“Bzzzt, no,” I chime in. “If you’re from Chicago, it will always be the Sears Tower, forever and ever, amen.”
She tells us, “You act like we’ve avoided downtown. We just haven’t gotten there yet. We’ve lived here a little over a month and we spent the first couple of weeks settling in. Plus, we have Warhol and we couldn’t leave him for that long at first. He’s only now become crate-trained.”
“No Art Institute? No Museum of Contemporary Art? Hasn’t your dad had his stuff on display there?”
Stephen is about ten paces behind us, still rooted in the same spot, utterly dismayed that anyone would overlook the gift that is Chicago proper. Truth? I’m pleased to see Stephen appalled right now. Psyched, actually. Glad to see him feeling anything. I like witnessing some genuine passion.
Sure beats the dull funk he was mired in last week.
I knew there was something wrong when I said that Tupac’s song “Dear Mama” was trite. (I admit it; I was trying to bait him, that’s how we do.) Instead of firing back with any number of facts, like how Rolling Stone placed it at Number 18 on its 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time list, or that it was nominated for a Grammy as a Best Rap Solo Performance, Stephen just offered a pitiful shrug and said, “You’re probably right.”
God, his sulking can be too much. I swear his moods are like emotional ransom notes sometimes, like Crappy Stephen has abducted Happy Stephen and won’t let him free ’til I offer up my pound of flesh.
Gets old.
Gets real old.
I’m glad Simone rolls with us now; she’s great about helping bring him back up, doesn’t look at it as a chore, either. I’m not always as generous with him as I should be, but JFC, I’m dealing with my own shit. You’re not the only one under stress, bro. I mean, he’s never had a basketball player rest an elbow on his head, telling him he’d be a great end table.
Yeah, ha, ha.
Real fucking funny.
Stephen’s rallying today because MIT confirmed his alumni interview and he says he finally feels like the end is in sight, like all his efforts will have been worth it. No one could be more ready to move across the country/away from his Tiger Mom. Fact. The downside is, he’s been talking about how we should room together out in Boston. This is a bad idea. I’m telling you, we’re still buds right now precisely because I can go back to my own home at the end of the day when I’ve reached my limit. Hot and cold running Cho 24/7 is a recipe for disaster. But I don’t know how to say no, so for now, I smile and nod whenever he brings up the dorms.
Simone is explaining, “Of course we plan to go downtown and of course we will. But right now my father is still having way too much fun hitting warehouse stores.”
“Do you guys not have Costco in England?” I ask.
“Yes, but we didn’t have the space to buy in bulk so we never went. He’s making up for lost time. We own a lot of paper towels now. A lot. My father’s made it his personal quest to fill all our empty closets with home supplies bought in family-sized packs. Did you know Windex came in gallon jugs? I didn’t.”
“Speak of the devil,” I say.
We watch as her dad pulls up in an SUV roughly the size of the starship Enterprise. Simone says he’s a total spendthrift and that some accountant keeps a tight lock on all the family’s cash, but her dad slipped the purchase past their guy when he was out of the office for Rosh Hashanah.
“Anyone fancy a lift to school, huh? Bet your mates have never seen a ride like this, eh, Simba?” He twirls the pine tree air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror as he nods with pride.
“No, my mom had the exact same model,” I say. “Ours was light gray.”
“Mine has one now,” Stephen says. “Hers is tan.”
“I bought a ladies’ car then?” her dad asks, shoulders slumping. Poor guy. He looks so flattened behind the wheel. Even his puffy man-bun is deflated.
“SUVs are pretty much unisex,” I quickly offer, as I’m so accustomed to trying to bring people up that it’s second nature. “Plus, you can use this one to haul a boat. That’s why we bought ours.”
“Glad the Jewish holidays are over, lest there be watercraft in my family’s future,” Simone says. I can’t tell if she’s joking or not because she’s super deadpan. (I think it’s the whole semi-British thing.)
Mr. Chastain seems to brighten, though. “Well, all right then. Off to Costco! Lots of bargains to be found! Have a good day of class!”
Her dad’s posture vastly improves before he begins to pull away.
Simone tells us, “I’m sure once he loads up his cart with sixteen cases of tuna and a few hundred triple-A batteries, he’ll be right as rain again. Hope his fascination with shopping in bulk ends soon—he’s yet to tackle a single creative endeavor since we’ve arrived and my mum’s worried.”
Mr. Chastain roars off and the SUV bottoms out as he crosses over the train tracks. He’s got to drive a few miles west to get to the big box stores. North Shore doesn’t allow such retail establishments in this town. They don’t permit billboards, either. I’ve lived here so long that now it’s weird when I’m someplace that has them.
“The NRA bumper sticker is a nice touch,” I observe.
She explains, “Came with the truck. The dealer offered to remove it, but my dad thought it looked menacing in an appealing way. He’s profoundly anti-gun, but apparently pro-gun sticker.”
I laugh. “Who isn’t?”
Stephen sprints to catch up with us. “So you haven’t been to Navy Pier. You haven’t seen the Bean.”
Simone says, “Stephen, what part of ‘we haven’t made it downtown yet’ are you not understanding? And what is the Bean?”
“It’s a giant, reflective silver bean-shaped piece of art in Millennium Park,” I say.
“You mean Cloud Gate, the Anish Kapoor piece? My parents know the sculptor. He lives in London,” Simone says.
“Except no one in Chicago calls it Cloud Gate,” I explain.
“Okay, then. Does the Bean do anything?” she asks. “Any functionality?”
Incensed, Stephen stops again and puts his hands on his hips. “Does it do anything? Are you seriously asking that? Didn’t your dad recently exhibit a stadium full of garbage? I saw it on the news, with all the old train cars with computer monitors and calculators and stuff spilling out. Reminded me of the roomful of old shoes we saw at the Holocaust Museum on the DC class trip. Friggin’ creepy.”
“Hey, chill.” I step between the two of them, like a referee at a boxing match. This makes Simone chuckle all over again.
“No worries, Kent, I’m a lover, not a fighter. Stephen’s right, that’s what Dad was aiming for with the exhibit,” she tells us.