Breakfast Served Anytime

by Sarah Combs

  “A God Match,” Mason repeated. “Sounds incendiary.”

  Calvin shifted uncomfortably and rubbed his eyes. “Talking about God, it’s like trying to . . . I don’t know. It’s like trying to catch a blue butterfly. To nail something beautiful like that to the wall.” Calvin paused to sip from his milk. I exchanged a glance with Chloe: This was an example of what the two of us had started referring to as a “Calvinism”; i.e., the sort of startling kernel of wisdom and deep feeling that Calvin would quietly toss out after any number of minutes or hours of complete silence. The boy contained multitudes. “My roommate wants me to go to church with him next Sunday,” he continued. Church. I kept forgetting that Geek Camp provided us with the option of worshipping at the college’s chapel on Sundays.

  “Are you gonna go?” Chloe asked. “Because you know, you guys can always come to visit me in God’s very own Boone County. Never mind that the place is named for a freaking historically immortal frontiersman; now our claim to fame is the Creation Museum! Come one, come all to see the Bible in megatronic, supersonic —”

  “Chloe,” Calvin said evenly, “are you going to let me talk? I mean, are you going to let me answer your question or not?”

  “I’m sorry,” Chloe said, chastened. We watched her rummage in her brain for a second. “What’d I ask you, again?”

  “Am I going to church with my roommate next Sunday.”

  “Right. Well. Are you?”

  Calvin shrugged. “Why not? Maybe I’ll learn something. Then maybe I can take him to my church, see what he thinks.”

  Chloe’s steel trap of a mind seized on that immediately. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you tell us a while back, right here at this table, that you don’t go to church?”

  “The farm,” Calvin said, clear-eyed, direct. It was the most confident I’d ever seen him be with us. “That’s my church.”

  Nobody said anything for a few seconds, and Calvin rapped his knuckles on the table, two swift wrap-’em-up knocks. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve got to go pick up Holyfield.”

  Holyfield, as it turned out, had all but officially become Calvin’s dog. Somehow X had managed to keep his job despite what Jessica had claimed were his attempts to brainwash us, and — perhaps most significantly — despite his having basically pawned his dog off on Calvin Little. Our own Calvin, with his needlepoint belts and immaculate manners, had succeeded in convincing all the in-charge types over at the boys’ dorm that Holyfield was not only an important lesson in caretaking and responsibility, but also a noble and respectable mascot. Everybody loved Holyfield, and Holyfield, in turn, had increased everybody’s love for Calvin, the skinny redheaded dude who didn’t say much but had managed to break all the rules through the devilishly clever move of appearing to be the sort of person who would never, ever dream of breaking the rules.

  “So what’s your roommate have to say about that dog?” Chloe asked as we made our way to class, Holyfield in tow.

  “One of God’s creatures,” Calvin grinned. “What would Saint Francis do?”

  X had agreed to hold class outdoors, and we found him where he said he’d be: dozing beneath the Kissing Tree. Holyfield beelined for his face and slathered it with slobbery Holyfield love. “How’s he doing?” X asked Calvin.

  “Fine,” Calvin said. “We get along.”

  “This is just a trial period, you do understand,” X said, peering at Calvin over his glasses. Then Holyfield broke everybody’s heart by looking from one to the other of them, old dad to new dad, confused. He cocked his head and waited for something to happen.

  “Holyfield, buddy, come here,” Calvin said softly. The dog perked up his ears, trotted up to Calvin, and rolled onto his back, tongue lolling goofily from the corner of his mouth.

  “Trial period, my arse,” X said. “Calvin, my man, looks like you’ve got yourself a dog. Also, you’re on. The stage is yours. Knock us out. Everybody else: Lend Calvin your ears and your full attention, please. This is serious business.”

  As we made ourselves comfortable in the shade of the tree, Calvin shuffled to a standing position before us. His face and the tips of his ears were fully aflame. In his hands he rotated a neat stack of index cards. “Okay,” he breathed. “Um, okay.” He cleared his throat a couple of times, and Mason elbowed me to look at something he had scrawled in his notebook: What about the talent show? I shook my head in a not right now warning just as Chloe thwacked me on the arm with a pencil.

  “Ow!”

  “Cal,” Chloe said, giving me the evil eye, “we’re listening. Remember, it’s just us. You can tell us anything, right?” She took a drag from her pencil, scooped up Holyfield, and gathered him into her lap. “Here,” she said. “Forget about us. Forget we’re here. Just talk right to Holyfield, okay?”

  Dutifully, Holyfield perked up his ears. He kneaded his little white sock-paws into Chloe’s skirt as if he were cozying himself up to hear a good story. I’m telling you: Holyfield was absolutely the coolest dog I’d ever met in my life. He could make a convert out of anyone.

  “Okay,” Calvin said. “Okay.” He stared down at his index cards and took a shaky breath. In that moment I could sense Calvin’s nervousness so keenly that I almost got up and ran, just to free us all. It’s like when you go to a play and an actor falters — even if it’s just a line, just a single word, the veil comes crashing down and it’s so excruciating and embarrassing that you just want to la la la! squinch your eyes shut and pretend yourself back to the safety of the parking lot. I mean, I know it was just us, sitting around in the sunshine waiting for Calvin to talk about some book, but the performance anxiety was killing me; it was catching; my armpits were dampening on Calvin’s behalf. Cal, I prayed, get it together. Then he looked up at us, eyes a clear and steady blue. “My Great American Novel is called Nathan Coulter, and it could be the story of my life.”

  It was just like in that movie, the one where they put on the play and the guy with the stage fright is responsible for the opening speech of the first-ever performance of Romeo and Juliet: You’re cringing and dying, thinking the guy won’t get over his stammer, that the play will be a failure, and then he comes out with it — Two households, both alike in dignity — with such nobility and strength of purpose that you’re already hooked, you’re already crying, and Gwyneth Paltrow and her doomed lover haven’t even appeared on the scene yet.

  I had never the hell even heard of Calvin’s book, but as he stood beneath that ancient sycamore, explaining to us why he loved it, reading a passage from it with genuine conviction and gaining confidence as he read, I fell for him a little bit, just for a second: the rogue lock of red hair that the breeze kept blowing into his eyes, the pale down on his neatly sinewed arms — arms that I could suddenly (ridiculously) imagine hefting firewood, cradling newborn babies, commandeering wheelbarrows and other farm paraphernalia. Conviction, that was the word — it was that belief in, that loyalty to, a thing. I had been surprised — no, awed — to see it all over the place at Geek Camp. I mean, I couldn’t fathom how someone could look at the ruins of a mountain and see it as anything other than a crime, but for Jessica it was linked to things she would defend with her life: her family, her hometown, her history, her future. She thought I was weird and had said so out loud, but I had no doubt that her loyalty to me — to anyone she befriended — was fierce and final.

  Jessica and Sonya, they had it all figured out: They were going to stay in Kentucky and become lawyers and, like Calvin, give something back to the place that had raised them. I myself could barely see past the dreamscape of next week . . . What did I want? Unexpected magic. To get swept up and carried away, daily and maybe forever, by the powerful undertow of music and books. I marveled that I had ever landed at Geek Camp to begin with — I didn’t have the grades or the ambition or the drive, I was beginning to realize. I was lazy. Lazy and given to paroxysms of boy-craziness that I would have denied with a furious passion if you’d asked me. I did seem to be armed with a sort of path
ological thirst for learning stuff, but that’s just it: The learning was what got me. The business of learning-as-a-means-to-an-end? Well. That eluded me completely. I was hopeless. Destined to be broke and brokenhearted.

  “So if the Great American Novel is linked, somehow, to the American Dream,” Calvin was saying, “then my dream is to honor the land. Let it teach me what it has to teach me. Not just me. All of us.” He squinted down at us, holding his breath. “That’s all, I guess.”

  Chloe, eyes glistening, let go of Holyfield so she could applaud. X rose from the ground and clapped Calvin on the shoulder. “That was excellent, Calvin,” he said. “I’m proud of you.” He removed his glasses and started cleaning them with the bottom of his T-shirt. “I’m proud of all of you, actually,” he said to the ground, to no one in particular. “Do you know why I sent those letters home, asking yall to get yourselves unplugged for a month?”

  By now Calvin had joined us on the ground, curled in a lanky fermata around Holyfield. Chloe had spread a quilt on the grass and we were all heaped there in the sun, laughing and congratulating Cal. In that moment the love I felt for each one of them rose up in me so quickly I had to blink — hard — to keep it from spilling out my eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter, really,” X continued, “but I just didn’t want to contend with all that noise. It was my litmus test. I wanted to see what kind of students I’d get if I handed you some arbitrary rule like that.”

  I remembered Carol, how she’d said we’d get a chocolate factory in the end. I made a mental note to write her about this decidedly Wonka development.

  “I started out with twenty-three takers, and after the letter went home, it was just you four,” X said. “Can you believe that? Most of the complaints came from parents, not kids.”

  Mason visored his eyes with his hand. Something in him had shifted in the space of a blink. “So what are you saying, X? Spit it out.”

  “I guess I’m just glad things worked out the way they did,” X said, shrugging amiably. “You’re a good group, a good group.”

  For some reason, this upended Mason. “Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren’t,” he said, standing and dusting himself off. “Maybe that remains to be seen, right? Maybe your little litmus test wasn’t quite comprehensive enough.”

  “Mason,” Chloe said softly. She rested her hand on his shoe. “Dude.”

  “I mean, are we going to have class, or what?” Mason angled his blue gaze on X. “Are you going to teach this class, or are we going to sit around and sing ‘Kumbaya’ and maybe pack a big fat bowl?”

  X, like the rest of us, was visibly taken aback. “Let’s have class,” he said carefully. “And you’re welcome to leave if that doesn’t suit.”

  Mason blinked, holding his ground. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Good,” X said.

  Everybody sat there, breath suspended, hoping Mason was finished. He wasn’t.

  “I’m also not ever going to be anybody’s pawn. Not yours, not anybody’s. Okay?”

  X waited to see if Mason had anything else to say. “Okay,” he said. “Mason. You’re not a pawn. I didn’t mean it that way. You’re an important part of this class, is what you are. You’re also up next. Have you picked a Great American Novel to present to us?”

  “No,” Mason said, quieter now. “No, I haven’t decided yet.” He sat back down, elbows to knees, ankles crossed, folding himself in. “Stay tuned.”

  Holyfield, our very own Emotional Barometer, settled himself next to Mason and heaved an empathetic sigh, crinkling his puppy-eyebrow tufts in sympathy. Mason stroked his ears and spoke to him gently. “Whatup, little bro. How about you don’t chew on my shoe?”

  X cleared his throat and stroked his beard. It was disconcerting, the way he seemed so scared of us sometimes. Just be in charge! I wanted to scream. Own the authority! Grow some balls! Seriously, is it too much to ask to find one single teacher in this world to look up to? Just one? Some part of me had clicked along with Mason’s sudden mood shift; I couldn’t say exactly what it was, but a thread of understanding had passed between the two of us.

  X had started talking again — this time about Henry James — and I scribbled a note to Mason: Okay, I’m in. I elbowed him and tilted my notebook so he could see. “Excellent,” he whispered, and winked — a wink that, despite everything, sent a blue butterfly free-falling through my stomach. Immediately, I thought to change my mind, but it was already in writing: I was going to enter that stupid talent show alongside the Mad Hatter. Un-freaking-believable.

  Chloe was dutifully taking notes as X waxed enthusiastic about The Portrait of a Lady. I nudged her and motioned for the Magic 8 Ball, which had rolled out of her bag and was gleaming like a promise in the sun. With a decidedly schoolmarm-ish frown (I know! Chloe! Getting all dutiful and prim!), she handed it over. I conjured my question in my head and shook the ball in what I considered impressively surreptitious fashion —

  “Gloria? It appears you’re in possession of some fascinating news over there. If it’s so much more fascinating than Isabel Archer, kindly share it with the rest of us.”

  Embarrassment rose up in me like heat rash. “No, that’s okay.”

  “What do you mean, that’s okay?” X shook his head and let out a mocking laugh. “Your generation is something else. Would you like another Coke? No, I’m okay. What happened to No, thank you? Basic manners? Kindergarten stuff? You’re okay. I’m glad you’re okay. Are you okay enough to pay attention?”

  I nodded. For all the bullshit airs I put on about being a rebellious soul, I can’t stand to be called out like that. Here was X, acting like a teacher just when I was hoping he would, but I was too mortified to fully appreciate the moment.

  “So what’ve you got there? Enthrall us, please, with the unparalleled acumen of the Eight Ball.”

  The blue liquid had cleared to reveal its watery triangle of wisdom: Better Not Tell You Now.

  IF WONDERLAND’S White Queen was indeed capable of believing six impossible things before breakfast, it should be said of me that I was — am — fully capable of falling in love even more times before breakfast than that. It’s like a disease. X had sent us home with a big chunk of The Portrait of a Lady, and almost immediately I had fallen head over heels for poor, soulful Ralph Touchett, the invalid cousin of Isabel Archer (who, in my opinion, needed a swift kick in the ass). X’s curriculum made absolutely no sense at all; he just jumped around from book to book, author to author, Europe to America, just gush-gush-gushing about the power of words and hoping, I guess, that some of his enthusiasm would stick. Later that summer (school looming ominously on the calendar, the promise of fall infusing the air with nostalgia itself, you know the mood), it would hit me: It would occur to me that X had reached us; that Geek Camp would forever mark for me the point in my life when I discovered that words are alchemy, that words really can save us.

  On Fourth of July morning, though, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was lazing in bed, swooning over Ralph Touchett while Jessica snored lightly in the opposite bed. In honor of the holiday it was also Parents’ Day, which meant that the hours of nine to noon would be open to any parents who wanted to visit their kids. Diane showed up at 8:30 with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a freshly lacquered French manicure that made her fingernails look like the squared-off ends of screwdrivers.

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  Jessica opened one eye and rolled back over. “Mom, you’re early.”

  I climbed out of bed and stood up. “Hi, Mrs. Dixon. I’m Gloria.” I offered my hand.

  Diane looked me briskly up and down and stuck the doughnut box into my outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, Gloria.”

  I selected my favorite: a chocolate-iced cream-filled. “Wow, thank you. Jess, you want one?”

  Jessica swung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched. “Mmmm,” she said, reaching for the box.

  “Ah-ah-ah,” Diane sang, tapping the back of Jessica’s hand with a screwdriver.
“Let’s not forget our diet, honey.”

  I looked from Diane to Jessica, confused. “So these are all for me?”

  Diane beamed. “Enjoy!”

  Jessica rubbed her eyes and gathered up her shower stuff. “Mom,” she said, “just let me get dressed. I’ll meet you in the lobby as soon as I’m done. How’s that sound?”

  Diane looked pointedly at her watch and heaved a sigh. “Well get a move on, honey. So much shopping to do, so little time!”

  The door clicked shut and I looked at Jessica, aghast. I waited for her to cry, which is what I would have done, but instead she blithely tore into a caramel doughnut. I couldn’t decide which was more shocking: Diane herself, or Jessica’s apparent immunity to her. “Ibbour dad cubbing?” Jess mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.

  I shook my head. “I begged him not to.”

  “Do you want to come to the mall with us? There’s this early-bird holiday sale thing.”

  Was she serious? Can you say nightmare? “I think I’ll stay here and work on my presentation,” I said.

  Jessica smiled. “Well, if you change your mind in the next twenty minutes, just holler. You’re invited.” She cocked her head at me so I’d know she meant it.

  “Thanks, but I’m glad for the quiet. It’s perfect.”

  On her way out the door, Jessica switched off the overhead light. “Coal keeps the lights on,” she sang as she disappeared toward the bathroom. It was a familiar refrain: ever since our little disagreement, she’d been getting a huge kick out of plunging the room into darkness, taping little notes over the light switch and across the refrigerator door: Coal keeps the fridge on, bitches!

  She wasn’t going to sway me anytime soon. “I love you, too!” I called out after her. “Bye!”

  The quiet really was awesome. It felt restorative, like sleep or good food. I basked in it, in the glow of doomed and beautiful Ralph Touchett, as I listened to the bustle outside the door: parents reuniting with their kids, planning their mornings. I chewed on a coconut doughnut and contemplated the absolute gorgeousness of solitude.