An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes (12 page)

Dante doesn't respond but the story sinks in, works its way into his bones. He feels like crying. He takes a sip of his own drink, which has cooled to a safer temperature.

Mr. Walker continues. “But the world has changed. People can be gay now. Sure, not everyone is going to like it. And some people are still harassed or bullied or even killed because of it. But I just got to a point where I felt like I couldn't live in a tiny room any more. I had to get out. I had to stop lying to everyone.” He sighs. “Don't get me wrong, I hate what it's done to Archie. I hate that he has to suffer because of me.”

“I know what you mean,” Dante says, thinking of his own family. “But Archie will probably come around, Mr. Walker. Just give him some time.”

“I hope so, Dante.” Mr. Walker smiles. “Same with your family.”

As if on cue, Dante's ancient phone rings. It does not vibrate. It does not play some clever ring tone. It actually rings with a digital clatter, like a telephone from the previous millennium that it too is from. Recognizing his grandparents' number, he lets it ring.

“Whoa,” Mr. Walker laughs, eyeing the phone “The nineties are calling. Literally.”

“It's nobody,” Dante says, ignoring it.

“Anyways,” Mr. Walker says. “How about you?”

Dante shifts in his seat. “How about me what?”

“Have you told anyone?”

Dante considers the question. “My grandparents know.”

“Your choice?”

“Not really.”

“How'd they take it?”

“Like they found a bunch of corpses under the floorboards of my room.”

“I'm sorry about that, Dante. Just give them some time. They'll come around.”

“Yeah,” Dante says. “I hope so. But you know what? I've felt pretty bad about it sometimes. But most of the time I actually feel better. Lighter. Like I can finally breathe.”

“I know what you mean. So why haven't you told your friends yet?”

Dante shrugs.

Mr. Walker nods.

They sit quietly for a few moments, and then Mr. Walker speaks again. “Dante, let me give you some advice here: Don't spend your whole life faking who you are. The longer you live that lie, the more you'll destroy yourself. The more you'll end up hurting others.”

“What about your friends?” Dante asks after a moment. “Did they care that you're gay?”

“Not the ones who matter. Sure, when I first came out, some of them were freaked out. A few stopped talking to me right away. A lot of them just gradually drifted away.”

“Oh,” Dante says. His phone again rings with his grandparents' number. He ignores the call but wonders why they're calling when they know—or at least, think—he's at work. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Anyways,” Mr. Walker continues, adjusting his glasses. “My closest friends didn't care. Heck, they knew before I even told them. And having it out there and knowing they still loved me—God, that was the best feeling ever.”

Dante tries to imagine his friends' reactions. “I don't have that many friends to begin with, and if they . . .”

Mr. Walker sighs. “I hate that this world makes us feel like that. Like we're nothing. Worthless. Defective. But trust me, you will not be alone. There will
always
be people, both gay and straight, who want to be your friend, Dante, so long as you're a decent human being and so long as you're a good friend back to them—hell, even people who aren't decent human beings manage to find friends.”

Dante's phone rings for a third time. He sees that it's his grandparents again. He starts to worry it's an emergency.

“Sorry,” Dante says, pushing back his chair. “I have to take this.”

“No problem,” Mr. Walker says.

Dante makes his way to the foyer. It's still kind of loud with the heavy rain outside, but it's slightly quieter than inside the shop. He covers one ear with a hand and then presses the phone to the other. “Grandpa? Everything okay?”

There's a silence at the other end for a few beats, and then his grandpa's voice. “Get home right this minute.”

“Everything all right?” Dante asks. “Is grandma okay?”

“I said get home. Right now.”

“If it's an emergency I can probably leave, but I'm at work—”

“Do not lie to me anymore, boy. Your friend Mari came by looking for you. Said you weren't at work. So get home. Now.”

Dante starts to speak, but his grandpa has already ended the call. A sinking feeling settles in the pit of Dante's stomach. He heads back inside the coffee shop and quickly approaches Mr. Walker.

“Sorry, but I've got to go,” Dante says, pushing in his chair. “Thanks for your advice.”

Mr. Walker raises his cup. “Anytime. You in trouble?”

“Yeah.”

“You probably don't want to hear this, but I'm sure they love you more than you can imagine. They just want what's best for you. Your grandparents are probably right most of the time, but everybody makes mistakes. It might take a while for them to figure this one out.”

Dante nods.

“Well, I really appreciate you talking to me. You're a great kid.” Before Dante walks away, Mr. Walker asks, “Can you do me a favor, though?”

“Maybe.”

“Try to get Archie to talk to me. That's all I want. For him to hear me out. Hear my story.”

“I'll try, Mr. Walker,” Dante says and then makes his way to the exit.

He stands at the threshold contemplating the gray sky. He watches the clouds flash with lightning, and then drops his eyes to the street where people rush past holding umbrellas or pulling their jackets over their heads.

Dante walks into the rain.

Sarah shifts and ruins everything. Sam tries to reposition his body against her, but she's already out of the bed. He pauses the show playing on the television.

Looking at her phone, Sarah says, “Sorry, I have to take this.”

“Who is it?” he asks.

But she's already headed up the basement stairs, laughing with someone else.

Sam sighs. He moves into her vacated spot. It is still warm and smelling of vanilla. He denies the existence of everything and anyone else.

By the time her warmth and scent have dissipated, Sarah still has not returned. Sam stares at the screen where the episode's protagonist is paused, floating helplessly through space. He had been on a mission. He succeeded, but his fighter was damaged so he had to eject. Now he drifts, hoping his crew will somehow find him amidst all that vast and infinitely expanding silence. To make matters worse, his suit is leaking oxygen. A light inside his helmet illuminates his desperate face as he drifts through a field of stars.

Sam waits a couple more minutes.

“Sarah?” He rolls onto his back. He gazes at the exposed beams of the basement ceiling, where a few glow-in-the-dark stars still stick to the rotting wood. There used to be more, there used to be a whole galaxy of constellations glowing a pale green overhead whenever it was dark enough. But over the years, the cheap adhesive had failed, and most of the plastic stars had fallen, their descent nowhere near as awe-inspiring as that of their celestial counterparts.

Sitting up, he clicks play, and the lost pilot continues to drift through the void. Sam wishes that he could give the stranded man the air in his own lungs, that he could call the crew and alert them to the emergency. But since he can't, he holds his breath in solidarity.

By the end of the episode, the crew has saved the pilot in the nick of time, just as his oxygen meter went red and he lost consciousness. Sam lets the credits roll, still in the trance of the narrative.

He hears Sarah making her way down the steps just as the TV screen goes black.

“Is it over already?” Sarah says. She drops back onto the bed next to Sam and kisses his cheek.

“Who was it?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“On the phone.”

“Oh. Jenny. She wanted to know if I—if we—wanted to come to this show with her tonight. Her boyfriend's band is opening. So what do you say?”

Sam pulls the blankets around his shoulders. “Meh. I think I'd rather just stay in with you and watch a few more episodes.”

Sarah rolls her eyes. “You've seen
Battlestar Galactica
like a billion times. How many chances will you get to see Jenny's boyfriend's band?”

“I hate going to those shows.” Sam props up his head against the basement wall. “I'm always the only guy not wearing skinny jeans, a flannel shirt, and horn-rimmed glasses. The only guy without a beard. And there are never any seats. And everyone's always pressing up against you. It's suffocating. And I never know the words. So I always just end up standing there like an idiot while everyone else sings along. It's the worst. But this,” Sam gestures to the screen, “this is genius.”

“But you already know what happens.”

“Yeah, but what makes the story great is that you know all of this and still you believe that there's a chance they're not going to make it,” Sam says, letting his head slip back down to the bed.

With this particular episode, he pictures the crew searching some other star system while the pilot's oxygen runs out. He imagines the body, preserved by the cold vacuum of outer space, quietly passing planets, undiscovered right up until the universe ends. There's something in this scenario that calls to Sam.

“Yeah,
you
,” Sara says. “Not
me
.”

Sam sighs.

Sarah reaches beneath the covers and pinches Sam's butt. “Anyways. It's cool if you want to stay in and be Old Man Sam, but I'm going out on the town.”

“Whatever,” Sam says. “Want to make out for a little first?”

“Sorry, Samwise. Jenny wanted me to meet up with her ASAP.”

“Bye, then.”

“Bye.”

Sam watches her go. He listens to her waning footfalls on the floor that is his ceiling.

A plastic star falls and lands on his face.

Sam watches the steam rise off his rice. Dishes clink softly around him like white noise.

“Earth to Sam?” someone calls from somewhere. Grace elbows him in the ribs, and he emerges from his thoughts.

“Your pather asked you a question,” Sam's mother says in her thick Filipino accent. She means
father
, not
pather
. Even after living in the United States for decades, she's retained her homeland's habit of substituting Ps for Fs.

“
Opo
. Yes, ma'am.”

“Lia Santos,” his father repeats. “The Santos's oldest daughter. Earned a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins. Are you friends with her?”

Sam shrugs.

His father looks around the table, a bemused smile set on the corner of his lips. “Don't you know your Filipino classmates?”

“I didn't know I had any Filipino classmates.”

“Bah. That's a shame. I knew everyone in my school back in Batangas. I was class president every year.” He beams at the memory while dipping a
lumpia
roll in a shallow dish containing vinegar and pepper.

Sam and Grace exchange a knowing look, having heard their father recite this fact a million times. Of course, he always forgets to mention that there were about twenty kids in his village school.

Forgoing the large bowl of
sinigang
in the middle of the table, Sam grabs a couple pieces of leftover fried chicken from a plate next to the soup. It was from three nights ago, but that's how things work at Sam's house. Food reappears at every meal until all of it has been eaten.

“How is that essay coming along, Grace?” his father asks his sister, referring to her summer assignment for her advanced English class.

“Fine,” Grace mumbles without looking up from her food.

Their father grunts with approval. “Good. You need to keep getting good grades. Then you can get a full scholarship to Princeton. Or Harvard. Maybe in a few years the Santoses will be sitting around dinner talking about you!”

He laughs, as if this were some joke instead of a thinly veiled jab at Sam's academic mediocrity.

Everyone falls back into silence as they continue to eat. Sam tries to finish his meal as quickly as possible so he can return to the basement and text Sarah about hanging out later that night.

He thinks of last week, when he told Sarah a stupid joke that made her snort with laughter. He then thinks of all the times he made her laugh, and then all the times he fell asleep with his ear pressed to the phone with her at the other end, and then all of the times he held her close as she whispered into his ear.

That is what matters. Not a summer English assignment. Not grades. Not getting accepted to Harvard. Why doesn't anyone seem to get that?

“May I be excused?” Sam asks, pushing his plate away.

His mother leans forward and examines its contents. She shakes her head. “There's still meat on that chicken. And pinish your rice.”

Sam does not want to finish his rice. Always rice. Every meal. He can't wait to move out and eat like a normal American. But until then, it's either eat the rice or hear his parents nag him about eating the rice. He douses his remaining portion in soy sauce and shoves a spoonful into his mouth.

“So,” his mother says, “what are your plans por tonight, Sam?”

“Hanging out with Sarah,” he answers after he finishes chewing. “Probably.” He hadn't actually heard from her all day.

His father takes a sip from his bottle of San Miguel. “I like Sarah. But I think you're spending too much time with her. It's distracting you from your studies. Your grades have been dropping.” Sam does not point out that they were never very high to begin with. “And since you have no scholarship, your mother and I think you should start working at the restaurant again so you can save up.”