A Tragic Kind of Wonderful

The sliding glass door to the backyard opens. HJ walks in and Mom slowly slides the door closed again, watching from outside where it’s safe.

Zumi sees HJ bobbing to the music and waves her in. HJ doesn’t pretend to be reluctant. I’ve heard her sing lots of times—in the shower, the car, or randomly when she’s flying high—and I know they’re well matched in their lack of talent. Like me, if I had the guts to stand up and open my mouth.

By the time the song ends, I’m laughing at the both of them. They shake hands, exaggerating like their arms are wet noodles.

“It’s a pleasure to sing with someone as bad as me,” HJ says. “Thank you very much!”

Zumi laughs. “No one ever thanks me for singing!”

I grin. Then I stop. HJ’s holding out the microphone to me.

They both laugh as if something on my face is suddenly hilarious.

Zumi takes pity and says they’ll be my training wheels. They prop me up between them and we sing the next song on the list, “Poker Face,” without either of them calling me out on how I’m silently lip-synching.

“Gimme!” HJ grabs the remote. She scrolls up the list. “Aha! I had lots of machines to choose from, but only one at the store had this …”

She stops scrolling at ABBA: “Take a Chance on Me.”

“Okay,” HJ says. “This time with feeling.”

“And volume,” Zumi whispers in my ear.

Mom steps up. I didn’t hear her come inside. She smiles. “Ready?”

I’m not, but by late afternoon, I’m singing audibly, then loudly, even dancing some. I prove to others what I already knew, that in addition to being a bad singer, I’m also a terrible dancer.

Zumi texts Connor to come over. He does, but he just watches and won’t leave the sofa. Whenever we try to drag him up, he closes his eyes and goes limp till we give up. An hour later, all our phones buzz at the same time. It’s a group text from Annie:

Home. Come over.

“Let’s go!” Zumi runs to retrieve her hoodie from where she’d flung it behind the sofa.

I start to pack up the machine and Mom says, “You’re not taking that, are you? It’s too big for your bike.”

“No,” Zumi says. “Annie hates stuff like karaoke.”

“I’ll put it away,” HJ says. “You guys go and have fun.”

Now I guess we’ll go listen to Annie talk about Napa. I feel a pang watching Zumi scurry with excitement for Annie’s return. I get the feeling, not for the first time, that Zumi might want to be more than Annie’s best friend.

“Text me if you want to stay out late,” Mom says and heads for her room. I hear the door close. Ever since we lost Nolan, on the rare occasions where Mom has fun, she disappears into her room for a while afterward to pay for it.

I often do, too. Not this time, though. Nolan would want me to keep the party going.

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HAMSTER IS RUNNING

HUMMINGBIRD IS PERCHED

HAMMERHEAD IS CRUISING

HANNIGANIMAL IS LEVEL/MIXED

It’s dusk by the time I get home from Dr. Oswald’s office. Dad’s Mercedes is parked on the street. There’s plenty of room in the driveway next to Mom’s old Toyota but he and Mom aren’t together so their cars shouldn’t be together. Dad doesn’t like mixed messages. He hasn’t accepted that we’ve stopped listening to his messages, mixed or otherwise.

I open the front door and wheel my bike inside. I clatter more than necessary. Dad’s sitting at the kitchen table, probably wincing.

While I free my backpack from its bungee and take off my shoes and socks, I imagine a conversation we stopped repeating long ago, the one where he tells me bikes belong in the garage. I say it’s too much hassle. He says it’s more important to do things right. I ask him, what makes it right?

It’s an argument he can’t win—it’s not logical. He’s tried that route, too:

The tires are dirty because they touch the road (so do my shoes).…

The rubber marks the wood floor (so do my shoes).…

I shouldn’t wear shoes inside, either (I couldn’t give a shit and neither could Mom).…

I don’t think everything that happened with Nolan caused the divorce. Mom and Dad were shaky for years before it all blew up. It really came down to Dad thinking there were all kinds of rules about everything. Like you were supposed to wear socks in the house because shoes would scratch the wood floor, but skin oil from bare feet would ruin the finish (maybe in a thousand years). Mom and I couldn’t remember all this stuff, let alone do it right. Dad said there was no need to memorize anything because it was all intuitively obvious.

Not to us, so Dad left to find his true tribe. He’s still looking. We couldn’t afford to keep the house, even with alimony and child support on the first of every month without fail. I didn’t want to stay anyway. I’d withdrawn from everyone and everything by that point and was surrounded by bad memories. Even superpowers have limits.

As soon as I finished middle school, Mom and I moved a hundred miles across the bay here to Costa Vista, south of San Francisco, to the house where Mom grew up with its deeply scratched wood floors. Grandma Cece had previously moved into the Silver Sands Suites and was letting Aunt Joan live here rent-free.

Mom stirs two pots at the same time in the kitchen. She’s already changed out of work clothes and into baggy overalls, her thick auburn hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. We wave to each other and I drop my backpack hard on the dining-room table. Dad’s mouth tightens.

“I’m not packed,” I say, though weekend packing takes five minutes max. “I thought you were coming tomorrow.”

“Sorry, I can’t.” He shakes his head. “I have to go to Monterey. Partners are flying up from LA.”

“I could go to the aquarium.”

“I’ll be busy from morning into the night both days.”

“That’s what the aquarium’s for.”

“Sorry, not this trip.”

I’m sorry, too. I can tell he means it, but I think if he really knew me, the fact that I wasn’t serious about the aquarium would be intuitively obvious.

“How’s school?”

I give him enough fuel to keep the conversation running. I know his motivational technique; he doesn’t express direct disappointment. He just sets the bar ten percent higher than wherever I am. I’m a solid B student, but if I got all As, I’d hear the same speeches about trying harder, applying myself more, taking my future seriously. In Dad’s world, potential is like a rainbow, this beautiful thing you should chase even though it always stays out of reach.

He leaves me and Mom to our penne with generic-brand marinara sauce and garlic bread that’s really toasted sandwich bread with butter and garlic salt. It’s what sent him on his way tonight. Not seeing what we were reduced to eating, but that it’s one of our favorite meals.

“Were his golf clubs in the car?” I ask Mom while we clear the dishes. “Monterey means Pebble Beach.”