Picture Us In The Light(28)

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His phone buzzes and he twists the cap on his water bottle, raising his eyebrows at me in a way that means don’t say it: he has an app to remind him to drink more water, and I always give him crap for it. “It’s funny because if I told them I wanted to be an artist, even if I were as good as you are, they would flip the eff out. Or you know what? They wouldn’t even bother, they’d just laugh their asses off because they’d know there was no way in hell I’d get to. But then with you, they were all excited. They even made me show them some of our old papers so they could look at your drawings. They keep talking about it.”

It would be douchey to act flattered, I think, since that’s obviously not where he’s going with this. “Well, what do you actually want to be? Do you not want to go to college?”

“Of course I want to go to college. Maybe like—I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe it would be cool to do something like”—he glances around like he wants to make sure no one’s listening—“like maybe acting.”

“Acting?” He looks so embarrassed to say it, like he regretted it as soon as it came out, that I know he isn’t making it up. “Actually, I could see that.”

“Really?”

I grin. “You know how sometimes I tell you you’re kind of fake?”

He reaches under the table and socks my thigh. “Shut up.”

“No, really, though. Why not?”

“Why not? I mean, maybe I’d suck at it.”

“And?”

“What do you mean and? Maybe I’d suck at it, full stop. Also, I don’t have time.”

That part is probably true. The drama crowd is forever doing auditions or rehearsals or performances, always siphoned from the outside world into the black paint and velour of the theater. It’s why I only ever see Mike Narvin during PE. And Harry’s already up until one or two most mornings studying as it is.

“Are you serious about this? It’s actually something you—”

“No, no, it’s stupid. I’m definitely not serious. It would never work out.”

He’s lying. “Maybe you could—”

“No, it’s stupid. Forget I said anything. I don’t know, maybe I’m just too stressed. I just keep thinking how if I don’t get in—what was the point of anything I did here? What’s the point of anything at all?”

Those dull flashes of heat in his tone—I know he doesn’t talk like this around anyone else. “So you’re not feeling great about the SAT, I take it.”

“It just all seems so stupid and arbitrary. I’ve worked my ass off the past four years but who knows, maybe the admissions officer I get hates my essay or something. Bam. Done. Just like that.”

It’s cruel to try to tell someone the most important thing in their life doesn’t matter, I know that. I keep picturing my dad having imaginary conversations trying to defend his research to his boss, stumbling over why he didn’t just dismantle the whole thing. And what do you say? It matters because it matters to me. That’s the worst thing Mr. X always levels at me, that those things I hold dearest just don’t matter. You can’t mount a solid argument against someone who’d just as soon burn down the things you love, shrugging as they pour the gasoline.

“It’s not a great system,” I say. “Or maybe it’s better if you’re at a less competitive high school.”

“You’re so lucky you’re in already. You’re luckier than you know.”

“Yeah, but—yeah.” I stop myself, because he’s right; I am lucky.

“But what?”

“Eh—I’m just kind of worried about my parents.”

“About those files still?”

“No—they’ve just been really stressed out.”

“Your dad didn’t find a new job yet?”

He hasn’t. But the other thing is that I went through his search history last night, and it’s strange—he’s been looking up what feel like totally unrelated jobs. He’s looked at Craigslist postings for things like a household manager and an Uber driver, and yesterday he searched job Cupertino cash only. He’s looked at nothing that feels like a logical transition. “It kind of feels like he’s barely even trying. Like he already gave up or he’s just going about it the worst possible way, which is functionally the same thing, right? I don’t even think he’s looking at the kind of job he could actually do. And the weird thing is he’s only looking at like—these under the table type jobs. Like the other day I saw he was looking at, like, construction gigs on Craigslist, which makes zero sense. He has a bad back. Do you think what he did was really that bad that he can literally never get another job in his field?”

“In the Silicon Valley? Not a chance. I’m sure there’s like a zillion startups that would see getting fired for doing some secret experiment as all bold and groundbreaking and like”—he makes air quotes—“‘disruptive’ and crap. Why doesn’t he apply at one of those?”

“Yeah, that’s…not a terrible idea, actually.” Why doesn’t he? My dad’s a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid. Wouldn’t he have thought about all this, too?