“My legs are sore,” I said. “Why are my legs sore? We were on that quad for thirty minutes.” I held the milk shake Cooper had bought me as a reward as we walked down Main Street toward his car.
“You were gripping the seat with your thighs like your life depended on it. Of course they’re sore.”
“My life did depend on it.” I hit my right thigh three times with a closed fist. “Ouch. That seriously hurts.”
“Then stop doing that. And stop walking like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you just spent hours on a horse.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can’t help it.” I hit my thigh again.
He stepped in front of me, presented his back, and squatted. “Jump on.”
“I will. Because maybe carrying me a hundred yards will make your legs sore.” I jumped onto his back and rested my chin on his shoulder. This wasn’t exactly helping my sore legs, or the feelings I was crushing down.
Main Street was mostly tourist shops—kites, beach trinkets, surf gear—but Cooper still looked in each window we passed, like he might actually buy any of those things.
I caught sight of a sign on a post and said, “Wait. Stop.”
“Why?”
“There.” I pointed to the sign. “Read that.”
He walked closer. The sign was taped up to the silver light post, and Cooper read aloud the words on it: “Come audition for the community theater summer musical, The Music Man.” Cooper hitched me up farther on his back and started to walk away. “Nope. Pass.”
I pulled on his shoulders, like I really was riding a horse now and he would back up with my command. When he didn’t, I kicked free of his grip and hopped off his back. “Cooper. The tryouts are in three days.” I pointed at the date on the sign. “That is exactly when I need to complete another experience by. This is fate. Neither of us has ever tried out for a play before. It’s perfect.”
“Fate?”
“Yes. Fate. Destiny. We happen to be walking by a sign. We happen to be working on a list. This is happening.” I took a picture of the info with my phone.
He threw his head back and groaned. “I miss Justin. He wouldn’t make me do crap like this.”
“Yes. We should let Justin know what he’s missing out on.” I texted Justin the pic I’d just taken with the words Cooper begged me to try out with him.
“You are such a punk,” Cooper said.
“Are you scared?” I asked. “Is this your fear?”
“No. I just don’t understand the point. We won’t make it. We are both horrible singers.”
“Hey. Speak for yourself.”
“You think we’ll make it?”
“No. But it’s not about making it. It’s about the experience. That’s the point, Coop.” I hooked my arm in his elbow. “This will be so much fun.”
“That’s one word for it.”
My phone buzzed with a text. Justin had written back: Um . . . I don’t want to know.
“See, he thinks it’s crazy too.”
“I will see you at my house Monday morning at ten a.m. That’s not tomorrow or the next day but the day after that.”
“I know what day Monday is.”
“Just checking. It’s summer. I know how days blend together.”
“What about tomorrow?” he asked.
“Tryouts aren’t tomorrow.”
“I know. But I’ll probably see you tomorrow.”
“I have to work in the morning. After that?”
“Sure. First day back since Mr. Wallace told you you’re an android?”
“Yep.”
“Good luck.”
I collapsed into my desk chair after work. It had been a weird day. Mr. Wallace posted me at the ticket desk. I never worked the ticket desk. Even though cleaning and directing visitors seemed like a worse job, it put me right in the middle of inspiring art. Today I got to stare at the lobby and the street for four hours. There was nothing inspiring about that. I sensed Mr. Wallace was trying to avoid me.
I signed into my computer and pulled up my email. The time difference between Dad and me usually meant that he wrote me when I was sleeping. Sure enough, I had an email waiting.
To my daughter, whose mother named her and didn’t ask for my vote,
Your heart does not need to grow three sizes. One, maybe, but definitely not three. May I suggest you take the following items off your list for the proper amount of heart growth: face a fear (that sounds dangerous and I don’t support it), fall in love (you’re not allowed to do that until you’re thirty), have your heart broken (this seems counterproductive, seeing as you’re trying to grow it), learn a stranger’s story (don’t talk to strangers), see a life go out of the world (I’ve seen enough of that for our whole family). That should do it. That leaves six on your list. You’re welcome. As for the impossible request you have tasked me with, we shall see if rocks exist in the shape of hearts. Thanks for keeping me updated. How is your mother?
Love, that guy you won’t recognize when he gets home.
My dad was the best email writer. And considering that’s how we communicated a lot of the time, it was a good quality to have. I typed him a reply.
To the most overprotective dad in the world,
Thanks for your input, but you don’t get a vote on the list. In fact, I’ve already done one you vetoed. I faced a fear yesterday. I rode on a quad for the first time. It was not something I will do again for a while, but it was definitely an experience. And I can guarantee that heart-shaped rocks exist. We’ll see if you are dedicated enough to find one. Mom is doing okay. Not as good as when you’re here, but nothing to worry about. Stay safe.
Love you, [insert the name you would’ve voted for here]
I pushed Send, then looked up at the list on my wall and grabbed a pen from the desk drawer. I put a small checkmark next to “face a fear.” Could I also count the quad ride as trying something new? No, one experience could only equal one checkmark, I decided. No combining. I really wanted this to work. New experiences would give me new images and emotions to draw from for my art. I usually painted what I knew, what I’d seen in my life or in pictures. I didn’t rely on emotion or pushing myself to feel or see or try new things.
I surveyed the rest of the list. Aside from the tryouts in a couple of days, I wasn’t sure what I’d do for the rest.
There was one, however, that was simple. One I could start now that would take me at least a couple of days to complete—read a classic.
“Mom,” I announced when I arrived in the kitchen. “I’m going to the library.”
She looked up from a book she was reading titled True Crime. Not good reading material for my already overly worried mom.
“Any input on which classic I should pick?” I asked.
Grandpa called from the other room “I’ve read a lot of classics. Do you want my input?”
“Nobody is talking to you, old man. Keep watching your Matlock.”
I heard an exasperated grunt. “I don’t watch Matlock.”
My mom gave me her disappointed look, the one that said I had taken my joking with her dad one step too far.
“I’m sorry for calling you old man,” I yelled.
“And what about the Matlock thing?”
“There’s no shame in watching a show about an old-man lawyer who always manages to save the day. There’s something to be said about characters you can relate to.” My grandpa had been a lawyer before he retired, and he hated being compared to TV lawyers.
He said something I couldn’t understand, probably mumbling some silent curse.
“There are too many classics for me to limit your choice.” She pointed to the living room. “And you burned any bridge you had there. Looks like you’re on your own.”
“Do we have a library card? We need a library card. Do you need to fill out a form for me since I’m a minor and all? They probably don’t trust me with their books.” My attempt to get her away from that book and out of the house was beyond transparent, but I didn’t care.
Mom’s brow immediately went down, and I could tell she was trying to reason through that, hope for some other solution than her needing to go to the library with me. “I don’t think they need me there. Kids have library cards, right? I don’t need to go.”
“There’s not very many people in the library, Mom.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Plus, it’s only five minutes away,” I said.
“By car.”
“Yes, by car.”
“I’d rather walk.”
“I know. But that’s a long walk.” One I knew she couldn’t make. “It’s fine, Mom. It’s just been a while since you pushed yourself a little.” I usually didn’t say things like this to my mom. I usually let her off the hook easier. I didn’t want to upset her or make her more anxious about life. But maybe clinging to Cooper on the back of that quad the day before made me realize that pushing yourself to do hard things was actually pretty liberating. There was a sense of accomplishment about it, after the fact.
She sighed. “I’ll call the library and see if they need me there for you to get a card.”
Blasted phones, I thought, always ruining my best-laid plans with their usefulness.
I pulled out my useful phone and sent Cooper a text: I’m going to the library to pick out a classic. You want to come?
Can’t. Family BBQ at my dad’s work. Call me with an emergency in about an hour.
What kind of emergency?
The best friend kind. I don’t know. You’ll think of something.
I’m sure your parents will love me even more for that. I’m not faking an emergency. I’ll be reading Crime and Punishment. I had looked up a list of classics, and that one sounded the most interesting to me.
What crime are you planning to commit?
That’s the title of a book.
Cool. Get me that one too. It sounds awesome.
We can’t read the same classic. We need to read different ones and then tell each other about them. It will be double the depth.
Okay. I call dibs on Crime and Punishment.
You are a brat.
This is true. I have to go now.
Okay. Have fun.
He added: Call me in one hour.
No.
I put my phone in my pocket and looked up just in time to see my mom come back into the kitchen.
“Good news,” she said. “You can sign for your own library card.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Don’t look so disappointed, hon. I’ll walk to the park with you after dinner tomorrow. How about that?”
“Promise?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded resolutely. “Yes.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
“I heard it too,” Grandpa said from the other room.
“I’m being ganged up on now?” she asked.
“Not ganged up on, Mom. Supported. You have lots of support.”
She smiled and hugged me, then handed me a bottle of antibacterial hand gel.
“What is this?”
“Do you know how many people touch those books?”
I handed her back the gel. “You should read some stories on this stuff. It’s creating superbugs.”
“Really?”
I shouldn’t have said that. Now she’d spend the next two days on the computer reading about superbugs. I snatched the bottle back. “You’re right. I’ll bring this.” I lifted the car keys from a hook by the door and left before she decided I couldn’t leave the house after all.