Zen and Gone Read online

  Essa straightened her butterfly clip and swatted her mom away like a persistent fly. Actually, her mom wasn’t like a fly at all. She was more like a butterfly. Wispy. Colorful. Hard to catch.

  “We don’t really camp. We do orienteering up there. It’s different,” Essa said. “And you know I don’t date.”

  Her mom shook her head. “Have it your way,” she sighed. “Just be home for dinner, okay?”

  3

  OLIVER

  “Maybe you’ll fall in love with this place.”

  His mom knew that the likelihood of this happening was some very small fraction of zero. But she was trying to be upbeat. To encourage him. It was obvious that he was two nanoseconds away from bailing on this plan to live with Aunt Sophie in Boulder for the summer. It wasn’t his plan, anyway; he hadn’t really been given a choice.

  Oliver looked out the window, through his aunt’s dangling Tibetan prayer flags, at the car that was waiting to take his mom back to the airport and back to Chicago. He felt terrible for agreeing to come here. Like the worst person in the world.

  “She got you an internship at a tech startup. How great is that? Maybe they’ll turn out to be the next Google? You never know. Plus, you need this,” his mom urged. “What happened with Lilly was—”

  “Can I have my bag?” He cut her off. He couldn’t stand to think about that night a few weeks ago. What he did to his sister. The sound of his parents fighting. The sound of his voice when he totally and completely lost his shit. The sound of Lilly’s screams when the paramedics came. How she called him a traitor. He took his last duffel bag from his mom’s hands. And felt like a coward.

  “Your room is almost ready!” Aunt Sophie called from down the hall.

  “Promise me you won’t try pot,” his mom whispered. “Boulder is a little . . . bohemian.” She gently ran a hand against his cheek, and her gold watch slid down her arm toward her elbow.

  “But it’s legal here. I don’t see a problem.” Oliver grinned for the first time in weeks. Maybe months.

  “Oliver.” She wasn’t seriously worried. He was Oliver Burnham, the good kid. The one who wouldn’t even take a sip of ouzo at New Year’s Eve dinner at YaYa’s house. Even though it offended his Greek grandmother, he didn’t drink. He didn’t do anything. Oliver was the kid who—at least until a few weeks ago—had been trying not to cause any problems. They had enough of those in their family already.

  “Maybe you can hike or something,” his mom added. “I think they do a lot of that here.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Oliver lied. Like he would ever actually choose to trek off into the woods or opt to be outside more than was absolutely necessary. He tossed his duffel on his aunt’s sofa. “Lots of hiking. No getting wasted.”

  And even though that had always been his policy—never getting wasted—that last night with his sister, he would’ve had an entire bottle of ouzo if he’d had the chance. After it was all over, after Lilly was admitted to the hospital, his mom and dad kept fighting. About his sister. About Oliver. About the fact that his dad had filed for divorce. After what had happened that night, he didn’t know what to do with himself. His dad left, and his mom poured herself a giant glass of red wine. The curvy glass seemed almost as big as her head. As big as a fishbowl. Oliver sat there across from her. After a few long sips, her breath got a little slower. A little deeper. He caught himself staring at her wine in this weird way. It looked good. Really good.

  But he didn’t drink. Instead, he got a Coke out of the fridge and went to his room. He tried to forget what he’d done. He tried to journal like their family therapist had told them to, but he couldn’t. He remembered throwing the empty diary across the room. He remembered doing this half-choking, half-crying thing he’d never done before. He remembered nearly breaking his fist against the wall. Over and over. His mom called his aunt Sophie in Colorado and cried into the phone. She announced the Boulder summer plan the next morning.

  “Your room’s all done,” Sophie said, breezing in. She flipped her long black braid over her shoulder and linked an arm with his. Oliver nearly choked. She smelled like flowers. And lemons. And herbs. She seemed so eager to have him here. He knew he should be grateful and all. Instead, he was annoyed.

  His mom moved on to Sophie. “Thank you so much,” she said, hugging her sister. “For getting him the internship. For everything.”

  The tech internship that Sophie had gotten him was what had ultimately convinced Oliver to come out here. So he could put that last episode with Lilly out of his mind. So he could “cool off” and “settle down.” So he could put the job on his college applications and try to get into a decent school so he could . . . he didn’t really know what. Or why.

  “I’m happy to have him,” Sophie said, her feather earrings brushing his mom’s shoulder. Oliver’s mom always said that Sophie got all the creative genes. That Sophie was the only one genetically capable of having fun in the family. He suspected his mom had always envied her. “And when you get home, don’t let Bill yell at you anymore.”

  “I’ll try. I canceled that stupid dinner party. I had a deposition. A huge trial coming up. What was I going to do? That’s the last straw?”

  Sophie kept hugging Oliver’s mom. Didn’t say anything.

  Finally, his mom pulled away and flashed Oliver a goodbye smile. Like he was a baton she’d handed off to the next racer. Like the next leg wasn’t up to her. Like she wanted to forget this last part of the race altogether. She teetered out the door and down the sidewalk on her high heels.

  “Mom,” Oliver called after her, holding the door open. She stopped and looked back. Held a hand over her eyes to see her son better. The sun was so bright, the sky so blistering blue in Boulder. To Oliver, it felt like a different sun, a different sky. “Tell Lilly I’m sorry.”

  His mom looked lost for a second. “I don’t think I should say anything about . . . It’s too soon, I—”

  “For leaving. Just tell her I’m sorry for leaving.”

  Oliver could tell it made her sad. What he said. Really, really sad. She nodded and then headed for the car. The driver held the back passenger door open, and his mom checked her cell as she slid in. If she looked back or waved one more time, Oliver couldn’t see it. The windows were tinted.

  The car disappeared around the corner, and he stepped outside. A mountain range loomed in the skyline above the town. As he squinted at the craggy peaks, he felt like he was on some hostile planet. And his sister was back on earth. He panicked then, breathed too fast. He knew it was more than the thin mountain air. It was the light-years between his sister and him. Light-years.

  He tried to calm down, and his fingers itched for his phone. He’d downloaded a mountain locator app before he flew here, so he held his phone up to the mountains and got a result: the Flatirons. It said he was looking at the “small foothills of the Rocky Mountains.”

  Small?

  The bigger Rockies were farther off in the distance, covered by clouds. The screen loaded with names of peaks like Green and Bear. The only other time he’d visited Sophie in Boulder was when he was six years old. He didn’t remember the mountains looking so huge. So empty. He thought about home. Riding the L every day. The clacking trains. The skyscrapers. The pavement and the people and the noise. There was hardly any traffic around Sophie’s house. Not by Chicago standards, anyway. He watched three cars rumble down the street. He noticed their tags, one by one:

  PHD-390

  PHD-723

  MPO-147

  Then it was quiet again. All he could hear was the wind.

  He’d read that Boulder had the highest PhDs per capita in the country. But did they all have to be asshats and put it on their license plates?

  He missed Chicago.

  He went back inside.

  “You okay?” Sophie asked. She was at the stove. “I’m making chai. Want some?”
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  “No, thanks,” he said. “And why does everybody have to brag that they have a PhD here?”

  “What?”

  “License plates. I saw two in a row with ‘PHD’ on them.”

  Sophie smiled as a spicy smell filled the condo. The sun beat through the colored cloth squares of the prayer flags in the window. “They’re not bragging. That’s just how Colorado tags are. Three letters. Three numbers. Doesn’t mean anything.” She stirred her tea. “But the town is full of smart people. It’s a little intimidating.”

  Oliver shrugged and flopped onto Sophie’s couch. Everything felt so neat in the apartment. Oliver couldn’t decide if he liked it or if it was creepy, but everything was . . . peaceful or something. There was a big pot of bamboo in one corner; water tinkled over a small stone fountain in another. The sofa was white. The big chair was white. Bookshelves were dotted with little black bowls full of moss and smooth rocks. On the back wall, there was a simple wooden table that kind of looked like an altar. On it, there was a two-foot white stone Buddha statue. A little red bowl of sand with a single stick of incense jutting out. A tall, skinny vase with a single white flower. And a framed white sign that read in curly, thick black letters:

  all we want is to wake up.

  Oliver had no idea what that meant. He read it again.

  Does Sophie have a hard time staying awake? And even if she does, why does she need an altar dedicated to not falling asleep?

  Super weird.

  A text came in then, and he hoped it was his mom. He wanted her to say that she was turning the driver around, that she was coming to get him—that this whole Boulder summer plan was off.

  And it was from his mom. But it didn’t say any of that.

  It was a warning. A really annoying Mom Warning:

  Be a good houseguest.

  4

  ESSA

  After dropping her mom at Pure Buds, Essa made her way up Pearl Street toward Above the Clouds. If a carnival and a windstorm had a baby, it would be this store. It had been her favorite since she was a kid. Kites of all shapes and sizes hung from every inch of the ceiling. The center of the store was a jumble: marbles, meditation stones, mini catapults, wooden labyrinths. Zodiac games to guide your love life. Bags of runes to tell your fortune. And a million toys and trinkets to keep you occupied in the meantime.

  But as she got closer to the shop, she realized something was wrong: the windows were dark. The open sign was flipped to closed.

  Dammit, Micah.

  He was a rising sophomore at the University of Colorado and was supposed to open today. He hadn’t even called to let her know he wasn’t going to make it. He was typically on top of things, but he hadn’t been himself the last few months. He was always late. Frazzled. Unfocused.

  She peered inside. Even in the darkness, she could see the kites hanging from the ceiling. A green dragon kite in the back breathed bright orange canvas fire; his yellow spiked tail swayed under the air conditioning vent. Next to him hung a toad with a long fluttering tongue, then a princess, a train, a caterpillar. The back row of kites that hung over the cash register were the boring ones. One-dimensional triangles and simple boxy shapes. But she loved even those. For their simplicity. For how they refused to try to be cool.

  She pulled a wad of keys out of her bag and opened the door. The bells above it jingled like mad, and a gust of incoming air sent the kites fluttering and pulling against their anchored strings. Wind chimes in the middle of the store clanged all at once; Japanese paper lanterns rocked and bumped against one another like people in a crowd. She stepped inside, flipped the sign to open.

  She hated opening. It was always crazy dark, and the light switches were way in the back in the storage room. She took a deep breath and sped through the store. She rounded the rack of juggling sticks, and her shoulder brushed against a stash of peacock feathers that arched out of a large vase. But then she stopped. Under the dragon kite. He seemed to be hanging crooked, his diamond-shaped eyes looking straight at her. And he was lower than he should be.

  Did someone take him down yesterday?

  A tickle ran along the back of her neck like the end of a kite string sliding along her skin. She passed the cash register and the wall of kite supplies. Everything there looked just like she left it. The spools of creamy string were all in their places. As were the dowel rods, bottles of glue, and reams of canvas for do-it-yourselfers. The wind socks on the back wall were all in order. They hung still and lifeless on the end of long sticks: flags and fish and wildflowers like Colorado columbine.

  Then she heard a noise. A thump. She froze.

  “Hello?” she asked.

  Silence.

  She scolded herself: Don’t be stupid. Who would break into a kite store? Her heart raced as she pushed against the swinging door to the storage room and ran past overflowing shelves. Out of breath, she reached for the light switches and flipped all three at once. She pinched her eyes shut as the buzz of electricity filled the shop. One. Two. Three. It always took a minute for the cold fluorescent lights to heat up and turn on.

  The storage room flooded with light, and she opened her eyes. No one was there. In the storage room, at least. She grabbed the feather duster hanging on a nail, thinking she could use the stick end as a weapon, and slowly tiptoed out to the main shop floor. She wound her way through the various displays, making sure everything was in place.

  It was all fine. No one was there.

  She inhaled and exhaled a few times. Slowly letting the adrenaline in her veins drain away. Since she had the duster, she started dusting. It was like a circus in the middle of the store. She started with the bins of rubber bouncy balls made with swirls of color and glitter. Then the cartons of tiny plastic animals, each no bigger than a penny. She dusted the labels above each bin: Mini-Unicorns, Mini-Pigs, Mini-Bison, Mini-Butterflies. And on and on. She loved them all. They made her want to take handfuls, line her windowsills, line her locker. She’d collected almost every one, and she worried it was childish. She was seventeen years old, not ten. But she just—

  “Boo.”

  She jumped. Her heart crashed out of her chest as she spun around.

  “Did I scare you?”

  Standing there, with long, stringy blonde hair and lips stained blue from a lollipop, was her nine-year-old sister.

  “Dammit, Puck.” Essa picked up a Mini-Octopus and zinged her sister with it. Puck smiled and squealed, took off running. Essa chased after her. Puck rounded the bin of Mini-Monkeys and then madly grabbed a wind-sock fish that was stuck to the end of a long stick. She wielded it like a sword.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at play practice?” Essa swatted at her with the feather duster, but Puck deftly blocked her with the fish. “And how did I not hear you come in? You’re wearing tap shoes.”

  “I’m sneaky.” Puck giggled. The shoes broke Essa’s heart; Puck found them at Goodwill, but didn’t take tap lessons. They couldn’t afford them. “And Mrs. Connelly’s sick,” Puck said. “The whole day of drama camp is canceled. I walked over.”

  Essa felt a tug in her chest at the mention of Mrs. Connelly’s name. She’d let Puck enroll in the camp for free. “You’re supposed to call me when that happens,” Essa groaned. She spun around and swatted at Puck again with the duster. But Puck was too quick for her. She stealthily tapped sideways and poked Essa in the stomach with the wind-sock stick.

  “Okay, okay,” Essa said. She held the duster above her head. “I’ll surrender if you tell me how you got in here.”

  Puck lit up with victory. “The little storage room window. If you tap on it just right, it pops open.” As Puck’s blue eyes sparkled, it occurred to Essa that her sister was just like one of the tiny plastic animals in the bins—so small, so perfect, so colorful; Essa wanted to hold her in her hand. She wanted to carry Puck around in her pocket. Always.

  “That
’s technically breaking and entering, you know.”

  “Sorry,” Puck whined. But it was unconvincing. “Can I?” She pointed to the storage room.

  Essa sighed. “Go ahead.” Puck took off running, her shoes tapping the whole way, and disappeared behind the swinging door.

  A truth that embarrassed them: Essa and Puck didn’t have a computer at their house. Their mom liked to be “off the grid” as much as possible. Which Essa thought was fine for her mom, because all she did was bake weed edibles in a pot shop and listen to old Grateful Dead shows in her free time. But Essa and her sister were real people. And real people needed the Internet. But Essa didn’t want to spend all her paychecks from the store on a data plan, so that meant they only got to surf the Net when they were at school, at a friend’s house, or at the computer that lived in the kite store storage room. Which is why Puck always wanted to go in there.

  Two customers walked in. Essa dealt with the white-haired lady first. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for a kite for my granddaughter,” the woman said. She was wearing dark blue jeans that had actually been ironed. A crease ran up the center of both pant legs.

  “How about this castle kite?” Essa pointed up to a boxy gray kite above her. The woman didn’t know it, but Essa was gently steering her away from gender stereotyping. “It even has little flags that run along the top of the tower. She’ll love it.”

  “Well . . .” The woman’s eyes went dark. She hated it.

  “How about this awesome snake kite?” Essa was pointing again. And sounding way too eager. “He even has fangs.”

  The woman wandered across the floor, looking up. Then she stopped. “I’ll take that one.”

  It was a pink princess kite. Essa sighed and headed for the stepladder. At least she’d tried.

  After Essa rang her up, she moved on to the middle-aged guy who was clicking around the store in his road-bike clip shoes. He was wearing super tight spandex bike shorts with the padding on the butt that made it look like he was wearing a diaper. His bike jersey had a giant sun and a beer mug on the back—the local Sunshine Brewery logo. To Essa, it felt like every third adult in Boulder was into locally made craft beer. She pegged this guy as a do-it-yourselfer right away.