Jack on her lap. My dad was singing “Wheels on the Bus.” He didn’t have any advice or message for Jack. Just an “I love you” and a song he knew my baby brother liked.
I went back to bed and cried until I slept.
04
Thoughts—well, more like an all-consuming fear—over a date with Shea make it really hard to focus on homework. But grades matter to me, so I do my best to hunker down on today’s math assignment. The first problem I have to tackle is this:
–(–(–)(–)(–10x)) = –5 solve for x
The answer is pretty obvious to me: x = .5. But I don’t think we ever covered this material in class, and I can’t find this kind of equation in our course book. I text Leon to ask him about it.
LEON: Weird. The first question in my homework is:
30 – 12 ÷ 3 × 2 = x.
Anytime I compare my homework to Leon’s, we never seem to get the same questions, with my questions always being way harder. That’s weird, right?
ME: 22.
I’m not sure why I feel the need to give Leon the answer to his problem. Sometimes I worry my friends will think I’m a know-it-all.
LEON: No, I get 28.
ME: You have to do each part of the equation in order. But that’s not the point. Why aren’t you and I getting the same questions?
LEON: I don’t know. Maybe Mr. Von Neumann knows you’re the smartest kid in the class and is pushing you to be better. Or maybe he just doesn’t like you.
ME:
LEON: Hey, why don’t we forget about math homework and just kill shit instead?
ME: I’m in. We’ll play here?
In addition to Magic the Gathering, Leon, Jeremy, Luke, and I play video games. A lot of video games.
It started a couple of years ago with Fortnite. We would form a squad and battle other teams to the death, and, just like with Magic, we were dominant. When we got bored with Fortnite (and annoyed that everyone in America was suddenly flossing anywhere and everywhere they could), we moved on to World of Warcraft and Call of Duty and Gears of War. We played Madden Football and FIFA World Cup and NASCAR racing games. And we played every game in the Lego franchise—The Avengers, Batman, Jurassic World. The controllers became extensions of our bodies, as if we were some sort of cyborg army.
Luke had just read a book called Ready Player One that had something to do with video games from the 1980s, so we were on a kick of trying every classic online game emulator we could find. It started with simple, text-based games like Zork, morphed into arcade games, including Asteroids, Tempest, and Galaga, and had most recently migrated to first-person shooters. We’d just beaten all the levels of Wolfenstein 3D and had moved on to the Doom series.
The truth is, I don’t really like “killing shit.” I don’t get my friends’ sense of unfettered joy when blowing away the avatar of a video game character. In a weird way I feel bad for the on-screen humanoids we’re eviscerating, like they somehow feel it when we shoot them.
But I play along when I hang out with my friends. These guys really are the center of my universe.
Less than an hour later, Leon, Jeremy, Luke, and I are gathered around the gaming monitor in my basement, watching Luke shred Nazi-like marauders on an abandoned moon base. The graphics are really crude, but I guess I appreciate their historic value.
“Take that, demon from hell!” Luke, normally so quiet, gets amped up when he has a controller in his hand.
“So,” Leon begins. Even before the next word is out of his mouth, I know where this is going. “Where are you taking Shea on your big date?”
“It’s not a ‘big date.’ ”
“It is so a big date. Dude, she practically threw herself at you in the cafeteria. It was almost embarrassing.”
“Almost,” Luke says in answer to Jeremy, his eyes glued to the screen and his fingers slamming the controller, “but not quite.”
“Exactly,” Leon adds. “So, where are you taking her?”
Luke pauses the game. With the cheesy soundtrack silenced, the room goes completely still. All three of my friends stare at me, and all three of them grin like idiots. I hang my head.
“I have no idea.”
“Well, if you’re hoping to get some—”
“Stop.” I cut Leon off. “I don’t want to think about Shea like that.”
Leon doesn’t answer, but I can tell he feels bad. He likes to bluster about girls, and he knows it bothers me (sometimes I think that’s why he does it), but really, he’s not the Neanderthal he makes himself out to be. Plus, I think he can tell this is different.
“Take her to the movies,” Jeremy says.
“No way,” Leon answers. “You want to be in a situation where you can talk and make eye contact.” That makes sense to me.
“Dude, if you’re sitting in the dark, you can, you know, put your arm around her and stuff.”
“She’s too tall for that,” Leon tells Jeremy. It seems my friends have been thinking about this date even more than I have. “Go to the mall,” he adds.
Jeremy, Luke, and I all moan.
“What? You can walk around, people watch, eat at the food court . . .”
“Dude,” Jeremy says, “it’s the mall.” He says the word “mall” in a way that leaves no room for debate.
Truth is, I’m not sure any of my friends have ever been on a real date.
“Just take her for a cup of coffee,” Luke says. “Bring her to Enchanted Grounds.”
“To nerd central?” Leon asks, incredulous.
“They have a coffee shop with seats at the bar. It’s not like they’ll have to roll up new D&D characters,” Luke shoots back.
Truth is, this is the first idea I like. Enchanted Grounds is familiar, safe, terra firma, if you will.
“Makes sense to me,” Jeremy says.
Leon just shrugs. “Quinn?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Good, then text her.”
“What? Now?” My heart rate spikes.
“If not now, when?”
My friends stare at me again. Leon knows if I don’t text her now, if I wait until they all leave, it won’t happen. Just like when he called Shea over in the cafeteria, part of me wants to kill him, and . . . no, I just want to kill him. But I’m also kind of trapped.
“Okay, fine. What do I say?”
The four of us spend the next ten minutes wordsmithing the following text message to Shea:
ME: Hey, it’s Quinn from history class. You still around after school tomorrow? I know this cool coffee shop where we can get lattes or chai teas or whatever and just hang out. It’s called Enchanted Grounds. What do you think?
We collectively pored over each word. It was Luke who suggested we add “lattes or chai teas or whatever,” so she would realize I’m cool enough to know what a chai tea is, even though I have no idea what a chai tea is. I read the text over six or seven times and then hit send.
The return message comes back in less than one minute.
SHEA: I love that place! Let’s do it. Meet at the front door to the school after the last bell?
Holy crap. It’s on. It’s really on.
05
So here’s the thing about chai tea. It’s pretty gross.
Italian soda with vanilla syrup is my go-to drink at Enchanted Grounds, but the text my friends helped me write yesterday makes me feel like I have to order the chai. It sort of tastes and smells like feet. I take one sip and don’t touch the cup again. It’s only a matter of time before Shea asks why I’m not drinking it. Maybe this will be a cute story we can tell our kids someday. (Please tell me I did not just think that.)
With the most beautiful girl in our school sitting across from me—today she’s wearing this kind of sweater dress thing with broad orange, brown, and white stripes—you’d think I’d be focused on something other than my beverage. But I’m feeling off balanc
e.
This is the first time I’ve been back to Enchanted Grounds since fainting here on Saturday, and the memory is making my nerves buzz. For all the times I’ve passed out over the last eight years, it had never happened here. Enchanted Grounds used to be my safe place, my sanctuary. Not anymore.
“You always this quiet?” Shea asks. That smile. Oh my God, that smile.
“Sorry. I’m a bit nervous,” I admit.
“You’re nervous? I’m the one who should be nervous.”
“You? You’re kidding.”
“Everyone says you’re the smartest kid in school. I’ve been worried I won’t be able to keep up with you.”
Ego stroked, nerves calming. “I’m just good at math and memorizing stuff is all,” I say, trying to downplay my academic acumen.
“Right. And that’s pretty much what being smart is.”
“No, no. It’s about understanding the why of things. And I’m not always so good at that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hmmm. Let me see.” I pretend to think for a minute so it won’t be obvious I already have an example. I do this with my friends a lot: pretend to be less smart than I really am. I don’t want people to think I’m a jerk. “Okay, take the Emancipation Proclamation as an example.”
“Right. We learned about that a couple of weeks ago. Lincoln freed the slaves.”
“Well, sort of. See, as the allegedly smartest guy in school”—I make air quotes around ‘smartest guy’—“I can tell you the proclamation was made January 1, 1863, right in the middle of the Civil War. And I can tell you that Lincoln didn’t free all the slaves. He freed slaves only in the Confederate states not yet under control of the Union army. So if you were a slave in, say, Kentucky or Missouri, or even Delaware—border states where slavery was still legal in 1863—you were out of luck. I can tell you all of that.
“But why did Lincoln write the Emancipation Proclamation? Was it really to free the slaves? Or did he want to stick it to the Southern states and create a rebellion among the slave population? Or something else? Well, someone really smart would know those things.”