See You in the Cosmos

by Jack Cheng

  Steve gave me a weird look when I said that. He said they don’t have that here, it’s going to be whatever the pastry chef decides and it’s going to be a lot better than apple pie à la mode, and he told the waiter don’t worry about it.

  But then Steve was wrong! For dessert I got an apple pie à la mode except it was deconstructed, meaning the crust looked like dirt and the ice cream looked like a lake and there were no apples, just apple foam that disappeared as soon as I put it in my mouth. It was so weird.

  Steve thought all our food was so good but I like Johnny Rockets better to be honest. He said I didn’t like it as much because my palate isn’t refined enough, and I told him, No, I didn’t like it because I just didn’t like it. Steve took pictures of everything we ate and he said he’s going to leave a five-star review on Yelp, him and his girlfriend leave reviews on Yelp all the time, and I tried to be brave again because I thought about Carl Sagan yelping behind a dumpster or trying to cross one of the huge busy roads here in Las Vegas and yelping because he’s too scared to cross.

  Right after we finished our food Steve’s girlfriend called and he went in the hallway to talk to her, and when he came back he was kind of mad again. I think maybe he’s not in love with his girlfriend after all because if he is, then why does he get mad every time he talks to her? Then the waiter came and asked us would we like any coffee or tea and Steve said, No, just the check. And I called animal control to check on Carl Sagan and they said they still haven’t seen him, and then my stomach felt empty again but I don’t think it was because I was hungry.

  Steve said if we don’t find Carl Sagan by this afternoon we should just keep driving to LA because we’ve done all we can, and besides, he just promised his girlfriend he’d be back home tonight. I said, How can you say that! We haven’t even looked in half of Las Vegas yet, and I know because Zed and me saw it from the top of the Stratosphere and it’s huge, it’s even bigger than Zed remembers! Then Steve said we can’t stay here forever, and I said I’ll stay here as long as I need to to find Carl Sagan, and then I remembered my maybe dad and I said, How about we go to the address we found for him because he probably knows Las Vegas a lot better than we do because he lives here.

  Steve and Zed looked at each other, and Steve said, Isn’t that a little too much? And I said, Too much what? And Zed said, We can always use an extra pair of eyes, and he kept staring at Steve, it was almost like he was trying to communicate with Steve telepathically. Then Steve looked back at me and he said, OK, let’s go see, so we left the restaurant and I put in the address on Google Maps on Steve’s phone, and we came here to where my maybe dad lives.

  My maybe dad’s subdivision is so nice. It even has its own golf course! We drove across a path for the golf carts and we passed some houses with weird shingles and there were guys from lawnmower companies mowing the lawns, and it reminded me of Benji’s subdivision except all the trees here are palm trees. The Google Maps lady told us, Your destination is on the right, so we looked on the right and then she told us, You have arrived, and the house had tan walls and a red door and we parked the car on the street and we went up to the door.

  I rang the doorbell and nobody answered. I rang the doorbell again and nobody answered again, and I didn’t hear any sounds coming from inside the house either. I did hear a dog barking down the street but it wasn’t Carl Sagan, it was just some other dog.

  We came back to the car and Steve said it’s not even five p.m. so my maybe dad’s probably still at work, and Zed said let’s wait a little while, maybe he’ll be back soon. And I said maybe he will be, or maybe my dad won a million dollars at the casino so he doesn’t have to work, and he’s playing golf on the golf course right now and he’s going to come back driving a golf cart and he’ll have a majestic beard and he’ll be a little fatter than in the pictures I have of him so it’s going to take me a minute to recognize him.

  I wonder if he’ll recognize me.

  NEW RECORDING 24

  11M 38S

  ALEX: OK, I started it.

  UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want me to just . . . talk to them?

  ALEX: Yeah! Make sure you don’t cover the hole on the earphone wire though.

  UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Um, hello, beings from outer space?

  UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I . . . I don’t know what to say.

  ALEX: Say your name!

  UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name’s Terra. It’s nice to meet you, sort of.

  ALEX: Tell them who you are.

  TERRA: I’m Alex’s . . .

  ALEX: She’s my sister!

  TERRA: Half sister. Sorry if I’m a little tongue-tied . . . I just found out that Alex and I . . . It’s no small . . .

  TERRA: Here, you take it. You’re better than me at this.

  ALEX: It’s OK. You did good, sister!

  TERRA: Can we please not use that word right now? Just call me Terra.

  ALEX: Sure sis—I mean Terra.

  TERRA: Thanks.

  ALEX: Is it OK if I tell them about how we figured out I’m your half brother and you’re my Terra?

  TERRA: Sure.

  ALEX: OK. So we were waiting in front of the house and then Terra’s car pulled into the driveway, except I didn’t know her name was Terra yet and I didn’t know we had the same dad yet. We saw her get out of the car and Zed and me went up to her and she said, I’m sorry, we’re not buying any more fund-raiser candy. I told her I’m not selling any candy, I tried that in fifth grade and it wasn’t worth it. I asked her, Does someone named Joseph David Petroski live here? and she said No, he doesn’t, and I said, Oh, OK, we’re sorry for bothering you.

  I thought maybe I put in the address wrong and we came to the wrong house, but when I turned around to go back to the car, Terra said, Wait, what do you want with Joseph David Petroski? And I said, Do you know him? And Terra said he’s her father but he died eight years ago. I said, That’s funny, because my dad died eight years ago when I was three and his name was Joseph David Petroski too and he has the same birthday, and then she looked back and forth between me and Zed and she said, Is this some kind of joke?

  I said, It’s not a joke but do you know any good astronomy jokes? and Terra said, No, you’re mistaking him for someone else, and then I got out the picture of my family from my wallet and I showed it to Terra, and I asked her, Is this him?

  Terra looked at the picture and she said, Where did you get this? and I said I got it from my house. Terra looked at me and then she looked at Zed, and Zed told her she should talk with me alone for a little while, him and Steve will wait outside.

  I came with Terra into the house, which has really soft carpet and walls that are yellow like mustard, and the whole place smells like air freshener. We walked by the stairs and down the hallway into the living room, and Terra told me to sit down, she’ll be right back, and I heard her go upstairs. I sat down and the sofa was really comfortable and I wished Carl Sagan was there because he’d be really nervous about meeting Terra at first, but then he’d be friendlier once he got to know her, and then he’d be excited to take a nap on the sofa. And then Terra came back downstairs and she asked me what’s wrong, and I told her I’m trying to be brave.

  Terra sat down next to me and showed me some pictures that were in a shoebox, and my dad was in the pictures and he looked exactly like he does in the pictures at my house except instead of with me and my mom and Ronnie he’s with Terra and her mom, he’s even wearing the same clothes in some of them, and that’s what I told Terra.

  And then Terra, who I still didn’t know was Terra because I didn’t ask her What’s your name? yet, looked at me for a long time, and then she got out her phone. I asked her, Who are you calling? and she said she’s calling her mom, but she didn’t get up and go out of the room to make the call like Steve or Ronnie does, she just stayed sitting down right next to me which I liked.

  She said into the
phone, There’s a twelve-year-old boy here at the house, and I said Eleven, and she said, Sorry, eleven-year-old boy here from Colorado and he showed me a picture of Dad. Terra’s mom said something but I couldn’t hear what, and she was talking for a long time because Terra was listening for a long time, and then Terra hung up the phone without even saying good-bye. Then she started crying and saying stuff but she wasn’t making any sense, it runs in the family, and I started crying a little too. I just don’t like seeing other people cry, I guess.

  Terra stopped crying and then I stopped crying, and we just sat on the sofa and I looked at the fireplace, which had no wood in it. I asked Terra, What’s your name and how old are you? and she said it’s Terra and she’s nineteen. I said, Terra’s a really pretty name, how do you spell it? and she said T-E-R-R-A. I said, Did you know that Terra means Earth and my all-time hero Dr. Carl Sagan talked about TERRAforming Venus and Mars, which means making them more habitable for humans and plants and pups, and I’m recording sounds on my Golden iPod to show the intelligent beings out there what Earth is like and I went to SHARF in New Mexico to launch my iPod into space but my rocket failed, but I met Steve and Zed and made a lot of new friends and now I’m going to redouble my efforts for Voyager 4 like Lander Civet told everyone at CivSpace, and I was supposed to go back to Rockview but I got the e-mail from Ancestry.com about my dad who’s also your dad so I came to Las Vegas to see if he was still alive but this was when I still thought that he had amnesia, and me and Zed went to the top of the Stratosphere and then we met Steve at Zelda’s because he left the restaurant bar after he did his personal business but when we got there my dog and best non-human friend Carl Sagan was gone.

  Terra looked at me and she said, What? and then she started laughing all of a sudden, and her snot was all over her face and mouth, and I started laughing even though I didn’t know what was so funny. I guess her snot was pretty funny. After we both had a good laugh, Terra went to the kitchen and she came back with some napkins that we used to wipe our faces, and I told Terra more about how we lost Carl Sagan and how I thought my maybe dad could help us look for him but now that that’s not possible can SHE help us look for him?

  Terra said she’ll help look but not right now. She said her mom’s getting home soon and we should talk to her first, and it’ll be better if the guys aren’t here for that. She asked me do they have anywhere else they can go, and I said they can probably go to the restaurant bar because Steve can do his personal business there and Zed can meditate anywhere, or they could go to Zelda’s again because Steve really likes that place. She said that sounds good and we went outside to tell the guys, and I introduced them to Terra and told them she was my Terra except I said the other word she doesn’t want me to use right now.

  I think Steve was really surprised that I had a Terra. The whole time he was staring at her and his mouth was open a little and he was barely talking. I said, Hey Steve, did you turn into Zed? and he said Sorry, and I said, Can you give Terra your phone number so we can text you later after we talk with her mom? He gave it to her and then him and Zed left, and me and Terra came back inside the house, and now we’re upstairs in her bedroom making this recording.

  ALEX: Is that a good description of what happened, Terra?

  TERRA: Alex, you’re amazing.

  ALEX: Terra?

  TERRA: What is it?

  ALEX: Why are there so many pictures of you in your room?

  TERRA: Pretty embarrassing, right? It’s all my mom’s doing.

  TERRA: But whatever, I don’t live here anymore, I just come home for dinner sometimes.

  ALEX: You look so pretty in them. Your hair was a lot longer.

  TERRA: Alex . . .

  TERRA: Listen, when she gets home I want—

  [garage door opening]

  TERRA: That’s her. Just stay here until I come get you, OK?

  ALEX: OK.

  [footsteps on stairs]

  ALEX: I wonder if Terra’s mom wears flower dresses like my mom, because in some of the pictures that Terra showed me, she was—

  [muffled shouting]

  ALEX: Um . . . Terra?

  [footsteps on stairs]

  TERRA’S MOTHER: —didn’t want to upset you.

  TERRA: Well, that clearly worked out.

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Honey, it’s not that Howard and I were trying to keep—

  TERRA: Wait, Howard? Howard. Howard has a say in this but I don’t. I can’t—

  ALEX: Um . . .

  TERRA: Alex, stay back.

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Where’s his mother? Is she here?

  TERRA: No, she isn’t here. He came by himself.

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Hi sweetie, how did you get all the way here from—

  TERRA: Don’t baby-talk him. Why do you have to—

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Terra, we have to get him home to his mother. He must be scared to—

  TERRA: He’s not some helpless little thing! Stop treating him like—

  [Alex crying]

  TERRA’S MOTHER: I’m sorry dear, is all the shouting making you—

  TERRA: Stop it, Donna. You always do this.

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Do what? What am I doing, honey?

  TERRA: Just . . . stop. STOP.

  TERRA: Alex, grab your stuff.

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Terra, be reasonable—

  TERRA: Let’s go. Come on.

  TERRA’S MOTHER: Talk to me, Terra. Why are you like this?

  TERRA: ALEX.

  [footsteps on stairs]

  TERRA’S MOTHER (distant): Terra, honey, why can’t we have—

  TERRA: Just pick them up. You can put them on in the car.

  [front door slamming]

  TERRA: I’m sorry about all of this.

  [keys jingling]

  TERRA: Inside. Go.

  [car doors slamming]

  [engine starting]

  [electronic music]

  NEW RECORDING 25

  11M 28S

  Hi guys! This is the second time I’ve been in an apartment. I went to Paul Chung’s apartment for a sleepover when we were friends in fourth grade and it was nicer than my house! It had clean walls and wood floors so I thought all apartments were like that, but I guess not because Terra’s apartment is a lot different. It’s a lot smaller and darker and some of the blinds were bent when we came in, so I went and unbent them and opened the blinds. But even with the blinds all the way open it’s still kind of dark.

  I told Terra, It’s so weird that all the hallways and stairs of your apartment building are outdoors, and I asked her where’s her basement because I need to do my laundry because I only packed enough clothes for SHARF and now they’re all dirty. I told her that since she has a lot of dirty clothes all over the floor I can put our clothes in the washing machine together, but Terra said it’s nonsense because I’m her guest.

  She started picking up her clothes and she said the building doesn’t have a basement but it does have a laundry room downstairs with machines that take quarters. I said, Oh, you mean like a slot machine, and Terra said they’re like the lamest slot machines ever, because even if you’re lucky the only thing you win is clean clothes.

  I gave Terra all my shirts and my underwear except the underwear I was wearing, and I gave her my socks and turtleneck and told her, Make sure you wash it separate from the whites in cold water and tumble dry low. She gave me one of her T-shirts to wear that said NIRVANA and it fit me pretty good, a lot better than my K&H shirt because Terra is skinny. I asked Terra does she believe in nirvana and she said she does, and then she said, You listen to Nirvana? and I said, What do you mean, I thought it was an imaginary place where everything’s perfect! She said Nirvana is also the name of a band she likes, and she played it for me on her laptop. I told her it sounds interesting but I prefer classical music and Chuck Berr
y.

  Terra went downstairs to do our laundry and I got really hungry, that Chef’s Tasting Menu I had for lunch didn’t fill me up at all. I thought Terra might be hungry too and I wanted to make something for us, but when I looked in the refrigerator all she had in there was beer and ketchup and strawberry jam. She didn’t have any bread either, so I couldn’t even make strawberry jam sandwiches.

  Terra came back from the laundry room and I asked her, Why don’t you have any food in your refrigerator? and she said she usually orders delivery or she brings home food from her job as a waitress. I asked her, Where do you work? and she said a place called Domino Grill. I asked her, Is Domino Grill like Johnny Rockets because Johnny Rockets is my favorite restaurant on Earth, and she said it’s a bar and grill, so they have burgers but steaks and fish too, and everything’s more expensive.

  Terra asked me what do I want to eat and I said can we go to Domino Grill because I want to see where my Terra works, and she said let’s stay here tonight, we can order delivery, and she showed me a website on her laptop that has all these restaurants you can order from. I said, Aye yai yai, there are so many restaurants on here, I can’t decide! and I asked her can we order something for Steve and Zed also and can they come over, and Terra said sure so I called Steve and I said, Hey Steve, Terra said you guys can come to her apartment and we’re going to order food and do you guys want any? Steve said just order whatever as long as there’s something vegan for Zed and he’ll pay for all of it, and text over the address. So I asked Terra what’s her address and I texted it to Steve.

  We ordered Indian food because I’ve never tried it and there’s a first time for everything. We went outside to wait for it and for Steve and Zed, and we sat down on the stairs, and it was still pretty hot out and I could only see two stars in the sky. I asked Terra how long is it going to take our food to get here and she said probably twenty minutes, and I asked her how long has she been living in her apartment and she said just about a year, and I asked her why does she call her mom and stepdad by their first names and she told me I’m full of questions. I said, Of course I’m full of questions, how can I find out the truth about stuff if I don’t ask questions, DUH!