Hope and Other Punch Lines(53)

“It didn’t work,” I say.

“What didn’t work?” she asks. “What do you mean?”

“I thought he was alive. All these years. I thought he was there at the World Trade Center, that he survived and decided not to come home, probably because I was so sick. I thought he left.” I choke out the words, realize I’m not as far gone as I thought, because the embarrassment rips its way through my body, slices the numbness right in half.

“I didn’t…I didn’t realize. Oh, Noah.” She reaches to hug me, but I turn around. I can’t watch the pity flash across her face. I cover my head with a pillow, like a little kid. “You’re just like your dad. Your eyes and the shape of your mouth and your insatiable curiosity and, oh God, your sense of humor. How you want to make everything a lighter burden to carry, and not just for you, but for everyone else. Maybe even more for them. You are all love and magic, like he was. It never occurred to me that if I didn’t tell you the truth, another myth would take its place. I’m so sorry.”

I feel no relief. Her apology bounces off me. What did I think was going to happen with this whole Baby Hope photo search? Did I think I’d discover my dad was still alive? Seriously? And even if he was, what was I going to do? Track him down?

Things stay lost. I thought I’d already learned that lesson.

“You know, it took me years to realize that it had nothing to do with us. Your dad didn’t turn around and save all of those people because he didn’t want to come home. Or because we weren’t enough. Your father turned around because that’s who he was. Extraordinary. He was a hero. He never had a choice.”

“We all have choices,” I say, and then I get up and pack a bag.





I play it cool when I see Noah at camp. All Hey, what’s up, super casual, not at all like my grandma, Paula, and I spent hours last night analyzing his behavior. Not like I’ve replayed that kiss a million times in my head and want some more pleasethankyouverymuch. I can do this platonic-friends thing. No hard feelings. No feelings at all. Not a one.

My heart is not hiccupping. That yearning I’m feeling is merely hunger, not longing.

It’s all cool.

I’m cool.

“Hey,” he says, and does his best guy nod. I wait for him to say something, anything else, even a Yesterday was a mistake, let’s just be friends, to which I had the response all prepared: Totally agree. He looks rough today, hair all over the place. Before he has a chance to speak, Uncle Maurice, Knight’s Day Camp’s fearless leader, breaks out a bullhorn and starts shouting instructions. Today is the start of Color War, which I’ve been looking forward to since I took this job.

“All groups are to be split in half, designated blue or red, and then paired with their opposite gender counterparts. Junior counselors go with opposite junior counselors. Senior counselors with opposite senior counselors,” Uncle Maurice announces, and I hear Julia mutter under her breath: “Crap.” Clearly, she wants to spend the day with Zach about as much as I want to with Noah. Which is to say not even a little bit.

I don’t even want to look at Noah—no need to stare rejection right in the face—so I look over at Zach, who looks at Julia, who looks at me because she doesn’t want to acknowledge Zach. And around we go in this exciting game of avoiding each other.

“I’m on Abbi’s team,” Livi declares, and upon hearing this, the rest of the girls line up behind Julia.

Little traitors.

We divide everyone into equal groups. Uncle Maurice hands me ten red kid-sized T-shirts that have the camp logo, a graphic of a Knight, and then pauses and quietly hands over one more kid one for me. I pull it on over my tank top and try not to stare as Noah takes off his shirt, which looks old and battered and says University of Michigan, and carefully folds it. He then slips on his adult-sized camp shirt. His abs, while nowhere near Charles’s level of chiseled, are not as boyish as I would have guessed. There’s a possibility this guy actually does crunches when he’s not watching comedy specials. Or at least while he’s watching.

“Hey,” Noah says. He’s walked over to me, and he’s standing so close, I can feel his breath on my ear. I try to squash the hope that takes flight in my chest. “About yesterday. I’ll…Can we talk later?”

There it is. Over before it even began. I guess it’s a credit to him that he wants to discuss things as opposed to letting me know via the cold shoulder. He doesn’t really owe me anything.

“It’s fine,” I say, flushing as I remember that this morning I gargled not once, but twice with mouthwash. Just in case. I ignore the sadness that crashes over me, a cold, unpleasant shower of disappointment. “Friends?”

I put out my hand for him to shake, like this is the start of a job interview or something, and he looks at my hand and then up at me, like he has no idea what that gesture means.

“Sure,” he says, keeping his hands in his pockets, which means mine is left dangling, and I awkwardly drop it. “Right. Friends.”

“So Color War,” I say.

“Color War,” he echoes, as if to say, I see your intense discomfort right now and I have no desire to save you from it. Which is pretty crappy of him, considering he’s the one who ran away yesterday, not me. He’s the one who wants to “talk.” If he wanted us to be together, there wouldn’t be the need for a conversation. We’d continue what we started.