So Glad to Meet You

by Lisa Super

“Okay.” Even if she believed him, she still couldn’t look at him. “My dad decided to prune the shrubs with the electric trimmer. While wasted.”

  “Shit.”

  “He slashed his wrist and nearly lost a finger. He says it was an accident, but you can form your own conclusions. And he’s blaming it on poor gardening skills.” Her eyes were dry, but she was inconsolable. At least her sandwich was gone.

  “Look, you’ll be out of here soon. One more summer, and you’ll be away from them all.” And from me. It was almost enough to send another tear down his face. He swallowed against it.

  Daphne’s gaze met his. She’d added the from me as well. Maybe this whole meltdown was equal parts pruning incident and their own severed nerves. Daphne didn’t have it all figured out anymore.

  He welcomed her to his world with a wistful grin and a shrug. “And your parents only have so many limbs they can cut off, so there’s a light at the end of the bloody tunnel.”

  Daphne smiled, nearly laughed. Every piece of Oliver went warm.

  “Can I have some of your corn?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you should be punished for ordering poorly.”

  She dug her fork into his plate. “What do you want for ordering wisely?”

  “Nothing I don’t already have.”

  “I’m sure you can come up with something.” She winked, and his heart leapt. He had a few ideas, but he kept them to himself while he let her eat all of his corn.

  The fatigue of the evening set in and smothered the playfulness between them. They cleared their trays and an empty elevator whisked them downstairs. The fantasy of time travel to a shared school cafeteria dissipated when the elevator doors opened to real life. Daphne dropped his hand in the waiting room.

  “Do you want me to go in with you?” he asked.

  “No. Thanks. I’m sorry you had to see him like that. It’s him, but it’s not him. But it’s him. I wish you would’ve known him…before.”

  “You wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. I probably wouldn’t like you at all. I know you wouldn’t like me.”

  “I barely like you now.” Her mouth tilted slyly.

  “Exactly.” He’d said all the right things and meant every word. He was learning. She kissed him goodbye and it was better than the sidewalk after Joshua Tree or the driveway after prom.

  Oliver went home and sought out his parents. They were combing through design books in bed.

  “Goodnight.”

  He could tell by their incredulous expressions that they questioned his motives. His dad recovered, not wanting to scare off the rare sighting of their son after dark. “Goodnight, Oly.”

  “How was the date?” His mom asked.

  “Fine.” Oliver took a step to walk away but turned back. “No, it was great.”

  His parents both smiled, sharing his excitement.

  “Goodnight.” He headed to his room.

  “Sweet dreams,” his mom called down the hall.

  Oliver followed her advice.

  • • •

  While Tim healed, at least superficially, a full calendar of social activities distracted both Oliver and Daphne from the present and the future. They also gave Oliver the opportunity to earn Janine’s approval. Daphne’s best friend made little attempt to hide her skepticism. Janine was as friendly as she needed to be, and he would have to prove the rest. He finally won her heart with the suggestion of a norae bong outing. She even punched him in the shoulder, a little too hard. And Daphne was impressed at his attempt to make a positive memory out of the prom miss. The sore shoulder was worth it.

  Singing in the small, dark room, Oliver was endeared to The Drama Crew for life. Or at least until the end of the summer, but he was trying not to think about that. He focused on the dancing faces surrounding him, the best one with her face next to his, matching his volume into the microphone. He and Daphne Bowman were an entity forged by depth and time, a shared tragedy and a quest to make sense out of the misunderstood. Now they were also bound by bad pop music.

  The list resumed. Daphne pointed out with disdain that running with the bulls had been a Jason contribution, and Oliver couldn’t disagree.

  Daphne scowled. “Cows freak me out. I don’t like looking something in the eye before I eat or wear it. I couldn’t even look at the chicken suit without a pang of guilt.”

  “The running of the bulls is their chance to eat you back.”

  “I’m a girl, I’m not allowed to run with them. Sexist bulls.”

  “Let’s have a different Spanish celebration,” he said. His lips spread to a wide, devious grin.

  “That look in your eye scares me.”

  “It should.”

  That Saturday, Oliver’s enclosed backyard became a warzone, and Daphne the first victim. He delivered the shot quickly and accurately. She moaned and touched the gash beneath her ribcage, squinting down at the smattering of orange-red coating her fingers. Blood and seedy guts oozed from her shirt, dripping down her leg. When her eyes rolled up to him, for a split second, he was actually afraid.

  “You’re going to pay for that Oliver Pagano,” she growled.

  Daphne tightened her grip on the weapon and launched the tomato with a piercing war cry. The intimidation worked. His knees locked when they couldn’t decide which way to run. The tomato pegged him square in the shoulder, the entrails squirting his face.

  “Ah, my eye!”

  The impact jolted the contents of his brain, making space for today’s date. It thudded against his skull: April 28th. He’d forgotten Jason’s birthday, the one day of the year he allowed happy memories of his brother and Emily.

  Jason hasn’t made it through the front door before Oliver bounces into his personal space.

  “Can we play catch?” Oliver steps on Jason’s toes.

  “Ow! Dude, stop. Maybe later.”

  “Please!”

  “I have to take a shower.” Jason pulls the soaking wet Quickee Car Wash T-shirt away from his stomach. When he lets go, the fabric sucks back against his skin.

  “Now! Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…”

  “Fine,” Jason says.

  Oliver grabs his hand and leads him to the backyard.

  “Surprise!” The backyard ignites. Thirty bodies spring to life. Party hats and streamers catch the sun’s glare. The entire wrestling team turns “Happy Birthday” into a raucous fight song, cheering after every line. Oliver’s parents join in. They light sparklers and make yellow magic against the evening sky. Emily stands front and center, a sheepish swivel in her hips.

  Jason smiles, genuinely surprised. Oliver looks up to him, expecting acknowledgment for his pivotal role, but Jason only sees Emily.

  “The look on your face,” she laughs. “Happy birthday to me.”

  “You did this?” Jason asks.

  She shrugs, nods, blushes.

  “I hate you,” he says, but his voice speaks the opposite.

  “I hate you, too.” She wraps her arms around him, he squeezes her tight. She whispers into his ear.

  Daphne’s whisper from New Year’s tickled Oliver’s ear drum. “You’re afraid of falling in love with me.”

  He stood in the midst of a different celebration, holding a tomato. Daphne crept toward him, a fierce creature, seething, ready to kill him with love. Countering her steps, he let the fear pass over him in the shadow of a cloud. Today wouldn’t be about Jason. Or Emily. Maybe next year.

  “It stings!” Oliver blinked like a demented flirt and massaged his eye socket.

  Daphne granted him no mercy and pelted Oliver with three more tomatoes when he turned his back to clean out his stinging eye. Janine nailed him with one on the ass for good measure before hurdling over lawn furniture like an Amazon warrior. She charged toward Mitch, Joe, and the Ies, stunned in a huddle against the fence after witnessing Daphne and Oliver’s gore. Behind Janine, Mel and The Drama Crew followed, armed with heirlooms.

  Mitch and Joe recipr
ocated, hurling a few tomatoes at the advance with glancing wounds. Mitch and Joe scattered and drew The Drama Crew after them, leaving Janine to prey on the weak. The Ies shrieked and ducked, but it was too late. Red grenades blasted against their bowed heads, dyeing their hair red. They whimpered and groaned in a fabricated way that sounded more like achievement than pain. Janine punished them for lying with two more tomatoes to the back.

  “Don’t be victims! Throw your damn tomatoes!” drill sergeant Janine screamed at them. Mandie grunted and threw a tomato. It floated five feet to Janine’s right and nearly took out a sparrow on the bird bath.

  “You will never survive the zombie apocalypse,” Janine shouted.

  Thunk! The left half of Janine’s face oozed red. No one was more surprised than Jamie, who beheld her empty hand in wonder. In their smartest move yet, the giggling Ies retreated to the other side of the yard before Janine could retaliate. She scraped the seedy muck off her hair and flung it to the ground.

  “Baby birdie’s learned to fly,” Janine snarled, a proud predator. She raised her arm, ready to attack the nearest running body, which happened to be Mel. They blasted each other at the same time, all is fair in love and war.

  Coral streaks arched over the backyard, bloody rainbows ending in sickening splats. Red-splotched bodies staggered across the lawn in the warped game of tag. Howls of laughter called up to the sky, a prayer and an answer.

  Go to Outer Space

  The minutes ticked away in a dreamy brume during the last school days. At the sound of each bell, Daphne treaded a different hallway, parked herself at another desk, and waited for the next hour to pass. She’d completed her final projects a month ago. The orientation package from Berkeley had already arrived in the mail. The envelope hadn’t held the excitement she’d imagined. The present had transformed from a string of misguided events into a moment to prolong. Summer approached, only a quick series of sunsets away from fall. She would move to San Francisco. Oliver would go to Montana.

  Daphne acknowledged the tail chasing brought on by the near future. Obsession changed nothing. She did her best to hold her ground in the present, kiss Oliver like there was no tomorrow. But the future, once the brightest star in the night sky, was now a threatening storm. When the wind whipped her face, she took shelter in Emily’s empty bedroom.

  Within weeks of her death, Emily’s room had been stripped, her belongings packed and sent to storage. The canopy bed and shabby chic dressers that Daphne dreamed would belong to her once Emily went away to college were donated. The bright blue walls that Emily had painted herself were unsaturated with three coats of white. In one month, any evidence of Emily’s existence in the Bowman household was erased without discussion.

  There was no one Daphne could appeal to, no one to whom she could explain how whenever Emily was over at Jason’s, Daphne would sit on the floor of Emily’s bedroom, too afraid to sit on the bed and disturb the sheets. She would admire the blue walls, mulling over what color she should paint her own room, but she could never come up with a better color than that bright blue, the color of the sky on a sunny day after rain. Daphne looked up from the ground and imagined it was her own room for as long as she could, until she grew fearful of Emily’s return.

  Now Daphne sat on the same piece of floor as she had when she was ten. She flipped through color swatches in her mind, trying to find that perfect blue. Her eyes darted from corner to corner of the room until she found a remnant. An inch-long streak of sunshine blue on the ceiling had been missed by the whitewash. Emily was still here, even if she was just a sliver. Daphne pointed her phone at the speck of blue and snapped a photo. A room in her future would be painted this color.

  • • •

  “Happy birthday.” Oliver presented Daphne with a cupcake. A single candle burned at a catastrophic rate, wax threatening frosting. “I think the candle company is running a scam.”

  “They had one job!” Daphne exclaimed before she blew out the candle. In her haste, she forgot to make a wish. She saw her oversight in the snake of gray smoke curling up towards the sky. For a few moments, her stomach ached with the missed opportunity, until she remembered—she’d survived.

  Eighteen. She had survived the lethal year that had loomed over her for six years and followed through on its prophecy. Seventeen had begun as the best year of her life, morphed into the worst, and molded into something even better than the best. Now that her eighteenth birthday had arrived, she rolled her eyes inwardly at the notion that making it past one specific day in May could change the trajectory of her future. Yet, it was accurate. Eighteen held no stigma, only promise.

  Daphne tore into Oliver’s clumsily wrapped present and popped open the black velvet box. A necklace with a silver pendant of a bull gleamed at her, dainty and sophisticated for a farm animal. The bull’s knee was bent, its head down, charging at the world.

  Anxiety reverberated in Oliver’s voice. “I know you’re not a horoscope enthusiast, but it seemed appropriate, since we didn’t attempt to run with any bulls. Now you can have one running with you whenever you want. But you don’t have to wear it. I won’t be offended. Only if you—”

  She’d let him suffer long enough. “I love it.”

  He heaved a sigh of relief. “You do?”

  “Put it on me.”

  His jittery fingers steadied to attach the clasp behind her neck. She ran her finger across the smooth curves of the pendant, over the small bumps of detail, and remembered running her finger across the 2006 nickel in the car on that Tuesday. She just as quickly stomped Jefferson away. That Tuesday had no place here, amongst the Crayola-scented candle smoke and utter bliss—but she traced the entire perimeter of the pendant for good measure. The pendant’s weight would soon become familiar, making the necklace indiscernible when worn, a piece of her. Oxblood lipstick and a Taurus pendant, her two bovine signatures.

  • • •

  Daphne found herself sitting in the same chapel pew she sat in on weekdays, even though it was Sunday morning. Oliver had asked her to attend a service with him. She said yes without asking why. Hymns from half a lifetime ago sang to her. Father George’s sermon on brotherly love was brief and inspired. It was refreshing to hear Leviticus used as a love letter to all mankind instead of a stepping stone for intolerance.

  When she stood at the end of the service, her spirit was warm and full. Father George shook her hand on the way out with a twinkle in his eye. When he shook Oliver’s hand, they shared the same twinkle. They knew something she didn’t. It was a rare mystery of the universe where she rejoiced in not seeking out the answer.

  Another mystery waited for her when she unlocked the front door, one she’d been trying to figure out for eighteen years. Her parents.

  “How was church?”

  Daphne jumped at her dad’s voice, at the sight of both of her parents seated on the couch next to each other. The scene was a ghost of Christmas past arriving in late spring.

  “Good. New Testament-esque Leviticus.” Daphne sat on the floor instead of taking the only open seat on her dad’s La-Z-Boy. She noticed the twitchy way her parents were casting glances at each other. This conversation wasn’t about church.

  Her mom bowed her forehead toward her dad in a gesture of fierce encouragement. Clearly, they’d discussed the course of action prior to Daphne’s arrival, and her dad was meant to lead the conversation. Daphne bowed her head, anticipating another abstinence-promoting sex lecture, this one delivered to her in her Sunday best.

  Her dad cleared his dry throat and scratched the bandages that still wrapped his left arm and hand. “I think I need help.”

  “You do,” Daphne said.

  “I do need help. Yes. I do.” He understood the words as he spoke them. Their repercussion beat against his temples.

  “It’s nice to hear you say that.” Daphne meant it. Even if it had taken the better part of a decade for him to say it, even though she didn’t trust a word of it.

  “There’s a cl
inic that has an opening, but it will fill soon, so I’d need to leave tomorrow,” her dad continued.

  Daphne nodded but remained stoic. She’d been burned by him more times than she could count on her fingers and toes. She refused to display optimism.

  “If I leave now, I’ll miss your graduation…” At the bottom of his voice he was still searching for a way out.

  Daphne would never be his excuse. “Go. It’s a bunch of idiots wearing matching robes.”

  “Well, I know how much it means to the idiot sitting in front of me.”

  He remembered. When Daphne had been little, when most girls dressed up as princesses and pranced around the house on an imaginary horse, Daphne had paraded around in her dad’s bathrobe pretending she was at graduation. She had balanced a magazine on her head and tossed it into the air, cheering.

  “You need this,” she said. “We all need this. It would be the best graduation gift I could get.”

  He rushed over and pulled her up into an awkward hug with the strength of the dad from long ago. His arms were safe and warm. She felt like a little girl again, in the best way.

  “There’s something else.” Her mom drew in a long breath.

  Daphne didn’t want to make her mom say it. “I know you can’t pay anything for college. It’s fine. I’ll take out loans.”

  Her mom bristled. “No, that’s not…what…”

  “When I got my acceptance letter, I heard you and dad fighting. Saying you couldn’t afford it.”

  Her mom shook her head. “No, never. We were probably fighting about your dad going to a treatment facility. I’ve been…encouraging him for a long time.”

  It made sense. The snippets she’d heard could’ve been about rehab and not college.

  “Your future is more important to us than anything,” her dad said.

  “So we’re going to sell the house and downsize to an apartment. That way, we can help you out with tuition as much as possible.” Her mom reached for her dad’s hand.

  He squeezed his fingers around her palm. “And also afford rehab.”

  “Okay, wow. Thank you,” Daphne said. Her parents were finally behaving like adults.