“Oh,” he said with a shrug. “Lots of stuff makes me feel closed in.”
“You’d hate my house,” she said. “My mom can’t stand an empty wall. If she had good taste in art, that might be okay. But it’s all roosters and cheap landscapes from Wal-Mart. She had a cow print phase a few years ago that I almost didn’t survive.”
Another laugh. She was definitely sensing that he was starting to appreciate her humor. And he seemed a little less anxious than when she’d arrived. Complete sentences were a good sign.
“I think maybe it’s because I’m inside so much,” he said. “I guess I like the idea of my room seeming endless or something.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I like that. Or maybe you could just imagine whatever you want in here.”
“No,” he said. “That’s what the garage is for.”
“Oh. Okay.”
A few minutes later, as he opened the door that led from the laundry room into the garage, he looked at Lisa with a very serious expression and then let the door slowly open and stood to one side. She stepped through the threshold, and he watched her without saying another word.
The entire garage had been painted a deep, solid black and was covered with a bright yellow grid. It was one of the strangest things Lisa had ever seen, and she had no idea what she was looking at.
“Have you ever seen Star Trek: The Next Generation?” he asked, walking to the center of the room.
“A couple times,” she said. “My boyfriend watches it. I sort of wish everyone on earth had Patrick Stewart’s voice.”
“Your lips to God’s ears.”
She shut the door behind her to find that even it had been painted to match the pattern of the room. Square after square of blackness, highlighted with these intersecting beams that covered not just the floor and walls, but also the ceiling.
“This is my version of a holodeck,” he said. “On the show. Well, on several versions of Star Trek, they use a room like this for simulated reality. Training, to solve puzzles, things like that. It’s nice, right?”
She was a little caught off guard that he was suddenly speaking to her so casually, the nerves in his voice barely noticeable anymore. As someone who worked very hard to get the things she wanted in life, this was a level of devotion that Lisa could appreciate. And all she could think about was how much Clark would love it.
“So, then, what do you do in here?”
“Well, I come in here, I sit down in the middle of the floor, and I just think stuff up to entertain myself. They say using your imagination makes you live longer.”
“They do say that,” she agreed. “So, you just think stuff up and picture it happening all around you?”
“Sure,” he said. “You don’t ever do that? Imagine being somewhere else?”
“I think about being in college,” she said. “All the time, actually. Far away from Upland.”
“Yeah, so, it’s like that. Except the college part. I don’t think that’s in my future.”
“You never know.”
“Yes you do,” he confirmed. “What do you want to study?”
“Medicine,” she answered. “Not sure what kind yet, but being Dr. Praytor is definitely part of the dream.”
“No wonder my mom likes you so much.”
“Can I try?” she asked, walking over to the center of the room and sitting down.
“Oh . . . umm . . . sure.”
“What do I do?” she asked.
He walked over and sat down beside her. This was the closest they’d gotten, their knees nearly touching, and she could tell it made him tense up a little.
“Okay. Close your eyes,” he said. “I mean, if you want to.”
So she closed her eyes, and it was so quiet in the room that she could hear his breathing.
“Okay. Now open them,” he said. And she did. And she saw a black room with yellow squares covering it and a teenage boy staring at her in the dark with a grin on his face.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you see it?”
“See what?”
“We’re in a field. It’s so green. All around us. And there’s a kite in the air. You see it?” He pointed up toward the ceiling.
She looked up, seeing nothing but the same yellow squares from corner to corner and then looked his way. He was mesmerized by the room around them. His expression like Heaven had opened up to swallow the Earth. Was this guy for real? Kites? She wasn’t scared of him, not at all. She was just suddenly realizing that maybe she couldn’t help him.
“Lisa?”
“Yeah,” she answered.
“I’m just fucking with you.”
NINE
SOLOMON REED
And he was. The holodeck garage wasn’t a place for him to imagine elaborate settings and interact with fictional people or anything. It was a garage painted to look like something he loved. And that, in and of itself, was all he needed it to be. Just a place to escape when closing his eyes wasn’t enough. Sometimes, like after the panic attack he’d had a few days before, it was the only way he could block it all out and try to reset his thoughts.