II.
“Bertha?” I asked.
He laughed. “Can you imagine any other name for her?” He was referring to his bright red pickup truck.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m not very well versed in the naming of pickup trucks.”
“Oh. Well, it’s an art.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that.”
“Please do,” he said, glancing over at me. His eyes were warm, and the farther away we got from the Oliver farmhouse, the better I started to feel.
“You’re always outside,” I said.
He looked amused. “Is that a question?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And an observation.”
He pressed down on the brake as we came to a red light. “I don’t really know how to answer that.”
“Why? I mean, what do you like about being outside?”
“Everything,” he said.
“No. Seriously.”
The light turned green and Bertha lurched forward. Her engine let out a low rumble. “I don’t know.”
“Come on. Yes, you do.”
“You’re right. I do. But you’re going to make fun of me.”
“No, I won’t. Give me a chance.”
“Simplest answer is: I like trees.”
I fought back a laugh. “That’s your answer? Trees?”
“See? I knew you’d poke fun at me.”
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with trees, I just thought you’d have a deeper answer. Like something philosophical and transcendentalist.”
“Naw,” he said, his cheeks a little red. “Best way to explain it is I like trees.”
“And what do you like so much about them?”
“They’re good listeners. And they know how to let go.” Toby parked Bertha in front of a building with a neon sign that read OAK FALLS CLASSIC LANES.
“Explain?”
He took the keys out of the ignition. “The way they lose their leaves in the fall but then regrow them in the spring. I think we could stand to learn a lot from trees. They’re resilient. And they’re always growing. You see, I lost my dad in October. I remember sitting by the window, watching the trees slowly lose their leaves. And then I remember a sad, long winter. But come spring, I watched as the trees sprang back to life, and it gave me hope. I learned a certain type of grace from the trees. The way they just let things go, knowing that there is always something new on the horizon. I know that sounds cheesy, but when I was six, it really had an impact on me.”
I smiled at him. “I like that.”
“Really? I figured you would have some smart reply to make about it.”
I shrugged. “Nope. I like it. I really do. It sounds like I could stand to learn a lot from trees.”
He gave me a smile. “I think you could.”
“So,” I said, focusing my attention on the neon sign. “Where are we?”
“The best bowling alley in Oak Falls.”
“Bowling?” I let out a dramatic sigh. “Really? I’m not athletic at all.”
He got out of the car and quickly slid around to my side to open the door. He held his hand out to help me with the high step. “You don’t have to be athletic to enjoy bowling. You just have to be a good sport and enjoy greasy pizza.”
I took his hand and a slight jolt went through me. I stepped down from the truck. “I can get into greasy pizza.”
We walked inside and Toby got us set up with shoes and helped me select a ball.
“The trick,” he said, “is to pick one that’s heavy enough that it will do the job, but not too heavy that you won’t be able to get a good spin on it.”
“So bowling is another thing you love? How does it rank compared to trees?”
“Below,” he said, smiling. “But not that far below.”
We had our lane to ourselves. He typed my name in as “TAL” and put himself in as “TOBY.”
“Hey,” I said. “Why do I get an abbreviation and you get your full name?”
“Because I wasn’t sure I knew how to spell Taliah correctly.”
“Am I the first Taliah you’ve ever met?”
He nodded. “I hope you won’t hold that against me, though.”
“Not as much as I hold your no-swearing rule against you.”
He laughed. He picked up his ball and bowled it down the lane. He knocked down an impressive number of pins. Toby was clearly no stranger to the bowling alley. He grabbed his ball off the ball return and bowled his second turn. A spare. He did a goofy dance in celebration.
“Stop,” I said. “You’re gloating before you even see how bad I am.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Carter and Brady are some mean bowlers. And you have those Oliver genes. I wouldn’t count you out yet.”
I didn’t actually perform as badly as I thought I would. Toby still squarely beat me, but I managed to not make a complete fool of myself. After we’d bowled one game, Toby went to the concession stand to get us the greasy pizza that he had promised. He returned with two large cheese slices on paper plates.
He handed one of the plates to me. I took an appreciative bite, chewing through the melted cheese.
“See?” he said. “Told you the pizza was good.”
“You said it was greasy. You never said anything about good.”
“Greasy is basically synonymous with good.”
“I don’t know if that can be universally applied,” I said, and took another large bite. “Probably just with pizza.”
“With pizza for sure,” Toby confirmed. He took a bite of his pizza and then asked, “So your parents are fighting?”
I set my half-eaten slice back down on the paper plate. I blotted my hands with a napkin. “It feels weird to refer to them as my parents.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let me rephrase. Julian and your mom are fighting?”
“I don’t know if ‘fighting’ is the right word. My mom is doing everything in her power not to talk to him.”
“That’s rough,” Toby said.
“Yeah. And I overheard some … stuff today.”
“Stuff?”
“I think my mom might have told Julian about me when I was five.”
Toby’s eyes widened a little and he took a deep breath. “Pamplemousse.”
“Yeah. What the hell, right?”
“Are you sure that’s true?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure of anything right now except for the fact that all they seem to want to do is fight. Or do whatever weird passive-aggressive non-fighting thing my mom seems into. And I just feel like they’re using me as an excuse for all of their bickering. When really what they’re truly upset about has little or nothing to do with me. And for some reason that makes me even more pissed at them. Which I know sounds crazy self-involved—”
“No. I get it,” Toby assured me.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really. I mean, whatever problem they have clearly resulted in a big problem for you—your dad being kept from you.”
“Yeah. I don’t know,” I said, and stared down at my bowling shoes. “But sorry. I don’t mean to bore you with all of my family drama.”
“You aren’t boring me,” Toby said gently. “You can talk to me.”
Typical me would’ve shut up. Eaten her pizza. And gotten through the rest of the night by being amiable, but definitely not open. But I surprised myself. I wanted to keep talking to him. And that felt good. It felt really good.
“Okay, fine,” I said.
“Okay, fine?” His face looked hopeful.
“You want to know what else has been bothering me?”
He put his hands on his knees. “Yeah. Lay it on me.”
“My grandma”—and then I quickly corrected myself—“Debra. Yesterday she told me this theory she has about how all of us have multiple versions of ourselves. So like we aren’t just one static personality. We all have different sides.”
Toby nodded.
“And that the tricky thing about love is learning to accept and cherish all the versions of the person you love.”
“Makes a lot of sense to me,” Toby said.
“But the thing that bothered me is I don’t think I do have multiple versions of myself. I’m just Taliah. And just Taliah isn’t even that interesting. She’s just … well … sort of ordinary. And I want to be a musician. I don’t think I’ve told you that because I didn’t want you to think I was some lame girl imitating her dad.”
“I wouldn’t think that,” Toby said softly.
“But you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m worried that the reason Julian has been able to craft so many incredible songs is because he has all these versions of himself. Like the Julian his mom describes is really different from the Julian I’ve seen. Even the glimpse I got of how Julian talks to my mom seems different from the Julian I’ve come to know. And I’m starting to really worry that I’m just not an interesting enough person to make art, to write songs that will matter to other people. I don’t know how you go about cultivating these different selves. I feel like I’ve hardly found my one self, how am I supposed to go about collecting multiples?”
Toby’s lips twitched. I could tell he was fighting back a smile. I stared back at my bowling shoes. “You think I’m silly, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “But not in the way you think.”
He leaned in toward me and reached for my hand. He held it, gently pressing his palm against mine. “Taliah. There are very few people I’ve met who I’ve found more interesting than you. Lost and found, remember?”
I nodded, a fluttery feeling building in my stomach. “You know, these are the kind of moments that I used to roll my eyes at when I read them in books.”
Toby smiled knowingly. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But it feels different when it’s actually happening to you.”
He leaned in even closer, not letting go of my hand.
“Those scenes,” I continued, “they just seemed so … unrealistic. Like how can you instantly know with a person? But here I am. Talking to you in a way I don’t really talk to anyone.”
His fingers interlaced with mine. “I think with some people you can just tell you’re going to have a history with them. Even if that history hasn’t happened yet.”
The fluttery feeling in my stomach grew. But something about what he said made me think of my mom and Julian. I wondered if it had been like that for them when they first met—that somehow they just knew that they were going to matter to each other.
“What?” Toby said.
“Nothing,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“No. I can tell something else is bothering you.”
“It’s just … it’s upsetting that it seems like all of the songs Julian is famous for are so loved because of his sadness. Like doesn’t it suck that it seems like he owes his whole career to the fact that my mom broke his heart into smithereens?”
Toby’s forehead wrinkled with thought. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t think what people are responding to in those songs is the sadness, Taliah. I think it’s the love.”