I try not to alter the lives I borrow for a day. But sometimes it can’t be helped.
Paul Deringer should not present much of a challenge. His morning doesn’t hold any surprises—his room is straightforward, his family is straightforward, and his schedule, when I access it, is straightforward. When I get to school, his friends are friendly. This in itself seems straightforward, but with some people there are subterranean currents beneath every interaction; they treat their friendships as politics and their lives as performance. Luckily Paul is not like that, and neither are his friends.
One friend is clearly his closest—checking his memories, I know that Nicole is the one he looks for first in the crowd, the one he will always sneak away at lunch to be with. They are not dating—the memories are clear in showing that. But they use the fact that neither of them is dating as a way to spend all the time together that would ordinarily be spent with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Timewise, it’s almost the same as dating. Heartwise, too. There just isn’t any kissing. Or at least none that I can find.
There’s a zero-tolerance policy about phones in this school, so the only way to communicate in class is to pass notes. Nicole and Paul always sit next to each other, to make this easier. I’ll admit: I find passing notes with Nicole to be more interesting than class. She’s clever, and I have to challenge myself to be clever, too. Or at least until we get to what Nicole calls “surrealist knock-knock jokes.” Then we’re just silly.
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Lemon.
Lemon who?
Lemon walrus teacup.
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Ginger.
Ginger who?
Ginger ninja cereal bowler.
Is that bowler as in hat, or bowler as in one who bowls?
It’s an owler who married a b, and the b took her last name.
It doesn’t surprise me at the end of the day when Nicole tells me we have plans. Instead of heading to my bus, I’m commandeered into walking beside her, back to her house. When we get there, she aims straight for the kitchen, saying, “Help yourself to anything.” Quickly I access the geography of her house, which Paul is more than familiar with. Then I access the things he usually eats when he’s there. One has to be very careful around best friends, because a wrong move can be read as momentous. I’ve been in situations where I’ve reached for a soda and as a result have been lectured about how I will do anything to be popular, even drink what the popular kids drink.
I go for some pretzels, and Nicole’s lack of commentary means I’m safe. I figure we’ll set up in the den or the kitchen, since I’m a boy today and she’s a girl, and most parents have the mistaken notion that if a boy and a girl are alone in a room with a bed, pregnancy will ensue. But Nicole’s parents must not fear that from me, because she picks up her book bag and leads me onward. When we get to her room, she stretches out on the floor, unpacking her books and pulling out a pen. I take my space beside her, my body eventually semiicircling around my homework. From above we must look like a pair of parentheses, with open pages between us.
Human beings act very much like storms when there’s something to say. Very rarely in nature does a deluge catch you by complete surprise. There are the signs before—the sky darkening, the wind picking up, the air smelling like rain even before a drop has hit. With Nicole, the sky darkens when I look up to find her watching me do my homework. The wind picks up when she quickly looks away. The air smells like rain when she second-guesses, and looks at me again.
Paul might ask, “What is it?” Or he’d already know what it is. But for me, the storm remains nameless. I try to dodge it. I go back to my homework. I read the science textbook like my life depends on it.
This only angers her more.
She’s abandoned any pretense of studying. She is watching me, sending the first wave of rain over to me, the dare so clear. I am supposed to look up at her. I am supposed to meet her eye. Time will not let me go forward until I do.
I try to keep reading, even though the words dodge my focus. I turn the page when enough time has gone by for me to be due to turn the page.
“Paul.”
She’s moved her foot over to mine, and it stays there. Presses.
I look up. “What?”
“What?” she mimics.
I know she thinks my incomprehension is fake, but it’s real.
She sighs. Then says, “Knock, knock.”
I respond with the unavoidable, “Who’s there?”
“Water.”
“Water who?”
“Water we doing?”
I try to keep my voice light. “Homework?”
“No. I mean, what are we doing?”
The storm now shows, and it’s inside of her. It’s been inside of her all along. I don’t know if Paul would recognize it, but I do. His memories might show that they’re better off friends, that they were never meant to date—but that’s not her version.
And today, of all days, is when she’s going to call him on it.
Once the storm comes out, the landscape changes. What you had before is altered in some way. And you have a choice: build something new and better from what’s left, or abandon it.
It is lonely in the eye. As we sit there in the pause, as she stares at me, awaiting a response, as I see the things I could say and wonder which one to grasp for, I feel profoundly alone in myself. Reading people is a talent that I have developed, but in the end, that’s all it is—reading. Reading is not life. Reading is creating life in your head. And that can only help you so much in a storm.
I try not to alter the lives I borrow for a day, but sometimes I have no choice. Or, more accurately, I am given a choice, and I have to make it. One way or the other.
“What are we doing?” I say.
“Yes,” Nicole says, her foot moving lightly over my ankle. “What are we doing?”
I look away—I can’t do this while looking at her—and say, quietly, “I think we’re doing homework.”
She sits up, moves her foot away. I move my eyes back to the textbook.
I am telling myself it would be worse to say yes to her now and then have Paul take it away tomorrow. I am telling myself that if I make it casual enough, we can make it through the next hour, and that the conversation can be revisited tomorrow, or another day, when Paul is back. I am lying to myself that a storm can be put back inside a person, bottled up and preserved. I know I am lying to myself, but I also choose to believe it.
My instinct is that he doesn’t want to kiss her, that he’s never wanted to kiss her. But I wonder if that’s his detachment or mine.
We last five more minutes in that room. Then Nicole says she has to go downstairs for a second, and doesn’t come back up for a half hour. When she’s back, I want to ask her if she’s okay. But I have no idea whether that will make things better or worse. So I stay quiet, and then ten minutes later I say I have to go. She doesn’t protest.
I can’t just leave it like this. I can’t. So after my bag is packed, after she makes no move to walk me to the front door, I linger in her room for a second, then say, “I’m sorry. I just need to think. I can’t think right now. And I need to.”
It’s not enough. I can see that in her face. It’s not. The only hope I have is that over time it will grow to be enough. Or that whatever step Paul takes next will make it enough. Once I’m gone.
As I walk home, I stop accessing and try to navigate by instinct. Where do I think I should go? Which way is Paul’s home? I try to sense where the body wants me to be, which street feels more familiar, which direction feels inherently right.
I get horribly lost.