“Why do I even care?” He didn’t realize he was speaking the words out loud until the nighttime desk clerk looked up as he passed and stared at him.
“Sorry.” He was starting to feeling spinny, and his eyes were beginning to water, which meant that he was either going to barf or cry. He turned around, avoiding the clerk’s curious eyes, and walked straight back out the sliding glass doors of the hotel. He followed the curving front driveway around to the back, where a small, totally empty parking lot butted up against wide fields of corn just beginning to tassel. He sat down on a concrete parking block still warm from the daytime sun, rested his elbows on his knees, and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Sometimes, you just need to breathe,” Mrs. Barrera had advised the Pity Party, so he took a deep, shaky breath and exhaled, listening to the silky tassels soughing in the breeze like thousands of wispy mothers shushing their crying children.
“James?”
He jerked his hands away from his eyes to see Abrihet peering down at him. She still had on her red dress with the flowery things all over it, but she had layered it with a zip-up hoodie. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He wiped his eyes quickly and looked away from her. “I think I’m allergic to the corn pollen or something.”
She looked at him for a moment as if deciding whether to accept this obvious lie. Then, she gestured at the concrete parking block. “Mind if I join you?”
“Sure.” He scooted over to make room, and she sat down next to him in a rustle of clean-smelling cotton.
“I love this,” she said, stretching out her bare legs and nodding at the corn. “This kind of quiet.”
“Not me.” Pup wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Haven’t you ever seen Children of the Corn? Out here in the country, nobody can hear you scream.”
“So? Back in the city, people can hear you scream, they just don’t care. No, I love the silence. It reminds me of home. Makes me feel like myself again.”
“That’s good.” Pup reached into his pocket and took out the paperclip he’d stolen from Pat’s bedroom, squeezing it until the sharp end pricked his skin. “I don’t feel like myself anywhere.”
“You know,” Abrihet said, “you don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you if you don’t want. But I know you’re not allergic to corn pollen. I don’t know if corn even has pollen.”
“I think it does,” Pup said. “I’m not sure, though. My brother would know. He knew literally everything about science. He could tell you all about corn. Or about the tubeworms that live in the hydrothermal vents of the Pacific seafloor. Or the mating habits of scaly-foot gastropods. He would talk about coral for hours if you let him. His specialty was marine biology.”
“Scaly-foot gastropods,” Abrihet repeated. “Good band name.”
“Yeah.” Pup managed a laugh, then changed the subject. “So, any word yet on your mom?”
“Actually, yes.” He felt her smile in the darkness. “Thanks for asking. We just got word last week that her visa status was approved. She’ll be here next month!”
“That’s amazing! Now you can be the kid in class with the hand-embroidered Greek Mythology Day costume!”
“I know! And even more important, now she can come see me present at regionals! Part of the reason I got into this whole photography thing was for her. To show her that the sacrifice was worth it, sending me away to America. To show her how I’ve pursued my passions. How I’m being successful. How I’m fulfilling her dreams for me.”
“Abrihet, that is awesome. Really.” He wiped his nose again. “I actually think your good news is helping to cure my corn pollen allergy.”
She laughed. Then they both went quiet.
“So, your brother,” she said after a while. “The one from the picture. Is he the scientist?”
“No, no. Luke’s in law school. He doesn’t know the difference between a deep-sea anglerfish and a Goldfish cracker. I was talking about my other brother. Patrick.”
“Oh. The one who went here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” Abrihet leaned back on the heels of her hands. “I’m looking around at these cornfields and I’m trying to figure out how a person becomes an expert in marine biology at a place like this.”
Pup laughed.
“You sound like my dad. He used to say, ‘I’ll never understand why a city kid like you cares so much about algae.’ Patrick just loved it, though. No real reason. He used to take me snorkeling in the Chicago River. We’d go exploring. Pretending like it was a real ocean, since neither one of us had ever actually seen one. Most of the time the only thing we discovered was old diapers and rusty car fenders. But sometimes? Sometimes we’d see pouch snails and sunfish and largemouth bass. One time we even saw a coyote running along the bank with a Kit Kat wrapper in its mouth. The thing with Pat was that he always knew how to make regular things seem, I don’t know, better.” He looked down at the paperclip cupped in his palm. “He’s been dead for almost three years now.”
His eyes flickered over to Abrihet’s face. In the darkness, it was hard to make out her expression. He braced himself for the obligatory murmured condolences, hoping they wouldn’t retrigger his corn pollen allergy.
“Wow,” she said instead. “He sounds like a classy brother. I can’t even get my brother to give me a ride to school.”
“He was classy.” Pup was both flummoxed and relieved at her response. “He had a lot of weird talents, too. He could peel a hard-boiled egg in one piece.”
“What?” Abrihet sat up. “Nobody can do that. I help my auntie out at her restaurant and we peel eggs all the time. We’re both top-notch egg peelers, and we’ve never peeled an egg in one piece.”
“If I were going to lie about something,” Pup said, “would it really be that?”
“Good point.”
They were both quiet then, looking out into the tasseling corn. A single airplane made its way across the sky above them, like a slow-moving star. When it had disappeared from sight, Abrihet leaned over and took Pup’s hand. He was so stunned by the gesture that he couldn’t move. He could only sit there, frozen, and feel her fingers, warm and strong around his. She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t moving closer to him. He didn’t know what it was, what it meant. It wasn’t romantic, exactly. She was only holding his hand, as if to say simply, I am here.
After a while, she let go, got to her feet, and brushed off the back of her skirt.
“Listen,” she said. “Tomorrow. What are you doing?”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. My amoui—the one from my picture—is having a party at her restaurant, to celebrate the news about my mom. You should come. Have you ever had Eritrean food before?”
Pup shook his head.
“Well, then you have to come.”
Pup hesitated. Hanging out with Abrihet tomorrow night meant missing Sunday dinner with his family. Pup had never missed a Sunday dinner in his life. But when he thought about his HALT! checklist, he realized that, after talking to Abrihet out here behind the hotel, he no longer felt angry or lonely or even tired. He was still hungry, though. And now she was offering to feed him, too. How could he turn that down?
16
“I’M GOING TO GO TAKE A SHIT,” Brody announced the next morning as Pup packed his things in his duffel bag.
Pup ignored him, continuing to fold his clothes in silence. It was late when he’d finally returned to his room, taking great care to make as much noise as possible when he stuck the key card in the reader. When he’d walked in, Brody and Maya had both scrambled themselves into poses of staged innocence. But Maya’s shirt was on backward, Brody’s neck was streaked with lipstick, the sheets of his bed were in complete disarray, and the iPad lay forgotten on the floor. When Maya had hurried out of the room, Pup noticed that her fly was unzipped.
Brody went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. He emerged twenty minutes later, walked across the room, and stood direct
ly in front of the ESPN program that Pup was trying to watch on the hotel TV.
“Hey,” Brody said. “I just remembered. You forgot to get me my mini muffins last night.”
“Are you serious?”
“Okay, okay!” Brody laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. “Chill. I’ll go get them myself.”
A few minutes later he returned from the vending machines with his muffins and a bottle of Gatorade. Pup had finished packing and was sitting on his bed, flicking through his phone.
“Hey, man,” Brody said, ripping open the package. “You’re not gonna say anything, right?”
“About what?” Pup didn’t look up.
“About me and Maya hanging out last night.”
“Oh. Is that what you were doing?”
“Yeah. Obviously. We watched a movie. Is that a crime?”
“What movie?”
“You know what movie. You were there when we started it. Titanic. A nineties classic.”
“What happens at the end?”
Brody glared at him. “The boat sinks.”
“Nice try.” Pup put his phone down. “The boat sinks in the middle. At the end, Rose drops the necklace off the side of the research vessel. Then she dies and sees Leonardo DiCaprio waiting for her on the stairs up to heaven.”
Brody looked at him.
“What is wrong with you, man?”
“I have five sisters and seven nieces. And you’re an asshole.”
Brody laughed. “You know what? Go ahead and tell Izzy if you want. It’s not like she’s going to believe you.”
“I’ve been friends with her since practically the beginning of high school. You’ve been with her for eight months.”
“Not that you’re counting or anything.” Brody smirked. He was wearing one of those shirts with faded patches and holes along the hem to make it look vintage, when really his mom had probably purchased it for him at an expensive department store. “You think she doesn’t know that you’re completely obsessed with her?”
“I’m not obsessed with anyone.”
“Yes you are. You’re obsessed with my girlfriend, and everyone knows it, including her. It’s so sad. We laugh about it all the time. It’s, like, a running joke between us. That time she had to kiss you during Spin the Bottle? She was disgusted. As soon as you left the house she ran upstairs and disinfected her mouth with, like, half of a bottle of Listerine. It was one of those big bottles, too. From Costco.”
“You’re lying,” Pup said. “Izzy wouldn’t do that. Nobody would do that. If you tried to gargle that much Listerine, it would burn your mouth. And besides, she hates the taste of mint. Can’t even stand to chew gum. Which you should know, since you’re so in love with her.”
“You think you know her better than I do? Fine. Test it out. Go ahead and tell her I hooked up with Maya. She’ll think you’re just making it up. She’ll think it’s just some pathetic attempt at getting her for yourself.”
“So you admit it!” Pup leaped off the bed. “You did cheat on her!”
“So what if I did? I dare you to rat me out! See what happens! She’ll laugh in your face!”
Pup’s reaction was automatic. He reached out and backhanded the Gatorade from Brody’s grip. It flew through the air, spraying an arc of orange liquid all over the cream-colored bedspread.
“You asshole!” Brody yelled. “That shit was a dollar fifty!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, watch this!” Pup ripped the bag of mini muffins from Brody’s other hand and, in a swift, masterful move he’d learned from Luke, held the bag up in the air and shook its contents—five remaining muffins—into his open mouth.
“You asshole!”
“Mm,” Pup managed, chewing the enormous mass of preservative-chocked pastry and spraying wet crumbs all over Brody’s face. “Delicious!”
Brody lunged, but Pup ducked. A floor lamp crashed to the carpet.
“Boys!” Mr. Hughes was pounding on the door. “What the hell is going on in there? Open up!”
“And now you got us in trouble with Mr. Hughes!”
“No, you got us in trouble, you dick!”
“BOYS!”
Pup opened the door, a wad of muffin going to cud in the side of his mouth.
Mr. Hughes stood in the doorway taking in Pup, Brody, and the orange stain dripping from the bedspread and seeping into the white carpet. “You better hope that’s Scotchgarded,” he growled. “Now get your crap together and meet me in the lobby. They don’t pay me enough for this, I swear!”
Once he’d slammed the door and his footsteps faded in the hallway, Pup turned around slowly to face Brody again.
“You better tell her,” he said, swallowing what remained of the muffin cud. “Or I will.”
17
BY THE TIME MR. HUGHES dropped Pup back at home after a sufficiently awkward three-hour car ride, it was midafternoon and the house smelled like Sunday: chopped garlic, stewing tomatoes, and the rich scent of pineapple upside-down cake baking in the oven. Pup’s mother was standing in the kitchen with the windows open to the summer wind, stirring heavy cream into her big saucepan with a long wooden spoon. When she turned to see who was coming in the back door, it looked a little bit like she’d been crying, but Pup couldn’t be sure if that was it, or if her face was simply flushed from standing over the hot stove on a hot day.
“Well, if it isn’t my budding Picasso!” She put her spoon down on the Texas-shaped spoon rest Annemarie and Sal had bought for her on a trip to Austin, and came over to give him a hug.
“It’s not that big of deal, Mom,” he said, speaking into the air over her head. He was so tall now that when his mom hugged him she barely reached his shoulder.
“Of course it’s a big deal!” She took the ribbon and gasped excitedly, turning it over in her hands. “This color and texture is exactly like the nineteenth-century Persian silk rug a gal from Iowa got appraised last night on Antiques for thirty thousand dollars!”
“It’s not real silk, Ma.”
“Still, it’s just lovely, Pup.”
“I have to make a portfolio,” he explained. “That’s going to be the hard part.”
“A portfolio,” she repeated. “How wonderful. Ted!” she yelled out through the open window. “Come in here! Pup’s going to make a portfolio!”
Pup’s dad hurried in, still wearing his gardening kneepads.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Why are you yelling?”
She held up the ribbon. “Pup qualified for regionals.” Ted felt for his reading glasses in his pants pocket, put them on, and examined the ribbon. “Well, isn’t that something,” he said.
“I can’t wait to celebrate you tonight at Sunday dinner.” His mom’s blue eyes were watery as she squeezed his two hands in hers. “Oh, it’s so exciting. Ann Arbor, Michigan!”
“Um, actually, Mom.” Pup looked down at the pair of soft, papery hands that grasped his own. “You don’t have to . . . see, this friend of mine. Her aunt owns a restaurant. She won an award yesterday, too, and she invited me to a party. . . .”
“Oh!” She blinked, and her hands slackened in his. “Tonight?”
“It’s—well, yeah. I told her I would go. I mean, I promised her. But I can totally come back early. I can be home in time for dessert.”
“Of course not!” She smiled tightly while Pup’s dad reached out a dirt-encrusted hand and gently squeezed her shoulder. “No, honey. You deserve to go out and have some fun on a beautiful Sunday evening like this.”
“Lord knows your brother does,” grumbled Pup’s dad. “Have you heard from him at all, Pup? Any idea whether he’ll be gracing us with his presence tonight?”
“I haven’t talked to him,” Pup said, which was the truth. Luke had maintained a low profile ever since his argument with Annemarie in the alley. He didn’t stay at home much, and when he did, he usually returned in the middle of the night, drunk and not in the mood for conversatio
n. He’d missed three Sunday dinners in a row now.
“I just hope he’s been keeping up with his studies,” said Pup’s mom, reading his thoughts. “He spends more time at Carrie’s place than he does in his own bed.”
“Yes, well, if it weren’t for her influence,” his father said, pulling his gardening gloves back on and heading for the door, “god knows what path Luke might go down.”
Pup opened his mouth to say something, but thought the better of it. He often wondered, with some unease, where Luke stayed on the nights when he didn’t come home, if he wasn’t staying with Carrie. But if his parents still didn’t know about the breakup, he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.
“Have fun tonight, honey,” said his mother. “I’ll save a plate for you.”
“Are you sure, Mom?”
Pup hovered there in the middle of the stifling, fragrant kitchen, feeling sort of terrible. He’d never been much of a student or an athlete, but at least he’d always been a good son. It was kind of his thing.
His mom put a garlic-perfumed hand on his cheek. “Of course I’m sure,” she said gently, but her eyes had grown watery again as she turned her back on him to pick up her spoon and resume stirring her sauce.
18
ABRIHET’S AUNT’S RESTAURANT, Shores of the Red Sea, was sandwiched in a strip mall between a nail salon and an Indian grocery. Pup’s father wouldn’t let him borrow the Buick to drive all the way across the city to Uptown, so instead it took two different bus transfers to get there on the CTA. By the time he arrived, the party was in full swing and the little restaurant was packed. It was a small square room with a black tile floor, red curtains, and a buffet table against one wall covered in white paper and filled with trays of food. When Abrihet saw Pup walk in, she squeezed through the crowd and met him at the door.
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