Hope and Other Punch Lines(38)

“Why didn’t you tell me at the start?”

I keep staring out the windshield. If I glance over, I don’t know what I’ll see on his face now. Pity? Resentment? Grief?

“I’m sorry about your dad,” I say, a nonanswer, I realize, but somehow it feels way more important than explaining myself. Not that I could even if I wanted to. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Noah about Connie. I guess it felt like none of his business.

“It was a long time ago. I never really knew my father, so.”

“That’s really it? You want to learn about the survivors? And write, like, an inspirational piece? That’s not so complicated.” I remember all the questions Cat, who also lost her dad, used to obsess over. She later learned you weren’t supposed to ask, not really. She once told me she wondered: Did her dad die instantaneously? Did he burn alive? Did he feel pain? Did he jump? Did he know he was going to die? Was he scared?

She asked the last one again and again: Was he scared?

I wonder if being sixteen has finally answered that one for her. Of course he was scared. We all are in the end. I’m pretty sure we all are in the middle too.

“I think I’m going to call my car Go! G-O, with an exclamation point. What do you think?” I ask, taking the dodge as soon as I see it present itself, like Noah does. We pick the easy joke over the harder answer. We are not so different, he and I.

“Brave, building the punctuation right into the name. It’s a verb and a command all wrapped into one. I like it,” he declares, leaning back in his seat. I can feel him regaining his equilibrium, leaving whatever he was feeling behind. “Can we please keep working on the piece? I can do some interviews on my own, or on the phone, but I’ve already set up Jamal. We need to keep Go! fit.”

“Okay. One more interview,” I say. He takes out the gummy bears and drops three into my open palm. I notice how his fingers barely brush mine.





“I’m ninety-six percent sure this Brendan thing is not just in my head. He apologized for not showing up at the party and bagged for me today on his break so we could keep talking,” Jack says. “That must mean something, right?”

We’re foraging in Jack’s kitchen. Since Abbi isn’t here, we’re back to mainlining Cheetos straight from the bag.

“Don’t listen to me. I know nothing,” I say.

“Come on. You always have an annoying take. Or at least a theory. That’s your shtick.”

“Not today, man.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Noah?”

“I’ve been humbled recently by raw human emotion.” As soon as I say it, I realize I sound like Jack, all big words and euphemisms.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I speak fluent Noah.”

“Abbi saw me cry,” I say, and pretend to root around in the bag. I’m embarrassed. Not as embarrassed as I was earlier, when I was actually crying in front of Abbi, but still. My cheeks warm. I feel the sudden need to bro out, like punch his arm or something. We should get back into the basement and play some Xbox.

“Whaaaat?” Jack says, and laughs. He grabs the Cheetos from my hands.

“The widow we interviewed talked about her dead husband. It hit close to home.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“You know the guy Abbi is obsessed with? The lifeguard? He would have been stone-cold.”

“First of all, you’ve totally made up that Abbi has a thing for that guy. Secondly, why do you suddenly want to be like some stone-cold dude who can pull off overalls? Just be you.” While he talks, Jack counts off his points with his fingers, which is his nerdiest habit, and usually I have no choice but to destroy him for it. Today, I let it go. “Did you tell her your whole dad theory finally? She deserves to know.”

“Nope.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yup.”

“Did you get all mucus-y when you cried? Like did you snot all over her? Because, I’m not going to lie, there’s no bouncing back from that.”

“It was more like a low-key manly cry.”

“You showed her that you have feelings. Good. As a rule, I think you should work on emoting more. All this bottling crap up is going to give you cancer or at the very least an irritable bowel. I need peanut butter.” Jack grabs the Skippy from the cabinet and a spoon from the drawer and starts to shovel peanut butter into his mouth. “I think it’s time to show her you’re into her.”

“Who said I’m into her?”

“We’ve been best friends for almost a decade. Do we really have to do this?” he asks.

“Fine. So what should I do?” I ask. “For real.” I’ve been reduced to asking Jack for relationship advice. Jack, who’s notorious for always falling flat on his ass.

“Woo her.”

“Woo her? What, with my dorky banter and my inability to leave no bad pun unsaid? That’s your plan?”

“Sure, that could work,” he says.

“Was that sarcasm?” I ask.

“What do you think?” he asks.





When I get home from my afternoon with Noah, I’m surprised to find Mel, Cat’s mom, sitting in the breakfast nook drinking coffee with my mother. Fancy-looking chocolate truffles and an open bag of Stumptown make clear that my mom must have looted my dad’s house.