The Summer We Came to Life (3 page)

This isn't how it was supposed to be.

It's not freaking fair that life gets to muck around in our plans like this.

I sound like Kendra, don't I?

But we were supposed to be friends for another fifty years. Friends that wrinkle and giggle and whine through the flagging days of youth into our eccentric golden years. I can't grow old without you. That can't be what's meant to be.

Obviously today was not a good day, seeing you like that.

Sigh. Okay. Let's move from
the world is against us
to
us against the world.

For physicists, the Holy Grail is the
Theory of Everything
—a single mathematical theory in which the equations of the microscopic world agree with the macroscopic world we experience. A theory that would explain:

What is life? When does a soul/human being become or stop being itself? Roe v. Wade but even deeper.

Imagine a single theory that unites biology, philosophy and supernatural phenomenon.

I'm sitting here amongst a mountain of my old textbooks and new ones, so at least we know we're not the first ones to have gone this route. I'll keep you posted. But right now I'm freaking exhausted, and I still want to go to the hospital with you tomorrow, butt crack early, as promised.

xoxo

—Sam.

THE NEXT DAY I WAS ROLLER-SKATING AGAIN, chastising myself for letting Isabel talk me into letting her take a cab. She was late and her cell phone went straight to voice mail.

And there are no addresses in Tegucigalpa. Not numerical, maplike directions anyway. Instructions to my apartment translated as “up the hill near the electronics store, past the police headquarters, before the gated neighborhood at the top.” Isabel could be dead. Car accidents in Honduras were like blue skies in California. Isabel was probably dead and it was my fault.

Argh. This was the thing—I was losing my grip on my identity. The old Samantha didn't worry. She lived and breathed a world that was safe, exciting and ultimately fair. Now the two incarnations of me were at war.

A rap at the front door interrupted the battle. I stumbled out of my skates and made for the door.

A flash of dark hair and aquamarine eyes leaped into my
arms. Isabel stepped back to look me over then wrapped me back up in another hug.

She put two slender, perfectly manicured hands on either side of my face. “Man, it's good to see you!”

What do you get when you mix an American supermodel with a Panamanian heartthrob? Isabel Brighton was so stunningly beautiful, you never remembered
how
beautiful and always ended up speechless. And I'd known her for over twenty years. Fresh from a filthy cab ride, Isabel looked like she'd stepped out of a magazine ad. Her tan platform sandals and her crimson toenails matched her fedora. You would never know that this girl was the archangel for the world's poor. Which was the only reason I'd let her take a cab by herself. Isabel was nobody's fool.

She swatted me with her purse. “Lemme in, I'm beat. I need to sit—” Isabel looked around the empty living room. She burst out laughing. “You are hilarious. You are aware you have four adults coming to visit, right?” I loved how we weren't considered adults most of the time. But then I frowned.

“I can't believe Kendra's not coming. You believe her about work? It doesn't make sense. I mean,
you
got off work.”

Isabel frowned, too, but she didn't respond. Instead, she beelined for the kitchen. “So whatcha got in the way of refreshments for a weary traveler?” She opened the fridge and took out two Port Royals, the local beer.

I looked at my phone. It was three o'clock. Isabel arched an eyebrow and shoved the beer further toward me. “I've got bad news.”

 

We sat in the chairs with our feet up on the railing. Isabel had her skinny second toe crossed over her big toe. It was no party trick. That's the thing about being someone's friend that long—you know all their ticks and their warning signs, usually better than they do. The toe thing meant her mind
was off wrestling an alligator. Isabel hated to complain. She also hated to mope, belabor or reveal any amount of vulnerability. I knew it would take some careful best-friend maneuvering before she told me what was wrong.

“I got canned.”

Or maybe not. I studied her face for clues of what she wanted me to say. “And now you can take those tightrope-walking lessons we always talked about?”

She giggled. The one thing that always gave no-nonsense Isabel away—her schoolgirl giggle. She sighed. “I think you had it right all along. Live free in exotic locales watching the sunset, not chained to a desk, drowning in case studies of awful things happening to people who don't deserve it.”

For the first time, I could see little lines under Isabel's eyes.

“Ha. Hate to break it to ya, but I'm having a crisis in the exact opposite direction, wondering what the hell I've done with my life.”

Isabel turned to look at me, her turquoise irises narrowing. “Oh, jeez, don't ruin this for me. I'm one inch away from moving here to work in an ice-cream store.”

I nudged her foot with my toes. “What happened?”

“Oh, you know, just that the economy is shit and
obviously
the first thing we should do is abandon the people that need the most help. Makes sense to cut back funding on the ones that will probably die anyway, right?”

Her compassion moved me. She wasn't worried about herself. God, all I'd been worrying about lately was myself. I felt ashamed.

“So, then you got laid off, not fired?”

“Does it matter? I'm tired of trying to change things that are never going to change, Sam. Poverty, corruption, disease. For as long as there have been human beings, there has been evil.”

I'd never heard Isabel talk like that. She rubbed her temples
and continued. “We all die alone anyway, don't we? Why do anything except try to be happy—bum around the world and have fun.”

She wasn't trying to insult me, but it cut deep anyway. She noticed.

“No, I'm being serious. It's not only my job. Ever since Mina's death I just don't see the point of drudgery in the face of this—” She waved her hand across the balmy, admittedly beautiful skyline of Tegucigalpa. “But—”

But that would make you question every single thing about who you are,
I thought.

“But then I wouldn't know who I was anymore.”

I raised my beer. “Welcome to my world.”

Isabel looked at me long and hard. She clinked beers, but then lifted up my left hand. “Okay, lady. Talk to me about Remy.”

I looked at my finger where there would be a ring if I hadn't buried it deep in my suitcase. “He's getting me a better one anyway.” But I knew Isabel didn't care about the carats. “Look, I panicked. If I'd said no, I wouldn't have had any time to think about it.”

Isabel laughed, not exactly nicely. “You are one of a kind, my friend.”

I stuck out my tongue.

“So you don't think maybe
he
panicked? Forty-three is getting old. And you're a little American hottie. Time to lock it down? Make some babies?”

“Hey, thanks but watch it. Yes, he might have rushed a lit tle, in order to ask me before I left the continent. But he knows me well enough to let me travel freely. I think it's sweet.”

“Or manipulative.” Isabel didn't believe in marriage. She thought it was an outdated arrangement that led inevitably to female sacrifice, a lesson gleaned from her mother's devotion
to the single life. Jesse was the closest thing I had to a mom, but I'd somehow managed to hang on to a belief in love.

“You haven't even met him.”

Isabel whipped toward me so fast her hair boomeranged around her face and back. “Exactly.”

No shy violets in our group. But she was right. I was in no real position to make this into a
me against the world
situation. I didn't know what the hell I wanted yet. “He makes me feel safe. I've never had much of a family, wasn't ever sure I wanted one of my own. But I do. And it might not be so bad to have someone to take care of me for a change.”

The look on Isabel's face killed me. That wasn't what I meant at all, but now I saw what really scared her. I backtracked. “Oh, come on, you know we'll always have each other. But—”

Isabel looked like she might cry, except that Isabel never cried. She shook her head. “No, look, you're right. We will always have each other, but it's not the same as a boyfriend. Or a husband,” she added begrudgingly. “Anyway—what kind of friend would I be to talk you out of marrying a rich, famous French movie director?” Isabel winked.

WE SPENT THE WHOLE REST OF THE DAY CHATTING and catching up. It felt marvelous to have her there. I completely forgot not to laugh, and the sound warmed the empty apartment like a day at the beach.

Later, while Isabel showered to go meet the others at the airport, I wandered onto the balcony with Mina's journal. I didn't have a specific question; I just missed her. This was exactly what I dreaded happening, that bonding with Isabel would fill me with guilt. It was one thing when after Mina's death we sat around and talked about her nonstop, but it seemed so unforgivably unfair for our lives to go on and for us to be together and happy.

November 8
Mina

You came to visit me twice today. I can't stand seeing you afraid. Sammy, you have the worst poker face I've ever seen. Forget
what the doctors say, I know how I'm doing by the look on your face when you walk in my room. But I appreciate that you never lie to me. You don't tell me that everything's okay, like Kendra. You don't sugarcoat.

So, when you get excited, I get excited because I know it's genuine. Thanks for my quantum physics “crash course” this week. Nice use of diagrams, you nerd. LOL. I don't pretend to understand it all, but it's fascinating stuff. And let's face it—otherwise, kiddo, we're stuck with Rose Eynden's “So You Want to Be a Medium.” Ha-ha.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you, for doing this for me, and give you a little reminder to never give up. I mean, move on, be happy, but keep trying to find me. Just in case.

I'm not ready, Sam. I'm not ready to leave you guys.

 

I looked out across the city, and gradually up at the clouds.
Why did I stop looking, really? Why did I stop believing?
I looked back at the journal. I flipped toward the back to the page that held the drying maple leaf. Twirling the leaf by its stem, I went back to the entry.

 

P.S. Call Kendra. I know she hates being so far away in New York. It's ridiculous how much that girl works. But she does it to herself, now doesn't she? LOL

 

I wiped my nose and went to look for my cell phone. What was the deal with Kendra? I smelled a big fat decomposing rat on that one. Initially, maybe I
was
surprised that she'd agreed to come on a moment's notice, her being so easily offended by anybody's lack of planning. But Kendra worked for a clothing distribution company where the absent owner, off gallivanting, compensated her handsomely and let Kendra make all the decisions. Kendra worked seven days a week, whether she was in the office or not. She'd assured us
she could still get work done in Honduras, and had even said it was good timing because a lot of her clients were on vacation, too.

Then she suddenly changed her mind, something Kendra didn't do.

I fired off a text and waited. When no response came, I sat on the balcony cradling the maple leaf in my left palm and stroking it with my right.

Just me and the city and the leaf.

ISABEL WANDERED OFF TO FIND COFFEE WHILE I stood near the welcome gate at the airport, one of the few gleaming new buildings in the city. I shivered in the air-conditioning and realized how excited I was for the vacation club to arrive.

Mina and I had struck out in the family department; it was our greatest bond. A mother that dies versus the one that runs away. It's hard to measure which is worse.

I was two, so I can't say if my mother left the man I know as my father, or if my father turned into that man once she left. My dad is a brilliant surgeon. Once I read about a child he miraculously saved, about how he wept at her bedside. I cut that article into fifty pieces and burned them one by one, because I never knew that side of my father at all. When he was home, which was rarely to never, he asked me about my grades and that was about it. He dismissed any discussion of my mother or her whereabouts. No photographs remained. As I got older, I postulated mental illness, love affairs, cult
brainwashing. My father would pull off an amazing feat of glaring at me while looking straight through me, and say only, “Better left alone, Sam.” I hoped she was dead. Otherwise, she's a monster.

In any case, that's why the vacation club was never just summer camp for me. Isabel's mother, Jesse, loved to tell how she scooped up Mina and me like two stray kittens, two lost little girls trying to be each other's parents. Of course, after Arshan Bahrami, Mina's father, became Jesse's bridge partner, it wasn't such a nice story to tell anymore. You don't call someone a bad father to his face.

“Isabel, they're here!” I pointed to a cloud of blond hair and laughter emerging from customs.

Clicking heels and a squeal, and Jesse Brighton was charging through the crowd toward us. Typical Jesse—her long ash-blond hair flowed over her leopard-print shirt tucked into skinny jeans, tucked into five-inch leather boots.

“Oh my stars! Look at those two gorgeous women! Those are my girls!” she shouted into the ears of the poor passengers she plowed over to reach us. “Hug me quick before I die of excitement!”

I fell happily into her warm embrace that always smelled of Chanel No. 5. Jesse splattered me in lipstick kisses.

Lynette, with her carefully bobbed blond hair and her red tunic and jeans, waited a step behind before taking her turn hugging us and laughing.

The two men hovered awkwardly back a few paces. Arshan looked ready for class, with his collared shirt, pressed khakis and stern expression. Cornell's clothes were more casual, but his face was just as
manly serious.

“Oh come here!” I hugged them both. Cornell instantly relaxed, but Arshan tensed more. I thought of Mina, trying to remember if I'd ever seen them hug.

Jesse took my hand and petted it like a Chihuahua. “Ok, my precious little angel, let's get those automobiles, shall
we? Let's get this show on the road! Tradition is tradition. The Opening Ceremony begins.”

 

The party was a huge success. Shakira blasted from speakers attached to Isabel's iPod. Isabel spilled her news and Jesse launched a campaign to get her to move home. Lynette and Cornell danced and smooched in the middle of the room. Arshan helped me in the kitchen with the drinks. I'd insisted on Johnny Walker Black with club soda, the Honduran drink of choice, and Arshan was effusively appreciative. Well, effusively for Arshan.

When Beyoncé came on, Jesse called us onto the dance floor/roller rink. We danced and shook our hips until Lynette begged me to turn on the air-conditioning and I burst out laughing. Everyone collapsed into plastic chairs to fan themselves and started gabbing again. I went out to the balcony to get some air.

I was out there less than a minute when Arshan joined me, sliding the door closed behind him.

“Hey,” I said, surprised. I could count on a single hand the number of times I'd spoken one-on-one with Arshan Bahrami. Even in all our research, Mina and I hadn't included her father the astrophysicist. It was mostly at her request and I hadn't insisted; I knew how difficult it was to forgive fathers who let you down.

“Hello, Samantha. I want to thank you for inviting me on this trip. It's been very hard since Mina—”

“It wasn't my decision—”
That sounded like I didn't want him to come
. “I mean, we all thought you should come.” That wasn't exactly true. Jesse didn't ask me before inviting Arshan and Cornell.
Things change,
Jesse said later.
Adjust, darling. Or sit in a corner and lament.
Sitting around lamenting was a cardinal sin in Jesse's book.

Arshan was no dummy. He knew who had invited him. He stood and looked out across the city lights. “It's beautiful,
no? It reminds me a bit of Tehran, the city lights in the mountains.”

I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye. I always forgot he spent half his life in Iran.

“So, you're going to become a married woman, huh, Sammy?”

I don't know what shocked me more—his question or the nickname. “They told you? Lynette and Jesse?”

Now
he
seemed surprised. “What do you think we talk about?” He looked at me. “We talk about the four musketeers.” His gaze darted away quickly. “About all you girls.”

Three musketeers, not four. A pointy triangle that doesn't roll.
Oh, Mina. Why am I here and not you?

Something cool and smooth touched my shoulder. Arshan picked it up between his fingers and stared at the maple leaf in wonder. He looked up at the sky, then behind us on the balcony. He'd raked thousands of these in his yard. The deep line between his eyebrows almost made me giggle. I took this new leaf by its stem and twirled it between my fingers.

“There are so many things Mina and I never talked about,” he said as he watched the leaf.

I didn't respond and we both lapsed into thought. I remembered when Mina and I were children, how we were left to ourselves, how we played “house” for hours in the woods and made TV dinners together.

“Is he the one?”

“Excuse me?”

Arshan continued as if he was no longer talking to me. “You will give him your youth, your idealism, and your capacity for hope. He will seal or destroy your belief in fate and love. You only get one chance at these things. He will fill your life's bowl, Samantha. So is he worthy?”

I reminded myself to breathe. My heart pounded in my throat.
How dare he, of all people?
“Was Mina's mother worth it?”
Worth becoming so bitter
? I thought.

Arshan laughed so unexpectedly and so loud that I got goosebumps. “You bet she was.” He slapped the balcony railing and laughed again. I had no idea he could laugh like that.

Seemingly having surprised himself as well, Arshan cleared his throat and smoothed his slacks. He nodded his head at me, his dark eyes still crinkled from laughing. Then he turned to walk inside.

“Mr. Bahrami? Arshan?”

He turned back. I held out the maple leaf. He took it from my fingers like a long-stemmed rose and studied its colors of campfire embers in the moonlight. His face assumed a softness, like milk spilling over jagged marble. Then he opened the door and the party music flooded the balcony, rinsing away the moment.

November 10
Samantha

Okay, Mina, tell me this: What is the difference between matter and non-matter?

The craziest lesson of quantum physics is that at the most fundamental level, we don't know what the world and/or us, as human beings, are made of.

Particles are hard, substantial points in space, like electrons. Waves are spread out and immaterial, like sound. Things have to be one or the other, right?

Wrong. The most famous experiment in modern physics is The Double Slit Experiment. Electron particles are fired through a screen with two slits onto a particle detector
one at a time
. You would expect the electron to go through one of the two slits and be detected somewhere directly behind one or the other. But after you've fired thousands of electrons, you see
not
two slits of accumulated particles, but a series of thick and skinny
bands—an interference pattern indicative of a wave. But how did each particle know where to end up on the wave interference pattern? The electron somehow interacts and acts both as a wave and a particle at the same time, completely defying classic notions of space, time and matter.

See, Mina, we really have no clue about “reality.” At what point are we separate from everything around us? How are thoughts different from, say, your collection of maple leaves?

Scientists aren't any closer to solving the mind/body debate than the Pope of Rome.

Which is not to say that there aren't theories….