My dad continues his adventures in the solar energy business. This actually affects my life. Many times I come home and there are important people at the house, foreign investors, local politicians, rich people who are trying to get richer. Always I am introduced and always I shake hands and conduct myself with the utmost dignity.
Caterers appear regularly in our driveway. They smoke sometimes, in secret, behind the bushes by our mailbox. A real espresso machine (from Italy) is installed in our kitchen. That’s probably my favorite thing. The cocktail parties are my least favorite. I don’t like the smell of alcohol wafting up from the living room. Or the strange, half-drunk grown-ups wandering the halls outside my bedroom.
My father’s schedule is unpredictable. One week he’s home in his study working twelve hours a day. The next week he’s off to the East Coast or Japan doing God knows what. My mom and I, when left alone, tend to retreat to different ends of the house. I am grateful for these stretches of solitude. I can catch up on my TiVo watching.
Then, on Tuesday of spring break, we suddenly pack up and fly to Aspen, Colorado, for an emergency work meeting for my dad. My mother is very excited about this. I am too, though I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself in such a place.
It’s a three-hour flight. I sit with my book bag under the seat and a copy of Lord of the Flies in my lap. I think I’m going to read but what I mostly do is think about Stewart. I imagine he’s sitting with me, we’re talking, joking around, holding hands on the armrest. I talk to him in my head, explaining things, my family, how my dad is a workaholic and my mother can’t deal with it, withdraws, and then gets mad at me for no reason.
Or — and this is best of all — I think about the day at his mom’s house: the way his back looked in the afternoon light, the touch of his fingertips, the tiny whisker stubs around his lips and cheeks and sideburns. How strange it was to be so close to someone. And how amazing.
It’s a nice place to be, warm and fuzzy inside my thoughts, replaying certain moments…until my parents interrupt me…or the flight attendant…or we have to put on our seat belts for the landing.…