by Christina Li
“Wait out here,” he said. “Promise? Just stay put. I have no idea how on earth you got here, but I’ll be out in a bit, and we can get this all sorted out. Okay?”
I nodded.
“I’ll be out soon,” he said. “Promise.” And then he briskly turned. The woman said something to him and then he wrapped his arm around her waist. He shook his head and said something back.
Most of the cameras turned to follow them but some stayed on me. A flash nearly blinded me. I stumbled off the red carpet, and then turned to look back at my dad.
He was standing beside the woman, posing for pictures. They flashed smiles. I saw my dad take her hand and something on her finger glittered.
She wasn’t just another actress.
I wanted to throw up. I felt dizzy and stumbled back. The crowd pressed against me and another camera flashed in my face. All at once, I realized three things:
I had just crashed a Hollywood movie premiere.
I was not going to see the Spacebound movie screening.
My dad was married to someone else.
I stared at bright red lights on the marquee in front of me. They’d seemed so welcoming before, but now they just made me feel sick. The air smelled like smoke and exhaust.
Back door. There had to be a back door to this thing. And then maybe I could sneak into the premiere—
I ran down the block, weaving through all the people. I circled around to what looked like the back of the building.
Doors. Lots of doors. I raced up the steps and yanked on the handles, hoping that the door would give.
They were all locked.
I slumped on the steps. The smell of the back alley almost made me want to puke.
And then it finally hit me.
I, Benjamin Burns, was a total and complete idiot.
I mean, what on earth was I doing here? I was half a state away from home and in the middle of a city that I knew nothing about. I stood up frantically and turned around. It all looked the same: the buildings and lit-up signs and billboards seemed to stretch on forever.
And how was there so much neon everywhere?
And Mom.
I crumpled back onto the bench, holding my head in my hands.
Oh no. How could I have done this to her? Mom would be worried sick right now. Sure, I’d left her a note, but who would ever expect their kid to run off like that?
But what if she didn’t find the note?
What if she called the police?
What if she reported me missing and my face went on one of those lunchroom milk cartons? I would practically die of embarrassment.
I stood up, panic rising in my chest. That was it. I was going to back to Sacramento. I would take the next Greyhound bus right back before Mom had a nervous breakdown.
I rooted around in my backpack for my map. I pulled out my sketchbook and my drawing, but there was nothing else.
No map.
I saw a flash of a paper slip at the bottom. I dug it up and my heart dropped into my stomach.
It was the note I’d been meaning to leave for Mom. And I’d forgotten to actually leave it for her.
If I were the Flash, I’d don my suit and sprint straight home. Faster than a hundred miles an hour. Faster than the speed of sound. I’d run from Los Angeles and never come back.
But here I was. With no superpowers. Not fighting villains or doing anything cool. In this bright and loud city, I faded right into the dusty exhaust smoke.
My mom didn’t know where I was. I didn’t even know where I was.
I was completely, totally lost.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder. I would figure something out. No matter what, I was going home.
I walked back in the direction of El Capitan. I saw its familiar marquee sign. A few photographers milled around the red carpet. I stopped for a moment, looking up at the letters.
Wait for me, he’d said.
When Gemma Harris had rescued her father, he’d pulled her into a hug and started weeping out of relief. But my own dad hadn’t hugged me or pulled me in like he’d missed me for the past ten years. His eyes hadn’t welled with tears. He hadn’t lit up with a smile. He’d barely even looked me in the eye.
How could I have been so stupid? He’d gone off and gotten a new life, with his shiny suit and his limos and his cologne. He’d remarried. He’d probably forgotten all about Danny and Mom and me.
My eyes began to smart. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore how tight my throat was feeling.
My dad didn’t want me here.
I’d come all the way here and my dad didn’t want me.
In first grade, my class was supposed to draw a family tree and write a sentence about each of our family members. I was so upset that I’d walked out of the class halfway through and hidden in the bathroom. Drew found me sitting on the steps at recess.
“He’s gone forever,” I said. “I’ll never know who my dad is.”
“He’s not gone forever,” Drew said. “Maybe he’ll come back someday. Maybe he’s just taking a long trip.”
That’s how I’d always been thinking of it since. Like it was just temporary. Or like it was a matter of time before I found him and he’d fit right back into my family again.
But maybe he had never been waiting for me to find him. Maybe when he walked out of our lives, he never wanted to come back.
He never wrote Spacebound for me. Gemma crossing the universe to find her father was never meant to be a sign. None of the comics were ever clues. They were just exciting stories that would keep readers up with a flashlight. Going on a quest to save your father from a booby-trapped cavern was just something exciting to watch in a movie.
I threw my sketchbook on the ground and stomped on it. My vision started to get blurry. My drawings of Gemma Harris got ruined, but I didn’t care, because I never wanted to look at them again.
Was I going crazy, or was someone saying my name?
Had my dad come back?
But when I looked up, I was alone.
“Benji!”
It was coming from the other side. Was it—
I whirled around—and then I saw her.
Ro.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ro
WE WERE ZERO miles from Los Angeles and we still couldn’t find Benji.
We’d finally inched our way downtown through the traffic and made our way to the theater. We’d circled this block exactly four times, because all the parking spots were full and I wanted to keep my eyes on the theater just in case he appeared. Each time, the lights of El Capitan spun into view. We idled near the red carpet as long as we could, until the cars behind us honked furiously and we had to go. Each time, I craned my neck, trying to peer beyond the ropes and into the theater somehow.
Benji, where are you?
“When is this supposed to start?” Mr. Voltz asked. We were on round five, and the car was starting to rattle. “How do these events even work?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that part’s already over,” I said. “But then he’d be in the theater for sure.”
Mom turned. “And how would you know that, baobao?”
“The movie premiere’s tonight.”
“I know that the premiere’s tonight,” Mr. Voltz said gently. “But I also think there’s a chance Benji’s mother might have been right. What if Benji didn’t end up at this—this premiere at all? I’d reckon there’s a good chance he’s still in Sacramento. Or let’s say he got to this city. What if he got lost?”
I shook my head and put in in my hands. “We can’t keep circling,” Mom said. “We need to find a parking spot.”
The car squealed around another corner. Slowly, we eased into an impossibly small spot.
We clambered out. I hurried toward the theater.
Los Angeles had seemed magnificent at first, with its twinkling lights and its endless buildings. But the streets seemed to stretch on forever. For the first time, I began to panic.
What
if I was wrong?
What if Benji had gotten lost?
He could be anywhere in this city.
There were countless shops and restaurants crammed into each block. It would take thirty seconds to look through a restaurant. Five minutes per block. Multiply that by a hundred—no, two hundred—
I frantically scoured the buildings around me. This city stretched on for miles.
It wouldn’t just take hours. It would take days. Weeks. Months.
Just as the panic was setting in, Mom stopped and pointed to the end of the street. “Wait a second,” she said.
I turned.
I shouted, “Benji!”
I sprinted toward him, down the street and toward the doorway of the theater. Without thinking, I crushed him in a hug. When I pulled away, I saw that his face was pale.
Something was wrong. Benji was shivering.
Oh no.
“He wasn’t there?” I whispered.
“He was,” Benji said. His voice was flat. He stared at the ground. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I saw him.”
“What happened?”
He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Mom and Mr. Voltz were catching up with us. I tried again. “Benji?”
He snapped up. “I saw him. I finally got to see my dad. He was here at his red carpet. And then he told me to wait out here.” He gritted his teeth and shook his head, blinking furiously and looking like he was trying not to cry. His voice shrank. “He didn’t even want to see me.”
Mom sighed. “Oh, baobao. Honey. Come here.” She reached for Benji and folded him in a hug.
He buried his face in her shoulder. His fists were balled up. “He didn’t want me here.”
Mr. Voltz wordlessly reached out and patted Benji on the shoulder. My heart plummeted into my stomach. I’d done this to him. It was my fault. Benji had come all the way down here alone, just for his dad to leave him again.
“Okay, that’s it,” Mom said, after a long silence. “It’s all right. Everything’s okay. We found you. We’ll find a pay phone to give your mother a call, and then you’ll come home with us.”
We turned and headed down Hollywood Boulevard, silent and sullen. We didn’t speak. Mom saw how upset I was and tried to put her arm around my shoulder to make me feel better. But nothing could make me feel better.
It was all over.
But just as we were about to turn the corner to the car, I heard footsteps pounding and someone shouting out, “Wait! Benji, wait!”
Chapter Thirty
Benji
MY DAD RAN out of the theater doors.
“Wait up!” he shouted. Cameras flashed as paparazzi followed him. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw all of us, probably confused that I had somehow multiplied into four people: me, Ro, her mom, and Mr. Voltz. “Listen,” he said breathlessly. “I’m sorry I took so long. If you want to talk now, let’s talk.” He checked his watch. “I might have to be somewhere at eleven, but—”
And then his lips were still moving, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. My stomach turned over. Suddenly it was like I was seeing him in a new light, and now, I hated everything about my father. I hated how famous he was. I hated his movie-star smile and fancy suit and even fancier watch that he kept checking as if he hadn’t just made me stand outside the theater for more than two hours. The long minutes had stretched into half an hour, and then an hour, and then after that I’d finally lost track of time.
I straightened up. “You know what?” Heat rose to my cheeks. “I don’t want to waste your time. Go to your fancy party or whatever it is. I’m leaving.” I picked up my sketchbook from the ground and threw it into my backpack.
“Wait! Benji, I thought you wanted to talk through everything.”
“I did.” I spun around. “And then I got kicked out of your premiere. You didn’t even look at me twice and you made me stand out here, waiting for forever—”
“Look, I’m sorry about that. But maybe it wasn’t the best idea to come in the middle of my premiere—”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to walk out on my mom and brother and me, either!”
My dad’s expression froze. The camera shutters were furiously clicking away. Ro was behind me, and I could practically hear her jaw drop.
I absolutely, positively could not believe I’d just said that. But I wasn’t going to take it back.
I straightened up, shaking a little. And then I picked up my backpack. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Benji.” His expression softened. He looked shaken. His hands dropped to his sides. “I’m so sorry. I really am. I know I must have been acting like a jerk tonight. And, well, in general. For the past nine years. But let me talk to you. Please. I want to explain everything to you. Even if it takes all night. It’s the least I can do.”
I stayed put. I looked back at Ro, her mom, and Mr. Voltz. Ro glared at my dad and glanced at me, and she gave the tiniest shrug, as if to say, Up to you.
A camera flashed.
“Look,” my dad said. “Can we at least go somewhere more private?”
We ended up all going to a tiny diner a few blocks down, the kind that had grimy checkered tile floors and bright blue seats and tables with permanent ketchup stains. But my dad wanted to talk somewhere quiet, and at least the place wasn’t crowded like every other café. On our way in Ro’s mom stopped at a pay phone to tell my mom I was safe, and I felt awful. I walked with my dad, and Ro with her mom and Mr. Voltz. None of us talked.
I followed my dad to the booth in the corner. We sat. The booth chairs were deep, so the table came up to the middle of my chest. It made me feel like a kid. My dad insisted on getting me a shake and fries, even though I told him I wasn’t hungry.
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “So.”
I stared down at my fries. I didn’t want to look up. If I looked him in the eye, this would finally feel real and not like a strange dream.
But I did.
This was David Allen Burns. The artist behind my favorite comic book series ever. I used to think that he was powerful. Invincible. I had built him up so much in my head, he might as well have been ten feet tall and wearing a cape or something. But under the bright lights, I could see the shadows under his eyes. His bow tie was crooked. Like Mom, he had wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. With his sleek suit, he looked out of place among all the bright aqua-blue fake-leather booths. He didn’t look very much like a star, really. He just looked like any other middle-aged guy.
I wondered if I would look like that when I grew up.
He pushed a hand through his light, unruly hair. “I cut my Spacebound premiere short because I wanted to talk to you.”
What was I supposed to do, give him a medal?
“Sorry.” He closed his eyes. “I didn’t mean to say it like that. What I meant was . . . thanks for coming, Benji.”
I thought of what to say. Like, Thanks for showing up. You know, because he actually did show up after the premiere like he’d promised. But I could just as easily have said, Thanks for not showing up for the past nine years, and it would have been equally true.
So I just mumbled, “Sorry for crashing your movie.”
“No, I’m glad you did,” he said. “Really. And I’m sorry I reacted badly to it. I just . . . there were so many people, and I just forgot how to act.” He smiled a little bit. “I guess you don’t ever really expect your long-lost kid to turn up at your movie premiere.”
Okay, he had a point.
“I guess I owe you an explanation. About why I’ve been away.” This wasn’t easy for him, I could tell. He fiddled with a packet of salt. “Your mom’s probably going to tell you most of this. I don’t know how much she’s told you already.”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just that you left.”
He winced.
“What happened?”
“Your mom and I . . . we used to disagree a lot, when you and Danny were little. On everythi
ng, really. And then I wanted to quit my job to become an artist. And I wanted to move to LA. But she wanted to stay in Sacramento, and she didn’t like that I’d quit my job. And we were fighting so much so I just . . .” He exhaled. “Left, I guess.”
“For nearly ten years.”
“I handled everything badly,” he said. “Your mom and I separated and I went to LA. At first I was such a mess and didn’t have any money to support myself, let alone support you guys. I was looking for jobs. And your mom and I were still fighting. And then she told me not to call anymore. She moved and didn’t give me her number, and then I couldn’t call even if I wanted to. And it just seemed like you didn’t need me in your lives anymore.”
There was a knot in my stomach.
What, did he just think we’d forget about him? How could I? It was impossible to forget about him every time Mom set the table for three every holiday. Or every time people around me whispered divorce like it was a dirty word. Or every time I went over to Amir’s house for dinner and his whole family was around the table.
How many times had I imagined having a dad around? He would have taught me how to draw. He would have played Bob Dylan on the cassette player and left his desk messy. He would have gone to Danny’s baseball games.
I said, “But I did need you.”
“I’m so sorry, Benji.” He leaned forward. “I want to fix this.”
This was the moment. He’d reach across the table. He’d ask to come back into our lives and—
But I didn’t know if that was what I even wanted anymore. I’d once imagined a hundred different ways my dad would come back. But I was angry now. I said sharply, “You married someone else.”
He flinched. “I did,” he said. “A year ago. Look, kid,” he said gently. “Your mom and I aren’t getting back together. You knew that, right?”
I nodded. Still, it stung more than I thought it would.
“But I’ve missed you guys. I think about you all the time, believe it or not. And I just want to be there for you and Danny.”
I thought of what Danny had said to me before Christmas. I used to cry myself to sleep every night. I waited years for him to come back.