Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You were singular.” —Greeting from Ella Ortiz
“You’re still the most inspirational.” —Greeting from Coach Shannon Unsler
“Keep the beat going, Mars, wherever you are.” —Greeting from Hugo Ramirez
“I hope they’ve got maple bars in heaven.” —Greeting from Gail McPherson, Red Apple Market
“Can we have music?” I asked Maurice. We were in his truck, and this time I knew where we were going. It was a beautiful night, and the lake had those golden sparkles they did at that time of year and at that hour, as if the world’s fairy godmother had waved her wand over all of us.
It was a perfect evening for prom. I wondered what it would have been like, for Mars and me to have gone like we’d planned. It was the same wondering as always, but fancier.
Come on, Margaret. Come with us! Addy had begged. You can be my date! We can all be each other’s dates.
What about Ramone? I lifted one eyebrow, or tried to. I probably lifted them both, to be honest.
No! she protested, like Yes! Like I wish!
She’d broken up with Liam, who started going out with Zoe Zhan, like, the next day.
Over the last few weeks, Ramone had migrated to our end of the table.
He’d offer Addy his Cool Ranch Doritos, and she’d toss him some grapes, trying to get them in his mouth.
I think he was worried about choking on one, because he kept missing on purpose.
Ramone worked hard at looking not-anxious, which is something an anxious person like me notices straight off.
He glanced at the clock on his phone a lot, even though a bell rang when lunch was over.
He couldn’t trust the bell, so I knew he was one of us, the mass of people who were silently sure that something was about to go terribly wrong.
I hear you, Ramone, I said silently. After you and your heart, I kept my eye on Ramone and those grapes, too, and tried to remember how a person did the Heimlich.
Ramone was a serious upgrade from Liam.
He asked you what color your dress was? Maddie reminded her, as if she’d forget.
He’s getting a tie to match, I bet you ten bucks, I said. Addy was driving us home, and she’d gotten so flustered, she’d missed my street.
Seriously, Margaret. You should come, Priya said.
But I didn’t want to go to prom. There was only one place I had to be.
I don’t say wanted to be, because even at the thought of it, dread would drop down in my chest like a curtain, The End.
Had to be, though? Yes. Needed to be. Anniversaries were the overambitious employee who brought doughnuts for everyone, and worked overtime, and did his job beyond compare, but who was quietly plotting with the boss behind your back.
Manipulating all the pieces into position with a warm smile and hidden cruelty.
Boom, one day on the calendar and you were on your knees.
Forced to face what you’d been managing to hold at bay.
That guilt, you know. It hadn’t gone anywhere. I could send you a message of love, could try and try to do that, but what I did to you still slithered viciously around, teaming up with that unanswered text.
“Some song in particular?” Maurice asked.
“Nope. Just random shuffle?” It was silly, but that’s how you might speak to me, I always hoped.
Well, I hoped you would speak to me in hundreds of ways—bird formations, weather, a dream, luck.
But music would be the most likely. For the first few months, I couldn’t listen to music at all, but now I did as often as possible, just waiting for you to send me a message back.
I’d wish and wish that “Infinity,” or “Keep Me in Your Heart,” or “El Cascabel,” or so many others would play the minute I turned my engine on, a sign.
When they didn’t, when it was just some random song I’d downloaded long ago, I’d fast-forward.
The next song would be you speaking to me. Or the fifth one would. Or the tenth.
“Sure.” Maurice pushed play. Drumbeat, then the song began. Let me ride on the wall of death—
“Oh my God.” I’d never heard that song before. It sure wasn’t one of ours, unless it was meant to be one of mine.
“Jeez, sorry.” Maurice quickly advanced to the next. Tear off your own head, a guy sang. Not ours, but harmless.
“One year.” My voice wobbled.
Maurice guided us to safer territory. “Man, MG. Twenty-two hundred followers, the last time I looked?”
“It’s so wild. I don’t get it.”
“I get it. Anyone who lost someone would get it.”
“Not Janite. Still no Janite.”
“You can’t expect that. She’s going through her own…
” What would be the right word for it? Maurice put his turn signal on.
He looked in his mirror and looked again, changing lanes like an old man.
I understood. I did it, too. I had those moments where I was scared that I might be next.
Newly aware of how quick it could all be gone.
“Hell.”
“Right. Her own hell. Can you imagine?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t.
“Your page…It’s not about her, anyway, though, right? Or even…you? It’s about him. And now it’s also about all of them. The other people with the praying hands and the crying emojis and the hearts.”
“Rainbows, clouds, planets, stars, rockets, and one panda.”
“Emoji humanity.”
“Hey, a new song title?”
“Waaay too hard to sing.” Maurice turned down the music. “MG? We wanted to ask you…”
“We? Is this a wedding thing?”
“Wedding thing? No! It’s a photographer thing. We were wondering if you might come to the studio and take some photos while we’re recording. We’ll be there for a couple of weeks, after you’re done with school.”
“Really?”
“Really. What do you think?”
“If Dad’ll let me get off work.”
“Are you going to stay at Papa Angelo’s forever?”
I used to think so, but now I wasn’t so sure. I shrugged.
“Mom will send in the cavalry if he gives you any trouble.” Maurice grinned.
“Mom two-point-oh.” I smiled, too. “Maurice? Sandrine’s going to be here tonight, right?”
“I told you, after she helps Gwen change her oil and gets some dinner, she’s heading over. She’s probably there already.”
It felt important for this night, prom night, to be as similar to the last one as possible.
Of all people in all places—we were both there on that mountain.
I had some silly idea that if I replayed that night as closely as possible, maybe fate and meaning would back me up as I faced you up there, in that place where you were most you.
Maurice took the exit. Already the plan was slipping, because I was familiar with that exit now. I knew exactly where we were going as we turned off on that gravel road, as Maurice’s tires crunched, the nose of his truck slanting upward.
He pulled into the little circular parking area. I spotted Sandrine’s car, your VW, and recognized Chester’s and Lily’s. Rainey’s and Ben’s, as well, though maybe Santiago got a new CR-V, an unfamiliar one with a car seat in the back that was parked next to Lily’s Jeep.
Maurice turned his engine off. “Hey, MG? Before we go up? I haven’t, uh, had my turn. With the, you know…”
I smiled. He felt shy, I could see. Shy about speaking up, about being a part of my project.
“Funny you should ask.” I waggled my phone. I’d been waiting for a good moment.
“I’m not sure what I should say, though. It seems so important, like it should be a big grand summation, and I don’t have a big grand summation.”
“No way. It’s just—being there. Showing up. You should hear the greetings on the actual record. They’re basically, ‘Hi, from me to you.’ ”
“Okay.”
“We’re doing it?”
“Sure.”
“Go,” I said, and pressed record. He laughed and snorted and messed up the first few times, and then he was done. We sat in silence for a while, thinking of what might have been.
“Ready?” Maurice said finally.
I was scared, you know, so scared. To see you up there.
To really face you. To tell you how deeply sorry I was, where you could maybe really hear me.
I closed my eyes. Rubbed one with my fingertips.
God, it was the same thing Dad did when he was defeated.
But I wasn’t him, I reminded myself. I could apologize. I could ask for forgiveness.
“Hey,” Maurice said. “These people love you. And you love them.”
The plan slipped some more. Maurice was right. I’d go up that mountain and see family. Your family.
Oh, it was as creepy as ever, walking down that trail in the dark where bobcats maybe hunched with glowing eyes, but no tigers.
I heard their voices.
On the other side of that trail, there were still a bunch of people and their telescopes, though, all sizes, all different ages of people. But a dog ran to me this time, thrilled to see his people.
“Hey, Frank.” I scruffed his head.
Sandrine waved. She still had a cute nose piercing, and torn denim shorts, and hair that looked like she took some scissors to it, and the warmest smile you could imagine, and my brother Maurice was still giddy.
“Seeing anything?” he said, just as he had.
But Sandrine’s shirt sported an oil stain, and she poked his chest and then mine. “Seeing you, and you.”
“I got Saturn,” Chester said. We knew each other well enough that he didn’t even say hi. “Where’s your recorder? I know exactly what I’m going to say.”
“Recorder,” Rainey snorted.
“She brought her fax machine, too,” Ben joked.
“Snarky young ’uns,” Lily said. She had a new neon-yellow North Face jacket and striped socks.
I looked toward the spot where you’d been standing, gazing at the dark section of sky that held a magnificent secret, a living truth beyond our ability to see it, but Norty was there instead.
He was a year older, and Santiago had gotten him his own telescope.
He wasn’t looking in it, though. Instead, he sat on the ground, flicking a pocket flashlight on and off.