by Barry Lyga
She smiles broadly and squeezes my arm for just a second. “You’re a good friend, Sebastian. And the good news is this: No matter how bad it’s gotten for us, it’s been worse for others.”
“That’s good news?”
“It’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?”
It turns out the shooter is white. This is confirmed when they find him with a broken leg roughly two miles from the scene of the shooting, still carrying his secondary weapon, a Colt pistol. He is shot once in the arm during the arrest.
I feel only relief for Aneesa, for the Fahims, at this news. No one will be assuming white people are dangerous after this.
But we are, of course. We are all dangerous, every person on this planet.
Even the children.
In bed, I relive the moments on the porch. It felt like walls came down. Like we connected. You’re a good friend, she said.
Friend. That’s a step, right? A step in the right direction?
I fall asleep on that notion.
By the third week in July, Aneesa and I are essentially inseparable. I have become, almost by accident, her guide to Brookdale, for whatever that’s worth. There’s nothing special or unique or even vaguely interesting about this place, but to Aneesa’s eyes, it’s new, and through her eyes, I discover it again. Sometimes we walk; sometimes we bike. I show her the best place for ice cream (Girelli’s, behind the library building, just off the alley where Leah Muldoon was almost kidnapped by a serial killer a while back), the hidden shortcuts through town, the only decent Italian food (Sam’s, on the other side of town from Hong Palace).
It’s great. It’s a great time. I don’t even think of the voice at night. Because I crash every night, exhausted and happy, despite Mom’s nagging about the summer slipping away.
Let it. If this is what it feels like to have the summer slip away, then let it.
Aneesa.
Ah-nee-sah.
(With apologies to Nabokov.)
It’s not just that she’s pretty and smart and pretty and funny and pretty, I realize. It’s something more.
It’s that she doesn’t know.
She’ll find out, of course. When school starts and she wanders the halls of South Brook High, she’ll find out. She’ll make friends, who will gossip in the bathroom, who will say, “Wait—not Sebastian Cody?” And she’ll say, “Well, yeah. What, does he molest goats or something?” because that’s her standby mock-horror, worst-case scenario.
And they won’t laugh. Instead, one of them will say, “No. God, Aneesa. He killed his baby sister. Like, years ago. Shot her in her own bedroom.”
And that will be the end of it.
So I enjoy it while I can. While it lasts.
I’m starting to run out of things to do with her, places to go. There’s really only one left. One I’ve been avoiding.
But on the Friday of the last week of July, she looks at me with those bright black eyes under those high, soft, angled eyebrows, and I say, “Get your bike. Let’s go.” And I take her to the last place.
To my place.
“It’s a rickety old trailer,” she says. “So what?”
We’re in my usual observation spot among the trees as the sun burnishes the rust stains on the trailer’s exterior, turning them almost bronze, almost beautiful.
I have no words to explain it to her, no words to explain what this trailer means, what it represents. What I have been planning to do within it.
When Evan left, it felt imminent and inevitable, like a storm on the horizon. Now, though, it feels no less inevitable, but somehow removed, like Christmas on the first day of fall. It’s coming. It’s out there. It’s happening no matter what, but there’s time. There’s time and there’s distance and there’s no need to obsess over it because no matter what, the calendar pages will be torn away and the sun will set and rise, and December 25 will arrive whether you fret about it or not.
“It’s just a place,” I tell her. “Just a place I come. To think. To be alone.”
“And you’re sharing it with me?”
“Looks like.”
She nods. “Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me? It’s just a place.”
“But it means something to you. Obviously. So thank you for sharing it.”
How does she always know the right thing to say? Where does this superpower come from?
And how will I be able to say good-bye to her? I’ll have to, of course. Before I take myself out of the equation for good.
Because that time is still coming. It has to. That time lives in the future, but it marches relentlessly toward the present, even as the present hurtles toward it, the two on an inevitable collision course.
Unless… Is there any chance? Any chance at all that she could overlook my past? A chance I could stay? Somehow, that’s more frightening than the alternative. So much easier to imagine vanishing when that’s what you know you deserve.
“Earth to Sebastian,” she says, waving a hand before me. “Come in. Where did you go?”
“Nowhere. Sorry. Just thinking.”
“Well, think about food. I’m starving.”
“We could try—”
“No, we’ve been to all the good places, you said. C’mon—you owe me pizza. I’m calling you out.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“I don’t know if—”
She clucks her tongue.
“Are you actually making chicken sounds?”
She keeps clucking and tucks her fists into her armpits, flapping her elbows with all her might.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“If you ain’t bakin’, you’re quakin’.” She drops her voice. “In fear. Quaking in fear.”
“I got it.” I focus, trying to reconstruct the contents of the fridge and the pantry in my mind. Do we have what I need?
“Okay,” I tell her. “Quit flapping your wings and let’s go.”
I get a text from Mom as we get to the house, reminding me that she’ll be home late tonight. Mom likes to think I don’t know that her occasional “nights out” are late visits to her therapist. I don’t disabuse her of the notion.
Even though my house is no smaller than Aneesa’s, a part of me still feels shame at inviting her in. My home is not shabby or dirty or poorly decorated, but there is a haze of sadness and loss that permeates its atmosphere, almost tangible, just visible enough to dim the lighting. It hangs in the silent halls and hovers over the living spaces like emotional smog.
Aneesa doesn’t see it, can’t see it. She is numb and blind to it. She simply glances around the split-level foyer and says, “Nice.”
In the kitchen, I wrestle the heavy stand mixer into position. There’s no time to thaw out a dough ball from the freezer, and microwaving it never works, so I have to make the crust from scratch. Fortunately, we always have those ingredients in stock.
I prep the yeast in warm water, then tilt it into the bowl of the stand mixer. I add whole wheat flour and some herbs for a chewy, fragrant crust. The dough hook rotates, whipping along until the dough peels away from the bowl and clings to the hook.
“Now what?” Aneesa asks. She’s been watching silently the whole time, sitting at the kitchen table.
“Now we have to let it rise. We have about an hour.”
“So, do we just sit around and wait?”
“Nah. Let me show you my room.”
As soon as I say it, I feel like a creep. But Aneesa just nods and says, “Okay.”
When she crosses into my bedroom, she inhales audibly. “It’s The Land that Time Forgot.…”
“Ha-ha.” I gesture her to my desk chair and she sits, then blinks at my MacBook.
“Oh. So, there is something from the past thirty years in here.”
My room is a museum to the old, to the things I love. Movie posters for Krull and Raiders of the Lost Ark. An old CRT television hooked up to a vintage Intellivision console. A gigantic, to
p-loading VCR from antediluvian days. Ancient copies of TV Guide and Rolling Stone from the seventies and eighties framed on the walls. Fruits of all my garage-sale labors on display.
“You live in the past,” she says in something like awe. “You figured out time travel, didn’t you?”
“I just like old things.”
“No kidding.”
I’m not sure what I was thinking when I suggested showing her my room. The accoutrements of and from the past are comforting to me, but to Aneesa, they must be as relevant and as interesting as a typewriter.
“I thought I’d be walking into a sweaty dungeon of Maxim posters and video games,” she says.
Video games!
I switch on the Intellivision and the TV. “Ever seen one of these?”
She swivels in the chair and looks at the control pad I hold out to her. “What planet are you from?”
“C’mon. Give it a shot.”
Soon, she’s giggling at the pixelated islands of Utopia. It’s the progenitor of the god game genre, in which each player controls the resources of one of two island nations. It’s really designed for two people, but no one I know will play against me, so I usually end up playing as one island or the other, reaching for higher and higher scores.
“You run this island,” I tell her. “And you can plant crops and build cities and there are random storms that come through—”
“Like Civilization or FarmVille,” she says. “But easier.”
“Not easier. Just less complicated.”
She regards me doubtfully. “Aren’t they the same?”
“Play me and find out.”
I nearly forget about the rising dough in the kitchen as we get started. After a quick session to demonstrate the basics and let Aneesa get a feel for the admittedly quirky Intellivision control pad, we launch into an actual game. At first, I have the upper hand, but playing against a real person is different from playing for my personal best and the posterity of a high score. Aneesa’s an amateur at the game, but when it comes to building forts and establishing rebels on the opposing island, we’re equally matched. And I’ve never used the PT boats, so they’re not part of my plan… until Aneesa uses one to sink my fishing boat. All my usual patterns and routines crumble, and I love it.
“No, no, no!” Aneesa shrieks. A hurricane—a blocky pixelated grind of flailing white arms—descends from the upper left corner of the screen, headed straight toward her island. The last hurricane nicked my island and wiped out a factory, reducing my gold accumulation and making a new school harder to build. Now Mother Nature is bearing down on her.
I chortle in a very unsportsmanlike way and sit back to enjoy the devastation, but the hurricane pauses briefly over one of her acres of crops… and then moves off the island, vanishing off the bottom of the screen. Her crop yield doubles for the turn.
“What just happened?” she asks.
“That happens sometimes,” I mutter.
She grins at me. “This is what happens when you live a virtuous life,” she intones with mock solemnity.
“Bite me,” I surprise myself by saying.
She clacks her teeth together loudly, and my phone alarm goes off, reminding me about the dough.
“Time to make pizza,” I tell her, hopping up.
I shut off the game and head for the hallway. “Sore loser!” she shouts, following me.
“I’m nowhere near losing,” I tell her, whipping the towel off the bowl of pizza dough. “You’re just keeping my score down into the mere-mortal range.”
The dough has risen nicely. I wash my hands as Aneesa fumes, arms crossed over her chest, then I pluck the dough from the bowl and begin kneading it.
“I can’t believe you quit while I was ahead,” she says.
“In your dreams.”
“Next time we play, I will unequivocally kick your butt. Your island will disappear like Atlantis.”
“You’re welcome to try.” I roll out the dough, giddy at the prospect of a next time. Then a thought occurs to me.
“Turn around,” I tell her.
She squints at me with distrust. “Why? What are you up to?”
“I want to surprise you with this pizza. I don’t want you to see the ingredients.”
Her smile is sudden and open and delighted. Without another word, she turns away, and I hustle to open a can, snag spices from the cabinet, shred cheese. Soon, the pizza goes into the oven.
“Do we have time for another game?” she asks. I can’t believe she actually likes it.
“The pizza only takes about ten minutes.”
She peppers me with questions about school, which I’m happy to answer, but which also sink like lead into my heart. Once school starts, this all ends.
When the oven timer goes off, I paddle the pie out of the oven and place it before her. Her eyes widen and she licks her lips.
“Two more minutes,” I tease. “We have to let it settle.”
She groans, but waits patiently. I eventually cut the pizza and plate a slice for each of us.
“Utensils?” I ask, and she scoffs at me and sinks her teeth into her pizza.
“It’s a pumpkin base with manchego cheese,” I tell her, “and—”
“This is amazing!” she says, eyes alight, jaw working. “This is incredible!”
“Nah. I mean, I didn’t even puree my own pumpkin. It’s out of a can.”
“Sebastian! This is phenomenal!” She chokes as she tries to chew, swallow, and talk all at the same time. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. Ever. You could sell this.”
“What, invite people over to my house and cook for them? Yeah, right.”
“No, you idiot. Like, in a restaurant. Or in stores.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And besides, it’s not that good. It’s just pizza.”
“You minimize,” she says. “That’s what you do. You minimize. I say something nice about you and you contort yourself into a pretzel shape to find a way to make it meaningless.”
“Some pretzels are just straight sticks.”
“Add evasive to the list of your character flaws,” she says, taking another slice. “Seriously uncool. And rude.”
I start to say I’m sorry, but I know how she feels about that. Instead, I nod and grit my teeth and then say, “You’re right.”
She blinks, the slice halfway to her mouth. “I am?”
“Yeah. I minimize. I evade. You’re totally right. I shouldn’t do that. So, how am I going to sell this stuff?”
“Really? You’re serious?”
“Aren’t you?” I counter. “You’re the one who put the idea in my head. You have to help me. You’re honor bound. Or something.” And then I hit her with the finishing blow: “Or were you lying when you said it was good enough to sell?”
“I wasn’t lying!” she says hotly. “I don’t lie. Especially to my friends.”
“Okay. Then what’s our next step? We’re now Sebastian’s Pies, Inc. I’m CEO and head chef. You’re…”
“Taste tester and head of marketing.”
“Sounds good.”
So now we stare at each other and chew. “Well?” I ask after a while.
“I’m thinking,” she says. “I’m trying to think, but this stuff is making my brain go wacky. My taste buds are commandeering my medulla oblongata. Or something.”
Aneesa checks her phone to find messages from her mother. She washes her hands, thanks me for the pizza, and says, “You really could sell it,” again before leaving.
As I clean up the kitchen and wrap Mom’s pizza in foil, I think of the look on Aneesa’s face when she first bit into the pizza, the sheer unexpectedness, the sheer joy, the delight. It’s crazy to think that I’ve known her for not even a whole summer and today was as much fun, if not more, than I’ve ever had with Evan, even on our Epic Saturdays.
I don’t know how to quantify the way I am around her, the person I am. When I’m with her, I feel hope. Possibility.
It clings to me like a scent.
Is this what love feels like? I’ve never felt it before, and I’ve never felt this before, so maybe they’re the same.
I could stay, maybe. For her, yes. I could stay.
You could sell this stuff. Not at all. Not at all. But it was fun to think about it. Fun to pretend. Fun to have someone who—for a little while—cared as much as I do.
Later. Asleep. Beeping. Wake up. Blurry dark. Shake head. Rub eyes. Still beeping. Clock? Can’t see. Rub eyes again. Clock: half past midnight. Evan. Gotta be Evan texting. Sometimes loses track of time.
Waking up now. My phone bleats again.
Young Leaders live in a whole different time zone from We of the Proletariat.
I grab the phone and twist it right side up so that I can read the screen. The incoming text isn’t from Evan; it’s from Aneesa.
It’s one word. I take a moment to read it a second time, to make sure I understand. But I don’t understand.
Rather, I understand the word, but not why Aneesa is texting it to me at this hour.
The word is YouTube.
Maybe that’s two words.
Me: ?
Aneesa: YouTube!
Aneesa: YouTube!!!
Aneesa: You! Tube!
Me: Quoting myself: “?”
Aneesa: YouTube is how we get sebastian’s pies started!!! You start your own channel where you make a pizza. A different one each time.
Aneesa: And people tune in to see how
Aneesa: Like once a week. Your own cooking channel!!!
Aneesa: And then you get advertisers and you make a million dollars and you give half of it to me because it was my idea
Me: U r nuts. No one wants to watch me make pizza
Aneesa: No, U r nuts! people watch all kinds of stuff on YouTube like the makeup girl and unboxing videos and video gamers and stuff like that
Aneesa: Trust me!!!
Before I respond, the chat bubble scrolls up, replaced by a new one loaded with more emoji than I’ve ever seen in one place at one time. There are multiple pizzas, hands clasped in prayer (or perhaps begging), a white boy’s face grinning, a brown girl’s face alight with surprise, more pizza, a computer screen, and then a dollar sign followed by the symbols for euros, British pounds, Japanese yen, and what I can only assume to be four to five other foreign currencies, after which I believe she merely ran her fingers across the emoji keyboard because I don’t know what the symbols for—among others—poop, a haircut, a shoe, and a trumpet have to do with making pizza online.