I still wonder what would have happened if Dad had said yes—whether Brandon and I could have saved ourselves from this mess by letting people watch us scramble to keep ourselves out of a debtors’ colony.
But Dad would never have said yes. “Sincerity facilitates meaningful connection,” he always said. No, Dad. Financial solvency facilitates meaningful connection.
Also, being alive so you can care for your children instead of saddling them with your debt. That would facilitate a meaningful connection too.
“I’ve got seven boxes in the back,” I tell Saint Professor. “You think about how much you’re willing to pay for those boxes. And it’s going to include that notebook in your pocket. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I leave him boggle-eyed and swing by the booth of boys from my school. “You ordering or not? Because if you’re not, I’m going to give your table to that business type in the lobby over there who looks like she wouldn’t mind getting into a screaming match with me if it meant increasing advertising for her company.”
The guy from math class lifts his eyebrows. He seems duly impressed with me. “What’re you doing when you get off work?” he asks. “Want to go to the lake?”
I form an image of me dangling my bare feet over the side of a dock, sharing a bag of pretzels with a decent-looking guy who appreciates me less for my taste in tight jeans and more for my ability to win a Math Bowl and chew out obnoxious customers.
But then I come back to reality, assess his scuffed-up sneakers, and decide sharing a nice moment with a middle-class local isn’t going to keep Brandon off the bus to Debtors’ House.
“Sorry, can’t,” I say. I’m aware of a sharp pain centering in my solar plexus.
I suck it up. I cover the nearest camera with my hand and convince his friends to give me double tips for sneaking them beer-injected foam.
Then I go back to Michael’s table with another Banana Split. A couple of preteen girls have come in from the expo and are huddled a few feet away, recording Michael with their e-frames.
I take a deep breath, plaster on a perky smile, and slide into his booth. “So,” I say, “your friend left his notebook behind and your conscience won’t let you rest until you return it.”
Michael picks dried foam off the table. “He didn’t mean to leave it.” The croak in his voice tells me he’s only hoping it’s true.
I flip open the faded cover and find a scrawled line of text: You will find the Other Place when you look for what is lost. Underneath that is a title written larger: Stories of the Girl Queen.
Michael touches the page, runs a finger over the dents left by the pen. “They’re all about my sister. She’s not really a queen or anything.”
Darn, so he’s not foreign royalty. “She’s the one your friend Dylan was in love with?” I flip through pages covered in dense handwriting. “How come your sister’s not the one trying to return it?” Year after year after year.
“Because I’m the one who wants him to have it back,” he says into the plate of Banana Split. “When he left—well, it was my fault. I thought maybe if I give this back to him . . . I don’t know. I just feel like I owe it to him.” His murky-lake eyes go murkier with some particular brand of sadness. Lamenting A Lost Friendship or, more likely, Guilty About How Things Ended.
I feel like brushing his hair back, patting him on the head, telling him it’ll be all right. But then a heavy weight drops into my stomach. Because what are the chances this Dylan guy is going to show up after all these years?
My mind goes to Brandon and this funny thing he does. I’ll be God, you be Adam, he says. We imitate the figures on the Sistine Chapel—I lounge with my hand barely outstretched, like lazy Adam on his hill. Brandon plays God, straining forward, reaching for my hand with an eager index finger. I’d like to tell Michael: You’re God, and this Dylan guy is Adam.
Michael eyes the girls huddled nearby. “They’re filming me.”
“Don’t look so surprised. You’re a good-looking guy.” I reach across the table and rest my fingertips against his arm.
He looks down at my hand, up at me. His expression darkens. “That’s not going to end well,” he says in a low voice.
I pull back, flooded with embarrassment. “I was just . . .” I can’t meet his gaze. He’s not stupid. He knows when a girl’s trying to get into his wallet.
I glance at the girls who are filming us with their e-frames. A few more have joined them. I think of Brandon and his kind, beady eyes that no one wants to see on camera.
“Look, Michael,” I say. “We both need something. I need money to keep my brother and me from being transferred from a rat-hole debtors’ colony to an even worse rat-hole debtors’ colony. And you need to get your friend’s attention so he’ll come down here and ease whatever’s weighing on your conscience.”
Michael forgets about the second Banana Split.