by Cat Jordan
“What? No.” I’ve got a day with Priya ahead and there’s no way in hell I’m spending it indoors.
“I am your mother—”
“And you’re being completely unreasonable,” I say. I don’t like the sudden sweat that pours from my pits and the way my hands tremble. I shove them into my pockets. I swear I’ll scream if she says something like . . .
“Go to your room.”
I don’t scream. I laugh. I tilt my head back and howl like an idiot. No way did she just say that. Hot tears spring to my eyes and I blink them back.
Now—now—my uncle steps in. “Lorna, do you really think that’s necessary?” He smiles at me. “Matty’s okay and nothing happened—”
“Jack, shut up, please. When you have kids, you can do things your own way.”
Since when has my mother done things this way? Since when has she kept a leash around my neck? Since when has she thought the worst of me?
Since Dad left her.
Jack and I both realize this at once and try to talk sense into Mom.
“He’s seventeen, Lorna, not a child—”
“Mom, come on, I’m—”
“I’m not going to stand here and argue,” she says, looking up at each of us. She’s so tiny; she’s like an ant putting her foot down in front of two giraffes. “I have to go to work.” She throws a glance at Jack. “And you do too.”
My uncle starts to say something. Maybe something along the lines of “You don’t control me” or “I’m glad you’re not my wife”? But he just shakes his head instead and lifts his hand in a wave as he heads out the front door. “See ya later, Lorna.” He calls over his shoulder to me, “Glad you’re safe, Matty.”
My mother stomps around the kitchen in her plastic shoes and makes a big show of getting her travel mug without my help. No sir, she doesn’t need my assistance. She can just reach up there on her toes and use her fingertips to ease a thermal carafe off the shelf and voilà, done. She doesn’t need me, doesn’t need Dad. Nope.
The silence in the kitchen is like an invisible entity, its presence sucking the air out of the room. I feel the weight of a thousand unspoken words crushing me. I want to be kind, to tell my mom good things, loving things, things that will make her feel better about herself and our situation and me. I feel like she deserves that.
And I want to be cruel, to say fuck off and leave me the hell alone, stop acting like I’m the world’s worst son and concentrate on your own self. I don’t deserve that.
She leaves and I’ve said nothing.
I look out the side door and see Priya on the ground with Ginger beside her. My heart beats a little faster. I think it’s time I give this alien a vacation.
2:02 P.M.
Kennywood is our area’s summer go-to place. It’s got roller coasters and bumper cars, funnel cakes and deep-fried Oreos—and I plan to introduce Priya to all of it.
The sights and sounds can be overwhelming. I remember when I was a little kid, Mom and Dad brought me there for the first time. Everything seemed so big, so fast, so loud.
Mom took me on the baby water rides and the trolley, but Dad insisted on the adult rides. I was tall for my age so I made the cutoff for most of them. I think Mom was worried riding the big coasters would scar me for life, but it did just the opposite: It created an appetite in me for bigger-taller-faster. Give me more loops, more dips, more sharp turns and quick plunges.
It was a safe way to be scared.
But when I look into Priya’s eyes, I see she’s actually terrified. “You okay?”
She answers by gripping my fingers tighter. “I don’t know what this place is.”
“Well, it’s an amusement park. I told you. We just, you know, have fun.” I’m aware of others eavesdropping and I turn my back to them and try to keep my voice down.
“What is that?” Priya whispers back as she ogles the Racer.
“A roller coaster.” How do you explain a thing like a roller coaster? “It goes pretty high and pretty fast and it’s meant to be scary, I guess, but you won’t get hurt.” I point to the coaster. “Watch.”
Her head tilts back as she watches two trains of cars slowly chug up the first incline. People wave and woo-hoo and slap the hands of the passengers in the train next to them. Just as the first car tips over the edge, I turn to look at Priya. Her eyes grow wide and white as she follows the plunging coasters. The passengers scream and pull their arms back in as the coaster whips around corners and dives and drops. Priya buries her head in my neck and clutches my waist.
Ah, now I get that whole horror-movie date thing.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I’ll be right next to you.”
“What if we fall?”
I laugh and point again to the coaster. “We’ll fall but then we’ll go back up again. And then fall and go back up. It’ll be just like you’re in your rocket ship.”
She scowls. “That is not how space travel works at all.”
We’re getting closer to the front of the line. “Come on,” I urge Priya. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
After another hot minute of waiting, it’s our turn. We’re in the very first car. When we were eleven and twelve, in the summers when Mrs. Aoki ferried the three of us to the mall and the lake and here, Brian and Em and I loved this coaster. We would time the line just right so we could sit in the front seats of the first cars in each of the trains, climbing the first hill side by side and “racing” to the top. Like idiots, we would throw our hands in the air and feel the initial drop all the way to our feet.
Priya slides in with a nervous smile.
“When the bar locks, hold on with both hands, okay?” I tell her. She nods, still anxious, so I wrap one arm around her shoulder and pull her closer to me.
The Racer was my first coaster too. I wonder if this is what I was like with my dad. Scared? Probably. Excited? Definitely. But I trusted him with my life. I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
And I won’t let anything happen to Priya, either.
“Here we go!”
The slow rise, inch by inch, is the best part, if you ask me. Especially on a wooden coaster. The tick-tick-tick of the chains as the car is pulled up to the top makes my heart beat faster. Beside me, I think Priya has stopped breathing. She’s got her lips pressed together and her eyes squeezed shut, her chin pulled back into her neck like a turtle. I lean over and kiss her on the cheek and she looks up at me and smiles, relaxing immediately. Is that all it takes to ease a troubled mind? A single, simple kiss? I do it again. And again. Until Priya giggles and blushes.
Just as the car reaches the top, I feel her lean into me and I hold her tighter. It means I don’t have free hands to hold over my head but that’s okay. This is better.
We plunge over the drop, escaping the rest of the world. For a split second, we are lighter than air, floating and falling, and for the next minute and a half, we will defy gravity. It will pull us to Earth but we’ll twist away, over and over and over again.
3:34 P.M.
We are like noodles after the third coaster, our arms and legs limp and our skin clammy. Priya rests her head on my shoulder, and the warmth of our bodies so close to each other makes my head swim.
“Matthew?” Priya asks. She doesn’t look so great. She squints and winces against obvious pain, holding both hands to her temples. Must have been that last coaster.
“You okay?”
“Matthew, my head really hurts. Do you have any medicine?”
I dig my hands into my pockets and come up empty. I should have thought ahead, should have brought snacks and medicine or even just some water, but I was anxious to get out of the house after this morning’s fiasco with Mom.
A crowd swirls around us, hurrying to get to the next ride, the next food cart, the next souvenir shop. Priya looks like she’s about to pass out.
All these people? Someone has to have some meds.
A group of kids run past. Way too young.
A trio of frat b
oys. They probably have something but it won’t be legal.
More kids, younger and younger. Where are parents when you need them?
Finally I spot a woman pushing a stroller. She looks weary and worn and I’m betting she gets headaches a lot.
“Excuse me? Do you have any Advil or Tylenol?” I ask her. “It’s for my girlfr— my friend. She has a, uh, a migraine.”
The woman glances at Priya and the skepticism on her face gives way to sympathy. She digs her hand in a purse that’s wrapped around her stroller, fishing out a round brown pill and an oblong white one. “Here. They’re ibuprofen of some kind. These places are the worst,” she adds.
Priya accepts them like they’re jewels. “Thank you.”
The woman leaves and Priya glances up at me. “How did you know who to ask?”
“I don’t know . . . I guess I just tried to imagine what someone who had Advil would look like.”
Think like a cat.
After we find some water for Priya to wash down the pills, I look for a bench to sit on, but every spot in the shade is taken. I steer us through the crowds, navigating around strollers and big backpacks and kids trying to balance ice cream cones, and find the only place to sit out of the sun.
The merry-go-round.
I jump aboard and lift Priya by the waist, flinging her into a seat as the last of the riders hop on. When we were kids, we’d ride the painted ponies, naturally. No one but old people sat in the chairs, or “chariots” as they’re called.
With Priya cuddled next to me, I guess I don’t mind being an old person. She sighs and closes her eyes as the carousel whirls and the Wurlitzer plays. I can’t remember the last time I was on this thing; Em would never ride it. Too slow, too boring. Brian long ago lost interest in most of the rides here, preferring the gasoline smell and adrenaline rush of dirt bikes.
After a couple of turns, we relax against the padded seat and I pull Priya alongside me so she can rest her chin on my chest. The breeze of the carousel brings the scent of sugary cotton candy and chili fries.
I feel Priya’s palm on my thigh, surprisingly cool through my jeans, and she lifts her face to mine. Her lips part slightly, giving me a glimpse of teeth and tongue just as she reaches behind my neck to pull me closer. I feel her mouth on mine and I kiss her back.
This is a thousand times better than those stupid horses. No wonder the old people sit in these chairs.
Priya’s fingers stroke my chin and neck and she pulls back just far enough to look me in the eyes. “I like this place,” she says. And then she kisses me again.
This place—does she mean Kennywood? The carousel?
Or Earth?
The organ music, drowning out the rest of the park, the rest of the world, has never sounded so lovely. The air drips with its mechanical notes as we whirl around and around and around. A thousand lights dazzle, dozens of painted horses gallop—all to entertain Priya and me in our fancy chariot.
When the ride stops, we stay on for a second trip.
5:59 P.M.
I try not to think about Priya while I’m in the shower, but it’s hard to wash my legs and forget how she stroked her hand along my thigh when we were on the carousel. It’s hard to shampoo my hair and forget how she ran her fingers through it as she pressed her lips to my neck. And it’s impossible to lather up my chest and forget how she melted in my arms when I kissed her on the roller coaster.
It’s not that I have a one-track mind. That would mean there’s some sort of path or logic to it. Nope. It’s just one big pile of sex in my head.
Priya is in my room when I get out of the bathroom with a fresh shave and a healthy slather of deodorant. She’s sitting at my desk—there is a desk underneath the crap—studying something, a book or a magazine, I guess.
“I was thinking we could go to a movie tomorrow,” I say. “There’s a mall just outside of town that’s kind of run-down, but they have a theater with three screens.”
She doesn’t move or act at all interested.
Over her shoulder I see what she’s poring over: Dad’s collection of newspaper clippings from 1965. I quickly close the folder and snatch it out from under her nose.
“Matthew, excuse me, but I was—”
“I don’t know how you found these, but they’re really old and not, you know, useful.” Honestly, I can’t even recall where in my room this folder was: my desk? my closet? under my bed? I tuck it under my arm.
Priya follows me as I go to the closet to grab a fresh T-shirt from the shelf. “Those articles are from the crash. Why can’t I see them? They are public record, yes?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then I could go to a library and ask someone for them.”
“A library?”
“Or I could directly contact the newspapers in which they were originally published.”
“If they still exist.”
“Why don’t you want me to see them?”
I sigh and stare at the T-shirts on my shelf. Blue, gray, yellow? Nike logo? Adidas logo? Phillies logo? What am I trying to say to the world with my clothing? “Fine,” I tell her, and hand her the folder over my shoulder.
“Thank you.”
I grab a plain gray shirt that has no pit stains and pull it over my head. “The whole town . . . it’s like everyone went crazy for one night.”
Priya, sitting on my bed, tilts her head to one side. “Your town was a collective witness. They saw the ship crash.”
I hold up a finger. “No. They saw the aftermath of the crash. Or whatever it was. They never saw anything flying through the air, never saw anything actually hit the ground. The earth shook, people ran. There was a fire. The end.”
Priya places a finger under her chin in thought, staring at the clippings.
“It was the middle of the night. I mean, how could they know what they were looking at? Half of them had just woken up and none of them agreed on exactly what happened. Some said it was a fireball falling from the sky. Some said it didn’t catch fire until it hit the ground. It was round, then triangular, then shaped like a cone. It had wheels or wings, was black or silver or copper, depending on who you asked.” I stop, winded by my speech. My hands are trembling and I feel a hitch in my breath. “Waste of time. A stupid waste.”
I want to believe.
“You do believe,” Priya says to me.
“No.” I shake my head. “No, I did believe. I believed in my dad.”
“You still believe.”
Priya smiles at me, such a knowing, intelligent gaze. She sure doesn’t look crazy.
“He was a fraud,” I tell her. “He got caught up in his minor celebrity. In people liking him, people who didn’t even know him. He cared more about their opinions than mine.”
She takes my face in her hands and I feel her touch all the way down to my knees. I just want to wrap myself around her. I want her lips at my neck and my ears and my chin. I want her hands everywhere.
I want to forget the past and imagine my future.
“Priya,” I whisper in her ear, “are you really who you say you are?”
“I am exactly what you’re thinking I am.”
7:35 P.M.
I sit across from Priya in the living room, watching her eat pizza in my Phillies T-shirt and a pair of Mom’s shorts. I gave her something to wear while I wash her tutu and top after our long afternoon at the amusement park. The clothes swim on her but it doesn’t matter: she could have a parka and jeans on and I wouldn’t care. She dazzles me like the lights on the Kennywood grand carousel no matter what she’s wearing.
After she polishes off the last slice—splitting it with Ginger, her new best friend—she settles back on the couch just half a cushion away.
“I will definitely miss this food of yours,” she says, patting her belly.
“Maybe you can teach them how to make pizza,” I say, tapping my temple like she often does. “Your data collection must have something in there.”
She laughs a
nd leans into me, her hair falling across my chin. I want to grab her shoulders and pull her to me, to not let her sit back on her side of the couch, but somehow I manage to keep my hands still.
She regards me, her lips upturned in a smile. “Matthew, I have only the taste to share with them. The sensation of eating the pizza.”
“And what is the sensation of eating a pizza?”
“It’s . . . not unlike sliding through a wormhole.”
That cracks me up and my laugh fills the room. “What does that mean?”
Priya’s grin is steady. “When your ship passes through a wormhole, you feel the change in time and space in your whole body.”
“And that’s like eating a pizza?”
“The pizza is the wormhole. When I eat it, my whole body shifts. I taste the saltiness of the cheese combined with the tang of the tomatoes at the very moment my teeth crunch into the crust. This is sensed instantaneously. There is no separation of flavors. They are there all at once, an explosion not unlike the sudden shift in the time-space continuum in a wormhole.” She smiles serenely and spreads open her palms. “Do you see?”
I shake my head. “No. And now I wish we had more pizza.”
Priya takes my hand in both of hers, startling me. On the cushion between us, her fingers play with mine, tangle and untangle as if they were thick strands of hair, or the willow branches down by the creek. “Matthew, I will have to leave. Probably tonight.”
“Tonight?” Sudden panic grips my throat. My brain just does not want to assimilate this bit of information, no matter how many times she tells me.
We both look out the window, our eyes finding the setting sun. How did it get so late?
“It is late,” she says, reading my mind again. She bends down to my hand and brushes her cheek and lips against it. “Mmmm . . . you smell like pizza.”
“My favorite cologne,” I say. As she starts to rise from the couch, I pull her back. “We can order another one. Another pie for your trip back.”
She shakes her head. “That was enough. We will be in suspended animation for the return home,” she says matter-of-factly. “We will not be able to eat pizza.” She gently disengages her hand from mine. “Would you get my clothes for me? I can’t travel in this outfit.”
