by Sara Saedi
Phinn shrugged. “I just get paid to be myself.”
“Exactly,” she replied with a wide grin on her face.
Phinn had been nervous about the prospect of signing on for a reality show, but he needed the money, and if he was going to be honest with himself, he also craved the attention. The creators had insisted that it wouldn’t be salacious or scripted the way other popular shows in the genre had been. Under Phinn’s supervision, the series would be tasteful and thought provoking. Phinn was a fascinating figure, they told him, and the country would want to watch him adjust to life after the island. And while Phinn would never admit it, he liked having cameras follow him around. It made him feel less alone. The worst part of his day was when the crew shut down their equipment and left him by himself in his apartment.
“Congrats on the stellar reviews,” the girl told him.
Phinn wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle it if anyone hated the show, because that would mean they hated him. He kept refreshing Wylie’s Snapchat on his phone to see if she’d mentioned the series, but she hadn’t posted anything in days. It wasn’t like she ever mentioned him anyway. Why would she start now?
“Are you having a good time?” Phinn asked the girl, not sure what else to talk about except for the party.
She nodded, and slipped an olive into her mouth.
“It’s a great party. The views are so tropic up here.”
Phinn glanced across the rooftop and watched Bandit shake hands and give hugs to more adoring fans. He’d brought his mother to the party. Phinn had been right when he told him that his life was just beginning. Fame and adulthood seemed to agree with him. Phinn spotted Dr. Jay stepping out from the elevator. What happened at BioLark changed his life for the better, too. The public hailed him a hero and a whistleblower, and he went on to release some of BioLark’s most groundbreaking work.
Phinn wondered how Olivia felt about Dr. Jay’s success. The Feds had searched every inch of BioLark and hadn’t found her anywhere. Most of the staff was still serving prison time for holding the kids hostage, but none of them seemed to know what had happened to their fearless leader. The tunnels Dr. Jay had told them about were real, but they’d been found empty and there were no signs of safe houses nearby. Phinn hoped that Olivia had managed to disappear for good and start over. He wanted to hate her, but he’d been the reason for her downfall. Maybe she’d found her way to another island, and was sipping a mai tai and nursing a sunburn while making friends with people her own age.
Phinn knew the polite thing to do would be to walk across the rooftop to say hello to Bandit and Dr. Jay and thank them for coming to his premiere, but it would take him forever to get there with everyone stopping him to chat along the way. He’d already spent an hour or two at the party. No one would blame him for slipping off. He’d known from experience that most true stars never attended their own parties anyway.
“You know, Phinn. I would love to read for the part of Wylie again. I’ve been rehearsing, and I think I could really hit it out of the park. I could capture her strength and her vulnerability. All the things that made you fall in love with her in the first place,” the girl exclaimed. “I’d love to have you over to my place one night so we could talk about the script.”
Phinn didn’t have the energy to fake a polite response. A person like Wylie would never be at a party like this. She much preferred to surround herself with real people.
“I’m sorry,” Phinn said to the girl, “But something just came up. I have to go.”
He grabbed a pill from his pocket and swallowed it with his drink.
“Do you have an extra one of those?” the girl asked.
Phinn slowly hovered in the air and tossed her a pill. She caught it with one hand and waved good-bye. He was glad she didn’t swallow it right away and chase him.
He hadn’t planned to fly in the direction of Wylie’s brownstone. He’d done everything in his power to avoid her block and her entire neighborhood. Even if it meant that the few cab drivers he had used had to take inconvenient routes to get him from place to place. But tonight of all nights, he needed to get a glimpse of her. He just wanted to make sure she was okay.
On the day they escaped, Wylie had told him she had three hundred and sixteen days to go before she turned eighteen and exactly that much time had passed. Maybe he just wanted to fly past her window to see if her room had been emptied out and she’d returned to the island before her number turned to zero. Maybe he just wanted to wish her a happy birthday, and see if after some distance, they could try to be friends. Despite the way things had ended, Wylie’s story would always have Phinn in it and vice versa.
As he soared above Central Park, the people flying past him pointed excitedly in his direction. Traffic was getting worse and worse these days, and you could never fly with your eyes fixed on your phone anymore. There were too many reports of people crashing into each other, and politicians had proposed laws that would force everyone to wear a helmet while under the influence of parvaz. Phinn hoped none of the legislation would pass. It would be a real shame to not feel the wind through your hair while traveling from point A to point B.
He slowly floated to Wylie’s fire escape, and quietly landed on the metal railing. The bedroom was dark with only the light from her laptop emanating. There was no one in the room, but the bed looked recently slept in.
Phinn knew she hadn’t changed her mind. She hadn’t gone back to the island. They were both going to grow old now, even if they’d never grow old together.
“Happy eighteenth birthday, Wylie,” he said out loud.
* * *
The boat inched toward the dock at an agonizingly slow pace. Wylie didn’t have enough patience to wait for it to park, so she started making her way down the deck. For someone whose time was limited, it always felt like Maz took an eternity to get his bearings and greet her. But maybe he wasn’t alone this trip.
If Hopper was with him, Wylie told herself, she’d never admit to him or anyone else that she spent some evenings roaming the docks of Jamaica Bay, searching for his boat. It was silly to think he’d tag along today of all days. She was wrong to hope he’d get bored of the island or that he’d realize it wasn’t nearly as much fun living there without her. He was probably dating Nadia by now.
But Wylie’s heart still constricted when Maz stepped off the boat alone. He gave her an apologetic look, as he carried several boxes in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just me.”
Wylie knew it was a mistake to wait for Hopper. Still, she’d come here expecting to see him. After inexplicably making her parents eat pancakes for dinner, she’d gone up to her room and spent a little extra time applying makeup and styling her hair. Her desk was covered with pages from the cookbook she’d devoted most of her free time to. There wasn’t much she liked about living in the public eye after the BioLark standoff, but the number of subscribers to her cooking channel had gone through the roof, and had afforded her the opportunity to release a cookbook of Minor Island recipes. It wasn’t always easy identifying substitutes for chipney or pame, but Wylie enjoyed the challenge of taste testing recipes and coming up with alternatives.
Thursday nights were reserved for family meals, and her dad would pop over from his apartment with ingredients from his neighborhood garden so he and Wylie could try out her recipes together. That night, he seemed disappointed when she told him that she wasn’t in the mood for Sweet Honey Stew, and that she’d preferred her favorite breakfast for dinner. Only Micah knew that her birth date had officially changed. They’d celebrated in February, but since Wylie had stopped aging during the months she’d lived on the island, she was technically still seventeen then. Tonight, when the clock struck midnight, the three hundred and sixteen days she had left after getting out of BioLark would come to an end and she’d officially be an eighteen-year-old.
“Don’t be sorry,�
�� she told Maz. “It’s so good to see you.”
A month had passed since his last visit. Wylie helped him place the boxes down and gave him a hug. Sometimes she wished his trips to the mainland were more frequent, and other times she wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t meet him on the docks anymore. It hurt too much to be reminded of the island. It was in these moments that Wylie felt empathy for Olivia Weckler. If you allowed yourself to dwell in the past, then life after Minor Island could feel ordinary and dull. They spent the next hour sorting through the boxes. Lola had packed an array of vegetables from the garden and enough sugar roots to last Wylie well beyond the next visit. Wylie had also brought grocery bags of treats and ingredients that were hard to come by across the ocean.
“I threw in some cooking utensils that might make your life easier,” she told Maz. He’d been overseeing all of the culinary duties on the island, and needed as much help as he could get.
Maz sent Lola’s regrets and promised Wylie that once the responsibilities of motherhood and running the island eased up, she would join him on a trip to the mainland. Before they said good-bye, he handed Wylie a digital camera she’d given him on a previous trip.
“She’s growing so fast,” Maz said.
The memory card was already filled up with photos of their daughter. They’d named her Almira, after Lola’s mom. Wylie grinned as she flipped through the pictures of the baby girl playing in the sand and doing tummy time in the middle of the Clearing. Her favorite photograph was one of Lola holding a beaming Almira while suspended in midair.
“Oh Maz,” Wylie said. “She’s absolutely beautiful.”
There was nothing from Hopper in the boxes. Not a lock of his hair or a handwritten letter or a guitar pick to remember him by. He’d been hurt and blindsided by Wylie’s decision to stay on the mainland. At the time, he felt like she was abandoning him. He didn’t have a family of his own and couldn’t understand why Wylie needed to be with her parents.
“He’ll get over it eventually,” Maz told her.
“Will you promise to tell him I’m not with Phinn?”
Maz nodded and said he always relayed that message. Wylie thanked him. She didn’t want Hopper to ever think that she’d stayed behind to be with someone else. Their conversation turned to Joshua, and Wylie said that her brother was doing as well as could be expected. But she knew that even if juvie was crushing his spirit and making him bitter, Joshua would never admit it. He didn’t want his family to worry about him.
“We visited him last weekend. He’s got a little over a year to go, and then he’ll be home.”
It was getting late and Maz needed to run a few errands before making the journey back to the island. She handed him a new memory card for the camera and told him to shower Almira with kisses from her Aunt Wylie. These visits would only last a few more months. Come August, Wylie would be starting her freshman year at UC Berkeley. She’d chosen the school because of the campus’s proximity to Chez Panisse and was determined to snag an apprenticeship in their kitchen. She waited for a few minutes by herself until a car service showed up to take her home. The driver helped her with the boxes, and though Wylie could tell that he recognized her, he didn’t ask her any questions about Minor Island. There were stories of teenagers who’d gotten lost searching for the island, but no one from the states or any other part of the world had managed to find it.
“Just Maz again?” Micah asked as he helped Wylie carry the boxes up their stoop.
“Yup,” Wylie said.
“We got this in the mail today,” Micah said, flashing a postcard at Wylie. She gave the image a closer look, and realized it was a photograph of the Hong Kong skyline.
“Tinka sends her love. She says Hong Kong is her favorite city so far. She hasn’t really met too many people yet, but she’s content to explore the place by herself.”
Wylie would have liked to visit her. They didn’t have parvaz in other countries yet, and it would be nice to go to a place without hundreds of people flying in the sky. It had taken months for Micah to emerge from his depression after Tinka decided she wanted to travel the world without him, but they were also proud of her for leaving on her own. She used to be the girl who couldn’t do anything without a boy at her side, and now she’d used the money she’d earned from an advance on a memoir to get to know the world, and herself, without relying on anyone else.
They carried the boxes through the living room. Ever since they’d gone missing, her mom had instituted a strict eleven-thirty curfew, and Wylie had abided by it. If she were even a minute late, her mom would be on the phone with the police, convinced that Wylie had gone away to Minor Island.
“You’re home,” Maura said, the relief in her voice obvious.
“Mom. I’m always going to come home. I promise,” Wylie replied.
“I’d offer you some dessert,” Wylie’s dad said, “but you made us have pancakes for dinner, so I don’t think more sugar is appropriate.”
“Thanks,” Wylie said, “But I’m not hungry.”
Her parents were sitting on the couch, binge-watching their favorite crime drama. It was one of the many things they’d bonded over the last few months. Wylie knew that geeking out over the same television program wasn’t enough to hold their marriage together, but at least it was enough to build a friendship on. And while they were well aware of Phinn’s new show—the billboards were hard to miss—they’d agreed not to watch it. Everyone at Harper Academy was planning to tune in, but Wylie didn’t need another reminder in her life that he existed.
“I really thought Hopper might show up tonight,” Micah said as he climbed onto the fire escape. Wylie handed him a sugar root and followed him out.
“Me too,” Wylie said.
The fire escape looked vacant and overly spacious. Joshua’s place would always feel empty, and a piece of them would always feel like it was missing until he came home.
“Do you think he’s really okay in there?” Micah asked.
“I hope so.”
They placed the flame of a lighter under both bulbs of the sugar roots and watched as they melted into a sticky confection. Wylie and Micah waited a few minutes for them to cool off before devouring them. They tried to take small bites and chew slowly to make the treat last as long as possible, but they didn’t have the willpower to take their time.
Above them, Wylie could hear the whirr and buzz of New Yorkers flying toward late night adventures. She looked up at the sky, but none of the people soaring in mid-air were close enough to make out.
Micah glanced at his phone. “It’s 12:03,” he said, flashing the screen at Wylie. “You are officially an adult. How does it feel?”
“It feels . . . the same,” she answered.
They sat on the fire escape together for a few more minutes, but eventually grew tired and said their goodnights. Micah climbed through the window and headed to his room to work on a graphic novel he’d created about Minor Island and BioLark.
The night air was crisp and inviting, and Wylie wanted to enjoy the lack of humidity for a little longer. She was supposed to get up at the crack of dawn to play basketball with Vanessa, but she wasn’t ready for sleep. The sounds of improvisational jazz wafted out the window from their neighbor’s house, but the notes were too sporadic and seemingly arbitrary to capture her melancholy. She leaned back against the ladder and felt something tickle the nape of her neck. She turned around and the moment her eyes landed on the object, her blood pressure rose. The necklace looked brighter and more polished than the morning after prom when Phinn had given it to her. The chain had been repaired and the glass of the mirror was somehow less tarnished. At first, she was afraid to touch it. She looked around at every corner of the alleyway, but there was no sign of Phinn.
Throw it away, she told herself. Toss it aside. You don’t need it.
But it was the only souvenir Phinn had left of his mot
her. It seemed heartless and immature to drop it into some narrow crevice between their brownstone and the one next door.
Wylie unclasped the chain from the ladder and carefully placed it around her neck. It took a few tries to fasten it, but once she did, the charm fell right below her collarbone. She examined her reflection in the mirror, and decided she didn’t look a minute older than seventeen. As she grazed the mirror handle with her fingers, she knew she wouldn’t take it off any time soon.
It was an artifact of everything she’d gone through. It was a symbol of who she was when she met Phinn, and who she was now. Every time she’d glance at her reflection in the glass, she’d be reminded that the face looking back was the result of her experiences. The good, the bad, the ones that made you grow up a little faster than you wanted. Most of all, it would remind her of first loves. And last loves. And everything in between.
“Good-bye, Phinn,” she whispered.
And then she climbed into her bedroom and closed the window shut. It was quiet in their house. Joshua wasn’t in the next room listening to his favorite presidential speeches at top volume. Micah wasn’t drowning his sorrows in a bottle of Jameson and yelling at Joshua to turn his speakers down. No one was getting belligerent downstairs or trading marital barbs. And Wylie wasn’t tossing and turning from the fear of getting older. Tonight, her first night as an adult, she would fall asleep just fine to the silence.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Some authors describe writing as a lonely endeavor, but I had the opposite experience with this book. It came together with the support and help of so many.
To Kendra Levin—I am so lucky that I got to work with you on not one, but two books. You went above and beyond as my editor, and these characters would not be as fully formed without your guidance, thoughtfulness, and storytelling expertise. Thank you so much for challenging me and making me a better writer. I will forever be spoiled from working with you.
