Come With Me

by Helen Schulman

  “But it all went out the window when he ate. You should have seen that boy inhale a doughnut.”

  The whole room broke out laughing.

  Jack said: “No one loved doughnuts more than Kevin.”

  He said: “I really wish I had made him stay in the car with me that morning. I wish I had refused to drop him off at school. I don’t know why he did what he did. I don’t have a clue. If you’re wondering—and I would wonder, I know I would wonder—he didn’t tell me anything. He seemed fine. He seemed like normal. I guess it’s like Wei said, he made a mistake. I don’t know. He just didn’t seem unhappy.

  “We always did everything together. I knew we’d probably go to separate colleges and maybe we’d even compete against each other, but in my head, we were always going to be on the same team. We would still be going through it all together. I’m not sure I know how to get older without Kevin.”

  Jack abruptly walked away from the altar, and down the stairs, his chin wobbling as he struggled to set his jaw.

  Marilyn stood up when he reached the pew and hugged him and whispered something in his ear, and when Jack flinched, she patted his back and he straightened his shoulders. Then Jack sat down next to his own mother. He took the phone from her hand and bowed his head. Dan was sure he was talking to Lily, or at least looking into her big blue eyes.

  Wei was up on the pulpit, again, this time holding Suz’s hand.

  She said, “I have written an acrostic poem for my brother. Kevin. K is for the kindness he always showed me. E is for the earwax he’d chase me around the house with on his finger. V was for the valentine he made me every year. I was for, isn’t it amazing you were ever here. N is for nincompoop, because only a nincompoop dies before graduation.”

  She turned to the crowd and curtsied. For a moment, no one knew what to do, but someone laughed and someone else applauded.

  Wei picked her up then.

  “How long does Kevin stay dead, Daddy?”

  Wei bowed his head. “I’ll explain when we get home.” They walked down the steps, Suz in his arms, gently patting his hair.

  It was a scene out of a TV movie. The whole room was sobbing. The Very Reverend said some more shit, but who the hell was listening? Not Dan. He refused to hear another generous, empty word. Then Mr. Ming took center stage to conduct the choir’s final song. Not a moment too soon, Dan thought. He looked at his program. “American Tune.” He wept before the children’s voices broke the air. And then the sound they made, it permeated the air like sweet perfume.

  Paul Simon. Dan had worshipped him like a god. The service was over. Dan couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

  * * *

  Back at the house, Miles was enjoying his book, His Dark Materials, in the playroom. The story had opened above him like a big umbrella the afternoon Ms. Zhang brought him home from school to an empty house and left him there with nothing to do but prowl the bookshelf, and today already he had been sitting in its shade for hours, his dreams entangling in the unfolding narrative. He had already read up to the middle of the second installment and it was a book meant for grown-ups.

  The problem in the book was a lot like the problem that plagued Miles in real life: like Miles, the boy in the book, Will, did not know how to get from one universe to another. Will’s problem got solved in the story by a magic knife; in the book, it was called a “subtle knife,” and he used it to cut a hole between the different worlds. Once that happened, Will was free! He could travel between them. For a kid like Miles, that would be the equivalent of human heaven, because for a kid like Miles, one world was never enough. He wanted to drink from both glasses, the hot chocolate in one and the lemonade in the other. He wanted to be a bad boy in school and also a perfect child at home. He wanted his father to live in their house again, with all of them; and he wanted to be alone forever with his mom. A knife and a hole made it easy for Will, the character in the book in Miles’s lap. It was not so easy for Miles, the flesh-and-blood boy in Palo Alto, with two needy and imperfect overshadowing brothers; Miles, who had to make do with card games and video games and his own imagination, plus this book, to get him to where he wanted to go; even if that was only in make-believe. It was Miles’s life’s goal to turn that kind of made-up travel into something real, something that he could in fact truly do, not just on a screen but in his body. So, reading this book was kind of like a mind-vacation; during the moments his head was buried in its pages it eased his profound need—his abject yearning.

  But that hard-fought-for tranquility didn’t last nearly long enough because Donny had quickly gotten bored in the kitchen and came in and sat next to Miles, on the couch, pestering him as a means of entertainment, like another brother—the last thing in the world Miles needed. Donny was wearing his board shorts and a Cardinal FEAR THE TREE sweatshirt—Stanford’s mascot was a tree; Miles thought that choice was lame and pathetic—and swung his hairy legs over the overstuffed arm. Donny swung his feet in his Tevas near Miles’s face. They stank. No one could possibly keep reading with Donny crunching away on Pirate Booty from one hand and slurping one of the last of the Slurpee yogurts in the other, in a cloud of stink, like Pig-Pen, the Charlie Brown character.

  “Quit it, Donny,” said Miles. “I want to read my book.”

  “What’s it about?” said Donny.

  “You must have read it,” said Miles.

  “I’ve read them all,” said Donny.

  “Then why are you asking?” said Miles.

  “I don’t know,” said Donny. “I’ve got nothing to do.”

  “I like the parallel worlds,” said Miles, exasperated.

  “I like the parallel worlds,” said Donny.

  Miles shook his head. Donny wasn’t going to give up and his reading spell was broken now anyway. He put the book down.

  “So what do you want to do?” Miles asked Donny.

  “Dunno,” said Donny. “Any new video games?”

  Miles walked over to the PlayStation 4 sitting on the TV cabinet. He rifled through the games that were kept in a basket (and on the shelf and on the floor), then held up one of his favorites; he had gotten it this past year for Christmas. “Know this guy, Donny? Uncharted Four?”

  “No,” said Donny. “Is it any fun? Should I buy it?”

  “I like it,” said Miles. “It’s landmark,” he said, proud of the term; he’d heard it from an older boy, Kevin actually, “and if you like interactive, it’s worth the money. A lot of shoot-outs. Great details. Naughty Dog, those guys can’t be beat, really.”

  “Hmm, they produced it, right?” said Donny.

  For a supposed genius, Donny was pretty dopey.

  “That reminds me,” Donny said. “‘Naughty dog.’”

  Hunh, thought Miles. Are you retarded, Donny? Then, “You mean Squidward?” he asked.

  His mom told him to always be polite to those less fortunate, and Donny was simply less fortunate. He was like a kiddie-man. A big baby without his diaper. So, Miles supposed he should be kind to him. But his mom was also always talking about what a retard Donny was, too. So maybe Miles needn’t go too far out of his way.

  “Yer ma said we should take him for a walk.”

  “If Mom said,” said Miles. “Otherwise, he’ll poop in the house and she’ll have another seizure.”

  “Another one?”

  “It’s been rough around here the last couple of days,” said Miles. “Kevin got hit by a train. Dad ran away. You know I got suspended. But nobody seems to care much.”

  “Feeling overlooked, Thing One?”

  “Sure,” said Miles. “But I also like it that way.”

  Donny looked surprised.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Because I get away with more,” said Miles. “And all that attention doesn’t seem to be doing either of my brothers any good.”

  “Ahh, the wise middle child.”

  “We’re twins, Donny.”

  “But Two is the baby. You know I’m right,” said
Donny. “Anyway, you came out first, your mom told me. So, come on, let’s round up Mollusk-boy, but you have to show me how.”

  “How?” said Miles. “Are you kidding? You go outside. You walk around the neighborhood. Are you really my mom’s boss?”

  And then he shouted: “Squidward!”

  Poom! The dog came screeching around the corner, nails clacking against the hardwood floor, before his paws slid against the area rug, bunching it up and splaying his legs until he rebounded and leaped over to Miles, jumping up and licking him on the face. The dog’s tongue was big and wet, like a palm leaf after it rained on Palm Drive. Also, flattish and gross. It tickled and was sick-making. He almost knocked Miles over with it.

  “Down boy, down.” Miles giggled, shoving Squidward aside, wiping his face with his forearm, Squidward always bouncing back.

  “Hey, you guys have the same color hair,” said Donny. “You and the dog. You’re both the color of a penny.”

  “Who cares,” said Miles. “Get his leash off the hook in the kitchen. C’mon, Donny, help out.”

  Donny went into the kitchen and as soon as he picked up the leash, Squidward took off. He had supersonic hearing for that leash. “The old leash trick,” Dad called it. Miles knew it would work like a charm.

  Outside, there was a question whether to walk to campus past Miles’s school, or the other way toward California Avenue. Miles wasn’t sure he wanted all the kids to see him suspended or not. There was some status in being suspended, but it was also humiliating. Humiliating was a new word for Miles. He’d heard his mom say it, over and over again, the past few days on the phone to her friend, Donny’s mother. He liked the sound of it. It kind of rolled in his mouth and melted like pancakes made with lots of butter. It also occurred to him that the other kids might be resentful of him getting to stay home from school.

  Actually, that idea he got from Donny, who wanted to walk the dog to Lake Lagunita on campus, and play Frisbee or toss a ball. Donny had never had a dog and had never played Frisbee or tossed a ball to even a borrowed dog before, and he said he was keen on having the experience. “All the kids will see us wild and free and they will wish they were as cool as you. Trust me,” said Donny.

  Miles shrugged. Whatever.

  So, they walked down Stanford Avenue, Squidward straining against the leash, on the other side from Escondido Elementary School. It was no big whoop really (Miles’s dad used to say that a lot, “No big whoop,” but it had been a while since he’d said it and everything seemed like a real big whoop lately, anyway) because recess and lunch were both over, so if anyone saw him they’d be looking out the window in class instead of paying attention and they’d be getting into trouble on their own, making them no better than Miles. Then they turned down Bowdoin and made their way through campus.

  Lake Lag was an artificial lake that these days—almost all of Miles’s life—was always dry. So really, it was more like a sunken meadow. Except this spring with all the late snow and snowmelt, “all the global warming jazz,” Miles’s dad said, it had filled with about three feet of water. His dad had taken him and Thing Two on a nature walk there this winter, and they’d seen tiger salamanders breeding in the muck. They weren’t allowed to pick them up—tiger salamanders are an endangered species, Dad said, and the university had spent $100,000 building them tunnels under the highway so they wouldn’t all get flattened during migration.

  Now Squidward was nosing at the water. Soon he’d be splashing and swimming. There was no stopping him, so Miles didn’t try. He was the realist in the family. Why waste your time on something that would never possibly happen? Miles only bet on sure deals, even if they seemed out of this world to grown-ups.

  Donny sat down on the grass. He’d chased Squidward to the water’s edge—he was afraid of getting fined for the dog being off leash and in “the puddle,” which is what he said his dorm-mates called Lake Lag, and now he was tired.

  “Fuck it,” said Donny.

  “Yeah,” said Miles. Although he had no idea what Donny was talking about—they let Squidward off the leash all the time. You couldn’t keep a dog like Squidward on the leash for very long anyway. It was impractical. He sat down next to Donny.

  “So tell me why you like Magic cards,” said Donny.

  “You like Magic cards,” said Miles.

  “I do,” said Donny. “It seems like you and I have a bunch of things in common. Philip Pullman, parallel worlds. Do you know about multiverse theory?”

  Miles rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows about that, Donny. Are you trying to make me look stupid like Jack does?”

  “No,” said Donny. “Not at all. It wouldn’t even occur to me. I’m an only child. But I’m pretty interested in multiverses myself these days.”

  “You are?” said Miles. “I thought you were reinventing Snapchat or something like that, Mom said.”

  “That’s what she said?” said Donny, looking a little offended. And then willing to brush it off, “Come on, tell me why you like Magic cards.”

  Miles let out a deep, annoyed breath. “Okay,” he said, purposely sounding like he was answering a question in school: “The reason I like Magic cards is since every player has a deck, and every deck gets reshuffled every bout, two people can play and play and play again. Each time you duel, your cards might line up in a different way, making the options of battle pretty close to infinity, but not beyond, giving you another shot at a positive outcome. That’s what I like about Magic cards.” Then he couldn’t help himself: “Presentation over, Donny.”

  But Donny didn’t seem to care if he irritated Miles or not. “So that’s why you were suspended?” asked Donny. “Because you bet on the game and won money?”

  Miles nodded. He’d won lots and lots of money. He had $150 in his pocket when Zhang busted him. Mom had heard an earful about that. But no one else knew about the money he had between the box spring and his mattress at home. His mom never changed the sheet between them. He hadn’t counted in a while, but he guessed he had about three thousand dollars, considering all the trading he’d done online.

  “You make a lot?” asked Donny.

  Miles thought for a moment. “You promise not to tell?” he said.

  Donny nodded, looking serious. He held out his pinkie. “I pinkie-swear,” said Donny, and the two boys shook.

  “Well,” said Miles, “there is what Dad calls a ‘secondary market.’ You can buy the cards you exactly want—but Dad won’t let me ‘purchase my luck’ that way. Also, you can trade. Trading being my specialty.”

  “So you make your money trading cards?” said Donny.

  “Yep,” said Miles. “I just traded a Death Rite Shaman for a Black Lotus alpha. There are only eleven thousand Black Lotus alphas in print. On eBay, a card like that sold for twenty-seven thousand, three hundred and two dollars last year.”

  “That kid must have been a moron,” said Donny.

  “He’s a second-grader. Caveat emptor,” said Miles, standing. “Do you want to play Frisbee now?”

  “I don’t know how,” said Donny.

  “I’ll teach you,” said Miles.

  “Where’s the dog?” said Donny, looking around the lake.

  “He’ll come back,” said Miles. “He always does. Come on,” he said, and led Donny back to the large field of grass.

  Donny had been telling the truth when he told Miles he did not know how to play Frisbee. He would bring the disc in toward his chest the way Miles had shown him, but when he let loose, that fast slingshot from bent elbow to straight arm, it was anyone’s guess which way the Frisbee was going. Sometimes it flew horizontally ahead and Miles had a chance at catching it, although Donny usually threw too low. Other times it winged right or left, a few times he’d held on too long and it flew out from Donny’s hand and behind him. That’s when Miles started running in a circle around Donny. He figured, law of averages, if he was running in a circle he had a better chance of catching those unpredictable free throws than if he was standing s
till.

  This was fun for a while until it wasn’t. Miles was a good runner, but eventually he lost his breath. Plus, Donny always just stood in one place, and Miles was the one who had to chase after the thing. If Squidward was around he could have done the chasing for them, but Squidward wasn’t. This time when the disc hit the ground it rolled on its side like a wheel for a while before it spun slowly to the ground. Miles stopped running and walked over to it. He sat down on the ground.

  “What up?” said Donny. “I thought we were having a good time?”

  “I’m tired,” said Miles. “It’s been a long week.” He sounded just like his dad.

  Donny walked over. He sat down next to him.

  “Are you bumming about the suspension?”

  “Yes and no,” said Miles. He was running his fingers through the long grass now. “I’m glad not to be in school, but number one, I don’t want anyone to take my cards away from me, and number two, I want to keep on making money.”

  “What do you plan to do with all that money?” Donny asked.

  “If you really want to know, I’m saving up for a multiverse machine,” said Miles. “I figure that by the time I’m in high school there will be some pretty sweet ones on the market.”

  “I told you we were alike,” Donny said.

  “We are so not alike,” said Miles.

  Donny ignored him. “You want to go forward or backward?” asked Donny. “To before you got suspended?”

  “No,” said Miles. “I don’t care about the past. If it got better because of something I did back then, how will that help me now? If it got worse because of what play I made or risk I took, what do I even care? If I can’t go there, it didn’t happen to me; it would just be like watching TV. And the future doesn’t matter yet. It would only matter if I could do something about it now so that when I got there it got better. If I can’t, what’s the difference? I want to be able to go side to side.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Donny.

  Miles looked at him suspiciously. “Like you care.”

  “I do,” said Donny. “I seriously care, and I’m interested.”