If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period

by Gennifer Choldenko

  "Whaddya you talkin' about? From Mountain? You applied?"

  "You think you the only one got plans, man?"

  "You got in?"

  "What you take me for, Walk, some kind of fool? Course I got in. Just couldn't get the moneys together is all. I been trying. I made nine hundred bucks."

  "Selling soap?"

  "Amway," Jamal barks. "Pretty good, huh?"

  Walk says nothing.

  "Walk, you there?"

  "Yeah," Walk whispers. "It's good, Jamal. It's really good."

  Fifty-Three

  Kirsten

  My father is sitting behind his desk staring at his computer screen. I think he's working, but his hands don't touch the keyboard. I peek behind him. The screen is off. He's staring at a blank screen? "Dad?"

  No answer. Dr. Dad is silent as a tree.

  I look around his office. On the wall, he has his diplomas from Cal and Stanford, a picture of him with some people in tie-dyed shirts, photos of me and Kippy.

  I point to the pictures. "You going to put Walk up there?"

  "How do you suppose your mother would feel about that?" he mutters.

  "She'll get used to it. You know how Mom is. She hates to be left out. Why didn't you tell her? Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I knew your mom would flip out. Sylvia wanted to do it all herself. What was I supposed to do?" he snaps.

  "He's my brother. Didn't you think I needed to know that?"

  He nods and goes silent again. "Your brother ... my son." He puts his head in his hands. I figure this is going to be the end of the conversation, when suddenly he blurts out, "You know the last few years I've been going down to the Y to watch Walk swim."

  I don't know what to make of this: my father pretending to be a stranger watching a kid who doesn't know he's his son.

  "I had this idea that if he went to Mountain with you, I could have all my kids together. Maybe I wanted you to find out. Maybe I did."

  "I'm glad I know. That's for sure. Walk's great, Dad. Really. Everybody likes him. He's brilliant."

  My father raises his head and smiles.

  "Kippy's brilliant, too. All your kids are brilliant except one."

  My father looks up at me. "You're brilliant, too."

  "No I'm not. I'm not stupid. I don't mean that. But I'm just, you know, normal. I'm not a math whiz. I don't even like science."

  "You have to work for things. Give yourself a chance. You can't expect everything to be easy. But yes, I know you aren't a math whiz and you don't like science."

  "Why do you always say I'm brilliant, then? It's like you're making fun of me."

  "I'm not making fun of you," he says softly. "I do think you're brilliant."

  "No you don't."

  "Yes I do. Some people's brilliance is in their head. A surgeon's brilliance is in her hands. But there are people who have brilliant hearts. They shine right through them."

  "Oh yeah, that's worth a lot," I mutter.

  "It is worth a lot. It's worth everything ... You know when I knew you were really special? You were about four and I took you down to the Berkeley free clinic with me. One of the nurses gave you a little bag of Halloween candy, then the next thing I knew you'd disappeared. Couldn't find you anywhere. Thought I was going to have a heart attack. Finally found you in the park across the street handing out your candy to the homeless people. You didn't need that candy and they did. Even at four you knew this."

  "You cried when you found me. I didn't get it. I wasn't lost."

  "Yeah." He nods, smiling at this. "I know."

  I've heard this story before, but not for a long time. It feels good to remember the little person I was. Is that who I still am?

  "I need you, Daddy. You're never around anymore."

  "I'm an internist. It's not a nine-to-five job."

  "You've always been an internist. You didn't used to be gone all the time."

  He picks up the stapler on his desk and inspects the bottom, checks it for staples, and closes it again. "I don't like to fight with your mom," he mutters.

  "So don't fight with her."

  "It's not that easy."

  "You can't expect everything to be easy," I mimic him.

  He smiles at this. "You're not supposed to pay attention to everything I say." He gives me a playful cuff on the side of the head.

  "So what are we going to do now?" I ask.

  "You're going to figure out how to include Walk in our family."

  "I am? Me? But what about you?"

  "You don't think I've made a mess of the whole business? I see more in you than you see in yourself, Kirsten. Just the way you are with Kippy ... Do you know how special that is?"

  "But Dad..."

  "If you could make that kind of connection with Walk, you'd move the earth an inch or two in the right direction. I'm depending on this part of you," he whispers, touching his heart, "right here."

  "Yeah, but..." My voice trails off.

  His eyes are so clear, so true. He really believes I can do this. He really does.

  Fifty-Four

  Walk

  So how was school today?" Sylvia asks when Walk comes in.

  "Fine." Walk goes to his room and shuts the door.

  Sylvia knocks. "I was thinking of making pork chops for dinner. Sound good?"

  "Um-huh."

  The handle turns. She stands in Walk's doorway. "Been too long like this. We have to talk."

  "Nothin' to talk about." Walk shrugs her off.

  She doesn't budge.

  "Someday you'll have your own kids. You'll make mistakes and you'll hope your kids forgive you."

  Walk keeps his head down. His handwriting gets smaller and smaller.

  "I hate City," she says. "I wanted you to have the chance to go to a better school."

  "Done now?" Walk asks, without looking up.

  "I'm glad you know."

  "No thanks to you ... Found out from some little kid I hardly know."

  She sits down on Walk's bed. "We'll get through this, Walk." She puts her hand on his arm. He flicks it off.

  She goes out, comes back a few minutes later with a blue envelope. She wiggles a letter out of the envelope one side then the other. The way she does this, Walk sees her hands have taken the letter out this carefully a hundred times before. She hands it to Walk.

  October 21, 1994

  Dear Sylvia,

  I got a big fat grin on my face there's no wiping off. I love the pictures you sent of your baby son, Walker. I can tell by the light in his eyes, he's got your spunk, your sparkle, your intelligence. He's all you, Sylvia, right up to his little old man eyebrows. And I'm pleased as anything he has my name. It's a fine name and that's a fact. Tell him to use it with my blessings. I'll give him an earful myself when I get to meet him, which I'm hoping will be early next year.

  I'm sorry things didn't work out between us, Sylvia. God knows I tried, but some things aren't meant to be. You're a wonderful woman and you'll make some lucky man one hell of a wife. May God bless you and your son with all the sweetness in his kingdom.

  Then there's something been blacked all out. And then it says:

  Climpton Jones

  "What's this here?" Walk asks, his thumb on the scribbled-out square. "Crossed it out."

  "What'd it say?"

  Sylvia sighs. "Don't know if I remember."

  Walk looks at her. "Don't know if you remember? You either remember or you don't."

  She sighs, chews down hard on her gum. "I was head over heels in love with the man, would lay down my life for him, and he signed it 'your friend'?"

  "So you crossed it out?"

  "I gave you Climpton's last name because I wanted you to have a little of him. I named you Wilburt because Mac said it was a lucky name been in his family for a hundred years. If I'd been lucky, Climpton would have loved me the way I loved him."

  "Climpton didn't care you took his name, even if you didn't get married?"

  Sylvia's mouth bunches
up. She stares up at the ceiling. "He didn't know I took his name," she admits. "A girl has to have her pride, you know. Look, I loved Climpton, but he didn't love me. Mac loved me, but I didn't love him. The world doesn't make sense sometimes."

  "The world is a big mess," Walk says.

  Sylvia puts her hand on Walk's cheek. She holds it there for the longest time. "How can I not love the world that gave me you?"

  "How am I going to tell everyone about this, Momma?"

  "Everyone who?"

  "Jamal, Matteo, the kids at school."

  "The kids at City?"

  Walk shakes his head. "Mountain. I'm gonna stay," he mumbles.

  "You what?"

  "I'm gonna stay," he repeats.

  "Why?"

  "I like it better, that's why," Walk spits at her.

  "Nothing wrong with that," she says softly.

  "Everything's wrong with that," Walk says. "D'you know Jamal applied to Mountain? He got in, too. But he couldn't go because he didn't get enough scholarship money."

  She raises her eyebrows. "That's why he's been selling everything isn't nailed down?"

  "Yep."

  "Well, I'll be."

  "Matteo got a full scholarship. Jamal and I both got partial scholarships. But I get to go. Jamal doesn't."

  "You don't think Tanesha would pay for Jamal if she could?"

  "Of course she would. That's not the point."

  "You're darn right she would. And so would I. And so did Mac. He wanted the best for you, same as I do. Same as Tanesha does for Jamal."

  "But what about Jamal?"

  "That boy is going to own the whole world one of these days. And god help him, he'll do it all his own way."

  "And I'm supposed to tell him my white father is paying for me."

  "Yes."

  "That's all, just yes?"

  "That's all, just yes."

  Fifty-Five

  Kirsten

  Don't sit here," Walk says.

  "Why?" I ask.

  But Jade and Hair Boy show up before he can answer. Jade has dyed the ends of her hair blue. "Got any candy?" She squints at me.

  I shake my head.

  "I do," Jade says. This is the first time Jade has ever shared her candy. She gives each of us a Jelly Belly, carefully considering which bean should go to which person. I get peach. Matteo gets mango and Walk gets Dr Pepper.

  "What's up?" she asks Walk, who hasn't even looked to see which flavor he got. Walk doesn't answer.

  Jade squints one eye totally closed, puts her fingers in her mouth, and whistles so loud kids three tables down shut up.

  Everyone stares at her. "You guys have been so creepy lately," she announces, grabbing my lunch and setting it in its usual spot next to Walk. She raps Walk on the head. "Get over yourself," she commands.

  "What?" Walk asks.

  Matteo drops his lunch on the table. "Matteo and I have been talking," Jade says. "We don't like this, do we, Matteo?"

  Matteo looks at Walk. "We're all friends. You and Kirsten ... Just, you know, figure it out, okay?"

  "Yeah, like, talk or something," Jade says. She gets a grip on Hair Boy, who is carefully lining his sandwich with potato chips. "C'mon." She sticks his loose chips back in his lunch bag. Matteo picks up his lunch, too.

  Walk grabs Kirsten's plastic spoon and raps it on the table. "Hey, wait! C'mon, don't leave. We're fine, aren't we, Kirsten? The best of friends. Look, I have her spoon."

  Matteo and Jade don't turn around. Hair Boy walks backward waving as Jade drags him along.

  I think Walk's going to leave, too, but he stays at our table.

  I grab my spoon back. "These are my friends, too."

  "I got that."

  "You got that?"

  "I got that." He opens his milk carton top and closes it again. Open, close, open, close.

  "It's not like it's been great at my house. My parents have been killing each other ever since my mom found out."

  His eyes flash across me then look back down.

  "Look, I don't get the whole problem here. I mean that Climpton guy was dead, anyway. Isn't it better to have a live dad than a dead one?"

  His face seems to suck inside itself. He says nothing.

  "Walk?"

  He looks at me for the first time. He shakes his head like I am some kind of alien girl. "This isn't something you can understand," he says finally, working the milk carton again.

  "Why?"

  "It just isn't."

  "I can't understand because I'm stupid ... or because I'm white?"

  "Look, I'm sure there are things I don't understand, either." Walk says this slowly like I am five.

  "No you're not."

  "Okay"—he shrugs—"I'm not."

  "My father wants to be your dad, you know."

  Walk snorts. "Your father got caught with his pants down. Now he's trying to recover."

  "He's been watching you for, like, years. He goes to the Y to see you swim."

  He stops moving the milk carton. He opens the top and pours the milk on the ground. "No he doesn't," he whispers.

  "Yes," I say, "he does."

  Fifty-Six

  Walk

  The moon has a chunk missing. It sits lopsided in the sky with black all around, dark as asphalt. The light from the carport shines on all the cars. Walk has a paper clip he's stretched to an almost straight line. He scoots down under the wheel well of Sylvia's car, takes the end of the paper clip, and scratches tiny letters in the brown unpainted edge.

  I AM ME.

  Fifty-Seven

  Kirsten

  At school my mom turns into the drop-off. I dig for my backpack, which has slid under the seat.

  "Hey," Kip says. "There's Walk in front of us!" She rolls down the window. "Hey, Walk! It's me, Kippy!" Kippy squeals like Walk is a rock star. She calls him every day now. I don't know what they talk about. I asked her once and she said, "Infinity."

  Walk waves at Kippy. I hop out as my mother opens the door. She has one foot in, one foot out, her eyes intent on Sylvia.

  A car pulls up behind us and honks. My mother jumps. Sylvia turns around.

  My mother makes a fast motion with her hand. Was she swatting a fly or...?

  "Did you see that? Think my mom was waving at your mom?" I ask Walk.

  "Yeah."

  "Yeah?"

  The warning bell rings. "C'mon, we're going to be late," Walk says.

  "If we don't get our butts in gear." I huff after him.

  "Always a butt involved with you," Walk calls over his shoulder.

  "Gonna miss you when you leave," I say. "I'm not the only one, either."

  "Guess I can't go, then."

  I thunder after him, down the hall, up the stairs, and into class. I grab his arm as he sits down. "You're..."—I double over, out of breath—"kid-ding, right?"

  He shrugs.

  "You're staying?"

  "Looks that way. Just do me a favor," he whispers. "Don't get weird about this."

  "Okay, but...," I whisper back, "how do I be normal about it?"

  "Just go sit down, okay?"

  "I can do that."

  "All right, then?" He looks up at me. His dark brown eyes take me inside him. This is something important he's asking.

  I nod. "This is good, Walk. You know. This whole thing."

  "You're crazy," he whispers.

  "No I'm not."

  He bites his lip.

  "You have to trust me," I say.

  "Kirsten." His voice gets suddenly tight. He twists his pencil point into his binder, twists so hard it pops the lead right out. "Not all at once, okay?"

  "Yeah," I tell him. "Okay."

  Back in my seat I suddenly understand something I've never understood before. It matters who I am. I fit in the world. I do.

  Fifty-Eight

  Walk

  In Ms. Scrushy's class Brianna's elbow is back hangin' on his desk.

  "Yes?" Walk asks.

  "Just wanted t
o let you know I am so nice to Matteo's mother. So nice ... you have no idea," she whispers.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means I'm nice to her, okay? Ask Matteo. He'll tell you I've been good."

  Walk watches her. "Yeah, so? What do you want, Brianna?"

  Brianna shrugs. She runs her hand over his arm. "Hey, I don't want to make you mad."

  He yanks his arm away. "Get off me."

  "You love it and you know it."

  Walk shakes his head. "You are so full of..." He knows he can't tell her what she's really full of.

  "Hey." She beckons her finger like Walk should come close. "I want to ask you something."

  Walk raises his eyebrows.

  "Are you like half white?"

  Walk's skin gets tight around him. He grinds his teeth. "No. I'm all white, can't you see?" Walk sticks out his arm. "This arm is all white. The other arm, Taiwanese. My left leg, Venezuelan. My right leg, from Portugal. I represent every ethnicity. Every religion, too, why not?"

  "No, really," she whispers. "My mom said Kirsten's mom told some yoga friend who is Maya's mom's cousin that your dad is like Kirsten's dad."

  "My dad likes Kirsten's dad?" Walk asks.

  "No, he is Kirsten's dad."

  "Wait, wait, wait. So my dad is Kirsten's dad? Who's your dad?"

  "My dad is my dad," Brianna snips.

  "Okay, okay. I have this straight now. Your dad is your dad. And my dad is Kirsten's dad. Phew"—Walk wipes his forehead—"thanks for figuring that out for me."

  "So is it true or not?"

  "Definitely true. Definitely," Walk tells her.

  "Really?" she asks in her breathiest voice.

  "Yes," Walk says. "And here's something you haven't heard." He beckons her close and whispers in her ear: "Matteo's dad is my mom."

  She jerks away and takes her elbow back. "Shut up. Just shut up."

  "Anytime you need to know somethin', just check with me, Brianna. Just check with me."

  Fifty-Nine