by Leah Konen
Sammy read off the sheet. “Waddle like a duck for sixty seconds,” she said. “A good one, indeed. Should we do it?” Sammy eyed Gael and Cara in a way that showed it was hardly a question.
“Sure,” Gael said.
Cara nodded reluctantly.
Gael was with Cara on this one—a video scavenger hunt sounded next-level lame—and yet he couldn’t help but appreciate that Sammy took Piper so seriously. He knew Piper loved that.
Piper folded her hands all official-like. “So we split into teams and do all the challenges and videotape the whole thing. And I’m going to be with Cara. We’ll be Team Para, like Piper plus Cara, or like paratroopers. See?” She held up one of the sheets. “I already put our name down.”
(If you’re wondering why Piper didn’t want to be with Sammy, allow me to explain. Of course, Piper adored Sammy. But her teacher had given a lesson on the importance of making new friends on Friday—thanks, in large part, to my urgings—and Piper liked to excel at anything her teacher suggested.)
“Are you sure?” Cara asked.
Piper cocked her head to the side. “You don’t want to be with me?”
It felt like the world froze. Like the kids in the background temporarily stopped eating their corn dogs, like the middle schooler working the slushy machine was paralyzed. Gael imagined even the giraffes in the distance ceasing to munch on leaves. Like everything stopped as he saw the deep look of hurt on Piper’s face.
Piper was an eight-year-old dealing with her parents’ divorce and an older brother who hadn’t exactly been there for her. She didn’t deserve to be hurt further.
Before Gael could try to smooth things over, Sammy swept in. “Don’t you want to be with me, Piper?”
A robust man in an Indiana Jones hat scooted past Sammy, and Gael wanted to jump out of his seat, push the guy out of the way, and give Sammy a hug. Here she was on an outing with a friend, and she was willing to sacrifice her whole afternoon just so Piper’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt.
“Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Cara offered. The breeze from the open-air café messed with her ponytail. She pushed it forcefully back in place. Gael had to stop himself from glaring.
Piper’s bottom lip puffed out. “So you really don’t want to be on my team?” she asked Cara. “I know a lot about animals, and I’m really good at using the camera on the iPhone.”
Cara shrugged.
Gael couldn’t take it. “Of course she does.” It was one thing for him to tell his little sister to leave him alone, but for an outsider to do that made him, frankly, more than a little annoyed. As much as he’d wanted to spend the day with Cara, it wasn’t cool to do so at the expense of his sister’s feelings.
“Right,” Cara said forcefully. “Yeah. Of course I do.”
“So what should our team name be?” Sammy asked, trying to change the subject.
“Gammy?” Cara suggested bitterly. “You know, like Team Grandma.”
“I guess,” Sammy said. She seemed nonplussed with Cara’s obvious annoyance. “Gael?”
“Sure,” Gael said. By now, he just wanted to get out of the café and on with the silly game. He only prayed that Cara would abandon her bad attitude once she was actually doing the game with his sister.
That’s when Piper’s eyes lit up. “How about Samgael?”
Sammy giggled immediately. “Samgael Gamgee: Samwise’s black sheep of a cousin, up to his hobbit ears in gambling debts, hits the sauce a bit too much.”
Gael couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud. Cara, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get the joke. No surprise, he supposed, since she didn’t exactly like movies.
“I guess it’s sort of perfect,” Sammy said.
“Yeah,” Gael agreed. “I guess it sort of is.”
around the world in three tram stops
The teams split up to do the scavenger hunt, and Gael and Sammy hopped on the tram to their agreed-upon beginning point, the Cypress Swamp in North America.
Sammy looked over the sheet as they cruised past elephants chugging along in the distance. “Pretend to be a zoologist doing an important study. Shush anyone who tries to talk. Ooh, and lead the crowd in a rendition of ‘I Am the Walrus.’ Man, Piper didn’t hold back on this one.”
Gael laughed. “Piper doesn’t hold back on much of anything.”
Sammy laughed. “She certainly doesn’t, my friend. She certainly doesn’t.”
Gael fiddled with his jeans pocket. “Thanks for sticking up for her.”
Sammy smiled, and it was quiet for a moment between them, with only the sound of children laughing and the whir-whir of the bus’s hardworking engine.
“So in case you were wondering, I had no idea her friend was you,” Gael said. “I wouldn’t have tried to rope you into babysitting, I promise.”
“I believe you,” Sammy said. “Don’t worry. We’re hardly even friends, really, I just met her yesterday—ooh, look,” she squealed, interrupting herself. “There’s a baby elephant!”
Gael laughed. “I wouldn’t have expected you to go ape-shit for baby animals.”
Sammy raised an eyebrow. “Name one person with a soul who doesn’t go apeshit for baby animals. They’re, like, animals who are tiny. Who are you, the devil?”
Gael shook his head. “I like them, too. Obviously. But your voice went about a million levels higher just then.”
Sammy crossed her arms. “Maybe you should question your ability to maintain an even tone of voice in the face of”—she smiled one of those weird upside-down smiles that little kids do when they’re excited—“BABY ELEPHANTS.”
The tram turned a corner, and the visions of elephants were replaced by children holding ice-cream bars shaped like zoo animals.
“Anyway,” Sammy said, folding her hands in her lap. “Yesterday morning I was making a waffle at the dining hall, and some dick had unscrewed the top on the chocolate chips, and they spilled everywhere. Cara helped me clean everything up, and we had breakfast together. She’s nice, I guess, though I kind of wanted to strangle her when she was not so nice to Piper.”
“I know,” Gael said. “It was surprising.” And then: “I actually met her in an odd way, too. She hit me out of nowhere on her bike, and then she offered me half her nachos. And then she told me she was going to the zoo with a friend, and here we are. Kind of random, to be honest.”
(*twiddles thumbs innocently*)
Sammy nodded. “Yeah, the zoo was my idea. I spend most Sundays with my grandparents, and I wanted a reason to skip at least some of the Price Is Right reruns.”
“Your grandparents live in Chapel Hill?”
She shook her head. “Just down the road, actually. I come to the enchanting city of Asheboro quite frequently. You have to get creative about finding things to do.”
“Damn,” Gael said, genuinely surprised. “I call my grandma and grandpa once every two weeks if I’m good.”
Actually, since the separation, Gael had barely called his grandparents at all. Every phone conversation had gone from chatting about grades and band to awkwardly asking him, over and over, if he was okay, and how he was handling his parents’ split.
Sammy shrugged. “We’ve always been close, I guess.”
Gael stared at her. Even if Sammy’s parents split up, she’d probably be just as good a granddaughter. It was just the kind of person she was.
“What?” she asked.
He shifted in his seat. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just nice, is all.”
“That’s me to a tee,” she laughed. “Queen of nice!” She pulled her hair back into a tiny bun. “Anyway, this Cara, she’s not the girl you met on your birthday, is she?”
Gael bit at his lip, suddenly embarrassed. “Yeah.”
Sammy laughed, but it sounded a tad forced. “I’m surprised you were willing to be on my team.”
Gael looked at her, with her professor-like glasses and her shortish hair and her mouth that could grow twice as large when she was smiling about ba
by elephants, and suddenly, he didn’t mind at all how the day had turned out.
“Nah,” he said genuinely. “I’m glad we’re on the same team. Even if Samgael is a gambling drunken bastard.”
scenes from a north carolina zoo
Clip #1: Length: 0:56
“Please be quiet,” Sammy says to an unassuming couple who walks hand in hand by the marsh exhibit, where drag-onflies, et al., fly from one lily pad to another. She adjusts her glasses with absolute bravado. “I’m doing a study on the secret language of lily pads. Make a single sound and you’ll completely disturb them. There’s like a whole entire symphony going on in the water.”
The couple miraculously believes her, and the dude even tells his girlfriend to keep it down when she asks Sammy whether she’s a researcher from Duke. Gael laughs in the background as Sammy says, matter-of-factly, “They say that Mozart got many of his ideas from the vibrations of lily pads.”
Clip #2: Length: 0:33
“I am the egg man! They are the egg men! I AM THE WALRUS! COO-COO-CA-CHOO!” Gael sings while surrounded by no fewer than five moms and dads and grandpas, who are completely delighted by his song. The camera shakes as Sammy sings along while holding the iPhone. The walrus in the background seems completely nonplussed.
Clip #3: Length: 0:13
Sammy approaches a zoo employee and asks with absolute seriousness, “Excuse me, ma’am, but you can you please point me to the seven-hump wump exhibit?”
Clip #4: Length: 0:19
Gael does his best gorilla impression in front of the ape’s sprawling habitat, posturing around on all fours like he was born to walk that way.
“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Gael asks the camera.
“No,” Sammy says. “Seriously. You just look awesome.”
Clip #5: Length: 0:28
The camera follows Sammy as she walks past grizzly bears and red wolves.
“I believe you’re supposed to be waddling like a duck right about now,” Gael says in the background.
“I think you should take this one,” she says. “I’m wearing a skirt, after all.”
“Oh, come on,” Gael says, keeping the camera on her.
Sammy places her hands under her chin and bats her eyelashes dramatically. “All right, Mr. Brennan, I’m ready for my close-up,”
Gael zooms in, and her face fills the frame.
“Hey,” she says. “Too close!”
Her hand obscures the lens. The video cuts to black.
family dinner for three
After they’d watched all the videos together, Gael and Piper said good-bye to Sammy and Cara and headed back to their dad’s apartment for one last dinner before going back to their real home for the week.
The second they got in the door, Gael’s dad started asking them stupid questions about the zoo without letting up. First, he requested a detailed description from Piper of every freaking exhibit she’d seen. Then, after learning that Piper had arranged the scavenger hunt, he showered them with boatloads of praise all around and demanded to see the videos.
And now, while they were sitting down to family dinner, while Gael was trying with all his might not to think about how mind-numbingly strange it still was to be having Sunday dinner in a shitty apartment with the fourth chair at the ugly table conspicuously empty, while all of that was rushing through his head, his dad could not stop asking about the zoo.
“You still haven’t answered, Gael. What was your favorite part?” His dad smiled his stupid fake smile and ran a hand through his stupid sandy hair and then cocked his head to the side, waiting.
Of course his dad had cheated, Gael thought. Even Gael could admit he was good-looking for an old guy, with his runner physique and his full head of hair and all that. Once, Gael had read the student reviews on one of those professor-rating sites, and no fewer than three people had complimented Professor Brennan on more than his lecture skills.
That’s why his mom was in the house and his dad was in this shithole.
That’s why what had seemed so good between his parents had suddenly just . . . imploded.
“I’m not, like, eight,” Gael spat.
“Hey,” Piper said, a bit of turkey chili dripping down her chin. “Eight’s a good age.”
“It sure is, Pipes,” his dad said, taking her chin in his hand and wiping off the mess. He looked to Gael. “And there’s no age too old to enjoy something like the zoo.”
Gael set his spoon down. “Well, then maybe you should take her next time. Maybe we should all go together, like we used to. Oh wait, we can’t.”
His dad shook his head and looked down at his bowl, but Piper just scrunched her eyebrows. “Why can’t we?” she asked genuinely.
“Because Mom and Dad aren’t together anymore,” Gael said. “When are you going to get that through your head?”
Piper’s bottom lip puffed out, and her eyes began to water.
“Gael,” his dad snapped. “Stop it.”
Gael scooted out of his chair and stood up. “What? Both you and Mom have totally misled her. She thinks this is just all going back to normal once you guys make up. Well, you’re not going to, that’s obvious, and she might as well know that.”
“Yes they will!” Piper yelled. “You don’t know anything!” She seethed as she looked at him. “I hate you!”
Gael felt her words deep in his gut. His dad rushed to console Piper, but Gael wasn’t going to let him off the hook.
“I didn’t do this. You did,” Gael said, and then he stomped out of the room and to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Gael, in his anger, was desperate for some confirmation, for further proof. He began to rifle through all two of the bathroom’s cabinets, under the sink, and in the shower. He wanted something that would prove his theory. Maybe he’d find the girl’s brush or razor, like in a movie. Or a pot of lip gloss or . . . or something.
Finally, after a second examination of the medicine cabinet, his eyes caught a flash of pink behind the Advil.
Gael moved the bottles out of the way. A hot pink toothbrush. A ladies’ one, no doubt. With a nice little case covering the top part. He pulled it out and popped open the case. It wasn’t dry as a bone. It had been used, and recently.
His dad’s toothbrush was electric, and it was sitting on the counter, next to Gael’s and Piper’s.
Between the phone calls and the bullshit “office hours” and this, there was no way Gael could deny it. His dad had cheated on his mom. His dad was having an affair.
Still, as much as he wanted to, Gael couldn’t bring himself to run back in the room and confront his dad, not in front of Piper. She didn’t deserve more pain, even if his dad did.
And so Gael went back to his stupid room and slammed the stupid door and tried not to listen to the sound of Piper crying through the stupid thin walls.
clueless
On a scale of everything’s awful to not so bad at All, Gael was definitely leaning toward the former by the end of school on Monday. Between his fight with his dad and Piper and the discovery of the toothbrush, any remotely happy feelings from the weekend had completely disappeared. On Sunday night, he’d apologized to Piper (but not to his dad—he didn’t think his dad deserved much of anything these days), and around nine they’d driven back home.
He and Cara had made plans to grab coffee after her last class on Monday. It was the one thing that had gotten him through the day—he’d even caved and agreed to go to Starbucks to please her. He didn’t care if she’d been a little annoying at the zoo. He needed her now more than ever.
But after school, as he pulled up to his house that afternoon, he got a text from Cara:
last-minute group project, can we reschedule?
Gael looked at the clock on his dash. It was 3:20 P.M. They were supposed to get coffee at 3:30. Last minute, indeed.
He wrote back: sure, tomorrow?
He watched as she typed her reply. Paused. Typed again.
(The beautif
ul irony was, I’d planned on manufacturing a reason to prevent Cara from going, but she beat me to it. Frankly, she was still a little pissed at him. Her idea had been to invite him along with her new friend to slow it down a bit so she could keep her October vow, not to babysit Gael’s kid sister while he hung out with another girl. Cara didn’t even like kids that much. She’d only invited Gael’s sister because she’d felt bad.)
Finally:
tomorrow’s no good, either, got work til the weekend pretty much
Gael hesitated. Was she blowing him off? Was this it? The logical part of his mind told him yes.
But another part (the Romantic part) thought about their kiss and the way they’d looked at each other at the basketball game, and he decided to take it all in stride. He typed quickly, before he could lose his nerve:
i know you don’t love movies but how about making an exception for the new Wes Anderson on Friday?
If he was going to make it work with this girl, he was going to have to expand her movie knowledge beyond James Cameron, after all.
The part of Cara that wasn’t pissed (the Serial Monogamist part) replied: yes.
Gael tucked his phone back in his pocket and got out of the car. He headed for the front door and paused. He was worn out from the argument with his dad, stressed from lunchtime woes, and the thought of sitting alone in his room seemed torturous. He didn’t even really want to watch a movie.
Gael turned around and headed back to the car. He needed to do something instead of just sitting around and moping. He opened the car and clicked the garage door opener.
The garage was still full of his dad’s things. A shelf of ceramic pots from the time his dad had decided to take a pottery class. Tools that his mom used more than he did. An old jacket from college, which he only used for mowing the lawn. A tennis ball hung perfectly so his dad’s Subaru would fit just right, which was no longer necessary with his mom’s little smart car. It was like this part of the house simply hadn’t been informed of the news.
