“You’d think he could be, like, supportive,” I said.
She nodded.
Dad came back a minute before his show started. It was like he timed it. “Shall we watch NewsHour?” he said, lifting the remote off the television projector.
I shook my head, exiting toward the stairs. “Apparently, I need to be focusing on my schoolwork.”
* * *
•
For a dad who had denied his son a wish, you’d expect him not to follow up with a gift. But when my sixteenth birthday rolled around, Dad did exactly that—to the extreme.
It was a week before my actual birthday. The whole family was having brunch together, something that was increasingly rare, since Dad was always swamped with work and Ted had so many precollege events. These days, whenever we had a family gathering, Mom seemed to go into a wistful state, touching her face and saying something like “I wonder how many more of these we’ll have together.”
We’d finished our eggs and waffles and were flipping through sections of the Los Angeles Times. I had the front page but wasn’t really reading it seriously. For days, two things had occupied my mind, competing for my attention. One was the wish, which got me into a funk. The other was Monique, who always made me smile.
“How would you like to celebrate your birthday, Jeff?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Definitely not a big party like Ted had when he turned sixteen.”
“Well, you’d need friends for that,” Ted said, smirking.
“Wow, Ted. That was so funny I forgot to laugh.” I handed the front page back to Dad. He didn’t ask me what I wanted to read next. He just gave me a folded-up section. I opened it. Automotive. I looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“You might find it helpful—in selecting a vehicle,” he said.
My eyes widened. I glanced at Mom. She winked.
“Seriously?” I said.
Mom and Dad nodded.
“Wait a second,” Ted said to Dad. “You don’t mean any car, right? You guys totally didn’t do that for me.”
“Yes, that’s a good point,” Dad said. He turned to me. “Considering how your brother managed to carelessly slide his car across an entire lane and smash it into a curb, I would suggest you choose a four-wheel-drive vehicle.”
Ted rubbed his face and moaned.
My eyes landed on an ad for a brand-new, turbocharged, all-wheel-drive Toyota Celica—with a huge price tag. I pointed at it, only half seriously. Dad nodded. I was speechless. Mom’s jaw dropped, but then she broke into a broad smile. Only Ted was disappointed.
“Seriously?” he said to Dad, who ignored him. Ted pushed the newspaper away, crossing his arms and slowly shaking his head. “This family is insane.”
* * *
•
After I passed my driving test and got my license, Mom and Dad drove me out to the car dealership. We were there for a couple of hours, which was how long it took Dad to negotiate the salesman way below his “absolute bottom line.” Mom and I were sitting on a bench in the showroom when Dad appeared, lifting his hand and jingling the keys. “Why don’t you take your new car for a drive?” he said to me, smiling. “Use it in good health.”
I thanked them both, shaking Dad’s hand and giving Mom a hug. It took her a while to let go. When she did, she had tears rolling down her face. The last time that had happened, I was in the hospital. I started to say something, but she stopped me. “I’m fine, sweetie. You’re just all grown up.” She pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes. “Do what your father said—go for a ride.”
The 210 Freeway, the one we had to get on to go home, just happened to connect with the one that went directly to Monique’s house. It was the weekend, so she’d probably be home. She’d definitely be impressed with the car—and the fact that I was driving it. I decided to pay her a surprise visit.
On my way out to Tarzana, I thought about this car my parents had just given me. It was so powerful—pressing the pedal to the floor engaged a turbocharger, and the car took off like a rocket. Compared to the one they’d gotten Ted a few years before, it was crazily expensive. Our entire childhood before that, Dad insisted that everything be exactly equal between us. I wondered what was different this time around. The only explanation that made any sense—and when I came to it, a chill shot up my spine—was that he thought I was on my way out. This car was his way of telling me he cared.
My mind switched back to Monique. I reached the off-ramp to her place a little past four. Her house was just off that main road, but I couldn’t remember if it was north or south of the freeway. I drove up and down the boulevard for nearly half an hour before conceding I’d have to give her a call.
I pulled into a gas station, bought a pack of gum to get some change, and headed over to the pay phone. After a quick call home to let my parents know everything was okay, I dialed Monique.
Her father answered. He never picked up the phone, I think because his wife or his daughter would beat him to it—he moved around on crutches because of his childhood bout with polio. “Hello, sir. My name is Jeff. I’m in your daughter’s cancer support group. I met you at the party you hosted.”
“Of course, Jeff. You charmed my wife when you complimented her food. And I enjoyed our conversation. How are you?”
“I’m great, thanks. Is Monique around?”
“You just missed her. She’s out with Edward.”
He said the name like I already knew it. There was no one named Edward in our support group. I had to find out who this guy was.
“Is Edward her cousin?”
“No, Edward is…well, I guess he’s her boyfriend.” She definitely hadn’t told me she had a boyfriend. I was speechless.
“Right,” I finally said. “Look, my mom is waiting to use the phone, so I need to go.” The second I said that, a lady in a VW blocked by a truck that had stopped in front of her honked her horn. I was sure Monique’s dad could tell I wasn’t exactly hanging out at home.
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll let Monique know you called.”
I felt like telling him not to bother, but I held back. I thanked him and we hung up.
I walked back to my new car and sank into the driver’s seat, rubbing my eyes and mulling over what I’d just learned. It felt like a really crappy birthday present. After a couple of minutes I sat up straight, turned the key, and drove off.
On my way home, where the highway turned toward the hills near a cemetery, an instrument light popped on. Dad had told me never to ignore those lights, so I put on the emergency blinkers and pulled over to the shoulder. I scanned the panel. The temperature gauge was a millimeter away from the red zone, which meant the engine was close to overheating. I’d already noticed it was a little high on the way out, but now I wasn’t using the turbocharger, and it definitely wasn’t hot out. I sat there for nearly half an hour, practically steaming myself—about my new car failing and the relationship I’d been dreaming about coming to an end before it even got started.
One Sunday morning, after waking up late, I decided I was going to drive out to the beach. It wasn’t warm out or anything. I just wanted to go to Marina del Rey, where our family spent a few summers when I was a kid. It was so beautiful there, the water and the waves, and I hadn’t been back for ages. The idea of a quick visit felt really nice.
I’d tied my shoes, snapped in my wigs, put on my baseball cap, and was in the process of looking for my keys when I recalled that my car, the one I’d gotten as a birthday present, was in the shop. It had overheated again, and the radiator was apparently suspect. For a second I thought about firing up our old Jeep Cherokee, but Dad had told me not to use it, as it only had liability insurance. I was carless, it seemed. But maybe Mom would want to go.
I went upstairs and called out a hello. The only response came from Amiga, who raced
to the playroom with her tail wagging. Dad must have been at the office; otherwise he would have taken her on one of his morning runs. Ted’s car was gone, but Mom’s was there. “Mom?” I said loudly. Nothing.
I found a note from her in the kitchen. Morning, sweetie, it said. Ted and I are out college shopping. Dad’s at the office. Enjoy your day.
I sighed.
Over breakfast, I decided I’d watch a movie. We had a few tapes lying around, though Ted had probably grabbed the good ones. On the shelf was Dad’s favorite, Chariots of Fire—about running, of course—and one Mom really liked, On Golden Pond, about a kid spending a summer on a lake with a guy who was actually a lot like Dad. The other tapes were MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour recordings, which didn’t fit at all with my kick-back-and-watch-a-flick plan.
I was considering biking down to VideoWorks, the rental shop not far from the pharmacy where Mom and I had had ice cream a few weeks earlier, when I stumbled upon a tape with Dad’s scribbled handwriting on it. The title was The Day After—the movie he’d made the whole family watch, the one that had given me a week’s worth of nightmares.
I popped it into the VCR.
It was a totally different experience from the first time I saw it. It wasn’t that scary. The special effects were lame, especially an hour into the film, when the nuclear missiles detonated and people’s bodies suddenly turned into orange skeletons. If nuclear missiles really hit, people’s bodies would either splinter into a gazillion tiny pieces or burn up in a firestorm.
What got to me this time was the movie’s ending. The main character, the white-haired Dr. Russell Oakes, is wandering around the decimated remains of his hometown. His hair has dramatically thinned—radiation exposure caused it to fall out—and there’s a patch of skin on his face that’s badly burned. One look at him took me right back to my own experience in Mrs. Ashworth’s class, when I was standing there in a daze, with my hair falling to the floor, and then to a week later, when my irradiated left ear started to scab up and bleed. The movie, fake in the earlier parts, suddenly felt real.
Dad got home from the office not long after the movie ended. I was sitting there in front of the television, the screen blue because the tape had stopped.
“Everything okay, Jeff?” Dad asked.
It wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell him exactly why. There was this tension in my gut, a kind of frustration, that felt like a smoldering fire. “I just rewatched The Day After.”
He came over and sat down on the couch next to me. Amiga tucked her head between us. “I certainly remember the film.” He picked up the remote and switched off the TV.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t as scary this time, but something about it kind of—I don’t know—pissed me off.”
“What, exactly?”
“The radiation from all the nuclear warheads exploding. Remember the end, when the doctor is doddering through his decimated hometown and you see his hair all thinned out and his face kind of torched?”
“I believe so. What disturbs you? Your own experience with radiation?”
“I mean, yes, but it’s more than that.” I crossed my arms, tilted my head, and looked through the window at the top of the staircase. “It’s like, people. Humanity, as you like to say.”
“What about humanity?”
“Take radiation. We use it to destroy cancer cells. It’s gross, I can promise you, but we’re using it to save ourselves, in a way. But then we also use it to randomly kill—and threaten to kill—huge numbers of people. Innocent people. Humanity.”
Dad tipped his head toward me. “You’re growing up, Jeff.”
“That’s the weird thing, right? The only reason I’m still growing, and not, like, dead, is because of humanity and technology and all the things we’ve learned. And yet I’m threatened—so are you; everybody is, for that matter—by the fact that we’re a bunch of idiots.”
* * *
•
The second half of sophomore year was tough. The classes alone would’ve been hard enough, but add to that chemo, which absolutely blitzed my immune system, and Mrs. McKendrick being an unsympathetic pain in the butt, and I was really struggling to stay on top of things. Thank God I had Paul to help me with math, because I wouldn’t have made it through that class without his regular consultation calls.
When the phone rang one evening close to eight o’clock, the time Paul and I usually reviewed our homework, I grabbed the receiver and said, “Welcome to Jumbo Jeff’s homework completion service. May I take your order?” I expected Paul’s extra-loud laugh, but instead got a giggle.
“Hi, Jumbo. It’s Monique.”
I could feel my face turning red. “Oh, hi. I was just…”
“I’d like one simplified explanation of differential equations, a short paper on the cause of the Vietnam War, and an essay on Dylan Thomas’s poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.’ ”
I laughed.
“Oh, and I’ll also say that Jumbo Jeff totally works as a name for you, despite the fact that it makes my name kind of boring.”
“How about Majestic Monique?”
“That’s a bit too aristocratic.”
“Mesmerizing Monique?”
“Obviously accurate, but a touch long-winded.”
“Magic Mo?”
“Perfect!”
My tension disappeared in an instant. We talked for ages, catching each other up on just about everything—except Edward. I loved her voice, how it would change in pitch and pace as she told a story, and her giggle, too, which was infectious. She had lots of questions for me; nothing invasive, but ones that made it clear she was really curious about what was going on inside my head. I found myself wanting to share everything with her.
“Say, what’s up with your wish?” she asked. “Any progress on getting yourself to outer space?”
“Not really. My dad said wishes are for kids, and I have more important things to focus on.”
“Like what?”
“School, for example.”
“Seriously? I loved my wish.”
“Slipping into a swimming pool with an Olympian hunk?”
“Ha. Yes. And maybe it was a distraction from school, but that was momentary. And it put a huge smile on my face.”
“Which seems to return every time you think about Terry Schroeder.”
“You remember his name!”
“I remember all the guys you’re after.” I bit my lip, worried that was a little too revealing.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t like the two of us ever dated. But let’s get back to your wish. Did you talk to your dad about ideas?”
“No, we didn’t get into it at all. He literally just tossed out the whole idea.”
“Wow. He seems like a bit of a…” She paused.
“You can’t possibly stop there.”
“Okay, a hard-ass. Wait, was that too strong? I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding me? This is music to my ears.”
“Oh, good. So look, here’s how I see it. We’re still officially kids, right? Wishes are for kids. Every kid I know who’s dealing with cancer has done a wish. You’re like, I don’t know, the misfit.”
I pretended to be offended. “Thanks a lot.”
“Here’s my million-dollar opinion, which I’m going to give you for free: I don’t think you should turn down the possibility of a wish just because your dad doesn’t get it.”
“Why, exactly?” I really wanted to know Monique’s thinking.
“Because I know for a fact you’d love it. That’s what’s important.”
I smiled but didn’t respond. I was considering what she said.
“Come on, Jeff. Even if you don’t make it all the way to outer space, you could take some kind of step in that direction, right? And for you, that would be a blast.”
> “Blast isn’t the best choice of words, Mo.” Space shuttle Challenger had blown up just a year before.
“Oh, shoot, right, my bad. I’m sorry. Look, all I’m trying to say is that a wish could put a huge smile on your face. That’s the only thing that matters. At least, that’s the only thing that should.”
* * *
•
I was pretty surprised one Monday to show up to school totally up-to-date on my homework. It was the first time that had happened in ages, and I noticed that my shoulders weren’t in their typical position, bunched up around my ears, but actually hanging loose. I liked the feel of it.
Practically the moment I stepped onto campus, I noticed a weird vibe. It seemed as if there were a million hushed conversations going on. The patio where the seniors typically hung out, normally the source of loud morning laughs, was practically silent. Several people had their mouths hanging open or a hand pressed against their lips. Clearly, something major had gone down.
I saw my friend Cara and hurried in her direction. Just before I got to her an announcement was made over the PA, asking students and faculty to gather in the main courtyard. “What the heck is going on?” I whispered to Cara as we walked together.
“I think someone committed suicide.”
“Who?” I said. Cara shrugged and motioned toward Mrs. Hager, the upper school director, who was tapping on the mic.
“There are rumors going around, and I think it’s best for everyone to know the truth,” Mrs. Hager said. “Julie Siegel, a member of our junior class, attempted suicide over the weekend.” There was a sudden wave of moans and sighs. Mrs. Hager quickly reassured everyone. “Thankfully, she is alive. She’s in the hospital in stable condition and is expected to fully recover.” She let that sink in, then continued. “High school is challenging, and it’s particularly so here at Poly. We put a lot on your shoulders. We expect a lot from you. But most important to us—more than anything else—is your safety. Your well-being.” Her eyes traversed the student body, underscoring her point. She let out a long breath and looked over to our school counselor, who nodded at her and stepped up to the mic.
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