Be Good Be Real Be Crazy

by Chelsey Philpot

  “I think it’s interesting.” Mia shrugged. “The Giant Atom Accelerator is a forty-thousand-ton cylinder, eighteen miles beneath the ground in a deserted corner of a vast continent. It’s capable of moving subatomic particles at . . . Ugh, I forget the word Einstein uses.”

  “I’m impressed you can recite that much.”

  “Oh, wait. I know more.” Mia sat up straighter, one hand pressed to her temple as she continued. “Though this experiment is an extraordinary accomplishment for science, Dr. Az, the world’s foremost expert on existential risks and founder of the I-9 Institute for the Study of Probable Doom, Existential Risks, and Apocalyptic Possibilities, believes it could be a disaster for humanity. The chance that colliding atoms will cause a giant black hole to open over the Earth is significantly more probable than the chance that the Giant Atom Accelerator will successfully disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity by propelling atoms faster than the speed of light. . . .” She trailed off. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Nothing. It’s just crazy how much you remember.”

  “I can teach you the trick. Mrs. Candide, my second foster mom, said that when you’re trying to memorize stuff you don’t know, you should think of funny words you do know. Like when Einstein lists all the possible ways the world could end, I think of silly words, so Giant Atom Accelerator becomes ‘giant angry alligator.’ ‘Asteroid collision’ became ‘aardvark constipation.’” Mia stopped abruptly. “Holy Gouda.” She beckoned to Homer with one hand and pointed at the sky with the other. “Hurry, before he moves.”

  Homer moved to the side of the boat. With his shoulder pressed against the hull he could feel the wood vibrating from Mia’s kicking heels. “Plane?” He looked up, trying to follow the line from Mia’s pointed finger to the sky.

  “No, silly.” Mia nudged Homer toward the bow, turning him so that her swinging feet fell on either side of him. Her vanilla lotion made her smell like a cookie. “See? There’s a sea turtle in the clouds.”

  Homer searched above. He saw white clouds and blue sky. But no turtle. “Wow. That’s. Yeah. A turtle. I see it. Cool.” Being around Mia had a way of reducing Homer’s vocabulary to one-syllable words.

  “Isn’t it?” Mia stopped swinging her legs. “Yesterday, I found a piglet and an orangutan. Madame Quixote told me that that meant . . . Oh, eggs and biscuits. I can’t remember.” Mia pressed her thumbs to her face. “It wasn’t a bad sign. It meant something good. Something lucky.”

  “Is Madame Quixote the one who tells fortunes by looking at the bottom of people’s feet?”

  “No, silly. That’s Madame Avex. She’s next to the Dollar-a-Slice. Madame Quixote has a card table under the yellow awning by the bumper cars. She reads your palm and tea leaves. Since I’m avoiding caffeine these days, it was palm reading or nothing.” Mia looked down as she patted her stomach. “Right, Tadpole? You kick up a storm already. No use adding caffeine to the mix.”

  “I would miss coffee,” Homer said, adding lamely, “if I was pregnant.” His cheeks were warm before he finished speaking.

  Mia tilted her head toward her left shoulder and stuck her lips out. Other people bit the sides of their mouths, scratched their heads, or did something else equally predictable, but Mia made a face like a fish when she was thinking. “Did you have something to tell me?”

  “I’m supposed to remind you about the paving.” Homer nudged a soda can in front of his left foot and then stepped on it, trying to shift his weight as slowly as possible to draw out the satisfying sound of crunching metal.

  “Paving?”

  “The lot. Tomorrow.”

  “Oh, right.” Mia scooted back—left, right, left, right—until she could reach the mast and pull against it to stand. “Geeza Louisa. Getting up was so much easier without Tadpole on board.”

  “You can stay with us. My dads said to tell you. For, like, as long as you need. No problem.”

  “Okay.” Mia looked down, met Homer’s gaze, then looked at her interlaced fingers. Her unreadable expression might as well have been a punch in Homer’s stomach.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You say ‘sorry’ way too much, Homer.”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Shit.”

  Mia shook her head. Her eyes were obscured by loose strands of red drifting across her face. “Tell your dads it’s no big deal. I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure? Because I can—”

  “Yup. Well, I’ve got to get Tadpole some breakfast and finish my makeup. I’ll be over in twenty.”

  “Great. Okay.” If Homer had been a different person, he would have told her that she didn’t need to wear makeup. He would have said, “You look amazing without it.” But he wasn’t a different person. He was only himself. So he nodded, waved, and walked out through the gate made of beautiful junk, across a cracked parking lot sprinkled with broken things.

  THE PARABLE OF THE ANYWHERE GIRL

  BEFORE THEY KNEW HER NAME, they called her the Anywhere Girl.

  Her accent was unplaceable, untraceable. The hue of her skin fell somewhere between wet driftwood and cold syrup. Her features seemed shaped by a watercolor brush. When she had rolled into town, her fingertips were still stained with the dye she’d used to color her hair bright, plastic red. More often than not, she smelled like burned sugar and warm clay.

  “Pretty” wasn’t the right word for her. “Beautiful”? “Lovely”? Those didn’t quite work either. She was another word, a word that had not yet been made up.

  People who claimed to remember her arrival on that June day said they heard her before they saw her. According to some, her truck had clicked and clacked like it had marbles in its engine and the small sailboat it was pulling on a time-forgotten trailer fought the twisted ropes tying it down. When she had pulled into the lot at the end of the boardwalk, the truck had made a sound like a large man wheezing, then shuddered, and then died. Never to run again.

  Between the strong push of the Caribbean winds and the powerful pull of the currents from the Gulf, the Island at the End of the World—or at least Florida—rarely had rainy days. But the morning after the Anywhere Girl’s entrance, the sky darkened, the clouds thickened, and it poured for a week.

  The first time the Anywhere Girl came into La Isla Souvenirs, she was barefoot and didn’t say a word. The second time, she wore flip-flops that smacked against the wooden floor like she had flyswatters attached to her feet, and she didn’t stop speaking until she had a job and a new pair of sunglasses.

  The store’s owners hired her without asking too many questions. It was only later that they thought to wonder, Why did we do that? Maybe it was how the small gap between her front teeth gave certain words a whistle or maybe it was the rambling way she spoke, jumping from topic to topic like a frog hopping from one rock to the next. Her thoughts were as tangled and disorderly as the new growth after a forest fire.

  Within weeks of her starting at the store, foot traffic doubled. Tourists came back over and over because she had a way of calming cranky babies and coaxing surly preteens to smile. Lifeguards drifted in for suntan lotion and bottled water and often left with neither, but with a lot of stuff they hadn’t meant to buy and definitely didn’t need. The island’s ancient bachelors, retired and aimless for years, came in to escape their loneliness and left feeling a little less lost. And the waiters and bartenders of Captain Toby’s Seafood Palace made themselves late again and again for the night shift because they lost track of time trying to figure out the possible meanings of the Anywhere Girl’s half dozen or so tattoos.

  Was that a dragon on her left arm, or a flying horse?

  How much had the turtle on her wrist hurt?

  Could anyone read the words around her ankle?

  Is that Greek or Arabic or neither or both?

  By September, girls at the middle school were begging their parents to let them dye their hair Popsicle-colored shades. Clean feet were out. Bare feet were in. When a story twisted through town that the
Anywhere Girl climbed out of her sailboat each night to skinny-dip in the moonlit sea, high schoolers, boys and girls alike, started sneaking out of windows and creeping down back staircases in order to gather in whispering circles along the dark ocean shore. They yawned their way through classes and never saw so much as a naked elbow.

  After it became obvious that the Anywhere Girl was expecting a baby, so much speculation hummed in the air that the island’s dogs howled for days. But the Anywhere Girl seemed oblivious to the gossip.

  If asked directly about the baby’s dad, the Anywhere Girl’s answer was different every time: He was an astronaut on his way to settle Mars. A convict serving twenty to life. A former soap opera star who now spent all his time making weight-loss infomercials.

  So what if her stories went in all directions at once? So what if her smile caused ice cream vendors to crash their carts and fishing boat captains to steer starboard when they meant to go port? So what if her enigmatic warmth pulled you in while at the same time something deep in her eyes kept you out? The Anywhere Girl didn’t mean to hurt anyone. She didn’t mean to cause any broken hearts. Like many a survivor of that particular anguish, the Anywhere Girl didn’t want to inflict it on another, not if she could help it.

  So she stayed friendly but unreachable. She laughed and became a part of each and every place she lived. But the Anywhere Girl always kept a few bags packed and postcards of towns with inviting names pinned to the wall by her bed, because imagining the possibilities of new places helped her fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  THE NIGHT OF FIERY DESTRUCTION AND THE MORNING OF LIFE-CHANGING DECISIONS

  THAT NIGHT, WHEN THE DOORBELL rang, Homer’s first thought was to be surprised that he had fallen asleep at all. He’d been certain that his whirling brain wouldn’t let him rest, not when it had the day’s worries stuck on repeat.

  Was Mia acting strange this afternoon? Sad?

  Does she know she should stay on the island? With us? With me?

  Why do I keep putting off college applications? Every day I do means it’ll suck even more to do them later.

  His second thought was that doorbells ringing late at night seldom equaled good news.

  Homer crept out of his room past Einstein’s closed door and down the stairs.

  From the squeaky second step, Homer could see D.B. and Christian side by side in the entryway: one pale, tall, and slight; the other dark-skinned and broad shouldered. Both of them standing so straight and still, they looked every inch like the professional dancers they once were. Mr. Harvey was standing on the porch just outside the open door. It took a minute for Homer’s foggy brain to process that the fire chief was dressed in the same stiff overalls and thick jacket he’d worn when he visited Homer’s middle school on career day, and that the splash of red behind him wasn’t a light or a flag on a passing boat: it was Mia’s tangled hair.

  Homer was so focused on shuffling quietly into the entryway that he only caught fragments of what D.B. was telling Chief Harvey.

  “A miscommunication . . . no charges against Miss Márquez . . . safety class . . . after . . . baby . . . dance lessons . . .”

  The conversation kept going, but for Homer the world went mute when Chief Harvey shifted his helmet to his left arm and gently guided Mia into the house with his right.

  Her eyes were laced with red and she had stripes of soot across her face and arms. The black garbage bag she nudged inside with her feet didn’t look like it contained very much at all.

  Christian put an arm around Mia’s shoulders and drew her farther inside, while D.B. nodded and smiled and said good-bye for a painfully long time before finally shutting the door.

  “I’m so sorry. That was so, so, so, so stupid.” Mia wiped her eyes against her arm, and when she raised her face she kept blinking as though she were trying to see through smoke. “I thought I was helping. I didn’t know how else to get rid of a boat. And I was going to clean up after the fire.” Mia’s breath came out in gasps, and light reflected off the tears gathered in a pool above her lower lashes. She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry. Instead of making less trouble, I made more.”

  “Oh, you poor kid.” Christian wrapped both arms around Mia, drawing her face as close to his chest as her stomach would allow. “Shhhh. It doesn’t matter. It will be all right. It will be better than okay. It will be amazing.”

  Mia kept her palms pressed to her face and Christian started swaying side to side. Just like he used to do when I had nightmares. The thought made Homer wistful. It’d be nice to be a kid again. Everything was simpler.

  Homer’s eyes met D.B.’s. And even though he wasn’t, when D.B. silently asked, “Are you okay?” Homer nodded yes. Then they both waited until Mia’s sobs turned into hiccups and then stilled completely.

  “Okay?” Christian asked, holding her at arm’s length and studying her face.

  Mia sniffled. “Uh-huh.” She sniffled again and wiped her nose across her bare arm.

  “You must be exhausted,” D.B. said, grabbing Mia’s garbage bag and moving down the hallway. “We’ll set you up in the office. The pullout is ancient, but it should do for a night.”

  “Mia can have my room.” Homer didn’t mean to shout. The last thing he wanted was to wake up Einstein and have his little brother come down and ask Mia a million questions. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. “The bathroom’s easier to get to and the bed’s bigger and stuff.”

  After a moment of silent consideration, Christian nodded, and D.B. handed Homer Mia’s bag. When Mia looked at him, tears still glistening in her eyes, Homer knew that he would have spent the night in a puddle if it meant he could fall asleep and dream about the exact smile she had just given him.

  By the time Homer found the extra toothbrushes in the bathroom that connected his room with Einstein’s, Mia was already curled up in the center of his bed. Her eyes were shut and her bright hair fanned across her face and the navy sheets. He could see her breath rise and fall in her shoulder blades and make out the fragile curve of her spine through the T-shirt he’d given her to sleep in. Even with her baby bump, the shirt still came to Mia’s knees.

  Homer set the toothbrush by the alarm clock on the bedside table and tried to balance on his tiptoes as he walked. He had one foot in the hall when Mia’s drowsy voice stopped him.

  “Hey, Homer?”

  He turned around. “Yeah?”

  Mia, her eyes still closed, adjusted her head higher on the pillow. “Three questions: What was the worst part of the day, what was the best part of the day, and what”—she yawned—“would you do differently?”

  “Do you mean for me, my day, or the day in general?” Homer felt an echoing yawn pull at the corners of his mouth.

  “I mean your day, silly,” Mia said, smiling into the pillow. “My favorite sister, Dotts. She’s the one—”

  “You met Dotts at the first place you lived after leaving your mom’s ‘for real.’” Homer took a deep breath and continued. “And you liked Dotts so much that you asked to go with her when she got moved to Mrs. Scott’s—the house of the foster mom with the French bulldog that peed on your backpack and chewed Dotts’s sneakers.”

  “I talk about her a lot, huh?” Mia opened her eyes.

  Homer shrugged. “She probably talks about you just as much.”

  Mia stared at him in a way that Homer couldn’t quite place: her eyes a blend of awe and sadness. Then she shook her head and the look was gone.

  “Any-who. Dotts and I would play Three Questions if one of the new kids couldn’t sleep or if someone was scared or if Mr. Scott was home and Mrs. Scott was yelling and we didn’t want to leave our bedroom.” She nodded toward Homer. “Gentlemen first.”

  “Okay.” Homer struggled to herd his thoughts. “Worst? That’s easy. Your boat, I mean your house, getting destroyed because I didn’t—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Mia interrupted. “Next questi
on. Best?”

  “That you’re safe, I guess.”

  “You’re the sweetest. Differently?”

  “I would have explained about the lot better?”

  “Hey,” Mia said indignantly. “Those were all about me, not you.”

  Homer tilted his head. “Sorry. That’s all I’ve got. Your turn.”

  “Fine, but you owe me three not-about-me answers.” Mia shut her eyes again. “Best? Tadpole kicked up a storm today. I think she or he likes watermelon. Worst?” She exhaled. “I forgot my best pen in the boat. And I got D.B. and Christian in trouble with Chief Harvey.”

  “It’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure Christian has Chief and Mrs. Harvey in his Beginning Ballroom class at the Rec. You can’t be upset with someone who’s showing you how to waltz.”

  Mia smiled sleepily. “You’re funny, Homer.”

  “Not really.”

  “Someday, you’re going to have to learn how to take a compliment.” Mia yawned again. “Would you get the postcard from my bag?”

  “Sure.” Homer started rummaging through Mia’s black garbage bag of possessions. “Only one? What happened to all the others you had around your bed?”

  Mia’s response sounded like she was speaking through a mask. “Dwidn’t nweed’dem.”

  Homer’s fingers grazed a cardboard rectangle. “Is this it?” He turned the card to look at the picture. It showed a beach at dusk. The sand wasn’t white like it was on La Isla de Plátanos and the water was black instead of turquoise, but there was a dark peacefulness to the sculpted sand dunes and frosted waves. “Glory-Be-by-the-Sea,” Homer read, then added, “It looks pretty.”

  “That’s where I’m going to live. With Dotts. She’ll be so, so happy to see me. She has an apartment and a job and a boyfriend who buys her flowers. . . .” Mia’s voice trailed off.

  “But you have a job here.” Homer felt like he was trying to breathe underwater. “And I read somewhere that people shouldn’t fly in the last three months of pregnancy,” he added, cringing at how his desperation clung to every syllable.