“Right. Which is the point of the aforementioned trip,” I argued. “Plus,” I added, hoping to play to Harlow’s sentimental side, “it will give me a chance to meet my grandparents. I’ve never met any of my grandparents.”
Harlow looked uncertain. “That’s because they still live in Jordan.”
“Lived,” I corrected her. “Mom’s dad died before she even came to the US. Her mom died a few years later.”
“Right.”
“So this would be really special. It’s a chance to meet my grandfather before he passes.” I watched her facial features wrinkle in thought. “And to meet my grandma. Maybe she’s really cool. Maybe I could actually forge a relationship with one of my four grandparents. Twenty-five percent isn’t great, but it’s something.”
Harlow took a deep breath, pulled out her phone, and texted something quickly. I could tell she was softening.
“And,” I continued, piling it on, “this is my chance to really learn what went down with my parents, you know? This is my history, Harlow. Don’t you think I deserve to know it?”
Her eyebrows knitted together, her eyes still glued to her phone screen.
“Is that a yes?” I pressed.
“Okay, fine. But when we get there, you call your mom.”
I grinned. “Deal.”
VI.
I didn’t pack anything. Only the clothes I was wearing—a long-sleeve striped T-shirt, my acid-wash jeans, and red Converses. In retrospect, packing nothing other than the clothes I was wearing was probably a poor choice, but I wanted to get on the road before Harlow had a chance to change her mind.
Apparently all of my previous adolescent fantasies had been correct when I’d pictured Julian driving up to our house in a vintage Mustang convertible with a throaty, rumbling engine, because I presently found myself in the backseat of such a car. Though, in fairness, I bet that I’d read about his car in one of the zillions of articles on him I’d devoured when I became convinced he was my dad, and that tidbit must’ve wedged its way into my brain.
Outside the car window, my neighborhood was a blur of brick houses, anemic newly planted trees, and perfectly manicured green lawns. My subdivision features four models of houses that alternate block by block in an almost eerily Stepfordish pattern. Seriously, I know Arcade Fire wrote The Suburbs about their neighborhood in Houston, but that record could definitely have been written about my town. To answer Win Butler’s question: It is impossible to escape the sprawl when it comes to Chester, Ohio.
It’s a bummer, actually, because the area closer to Bellwether University, where Mom works, is much more hip. It’s full of slanted old Victorian houses that press right up against natural food markets and used-book stores. But Mom insisted on buying a home in the suburbs because of the way elementary school zoning worked.
Before we’d fully exited the cookie-cutter streets of my subdivision, Julian requested that I put on some music. And much to his chagrin, I’d chosen the Hamilton soundtrack.
“This is really what the kids are listening to these days?” he asked.
“Yes!” I said, and Harlow added, “It actually is. I don’t even like Broadway musicals and I love Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius.”
“What makes it so genius?” Julian asked, shouting so that we could hear him over Daveed Diggs’s rapping.
“SO. MANY. THINGS,” Harlow and I said in unison.
“Like?” he prompted.
“Well, for starters, the diverse cast and the mixing of hip-hop music with more classical Broadway ballads help reclaim this central piece of American history for those of us who might not have previously felt like it was ours,” I explained. “I want to someday write a show like Hamilton. One that inspires brown girls to claim their due.”
“Wow,” Julian said. “Very cool. Though I’m sure this won’t come as a big surprise to you or anything, I know jack shit about musicals.” I saw his face twist up in the rearview mirror, his lips puckered like he’d just bit into a fresh lemon. “But my God. My child wants to write musicals. Like we’re talking about the same thing, right? Singing-dancing plays?”
“Yup,” I said cheerfully.
“She’s kind of a nerd,” Harlow said, nudging her shoulder against mine. “But Tal, be honest. You don’t want to just write musicals. You also write songs.”
Julian’s eyebrows shot up. “You write songs?”
I was miffed. It wasn’t Harlow’s place to reveal that. I felt safe offering the tidbit about musicals because that was something I’d thought about wanting to do way far off in the future. The way I sometimes thought about wanting to hike the Inca trail or visit the Galapagos Islands. It wasn’t concrete. It wasn’t yet personal to me the way that songs I wrote with Harlow were.
I nodded silently, and Harlow added, “Yeah. She composes songs on the piano and the two of us come up with lyrics.” She looked at me eagerly, clearly oblivious to my irritation, and then exclaimed, “We should perform one of our songs for Julian!”
I shook my head. “We don’t do that anymore.”
Julian looked at us through the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged and stared down at my sneakers. “We don’t write songs anymore.”
“Why not?”
Neither Harlow nor I said anything.
Julian cleared his throat, fully aware he’d waded into awkward territory. I thought he would press me more about my songwriting, but I was relieved when he let it go. “I don’t know what makes me feel weirder,” he joked. “That I’m old enough to have a sixteen-year-old daughter or that I’m relying on that daughter to let me know what the kids are listening to these days. I used to be the kid, ya know? Shit, I’m old.” Julian nervously glanced at us. “And I feel like a chaperone. An old-ass chaperone.”
“I think you mean chauffeur,” Harlow corrected, not looking up from her cell phone, where she was texting Quinn.
The highway spit out in front of us. Flat and gray and framed by expanses of cornfields that stretched as far as the eye could see. The late midday light streamed into the car, a hazy pink, and it made me feel sentimental and foggy, like this moment was already a memory and I was just living inside it.
Julian must’ve seen something on my face because he asked, “You okay, kid?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“You don’t have to be nervous. My folks—” And then he corrected, “your folks. They’re your folks, too.” He shot me a worried look. I hadn’t been that nervous and now I suddenly was.
“Don’t be nervous,” he repeated. “They’ll be ecstatic to meet you.”