by Lisa Yee
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Higgs, honey” — her voice cracked — “I’m going to miss you so much.”
“You’ll still have Dad and Charlie,” I reminded her.
“That’s not the same as having you here,” she said.
“I can hear you!” Charlie yelled from her room. She was always hanging around the edges, eavesdropping.
After Mom left, I shut the door and retrieved a crumpled flyer from my backpack. I set it next to my list of suspects. I called Nick, but before he answered, I hung up. I considered calling Roo, but decided that was a bad idea. Who could I call? Who could I trust? Who could I talk to? I drew a complete blank.
I flashed back to Rosalee’s argument: “While Higgs Boson Bing is well known on campus, that does not equate to well liked, and therefore this reflects poorly on the debate team. His popularity was mostly due to his relationship with Rosemary ‘Roo’ Wynn….”
What if what she said was true? I used to be proud of the fact that everyone knew me. But to follow Rosalee’s logic, everyone knew who Hitler was, and he certainly wasn’t well liked. I headed out to my garden to clear my head. It was the only place I felt at peace. Who would take care of it when I was gone? Dad was too busy. Mom was too preoccupied. Charlie was too obstinate.
When I was a freshman, I was in a constant state of anxiety. Middle school had been a breeze compared to high school. High school mattered. If I was going to get into Harvard, I couldn’t afford to be anything less than perfect. After the first few months of class, everyone sorted themselves out. My crowd was the student government, Advanced Placement, do-everything-or-die college group.
Later, many of us had the same college coach, took the same SAT prep classes, and toured the same universities. We agonized over the AP exams together, wrote and rewrote our college essays, and bonded over the Common Application. We encouraged one another, even though we didn’t mean it. Anyone applying to the same school was competition. Everyone was scheming to get an edge on the next person. The pressure was intense and stretching the truth was not only a given, it was expected. Our school counselors said as much.
“Do whatever it takes,” they’d say, leaving us to sort out the implication.
For Sally Ride High School Helps Week, all the seniors were required to do community service. I created the Society for Animal Protection as a joke. Everyone loves animals. So what if SAP only had two members, me and Nick? We protected an animal.
I wrote a script that was full of drama and pathos. Then we took Captain Kirk and rolled him in the mud. That would be Nick’s Goldendoodle, Captain Kirk; not the man, Captain Kirk. We made a video about how we rescued this poor animal. Nick and I got an A on the project and the video was even shown at assembly. At the last minute, I included it on my Harvard application.
I applied to twelve colleges: Princeton, Harvard, Brown, USC, NYU, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, UC Berkeley, Caltech, and UC Davis. Davis was my safety school. I got into every place but Oxford and Caltech. However, once I received my early admission to Harvard, none of the others mattered. I didn’t even bother responding to their letters.
The tomatoes were growing in red and ripe. They’d be ready to pick in a couple of days. I gathered some zucchini for Mom, and a head of cauliflower. The artichokes looked good. I threw some of those in the basket for old Mrs. Yaseen from down the street. Once a week, since I was ten, I’d bring her fruits and vegetables. I stopped to admire my Bing cherries. They were, of course, perfect. All the neighbors said that my produce was better than the stuff they got in the store.
When I was younger and couldn’t sleep, I’d sneak outside and just sit in the middle of the plants, listening to the crickets, looking at the stars. My mother must have known about this. How could she not? There was always dirt in my bed in the morning. But she never mentioned it then, or now. Neither did I.
This time even the garden couldn’t calm me down. After I brought everything inside, I was still feeling antsy, like there was a pressure building up inside of me. I had to do something, or I’d explode.
I laced up my running shoes.
The billboard read “Brookhaven Villas — Where CommUnity Matters.”
The developers had been lobbying hard to get the subdivision built, but it had languished for years. Brookhaven abutted an industrial park fronted by a run-down strip mall, and was about half a mile from my house. Still, it seemed like another country. It was heavily wooded and the terrain was hilly. At the very peak stood the old, abandoned water tower.
I ran under the billboard and onto the dirt path where Jeffrey used to take me exploring. I checked my watch. My time was good. Better than good. Had the entire school turned on me? A couple of flyers would have been funny. I had a sense of humor. But dozens? And “Dinky Dick”? How cold was that? The stress gave me enough fuel to run full out. I ran until my lungs burned and would have kept going if not for the sudden cramp in my left leg. I was a high jumper, not a runner. I slowed and tried to walk off the pain.
Down by the dry riverbank were old car carcasses, broken chairs, a wooden doghouse without a roof. I wandered among the discards of other people’s lives, wishing I could toss aside my last twenty-four hours and start over. When I got to the gravel pit, I stopped. Jeffrey and I had never wandered past that. I don’t know anyone who had.
Everyone had heard the rumors — brutal murders had occurred in the woods, and that’s where the bodies were buried. Or that it wasn’t a gravel pit at all, but quicksand, and that an entire family, including grandparents and a dog, died there. Jeffrey was the bravest person I knew, but even he’d say, “We’d better be safe and go home.” I never asked him what he thought was on the other side.
By now, the gravel pit wasn’t much of anything anymore. Loose rocks in a shallow hole in the ground less than half a block’s length. It didn’t look nearly as imposing as it did nine years ago.
My first steps were tentative, and the ground was unsteady. But the more I walked, the firmer the footing. On the other side, I was met with an endless thicket of plants. My better judgment told me to give up. To go home. Yet I kept moving forward. I swatted away the overgrown brush until I came to a clearing.
In the distance, tucked behind some trees, I could make out something big and gray. It was an old Airstream trailer. I picked up a handful of rocks and threw them at the relic. They made a satisfying thud. I bet myself that I could hit the door of the trailer five times in a row. I did that sometimes. Made bets with myself. Like, when I was driving, if I could make all the green lights, it meant that I’d get an acceptance letter in the mail. Or, if I could get seven girls in a row to say hi to me, it meant that I’d ace a test. Or, if I could throw ten paper wads into the trash can across my room, I wouldn’t feel depressed.
One, two, three … I was nailing the target every time. When I started thinking about the flyers, I threw harder. Four, FIVE … I could have kept on going forever. Then, out of nowhere, someone yelled, “STOP IT!!!!”
I froze.
“Are you done?” an angry voice said.
It was coming from inside the Airstream.
“Well, are you?” the voice asked.
“Uh, yeah. Sure. I guess,” I answered.
The door opened and a girl about my age emerged.
“What exactly were you trying to do, dumbass?” she said, scowling.
Even though I was shaken, I found myself walking toward her.
She had short black hair and she was wearing a flowing black dress. On her feet were old-fashioned black button-up boots, the kind Mary Poppins might have worn. Her eyes were rimmed with black too. The only color on her pale face was her bright red lips. She looked scary, like she had escaped from a Wonton Weasels music video.
“I’m s-sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t know anyone was inside. Do you … do you live in there?”
I’d heard rumors that a few homeless people lived in Brookhaven and would have to be relocated if the development
took place.
The girl looked conflicted. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Yeah, I live here. So what? I would invite you in, but I don’t want to.”
I couldn’t tell if she was serious or mocking me.
I extended my hand. “Hello, I’m Higgs Boson Bing.”
When she didn’t take it, I ran my hand through my hair as if I had intended to do that all along.
“I’m Hadron Collider,” she said with a smirk.
“What?” I asked. It felt as if the rotation of the earth had suddenly shifted.
“Hadron Collider,” she said again. Her hazel-blue eyes bored through mine and made me squirm. “Surely, you’ve heard of me. I’m the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator. I was used to discover the elusive Higgs boson, the God particle, and I guess I’ve found him, right here, trying to destroy my home.”
I laughed, aware that it sounded fake. Okay, so she was toying with me. I was impressed that she knew about the Higgs boson and the Hadron Collider. On the day the massive energy particle accelerator identified the elusive Higgs boson, my mother wept — only this time they were tears of joy. “Do you know what this means for science?” she said.
“It means another reason my brother, Higgs Boson, will get a lot of attention,” my sister said, not even trying to hide the disgust in her voice.
“Most people don’t even know what Higgs boson is,” I told the girl.
“I’m not most people,” she said.
“What’s your name?” There was a butterfly tattoo on her arm.
When she caught me staring, I felt my face flush.
“Monarch,” she finally said. “You can call me Monarch.”
“Okay, Monarch,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Isn’t it, though,” Monarch said without a trace of affectation. “You got a cigarette?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Damn,” she said. “I could really use a smoke.”
“Smoking will stain your teeth,” I told her.
“What are you, a dentist?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I answered.
Monarch was nothing like the girls at Sally Ride High School. If Roo or Samantha ever came across her, they’d probably hand over their purses and run away screaming. Monarch had an edge to her, like you would expect from someone who lived on the streets. Warning signs were going off in my head. Every part of me was saying that this person was bad news.
I opened my mouth and heard myself say, “I could go get you a pack of cigarettes.”
“Would you, Higgs Boson?” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at me. I thought she was being sarcastic, but couldn’t be sure. I felt off balance, but in a good way.
“Uh, sure. Is there anything else you want? A candy bar or something? Chips?”
She gave this some serious thought before stating, “A Butterfinger. Yeah, cigs and a Butterfinger. That sounds about right.”
“Be right back,” I told her. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I took off running, forgetting that I had a leg cramp.
The shabby strip mall near the entrance to Brookhaven hosted a Supremo Dry Cleaners, Mixxed Martial Arts AAcademy, and a Jiffy Mart, only the “J” was missing so the sign read “iffy Mart.” The only car in the parking lot was a silver BMW with a “Trust me, I’m a lawyer” bumper sticker.
I had sprinted all the way there, and was still out of breath as I scanned the candy aisle searching for a Butterfinger. It was then that I realized that I didn’t have any money.
“Can I get this and some cigarettes and pay you back later?” I asked the guy behind the counter.
“Can I be the king of England?” he asked.
“I guess that means no?”
“How did you get to be so smart?”
That Monarch was waiting for me was all I could think about as I ran home. Talking to her got my adrenaline soaring, but in a good way, like when Nick and I went to nationals for debate. My leg was killing me, but the rest of me was just fine.
I took the front porch stairs two at a time, grabbed my wallet and car keys, and was almost out the door, when I heard, “Higgs! A moment of your time, please.”
Shit. What was Dad doing home early? Usually, he was late. Sometimes he didn’t come home at all.
Reluctantly, I entered his den and stood behind the leather chair opposite his massive desk. Dad’s office was a shrine to Harvard.
“Your sister told me what happened at school today.” He was still wearing his white lab coat with “Dr. Charles A. Bing, DDS” embroidered above the pocket. When I got into Harvard, his gift to me was a matching lab coat with “Dr. Higgs B. Bing, DDS” on it. “I know you’re not at Harvard Dental yet, but you’re on your way!” he had exclaimed.
“So, who’s out to get you?” Dad asked.
“No one. It’s no big deal,” I said, looking at the clock. I could have killed Charlie right then, only that would have delayed me even longer. Monarch was waiting for me.
“Defamation of character is a big deal,” he said. “Remember when Trent Tenafly called me a fraud?”
I nodded. We all remembered that.
“Someone has it out for you, Higgs,” Dad continued. He refilled his Scotch glass. “It’s a Trent Tenafly situation, and we can’t just ignore this.”
Trent Tenafly was his sworn enemy. A rival dentist whose slogan was “the pain-free dentist,” as opposed to my father’s “painless dentist.” Both claim the other copied them. They’ve been enemies for so long, neither can recall who started it.
I looked at the clock again and started to fidget.
“I’ve got it under control,” I assured him. “Um, Dad, there’s somewhere I need to be right now.”
“What’s more important than talking to your old man?” he asked, offering me a grin. His perfect teeth were his own best advertising.
“Nothing. Nothing is,” I said. “But I’ve really got to be somewhere.”
He got up, winked, and slapped me on the back. “Okay, son. You go where you need to be, and tell Roo I said hi.”
I didn’t correct him.
Like everyone else, my parents loved Roo. If I told my father that I was buying cigarettes for a tattooed stranger, he wouldn’t have let me off so easily.
* * *
By the time I drove back to Brookhaven, the sun was setting. I pulled into the empty iffy Mart parking lot, made my purchases, and scrambled across the gravel pit. I didn’t slow until I neared the Airstream trailer. “Monarch?” I called out.
There was no answer.
“Monarch,” I said again, this time louder. “It’s me, Higgs. Higgs Bing. Higgs Boson Bing.”
When no one responded, I rapped politely on the door.
Nothing.
“Are you in there?” I slowly opened the door, half scared of what I might find.
It wasn’t what I was expecting.
Instead of a mosh pit of garbage, the Airstream was surprisingly clean. Sparse, but clean, as if Monarch had taken pains to make it into a home. There were a couple of Paris subway maps on the wall, and on the counter were a tin of cookies, a jar of peanut butter, a chipped white plate, and utensils. A battered beach chair sat next to a small table made from a couple of old suitcases that could probably pass as vintage on eBay. In the corner were a little pillow and a thin blue blanket like the ones from an airplane. A Coleman lantern sat on the floor next to a small stack of books. Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Victor Hugo.
I left the cigarettes and Butterfinger on the table.
All night, my thoughts had ricocheted from Roo to Monarch to Rosalee to Monarch to Dinky Dick to Monarch. Suffice to say, I didn’t get any sleep, which was actually typical during my high school years. Sleep was something that had eluded me. My mother never slept either. While I’d be up studying, she would roam around the house in her Robe of Depression, talking to Jeffrey’s portrait, or waiting up for my father, who was unapologetic about his many city council, Rotary, and dent
al association meetings, fund-raisers, and mixers.
“I can’t let these people down” was his typical excuse. “They need me.”
Charlie stood impatiently by the back door. Her cello case looked like an upright body bag. “Let’s GO!” she shouted.
“There are only three days left of school,” I reminded her. “We can be late for once.”
“Four days,” she said sullenly. “Only seniors get Friday off.”
I was in no hurry to get to school. If anything, for the first time in my life, I was dreading it. If one more person called me Dinky Dick, I thought I might lose it. For the record, I might not be in the porn star category, but still, there was nothing dinky about me.
“Let’s go!” Charlie yelled, again.
“In a minute,” I yelled back. I was in the backyard picking apples for Mrs. Sanchez. The only thing she loved more than my apples were my peaches, but those weren’t quite ripe yet.
The drive to school was typical. I’d have KJAZ on and Charlie would change to KiND, the indie alternative experimental station that was so underground it sounded like they were broadcasting from the center of the earth. We’d fight and, neither of us willing to concede, would end up listening to something like REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” or some other 1980s throwback song that we both despised.
At school, the old green Kia with the broken window had claimed my parking lot space, so I was forced to park Rolvo in the street again. Rolvo was what Charlie and I had nicknamed the car.
Red + Volvo = Rolvo
Before I had turned off the engine, Charlie jumped out. “See you later,” she said, tossing a half-eaten apple at me.
As my sister hauled her cello toward school, I hung back finishing the rest of the apple. Who was out to get me? I wondered. And why? What kind of asshole would target me like that?
The closer I got to the rusted Kia the more pissed I became. Without giving it a second thought, I tossed the apple core through the open window. Before it even landed, I regretted my move. I was about to reach in and retrieve it when someone said, “Hey, Higgs?”
