NOTES: I’m down to magic? Is that how desperate I am?
Thoughts forming, I pull away from his mouth, only an inch. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
“It’s a surprise.”
We jump out of the tree, hand in hand, one of us with a considerable oomph (hint: it’s not me). I lead him through the tall grasses and around to Cass’s garage, sliding my fingers above the doorframe for the spare key. “Ah, got it.”
“Are we breaking and entering?” Sebastian says.
“Hardly.”
Inside, I lock the door behind us, flick on the lights, and it’s still there—the tie-dyed blanket strung in the rafters, throwing colored light all over the room: neon greens and pinks and blues. Cass’s family doesn’t keep any cars in the garage—only a couch and some Foosball tables—so splotches of color float along the floor.
“Wow,” he says.
“Isn’t it?”
By the power tools is Cass’s super old-school boom box. I set my flowers next to it, pop open the lid, and say to Sebastian, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“Good first.”
“Okay—there’s an ancient CD!”
“And the bad news?”
“It’s a pop band called the Swedish Princesses.”
“Ouch.”
After I press Play, peppy music tings through the garage. I do the superdorky thing of pretending to reel Sebastian in, pulling my hands along an imaginary rope. Once he’s a foot away, I start bobbing my head, swinging my hips in a circle, my arms wiggly at my sides.
“What’s happening?” he says.
“Tie-dye dance! Cass and I did this all the time with . . . with Grace. If you can’t dance in front of people, maybe you can dance just with me?”
“That’s even scarier,” he deadpans. “You have no idea how . . .”
The beat continues to pound the walls of the garage. It’s starting to match the crazy thumping of my heart. “How what?”
He switches off the music, shards of blue light splintering the Sharpie mustache that’s snaking its way up his cheeks. His eyes are all over my eyes. Why’s he looking at me like this? Doesn’t he see how colorless I am?
“How maybe . . . maybe I could be . . .” His voice drops, and he glances down for a moment as if to find it. “I’ve never felt anything even close to this.”
Oh. Oh.
I swallow. “You really mean that?”
Smoothing a hand over my shoulder, he says, “Yeah. Why would you even question it?”
“Because . . . because . . .” Why am I questioning it? The reason slaps me in the face—and suddenly I’m holding in tears. “Because I’m not sure if she even misses me. I keep thinking of her at the end of our street, right after she climbed out her window, and what if she didn’t care about me and all the places we were supposed to visit together and—”
Sebastian cups my cheeks, drags his thumbs across them to swipe away a few tears. “Of course she misses you.”
I choke out, “You don’t know that.”
“I do. You’re a very miss-able person.” He pulls me closer and kisses my nose. “Remember how I was telling you about A Brief Compendium of Astrophysical Curiosities?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, there’s this chapter where Dr. Mangum talks about how there might be all these parallel universes, existing alongside our own. Where we’re basically the same people, but we make different choices. Lead different lives. I was rereading it the other day, and all I could think about was, in every universe, we’d have to be together. I can’t imagine any scenario that doesn’t lead to you.” His hand is on my arm now, tapping with every word. “I. Would. Miss. You.”
“Sebastian, that is the corniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He rests his other hand on the back of his neck, massaging it. “Corny in a good way?”
I kiss him with a gust of motion, pushing him a few steps backward, and we sink into the couch behind us, springs creaking. “In a very good way.”
I used to think that only bad things sneak up on you (monsters in the dark, grief, sisters disappearing out of windows), but as it happens, good things are even sneakier. One second I’m in like with Sebastian, and the next second I’m completely blindsided by love, which is a lot like sunshine: hot, tingly, and all over my skin.
Surely one person can’t feel this much without exploding.
And when Sebastian kisses me back, I know he’s deep in explosion territory, too. I know this is for real.
“I just want you to know,” he says, voice a whisper, lips still brushing mine, “although I’m leaving at the end of the summer, I’m not a leaver. I want to stay, just like this, with you.” He crisscrosses a finger over his heart: I promise.
And maybe that’s what does it.
Or maybe it’s because we’re kissing in a way that sucks out all the darkness, until the only thing left is color and light.
“I haven’t exactly done this before,” he says suddenly.
“And you think I have?”
“Well, I thought, you’re—”
“No, never.”
“Do people generally put on—er—music or something?”
I shrug. “Beats me.”
Reaching over the couch, he presses Play on the boom box and bobs his head to the Swedish Princesses like it’s his jam. I dissolve into hysterical laughter as he unzips my dress.
Anatomically speaking, everything happens in the proper way. I’ve seen pictures in MomandDad’s office of what’s supposed to occur; plastic models, condom displays, and detailed diagrams leave little to the imagination. Grace once told me that real, live penises look like sea monsters, and I can now confirm this assessment. A thousand movie references also shuffle in and out of my brain: When Harry Met Sally, The Notebook, Pretty Woman. But it’s still different from what I’d anticipated—gentler and slower, with a lot of pauses and readjustments and bumping foreheads. As it’s Florida, and about ninety degrees in the garage, sweat collects in odd places, and we both pretend not to notice, just like I pretend not to notice his out-of-control heartbeat (which is so, so sweet). I follow the splotches of neon on his skin with my fingers and then with my mouth.
Afterward, as Sebastian twists one of my curls around his finger, I cradle my chin in his neck and try to piece together how we got here: how he transitioned from the annoying boy in my way to—well, the not-so-annoying boy very in my way.
Above the music, there is laughter from the party, and someone is shouting: “Chug, chug, chug.”
“Should we go back out soon?” I ask.
Kissing my forehead, he says, “I’ve never slept with a girl.”
“Um, I know.”
“No—I mean slept.” He nestles his head into the sofa arm and pretend-snores. “You know, zzzzz.”
So we slip back into our clothes, switch off the lights, and listen to the Swedish Princesses tumble in the dark. It’s the first time in months that I’ve fallen asleep without seeing her face.
THE LEFT-BEHINDS (SCENE 14)
BRIGHT-WHITE SCREEN
LINNY (Voice-over)
Is that you, knocking at the door?
GRACE (Voice-over)
No, it’s not.
LINNY (Voice-over)
Oh, I thought I heard your footsteps.
GRACE (Voice-over)
You didn’t.
LINNY (Voice-over)
What happens when I stop assuming that? One day the phone’s going to ring, and I won’t immediately think it’s you.
GRACE (Voice-over)
(a smile in her voice)
Then it looks like you’re growing some wings of your own.
28.
Sebastian
“After testing the bounds of what was possible—and succeeding—Einstein continued his upward climb.” A Brief Compendium of Astrophysical Curiosities, p. 3
I’m learning that things are simpler than I first conceived.
Back up. Conceived is the wrong word to use here, considering what happened on Friday night. What I mean is, it made sense. How much simpler could it be—just the two of us, loving each other?
On Monday morning, I walk to Silver Springs with an extra oomph in my step, remembering it all. (For the record, the Google image results for “boobs” do not do the real things justice.) And afterward was good, too. The next morning, her head on the pillow next to me. Twelve millimeters from my face. There was light-blue glitter on her eyelids. Up close was a whole new ball game.
I have sex once and I’m already using sports metaphors?
I had sex. Me. With her.
(Okay, Micah, touché. Thanks for the condoms.)
The only problem is that it’s almost the end of July, and I leave for Cal Tech in four weeks. What does that mean for us?
Still, I feel brave.
THE HOT-GIRL HYPOTHESIS FOR PERSONAL USE:
If I can have sex with a hot girl who I love, then I can say four words.
I. Am. Your. Son.
In the Silver Springs lobby, I tell Linny, “Today.”
“Today?”
“I’m going to tell Álvaro. Wish me luck.”
Right by the fig tree, she plants a kiss on my lips, reminding me just how brave I am.
My heart is a leapfrog. I can hear each distinct BA-boom. BA-boom.
Giving myself an internal pep talk (Just do it, you coward), I knock. Wait. Wait a few moments more. The door squeaks open slowly.
Álvaro rocks side to side, holding the doorjamb for support. He’s wearing his gray pajamas, mostly unbuttoned, and his fedora. A cigarillo droops between his lips. “Yes?” he says.
Voice unsteady—“Can I—can I come in?”
“It’s a free country, no?” He opens the door a little farther.
Solid start. Keep up the momentum.
Álvaro shuffles to his desk. Around him are mounds of unsorted fan mail, three weeks of newspapers stuffed between books in the bookshelf.
I take a seat in the armchair. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”
“Would you care for un poco de tocino?”
Huh? Bacon?
He passes me a plastic dish with two already-nibbled slices.
“Um, I ate earlier,” I say. “Thanks, though.”
With a gesture that says “Suit yourself,” he folds one slice into his mouth. Doesn’t even bother to remove the cigarillo.
I shoo the frog from my throat. “Ahemm. Anyway. About that talk. I was wondering if . . .” Out with it. Out with it already! “If, hypothetically speaking, you had a son, what would you say?”
There. Those are almost the right words. They’re out in the world now. Can’t take them back.
Álvaro swallows the bacon, stamps out the cigarillo. “A son?”
“Yes.” I might puke. “A son.”
Silence ensues—the longest silence in the history of silences. His teeth clack together. Finally, he looks at me. Inhales.
And in those seconds, I swear he knows.
Who I am.
Why I’m here.
What I’ve been trying to tell him this whole summer.
“A son,” Álvaro says again, more thoughtful this time. Never dropping his gaze from mine. “I suppose I’d tell him”—pausing, bringing one hand to his chin—“I’d tell him what it is to be . . . to be a man.”
Not at all what I was going for. “Oh, what I mean is—”
“You see, there is una diferencia between what people think and what it is. You understand? It is not”—slapping his feeble arms where the muscles should be—“it is not this. Nothing to do with this. It is . . .” He keeps dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. Looking frustrated. Like his words are in the wind. Eventually: “Es aprender a quedarse, incluso cuando tú puedes salir.”
Translation: It is learning to stay, even when you can leave.
His head falls forward. He scrapes at his eyebrows with his fingernails. “I’m not always good at this. I was not good at this.”
I sit up as straight as I can. “Álvaro?”
“Yes?”
“I’m . . . The thing is . . . I’m your—”
“There is something familiar about you,” he says slowly.
“Yes! There’s a reason for that. I’m your—”
A tap at the open door, then another. Marla pops in. Her voice rattles over to us: “Mr. Herrera, you don’t want to be late for your doctor’s appointment.”
“Wait,” I say to Álvaro, “I—”
But Álvaro is already wobbling to a stand. Gripping his cane. As he leaves, he places a brittle hand on my shoulder. Leans over slightly to whisper in my ear: “Believe me, mijo. No son wants un padre like me.”
On TV that night, Morgan Freeman is discussing whether time can run backward, but I can’t concentrate.
Believe me, mijo. That word—it’s eating me up.
Determined to finish our talk, I borrow Ana’s car and drive to Silver Springs around eight p.m. A night nurse signs me in with “He’s in his room but just be quick, okay? Residents need their sleep.”
“It won’t take long,” I say, and bound up the stairs. But this time when I knock on his door, there’s no response. This time when I twist the doorknob, nothing greets me but stale air.
Was he trying to tell me something this morning?
It is learning to stay, even when you can leave.
I’m not always good at this.
Oh no.
29.
Linny
WHO: Kenneth G. Locke, author of A Stranger in the Field, a novel set in a mental institution
WHEN: 1964
WHY: He faked his death to mislead police after he was arrested for posessing rare, stolen antiquities. He fled to Honduras, and it’s pretty unclear why he came back to the US.
NOTES: I love his book. That’s potentially irrelevant to this investigation.
Sebastian calls as I’m climbing into bed with my computer. The intensity of his voice makes my stomach clench.
“It’s happened again. Linny, it’s happened again.”
“Wait, wait,” I whisper, conscious of MomandDad’s footsteps trundling down the hallway. Once the sliver of light under my doorway extinguishes, I let out a breath and speak a bit louder. “What are you talking about?”
“Álvaro. He’s gone.”
I shoot up in bed, a searing pain in my shoulders. “No.”
“I was trying to tell him I’m his son and figured he wouldn’t be so busy at night, so I went back and—and he wasn’t there.”
His words are a charcoal pencil, turning everything black. My dad said a similar thing when he picked through Grace’s bedroom after she disappeared, as if she were hiding instead of gone: “I checked her closet and under her bed—and she wasn’t there.”
Sebastian continues, “So the staff checked the rest of the building, and there were all these announcements over the loudspeaker, and they started searching the street and he’s gone, Linny.”
I know what happens next: Police. Crying. Police. Repeat.
Search parties. Neighbors knocking on your door with groceries. Pitying looks.
Sebastian’s voice is heavy and ragged, like he’s catching a cold. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Sorry, sorry. Did you have to talk to the police?”
“Yeah, the night nurse called them, and they’re looking for him right now. According to the security footage he broke out through the kitchen again. He couldn’t have gone far, right? Where would he go?”
The answer seems obvious. “Back to where he came from.”
“Which is where?” The last word reaches a particularly high octave.
What do I say to that? What did I want my parents to say to me? “We’ll find him, Sebastian. We’re going to find him. We’ll get to Silver Springs early tomorrow morning and say we left something in Álvaro’s room, and we’ll—”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“What?”
“Tell me it’s all going to be okay.”
“It is going to be okay.”
He says softly, painfully, “Can we play a game or something?”
“What kind of game?”
“Categories? One of us picks a category, and we have to rattle off as many words as we can.”
Categories.
Grace and I used to play this when we were kids. She’d always choose “names of bands” to ensure a swift victory and then move on to Scrabble. Grace is the reigning Scrabble champion of our family—except that she consistently fabricates words. Once, she tried to convince me that treehood was in the dictionary. “Treehood,” she said. “The condition of being a tree.” I’m about to tell this to Sebastian, but he interprets my silence as something else.
“I know it’s stupid,” he says. “It’s just, there’s no way I’m falling asleep.”
Dragging my sheets up to my chin, I whisper, “Okay, how about . . . ‘exotic pets’?”
And for the next three minutes we list capuchin monkeys, armadillos, coyotes, and sugar gliders, and I tell Sebastian that anyone listening to our conversation would label us clinically insane, straight out of A Stranger in the Field, but we keep listing and listing and listing.
Eventually, we run out of ideas and end up with animals like “Um, red chipmunks?”
“Spiky-tailed beavers?” Sebastian says.
“Snakes with fangs?” I say.
“All snakes have fangs.”
“That is a good point.”
As I sink deeper into my pillows and plastic-star gaze, we listen to each other breathe on the line.
“This night wouldn’t suck so much if you were here,” he says.
“I kind of am here.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do.
“Tell me something good,” he says. “Something you haven’t told me before.”
Since my computer is resting by my elbow, I blurt out: “I’m writing a screenplay, but—um—that’s not entirely a good thing. It’s about my sister.”
“Is it sad?”
If Birds Fly Back Page 19