by Lisa Super
He hated the chapel. All those eyes in the stained glass windows and paintings on the walls gave him the unease of a zoo animal. But it was his first and best idea for locating the girl with stained glass eyes of her own. And there she was, alone in the chapel, kneeled over a thick textbook, attacking a notebook with her pencil like she was committing the most important information ever to paper.
“Hey, Daphne,” he said over her shoulder.
She startled at the interruption and brushed her hair out of her face. “Hello.”
“Do you want to go somewhere? Maybe get a coffee?”
“Yes.” She said it too quickly and packed her bag slowly, in penance.
Daphne and Oliver walked three blocks to Frank’s Diner, not knowing what to say but trusting that coffee would give them enough time to figure it out. It was a silence Oliver couldn’t have with any of his friends. Katrina never stopped talking unless they were making out or watching TV. Sometimes he could hear the apprehension of boredom in her voice. Joe and Mitch were always quick to talk about sports or movies if the conversation lulled. The most comparable silence to this sidewalk sometimes came after Jason had been mentioned at the dinner table. All that needed to be said had been spoken, and all there was left to do was eat. His parents ate their food like it was a reward. They’d made it through another day; they’d earned this meal. That’s what silence was for Oliver: a prize.
Oliver and Daphne sat in the farthest booth from the door, the place nearly empty except for two old men at the opposite end of the restaurant. Oliver’s back faced the entrance, just in case anyone he knew came in. He’d been discreet about this, telling Daphne that he would face the wall so she would have a better view, but her eyelids had tightened by a razor’s edge and her lips had puckered to the side. She didn’t buy his line, but she sat down anyway. He spent an excessive amount of time placing his napkin in his lap. Deus ex machina arrived in the form of a waitress bearing coffee.
“Can I get an old-fashioned donut, please?” Daphne asked.
“I’ll do a glazed with sprinkles. Thanks,” Oliver said. The waitress left, and Oliver creamed and sugared his coffee. “Old-fashioned. Does that say something your personality?”
“Maybe we could do the list,” Daphne blurted out. The waitress returned and placed their donuts in front of them. She refilled Oliver’s mug. It was the slowest pour of coffee in the history of mankind and the cup had only been half empty. Daphne waited until the waitress was back behind the counter. “Or, we could keep talking about donuts.”
Oliver reclined against the backrest, interest piqued.
“They had all of these dreams and they never did them. They never even tried. It just seems like a waste.”
“It was a waste.”
“Yeah. But maybe if we did all these things, it could finally mean something.” She was on the brink of tears, swallowing furiously to hold them in. Oliver had never seen eyes as beautiful as hers, simmering with seven years of a grief he understood all too well.
“Maybe.” The idea of completing his brother’s wish list melded two broken pieces in his mind back together. “But I don’t have the money to fly to China or space. Maybe you have money for both of us.”
Daphne’s laugh cut the air and she shook her head. “There might be another way. An adventure in the abstract.”
She aimed her gaze at Oliver with such cold confidence that all of his doubts froze over. He would follow her on any adventure, no matter the shape or form.
The Great Wall of China
The salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table weighted down a green bill. This was the alliance between the three remaining Bowmans. Her mom pretended that her dad didn’t drink most of a bottle of whiskey over the course of a day. In exchange, her dad pretended that her mom still loved him. And for Daphne’s silence on all the pretending, her mom left her money for takeout every morning.
Sometimes it was five dollars, sometimes ten, sometimes twenty. Somewhere between the bedroom and the front door, her mother must have gotten confused about the fluctuation of food prices and did her best job at guessing. Today, her guessing had taken the form of the genocidal face of a twenty. Jackpot.
“Going to Janine’s!”
Daphne didn’t know why she hollered as she ran out the front door. The lie shone bright in the morning sun. It wasn’t like anyone had asked where she was going.
She speed-walked until she reached Sacred Heart. The plan was to meet Oliver in the school parking lot instead of at her house, in case one of her parents surfaced at the wrong moment and asked questions. Daphne knew the best way to not get caught in a lie was to not tell one. She cursed herself for being such a good girl, someone who had barely done anything that would earn her disapproval. Amateur.
Despite the general lack of rules in the Bowman household, one decree was made clear: Daphne was forbidden to date. When Daphne was fourteen, her mom had marched into her bedroom. Her forehead and temples were stained black from the box dye-job-in-progress that she’d applied to cover up her gray roots. Her hair was an oil spill on the top of her head, shiny and confused. Amidst this natural disaster, Daphne was handed her first box of tampons, and her mom declared that she couldn’t be alone with boys. Daphne found this new rule strange because a month earlier she’d spent many hours alone with Janine’s fifteen-year-old cousin, Brandon, who was visiting from Florida. Their lips had practically been suctioned together during his two-week stay. Janine had groaned and eye-rolled and sighed with her full body, but eventually allowed them to use her room as a make-out den for a full week. They’d gone to second base, and as he tried to round third, fiddling with her fly button, she’d pushed his hands away.
“Leave my fly alone.” She kissed him.
His hands went right back where they left off.
“No.” She said it lightly, still kissing him.
He pushed the fly button out of its hole and pulled down the zipper. Daphne jumped back, zipped up, and buttoned.
“What’s wrong?” Legitimate confusion paraded across Brandon’s face.
Daphne didn’t need to explain the meaning of the word no to someone who spoke English. Or any Romance language, for that matter.
“Let’s get something to eat.” She marched out of the room to find Janine.
The rest of the day, they hung out as a threesome, and Brandon was in a foul mood. He didn’t want to eat anything or watch any movies or go to the beach. He wanted to be in Janine’s room with Daphne. When she said no to this request, he finally understood, as if a moment from a muddled dream flashed in his mind with sudden clarity. He answered her no with more sulking, a clenched fist when she reached to hold his hand, and a turned cheek when she tried to kiss him. Daphne found this behavior unacceptable. She wasn’t a prude and refused to be treated like one.
Without asking for a goodnight kiss, Daphne greeted the night air and trotted home. For the next week, Daphne didn’t answer or return any calls from Janine in case Brandon was using her phone.
After giving a few days of buffer to ensure Brandon’s departure, she called Janine. Daphne never spoke Brandon’s name again and never berated Janine for giving him her number. He called a few times, but after no response, he finally realized that no meant the opposite of yes and gave up.
Janine never mentioned Brandon. Daphne was so grateful for this that her affection for Janine grew to new depths, somewhere near the bottom of the ocean. Their friendship became closer than ever, and Janine never knew why.
After the Brandon incident, Daphne didn’t pay much attention to the restriction on boys. Not that Brandon had turned her off to the opposite sex, but nor was anyone knocking on her fly button. The likelihood of being alone with a boy was minuscule. If it did occur, it would be a happy accident.
She was reluctant to ask her mother about the current standing on this restriction, as questions would be sure to follow. These questions would have no concrete answers because there was no boy, but her parents wouldn’
t believe her. After Emily, they doubted everything. So Daphne chose to let it lie. Therefore, she assumed the ban hadn’t been lifted. However, if she was caught with a boy, she could still plead statute of limitations. She’d grown old enough since the restriction was implemented that any irrational teenager would believe it to now be null and void.
At the alley before the Sacred Heart parking lot, Daphne slowed. She massaged her scalp to volumize her hair, straightened her shirt, and brushed the lint off the front of her jeans, all in five seconds. She took a breath and rounded the corner into the school’s line of sight.
A quick scan over the parking lot found two half-rows of cars, their owners a collection of overachievers not taking a weekend break. The angle of the light on the dashboards made it difficult for Daphne to tell if anyone sat inside, and she regretted not asking Oliver what kind of car he drove. After approaching close enough to cut the glare, she found the cars all empty.
He had stood her up. Anger rolled around in her stomach and traveled upwards, tightening around her lungs until she heard the crunch of asphalt under car wheels. The tension left her body just as quickly as it had risen. She let out a long, steady breath. An old sedan rolled down its window. The havoc that was Oliver’s hair indicated that he had stumbled out of bed only minutes ago.
“Sorry. I’m always late.” He lobbed out this excuse as though he was powerless against a clock.
Daphne attempted a grin, the result of which was a grimace. She climbed in the car and hoped the movement blurred her expression.
“Thanks for the ride.” Her tongue was made of sandpaper, but with the current state of her gut, she was thankful to have articulated a coherent sentence. As they pulled out of the parking lot and turned toward the freeway, words returned to her at a faster clip.
“I read somewhere that running late is an expression of self-doubt. Like you don’t respect yourself enough to show up on time because you don’t think you deserve to. Or something.”
“Do I look like a guy who’s full of self-doubt?” His smile appeared unnaturally large, but it wasn’t enough to prove her theory.
“Maybe you just hide it really well.”
“Nah, I’m not that good of an actor. And it’s too much effort. I’m pretty lazy, not big on the effort thing.”
“You’re doing this.”
“For now.”
A wave of dread pushed against Daphne’s skull. She closed her eyes, leaned into the seat, and told herself over and over: For now is Now. For now is Now. For now is Now. Until it isn’t.
Thirty minutes later, they moseyed up the streets of Chinatown, crossing under the two bronze dragons guarding Broadway. Even though the downtown skyscrapers were right behind them, with her back turned she may have been on an altogether different coast. The warm, sweet, fishy-sour scent that wafted from every grocery store was as foreign to her as Asia itself.
The next block housed a giant market. They wandered through stall after stall, each vendor mashed into a maze-like space that wound in seemingly never-ending rows. Every inch of floor and wall was being utilized to sell cheap clothing, sunglasses, and knockoff handbags.
“I never knew shopping could be claustrophobic,” Daphne said.
Sensory overload etched lines in Oliver’s forehead. “Want to get out of here?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how,” she laughed.
“Me, neither.”
Oliver pointed his arms out, aiming for a straight line in front of them. They weaved together through the chaos, trying their best to adhere to the invisible line. They broke into a playful run and bumped into a stack of fake Louis Vuitton luggage, leaving wheels spinning in their wake.
Daphne spotted a beige door between two stalls. “I don’t care where it goes, we’re taking it.”
They burst through the door and emerged into sunshine and the sidewalk’s distinct confines.
“Close call. Didn’t know if we were gonna make it out alive. Nice save with the door.” Oliver wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple.
“Anytime.”
After rounding a few corners, they ended up in a plaza draped in red lanterns swinging against the blue sky. At the center of the plaza, an unexpected wishing well beckoned them. The well was a six-foot-tall waterfall that looked like it was made out of papier-mâché. Along the water flow, little bowls were perched next to placards for each particular wish: Health, Wealth, Long Life, Love, Peace, Prosperity, Happiness, and Good Luck. Small, cheerful Buddhas were nestled amongst the bowls, assuring all wishes come true.
Oliver dug into all of his pockets. “I have a quarter, that’s it.”
Without much thought or aim, he tossed it at the Wealth bowl. He missed.
Daphne searched her purse. She came up with three pennies, two nickels, and four dimes. “Jackpot.”
She handed him half the coins. He alternated his tosses between Wealth and Prosperity, never hitting the rim of the bowl.
“This is why I don’t play basketball.” He gave a bitter laugh.
Daphne aimed for Good Luck and missed.
“Good luck? People make their own luck,” Oliver said.
“So say the lucky. Better than just wanting to be rich.”
“Or prosperous.”
“Is there a difference?” she asked.
“I’m sure there’s some philosophical difference…but no, not really.”
She tossed a coin at Serenity and missed. “I didn’t want to be serene anyway.”
The half of Oliver’s face she could see was bored. He turned away, heading toward the road. Daphne tossed her last coin at the Love bowl. The coin bounced off the bowl’s rim, rolled down the waterfall, and plunked into the pool at her feet.
Oliver was hungry, so they ducked into the first restaurant that looked like it wouldn’t smell like fish. He slid into the booth facing the door, bouncing on the worn springs in his seat. He cracked open the menu and gave micro reviews of random items. “Beef with broccoli—too healthy. Velvet chicken—sounds too much like a sofa cushion. Bean curd—just…no. Nothing good could come from that.”
Resentment rippled through her. He wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with her here because the probability that any of his friends were in Chinatown was nonexistent. She had to travel across half the city, practically to another continent, to see him exhibit natural behavior.
The server brought tea, and Daphne poured them each a cup.
“Should we share something?” she asked. “I’m not picky.”
“Do you like spicy food?”
“Definitely.”
“Shrimp?”
“Sure.”
He ordered the slippery shrimp with two orders of white rice. Daphne preferred brown rice but didn’t say anything. She’d just declared herself not picky and held herself to those words.
Oliver cleared his throat. “So what do you do in school?”
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Those The King and I lyrics always comforted and amused her when someone asked a vague question that didn’t want an answer. Did Oliver even care? She responded in an equally vague manner to test him.
“Uh, I think I read and write like everyone else.”
“Are you in AP classes? You seem smart.”
This was where things got tricky. She wanted to come off as smart. She knew she was smart, and she enjoyed being smart. But she didn’t want the smart girl label from Oliver. She figured that smart girl also meant boring girl to him. And she wasn’t boring. Was she? And why did he automatically assume she was smart? Probably because she wasn’t pretty enough to be average. But, attractive or not, Daphne didn’t want to be average. She hated taunting herself with this rabbit hole internal questioning.
“I’m in some AP classes. Are you?”
She knew it was a stretch. He was intelligent, but too loose in his shoulders and swagger to be in AP classes. He didn’t appear worn down and hardened by the competition and unrealistic expectations and vast amounts of home
work in the race for valedictorian. She had already judged him the same as he’d judged her, but her question made it seem like she hadn’t.
“This…” He gestured up and down his torso. “Is not AP material. Sorry to disappoint.”
“Can’t judge an AP book by its cover.”
“Eh, I think most of the time you can.”
Too much AP talk. She needed to change the subject fast, before she had time to be offended. “I’m auditioning for the school play tomorrow.” She nearly imploded after she said it. Now she was not only the smart girl, she was the drama freak.
“Oh, yeah? What play?”
Could he possibly be interested in theatre? “Our Town.”
“Mmm, I don’t know that one.”
“It’s pretty famous. It has one of those crazy statistics about being performed somewhere in the world every day or something. I mean, it’s no Romeo and Juliet, but it left its mark. I don’t really know why. It’s kind of boring.”
“Well, if you’re in it, I’ll go see it.”
Her face flooded with warmth. Thankfully, the platter of golden fried shrimp bathing in a syrupy sauce was placed in the middle of the table at that moment and absorbed the hungry boy’s attention. Daphne flattened her napkin onto her lap and tinkered with her silverware.
Oliver piled a mound of shrimp onto a double serving of rice. Daphne thought for sure he wouldn’t be able to finish it. She wasn’t even hungry, but she took four shrimp for herself, putting forth a solid effort.
“I bet they eat it just like this in China.” She licked a drop of the sweet-spicy-sticky-tang from her forefinger.
He juggled speaking while chewing like a professional. “What? You’re questioning the authenticity of a Chinese dish in Chinatown? Blasphemy.”