Twenty-Four Seconds from Now…

Chapter 6 And Twenty-Four Weeks Before That…

It was Halloween weekend. And instead of doing something romantic and corny with Aria, like pumpkin carving or whatever, I was with my dad after school, helping him prepare for the Friday rush down at the bingo hall. This meant we were taking inventory of food (Are there enough chicken tenders and fries? Who’s making the potato salad?!); making sure all the kitchen equipment—which was only a griddle and a deep fryer—was prepped (Is the oil fresh?); making sure we received the drink order, including pallets of canned sodas, a few cases of wine, and two kegs of beer; and lastly, running to the bank to make sure we had enough cash to pay the winners. My father does all this every day by himself, but on Fridays, which are usually paydays for most people, I come in early to help him out with it, just because we’re guaranteed to be busy. These be the days the hall goes from a cool, casual experience, damn near sleepy—with Dad calling out numbers to the regulars, all relaxed and calmly stamping their sheets and small-talking with their neighbors and gambling buddies—to Fridays with the players who come to pretend they’re in Vegas. Like they got enough money to let fly. Loud and all over the place like they ain’t never been nowhere. Add Halloween to the mix and… boom.

“I’ll try to get your mother to walk him tomorrow morning for Gammy,” Dad said as we came into the kitchen of the hall. He was talking about the new dog, who had been barking nonstop, like he’d never been nowhere. And when it came to pooping, he’d been… everywhere. All over the place. It had been his first night with us, and it was clear he wasn’t used to our house. Hadn’t been trained for it. And we hadn’t been trained for him. So that morning we woke up to turds peppering the floor of his crate. Some still whole, others smashed and smeared.

Dad complained about it in the car, all the way from our house to the bank and from the bank to the hall.

“Nat would do it, but she ain’t gon’ be home. And I know you scared of dogs—”

Dad had tucked the pouch of money in the safe, and now we were restocking the drinks.

“Not scared,” I retorted. “I just don’t like them, especially the ones I know don’t like me.”

“Right. You don’t like them. But I need you to at least try to help out until we get him on his do-his-business routine. Y’all might even get used to each other. Plus, Gammy can take him with her when she goes to the graveyard to visit Grandy. That way she can walk him with some supervision,” Dad said. “But something’s gotta give, because in addition to the poop—”

“And pee,” I added. Wouldn’t want him to forget that detail.

“And pee, his little ass barked all morning. All morning, Nee. Barked and barked and barked while I was trying to sleep.”

“At least he wasn’t trying to bite your feet,” I said, talking about how I had to sit on the couch with my legs tucked under me this morning as me and Gammy watched the beginning of Mississippi Masala, of course. Before Dodie came to get me. Then, realizing this wasn’t about me, added, “But yeah, he’s a barker.”

“Well, I’m a worker who also needs to be a sleeper. So we gotta figure this out.” Dad pointed to a stack of boxes behind the bar. My task, assigned. “What I will say is, I ain’t heard your grandma laugh that hard in two years. As much as I loved your grandfather, I realize now that what I loved most about him was how happy he made Gammy. She’s different with that dog. It ain’t even been twenty-four hours, and she already got a little light back in her.”

Dad started ripping plastic from the pallets of soda cans so he could load the fridge. After five cans, he yawned. After another few, he yawned again.

“You sure you don’t need me to call the numbers tonight?” I asked, opening the box of red wines. To call the numbers was the best job at the bingo hall. At least to me. I grew up watching my father turn the spherical steel cage full of wooden balls, each with a letter and number painted on it. B23. O17. N98. He’d sit up on a platform with the cage and a microphone, and announce each ball that dropped from it, everyone waiting for the right combination of numbers to match the ones on their cards so they could yell bingo. He was basically the announcer of luck. And I liked that, and wanted to do it.

“Absolutely not,” he said to my offer. “You’ll have your chance one day, but not today. Today you gon’ do your job, which is…”

“Payouts. I know.”

“Hey, at least you get tips! I’m the one who’s actually turning the numbers, so really I should get the tips. But noooo, pay the adorable teenage boy just for being able to count.” He reached over and tried to pinch my cheek, but I dodged him.

“Chill.”

“Oh, you too old for me to pinch your cheeks?”

“Yeah. I am,” I said, flat. Dad laughed.

“Okay, well, are you too old to put on a costume tonight?”

What he was talking about was that tonight was Neon Bingo’s Annual Halloween Night, which just meant everyone who worked at the hall, or came to play, had to be dressed in a costume. My father’s Bigfoot costume he wore every Halloween was in his office closet, where it lives all year until this night, which is when he breaks it out, sprays it down with air freshener, and throws it on. Again. Then he struts out onto the bingo floor like it’s the first time people have seen it. Or… smelled it.

I, on the other hand, have worn all kinds of costumes over the years, from monsters, to clowns, to superheroes, to cartoon characters. But this year I felt different. Older. And didn’t want to do the whole dress-up thing. Plus, I was planning to leave early. I was supposed to be meeting up with Aria, Fred, Dodie, Savion, and Tuna to talk about how to approach our roles as the newest yearbook staff. Mr. Sanchez had just accepted our proposal to change the format of the yearbook, from a book to a website. It was Aria’s idea. She realized, after we’d taken our senior photos at the beginning of the school year, that there would be no documentation of our final days of high school. No pictures of our class trip. No prom pictures. No graduation pictures. Because the book has to be turned in early enough to be printed and delivered before the end of the year. So to fix that problem, Aria suggested we put it all online. That way we can document up to the last minute.

She’s brilliant like that.

So, because I had a meeting to go to, to talk about a serious matter, which of course would morph into some unserious shenanigans, I decided that instead of putting on a whole costume, I’d just wear a rubber mask Aria got me, a gag gift for my last birthday. Of Spike Lee’s face.

“I’m putting on a costume,” I responded to my father’s question. “Just not a whole one like you. A mask is still a mask. It counts.” Dad just nodded and started lining up the Sprites. “Plus, you said I can leave early for the yearbook thing.”

“Right.” He flashed a look. “The yearbook thing.”

“I told you about it.”

“I know you did.”

“So why you acting like I didn’t?”

“I’m not. I’m acting like I know teenage boys.”

“Which means what?” I didn’t know it was happening, but my voice had sharpened.

“Relax, Nee. I’m not on your back about nothing,” he said, grabbing more soda cans. “I just know when I was young, I would’ve joined anything and done anything to be around my girl too.”

“Everything ain’t about Aria. I really like… yearbooks.” I took the last bottle of red from the box. Cabernet.

“Cool.” My father looked at me. Chewed his jaw to keep from chuckling. “Maybe I was just… different when I was your age.”

“Different how?” I was so annoyed.

“Listen, when I was seventeen I was trying to be everywhere your mother was. If Brina went, I went. If Brina didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to go either. She could’ve asked me to join the math club, and I would’ve been in there adding and subtracting like it was my whole purpose in life.”

“That’s not really how me and Aria are.”

He nodded, but it was one of those gestures that was meant to be read as opposite. He was nodding and saying he got me, but he ain’t get me. Not at all. And I could tell because he just stared at me as if my face had become a word search.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, curling his hand, beckoning for me to pass him the empty box the wine bottles had come out of.

“Dad, what?” I cocked my head. “Why you keep looking at me like that?”

“I’m not looking at you like nothing.” He broke the box down, tossed it in the corner for me to take out later.

“Yes, you are.”

“Okay, so then what am I looking at you like, Nee?”

“I don’t know. Like you got something to say.”

“But I don’t have nothing to say.” He went and grabbed the fresh oil for the deep fryer. Set it on the steel counter. “Actually, there is something I want to say.” He cracked and spun the top off, peeled the aluminum seal from the mouth of the gallon jug, then began to pour the oil into the fryer, the slow glugs a metronome for the awkwardness. “Really, something I want to ask. I mean, I don’t want to ask, but as a father, I feel like I need to.”

I had already opened another box of wine. The whites.

“Go for it,” I said.

“You and Aria, y’all been together for a while now, right?”

“Yep. About a year and a half.” Confusion. “That’s what you wanted to ask?”

“Nah,” he said, squaring up. “You still a virgin.” He just said it. Didn’t ask, just said. As if it were a fact.

“Yeah, I’m still a virgin. So what?” I shrugged.

“Good for you.” No sauce on it. No season. Just dry and healthy.

“Don’t feel like it. I mean, if it’s so good for me, then why you bringing it up like this?” I asked, lining up the Chardonnays in the bar fridge. To say I had thought about having sex with Aria once or twice would have been the worst lie ever told. To say I’d thought about having sex with Aria at least once every hour… would still have been the worst lie ever told. I thought about it more than I’d like to admit. And more times a day than I could count.

“Just… wondering. But ain’t no shame in being a virgin, kid,” Dad said. “I just figured—I mean, just looking at y’all yesterday… the way you held her hand.”

* * *

Dad rarely sees Aria. He rarely sees me around her. But yesterday afternoon, before he headed down to work, Aria showed up. With her dog, Jeremy. She had tears in her eyes, and her father and little sister flanked her for support.

This moment had been in the works for almost a week. It started with a shaky-voiced phone conversation, Aria telling me her mother was fed up with the barking. Telling me her mother couldn’t tell the difference between her trumpet and the dog, and she needed to be able to do so because she was world-famous. Telling me her mother also said her little sister, Turtle, couldn’t concentrate on her singing with all that yapping, and that voice was a more important investment than Aria’s snuggles. So unless Aria was deciding on the spot to focus on, maybe, being a veterinarian, it was time for the dog to go.

“Go where?” I asked. “You taking him back to the shelter?”

“I asked my mother if that’s what she wanted me to do, and she got even madder at me,” Aria explained. “?‘Why would you suggest a shelter, Aria? The damn dog barks too much, but it doesn’t deserve to be in prison!’ She went on and on, and was so upset, she looked like she was going to cry. And then she stormed back to her practice room. Slammed the door.”

“Oh, wow. Okay, so, a shelter’s not an option.”

“But she didn’t give me any better ones,” Aria said. “Poor little guy only barks because he has a nervous condition from previous trauma!” Her voice now became furious.

“I know,” I said.

“I think my mother just hates me,” she said.

“She doesn’t,” I said. “She loves you. She just has—” I caught myself about to say the most cliché movie line of all time. So to avoid that, I said, “Stuff. She just has… stuff. We all do.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“I just want to make sure I can see him sometimes, and that he’s somewhere safe and loving.” Pause. “You think…” Pause. “Maybe he can…” Pause. “Live with…” Pause. “You?”

“No.” Not even a little pause.

“Damn, Neon. Thanks for supporting me in my time of need.”

“I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just—you know that dog don’t like me. Plus, you know I’m kinda… nervous around him.”

“Yeah, but for no reason.”

“For no reason? He don’t rock with me, Aria! Be trying to bite me every time he sees me.”

“He’s playing—”

“He’s also growling.”

“He’s joking—”

“And barking.”

“See, you just like my mother.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I don’t. But still.”

But still, Aria had to get rid of her ugly, obnoxious fur-bro. So, because love apparently makes you stupid, I asked. But not my father, because he would’ve said no. Just a flat-out no. And I didn’t ask my mother either, because she would’ve told me to ask my father. So I went to the only other person who both my mother and father listened to. Gammy.

And Gammy said yes. Then told me not to tell my folks. Made me promise. So imagine their surprise when Aria showed up at my door, dog in arms. Maestro rubbing her back. Her little sister mumbling the most beautiful I’m sorry I ever heard.

“Gammy,” I called over my shoulder. “Aria’s here.” I welcomed her into the house.

“Aria, wait,” Maestro said, setting the dog’s crate down on the porch so he could pull a disposable camera from his back pocket.

“Dad, I’m not in the mood for pictures. Seriously.”

“Then just let me get one of Jeremy,” he said, turning the exposure wheel. Once loaded, he held the camera up to his face and snapped a photo. “Let me get one more.”

“Dad.” The look on Aria’s face was enough for Maestro to return his camera to his pocket.

“Okay, okay. Well… we’ll be back in an hour to get you,” Maestro said, gripping Aria’s shoulders. Turtle gave Aria the biggest hug her little arms could manage, then she and Maestro turned back toward the car.

My mother had just gotten home from the shop, and my father was getting ready to leave for the bingo hall. Gammy was coming from the living room. They all, by chance, met in the foyer where me and Aria and Jeremy were.

“Oh, hey, Aria,” my mother said.

“Aria the star-ia,” my dad said, because he’s a dad.

“Is this him?” Gammy said. That’s it. Gammy came sliding forward with her arms outstretched like a zombie, reaching for the dog, who contorted himself in Aria’s arms.

“Is who, who?” my father said, reaching for his jacket, which hung on the coatrack in the corner to the left of the front door. The coatrack only he used.

“Oh, this is Jeremy.” Aria stroked the pup’s head, trying to calm him down.

“And Jeremy is coming to live with us for a while,” Gammy concluded. My father immediately put his jacket back on the hook as Ma squawked, “What?”

“Yep!” Gammy took Jeremy into her arms as if she’d been handed a newborn from a nurse. And… Jeremy didn’t bark. Jeremy stopped squirming and just nestled into the crook of Gammy’s arms.

And ten minutes later my grandmother was laughing. And ten minutes after that my parents took a meeting in their bedroom. Ten minutes after that they returned to find me and Aria sitting on the couch on the other side of the room, holding hands, watching as Gammy and Jeremy slow-danced to nothing. And ten minutes after that my father huffed and puffed, a slow-spinning tornado, returned to the coatrack for his jacket but didn’t bother taking it. His temperature was already too high for an extra layer. But apparently not too high to notice me and Aria’s hands.

* * *

“The way I held her hand?” I asked, now even more perplexed. First of all, I ain’t know Dad had even seen that because he was so mad. But also, I wasn’t sure what holding my girlfriend’s hand had to do with… anything.

“Yeah. Because it was less of a grip. More of a… touch,” my dad explained, paper-toweling oil residue from his fingers. “Like, to hold a hand the way we held yours as a child, with a full grip, that feels like a gesture of safety. To hold hands with each other’s fingers woven together can sometimes seem like a gesture of desperation. But the way y’all were yesterday—your pinky just barely curled around hers—well, to me, that feels… intimate.”

“And what, exactly, does that mean?” I asked.

“I mean… it’s hard to explain.”

“Intimate?” I knew the word, but didn’t know what it had to do with this conversation.

“No. It’s hard to explain what you’re feeling,” he said. “And I know that because I’ve felt it with your mother. There’s a tenderness you’re offering her. A tenderness she offers you. And, from what I know now, there ain’t much in this world sexier than that.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I nodded anyway. Nodded at the fact that I did feel like this about Aria. And that I knew she felt this way about me. And that I didn’t even really remember trying to hold her finger like that. It was just a thing that happened. Maybe by happenstance. Maybe by habit. Maybe by some kind of helpless magnetism. Either way, my dad had noticed it. And now, I noticed it too.

“I say all that to say, being a virgin is a beautiful thing. And so is sex, as long as you remember what it feels like to have your finger hooked with hers,” he said, tossing the jug of oil into the recycling. “Connection. Got me?”

“I think so.”

“Good.”

“That’s it?” I asked. Was this all he was going to say?

“Yeah, that’s all,” he said, squinting at me. “What you expect me to say?”

“I don’t know. Something about me… growing my oats. Or whatever y’all old men be talking about.”

“First of all, ain’t nobody old. And second of all, it’s sowing your oats,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, that’s what Grandy said.” I eyed him. “You not gon’ tell me to sleep with as many girls as possible?”

“Ha!” Dad hollered. Then he laughed naturally, and when it tapered off, he shouted again. “Ha! Oh, Grandy.” He looked up at the ceiling, up to heaven. Then refocused on me. “Son, you really think that’s what I want for you?”

“Ain’t that what you did?”

What was left of the laughter stopped. Immediately.

“Listen, my first time was with your mom. And it wasn’t long after that she was pregnant, because no one was there to tell me much of nothing. Me and her broke up right after Nat’s first birthday because I was busy trying to sow my oats. Like a dumbass. I lied about it. And it’s been eighteen years since we’ve been back together, and I’m still apologizing for it.”

This wasn’t new news. I’d heard the story before, from Ma, how I was their reunion baby. But for a moment there was remorse on Dad’s face. Just a flash of it dredged up from some corner of his memory. Still.

“I mean, that was a long time ago, though. Y’all were kids.” I tried to console him.

“Yeah, but what happened between us wasn’t a matter of youth; it was a matter of truth. I shouldn’t have lied. So no, I’m not gonna encourage you to sow oats, and I’m also not gonna tell you not to take life as it comes. I’m just gonna tell you to be honest. Through the tender moments and the tense ones.”

Dad hooked my neck, kissed my forehead.

“Hey, so, can this stay between us, please?” I asked as he pulled his face away from mine.

“Of course.” He nodded like he already knew to do so.

And as I washed and dried the cardboard dust from my hands, only to dirty them again by grabbing two of the broken-down boxes and heading for the door, Dad called out to me, his voice like a pat on the back.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “Don’t bring no babies home unless they can count money.”

A hard pat, but a pat nonetheless.

* * *

It amazes me that whenever we open, there are always so many people already lined up outside. And on Halloween, it’s always wild to see so many of our regulars, waiting as usual, but dressed in the silliest costumes.

Mr. Robbins was dressed as… Robin. Not the bird. The sidekick, which wouldn’t have been a strange costume if he wasn’t, like, ninety years old. Also, who dresses up as the sidekick? A man whose last name is… Robbins, that’s who. By the way, last year he came as a robber. And of course, the year before that he came as… a robin.

Or Mr. Spuddy, who was not dressed up at all, and the thing about him not being dressed up was that I wasn’t going to say a word to him about it. No one was. He’s one of those guys you don’t play with, because if you do, things can get scary in real life. And Halloween won’t be happy. The rumor about Mr. Spuddy—or, as he’s known in Paradise Hill, Special Force Spuddy—is that he killed a man by pressing his finger too hard against the man’s forehead. They say he calls the move the power button, and that he can turn anyone’s life off whenever he feels like it. And he looks like the kind of guy who could do that kind of thing. Wide shoulders, square jaw, bald head with a big dent on the side of it.

Mr. Spuddy only comes to the bingo hall on Halloween, just so that the neighborhood kids ain’t afraid to go to his door and ask for candy from his wife. If people think he’s home, nobody’s knocking, too scared he’ll knock someone out. Matter fact, on Halloween a few years ago, Mrs. Spuddy actually had to stand outside on the curb all night long just to make sure everybody knew her husband wasn’t home and wouldn’t be home on Halloween going forward. Instead, he came down—was sent down—to the bingo hall, to scare the hell out of me.

Standing next to him was his daughter and antonym, Lana.

“Lana, what you doing here?” I asked. Lana never came. But she was with her father this time and dressed as a butterfly.

“I grew up playing bingo with him in the house and, now that I’m eighteen, wanted to see what it would be like to play in here with the real bingo bosses.”

“Wait. You played bingo in the house with… him?” I nodded at Mr. Spuddy, but not before taking a step back.

She laughed. He didn’t. I waved them through.

Or Mr. and Mrs. Harding, who came strutting through the door wearing one outfit. As in, they’d squeezed into a single shirt. They’d squeezed into a big pair of pants. Thankfully, they had on separate pairs of shoes.

“Who y’all supposed to be?” I asked. “Conjoined twins?”

“No,” Mrs. Harding replied. And then the three of us just stood there—me, waiting for them to tell me who or what they were dressed as, and them, not telling me. Finally, I just said all awkward, “Well, Happy Halloween!” And waved them through.

And the costumes kept coming. Mr. Stallworth, fresh from praying in his car, came strutting in as a firefighter, and Mr. Stanfield came hobbling in on his cane as Chewbacca. And the goblins and the gangsters and everything in between. Until a cat, a dog, a panda, and a vampire came to the door. The animal costumes were just furry pajamas, headband ears, and plastic noses strapped on by rubber bands. The cat was Savion, the dog Tuna, and the panda Fred.

Now, the vampire was decked all the way out. Wig, fangs. Suit. Cape.

“Good evening, Neon.” Even had the vampire voice.

“Aria… where you even find this cape?” I asked, lifting my mask and throwing my arm around her.

“I made it. But this is nothing. Look at what I did for Turtle.” Aria opened the photos on her phone, showed me a picture of Turtle dressed in a fur coat with a matching hat, pearls around her neck, her hair curled like an old lady’s. “Took me forever, but I made all this from a fuzzy blanket my dad got from the thrift store. Made the pearls with thread and white corn kernels. She’s perfect.”

“She is. But… who is she?”

Aria looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“What? She’s Marian Anderson. The first Black person to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.”

“How could you not see that?” Tuna teased.

“Of course.” I checked the picture again. Turned it sideways. “I… I do see it.” I kissed Aria’s hand. “Listen, what y’all doing here?”

“What you mean?” Fred asked, his mathematical moles lifting on his forehead. “Is it not Halloween?”

“It’s obviously Halloween.”

“Is this not Neon Bingo?” Tuna asked.

“This is Neon Bingo.”

“Is your name not Neon?” Savion asked.

“You know it is.”

“Well, then, this is where we’re supposed to be,” Aria said, leaning in for a peck. They’d come to surprise me. Plus, they’d always wanted to play bingo, and figured if there was ever a night they could get in and play without anyone questioning whether or not they were too young to be there, it would be the night they could be camouflaged.

“But I thought we were gonna meet about the yearbook stuff,” I said, waving them in.

“We are, we are,” Fred said. “But what time is this over? Because I gotta pick Saskia up from church.”

“Midnight,” I said. “But… tell her to save you a seat, because y’all not staying.”

“We’re definitely staying,” Savion insisted, looking around. “As a matter fact, I was thinking maybe we could take a couple pictures of you in here. That way we could highlight our lives outside of high school. ‘Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.’?” Savion eased his phone from his onesie pocket.

“Is that poetry?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Nope.” I shut it down.

“Oh, come on, it might be cool,” Aria said.

“Yeah, like a statement saying we’re actually more than school,” Fred said.

“True, but it’s a school yearbook. A documentation of school,” I argued.

“No, it’s really a documentation of our senior year,” Savion rebutted.

“Right. Of school.” I put a period on it.

“But—” Savion had more to say, but I paused him.

“Y’all, y’all—” I waved other people through. Ms. Whitestone, dressed as a flamingo. I thought. I turned back to my friends. “Ain’t this what the meeting was supposed to be about?”

“Well, we having it now,” said Fred.

“No, we’re not, because I gotta work.” Then realizing someone was missing, I added, “Also, where’s Dodie?”

“Told us he’d meet us here,” said Aria. They all shrugged.

And Dodie would meet them, meet us, there. But not until later. Not until after Aria, Fred, Savion, and Tuna had already found a table to sit at, settled in, bought their bingo cards and a few daubers, which are what the fancy stamp-markers are called.

Not until after I brought Mrs. Monihan over to where they were sitting to introduce her.

“Hey, y’all, guess who this is?” I buzzed, way too excited. And before they could answer, I jumped back in with “Dodie’s grandmother!”

Not until after Mrs. Monihan gave everyone a hug and rubbed everyone’s hands for good luck.

Not until after the first game started. Five squares, horizontal. Simple and plain, and I was able to see everyone’s daubing style. Savion was a long dauber. He’d press the tip of the dauber to the card and push until the ink completely saturated it. Fred was a drauber, meaning instead of stamping the square like everyone else, he used the dauber like a marker, and drew Xs over each number. Tuna was as cool as Tuna always is. Dabbed like a pro. Like she had bingo in her blood. And Aria was what we call a destroyer, which just means she pounded the dauber on each square as if she were trying to kill the number printed on it.

None of them won. Priscilla Wall, dressed as Tina Turner, did. Screamed Bingo as if she were screaming Fire! Or Help! Or Amen! Or Big wheels keep on turnin’! And Aria, Fred, Tuna, and Savion all clapped. Which is not a thing. Ain’t nobody ever happy another person wins. Not at bingo. The correct responses to a losing bingo round are silence or a low moan lasting no longer than three seconds. Just long enough for my father to announce the next game.

“Next up we’re playing five squares, vertical,” my father called out from the bingo pulpit. “Three minutes before first ball. Three minutes before first ball.”

During that three-minute hiatus, I was on. My time to get over to Priscilla and pay her winnings. The early games are low bucks. Fifty. Easy to count out. Ten five-dollar bills.

“Here’s five for you,” she said, handing a bill back.

“Just under two minutes,” my father warned. “Just under two minutes.”

And then: enter Dodie.

He burst into the room holding a bag and was dressed in what looked like a human-sized toilet-paper roll after the paper is all gone. The cardboard tube I used to pretend was a telescope. And he had a fuzzy orange hat on his head. And, of course, sunglasses. He looked around the room frantically before spotting the team, and waddled as fast as he could to the table to sit with them. Well, he couldn’t really sit. So he just stood there, laid his bingo cards out, and after they were lined up, out came the action figures. Toys I’d never seen. Ever. In life. Like, I didn’t recognize the heroes.

“I have questions,” Aria said, before I could say anything.

“Me too,” I said.

“All of us do.” Tuna stared at Dodie, her face evenly split between amazement and disgust. “But I’ll start. What you supposed to be?”

Dodie continued organizing the table space in front of him.

“A bingo dauber,” he said, without looking up. “Obviously.”

“How you know what a bingo”—Fred looked at the marker in front of him to make sure he got the name right—“dauber is?”

“A better question is, where you coming from?” Savion asked.

“My mother made me look at college applications,” Dodie said, all blasé, like college was just another thing meant to take up his precious time.

“You going to college?” Tuna jumped at the chance to snap on him.

“I don’t know. I think my mother just wants me out the house,” Dodie said. “Y’all know how it is.”

“I sure do,” Aria chimed in. “And I can’t wait to be out. I’m only applying to places far, far away from here.”

“Ouch.” I didn’t mean to say it. It was like my mouth spoke what my body felt. A sucker punch.

“From her, babe. I meant to say, away from her.” Aria grabbed my hand.

“I know, and it’s cool,” I assured her.

“You thinking about going with her, Nee?” This from Savion, who I knew without asking would be going to school on a wrestling scholarship. We all knew that.

“Nah, I don’t think college, at least regular college, is my thing.” I shrugged.

“And it don’t have to be,” Aria said, now squeezing my hand.

“Thirty seconds!” Dad called out.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna hold down the fort here. Answer any questions people might have about how my genius girlfriend is doing.” I smiled. It was halfway forced. But I meant it, and I hoped—and still hope—it comes true.

“Aww.” Aria’s love-whimper eased some of my anxiety around it all. “Well, I’ll tell you what I wish. I wish… someone would answer a question for me right now about our, uh, genius friend, Dodie,” she tacked on, watching as Dodie continued to set the toys up.

“Genius must have a new definition, and I just ain’t smart enough to know it,” Tuna jabbed. “Seriously, Dodo, what is all this?”

Dodie didn’t pay us no attention. Too busy concentrating on getting himself prepped as quickly as possible. The rest of the room had settled and was waiting on my father, who’d begun to spin the cage.

“Game two. Game number two. Here comes the first ball,” Dad said through the speakers. “O41. The first ball is O41.”

Everyone started daubing in their own way. Except Dodie, who pulled out an ink pen and drew zigzags through his O41 box.

“Where’s your… thing?” Savion asked.

“Don’t got one,” Dodie said. “Keeping it punk.”

“But you dressed like—”

“Shh!” Dodie said as my father called out the next number.

In between each game, I’d run to do the payments and run back to try to meet about yearbook stuff the best we could.

“What number he just said?” Savion asked.

“N7, I think,” Aria said, before getting back to business. “All we need to decide tonight is how to divvy up responsibilities. Who gon’ do what?”

“None of y’all that smart—” Fred declared, or at least tried to.

“Who ain’t that smart?” Aria warned.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Fred clarified. “I’m talking about when it comes to coding. So I’ll do all that stuff.”

“And I’ll write all the captions,” Savion said.

“I’ll do the music,” Dodie said.

“What number was that?” From Savion again.

“I38,” Tuna confirmed, searching her card. “And this a yearbook, not a song, Dodo.”

“Everything’s a song, Tuna,” Dodie shot back. “Plus, this ain’t no regular yearbook. It’s a year… site.”

“Still not a song, but whatever,” she rumbled, realizing she didn’t have I38.

“No, he’s right. A soundtrack might be cool. Because this is different. So we can be creative,” I said.

“But the same,” Aria chimed in. “Like, I think I want to come up with some superlatives. But better ones than just Best Dressed or Class Clown.” Aria turned to me. “What you gon’ do, babe?”

I wasn’t sure. And this wasn’t really the best place to brainstorm because I was trying to pay attention to all them while also listening for bingo.

“B11,” Dad called. Then repeated, “B11.”

I shrugged. I honestly didn’t know what I could do, and… my father was right. I’d joined just because Aria said it was a good idea.

“I mean, you know how to do a lot of good stuff.” Aria, full of encouragement.

“Being a boyfriend ain’t a yearbook role,” Fred joked.

“Whatever. I can take pictures,” I said. “Oh, you know what would be even better? Videos. Like, little movies or something.”

“G18,” my father said.

“Videos?” Savion said.

“Bingo!” Dodie screamed.

“Bingo!” Another voice came from the other side of the room. A hand went up.

“We have two winners!” my father howled. “Bingo, bingo!”

Dodie waddled a few steps from the table to see who the other winner was. Who he’d be splitting the pot with.

“Who’s that?” he asked as I counted out his money. Two forty in twenties. He put the whole thing in his bag. No tip. I turned to see who he was asking about.

“Oh, that’s Lana. You know Mr. Spuddy, who lives up the block from me? That’s his daughter.” Dodie pulled one of the twenties out from the fold in his bag, scribbled his name, number, and a note on it.

“Swap me out,” he said, slick. I gave him a clean twenty from the payout stash for his scribbled one. “Now she’s really a winner.” A collective groan from the table.

“Dodie!” Another voice. A familiar one. An older one. One that almost caused him to jump out his… tube. His grandmother Mrs. Monihan, her hand in the air, beckoning him over. He sulked, went, and a few minutes later returned with his granny beside him.

“She wants to sit with us,” he growled.

For the rest of the night we all laughed and played and watched Dodie squirm as we talked with his grandmother.

“Y’all so fun!” she said, slapping the table. “I can’t believe y’all spending your Halloween in here with us. Y’all young. Supposed to be out there acting up.”

“Not us, Grandma,” Dodie said like a little boy, and everyone at the table smiled like angels. Even though it was a lie. I mean, last Halloween we were all partying at Dorian Blankenship’s house, which, if Aria’s house is in a graham-cracker neighborhood, Dorian’s looks like it’s made of those wafer-sandwich-cookie things that taste just sweet enough to not be paper. Gammy loves those because they’re easy on her teeth. They disintegrate in her mouth. The point is, Dorian’s neighborhood looks like a neighborhood of delicate castles.

I’d had to work, as usual. Was fully dressed as Wolverine, which was a bad idea because it was impossible to count out the money with the claws. But what made up for that was that Nat and Spank spent Halloween at the hall too. Nat knew I wanted to go see Aria, so she let me drop them off at Spank’s house so I could take the car to Dorian’s. I swear, I barely saw a little bit of Dorian’s house—area rugs everywhere—before me and Aria saw a lot of the inside of Nat’s car. But we just fooled around, kissed and touched and wished we could do more than kiss and touch but knew we weren’t ready to do more than kiss and touch. And the next morning Nat swore her car smelled like breath. Like deep breath. Breath so deep, the vanilla tree couldn’t even mask it. I still haven’t lived that down.

“Not y’all, huh?” Mrs. Monihan replied, now looking at us like she knew that wasn’t true. Because she knew that wasn’t true. Because she knew her grandson was a liar, which led her into telling stories about who Dodie was as a kid. Even told the one about the sunglasses.

Mrs. Monihan didn’t win no games, and none of us besides Dodie did either. But that was okay, because even though teasing Dodie was a blast, the best thing about her sitting with us, for me, was when she started talking about her husband, Ronald, and their way of loving each other.

“He never said too much, even when our love was new and sweet, when it was still puppy love,” she explained. “Not like my grandson here.”

“But everybody always says communication is the key to… everything,” Aria said, her hand resting on mine.

“Oh, it is. It is. But Ronald always felt like everything that needed to be said could be said in three words. ‘I am mad. I want more. I’m so sorry. You hurt me. You look great. I need help.’?”

Three words. That’s it. And that was it. That conversation was what sparked me. Helped me figure out the prompt for the yearbook recordings. And after the final game and everyone had filed out of the bingo hall, I began, first recording the people right in front of me.

State your name.

Fred Creeks.

How would you describe high school in three words?

A good time.

A good time? That’s it?

A blessed time.

State your name.

Savion Gunther.

How would you describe high school in three words?

Hmmm. I think for me it would be something like… Mind your business.

Word.

Why you looking at me like that?

I just wasn’t expecting that. Thought you’d say something about wrestling. Like, No holds barred or something like that.

That’s a good one, but nah. It’s definitely Mind your business.

State your name.

Petunia Randolph. Tuna.

How would you describe high school in three words?

I guess it would have to be Everything works out.

Everything works out?

I hope so.

Where Dodie at?

Who cares?

State your name.

Aria Wright, aka Aria the star-ia, coming to you live from the parking lot of Neon Bingo.

Okay, okay. How would you describe high school in three words?

Should’ve been first.

I know, but you were in there talking to my dad.

He loves me.

Are those your three words?

Nope. My three words are Should’ve been first.

She gazed into the camera. That look. And I suddenly wondered what we were talking about.

Should be first, she repeated, this time with a slight edit. And suddenly, I knew what we were talking about. At least, I thought I did.

Can be first, I replied, then stopping the recording, realizing our interview was becoming a conversation. A special conversation.

“Will be first.” Aria smiled, pinky up.