Time closed in on Oliver. The passing days fell away like a cliff crumbling under his feet. A job at the car wash and its summer tips had been tempting. Opposite Possum wasn’t as formidable as it once was, but Oliver wasn’t ready to step into the shoes of Jason’s old job. Instead, he’d gotten a less lucrative job at a movie theater and spent his days shoveling popcorn into cups only to sweep half of it up from the stadium floors. He didn’t mind the sweeping part because he was never alone and had befriended even his most timid coworkers. He was able to coax conversation from the most resistant with little pressure, and the hours passed quickly from theater to theater.
It was the shoveling part he tried to dodge. The length of conversations behind the concession stand amounted to someone grumbling under their breath, [Insert Manager] is such a(n) [insert expletive]. Popcorn and soda cursed him with time to think about Montana, fast approaching with its vast plains and rocky glaciers. Lost in a trance of ice cubes and carbonated beverages, he had a recurring vision of a bison pawing the tundra and charging at him. The cold burn of soda overflow on his hand snapped him back to California.
The opposite of his life had sounded so melodic when he mailed the lone application. He’d been blindsided in the best way possible, but he was still reeling, unsure where to land. He knew one thing. He didn’t want to follow his girlfriend to college. That kind of codependence was pathetic. He was also sure of another thing. He loved Daphne Bowman. He didn’t want to be apart from her. It seemed impossible.
The only perk of employment was that Oliver’s curfew was erased. After his evening shifts ended, he drove for hours just to drive, lost in contemplation, windows down, night air rapping against his face. He turned home and toppled into bed when the edges of the sky glowed white-blue with the day to come.
• • •
The time of departure had arrived. Oliver resisted his dad’s help with loading his car. Nonetheless, his dad made all of the trips up and down the stairs with him. After the last packed box had been stuffed in the trunk, after Oliver sat on the box because its nook was too small for its volume, after the box cracked and bulged in protest, and after he slammed the trunk door closed with satisfaction, his dad spoke for the first and last time.
“You’re a man. A good man, Oliver. I’m…”
He trailed off and Jason’s shadow receded from Oliver, leaving the late summer sun to blaze down upon only him. The warmth was overwhelming, and the tears in his dad’s eyes added to the heat.
“It’s because of my masterful trunk packing skills, isn’t it?” Oliver grinned.
His dad snickered through a sniffle, and Oliver wrapped his arms around his dad’s back.
His dad squeezed him tight and patted his shoulder blade. “I’m so proud of you.”
After that day in the driveway, Oliver also packed away his resentment for the company name, Pagano and Sons. The dark cloud over the plural was gone.
• • •
The remains of eighteen years littered the floors of Oliver’s disaster area bedroom. The walls were untouched, like the single house still standing after a tornado. The blank walls of his Montana dorm room called to him, and they would display nothing from the past. His mom waded through the discard piles on the floor as he dropped a basketball into the final box for the backseat.
“Starting to look very empty in here.”
“I’m leaving as much as possible, and I’ll be back in December.” Oliver was distraught enough without his parents’ help. “Dad got me in the driveway. Are you guys tag teaming me?”
She sat down on the bed, which meant she had something to say and wouldn’t leave until she was done. “Did you know your great-grandfather built all the furniture he used to sell with his own hands?”
Oliver shook his head and stopped loading the box. He knew his great-grandfather had started the family business, but this was a new revelation in his lineage.
“Beautiful pieces. A true craftsman. He was an artist who made a living selling his art. It became a business when your grandfather took over, because he had no art to give. And your dad and I happened to love the furniture business.”
“I know.”
“But we’re lucky. It was chance that worked out, and we feel blessed.” She took a breath. “The business will be there for you. But if you’re not there for it…” She shrugged. “We’ll sell when we retire. It will all end happily as it arrived.”
Oliver nodded. He wished he could give a more detailed answer, but he didn’t want to accidentally make any promises. His parents deserved better than that, and so did he.
“Montana is awfully far away,” his mom mused.
“So is San Francisco, if that’s what you’re hinting at.” He regretted mentioning San Francisco, giving her a window to pull open the curtains and discuss Daphne. If his mom encouraged him to move to San Francisco, he would further resist doing so. And he didn’t want to resist it.
“No.” She paused and sucked the insides of her teeth. “Oliver, you’re alive. You’re allowed to make mistakes. You’re allowed to change your mind.”
His mom hugged him. It was a preparatory goodbye for the actual goodbye hug in two days. But this one was better because his mom had just forgiven him—for everything. The long hug would stick with him while he drove north to Montana through the rocky hills of wine country, the Pacific at his side. In his mom’s embrace, the tension in Oliver broke apart. He had his answer in the form of a non-answer. There wasn’t a right or wrong choice. His future wasn’t a fork in the road, it was a winding path for him to pave. He might even sign up for an art class. Or graphic design.
• • •
That night, Jason tiptoed into Oliver’s mind, the memory that Oliver always pushed the furthest away, burying it deep within him. Tonight, Oliver let it move, stretch its legs, dance around the insides of his skull.
“Bet you can’t hit it over the fence,” Jason says.
In the backyard, Jason drops his mitt as home plate and takes ten reaching strides in front of it.
“Bet I can.” Oliver touches the mitt with the bat, measures his sweet spot, sets his stance, and hoists the bat over his right shoulder.
Jason winds up and throws. The ball flies at Oliver in slow motion. His swing is swift, and CRACK!
The sound still shakes his bones.
The ball sails over the fence.
“Home run!” Jason chants, throwing his arms over his head. “Better hurry and grow up. The Dodgers need you.”
Seeing his brother’s joy, Oliver’s chest is so full of so many things, ready to explode.
Jason picks up another ball. “Come on. Hit me right here.” He taunts Oliver with a mischievous grin and taps the bridge of his nose.
Oliver tightens his grip on the bat and the ball comes at him, closer, closer, closer.
Swing.
Oliver marched into Jason’s bedroom. He pulled Jason’s mitt from the back of the closet and brushed off the dust. He removed the basketball from the final box and replaced it with the mitt. His chest was half full, half empty with the pride and anguish from the memory. A new force also pushed against his sternum. Empathy.
His brother had suffered, had lost to the darkness. But in whatever capacity, he’d had Emily. Oliver hoped that Jason had the privilege of loving Emily. Loving her with all of his light, however dim. The light that had led Oliver to Daphne.
For the first time, Jason and Emily were a comforting image. They calmed his own trepidation while he waited for the doorbell to ring. It was the last night. The night that had given Oliver a summer of insomnia.
Oliver flung open the door, kissing and lifting Daphne into the air, taking her by surprise. He returned her feet to the porch.
“I’m lucky it was you.” He breathed into her hair, smelling her scent.
“I’m lucky it was me.” Her flush was the best compliment.
“Coffee?” he suggested.
“Sugar and dairy disguising itself as caffeine? Sure.”
Oliver and Daphne sat across from each other at Frank’s Diner, coffee and donuts in front of them. This time, Oliver faced the door.
“Old-fashioned. That says something about your personality.” Oliver creamed and sugared his coffee.
Daphne dipped her old-fashioned into her coffee. “Do tell.”
“You’re a purist. No cream. No sugar. No icing. Just coffee and cake donut. You’re like vanilla: timeless.”
She smiled while chewing. “Tell me that in ten years.”
“I will.” He took a bite of his glazed with sprinkles. “What does my donut say about me?”
“You like sugar and flavorless dyed particles.”
“Essence of my being.” He grinned and took another bite. The same waitress from months ago refilled his mug.
After the tinkling of spoon against ceramic, sweetness dissolving into brew, Oliver pulled out his copy of the list and laid it in front of him. The piece of paper bore the markings of a true adventure, bent at the corners, rumpled in the middle, small tears in the side edges. Everything was accounted for except the blank number ten.
He rapidly jotted on the worn paper and pushed it to the center of the table. New numbers in sharp, black ink trickled down the margin. The list continued, eleven through twenty.
Daphne tossed him her feisty look, the glint in her eyes that made him want to dive across the table and kiss her until his lips were raw, hold her until the sun came up. He wanted to be forever lost in those eyes.
She pulled the list over and scribbled down her number ten. With a flourish, she dropped the pen on the list and sat back in the booth, waiting for him to meet her challenge.
Oliver slid the paper back in front of him and read. He met her gaze with a checkmate grin.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Right now?” She chugged her coffee.
“Right now.”
He took her hand, and they went.