Down and Across

by Arvin Ahmadi

  “So?” I clicked the mouse, and a colorful THE END zoomed into my last slide.

  Dad looked to Mom.

  “Well,” she said. “That was a wonderful performance.” It’s not a performance, Mom. This is serious. “But, um, Scott . . . I’m not sure how safe it is in the woods.”

  “They have counselors,” I blurted immediately.

  “Right, but how many? How can one counselor keep track of so many kids?” Mom said, her voice shaky. “Why don’t you take summer classes here instead? Amir’s mom says they have a very nice pre-algebra course at Drexel.”

  Undeterred, I shifted my focus. I looked for summer programs that were more educational, like the ones at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. These “camps” for middle and high school students offered a full catalog of classes ranging from pre-algebra to archaeology. I redid my slides with pictures of Ivy League campuses, complete with bullet points about the academic merits of each program. I emphasized dorm safety. Once again, I presented to my parents, even more confident than the last time.

  Again, Dad turned to Mom.

  “It’s like college, right?” she said, twisting her face desperately. “You’ll go to college when you’re eighteen. Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?”

  I never made it to summer camp, but I’d made it to Washington. And if I was going to stay here, then I would set my own rules.

  RULE #1: Money was real. And I was running out of it. My parents had left $800 of emergency funds—along with food and a SEPTA pass—and I had brought half of that with me to DC. I should have taken the whole stash. My expenses were stacking up: Greyhound ticket, hostel fees, meals. And drinking! I must have thrown down at least fifty bucks at Tom’s Foolery. Running away wasn’t cheap, and even if I stretched my budget, I could only make it a few more days. I’d have to get creative.

  RULE #2: Thou shalt not smell like a homeless person. I couldn’t afford new clothes, but maybe I’d borrow some shirts from Trent.

  RULE #3: Don’t fall for the girl. Fiora. Come back tomorrow, she said at Tonic, and I’d agreed. I’d go, but I wouldn’t give in. Because even if I was beginning to like her—even if my heart turned into a twisty ball of rubber bands whenever she opened those unearthly lips—even if Fiora painted one self-portrait with her staggering beauty and another with her unwavering strength, and I wanted the entire gallery—she was in college and had a boyfriend. It was a harsh reality, but also a blessing in disguise because I had business to take care of in DC.

  Fiora was filling her grid with distractions; I was filling mine with grit. I promised myself that I would not, under any circumstance, fall for her.

  AT THE STREET corner opposite my hostel, four crosswalks created a narrow baseball diamond. The space between the bases was striped like Abbey Road. I stood on the home plate and checked my phone when I realized there was one rule I had forgotten:

  MOM AND DAD—IRAN

  MISSED CALLS (4)

  My eyes bulged at the phone screen. Do I call them back? I could feel my heart rate going haywire. I had just talked to my parents on Sunday and wasn’t expecting them to call again until the weekend. I took a deep breath and ran through some calculations. It was ten in the morning in the United States, so it had to be around six in the evening over there. They were probably eating dinner with my grandfather. No, that wasn’t possible. No one eats dinner before ten in Iran. Perhaps they’d just left Baba Bozorg with his caretaker and were relaxing in his apartment, sipping tea, thinking about me.

  Were my parents suspicious, or were they simply checking up?

  A Metrobus screeched to a halt just down the block. On one hand, I felt caught, but on the other hand, I knew I was fine. My parents would have left a voice mail if it was anything serious. They had no way of knowing I was in DC; I’d covered all my bases. Even my excuse for quitting the internship was airtight. Dr. Mehta would never email my dad about that. Mom and Dad were supposed to trust me while they were gone, and until my face was plastered on milk cartons across the country, I would milk their trust.

  I took another deep breath, and I decided to hop on the bus. The doors slid open, and I boarded from the middle, shuffling past the fare machine. The driver wasn’t paying attention, anyway. The digital display read D6. Destination: unknown.

  We drove around the corner where I crashed my bike, and I chuckled to myself. I had already forgotten about that incident with Fiora. It felt like ages ago.

  A family of four tourists boarded the bus at Ford’s Theatre—the matching “Proud to be an American” T-shirts gave them away. The dad was in the middle of describing Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in great detail. He must have been a history teacher, judging from his thick-rimmed glasses and his ability to ignore an apathetic audience. His two teenage daughters spent most of the bus ride scrolling through Instagram, “uh-huh”-ing their dad’s every word. I discreetly paid attention. After Lincoln he talked about the International Spy Museum—with its exhibit on celebrity spies like Julia Child and Josephine Baker—and Union Station, the city’s main transportation hub. His wife snapped pictures of these landmarks with her disposable camera. They hopped off shortly after Union Station, and from there, the bus passed run-down blocks with saloons, chicken joints, hair salons, and people of all colors and sizes.

  I hopped off at the last stop, Stadium-Armory. It wasn’t a particularly nice neighborhood. The streets smelled of urine, and it took me all of two minutes to find a prison next to a cemetery. I immediately hopped on another bus, and somehow, after transferring twice, found my way back to Dupont Circle.

  I had barely made it two steps into the Hanover Hostel when I heard my name.

  “Scott,” the front-desk guy called. We met eyes and raised our chins slowly, cautiously, as if doubting the reality of this Scott-ception. It was the meta experience of facing your namesake—accepting the loss of a small fraction of your identity. “You were supposed to check out three hours ago.”

  “Right. About that . . . I’m going to need another—” How much longer would I be staying at the hostel? Weeks, at least, but I couldn’t afford that. “Listen, Scott. My plans have changed, and it looks like I’ll be in DC for a while.”

  He went to pull up the Excel spreadsheet.

  “How many nights?”

  I didn’t know. Maybe just one or two more, if I could find somewhere cheaper to stay. What was cheaper than thirty-five bucks a night? My only other option was to ask Fiora or Trent if I could crash with them—but I’d only known them for three days. Realistically, how much could I expect these new friends to help me?

  I pulled out my wallet to check how much cash I had left. There was a hundred and some smaller bills. “I’d like to stay at least one more night.”

  “Just one?”

  “Look, Scott—” I hesitated. “Isn’t it weird when I call you that?”

  “Not really. It’s my name.”

  “Right. I’m Scott and you’re Scott, and there are lots of other Scotts out there. But doesn’t it feel like it’s kind of chipping away at your individuality? I’m sure we’re very different people. It just doesn’t sit well with me.”

  Scott, the front-desk guy, sucked in his lips and nodded.

  “Okay, Mr. Ferdowsi. If it helps, my name is Scott Hanover. Now, if you’d like to book another night, that’ll be thirty-five dollars.”

  “Hanover . . . like the hostel?”

  “It’s my father’s,” he explained. “We own sixteen of them around the country. The DC location hardly gets any business, so he’s letting me run it for the summer.”

  I noticed Scott Hanover was wearing another inspired shirt today; this one simply read PHONY in bold white letters.

  “Do you want to know the truth?” I asked.

  Then I spilled. I told him about my parents and Professor Mallard, the bike chase and Fiora and Trent. I walked him through every det
ail of my roller-coaster runaway, and Scott Hanover’s jaw dropped like you wouldn’t believe it. At first he thought I was lying. He’d just finished his freshman year at Yale; he was a smart, discerning guy with every reason to be skeptical. But the longer I went on, the more he saw my genuine desperation. And for whatever reason, he stood behind my motives.

  Scott Hanover wasn’t going to let me stay at his hostel for free—that would be bad business. I paid for two more nights, whittling my cash stash to a painful low. However, he let me off with an IOU for the rest of the nights. As long as I found a way to pay him something every few days, and as long as the hostel didn’t fill up, I could stay.

  BACK AT TONIC, the scene was airy and infinite. Physically, we were packed by the bar like sardines, but the place felt pregnant with possibilities this time around. Trent was bartending tipsy tonight after coming from a Libertarian networking event. Fiora had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend, so she was late again.

  I told them about my success with Professor Mallard. “I knew it,” Fiora said smugly. Trent fixed me up a celebratory old-fashioned, which tasted way too strong, so I took small sips.

  Now it was Fiora’s turn to honor her end of our deal. She grabbed a napkin from behind the bar and pulled a pen out of her bra. Trent and I watched closely as she drew a fifteen-by-fifteen grid in a matter of seconds.

  “This is a classic crossword grid,” Fiora said. She crumpled the napkin into a ball and chucked it at the trash can, missing by at least half a foot. “Most people think you start a crossword with this. Nope. You start with a theme. All good crosswords have a handful of theme answers that serve as the building blocks for the rest of your grid. Usually they’re the longest answers, and since they’re theme answers . . .”

  “They should be related,” I finished. I picked up my glass. “So could a theme be, like, types of drinks? Old-fashioned, gin and tonic, dirty martini?”

  “Sure, but that’s a really simple one.” Fiora stole my old-fashioned and took a long sip. “A better one would be . . . hmm.” She fished out an ice cube with her fingers and plopped it on her tongue. Her eyes were focused on Trent, who was fixing up a drink for a couple at the other end of the bar. She smiled. “I got it. Trent’s Republican views don’t hold water. His opinions are incredibly dense. See what I did there, with the liquidy words? That’s a better theme.”

  Once again, I was astonished by the wheels, assembly line, alphabet soup . . . whatever function controlled Fiora’s brain, and how it functioned so differently from mine. Before I had a chance to chime in, Trent leaned in between us.

  “I’ll have you know,” he said, half smiling and squinting his eyes, “that I’m no Republican. I’m a Libertarian. Like Renault Cohen.”

  Fiora nudged me. “Trent’s idol. You may think Senator Cohen is a regular Republican scumbag, but oh, no. He believes in laissez-faire values! You know, hugs and drugs. Legalize cannabis, right, Mr. Future Senator?”

  Trent leaned over the bar and smiled dreamily. “I accept the office and its responsibilities,” he buzzed. For a moment, Trent disappeared into a world I knew well: the World of What Ifs. His eyes embraced the fantasy of possibility. He held on to that fantasy for just a second longer before reality shoved it into a closet. Trent snapped back into bar mode and poured Fiora a drink of her own. She took a sip.

  “He’s drunker than I thought,” Fiora said.

  “Yeah, he’s acting pretty funny.”

  “No, no, Trent always acts like that. I can tell because he made my gin and tonic with, like, ninety percent gin.”

  Fiora assured me that most beginner cruciverbalists don’t come up with swanky themes on their first try. She suggested we try an activity called “theme-storming.” To start, I had to come up with a ridiculous word, so I scanned the bar for a cue. Then I took my cue one step further.

  “Sexting.”

  Fiora’s eyes shot open. “Whoa!” she howled. She honestly looked proud of me. “That’s perfect. Very hip. Modern crosswords are totally moving in that direction.” She bobbed her head excitedly. “Where’d you pull sexting from?”

  “Well, Trent’s drunk at work,” I said. “It feels out of place, like sexting in a church.”

  “Eh, I’ve done it,” Fiora said. “When I was fourteen, Trent dragged me to Easter Mass back in Charleston, and it was so boring, right, Trent?” Trent nodded, even though he was busy taking orders and cleaning up a spilled cocktail. “Yeah, super boring. Anyway, the Wi-Fi was especially shitty inside the church, so with God as my witness, I resurrected an old text thread with my crush from summer camp and, well . . . Let’s just say Jesus wasn’t the only thing to rise that Easter.”

  “Oh my God . . . Fiora, that’s dis—I’m about to—Can we just get back to the puzzle?” I curled up on my bar stool and shuddered.

  “All right, all right. Chill out,” Fiora said, holding back giggles.

  “Sexting,” I said very seriously.

  “Sexting,” she repeated. “What else?”

  “Church,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “What else?”

  I kept rattling off random words and phrases, and she’d rattle some off, too, and eventually we had theme-stormed quite the list of answers:

  SEXTING

  CHURCH

  JESUS

  MUHAMMAD

  MUHAMMAD ALI

  ALLEY

  ALLY

  NEMESIS

  OPRAH

  ELLEN

  PORTIA

  PORSCHE

  BMW

  VOLKSWAGEN

  ANGELA MERKEL

  SNL

  SATURDAY

  DRUNK

  AA

  BINGE

  TWINKIE

  HOSTESS

  CLEOPATRA

  PYRAMID

  SPHINX

  PERSEPOLIS

  REVOLUTION

  BEATLES

  HIPPIE

  HIPPO

  HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS

  APPLES TO APPLES

  CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY

  UN

  EMMA WATSON

  HERMIONE

  RON WEASLEY

  GINGER

  PAPRIKA

  TEQUILA

  PATRON

  MEXICO

  COLOMBIA

  COLUMBIA

  DC

  NYC

  PA

  RUNAWAY

  PROFESSOR

  DUCK

  GOOSE

  GEESE

  GOOSES

  POND

  WATER

  LIQUID

  CUP

  CONTAINER

  POT

  “Hm,” Fiora said, biting her bottom lip. She scanned the napkin.

  “What?”

  “We’ve got at least a few options. What are you thinking?”

  I scrabbled through the file cabinet of my mind. There were a million drawers and files to pull from, and they were constantly getting shuffled around. Sexting was now in the same drawer as church and religion. I didn’t want any of those files. I wanted something more fun.

  “Cards Against Humanity,” I said, circling the part of our list that included HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS, APPLES TO APPLES, and CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY.

  “Games,” Fiora said. “Nice theme. Nothing crazy, but it’s broad enough to get interesting with our answers. Sports and board games and romantic shit.”

  “Romantic shit?”

  “All that ‘love is a game’ stuff. I try to make my crosswords female friendly,” Fiora said proudly, “since it’s such a dude-dominated hobby.”

  “Your personal contribution to feminism.”

  “Saaket, my presence is a contribution to feminism.”

  I c
ouldn’t argue with that.

  “So games,” I said, fumbling with one of the bar candles.

  “Games,” Fiora repeated. “Let’s theme-storm a list for that.”

  “What’s wrong with the games we already came up with?” I dipped my finger into the candle. It never got old watching hot wax dry so fast.

  “They won’t fit on our grid,” Fiora said. “Hungry Hungry Hippos—eighteen letters. Apples to Apples—fourteen. And Cards Against Humanity? Twenty. Freaking. Letters.”

  She crossed those words off of our original list. “The max we should do is, like, twelve. Plus, if we come up with more games, then maybe we’ll find a subtheme.”

  TIC–TAC–TOE

  TWISTER

  MONOPOLY

  TRUTH OR DARE

  WORLD CUP

  SUPER BOWL

  WORLD SERIES

  TABLE TENNIS

  TUG–OF–WAR

  MARIO KART

  BACKGAMMON

  “In Farsi,” I said, “backgammon is called takhteh.”

  RISK

  JENGA

  CANDY LAND

  MANCALA

  “I forgot about Mancala!” Fiora exclaimed. “I used to live for that game. One time, in second or third grade, I told this kid Joey that if he stuck all the stones up his nose, they would go to his arms and give him more muscle.”

  “I thought the point was to get the stones on your side of the board . . .”

  “Obviously, but Joey was an idiot. He was, like, the class bully. Anyway, he listened to me and ended up in the nurse’s office.” Fiora raised her chin proudly. “All the dorks worshipped me after that.”

  BLACKJACK

  POKER

  GO FISH

  CRAZY EIGHTS

  BEER PONG

  HUNGER GAMES

  Fiora shook her head. “I’m judging you so hard right now,” she said.

  TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

  “Saaket. Would you like to show me your fan-fiction account?” I couldn’t tell if Fiora was genuinely embarrassed or entertained, and I kind of liked it.