Friends

Aaron C. because they run Physics Club together.

“David!” José says for a third time, though by now it’s obvious he has gotten my attention.

“Please don’t ask me to join the Academic League again. You’ve asked me twenty-six times already and I’ve said no twenty-six times.” I volunteer this information.

“Twenty-seven times, actually. This will be twenty-eight,” José says, and inexplicably remains standing in front of me, blocking my way. “Will you please join the team?”

“No,” I say. Had it been twenty-seven times? It’s unlike me to miscount. Math is not my chosen field—I’m more interested in the sciences—but I like accuracy.

“We need you. There’s a big meet coming up against Ridgefield Tech, and they are really good. Name the mathematician who proved the infinitude of prime numbers.”

“Duh. Euclid.”

“See. You’d be perfect.”

“Did you know Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?” I ask.

“I’ve heard the quote, but Einstein didn’t say it. In fact, most of the quotes attributed to him in nonscientific contexts are misattributed.”

“Really?”

“Yup. And I’ve thought about it, and realized that since each time I ask you it’s one more time than the last time, it’s not doing the exact same thing over and over again, and so there is, at least, a small possibility of a different result. Hence, I’m not insane. At least not because of this.” José delivers his monologue to my left shoulder. “Also, do you believe in the multiverse?”

I blame Kit and her asking me about quantum mechanics and making me think anything can happen, because for a second I imagine it: me up on a stage and Kit in the audience, me answering question and after question, saving Mapleview from defeat at the hands of Ridgefield Tech. Kit impressed by my vast knowledge of thermodynamics and aroused by the size of the trophy I’ll invariably take home. When talking trophies, size totally matters.

“Yes and yes,” I say.

“Yes you’ll join the team and yes you believe in the multiverse?”

“Yes,” I say again, and then José smiles and I realize I have something new to add to his description in my notebook. How could I have not noticed until today that he wears braces with pink fluorescent rubber bands? I hope that distraction doesn’t affect my performance.

Later, after school, I watch Kit walk to her red Corolla. Her hand shakes as she takes out her electronic key fob to open the lock. It’s not that cold out, so I assume this tremor is most likely due to anxiety. We have two tests tomorrow, world history and English literature, and she missed yesterday’s classes. I was relieved to see that she didn’t flee campus again today. Things are better when she’s at school, just across the room, no farther than fourteen feet away. I liked her being there even before she started talking to me.

I consider calling out. Breaking Miney’s rule. My notes would be helpful, and certainly superior to whatever her friends have passed along. But no. Miney knows what she’s talking about. Better to rely on the laws of comparative advantage and outsource my social decisions.

“Hey!” Kit calls out, and I look behind me to see who she’s talking to. Probably Justin or Gabriel. “No, dummy. You!”

“Me?” I ask. I examine the context of our interaction. She’s not being literal. Dummy may even qualify as a term of endearment here.

“Yeah. You need a ride home?”

My car, a 2009 Honda Civic hatchback with 93,875 miles, is parked, as it is every day, two rows over and six spaces behind hers. Spot number eighty-nine. I don’t need Miney to know what the right call is here.

It’s not even a real lie. People use the words want and need interchangeably all the time.

“Yes, please,” I say. “I need a ride.”

“Explain again the theory that consciousness survives death? Because that doesn’t sound like science to me. That sounds a lot like religion,” Kit says, checking that my seat belt is fastened before pulling out of the lot. She drives with her hands gripped at ten and two, and she flicks her attention to her rearview mirror every five seconds, as suggested by the guide handed out by the DMV. My mom, who taught both me and Miney to drive, would be impressed.

“Basically, the gist is that our brain is the repository of our feelings, thoughts, desires,” I say, and blush. I wish I hadn’t used that word: desire. “It’s the in-box of our consciousness. And when we die and that physicality erodes, our consciousness may still live on.”

Her eyebrows knit, and she leans forward farther over the wheel. I wonder how long I could watch her think without getting bored. I estimate at least thirty-nine minutes.

“The duality between body and mind mirrors that of the relationship between wave and particle, which leads modern quantum physicists to posit that the mind is ruled by the same quantum mechanic rules as particles, like it’s a physical object,” I say. I wonder for a moment if I’m right. I find this whole area fascinating, but it’s a little slippery. One second it’s clear in my brain—I can see it, the three-dimensionality of the theory laid out in front of me in pictures—and then a moment later, it’s gone.

“My dad told me you talked to him about this stuff when you came in for an appointment. Is this what you guys discussed? Whether consciousness survives death?” she asks. If I had thought that what I said in Dentist’s chair would get back to Kit, I would have been much more careful with my words. Maybe even strategic. Isn’t there some sort of doctor-patient confidentiality? I know she thinks I’m weird. Good-weird, maybe, but still: weird. I don’t need her to think I’m a dork too.

“Not really. We talked about a new quantum theory about the flow of time. I can tell you all about that too if you want.”

“Nah, it’s okay. My dad was always interested in random stuff. Like he had this collection of antique microscopes and magnifying glasses. And he loved art books, so our house is full of them. He was totally obsessed with meteorology and the Weather Channel and those tiny plants. Bonsais. That’s what they’re called. Anyhow, I’m rambling. My point is, he mentioned you to me and he liked you.” I stare out the window as we drive down Main Street. Though still cold, it’s sunny today, and people are out with strollers and dogs, their winter jackets on but unzipped.

There’s too much to look at. Too many colors and people and shapes. Babies in fleece hats. Signs advertising one-day sales. An old-fashioned revolving barber pole. I turn my attention back to Kit and focus.

“The feeling was mutual.” I picture Dentist, that bright light he wore on his forehead and how he always smelled like latex because of his rubber gloves. I’d have loved to discuss meteorology with him, as my own knowledge in that area is rudimentary at best. “Who knows? Maybe the physicists are right and he’s not gone. I mean, of course your father’s dead, but I think it’s comforting to believe or at least hope that a small part of him, actually the most important part of him, his consciousness, may be out there somehow.”

“Yeah, it is,” she says.

“But it still sucks that you’ll never ever be able to see him again. I mean, consciousness is not the same thing as him continuing to be your dad. Obviously that would have been the preferable outcome.”

She snorts. I have no idea what that means. Whatever way it falls, a snort does not feel neutral.

“You sure tell it like it is. Not many people do that, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone tiptoes around me these days. Even my mom. Your brutal honesty is…bizarrely refreshing.”

I tell her to turn right, that my house is up at the corner. She pulls into my driveway, and now there is nothing left to do but get out of the car.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime,” she says, and I want to ask what she means by that. If it’s a real offer or just a courtesy. The English language, like all languages, is full of frustrating ambiguity. Well, except, of course, for Loglan, which was derived from mathematical principals of logic to avoid just this sort of confusion. Honestly, we’d all be better off if we spoke that instead.

Once inside the house, I watch from my front window as Kit’s car retreats. The distance grows between us exponentially, and I wait there, hands on the glass, until I no longer have a sense of its measurement.

Ten minutes later, my mom drives me the five miles back to school to pick up my car.

She smiles the whole way there.