Zen and Gone Page 5

  “No.”

  “Well, can you believe that I believe you’re not horrible?”

  Oliver didn’t respond.

  “Well,” she urged. “Can you?”

  “I guess so . . .”

  “Good. That’s a start.”

  She took his arm and guided him toward the ice cream shop. A girl passed in front of them in a green dress like Essa’s. And he thought about Essa’s tattoo. That word: SANCTUARY. The blade of grass. He thought about how lucky she was to have her little sister following her around at work—happy, grinning, eating lollipops. He was envious. Sick with it, actually.

  “I’m going to get two scoops,” Sophie announced as they entered the ice cream place. “What do you want?”

  Oliver looked at the menu. But he couldn’t focus; he couldn’t even read the flavors. He looked over his shoulder toward the kite shop. Then he looked back at Sophie, who was waiting for his answer. “I want to work at the kite store,” he said.

  “Done,” Sophie said, pulling out her cell phone. Oliver didn’t even know she had one; he hadn’t seen her use it even once. Her fingers pecked out a message on the screen. Then he heard several bings. “Okay. I texted Jan.”

  Oliver looked at Sophie and wondered if he’d made a huge mistake. If really, he should be on a plane back to Chicago. Back at Lilly’s side. Begging forgiveness.

  “She says you can start tomorrow.”

  8

  ESSA

  “Aren’t you going to leave a note?” Puck stared at Essa with her hands on her hips.

  “Hang on,” Essa said. “I’m counting.” Dollar bills flitted through her fingers as she tried to keep track. This was the routine at the end of a shift: counting the money in the register before handing it over to the next person. Puck stood in Essa’s peripheral vision like a broken stoplight. Blinking, blinking, blinking. She was going to make it hard for Essa to get through.

  “Well?” Puck asked.

  “What note? What are you talking about?” Essa slid the register closed with her hip. She loved the sound of the shimmying coins as the drawer moved, how a bell rang when it shut. Shimmy. Clink. Bing!

  “A note about him,” Puck groaned. “For Jan. That he wants to work here.”

  “Uh-oh. Who’s him?” It was Micah. Who had the next shift. And was late.

  “You’re late.” Essa worried this obvious point would go unnoticed if she didn’t point it out. “Which is happening a lot lately.”

  “Sorry.” He ran a hand through his super-bushy black hair. He got his perfect complexion from his gorgeous Thai mother and his penchant for weird haircuts from his Swedish father. His mom used to come into the store all time. She had this shiny jet-black hair, cherry-red lipstick, and clothes that always swished when she walked. She was charming, too.

  Like mother, like son.

  “It’s totally and completely different when you’re in college. You’ll see. It’s, like, real shit happens,” he said.

  Or not.

  His claim sounded dubious at best. “Like what?” Essa asked. “Give me one example of real . . . things.” She nodded her head toward Puck, silently reminding Micah to tone down the language.

  “How about the fact that by tomorrow, I have to figure out what the hell The Allegory of the Cave is for my summer philosophy class?” He tossed his messenger bag onto the counter.

  Essa wrinkled her brow. “The what?”

  “The Allegory of the Cave. It’s in Plato’s Republic. Don’t even get me started.” His huge head of hair shook as he spoke; his cheeks flushed a little red. “It’s about reality and education and, like, shadows or something. I don’t even know. You know what they should sell in college bookstores for Philosophy 1010?”

  “No,” Essa said. Puck climbed on the stool behind the counter and sat between them. She looked up and seemed excited to hear Micah’s answer about college school supplies.

  “Sorry, Puckmeister,” Micah said. “You can’t hear this one.” He gently put his hands over her ears. “A fucking helmet,” he said over her head. “So you can strap it on and keep your mind from exploding with this shit.” He gently pulled his hands away from Puck’s head. “Sorry, kiddo. Adult concepts. You understand.”

  Micah’s University of Colorado Nalgene bottle rolled out of his bag on the counter and fell to the floor with a loud crack. He bent down to pick it up, the band of his plaid boxers peeking above his jeans. “These bottles are invincible, you know. Can’t break ’em.” He triumphantly set the bottle on the counter in front of Puck. “And back to the original conversation. Who’s him?”

  “Oliver,” Puck said, lighting up again. “He’s from Illinois. And he might work here for the summer. He came in today. He’s already my friend.”

  Micah looked at Essa, eyebrows raised. “Why don’t they just close the entire state of Illinois and ship everyone here at once? Get it over with.”

  “Truth,” Essa said. She felt like Colorado—or at least Boulder—was getting crowded. Big tech companies and startups kept expanding every year, attracting about a million people from Illinois and California. She felt like everything was starting to get jammed—the streets, the coffee shops, the bike paths. Even the hiking trails. There had actually been a line to get up a mountain trail last weekend in Chautauqua Park.

  “But have hope.” Essa scooped Puck’s pink backpack off the floor. Puck had drawn wheels all over it with multicolored permanent markers. “Oliver didn’t sound all that thrilled with the idea. Like he was way too cool for us. We may luck out, and he won’t take the job.”

  Puck huffed and slid off the stool. She took her backpack from Essa. “I like him,” she said, slipping the straps over her shoulders. “And you should leave a note for Jan. Tell her he was here at least.”

  “You never like boys. What’s up with this one?”

  Puck pursed her lips a little and looked thoughtful. She stared at the kites hanging above them, mulling it over. Finally she answered. “He took me seriously.” Then she headed toward the door. Essa followed like she was the little sister in tow rather than the other way around.

  “Took you seriously? About what?” Essa jumped ahead and pushed against the door, holding it open for Puck to go through. They were hit with a hot breeze off Pearl Street.

  “About . . . my favorite dragon,” Puck said, pausing. She looked at Essa with her Earnest Face. “He was paying attention.”

  Essa smiled. She loved the stuff her sister came up with. Puck was always looking at people. But not just looking; it was one layer above that. Like she always noticing what they noticed. It was no surprise that Puck was in the gifted program at school. Essa was convinced Puck’s brain was already functioning at a college level. Actually, scratch that, she thought. If Micah was indicative of a brain functioning at a college level, then Puck was already in graduate school.

  “Okay,” Essa conceded. “Micah will leave a note for Jan. And tell her that a guy named Oliver stopped by for a job.” She looked back at Micah. “Right?”

  “Sure,” Micah said.

  “But Oliver’s my boyfriend,” Puck added. “Not yours. Don’t get any ideas.” She wagged a finger at her older sister.

  “But wait,” Micah said. “Is today Wednesday or Thursday?”

  His level of distraction was getting worse by the day. Now he wasn’t even sure what day it was. Essa was surprised he even made it to college classes, let alone remembered to do stuff like homework. “Thursday.”

  “Excellent. That makes tomorrow Friday night, a.k.a. Party Night. At the End of the World.” His face lit up like he was already standing in the glow of the bonfire they always built at their party spot in the woods. “You in?”

  Essa considered. The End of the World was a few miles up Boulder Canyon past an old, burnt-out stretch of forest where everybody from Boulder High partied. Well, everyone exce
pt Essa, who had a personal rule against actual “partying.” She always took a giant Izze soda and slowly drank it all night. But still, she loved it there. The moonlight. The music. The view of Boulder Valley under the stars. She’d always assumed that once Micah went to college, he’d stop coming to high school parties. That hadn’t happened.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess. But you can’t get too messed up. I want to do orienteering on Sunday. Anish said he has a great place to drop us.”

  “Um, it’s called ‘Mountain Fugitive.’ Plain old orienteering sounds so boring. And can we do it next weekend? I have a philosophy test on Monday. Gotta study.” Micah’s dark eyes glimmered. “And I don’t get that messed up. Do I?”

  “In the aggregate? Or recently?”

  “Both.”

  “In the aggregate, no. Recently, yes.”

  “Just don’t forget to leave a note for Jan about Oliver,” Puck whined at Micah.

  “You got it, kid.” He plopped into the tall chair behind the register and kicked his legs onto the counter. He reached for a notepad. “I’ll write her a note right now.”

  But as Essa ushered Puck out the door, she kept her eyes on Micah and silently mouthed:

  Don’t.

  He nodded and dropped the notepad.

  June 9

  9

  OLIVER

  Oliver stood across from Jan, the kite shop owner and his new boss, in the storage room.

  Maybe this won’t be so bad, he told himself. Maybe Essa is working today. But she hates me. And she’s annoying.

  He looked at the storage room door.

  Maybe she’ll be here any minute.

  Jan stood in front of the storage shelves, explaining stuff. Lots of stuff.

  She jabbered on, and Oliver thought she looked pretty old, in that wise kind of way, with her super-short gray hair and deep wrinkles. She wore a long white top and a beaded necklace that seemed to be at least four feet long. Her eyes were a creepy blue, like some of the weird fortune-teller ladies out on Navy Pier in Chicago. He wondered if she was going to turn out to be all-knowing. Like some Yoda figure who talked in questions and blew his mind all the time.

  “Goflyakite,” she said. She pointed to a Mac on a desk in the corner. “That’s the password. No spaces. Just don’t look at porn, okay? Save that for your private time.”

  Okay. Not Yoda.

  The Mac looked like a silver bird perched in a nest of empty lollipop wrappers. While Jan turned her back to him and rearranged a messy pile of kites, Oliver walked over to the computer, hoping to see where Jan kept the office candy stash. He didn’t see any jars of lollipops. But sticking out of the mound of colorful wrappers, a small piece of plain white paper caught his eye. It was a note in a child’s handwriting:

  Puck + Ayden =

  After the equal sign, there were drawings of wheels with spokes.

  “These are the Edos,” Jan continued by the shelves. She still had her back to him. “Most popular right now.” She pointed to the next two piles. “Second bestseller is the Cosmic Dragon. And then the Batkites. But really, our bread and butter is the mail-order business.” Jan pulled a kite out of the first stack, and the whole pile started to slide off the shelf. Oliver caught about five in his arms while a million more crashed to the floor.

  “Edos?”

  “Traditional Japanese kites. Edo’s the old name for Tokyo.” She held one up. Even though it was flat and in a clear wrapper, Oliver could tell it was awesome. It was a large rectangle kite covered with Japanese warriors and cranes and women in long robes. Everything was painted in reds and golds and purples.

  Jan moved on to another shelf. “And this side is all supplies. Spools, winders, line laundry, et cetera, et cetera.”

  Oliver’s eyes went wide.

  Jan noticed. “Yes. You’re going to have to learn all this.” She fiddled with her beaded necklace and reminded Oliver of the horrible math teacher he had back in the ninth grade who got angry every time anyone showed signs of not knowing something she hadn’t taught yet. Jan strode over to an open cardboard box and pulled out a large wooden cylinder with handles. “Spools. You wrap the string around these and hold the handle as you fly the kite.” She moved on to the next box and pulled out a flat hot pink plastic thing that resembled a comb. “Winder. Does the same thing as the spool. With this one, you kind of wiggle it to let the line out.”

  Oliver reached into a giant box labeled line laundry. He pulled out several flat plastic packs of colorful nylon.

  “They’re like wind socks,” Jan explained. She took a few from his hands. “This one is a fish. This one’s a giant flame.” She held up the next one and cracked the first real smile Oliver had seen. “This one’s fantastic. Giant squid. He’s really great. You attach these to your line and the wind blows them up. They’re like kite line decorations. Yeah?”

  Her hard edges faded as she talked about line laundry. This kite stuff made her happy. She was so into it.

  “Yeah,” Oliver said. “Okay. Line laundry.”

  Apparently, he didn’t show enough excitement at the line laundry demonstration for Jan’s taste. “Trust me,” she huffed, “there’s a lot more to learn. Flying kites is an art form.” She looked at Oliver like he was hopeless, like they were standing in a storage room filled with precious jewels that he was mistaking for mere nylon and string. “Just follow Micah today. He’s a master. Best employee I have.”

  “You flatter me.” Micah cruised into the storage room, leaving the door swinging in his wake. Oliver peered into the shop behind him to see if he spotted Essa. No luck.

  At the sight of Micah, Jan lit up even more than when she was holding the giant line laundry squid. “My dear.” She patted his back. “How’s the Big Man on Campus?”

  “Hungry.” Micah walked over to a little wooden cabinet and opened the door. Inside was a giant plastic tub filled with lollipops. The candy stash. He pulled out a handful and shut the door with his hiking boot.

  “Whoa,” Micah said, as he noticed Oliver. “And who do we have here?”

  “This is Oliver,” Jan said. But the light kind of drained out of her face when she said his name. Like Micah was an Edo kite that just flew in from the clouds, and Oliver was a plastic bag that just blew in from the King Soopers’ parking lot. “He’s going to work here for the summer.”

  “Wait.” Micah stepped close and studied him. “Are you from . . . Illinois?”

  “Um.” Oliver cleared his throat and was totally weirded out. How did Micah know where he was from? “Yeah, Chicago. Lincoln Park.”

  “Essa told me you came in yesterday—” Micah stopped. “Wait, like Linkin Park, Linkin Park? Like the band?”

  “No, no. It’s a neighborhood in the city. It’s where I live.”

  “Oh. Right. So you into hiking? Outdoor stuff? That why you came out for the summer?”

  Oliver’s face burned under the storage room lights, and for a minute he considered lying. But it seemed futile. If Micah asked any questions about the Great Outdoors Oliver’s concrete-and-skyscraper soul would be obvious in two seconds flat. “Um, not really.”

  A know-it-all smile spread across Micah’s face. “Yeah, well, Oliver from Lincoln Park, welcome to Boulder.” He walked over to one of the overflowing storage shelves and pulled down a thick book. He flopped it against Oliver’s chest like it was a giant Lake Michigan fish. “This is a good start.”

  The title was in large caps: RIDING HIGH: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO KITES.

  Micah reached behind the Mac screen and pulled out another book. A smaller one. “And try this one, too.”

  Oliver glanced at the title. Mountain Orienteering: How to Find Your Way in the Wilderness.

  “That’s what we do around here. It’s badass.” Micah winked. “You’re gonna love it here.”

  There was little in life that Olive
r hated more than the use of the Ironic Wink. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

  “So it’s totally and completely different when you’re in college,” Micah said. His big, bushy head of curly hair shook a little as he talked. “Totally and completely different. You’ll see.”

  Oliver shifted on his stool behind the front counter. Jan had left long ago, and Oliver was supposed to be watching Micah run the store and learn how to do it. So far, the job seemed to entail sitting behind the counter, philosophizing about the vast differences between college and high school, and answering customers’ questions with an insane amount of exuberance.

  The only practical thing he’d learned so far: Micah was the only one who put out a tip jar. Actually, he put out two, stuck dueling labels on each, and changed them daily. Sometimes he used movies. Like Original Ghostbusters vs. The Girl Version. Other times, he picked philosophers, like Plato vs. Aristotle. Today Micah had chosen Batman vs. “I’m my own superhero.” Actually, Micah explained that it used to say, “I’m my own superhero, fucker.” But he’d scratched out fucker.

  “I mean, seriously,” Micah said, spinning the empty Batman jar. “College makes high school look like one long case study on the Phenomenon of Suffering.” He kicked his legs up on the counter. Chunks of brown dirt fell off the soles of his hiking boots onto the glass. A woman in her thirties came through the shop door. “Oh, no,” Micah whispered. “Check what she’s wearing.”

  She was pretty. Her long hair was tucked into a messy bun on top of her head, and she was decked out in yoga pants and a loose-fitting tank top. Across her breasts in big black ink the shirt read, Namaste, Bitches.

  Oliver looked at Micah, confused.

  “Namaste is a Sanskrit blessing,” Micah said. “It’s like . . . sort of sacred.”

  The woman approached the counter.

  “Now watch this,” he whispered. “Hey there!” he boomed at the customer. “Welcome to Above the Clouds. Greatest kite store in the universe. How can I help you?”

  He oozed charm. And it was working. The effect on the woman was immediate. She smiled, her face suddenly bright and shiny. “My nephew wants a new kite. A three-tiered one? Do you guys carry those?”