“DAD, I DON’T WANT TO GO TO STANFORD!”
Mo was more surprised by her outburst than her father was. Mr. Ishikawa dropped his spoon in his soup and stared across the table at the empty chairs. There was dead silence between them until Mo mustered up the courage to place the Wiz Kids folder in front of her father.
“I’ve been accepted into the creative writing program at Columbia University in New York,” she said. “That’s the school I want to go to and that’s the school I’m planning to attend. This is the information about the program and the courses I’m going to take. I know it’s not what you want, but this is my life and I’m a writer, not a businesswoman. Please support me in this.”
Mr. Ishikawa opened the folder and flipped through the papers inside but never looked at anything long enough to read it. He slid the folder back to Mo and crossed his arms.
“Columbia is a mistake, Moriko,” Mr. Ishikawa said. “Stanford is a smart choice.”
“Dad, Columbia is a great school and has a wonderful economics program I can minor in.”
“Writing isn’t a real profession. You need a respectable job to be a successful person.”
“You’ve never even read my writing! Maybe if you looked at it you’d change your mind—”
Mr. Ishikawa forcefully hit the table with an open hand, causing Mo to jump and his soup to splash on her Columbia acceptance letter.
“No more discussion!” he ordered. “You will go to Stanford and that is final!”
“Dad, please!”
Mr. Ishikawa silenced his daughter, not with another aggressive gesture, but by looking into her eyes for the first time that night.
“Make your mother proud,” he said softly.
The aspiring writer had never in her life been at a loss for words, and suddenly she was speechless. Her father hadn’t mentioned her mother in thirteen years, and now it wasn’t to comfort her, but to control her.
“Go to your room,” Mr. Ishikawa said. “Get some rest before your trip tomorrow.”
Mo took the Wiz Kids folder from the table and returned to her room in tears. She shut her bedroom door, picked Peachfuzzle off the pile of stuffed animals, and cuddled him on her bed against his will.
“Looks like we’re moving to California, Peaches.” Mo sniffled into her cat’s ear. “I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s no reasoning or sympathy in Dad—just regulations and standards.”
Peachfuzzle eventually clawed his way out from under her tight embrace. With zero compassion from her father or her feline, Mo went to her computer and found the empathy she so desperately needed in the only place she could find it: her writing.
Teardrops fell on her keyboard as she typed the opening paragraph to the next chapter of her Wiz Kids fanfiction novel. Its tone wasn’t as erotic as the previous chapters.
CHAPTER FIVE
The solar winds of the Andromeda Galaxy echoed through the crater’s canyons like a pack of coyotes howling at the full moons above. The winds frightened Dr. Bumfuzzle and Dr. Peachtree and they reached for each other throughout the night, but with the consequences of physical contact looming over their psyches, their open hands retracted before their fingertips met. They didn’t know how or when, but the Earthlings knew they had to find a way out of this affectionless world, even if it was the last thing they did.
Mo continued writing into the early hours of the morning before going to bed. The names, the faces, and the places weren’t her own, but the love between Dr. Bumfuzzle and Dr. Peachtree was the greatest love in her life. It may have been a fictitious relationship, but Mo figured vicarious compassion was better than no compassion at all. So she held on to Peachfuzzle like a life vest, hoping it would carry her through another dark and unforgiving storm.
Chapter Five
PASSWORD-PROTECTED
Joey Davis’s family was so picture-perfect that the people of Downers Grove often accused them of having made a deal with the devil. The claim was supposed to be ironic, since everyone knew Joey’s father was the pastor of the Naperville First Baptist Church—the second-largest Baptist congregation in Illinois.
Pastor Jeb Davis was a bit of a local celebrity in the tristate area. He shared the word of God with such confidence and passion the members of his church were convinced he was channeling Jesus himself. People drove in from miles away to hear his sermons every Sunday morning, and their daughters came along to gawk at the pastor’s handsome sons.
This was among the many reasons why Joey hated church. There was something very uncomfortable about getting winked at by teenage girls while listening to your father preach about the last temptation of Christ.
“When are you going to get a girlfriend, Joey?” was the question he got asked the most at church.