Be Good Be Real Be Crazy (4 page)

Homer cleared his throat, sat up straighter, and then spoke. “Mia told me she was going to go stay with her foster sister, the one she's always talking about.”

“Dotty?” Christian asked.

“Dotts,” Homer corrected. “She lives almost at the tip of Cape Cod now. Mia said she would take the bus, but I was thinking I could drive her.”

For a moment, the only sounds in the kitchen were the noises that drifted in through the open window over the sink: the clank of metal storefront gates rising, the rattle of ice cream carts being pulled on the beach, and the screech of seagulls gearing up for another day of snatching unprotected food.

D.B. was the first to speak. “That's a long drive, Homes.”

“I know, but I could make it up and back before Christmas if we leave in a couple of days. I could meet you guys at Grandma's. Maybe even get to Mobile a little early.”

“Homer.” D.B. pressed his palms flat against the table and leaned forward in such a way that Homer could see the patches of gray hair on the top of his head. “It's out of the question. For starters, you've never traveled on your own.”

“That's more of an argument for why I should go.” Homer
decided to play his final card. “What if I want to go to college out of state? Driving Mia to Massachusetts would give me the chance to see other parts of the country. The farthest north I've ever been is Alabama. That's not the kind of traveling you can write about in an application essay.”

“You have plenty to write about, Homer. You live on an island. You have two dads. Your brother's a genius, albeit one who's obsessed with the end of the world—”

“D.B., none of that stuff is about me. It's about geography and why my family's interesting and I'm not.”

“That's not true. What about—”

Christian interrupted. “David, this might not be a bad idea.”

“Really?” Homer couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.

“This trip could be a good introduction to”—Christian paused, considering his words carefully—“places beyond the island. Plus, he'd be doing something nice for a young lady who we all care about deeply.”

“Homes, you think you're up for this?” The pause between “Homes” and the rest of D.B's question was heavy with worry, love, and uncertainty.

Homer nodded. Then he shook his head. Finally, he shrugged. “I don't know. But I want to find out.”

“Wise words,” said Christian, wrapping his hands around D.B.'s. “Ali Isley's wife takes salsa lessons from me. He'll give me a deal on a car. Homer and Mia have phones. And it'll be good for Homer and Einstein to do some bonding. Steiner
spends way too much time taking classes with kids almost twice his age.”

Homer's heart sank, but before he could protest, Einstein shambled into the room. “I'll accept your proposition on one condition,” he said, stumbling when his left foot caught the bottom of his too-long pajama pants.

“Did you know he was there?” D.B. asked, looking at Christian.

“Of course. The perk of sitting by the door: you can see right to the end of the hall, and Einstein was much closer than that.” Christian leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. “All right, what's the condition?”

“That after Homer and I drop off Mia, we drive to the town of Grace Mountains, New Hampshire, and I get to attend the second annual I-9 Institute for the Study of Probable Doom, Existential Risks, and Apocalyptic Possibilities Conference on the Significant Dangers and Slim Rewards of the Giant Atom Accelerator.”

Christian sat up. “Can you explain that in plain English?”

Einstein took a deep breath. “I'd like to attend an educational two-day conference where the greatest scientist in the world will speak about the ways that a test run of a very, very big machine that is designed to make atoms go very, very fast could cause the destruction of life as we know it on December twentieth at eleven fifty-nine p.m.”

“Not exactly an uplifting topic,” Christian said, frowning.

Einstein crossed his arms. “My offer ensures that I will not spend the majority of my winter break either begging you for rides to the university labs or shutting myself in my room and listening to Apollo Aces's new album at the highest possible volume on a stereo system that I have modified to achieve a decibel level of one hundred and fifteen, which is just five decibels shy of the sound level at a rock concert. Do you accept my terms?”

“I accept.” Homer raised his hand. “If taking Einstein to a nerd convention means we can go, I accept.”

D.B. hunched his shoulders. Homer thought he was trying not to laugh, but when he spoke it sounded more like he was trying not to cry. “Okay.”

“Okay?” asked Homer.

“Okay.” D.B. stood up and walked his dancer's walk, heel to toe, across the kitchen. When he got to the doorframe, he rapped his knuckles against the bright-blue surface.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“There'll be rules. You're going to call every day. I want an itinerary. And . . . I'll think of the rest.”

“Okay,” Homer said.

“Okay,” D.B. said. “Now, I just need a minute to . . .” His voice trailed off as he disappeared down the hall.

At the sound of the front door slapping shut, Christian turned around from watching D.B. leave and fixed his eyes on a deep scratch in the table. Any hint of the smile he'd had during Einstein's presentation was gone. “Don't worry. Your dad will be himself in a bit. He's very protective. He has reasons to be.”

“Like what?” said Einstein, “It's not like Homer and I get in trouble—ever.”

“Most places aren't like the island. The real world”—Christian made air quotes on “real world”—“isn't as accepting of people who don't fit its models. Many people see ‘different' as a danger. This scares them.” Christian pressed two fingers to the space between his eyes. “When people get scared, they do stupid things. Some get mean. Some angry. Some violent. Your dad experienced all three.” Christian sighed as he stood up. “But those are his stories to tell you someday.”

“Okay.” Homer had more questions, but he held them in.

Christian yawned, stretching his arms above his head. “Why don't you two go tell Mia the plan, if she's awake.”

Einstein waited until Christian had walked beyond the kitchen and out of sight before he spoke. “You really think the way to get Mia to stay here is to drive her eighteen hundred miles away?”

“How'd you—”

Einstein held up his hands like he was surrendering a weapon. “Homes, you're about as opaque as a beaker—and you left your list of ‘Ideas to Convince Mia' open on the living room computer. You'll need to add this one: ‘Take a very, very, very long road trip.'”

Normally, Einstein's egomaniac-professor voice would have made Homer laugh, but today he was too tired and nervous. “I've got to try something.”

“To quote the great astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, ‘Things cannot make themselves impossible.' Not even one-sided love.” Einstein patted his brother's arm as he left the kitchen. “I added that last part. Good luck. You're going to need it.”

Homer waited until he was alone to respond.

“I know.”

THE ORDINARY GUY WAS
a newspaper without cartoons. He was unflavored oatmeal and caffeine-free diet soda. He was an earth-toned T-shirt paired with stainproof khakis. The human equivalent of waiting in line at a post office or reading through the fine print of a terms-and-conditions agreement.

In other words . . .

He was uninteresting.

He was boring.

He was sheltered and naive.

He was ordinary.

Once upon a time, the Ordinary Guy hadn't been aware of his unspectacular state. Indeed, he didn't realize until ninth grade—when he hit his third growth spurt—how remarkably unremarkable he was. In high school, suddenly the same kids he'd been in classes with since kindergarten wanted to stick out
instead of blend in. They were competing for superlatives while fighting the status quo.

The Best
soccer player!

The Smartest
class president!

The Greatest
artist!

Even being
The Worst!
at something was considered a kind of achievement.

At first, the Ordinary Guy aspired to be interesting. He tried on different selves as though they were T-shirts from a sales rack—but none of them quite fit. Freshman year, he joined (and left) almost every club at Plátanos High: debate, poetry, robotics, et cetera. Sophomore year, he
really
put an effort into liking sports—soccer and baseball, specifically—but realized that being just good enough to make JV meant he spent most of his time sitting on a bench or shading his eyes in the outfield. By the spring of the Ordinary Guy's junior year, he just about gave up on “interesting.”

And then a
very
interesting girl with an amazing face and a generous heart came into his life, and due to a crack in the cosmos, a wobble in the Earth's rotation, divine pity raining from the heavens, or some similarly fantastical reason, she thought the Ordinary Guy was a lot of things he wasn't: funny, smart, talented, and (possibly) charming.

Unfortunately, the fact that this extraordinary girl made the Ordinary Guy feel better than ordinary—special, even—didn't solve all his problems. Rather, this friendship created a new
complication. For it should be recognized as a natural law that the difficulty of making decisions about the future is directly proportional to the amount of internal entropy created by love.

The Ordinary Guy concluded that what he needed was a change of place. A shake-up of geography. Of the predictable. The routine.

Save for his heart—as the saying goes—the Ordinary Guy had nothing to lose.

WHEN HOMER WOKE UP THE
morning of December twelfth, the weak ribbons of daylight that slipped between the window blinds were still two feet away from reaching the office carpet. He had hours before anyone else in the house would be awake, but falling back asleep was impossible.

Homer stared at the water stain on the ceiling and tried to think about logistics.
Did I pack enough T-shirts? Should I get more deodorant? Do the red sneakers smell better than my running shoes?
It wasn't long, however, before his mind turned to Mia.

Sometimes, he thought about random things, like how her smile stretched across her whole face in a way that made it impossible not to smile back and how amazing her hair looked when thick clouds pressed the humidity against the earth and the dense air made all the strands around her face curl. How the muscles in her legs popped when she walked in sand. How smooth the skin in the dip between her shoulder blades would
feel under his fingertips.

Other times, his thoughts led him to places he didn't like to go. To remembering how much he liked her and how sometimes liking her hurt even more than being caught in a riptide.

Homer picked up a throw pillow and pressed it to his face, silently repeating,
She's pregnant. She doesn't feel the same. She's pregnant. She doesn't feel the same.
Soon the sentences became garbled:
She feel pregnant
.
Same doesn't she's.

The fact that Homer hadn't gotten much sleep the past three nights was definitely not helping him control his brain.

The morning light was still over a foot from reaching the office carpet, but Homer couldn't lie on the lumpy mattress any longer. He got to his feet and pulled on a T-shirt, thinking as he folded the bed back into a sofa,
Holy shit
.
We're leaving. Today.

Mia and Einstein were already outside when Homer heard tires crunching on the gravel driveway, followed by a horn that sounded like a flock of mournful ducks quacking.

Time's up.
Homer didn't bother trying to zip up his overstuffed bag. He flung the straps over his shoulder, took one final look around his room, and then pounded down the steps and out to the porch, where he found Mia and Einstein staring straight ahead with their mouths slightly open.

“Hey, what are you— Oh, wow.” Homer stopped by the front railing. “So that's it?”

“Indeed,” Einstein said, his expression puzzled, like he'd
heard the punch line but missed the joke.

“Well,” Mia said, turning her head to the side as though she was trying to get a better angle. “It's certainly . . . yellow.”

“Yup,” said Homer.

“That it is,” said Einstein.

All three of them stared, silently watching Christian as he used an old T-shirt to polish the dashboard, the steering wheel, and any other place he could reach from the driver's seat.

“The banana . . . hood ornament thingie . . . ,” Mia continued haltingly. “I think it
could
grow on me. On
us
. If we try really, really hard.”

“It will be hard,” said Homer.

“Exorbitantly,” said Einstein.

Silence.

“Soooo.” Mia wiggled her toes in a wave—one way, then the other. “Christian looks happy. He must have gotten a good deal.”

“I hope he did,” said Homer.

“I concur,” said Einstein.

More silence.

“We could call it the Banana-mobile. You know? Because of the color—and the hood ornament.” Mia put her hands on her hips. “The thing is, I can't decide if I hate it or love it.” She pressed a finger to her lips, considering her options. “I love it. The yellow grew on me.”

“That quickly?” Homer asked.

“Yup. Yup. Yup.” Mia took one step per “yup” as she hopped down from the porch. “Christian, are the cup holders big enough for Slurpees? Tadpole loves, loves, loves Slurpees.” She did a funny walk-jog-skip to the yellow car and then circled it, running one hand over the bright paint while Christian, from the inside, pointed and gave explanations that Homer couldn't hear.

Homer, his raised left eyebrow a silent question, glanced at his brother.

Einstein shrugged in response. “Maybe it has an excellent fuel efficiency rating.”

“Okay.” Homer picked up his bag. “Let's check it out and load up the rest of the stuff.” He and Einstein were halfway down the front walk when the screen door screeched open behind them.

“Few more safety items,” D.B. said, nodding at the two cardboard boxes he held balanced in his arms. “Extra bandages, more of Einstein's Lac-Fab pills, road flares, that kind of thing.” He walked down the stairs two at a time and hurried toward the car's trunk as if he were afraid Homer or Einstein would protest the additional boxes.

“You guys ready to go?” Christian slammed the driver's-side door shut and clapped his hands together as he walked toward the house. He stopped and put an arm around Einstein's shoulders. “Would you believe I only paid Ali one thousand dollars for this?”

“Not sure ‘only' is the right word,” Einstein mumbled.

Mia had made her way back toward the house slowly, as though she was worried about interrupting. But when she reached Christian and flung her arms around his neck, all hesitancy vanished. “Thank you. It's a great car. Thank you so much, for everything. This has been the best place I've ever lived.”

“Really?” D.B. said before he slammed the trunk hard enough to make the whole ugly, yellow car rattle. He still had to press down and jump on the lid before it clicked shut. “Jesus.” He wiped an arm across his forehead. “The trunk hinges need some oil or nonstick spray or something.” He circled around the side of the car to stand in front of Christian. “Mia, I have to say it one more time. If you get lonely up there or overwhelmed, Christian and I would love to have you.”

“I know,” Mia said, stepping out of Christian's hug and vigorously shaking her head. “And I can't thank you enough for everything you all have done for me. You've been crazy generous.” She shaded her eyes and stared so intently toward the place where the white sand of the beach met the turquoise water that Homer knew she was committing it to memory. “It's so beautiful here, but I think Glory-Be-by-the-Sea is going to be great. Me and Dotts, we're going to help each other. I'll get a job. Maybe take some classes. We'll get books and read to Tadpole.” Mia circled her arms around D.B.'s waist. “It will be super.”

D.B. caught Homer's eye. He smiled knowingly and wiped his eyes on his left arm while he hugged Mia back with his right. As soon as she stepped away, D.B. pulled Homer and Einstein into a hug so tight, Homer felt like his nose was getting pushed in. “I'm going to miss you two so much.” His extra squeeze on “so” caused Homer's elbow to press against Einstein's right cheek.

“Ow. That hurts.” Einstein wiggled back and forth until his face was no longer smashed quite so much against Homer's arm.

“Yes.” D.B. sighed loudly, but his usual levity was back. “Love does hurt, son. You don't need to be a genius to know that.” D.B. shifted from side to side, leading Homer and Einstein in a slow circle.

“Oh, why are these here?” D.B. dropped his arms. Homer took a grateful breath as he turned around to see Mia standing by the open passenger-side door, a plastic-wrapped rectangle held above her head. “There's like a gazillion of them in here.”

D.B. clapped his hands. “Disposable cameras. I thought they'd come in handy.”

Einstein must have given D.B. some kind of look, because he threw his arms up with exaggerated exasperation. “Come on. Disposable cameras are a thing again. They're hip. Cool. Off the heezy. The bomb diggity.”

“Please stop,” Einstein interrupted. “I'm socially inept, and you trying to be cool makes
me
feel awkward.”

D.B. rolled his eyes. “Now that I feel my age, you kids need to take off before I have an old-man meltdown. Homer, you'll call every night?”

Homer nodded.

“What are you waiting for, then?” Christian put an arm around D.B.'s shoulders and tossed a single key on a ring with a pineapple charm to Homer. “Get on the road. Go crazy. Have fun. Be happy.”

“Be safe,” D.B. said, his eyebrows pinched as if he were trying to remember something else he meant to say. “And be kind to people—even if they're not kind to you.”

Homer pressed the sharp side of the key against his thumb. “Okay,” he said, throwing his bag into the back of the bright-yellow car and then sliding into the driver's seat. “We'll see you soon.” He waited until Mia and Einstein closed their doors and clicked their seat belts before he shifted the most hideous vehicle in the world into drive.