A Blind Spot for Boys

by Justina Chen

  “Reb!”

  “So here’s a wild idea.” She who calls herself my friend now widened her green eyes. “Maybe you should call him? I know, crazy, right?”

  “He doesn’t have a phone.”

  “What?” Reb sounded the same disbelief I had felt before I knew Quattro’s reason. “Why?”

  That was private information I didn’t want to share, not because I was afraid of what Reb would think but because Quattro blaming himself for his mother’s death was his story and his alone to share.

  “I’ve tried e-mailing him, but it’s like he’s a CIA operative or something. He’s gone dark.” I shivered at those words. What if something had happened to Quattro and his dad on their way home?

  “Well, who knows why? Maybe he’s not in a place where he can check e-mail? Or he’s lost your phone number? A billion things could have happened. You never know.” Reb shrugged. “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you.”

  Reasonable enough. I needed to move to safer topics: her treehouse building, weekend plans with Jackson, her kid brother. Luckily, Reb agreed that I was so behind in school, another night off wasn’t going to hurt my grades more. So she insisted on helping me with Dad’s surprise present. As we reviewed the storyboard I’d sketched on paper, Reb said, “If you don’t mind me plagiarizing the idea, I’m so going to make one for my grandparents. I think Grandpa is going to pop the question soon. On the anniversary of the first time he proposed to Grandma Stesha.”

  “That’s so romantic!” I said.

  Our heads were bowed over Mom’s computer as we clicked through folders. Photo after photo showed my parents not just living together through the years but loving together. In more than half of the pictures, my parents were laughing or hugging or just holding hands. The recent divorce of Reb’s parents had come as a nasty surprise to everyone except her father, and I didn’t want images of a happy couple to hurt her now.

  I asked Reb, “You okay looking at these?”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding firmly. Even though her smile was bittersweet, I could see she was telling the truth. “It’s nice to see couples who’ve made it.”

  “Well, it hasn’t exactly been all peaches and sunshine these last couple of weeks.” I told her about how cranky Dad had been, first sullen and silent, then lashing out.

  “Tough,” said Reb sympathetically.

  And then I replayed how Mom had treated him like an invalid before becoming all helpless woman in distress. “Oh, my gosh, she kept asking him if he was doing okay—like he was on his last legs.”

  “Ouch. Your dad’s Mr. Climb Every Mountain Because It’s There and all. He must have hated that.”

  “I know! Can you say ‘total irritation at Mom’?” My breath caught. “You know what? Even when Dad was all cranky, he was the enforcer of thou-shalt-not-touch-my-daughter with Quattro. I swear, Dad could be my number one pest control technique. He totally intimidates guys.”

  “You have pest control techniques?”

  “Had.” I flushed when Reb burst out laughing. “Okay, so I had a couple of boy control techniques. But I didn’t even realize it.”

  “Oh, my gosh, my mom always says that in her landscaping business, all she hears is rich-people problems: Wherever shall I site my bronze statue? I’m just so weary of looking at those peonies. But, Shana, do you have any idea how many girls would hate you for having pretty-girl problems?”

  I blushed. Maybe Brian’s mother wasn’t terribly wrong about calling my streak of heartbreaking a pathology—a sickness. Discarding boys coldly wasn’t fair, no matter how afraid of being hurt I was. Just because I had the power to win hearts didn’t give me the right to break them.

  In a small voice, I admitted, “I feel bad.”

  “Yeah, you should,” Reb agreed simply, without any heat or judgment.

  “Should I apologize to them all?”

  “No!” Reb looked horrified. “I’m sure they all want your rejection to be a tiny little insignificant footnote in their lives. I wouldn’t go ripping off their scabs now.”

  “I don’t know.…”

  “Grandma Stesha would say, just be careful with people’s feelings starting right now. And then maybe—maybe!—at your ten-year reunion, you can say something to them. Oh, like”—her voice went all soft and sultry as she fluttered her eyelashes—“Hey, baby! I hope you’ve recovered from pest control technique number five.”

  Laughing hard, I understood what Grace meant about her Wednesday Walkers. I told Reb about them now: trusted friends who had journeyed through marriages and divorces together, loyal friends who’d sat by one another’s bedsides during childbirth and cancer treatments, beloved friends who’d kept secrets and poured honesty into each other’s souls.

  “Just like us,” she said.

  Reb and Ginny might not live in Seattle full-time anymore and they might be moving on in their own lives, but they were my own SOS squad and love-you-forever crew.

  “Just like us,” I agreed.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  You would have thought I was training for the Indy 500 the way I raced home in Dad’s immaculate truck from school two weeks later. My parents were supposed to return early that evening. “Supposed to” were the operative words. The last time we talked, they had sounded so excited after climbing yet another Mayan pyramid that it wouldn’t have shocked me if they extended their stay. Budget hadn’t even been mentioned once.

  Halfway home, I checked the clock on the dashboard and accelerated. An emergency Chemistry tutoring session, encouraged strongly by my teacher, had whittled my three-hour party prep window down to one. I cast a glance over my shoulder before moving into the fast lane. I couldn’t get myself worked up over the C+ on my latest Chem quiz. That was a small price to pay for experiencing Peru with my parents, meeting Grace, and getting to know Quattro.

  If I wanted to execute all my plans, though, I’d have to pick up my pace. Think reunion mixed with surprise birthday party. For four exhausting hours after school yesterday, I had prepped the Peruvian-inspired meal with Ginny coaching me from her dorm room in the Hudson Valley. Ceviche. Arroz con pollo. And my own concoction: quinoa salad à la porter. While Peruvians might consume 65 million guinea pigs a year, we decided some culinary boundaries should never be crossed.

  Although there was no pressing need to check my in-box, I did right after parking the truck in the garage. Messages from Stesha and Grace. Dad’s family confirming their attendance. Ginny and Reb telling me how sorry they were to miss the party. It seemed like I’d heard from everyone but one guy with a soft spot for the color orange.

  Even though I was on track to break my personal best record for getting home from school, I was worried. Worn out last night, I had fallen asleep before creating a playlist heavy on Andean mountain songs, not to mention I had all the dishes that needed last-minute assembling. But vaulting out of the truck now had more to do with outdistancing the sad truth that I found myself in yet another unrequited love situation.

  I was so focused on Quattro’s continued silence that I nearly missed the surprise waiting for me on the porch: Ginny. Good thing my crutches were planted firmly on the pathway, otherwise I would have fallen from shock. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think? I was worried you’d mess up my recipes,” Ginny said, throwing her arms around me. “No, actually, it’s spring break. And Mom totally surprised me with this trip.”

  It’d been over three months since Ginny visited for Christmas. New red streaks wove through her golden-brown hair, cut so that it shattered against her creamy cheeks. No amount of texting could compare with being together in person, and I balanced on my good leg to hug her again.

  “What’s all that?” I asked, pointing at the platters and Tupperware containers in large cardboard boxes lining the porch.

  “Reinforcements,” Ginny said, already hefting one box in her arms. “Okay, hurry up and open the door! We’ve got work to do!” A few minutes later, she was sling
ing mounds of cookie dough onto the baking sheets, making me wonder whether she meant to say that we had a workout to do.

  Concerned, I turned away from checking the oven’s temperature and asked, “So everything okay in Ginny-land?”

  “Boys are stupidheads,” she said flatly, dropping a ball of half-frozen dough so hard, it almost bounced. “And I’m not sure I want to even try understanding them anymore.”

  “I totally get that.”

  “Okay, so you know Josh?”

  “Chef Boy?” From her scowl, I had guessed correctly. “What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing, that’s the problem. He’s all simmer, no boil.”

  I laughed. Ginny did not. Still, a hint of a smile softened her expression as she slid the cookie sheet into the oven. She said, “I’m serious. He’s all, ‘Hey, I love your crust. Can you teach me how to make it for finals?’”

  “Wow, great pickup line.”

  “I know, right?” She nodded, missing my sarcasm, as she peered at a tray of miniature pies, then frowned critically at one that was nicked. “So I go over to his apartment, right? And all we did was cook.”

  “Horrors!”

  She placed the tray near the oven, turning the light on to check on the cookies. It was like watching a ballet, the way she flitted gracefully from one workstation to another in the kitchen. “So then I’m all, ‘If you like mine, there’s this new restaurant in town with supposedly crazy good pie. I’ve wanted to visit it.’”

  I guessed, “And he didn’t pick up that totally obvious cue for him to ask you out to taste-test the pie?”

  “No! I mean, all those land-a-man books say that means he’s blowing me off. But is he just clueless? I mean, for one of the top chefs who knows his way around a kitchen, he seems a little lost around women,” Ginny said, glowering at me. “So come on. What do you think? You’re the idiot savant of boys.”

  “Apparently, just an idiot.” I hobbled behind her to grab a stack of paper plates from the pantry. “Trust me, I’m the last one you should ask for boy advice.” So finally, I told her about Dom without concealing anything. It was like conducting a grand tour of my private diary: Here’s where my heart was dinged; here’s where my soul was damaged. “And that last time we saw each other, he yelled at me. Like top-of-his-lungs yelled. His veins were popping out, and I swear, the whole street shook.”

  Ginny’s eyes were on me the entire time; she was no longer readying new trays or primping the cookies on platters. I reached out for a broken cookie, but she pushed a whole one onto me instead. “Whoa. You know, it sounds like you totally dodged the bullet with him. I mean, what if he ended up being like the Yeller who was with his sister?”

  “I never thought of that. Oh, my gosh, he sounded just like the Yeller.”

  “Who knows what was going on in Dom’s family? Maybe his dad’s a yeller. But whatever. Mom would say you’re so blessed.”

  So blessed. “That’s true.”

  “You don’t need that in your life.”

  “I don’t!” I nibbled the cookie, letting the sweetness spread in my mouth. “Ginny… maybe you don’t want Mr. Top Chef if it means you have to be his sous-chef. I mean, what was with him asking you for your secret recipe?”

  “That’s so true!”

  “And who wants to be with the kind of guys where we have to convince them we’re good enough? I mean, Ginny! He should be so lucky to be with you. You’re…” I grasped for a way to tell Ginny how precious she was, and my eyes dropped to a plate of gold-dusted truffles. “You’re gold leaf!”

  “I am! Whoa, I actually feel better now.”

  “Me, too.” This time, I took a big bite and tasted the hint of smoked sea salt that I had missed before. “But then again, it could be the magical healing properties of your cookies.”

  She shoved her hand into an oven mitt to check her babies. “Probably.”

  “Shana! Where’s my girl?” Dad bellowed before he was drowned out with a resounding cheer from thirty of our closest friends, my brothers, and the rest of our family, who had crammed into our home: “Surprise!”

  They were so loud, Auggie cowered behind me. Mom pushed her way around Dad and bustled through the crowd. Nothing—not even a surprise party—was going to interrupt her single-minded mission to love on me. Her hug was choking, not that I minded. I dropped my crutches and hugged her even tighter. Over her shoulder, I grinned at Dad. Just as I had hoped, his attention was caught on the TV screen frozen on the first still of his video: Fifty by Fifty Wilde Adventures.

  “What’s that?” Dad asked, stepping closer.

  Premiering this video to a roomful of friends and family was even more frightening than releasing one on the Web. There was a real risk that someone I loved could diminish my work with a condescending Good effort. And that would be so much more hurtful than criticism from a random hater.

  But I hadn’t created this homage to Dad for my private viewing any more than I photographed street fashion for myself. With no spoken word, just love screaming in my heart, I pressed Play and let this slide-show love note speak for itself.

  WILDE ADVENTURE #1: CRADLE ROBBING

  There was Mom, a chubby-cheeked five-year-old holding a crayon drawing: tiny house with five figures in descending height order and a dog that looked suspiciously like a guinea pig. And Dad, nine months old, toddling purposefully toward a toy camera. Both of them already knew what they wanted.

  WILDE ADVENTURE #5: THE ORIGINAL PEST TEST

  The maître d’ at the waterfront restaurant must have swooned, and not in a good way, at the fashion faux pas couple before his eyes: Mom in a mustard-colored blazer with shoulder pads so enormous she could have single-handedly leveled an entire football team. And Dad in his original Paradise Pest Control uniform, all polyester. Dad supposedly hadn’t had time to go home, shower, and change after an emergency concerning an infestation of slugs inside a client’s house.

  Supposedly.

  After wiping tears from laughing so hard at the picture of the two of them, Mom wondered aloud, “So, Shana, based on your experience exterminating boys, do you think your dad was conducting his own pest control technique on me? See if I would pass inspection?”

  I shrugged innocently.

  WILDE ADVENTURE #25: BOBSLEDDING

  Dad and his youngest brother, our uncle Bob, had transformed themselves into human sleds. Bobsledding went terribly wrong, ending with both of them in the ER with matching broken arms.

  “Hmm, what do I always say about needing to see someone in crisis to really know them?” Mom asked me, both of us snorting at the implications of that.

  “But then,” I said, “we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Good thing your mom is so understanding,” said Dad before he kissed her.

  WILDE ADVENTURE #35: BEDBUGS, BEWARE

  Dad with Auggie, fresh from the pound, on their first training mission. Halfway through, Auggie had her Helen Keller moment, where understanding illuminated everything. Water for Helen, bedbug for Auggie. It wasn’t clear who was happier: Dad because of our dog, or Auggie because of her chicken-liver treat.

  WILDE ADVENTURE #45: LOVE IS BLIND

  My parents at the kitchen table on the day they told me about Dad’s eyesight, heads bowed with the weight of that life-upending news. The best photograph captures the truth, unspoken and unseen. What I saw now was the love knot of my parents’ intertwined hands.

  The following three photographs were taken after the mudslide on the Inca Trail, in the tourmaline waters of Belize, and atop the pyramid of Tikal. Luckily, my brothers had come through and e-mailed me those shots. No photographs could have made it clearer that my parents loved life. That was their true sine qua non. Their smiles were the same in the pictures taken of them at home and with their friends as in the shots of their adventures on their once-in-a-lifetime trips with us.

  WILDE ADVENTURE #50: FIELD OF VISION

  Frame after frame, fifty in all, in quick succession: a parade of
Dad’s favorite photographs shot over thirty years, the sum of his photo safaris, his life’s work.

  The slide show ended on a final image of our front door, half-opened to a fiery sunrise, a photo Dad had taken the morning after we moved into the cottage. Like a guardian of dreams, that photograph still hangs in the entry. Get outside, it says. Go have an adventure, it encourages. Live, it urges.

  This was the moment; I could feel it in my fingertips. Yet again I mourned my camera, lost somewhere under mud on the Inca Trail. But I had Quattro’s camera, which I would have to return somehow, someday. But not yet, not today.

  Dad slung his arm over Mom’s shoulder, an affectionate gesture I’d seen countless times before. They gazed at each other as though living and reliving thousands of conversations, spoken and unspoken.

  And there it was: the decisive moment.

  Dad’s eyes glittered with tears as he stared, stared, stared down at Mom as if committing her to the deepest, most powerful part of his memory, one that no concussion could confuse or old age could erase. As I pressed down on the shutter, I knew without a doubt that Mom’s face—not Machu Picchu or parrot fish or pyramids, but Mom’s face—would be the very last image Dad would want to see.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It took Mom a full ten minutes before her tears stopped rolling down her cheeks and she calmed down enough to say, “That was remarkable, truly remarkable. Beyond remarkable.” Mom being Mom gazed at me as proudly as if I had snagged a Pulitzer. My brothers, Mom’s best friends, the Paradise Pest Control employees, our neighbors—they bombarded me with a hundred compliments and a half-dozen requests for video valentines of their own. I noticed that the only people who remained silent were Dad’s siblings, who looked ashamed and uncomfortable, as if for once they saw the sacrifices he’d made.

  Throughout the ensuing hubbub, my father didn’t say a word to me.