I read once that if you took all the atoms of everyone in the world, just the atoms without all the space between, you could fit them all into a single sugar cube: the whole world compressed into less than a square inch. I believe that, I suppose—it’s hard to argue with the laws and the limits of the natural world. But that night it felt like all the history we’d shared, this life we’d built together, and what we were building now, whatever this was and whatever it would be—all that was too large and important and real to be contained by the lawn or the parking lot or the outskirts of the park or even the city boundaries; that night, the two of us together felt so infinite.
BEFORE SCHOOL Friday morning, my father messaged me out of the blue to ask when I’d find out about Berkeley. It was the first time I’d heard from him since Christmas Eve. Usually, I would’ve messaged him before that, but the shame of knowing he’d been paying child support all this time had stopped me. I wanted to tell him it hadn’t been my idea and I hadn’t known, but maybe that didn’t make a difference, and also I was too afraid to bring it up.
But I could imagine telling him I was going to Berkeley—that would be (I hoped, at least) enough to supersede whatever else had happened. He would be thrilled. Maybe sometimes on weekends he’d come up and we’d meet for lunch, or we’d walk around the campus and compare notes, or maybe go to the football games together. I’d already looked up the dates of Berkeley’s Homecoming. Maybe I’d bring up the child support sometime then to apologize, or maybe by that point it wouldn’t matter as much.
That weekend, Grace was going to be gone both days to watch her brother perform at a taiko festival in Stockton, Sunny had family in town, and it was Brandon’s dad’s birthday. I didn’t want to seem greedy after the evening in the park—and really, I could probably live for years off the happiness of that—but I took a chance as we were walking to second period and asked Jason if he wanted to do something over the weekend.
“Like what?” he said.
“I don’t know, like anything. I’m free all weekend. We could go for a walk or something. Or—what if we went to Berkeley?” As soon as I said it, the day began to take shape in my mind. “We could go spend the day there and visit the campus.”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know, just explore? We could get something to eat and just try to get a sense of what it’s like for next year.”
Berkeley was a lovely campus—romantic, even, beautiful old stone buildings flanked with trees, pockets of forest you could get lost in. It was what I’d always pictured a college should look like. It was right in the heart of the city, and you could spend hours wandering in and out of shops and coffeehouses and cafes, up and down side streets with clusters of cottage-like homes blooming with gardens, and there was an energy there that made the world feel safe and contained, like it had all been brought to you on a grid there on campus. I remembered walking through it with my father, how it felt like a new possibility unfolded with each walkway.
“Sure, if you want,” he said. “I’m not doing anything else. I’ll come get you tomorrow morning?”
Brandon called that night. I’d just showered and was getting into bed, and when I picked up, he said, “What are you doing tomorrow? You want to go get breakfast?”
“Oh—tomorrow? I thought you had your dad’s birthday.”
“Just for dinner,” he said. “Why, are you doing something?”
“I was going to go to Berkeley with Jason. We were going to be there all day.” I hesitated just a second. “Did you want to come?”
“Is this like a date?”
“It’s—” I didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m not sure.”
He laughed. “Well, I’ll pass, thanks. I don’t need to be a third wheel.”
“No, I didn’t mean—it’s probably not a date. You definitely wouldn’t be a third wheel anyway.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll go bug Sunny and her cousins, maybe.”
I felt a twinge as I hung up. It felt bizarre that Brandon wouldn’t consider himself invited by default. This wasn’t how it would always be, would it? I wished I could do both—be alone with Jason, and also be with the five of us together—at once.
* * *
I was still having trouble sleeping at night, which seemed disloyal somehow, like it ignored the current reality and left me stuck in the past Jason wanted to move beyond, and also ungrateful after he’d gone to all the trouble to surprise me with the picnic. But that night I lay awake imagining the next day. I pictured us sprawled next to each other on the grass, our hands laced together. I imagined kissing him between buildings or walking through the wooded paths. And also I imagined him falling in love with the campus in some new way—I wanted him to have something shining in his future that he could look toward, something that would lift and sustain him if he started to feel the world pressing in on him again.
In the morning, even though it was the weekend, I got up at six to make muffins. When my mother came downstairs, she looked startled, and then, watching me, she smiled.
“You look happy this morning, Beth,” she said. “And the muffins look beautiful.”
I was drying the dishes I’d used, and she was right: I was happy. “Do you want one? They’re probably ready.”
“What are they for?”
I’d told her I was going to work on a group project with Jason, which was easier than explaining Berkeley. “They’re for the project.”
“What a nice idea. I think it’s wonderful for you to have fun hobbies. It’s so good for stress.” She picked one from the baking rack, blowing on it gently to cool it. “Will you be gone all day? I’ll probably be home from Gong Gong and Po Po’s a little after lunch.”
“You’re going to see them?” I didn’t know why it bothered me. What had I expected—that she’d cut them off? Maybe it seemed unjust that of any relationships she could’ve salvaged, this was the one she’d chosen.
“For the morning,” she said, and started to say something else, I think, but didn’t. “Delicious muffins, Beth.”
Jason was supposed to come pick me up at nine. By nine ten, he still wasn’t there, and because it was unlike him to be late, I’d started to worry. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all—something had happened with his parents, or he wasn’t feeling well, or he’d changed his mind about Berkeley or about wanting a future in general or about me. I held my phone tightly, debating whether it was too early to message him to ask where he was. Maybe he’d just hit traffic, or forgotten his wallet and had to turn around. Or maybe I’d imagined the whole thing; maybe this was all some kind of elaborate joke.
At nine fourteen, he pulled into our driveway. I took a deep breath to try to loosen the tightness in my chest. It was fine, I told myself; everything was fine.
Jason came to knock on the door, and I checked my reflection in the hall mirror. Maybe I should’ve worn more makeup or done something else with my hair.
As soon as I opened the door, the evening at the park felt like a distant memory. When he said hi it was flat, and there was a feeling like a wall around him. He opened the passenger door for me, and I tried to tuck myself in quickly. When he got in, he didn’t say anything, and his silence ballooned in the car between us.
“I made some muffins,” I said brightly, holding up the bag. “Do you still like blueberry?”
“Sounds great,” he said, but he didn’t reach for one. I kept the bag aloft, awkwardly.
“Did you want one, or—?”
“Ah—maybe in a little bit.”
“Sure.” I put the bag on my lap. “Jason, are you—are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He backed out of the driveway. “You?”
“Of course.” I sat straight and still, trying to smooth my expression. When we got to the freeway, I said, “Did you want to listen to something?”
“Ah—sure.”
“Any preference?”
“I don’t care.”
I fiddled with his rad
io. My heart was thudding. What had happened? Had I done something wrong? After we’d kissed in the park, was I supposed to act differently the rest of the week, or had I done something wrong and not realized it then? Or maybe I shouldn’t have told him about the child support; maybe it made me seem pathetic and burdensome, and anyway surely what he wanted from me wasn’t a litany of my own relatively minor problems. Then I worried that maybe he was spiraling again; maybe these were warning signs. Maybe he’d given me a chance to find a way to him and maybe I hadn’t done that, and he still felt like he couldn’t tell me anything, and maybe he was descending again. My breathing seemed too loud in the car, and I tried to quiet it, to pull oxygen all the way into my lungs.
I’d wondered which way he would take us. None of the routes that made the most sense would involve the Golden Gate Bridge, but I wondered if bridges in general did anything to him now. They did to me—the thought of being on one made me feel sick. But he got onto 237, which meant we’d go around under the Bay, instead.
We hit traffic on 880 going there, and by the time we got onto 880 we’d been driving nearly twenty minutes in silence. I couldn’t think of the right thing to say. It had been a long time since I’d been to the East Bay, and I hadn’t realized how stressful the freeway would be—narrow lanes, cars flying past what felt like inches from you. I tightened my grip on the armrest. I tried to think of something interesting to talk about, something that would engage him—or should I press for more details? Should I say it was clear he was unhappy and demand the reasons why?—but anything I rehearsed in my mind sounded trivial and forced. Passing through Oakland, he finally said, “I’ll take a muffin now.” I handed him one.
“I got batter all over the kitchen this morning,” I said, trying to sound light, and he said, “Ah.”
“Do you want another one? There’s plenty.”
“I’m good.”
“Do you want some water or anything?”
“I’m fine.”
It was close to eleven by the time we arrived. I was worried it would be difficult to find parking, but the lot we pulled into was mostly empty. Jason spent a long time examining the signs.
“I think it’s okay,” I said gently. “It’s a Saturday.”
“You don’t think the permit matters?”
“I think it’s only on weekdays.”
He locked the car, but I could tell he didn’t quite believe me. But that was good, right? If he was worried about getting a ticket later, it meant he was planning to be around for it. I said, impulsively, “I’ll pay the fine if you get one.”
He waved it off. He glanced around the parking lot. It was nestled in a cluster of buildings I didn’t recognize, probably lecture halls. “So what’d you want to do here?”
“Just walk around, I guess.”
“Like, all day?”
“I just thought it would be nice to see it.” I had imagined us strolling through campus hand in hand, making a shared map for what our future together would look like. We could go by the music library, maybe, or the music hall, or depending on how far we were willing to walk there was the Greek Theatre and the botanical garden where my parents had had their wedding reception. But maybe I should’ve booked a tour, or consulted a map and made a plan. “Is there anything you wanted to see?”
“Not really.”
I swallowed. I tried to keep my expression pleasant. “We could go see the Campanile.”
“All right.” He stood there and didn’t make a move in any direction.
“Or maybe we could get something to eat first.”
“Your call.”
“Um—” I should’ve planned this better. “Maybe we can walk and see the Campanile on the way and then see if there’s coffee, or maybe if you wanted brunch or something—”
“All right.”
The campus wasn’t familiar to me in its particulars—I didn’t know where I was going. I’d thought it would be easy enough to find the Campanile, but I couldn’t see it from where we were. I started walking, hoping fervently it would be the right way.
“It’ll be so different next year,” I said. “I think it’ll be good, though, don’t you? I can see us being really happy here.”
“You said your parents went here?”
I nodded. “Maybe it was different back then, though.”
“Sometimes I wonder if it’ll be like a mini Congress Springs,” he said. “How many people from school went here last year—like, thirty?”
Was that supposed to be a good or bad thing? “Well, they’d get diluted. You probably wouldn’t notice as much since there are thousands of other people here.”
“Maybe.”
“Is that—I mean, you still want to go here, right? It’s what you want?”
“Probably it’s the same as any other place.” He wasn’t really looking around as he walked, not taking everything in. “I guess I don’t really care where I end up that much.”
“Um—” I heard my voice rise in pitch. “You’re not—you don’t mean you really don’t care, right? Like you’re still—”
I could tell from his expression he understood what I was asking.
“Beth, you don’t need to panic about every small thing,” he said, a little irritably.
“I’m not panicking, I’m just—”
“I just mean I’ll get used to wherever I end up. People always do.” Then he added, “You know what I hate? Everyone is so nervous around me all the time.”
I didn’t know how to defend myself against that. I felt my face going hot. “Everyone cares about you, Jason, that’s why.”
“Right, I get that, it’s just—”
“It’s just what?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
He sighed. “Forget it.”
“You can tell me if—”
“I just want everyone to go back to normal.”
I had to stop my voice from shaking. Did he not see how hard everyone was trying to give him that? And things had been normal, hadn’t they? Sometimes, like at the park, they’d even been better than normal. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“Okay, great. Let’s do that, then. Just—back to normal.”
We walked in a brittle silence. Would it be different at Juilliard instead? I pictured us shielded by all the skyscrapers instead of Berkeley’s loose, open sky, a crush of people and motion and color and noise. Maybe it would be better; maybe it would shift whatever being here with me was doing to him. When finally I stopped to ask someone for directions to the Campanile esplanade and we found it, the stately clock tower rising above us, Jason barely glanced at it.
“My dad used to always take me to see this,” I said.
He forced a smile. “Ah.”
“When I was little, I thought it would be terrifying to go inside it because it was so tall.”
“Heh.”
“Um—do you want coffee or lunch or something? We could do a late brunch.”
“Whatever you want.”
It wasn’t fair to feel frustrated or resentful or angry. I took a deep breath. “Let’s eat something, then. I’ll look on Yelp.”
My palms were sweating when I took my phone from my bag. I wished I knew what to do or say to break the mood, but any possible words were forming a frantic jumble inside my mind. It was because I wanted so badly to reach for the right ones, for there to be some magic combination that would smooth things over, and it made me flail around, made everything slippery. It was like the recurring nightmare where I was onstage and had no sheet music and didn’t know the piece the orchestra around me was playing.
Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested coming. How much time, really, did he need to spend alone with me? It would’ve been better with the rest of our friends here.
“This cafe is supposed to have really good pastries,” I said, holding out my phone to show him. “And they have brunch things too.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll call my sister and see if she wants to
eat with us.” He glanced at me. “That all right?”
His sister. Why hadn’t this occurred to me? Of course if he was here, where Evelyn was living, it would make sense for him to try to see her.
“Great!” I said, as brightly as I could manage, although as soon as he’d said it my stomach had plummeted. “Does she know you’re coming?”
He shook his head as he held his phone to his ear. It was so last-minute, I told myself, and maybe she’d be busy. Maybe she wouldn’t pick up the call.
After the hospital, I wondered if she felt differently about me now—after all, I’d tried to warn her about Jason—but it was possible that the opposite was true, that she blamed me for not doing more. I still didn’t know whether she’d said anything to Jason about the time I’d called her. If she had, I thought Jason would’ve somehow let me know he knew, but it also seemed unlikely she wouldn’t tell him; her loyalty in the situation, obviously, wasn’t to me.
“Hey, Jie Jie. I’m in Berkeley. What are you doing?” There was a pause. “No, I’m with Beth. No, we just came for the day. You want to go eat something?” Another pause. “I don’t know, now? I’ll text you the place Beth picked.”
He slid his phone back into his pocket. “She said she’ll meet us.”
“Great,” I lied. “We can go somewhere else if she wants, too. It doesn’t have to be that place.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
The cafe was six or seven blocks away, which stretched long in the glare of the sunlight and in the silence, and when we got there the door was locked and the chairs stacked on the tables. All the lights were off.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt sick. “I didn’t realize it wasn’t open on Saturdays. I thought—”
Jason said, a little impatiently, “It’s fine, Beth. We’ll just go somewhere else.”
“I’ll try to find—”
“That place right next door is open. I’ll text Evelyn. Let’s just eat there.”
It was some kind of ostensibly Indian fusion buffet, decorated with the brightly colored tapestries half the stores here seemed to be selling when we’d walked by. We stood silently in the entrance while we waited for Evelyn, and as we stood there I wondered if I should offer to leave. Maybe she’d rather just see Jason alone.
When We Were Infinite Page 19