by Lisa Yee
“I was so focused on winning, that I lost sight of all that I had to lose and of who I am. Sure, I’m a winner … and a loser … and yes, even a Dinky Dick. If I’ve been a shit to you, I’m sorry.” With that last line, there was a rumble through the crowd and suddenly everyone was paying attention. “If I have offended you, or stepped on you, or hurt you, I apologize. I mean that. I really do. This is not Higgs Boson Bing bullshitting you. This is me, Higgs, telling the truth, maybe for the first time in my life. Don’t spend all your time trying to be someone you’re not, because in the end you’ve got to live with yourself, and you might not like who you meet.”
When I was done, there was silence, until Nick leaped up and started to cheer. We grinned at each other, and despite the spotty unenthusiastic applause from the crowd, I knew that however clumsy and ill thought out it had been, I had just delivered the best, most honest speech of my life.
Leaving was harder than expected. Everyone was running around hugging and screaming and crying, all at the same time. I had thought that I couldn’t wait to leave high school, and now that the time was here, I found myself longing to stay.
“Come on, Higgs,” my father insisted. “I had to pull a lot of strings to get someone to talk to you on a Saturday.”
I couldn’t move. It was as if I was anchored to the ground as everyone and everything swirled around me. Then I saw Roo. She was holding armloads of flowers and looked beautiful. I was about to approach her when my father put his arm around me and led me to the car.
“Wait up!”
It was Charlie. “Did you guys forget me?” she said, out of breath. She was lugging her cello. “You weren’t going to leave without me, were you?”
“Of course not,” my mother said, looking embarrassed.
“Did you mean all that stuff you said in your speech?” my father asked as he maneuvered down the road, weaving in and out of traffic despite being in Mom’s minivan. Rolvo was still at the iffy Mart. And Dad’s Porsche could only seat two.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Well, it sounded funny to me. What was with the Dinky Dick stuff? Did someone dare you to say all those things? It wasn’t the speech your mother and I were expecting.”
It wasn’t the speech I was expecting.
“Listen, Higgs,” my father continued, “you have always had a way with words —”
No, I used to stutter, but you didn’t notice me then, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
Dad went on. “You just say whatever you need to and secure your place in Harvard. Make sure you reiterate that you are a legacy — the third generation of Bing at Harvard. If we need Dullaghan to step in and plead your case, he’s ready. The man who will be interviewing you is named Kurt Boyle and he’s a pushover. So tell him that not only did you start that animal whatever group, but that you donated a lot of your own money to it too. I can get my accountant to come up with some paperwork to back you up.”
“What if Harvard rejects me?” I asked.
“Worse things could happen,” Mom said.
Dad pulled the car over to the side of the road. He turned around and looked at me. “Don’t worry, son, you’re going to get in.”
But I was worried.
I took Stuart out of my pocket and let him run up my arm as Charlie’s eyes grew big. “Don’t say anything,” I whispered to her.
I took the call in my father’s den. Even though he had moved out, the room still reeked of Harvard. I picked up a photo of my father and brother. It was taken at Jeffrey’s high school graduation. Connor had photobombed them and was holding up four fingers, the Los Angeles Police Department’s unofficial code for “it’s cool.”
Even though I was expecting the call, when the phone rang, I jumped. Kurt Boyle of Harvard Admissions called at precisely 4 p.m. “Hello, Higgs,” he said in a friendly voice. He sounded young.
“Sir,” I said, hitting the speaker button.
* * *
When I hung up the phone, I was starving. I stepped out of the office and felt great, like a weight had been lifted.
Dad was having a Chivas on the rocks in the living room. From the window, I could see my mother wandering around my garden.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” my father asked. He was doing a lousy job of trying not to seem too concerned.
I didn’t answer right away.
“Higgs?” my father said. He put his drink down.
“Dad,” I began. I took a deep breath. “I’m not going to be a dentist, and I’m not going to Harvard.”
I had thought that crushing my father’s hopes and dreams would be exhilarating, but I was wrong. It felt rotten. As mad as I was at him for hurting Mom, I got no pleasure in seeing him in pain.
My father looked surprised, then sad. When did he get gray in his hair? Even though I was the one who’d been out all night and in jail, he was the one who looked drained.
“Higgs,” Dad said, quickly composing himself. “There’s something I need to say to you.”
Okay. Here it comes, I thought. At last. I was actually glad he was going to chew me out. I braced for a bucketload of how I’d disappointed him. How I was nothing like Jeffrey and how I had let the entire family down. I was an impostor, the faux Jeffrey. I could never live up to his legacy. I had always been terrified that my father would figure out that truth.
“Higgs, I hope you’re okay with not getting into Harvard,” he said gently.
This was not what I was expecting.
“Are you okay with it?” I asked back.
Dad shrugged. “Clearly, Boyle didn’t know what he was doing when he rescinded your offer, but I may be able to pull some strings. Dullaghan, our lawyer, has connections.”
“Dad, I’m not going to Harvard,” I said, this time more forcefully.
“You can reapply in the fall,” he reassured me. “Higgs, it’s okay. We’ll get through this together.”
Those were the words I had always longed to hear, only under different circumstances.
“Dad, I’m not going to Harvard.”
“We’ll lodge a formal protest, and in the meantime you can —”
“You’re not listening to me!” I said raising my voice. “Harvard isn’t for me, Dad!”
“Of course it is!” he said, sounding like his old self. “Higgs, you were born to be a Harvard man, it’s your legacy! It’s your dream.”
He wasn’t hearing anything I said. I spied Charlie eavesdropping in the hallway.
“Your mother isn’t going to take this well,” he said. “She’s … she’s got a lot on her mind.”
“Yeah, like you moving out,” I said bitterly.
My father’s entire body tensed. “Maybe I’ve taken her for granted now and then, and maybe I haven’t been home as much as she’d like, but she didn’t have to kick me out of the house. That’s insane. She’s insane.”
“What? Wait, it was Mom’s idea for you to move out?”
Dad nodded. “I may have made some mistakes, and may not have been the best husband. But I can be. I can change,” he insisted. “I just need a second chance.”
What I would have given for one of those.
The shower felt great, like it was washing away layers of dirt and crud and lies and deceit that had built up over the years. I could have stayed in there forever.
“Higgs! Higgs?” Charlie was pounding on the bathroom door. “Mom says you’ve got two hours before the party and you should take a nap!”
I wasn’t surprised that we were still going ahead with my graduation party. Why wouldn’t we? It was four years in the making, and the only thing that kept my mother going. Plus, I may not have been going to Harvard, but I was still an alumnus of Sally Ride High School.
My lip was puffy, but it didn’t look as bad as my black eye, which had acquired a deep purple hue. I took out my navy-blue debate suit from the closet and paired it with a light blue shirt and crimson tie. Crimson was Harvard’s way of saying “red.” It was their school color. It wa
s the least I could do for my dad. He was having a really bad day.
Stuart was running around in my laundry basket. I scooped him up and put him in my pocket. Just then there was a knock on the door.
“Here,” Charlie said. “This is for you.”
“Thank you.” I opened the box, thinking it was a graduation gift, and was surprised by what I saw.
“It’s makeup,” she said. “To cover your bruises and black eye. Most of it is Mom’s. I figured that you may as well look good at your party. There are going to be lots of photos and stuff.”
“Thank you, Charlie,” I said. “I really mean that.”
I thought I saw her blush.
The doorbell rang. It was Nick. “Ready?” he asked.
“Don’t you think you should get some sleep?” Mom said, looking worried.
“There’s stuff I have to do,” I told her.
“Get him to the Carriage House restaurant by six forty-five p.m.,” Dad instructed Nick. “The party starts at seven p.m. I don’t want to give Higgs’s mother any more reason to be upset. You know how women get.”
I turned to my sister. “Charlie, want to go with us?”
“Really?” She broke into a stupid grin. “Hell, yeah!” Charlie said, jumping into the front seat. I stood next to the car until she got out and crawled into the back.
Nick hit the gas. “Where to?” he asked.
* * *
First stop: Sally Ride High School.
The parking lot that had been full just a couple hours earlier was empty — except for a rusted green Kia with a broken window.
I put an envelope on the front seat.
“What’s in it?” Nick asked.
“Four hundred dollars,” I said. For graduation, my (many) Chinese relatives had gifted me with red paper envelopes of cash. This was an ancient tradition that I wasn’t about to argue against.
“You owed Mr. French four hundred dollars?” Charlie asked. “What, did you buy drugs from him or something?”
“Or something,” I said.
There was no note in the envelope, but I knew that Mr. French would know who it was from.
At the next stop, I told Charlie and Nick to wait in the car. “… and keep the engine running,” I instructed. “I may need to make a quick getaway.”
I exhaled when no one answered the door. As I started back to the car I heard, “Higgs?”
I turned around.
“What do you want?” Roo said as she stood in the doorway framed by bouquets of flowers and balloons behind her.
“I want to tell you that I’m really, really sorry,” I said — and I was. You don’t go out with someone for two years, four months, and seven days and just forget about them. “I acted badly and I wish I could take it all back.”
Roo looked pissed. “You were a poo,” she said. “It was so embarrassing. All the other boyfriends said they’d give their girlfriends their kidneys. Higgs, you were a really big poo.”
“Why don’t you just go ahead and say that I was a shit,” I told her. Rosemary “Roo” Wynn never cussed — it was one of her claims to fame. However, being called a poo didn’t seem like the proper justice. “Go ahead,” I goaded her. “Say it. I know you want to.”
“Okay … Higgs, you were a …”
“Say it, Roo.”
“You were a …”
“You can do it, Roo!”
“You were a … a … a shit. You were a shit! A shit! A shit! You’re a shit!”
“Don’t you feel better now?” I asked.
Roo caught her breath. She was flushed. “I do.”
“So do you forgive me?” I asked. “No hard feelings, right?”
“I didn’t say that, Higgs. I said you were a s-h-i-t. Now good-bye. Get out of my life.”
“I’m not going to Harvard,” I said, waiting to see her response.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Hell?”
Roo slapped both hands over her mouth.
I had to laugh. “Come here,” I said affectionately. Roo shook her head, hands still covering her mouth. “I love you,” I said, laughing, and at that moment, I really did. “Come on, Roo. Two years, four months, and seven days.”
We hugged, both knowing it would be for the last time.
* * *
Rosalee’s house was only a block away, so I left Nick and Charlie in the car to continue their debate over the Beatles vs. the Clash. It looked like there was a party going on at the Gomez house. A backyard band was blasting. The side gate was open.
“Who invited you?” Rosalee asked. She was still wearing her graduation cap and gown, and was holding a plate of barbecue chicken wings.
“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings,” I said, stepping away from the pool to be safe. With Rosalee, one never knew what she was capable of.
“You came here to tell me that?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed.
“Yes, and that I’m not going to Harvard.”
Rosalee dropped the plate. Chicken wings scattered at my feet. A couple floated in the deep end of the pool, then sank. “Someone snitched on me. Any idea who that might be?”
For once, Rosalee Gomez was speechless.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she finally said. She was shaking. “I was so mad when you won the debate. Oh my god, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, crap, Higgs. I’ve ruined your life.” Rosalee rushed me to a quiet corner of the backyard. “I didn’t think they’d really do anything about it.”
“Listen,” I told her. “No hard feelings. I’m okay with this. Really. And Rosalee, I really am sorry. For everything.”
“Higgs, I feel awful. I’m sorry….”
“We’re cool,” I assured her. “I swear.”
As I walked away, Rosalee called out, “Higgs? How did you know it was me?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “Until now.”
* * *
“I refuse,” Nick said as the three of us stared at the gravel pit. “I’m not crossing that.”
“Me neither,” Charlie added. “There are dead bodies in there.”
“I promise, no one’s going to get hurt.”
Nick looked worried. Charlie looked uncertain. I held out my hand to my sister and she took it.
“Is this for real?” Charlie asked after we crossed and were marching through the woods. I’d been telling them about Monarch. “I mean, come on, Higgs. You just met this person with a ridiculous name who lives in a trailer, and you made a pact, and let a bunch of mice loose, and got beat up, and were stuck on the water tower, and are in love?”
“Don’t make it sound cheap,” I said.
When we neared the Airstream, I called out, “Monarch! Monarch!” I was anxious to get some answers. I knocked on the door. “Monarch?”
Charlie turned to Nick. “My brother’s gone crazy, am I right?”
“Afraid so,” Nick replied.
The door wasn’t locked, so I took that as my invitation to step inside. My throat closed up when I looked around. The books were gone. The walls were bare. All traces of Monarch were gone. It was as if she had never existed.
Charlie pushed past me. “So this is the charming trailer you told us so much about.”
We were about to leave, and that’s when I spotted it in the corner on the floor — a candy-apple-red Zippo lighter with a rooster on it.
The parking lot was pretty full, but Nick snagged a spot next to a BMW. It was the same one I’d seen at the iffy Mart.
“Aren’t you coming?” Charlie asked.
Nick was still sitting in the car, texting furiously.
“Come on, Nick,” I said. “The party doesn’t start until I arrive.”
He shook his head. “I can’t go,” he said glumly. “Samantha’s waiting for me. I’m already late.”
“You can’t expect me to go in there by myself, can you?” I said to him.
“I’m here,” Charlie said.
Nick shrugged. “Higgs,
you know how it is.”
I nodded. I knew how it was.
I headed toward the party, then turned around. “Hey, Nick!” I called out. He stopped the car and rolled the window down. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For doing so much research, for being there for me, for everything.”
* * *
Outside the Carriage House restaurant, my father was on the phone, pacing.
“Of course we want to appeal,” he was saying. He cupped his hand over the phone. “It’s Dullaghan. We’re going to make this right,” he whispered.
“Have you heard nothing I’ve said?” I asked him.
“Higgs!” Mom came out and ushered me toward the Victorian room, where the graduation party was to take place. This was her one big splurge. She looked pretty in her pink dress and simple strand of pearls.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “More than you can imagine,” I said honestly.
She exhaled. “Darling, I’m so glad.” I gave her a long hug.
As my mother attended to a problem with irregular ice swans, I watched Charlie taking bites out of appetizers and then putting them back on the buffet.
“Do you hate me that much?” I asked.
Startled, Charlie choked on a cracker topped with smoked salmon and a smear of cream cheese.
“I know it was you,” I said. “What I don’t know is why.”
“Why what?”
“Dinky Dick.”
Charlie paled. “Who told you?”
“I saw the STartA logo on the back of the banner. That’s your group, your art club or whatever.”
“So?”
“Charlie, why would you do that to me?”
“It was a joke,” she said defensively. “It all started as a joke.”
“But why?”
“You were really mean to me, Higgs.” Her gaze refused to meet mine. “I finally got fed up with it.”
“How can you say I’m mean to you?” I asked. “I don’t even talk to you.”