by Kari Luna
“Sophie,” Finny said, “are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” I said. I needed answers, and this was the only way to do it.
“But now we have an even bigger problem,” I said. “It’s New York. What are we going to wear?”
“Something fabulous!” he squealed, diving into his closet, which meant I had to go home and dive into mine.
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When I got there, Mom’s car was gone, so it was safe to go in. At least, I hoped it was. If she popped out of my closet or something, like in a horror movie, I was going to come unglued.
“MEOW!”
Balzac flew off the couch and landed at my feet instead.
“Crap!” I said, jumping back. “You scared me. Did you miss me?”
He meowed, which I took as a yes, even though we both knew he snuggled up with Mom in my absence. The first time I spent the night at a friend’s house in New York, Mom said Balzac whined at my door all night. I think we all do some form of that when someone leaves unexpectedly. Meowing at the door, crying yourself to sleep, it’s all the same. Which is why I was never going to do that to anyone. If I had to leave for some reason, any reason, I promised myself I’d always leave a note.
I ran up to my room, grabbed my Army Navy messenger bag from under my bed and stood in front of my closet. What did you wear to a reunion, especially when you hadn’t seen the person in four years? And especially when that person was your father?
Balzac meowed and batted my elephant skirt, which was kind of the perfect choice, if I wanted to analyze it. Elephants had amazing memories, and that’s what this entire trip was about: making a memory. No matter what happened, I wouldn’t have to start every morning not knowing whether or not I would be okay. Instead of hiding from the craziness that was my life, I was doing something about it.
The skirt was blue with a gray elephant pocket and a trunk that wrapped around the bottom like it was coming to life. I paired it with my favorite black turtleneck, thin black V-neck sweater, black-and-white-striped tights and boots. I packed the rest of the bag with another skirt and a few T-shirts, a thin striped sweater and socks. Another scarf, a woolly hat, gloves, underwear, Franny and Zooey, a journal, some pens, lip gloss and dangly earrings. Just in case.
“See you soon,” I said, giving Balzac a kiss. He rubbed against my knee, and I thought about taking him but took my wool peacoat off the chair instead. I scrawled Mom a note on the back of a bill and left it propped up next to that psychiatrist’s card on the kitchen counter, next to the phone. The note said that I’d borrowed the emergency money, that I’d pay it back and that I was taking the night train with Finny to New York. I promised to call her when I got there. I promised to be safe. But I didn’t tell her when I was coming back. I needed proof that I wasn’t crazy, and I’d stay gone however long it took to get it.
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“Someone looks adorable,” Finny said, sizing me up as I approached my locker. I had no idea how many costume changes he’d had, but I loved what he’d landed on: a Life’s Rich Pageant R.E.M. T-shirt, vintage suit jacket, striped scarf and gray Levi’s corduroys.
“Thanks,” I said, twirling around. “As do you. Very New York.”
If Dad had been in Dallas or Cincinnati, I’m not sure Finny would have gone, but New York was an easy one. Not only was he following his science project—me—he was also going to walk the same sidewalks as his idols, go to the Museum of Natural History and hopefully meet one of the greatest physicist minds of all times—my dad.
“So we’ll meet at your locker after class?” Finny said, bouncing beside me. There was no way he was going to keep his mouth shut until after school.
“Yes,” I said. “But you can’t tell anyone.”
“What makes you think I’m going to tell?” he said as we sat down in physics class.
I smiled. “You’re especially enthusiastic about everything today,” I said.
“Maybe that’s because I drank too much coffee,” he said. “At least, that’s my party line.”
“Got it,” I said.
“Mr. Jackson? Ms. Sophia? Would you mind if we began?” Mr. Maxim stood in front of us, tapping his foot.
“Sorry,” I said. “This one has a case of the caffeines.”
Everyone laughed, including Finny, and Mr. Maxim lectured about kinetics or something, but I barely heard him. All I could think about was a certain train leading to a certain person until the bell rang and knocked me out of my reverie.
“Mum’s the word?” I said, looking at Finny and zipping my lip. “Right?”
“Mum,” he said, grinning. Bringing him to New York was like packing extra sunshine. We walked into the hall.
Finny turned left, and I took the stairs two at a time, not looking where I was going, which is probably why I ran into Drew. Drew, who I hadn’t seen since The Cure or the Massive Mom Fight or the Great Dad Finding Adventure. A lot can happen in a day.
“Oh!” I said. “Sorry.” And then, like an idiot, I just stood there.
“Sorry for running into me or sorry for bailing on our date?” Drew said.
So it was a date.
“Both,” I said. “I feel awful.”
“I waited for almost an hour,” he said. “I got that waitress friend of yours to knock on the bathroom door, but nobody answered. That’s when I figured out that you’d left.”
“I know this is going to sound weird, but I didn’t mean to leave,” I said. “I didn’t want to.”
The stairwell was small, and Drew leaned against the wall while I leaned against the railing. We were so close I could smell his citrus-rific hair again.
“So why did you?”
“I panicked,” I said, which was true.
“Like a panic attack?”
Lie for the greater good.
“Yes,” I said. “It happened while I was in the bathroom. I was too embarrassed to face you like that, so I left.”
“Huh,” he said, crossing his arms. He was wearing a black button-up shirt over a white T-shirt with flat-front khakis. I was tempted to tell him that Kerouac had called and wanted his pants back, but he mentioned him first.
“You know, Kerouac had anxiety.”
“He did?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s in here.” He held up a copy of Big Sur. “I was reading it while I was waiting for you.”
“Well, at least your hero and I have something in common,” I said, smiling, but he didn’t smile back. My heart dropped and then I realized—not only did I leave, I never called. Strike two, Sophia.
“I should have called you last night,” I said.
He didn’t say it was okay or that I could make up for it the next time; he just looked at me. I’d thought I’d screwed it up, but now I knew I had. The second bell rang, and he squeezed my arm.
“Calling is good,” he said, letting his arm linger on mine. I wouldn’t wash that sweater again. Ever. “I was worried about you.”
He let go, and I stood there taking it in. He didn’t ask me out again or say he forgave me, but he was worried about me, which meant he was thinking about me.
“Maybe I’ll see you at lunch?” I said as he walked away.
“Maybe,” he said. I could tell he was trying to be tough, but he smiled. Just a little.
I understood if he was being aloof, if he thought it was safer to keep me at a distance. But he could have also been channeling Kerouac. It was hard to tell. All I knew was that he liked the me he thought I was, and I wanted to keep it that way. If there was a chance I could make my hallucinations go away—make it seem like none of it had happened in the first place—I wanted someone waiting for me on the other side. And I wanted it to be Drew.
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Dad loved trains so much that he built one out of the things I gave him—pieces of a brok
en Pop Goes the Weasel record, a hairbrush, an apple key chain—and things he found around the house like spatulas and eggbeaters, paper clips and soup cans. Christmas tree lights covered the top, and they flashed while it moved around the basement floor.
“It works!” I said, so excited that I jumped up and down.
“I know!” Dad said, jumping up and down with me.
We held hands, bouncing and hollering at the train he’d built out of nothing. When Mom found us, she didn’t even look at the train, she just whisked me up and away to the kitchen, where she sat me down and put a glass of milk in front of me.
“Drink,” she said, turning away.
“But, Mommy,” I said, “Daddy made a train out of nothing!”
I didn’t know why she hated the train, but when Dad came upstairs, she threw a plastic colander at him. He ducked, and it hit the wall behind him instead.
“She missed school again,” Mom said.
“And yet she still learned something,” he said, winking at me.
“Angelino, I swear,” Mom said, which was how she started a fight.
Dad stood there, waiting, and I hiccuped and squirted milk through my nose, a five-year-old’s version of a protest. The only way I knew to say “stop.”
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The seats on the train were red like strawberries, like beating hearts, like stop. Stop the secrets and lies. Stop the hallucinations. Stop my life, I want to get off.
“Nervous?” Finny said. He gave me the window seat and then settled in beside me for the next twenty-something hours.
“Yes,” I said, hugging my bag to my chest. “I can’t tell if he likes me or not.”
“Of course he likes you,” Finny said. “He’s your dad.”
“Not Dad, Drew,” I said. “We have twenty hours to fill. Can’t we start with a little gossip?”
I knew Finny wanted to work on the Normalcy Project, also known as Me. He wanted to be prepared when he met my dad, and I didn’t blame him, but I’d been up all night. I wasn’t ready for string theory just yet.
“Yes!” Finny said. “Gossip. Spill it.”
“He cornered me in the stairwell,” I said.
“Dramatic! Go on.”
“He was so close I could smell him,” I said.
“Musk?” Finny asked. He knew as well as I did that a guy could be everything you ever wanted, but if he smelled like Old Spice, it was over.
“Citrus,” I said. “Clementines, tangerines, mandarins.”
“Swoon,” Finny said. “What happened next?”
“He busted me for running out of the café and not calling him.”
“Ouch,” he said. “And then?”
I played with the frayed ends of the arm of my sweater. “He didn’t ask me out again,” I said. “And he didn’t show up at lunch.”
“Maybe he wasn’t hungry?”
“I blew it,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Finny said. “He could be playing tough.”
“Meaning?”
“Smart girls like you don’t like being worshipped. You are feminist and punk rock. You’d rather be an equal.”
“Where did you read that?”
Finny opened his bag and there, in between the physics books, was a copy of Teen Vogue. I laughed.
“You treated him like crap, so even if he agreed to go out with you, you wouldn’t respect him. So he treats you like crap to even the playing field, and you’ll be all into him again.”
“But I’m into him now,” I said.
“So you say,” he said. “I’ll bet you twenty bucks he texts you later today.”
“Deal,” I said. “But only if you agree games are ridiculous.”
“Of course they are,” Finny said. “But according to the magazine, they’re necessary. Welcome to the big, bad world of dating. Leave everything you thought you knew at the door.”
“I think I already did that with Walt,” I said, yawning.
“Who’s Walt?”
“My shaman panda,” I said, drifting off. “He shows up when I need guidance.”
And then I realized what I said. My eyes popped open, and judging from the look on Finny’s face, I could have used some guidance right then.
“You have a recurring hallucination?” Finny said.
I nodded.
“Who’s a shaman?”
I nodded again.
“And a panda?”
“Yes,” I said. My life was like a cartoon.
“Would it kill you to tell me everything all at once?”
“I told you that I hallucinate. Dad hallucinates. And we bring back souvenirs,” I said. “Do you really think you’d be here if I added a shaman panda to the mix?”
Finny leaned back in his seat, sighing. “Of course,” he said, crossing his arms in front of him. “Fan of the unexplained, remember?”
That’s what I liked about Finny. He huffed and puffed for five minutes and then he was over it.
“It sounds crazy when I say it out loud,” I said. That’s why I hadn’t wanted to say it. But if I was going to come out of the shadows and into the light, I might as well bring my panda with me.
“It doesn’t sound any crazier than you looked at Café Haven,” he said.
He was right. I hoped I never looked that way again. It was why I was going to New York—to prove that I wasn’t the one thing I didn’t want to be—my dad. I could only hope the trip came with an antidote.
“Walt, huh?” Finny said. “Is he a grumpy old man panda?”
I laughed. “Not exactly. He plays in bands—and not just marching bands.”
“Now you’re blowing my mind.”
“You’d love him,” I said. “He likes Audrey Hepburn and Chinese food and being snarky . . .”
“Go on,” Finny said.
“He thinks I’m on some kind of path, which is why he’s here. He’s supposed to guide me or whatever.”
Finny tapped his left foot. It’s what he did when he knew there was more to tell.
“Basically, Walt’s my guardian angel,” I said. “Except he’s a panda sent by the High Panda Council. And I don’t disappear into his world, he pops into mine.”
“Wait, have I seen him?” Finny said.
“Don’t you think you’d remember seeing a giant panda?”
“Good point,” he said, tapping. I put my hand on his knee to make sure his leg didn’t fly off his body.
“I’m the only one who can see him,” I said.
“But I’m your physics adviser,” Finny said. “How can I possibly run a true experiment without all the data? Please tell your guardian panda healer that I need to meet him. Pronto.”
“I would love for you to meet him,” I said. He had no idea how much. “But that’s not how it works. Walt can’t appear to anyone but me, per the rules of the High Panda Council.”
“Since when did hallucinations have rules?” His leg stopped moving, but a red flush crept up his neck.
“Since I’m doing more than hallucinating,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “I knew that.”
I loved that Finny was just as open-minded as Dad was. I loved that he went from hearing that I hallucinate to trying to solve me with science in less than ten minutes. I loved that he cared about me enough to come to New York, even if it was partially to meet one of the greatest minds in physics. I knew part of it was about his future, but I also believed that part of it was about mine, which is why I had to give him something.
“Walt and I talk about you,” I said.
“Walt knows about me?”
“Of course,” I said. “Walt knows about everything. Not the future—I wish—but he’s pretty intuitive for a panda.”
“What does he think of me?” Finny said. “Does he like my outfits? Th
e whole Normalcy Project name?”
“He thinks you’re great,” I said. “He’s the one who convinced me to tell you everything.”
“Walt!” Finny said, high-fiving the air. “My man.”
“He’s not here,” I said.
“How should I know?” Finny said. “It’s not like you tell me anything.”
I’d told him plenty—it just took me a while. I was still getting used to having a best friend, especially one who kept my secrets. It was easier to be vulnerable with Walt because he wasn’t real, but that wasn’t fair. Not anymore.
“From here on out, I will tell you everything,” I said, holding out my hand and extending my pinky. “I swear.”
Finny linked his pinky around mine, and we squeezed.
“Me too,” he said. “Which means I have to tell you something.”
I stretched my arms over my head and yawned. “Can it wait until after my nap?
“Sure,” he said, grinning. “But I doubt you’ll be able to sleep knowing your dad wrote a book.”
Finny got his iPad out of his bag and handed it to me. There, right on the screen, was a website that looked like a new age explosion. It was aqua and green with an animated GIF of some earth-moon-sky celestial thing and the name of the press across the banner: Possible Realms. I was about to hand the thing back to him when I saw their featured author, Angelino Sophia, and his book: The Heart of Physics: The Role of Love in the Theory of Everything.
“Whoa,” I said, scrolling down, clicking, hoping for a photo. “Wait, I Googled all night and never found this.”
“That’s because you don’t search like a scientist,” Finny said. “I wasn’t even looking for it, I was just making sure I was up to date on string theory. I was reading a blog post about it and parallel universes—it was so awesome—when I saw your dad’s name in the list of references. I followed it until I ended up at this website.”
“The book’s out of print,” I said, wanting to curse the cursor.
“That’s why it’s good we’re headed to New York,” Finny said. “Who needs a book when you can have the real thing?”
I do, I thought. Finny wasn’t the only one who needed to prepare to meet my dad.
“Don’t look so sad,” he said. “There’s an intro you can read online.”