Two Roads from Here

by Teddy Steinkellner

  “Just find something,” Brian said. “Do what you do best. End him.”

  He said it with surprising authority. His voice was booming. His hands were in fists.

  Then he added one more word:

  “Please.”

  And sure, he may have been standing up tall, spine all straight, chest puffed out. But behind the facade, Brian seemed exhausted. Defeated. Borderline twitchy. It really was horrific what those assholes did to him in the Greek. I mean, not that I tend to treat folks any better, but you know, whatever.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said quietly. “But even with my many talents and the numerous resources at my disposal, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to dig up any dirt.”

  Brian let out a huge breath. “Thank you,” he said. “Holy balls, thank you so much. Okay, what’ll this cost me?” He pulled out his wallet and began rummaging through.

  I placed my hand on his and pushed it down. “Don’t worry, old friend. It’s on the house.” I raised a finger in the air. “But . . . if I’m going to help you with this, there’s just one thing you need to do for me. . . .”

  Brian scratched his ear. “Huh?”

  “Something you’ve owed me for a long, long time . . .”

  “What?”

  I winked at my scene partner.

  “You have to audition for Seussical.”

  There was a momentary pause.

  The smile spread like a blaze across his entire face.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “I was going to anyway.”

  Brian pulled me in for a hug, and I stepped in and let myself get some of that puff pastry lovin’. It was one of those perfect moments—my man Lennie, back from the grave, the two fearsome freshmen, best buds again—and if I could have hit pause on my life right there, I would have, and I’d have kept that feeling frozen for as long as I could.

  But before I got too comfortable—

  “Cole! Cole!! COLE!!!”

  Neil was scampering toward us. He was hyperventilating.

  “It’s online! They’ve posted the decisions online!”

  He pointed spastically at his phone.

  “Check your e-mail! Check your e-mail! Check your e-mail!”

  * * *

  5. ALLEGRA REY

  * * *

  Stanford was awe-inspiring, almost overwhelming. The campus was enormous and impossibly diverse in its layout, a tribute to a prestigious past and an unimaginable future. There were endless red-tiled roofs, so reminiscent of the Mexico of my ancestors. Then, mere footsteps away, there would be sleek computer science buildings out of a science fiction novel, from another planet. Everywhere I looked, there were so many bright, beautiful, impressive things: palm trees all around, fountains, alcoves, bicycles, meditation spaces, frozen yogurt machines, totem poles—

  And above all, there was happiness. Every person I observed on campus, be they a Frisbee-wielding grad student, an a cappella beatboxer giving a public performance, or a photo-snapping foreigner, and every person I spoke to during the early-admit reception at the Alumni Center—each and every one of them—seemed like the happiest person I’d ever met, and then, five minutes later, I’d meet a new happiest person.

  Most of the other scholarship winners at the event had their parents with them. When they asked me where mine were, I lied and said, “Oh, they’re tired from the drive up; they’re back at the hotel.” I’m not sure how many people really listened when I said those things. I suspect most of them just wanted to talk about what makes them happy.

  I met a boy who informed me that he was the national under-eighteen Rubik’s Cube champion. He proceeded to pull three cubes out of his pockets, and as a small crowd formed, he juggled them, twisting one in particular each time he caught it. Within about thirty seconds, he’d solved that Rubik’s Cube without dropping any of the three. Everyone murmured appreciatively. The boy mentioned that he was also a competitive unicyclist.

  There was a girl who remarked offhandedly that she’d recently published her third collection of poetry, the first to feature solely haiku. She asked if I would like for her to compose a haiku about me. I said sure.

  Small, dull eyes belie

  An inquisitive nature.

  Welcome to your life.

  A part of me wanted to ask if any of her haiku were about being nice, but then I realized that that would be very small and dull of me, so I smiled and told her how much my mother loves poetry.

  The admit who left probably the strongest impression on me was a boy wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “AIDS FIGHTERS.” When I asked him about the shirt, he told me he’d taken a gap year to start his own nonprofit organization, AIDS Fighters, and that he was actually about to fly back to South Africa for a series of meetings with high-profile donors. He asked me if I wanted to see his tattoos. I said sure.

  On his left triceps, there was an image from the cover of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, in which the tree is dropping an apple for the little boy to eat. On the right triceps, there was an image from the end of the book, in which the little boy has become an old man who has used up all of the tree’s resources and is now sitting on the tree’s stump, weary and alone.

  “I got these done to remind myself that there’s people who take and there’s people who give,” the boy said. “And I don’t want to take, right? I want to give back, you know? But we’re at Stanford now. I’m sure everyone here feels that way.”

  “Absolutely,” I said, nodding. “Absolutely.”

  You got this allie!! Wiley texted me while I was at the event. Remember those other kids arent going thru what your going thru, so if you need to take a break or even come home early thats totally ok. I believe in you no matter what. I hope this weekend isnt too hard but if it is that makes sense. Just know i am always here for you!!

  I studied the text for several moments. It bothered me for reasons I couldn’t discern. Granted, I suppose it did speak to what I was feeling on some level. And true, Wiley has been quite considerate, albeit repeatedly awkward, regarding the recent stresses in my personal life. What’s more, I knew I was supposed to text him back about something, something of at least mild importance.

  And yet . . .

  I didn’t feel like talking to him. Simple as that.

  Anyhow, I was standing in the middle of the reception, checking my phone, taking a brief refuge from the dazzling young scholars around me, from all the incessant happiness and limitless potential, when suddenly, I heard an extremely familiar voice.

  “Hey you! Frumpy Butt! Where you been all my life?!”

  I felt the hands come at me from behind, squeezing my arms without the slightest regard for my personal space.

  “Cole? What the— Sorry, but what are you doing here?”

  “Ooooh,” he said, ripping my phone from my grasp. “Getting a lil’ pep talk from the boy next door, eh? I’ve always wondered when that kid was gonna grow a penis and wiener his way out of the friend zone.”

  “Cole,” I repeated. “You’re here. At Stanford.”

  “Oh, don’t furrow that brow,” he said. “This ain’t the dust bowl, honey. Cheer up.”

  Cole touched my forehead and attempted to smooth it out. I removed his hand from my face.

  “Explain what you are doing here,” I said. “Now. Please.”

  “Gurlll,” he said. “Come on. I did just like I said I would back on Fogey Friday. I made the SAT math portion my personal sex slave, and I sent the scores straight to Stanny. And the other day at callbacks, wouldn’t ya know it, I got the e-mail of my dreams, in which they invited me to this little ol’ par-tay, which I bet you probably thought was only for winners of your Kids with Broken Dreams scholarship or whatever. But it’s not. It’s actually open to all of us new admit babies who could make the trip. So hey, looks like you’re not as special as you thought you were.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I could barely breathe. I didn’t want to feel the way I did, because that felt judgmental
and egocentric and wrong, so I tried my best to be polite. But I could barely breathe.

  “Wow,” I said. “Congrats.”

  • • •

  The next day was worse.

  I’d decided to go on an early-morning walking tour of campus to try to take Stanford in, to see if I could feel at home there, but I didn’t make it two steps before Cole was texting to meet up with me, glomming on to my personal journey.

  “Ooh, chica, you should live there next year,” Cole said as we walked past Casa Zapata, Stanford’s Latino-themed dorm. “The hermanos y hermanas in there could be, like, your surrogate familia. You know, since you’re leaving your real familia behind.

  “Oh my Gerd,” Cole said as he and I walked past some medical school buildings. “You know, they have an amazing hospital here. My mom used to be a nurse there, back when my dad was a grad student, right before I was born. Maybe your mom could drive up for treatments? That way you’ll be able to spend time with her, even after you ditch home.

  “Ay gerd mio,” Cole said as several tall, athletic guys who looked like football players jogged past us. “Who needs a scrawny Nutter Butter boy when you can munch on some beefcake, then slurp up some six-packs—am I right?”

  “Cole,” I said. “I think I might be ready to leave soon.”

  “Shut your boca,” Cole said. “I told our friends from last night we’d meet them for fountain hopping.”

  Fountain hopping is a timeless Stanford tradition wherein students strip down to their underwear on a sunny day and play in the campus’s innumerable fountains, going from swimming hole to swimming hole for the sheer delight of it. Now, on this particular day, I thought it was rather too chilly to bare my body, it being December and all, but Cole disagreed, and evidently everybody else did too.

  “I can’t believe this is our life now!” the Rubik’s Cube boy said, preening atop a fountain statue shaped like a giant claw while I sat on a nearby bench and watched. “Who’s got it better than us?”

  “Nooo-body!” everyone else cheered at the same time. I do not know how they all knew this chant.

  “I love all you guys! Let’s be best friends forever! Stanford is my bliss!” the haiku girl shrieked in perfect five-seven-five structure while splashing about in merely her bra and panties.

  “Cole, why won’t your friend take off her sweater?” the tattoo boy shouted, flexing each of his Giving Tree images for the others to admire. “Doesn’t she know how good the water feels?”

  “I don’t think she does!” Cole shouted back. He wasn’t looking at me. He didn’t even know where I was. “Homegirl’s too afraid to have fun!

  “Come on!” Cole said to the others, still not acknowledging my presence, not now that he was firmly ensconced in a brand-new group of brilliant, attractive, future-surgeon-and-senator-and-venture-capitalist friends. “Let’s go swim in that red fountain that looks like a contraceptive device from the 1950s!”

  “YEAH!!!” the others screamed in unison.

  Within ten seconds they had all run off, skipping and yawping, just managing to remember their clothes and shoes and definitely forgetting to remember me.

  Which, to be perfectly honest, was fine by me. I didn’t need to spend any more time with those people. I’d really had my fill of college by then.

  • • •

  I’ve always had this image of myself as a college student, what I look like, who I am.

  I’m considerably slimmer, because I actually have time to work out, because no one needs me to cook them dinner or teach them multiplication tables before bed. My hair is straightened, because I don’t have Mama begging me to keep it natural, the way God intended. I’m wearing more makeup. I’m rocking fun jewelry. I’m dressed in bright colors, greens and golds and pinks. I’m undeniably cute.

  In the late morning, I get out of my yoga or hip-hop class. I swing by Starbucks, where I meet a couple girlfriends. We scan our news feeds and laugh about reality TV and call each other “lady.” I head off to class, where I study the side effects of stem cell transplants, or the economic development of postcolonial Latin America, or feminist jurisprudence, or sure, why not, haiku. I pursue whatever most excites me intellectually at the moment. I have no idea what I want to be, but my ambition has no ceiling.

  After class ends, I head back to my dorm room, where my boyfriend is waiting for me. He kisses me on the forehead as I tell him about my day. He teases me about my busy schedule, but I don’t mind. We lie down on the bed together, perhaps for a nap, perhaps for something else.

  This is what I’ve been working toward all these years. It has always been my dream.

  • • •

  I didn’t listen to the radio for the duration of my drive home. I eliminated all distractions. I stared ahead. For two hundred and fifty miles, I studied the road. I watched the freeway as it forked and converged again. I let my eyes linger on each off-ramp, every interchange, all of the innumerable twists and turns.

  My choice remains right in front of me.

  I can have it if I want. It’s all still there. The scholarship. The friends. The new and improved me. The unfathomable future.

  My day is coming. All I have to do is seize it.

  And yet, deep down, I know my decision has already been made.

  I can’t go.

  I need to support my family, and the best way for me to do that is to literally be there for them, through my mom’s battle, through everything that follows. I cannot desert them. I can’t be somewhere else, off having the time of my life or some such nonsense. I am not, nor will I ever be, a taker.

  So I made my decision. Two roads diverged on the 101, and I chose my course. Stanford was on the left, and my family was on the right, and I took the road less traveled by, right off the freeway and straight toward home, and I was content with my choice. I was ready to face all of the consequences.

  Yet right before I reached my house, just as I was all set to convince my parents of my no-college plan, I encountered something most unexpected.

  Life, as it so often does, threw a detour in my path.

  As I drove past the Dos Caminos campus, I saw something curious.

  Someone, to be precise.

  Someone about whom I wanted to learn more. Someone with a story to tell.

  A boy.

  ROAD TWO

  * * *

  FALL

  1. WILEY OTIS

  Fat Isaac,” I whispered. “It’s time.”

  He nodded and gestured to the rest of the guys. As the fans in the stands continued to roar, and as the rest of the band marched back to the sideline, the brass section stayed out on the field, right there with me.

  “Hey!” some AV kid said when I snuck up behind him and yoinked a microphone from his cart.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Gotta do this.”

  I switched the thing on. I took a step forward, the mic at my lips. I surveyed the stadium. I cleared my throat.

  “People of Dos Caminos,” I announced. “Let us take another moment to congratulate Miss Nikki Foxworth. What an honor!”

  The crowd showered Nikki with a massive wave of applause. She princess-waved back to them, her crown balancing on her hair like a shiny star atop a Christmas tree.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me for just a moment . . . there’s something I want to say to a very special lady of my own.”

  Nikki glanced over her shoulder, back at me. Her eyes were sparkling. She was the only non-brass dude with any earthly idea what was about to happen.

  After all, the plan had basically been hers.

  “A-one! A-two! A-one, two, three, four!”

  The guys and I have never made such badass music together. J.P. and Isaac on the trumpet, Travis and Pranav on their trombones, Kevin on the French horn, and me, of course, bringing it home on my Jabba the Hutt–size sousaphone. We blasted the ever-loving crap out of “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” and as we jammed, my brain just overflowed with happy memories.

  The middl
e school afternoons she and I used to spend playing Risk and Diplomacy, when we’d put on crazy historical hats and she’d refer to me as Wileyam the Conqueror and to herself as Allegrander the Great, and she’d dominate me every single game, and then she’d weep because she had no worlds left to destroy.

  The times we used to comfort each other when one of us got real low. The silly crossword puzzles and word searches she used to create for me whenever my dad came home and acted like a jerk. The wacky movies I made on my phone the year her mom got sick.

  The Disney movie marathons we used to have when we were kids, which over the years became scary movie marathons, which over the years became romantic movie marathons, not that I ever tried to get cuddly during those, not that I ever staged a romantic movie moment of my own—

  Until now.

  I didn’t look Allie’s way the entire time we played. It wasn’t because I was scared or anything. I wasn’t at all nervous how she’d react. Honestly, I just didn’t want to spoil the moment.

  But at last it came, the time I’d earned. The guys and I crescendoed together, and we took a bow, smiling with our instruments. The people in the crowd all paused, holding their breath, wondering what was next. I climbed out of my tuba and picked the mic up off the turf. I finally laid eyes on my girl, so unbelievably cute in her oversized jacket, standing all alone on the sideline.

  She was clutching her flute with both her hands. She was blinking slowly. She had no idea what was coming.

  “Allegra Rey,” I said, and it was strange to hear my voice echoing all around the field, but good strange, the kind of strange you want to relive over and over.

  “Come on . . .

  “Whaddya say . . .

  “Will you go to homecoming with me?”

  Then came the longest wait of all time.

  But after what felt like an eternity, she nodded yes.

  The crowd went berserk, and the cheerleaders hopped up and down, skirts and pom-poms flying, and the brass dudes struck up the Stanford fight song, which they weren’t supposed to play until I did my second speech and asked Allie to be my girlfriend, but not a big deal, not a problem at all, because everyone was so pumped for me, so unbelievably supportive. I hustled over to the sideline, and I got a clap on the back from Ms. Fawcett on the way, and I high-pawed the guy in the bulldog suit. I caught a glimpse of Nikki too, and she was looking on with so much affection, such sisterly pride. I flung myself onto Allie and hugged her, I hugged her so hard I could have crushed a rib, but I loved her so much I would have given her mine. And for so long the two of us just stayed there, squished together in our perfect embrace, out under the lights for everyone to see, but truly there for no one else, nobody but ourselves.