by Jack Cheng
I called Ronnie and it went to his voicemail, so I left him a message and I said, Hey Ronnie, I hope you’re not too busy because I have a couple of surprises for you! And then Terra said, He’s not home? and I told her sometimes he just puts his phone on silent, you never know with Ronnie. I said we should go there anyway and ring his doorbell, and Terra said OK.
I put in Ronnie’s address in Google Maps and we followed the directions, and it took even longer to get there than the Google Maps lady told us, we kept getting stuck in traffic jams because there are SO many cars in LA. There are so many palm trees here too, and they’re even taller than the ones I saw in Las Vegas! Then finally we got to Ronnie’s place and we went up to the gate but I didn’t have his condo number, I didn’t even know it was a condo until Terra pointed at the sign in front that said Residence West Condominiums.
I called Ronnie again and this time he answered. I said, Hey Ronnie, are you at home right now and what’s your condo number and why didn’t you tell me you live in a condo? and Ronnie said he’s not home right now, he’s in Detroit for a prospective client’s high school basketball showcase. I said, When are you coming back from Detroit because I’m standing here in front of your Residence West Condominiums and there’s someone I want you to meet, and Ronnie said, What are you talking about? You’re in LA?
I told him, That’s right, we came here with Steve and Zed who I met at SHARF, but first they took me to Las Vegas to see about our maybe dad and he was our real dad except he didn’t get amnesia and isn’t still alive, and we lost Carl Sagan at Zelda’s and I’ve been trying to be brave and then I met Terra who’s your Terra also, and we went swimming in a lake and then we came to LA and I didn’t tell you we were coming because I wanted to surprise you.
Ronnie said, What! Who said you could do any of that! And I said, You did! You just weren’t paying attention! and Ronnie said, I can’t believe you did that! And then he said we have a major problem because he’s in Detroit for another few days, and then I thought that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to try and surprise Ronnie.
Ronnie said he’ll call Lauren right away and I can get the spare keys from her and stay at his place tonight until he can figure something out, and I told him, That’s OK, we already have a room to stay in because Steve’s going to have a sleepover at his girlfriend’s after they have dinner, and Ronnie said, Who? and I said, Steve, I already told you I met him and Zed at SHARF, remember? And then Terra asked to see the phone.
Terra and Ronnie talked for a while, and I heard Terra say that she’s a friend and he can trust her, he can look her up on Facebook if he doesn’t. I think she calmed down Ronnie, because Ronnie wasn’t yelling anymore after Terra gave the phone back to me, although he still sounded mad. He told me just stay with Terra until he gets home and call him if there’s any trouble at all, and he gave me Lauren’s phone number too. Ronnie said he’s going to talk to our mom about all this, and I told him OK, but she’s been having her quiet days again.
After we talked to Ronnie, I asked Terra, Why didn’t you tell Ronnie you’re our half-you-know-what? Just because I promised I wouldn’t use that word doesn’t mean you can’t use it. And Terra said these things are better handled in person. I said, Look what happened when we tried to handle it in person with your mom, and Terra said touché. I asked her what does touché mean and she told me it’s French meaning You Have a Good Point.
We went back to the car and Terra wasn’t talking and I didn’t feel like talking either, so we didn’t talk, we just sat in the car. Except this time there wasn’t peacefulness and I didn’t like listening to it. And then Terra asked me what’s wrong, is it Carl Sagan again? and I said, It is, but it’s also that I told my mom I was going to be back after SHARF but I wasn’t, and then I told her I was going to be back after Las Vegas but I wasn’t either, and now we have to wait for Ronnie and I’m not being a man of my word and what if my mom finished the food I made for her and she doesn’t feel like cooking by herself? Who’s going to make food for her then?
And then neither of us felt like talking again and there wasn’t peacefulness again.
I guess Terra didn’t like listening to the not-peacefulness either because she started the car, and I said, Are we going back to the guys’s place? and Terra said she doesn’t know. But then she said let’s go to the ocean and watch the sunset, she needs some space to think, so we went to a beach called Venice Beach. I TOLD you guys Terra loves the water. First we were in a lake and then we went to the Pacific Ocean, all in the same day.
Venice Beach was so huge, guys. I could see it even as we were driving up, and I said, Son of a beach! B-E-A-C-H. There was so much sand and it was all regular sand too, not rock sand like that lake, and it kept getting in our shoes so we took off our shoes and socks and we walked by the water’s edge where the sand was wet and flat and dark brown. We went in for a while but just to our ankles, and I told Terra you can definitely surf in these waves. Every time a wave came it would pull the sand around my feet and between my toes back in little swirls. I told Terra, Isn’t it interesting how if you don’t move your feet when the water comes you sink a little into the sand, and maybe if you stay in the same spot for long enough eventually the sand will come up all the way to your neck and you’ll get stuck. Terra said, What if once you realize you’re stuck it’s too late, and all you can do then is watch yourself drown? And I said, Terra, let’s keep moving because I don’t want you to drown.
We kept moving and walked along the water, and there were blue lifeguard towers and yellow lifeguard trucks and people jogging and playing Frisbee with their dogs. I borrowed Terra’s phone again and texted Steve, and I asked him did he get any calls from animal control about Carl Sagan? But he said he didn’t.
By then the sun was getting close to the horizon so we stopped and watched it set. When it started going behind the mountains far away up the shore, I could stare at it directly, not all the time but more than during the day. Even after the sun was gone the clouds above were still bright red, and the horizon was gold and the water was purple and they should’ve sent a poet.
Terra and me kept moving again and we walked to the boardwalk except the ground wasn’t made of wooden boards, it was made of regular cement, so it was just a cementwalk. We walked by a skateboarding park and we stopped and watched the skateboarders, and some of them had cameras on their boards and helmets like the one Skywalker team had on their rocket. We saw people Rollerblading and riding their bikes and a guy playing African drums, and we walked by a bunch of people in a circle around some shirtless guys doing gymnastics. One of the guys had a microphone and he was asking for volunteers, and the volunteers stood in a line in the middle and the other guys ran and jumped over the whole line and it was SO cool. And then we came here to Johnny Rockets because Terra promised in the car.
Terra ordered fries and coffee but she was barely eating any of her fries. I asked her, Why aren’t you eating your fries and can I have some? and she said, They’re all yours. She said she’s just feeling a little nauseous, that’s all, and I asked her does she need to see a doctor, because I know a great doctor except he’s back in Rockview and his name is Dr. Turner and every year when I go for my checkup he gives me a clean bill of health, which is this pink but sometimes blue money that says One Clean Bill of Health and it has Dr. Turner’s face instead of George Washington.
Terra said it’s no big deal, thanks, she’ll be better in the morning, and I said, How are you so sure? I told her if Benji was here he would probably think she’s psychic or something since Benji loves the horoscope, but I don’t believe in all that astrology business. Terra said she’s not psychic, it’s just that time of the month for her, and I asked her what time, Tuesday?
She stared at me for a little while like we were having a staring contest, so I looked into her eyes and tried not to blink except I blinked so I lost. And then she leaned in really close and she said, I’m having my
period.
I said, Do you mean like at the end of a sentence? and Terra said it was a sentence all right, but a different kind of sentence, one that makes her bloated and ugly and want to crawl into bed. I told her, You’re still beautiful to me, and I asked her is having a period like having a pop quiz, because I know some kids at school who hate pop quizzes and they start to feel sick and ask to go to the bathroom whenever we have a pop quiz. I said, But me personally, I like pop quizzes, especially in science, so maybe I’d like having a period.
Terra laughed really hard for like two minutes! And then she said, For someone so smart, you sure are clueless about a lot of things, and I said, Of course I’m clueless about a lot of things, I spend all my time learning about rockets and astronomy and my hero and if I spent my time learning about other stuff I’d be smarter about other stuff too, DUH! I said, That’s why I try to surround myself with people who ARE smart about other stuff, like you, Terra.
Terra got really quiet, and she looked like she was either going to cry or throw up or both so I asked her is it her period again. And then she went to the bathroom but she still never explained what’s a period. I think it’s a metaphor. Our waitress Clara came back to refill our water and I asked Clara, Do you know what’s a period, is it like a pop quiz because my Terra is having her period even though it’s summer and she doesn’t go to college, and then Clara spilled the water on our table and she said she’s so sorry and she’ll be right back with some paper towels.
Why won’t anyone tell me what a period is! I’m going to look it up when we get back to the guys’s apartment. I’ll explain it to you when I find out.
NEW RECORDING 29
6M 24S
I found out what a period is.
It’s . . . um . . . not like a pop quiz.
Anyway . . .
Steve was already home when we came back to the guys’s place. He was watching TV and drinking a beer on the sofa, and I said, Hey Steve, I thought you were having dinner and then a sleepover at your girlfriend’s place! And he said he doesn’t want to talk about it. He told us we can still stay in his room though, he’ll just sleep on the sofa, and then I could hear snoring coming from one of the other rooms. I guess Zed went to bed early.
Steve asked Terra does she want a beer and she said Sure, and Nathan was drinking one too and his blond hair was tied back in a ponytail now, and he was on his laptop writing computer code. I looked on his screen and he had six windows open at the same time, and the fonts in all the windows were SO small. I don’t know how he can even read anything.
Then I guess Steve really did want to talk about his dinner because after he came back with Terra’s beer he said he told his girlfriend about why we didn’t get back to LA until today and she yelled at him. Terra said, Why are you going out with her? and Steve said he has no idea, and then he took a big gulp of his beer. Terra opened her beer and I told everyone, I don’t know how you guys can drink that stuff because I tried a sip of one of Benji’s dad’s beers once and it was so gross. But they kept drinking anyway, and after they ran out of beers Steve made some drinks by mixing together LOX and vodka.
When I was six years old, Ronnie had a party at our house when our mom went to the Philippines to visit Lola and Lolo, and Ronnie told me to stay in our room and he even moved the TV in there so I could watch TV. But then I had to go to the bathroom so I came out and waited by the door because it was occupied, and one of Ronnie’s friends was waiting too. She was drinking from a red plastic cup and I asked her, What are you drinking? and she said it’s Coke and vodka, and that’s when I learned about vodka, I already knew what Coke was. Ronnie saw me and he said I’m not allowed to be out here and I need to go back to our room so I did, but I still really had to pee and I tried holding it in but I couldn’t. I started crying and I guess Ronnie heard me because he came in and he asked me what’s wrong. I showed him and he said, Why didn’t you say something? And I said, You told me to stay in our room so I stayed in our room.
I don’t know why I remembered that just now. I guess it’s because of the vodka and because there was music and dancing at that party too. Terra really wanted to listen to some music, so she plugged in her phone to Steve’s surround sound. I said, Shouldn’t we turn it down a little? We’ll wake up Zed! And Steve said that Zed can sleep through anything, he’s slept through a fire alarm before, and then Steve turned up the music even louder.
Terra started dancing and she said, Come on Alex, let’s dance, so I got up and I danced too. She tried to get Nathan to dance but Nathan doesn’t dance, he just kept writing his tiny computer code, and Steve was sweating a lot and talking really loud and sometimes his eyes were half-open but it wasn’t like he was meditating, it was more like he turned into a zombie, and then he was dancing behind Terra and she was dancing with him but she wasn’t twerking, and I think Steve might like Terra but . . . doesn’t he already have a girlfriend?
Steve said something to Terra and she laughed, and then she started dancing with me again. I told her I’m not that good of a dancer, I don’t know how to break-dance like Paul Chung and I don’t know how to twerk and Terra said I just need more practice, and she held my hands and told me to follow her feet. But her feet were kind of wobbly and when I followed her I started getting so dizzy, I had to stop after a while. Steve went to the bathroom and Terra sat down and started talking to Nathan, and then her and Nathan got up and walked toward the door and I said, Where are you guys going? and Terra said they’re just going to get some fresh air, and when they left I turned down the music so it wasn’t as loud.
Steve came out from the bathroom and he asked me where’s Terra, and I said Terra’s outside with Nathan getting some fresh air. Steve said, What! and he was still talking really loud even though I turned down the music. Then Terra and Nathan came back and Terra was laughing and Nathan was smiling, and Steve looked like he’d seen a ghost. Steve said, What took you guys so long? and Terra said they were just out there talking, and Steve turned up the music again and dimmed some of the lights too, and it kind of reminded me of when we were at Zelda’s, and then . . . I don’t know . . . I didn’t feel like being in there anymore, so I came out here to the hallway.
Grown-ups can be so weird sometimes. Sometimes when I’m around grown-ups for too long who aren’t my mom, I just want to yell, Are all of you totally crazy!
Do you ever feel like that?
Maybe you don’t, because you spend your whole childhood inside your mom’s belly, so when you’re born you’re already a full adult. Or at least you grow into an adult really quick—it doesn’t take eighteen years.
Maybe you guys—
[loud music]
TERRA: Alex?
[music fading]
TERRA: What are you doing out here?
ALEX: I’m making a recording.
TERRA: Come back inside, it’s not a party without you.
ALEX: I don’t want to dance anymore.
TERRA: That’s OK. I’m done too. Let’s do something else.
ALEX: I wish I had my Blu-ray of Contact because then we could watch Contact. Have you seen it?
TERRA: I haven’t, but maybe the guys have it. Or they can find it on Netflix or something.
ALEX: Really?
TERRA: Yeah, come on.
ALEX: OK!
NEW RECORDING 30
10M 35S
Good morning, guys. We didn’t get to finish Contact last night unfortunately. We didn’t even watch half of it. Nathan went to sleep before we started so it was just me, Steve, and Terra, and Steve made microwave popcorn and he told me if at any time I feel like I can’t keep my eyes open, I can go to sleep in his room and him and Terra can finish the movie by themselves. But then Terra fell asleep first!
I thought maybe Terra thought Contact was boring, that’s why she fell asleep, but Steve said she’s probably just tired from all the driving and dan
cing and drinks and I said touché. And then she woke up and I said, Hey Terra, do you want to go to bed now? and she nodded her head.
Terra wasn’t in our bed anymore when I woke up this morning though. At first I thought she went to the bathroom or maybe she went to return to the earth again, but I went to the bathroom to check and she wasn’t there, Steve was there, and he was saying something to his reflection in the mirror. I said, Hey Steve, what are you saying to your reflection? and he said it’s nothing. Steve told me to tell Terra he’s going to be back later, he has something he needs to take care of, and also he’s going to drop off Zed at a meditation seminar.
Zed gave me a big hug before him and Steve left. He said I’m in good hands with my Terra, and he hopes everything goes OK with Ronnie, and if he doesn’t see me again before I leave he hopes I find Carl Sagan. I told him I’ve been trying really hard to be brave, can he tell? And he said he can definitely tell. Then him and Steve left and I started cleaning up all the dirty cups and empty beer and LOX cans lying around and putting them in a bag for recycling, and that’s when I heard Terra’s voice coming from Nathan’s room.
I thought maybe they were French-kissing and I thought you guys might want to know what that sounds like, so I went to go record it for you. But when I got to Nathan’s room they were just sitting on the floor talking. I said, Hey Terra, did you sleepwalk to Nathan’s room or something and what are you guys talking about? and Terra laughed and said they were talking about all kinds of stuff. I told them I’m going to make breakfast soon and do they want some? and Terra said thanks but we don’t have to do that for them. She said her and Nathan are going to talk some more and I said, OK, I’ll shut the door again because I respect your privacy.