We Are the Goldens (5 page)

It didn’t strike me as strange that Mr. B. came out on a Saturday morning to watch a soccer game, but now, looking back, he was the only teacher there who wasn’t a dean or the head of school. Attendance wasn’t part of his job description. He was there because he wanted to be there.

Afterward, you said you had plans with a friend. Mom bailed because it was a Saturday and Dad takes the weekend parenting shift.

Dad asked, “How ’bout we hit up the Dumpling King and then go sit on the beach and watch the surf?”

It sounded nice. But you had your thing, Mom had hers, and Felix stood waiting for me. I felt like being with someone my own age.

“Rain check?” I asked.

“Why would we want to sit on the beach in the rain?”

Dad’s sense of humor is seriously in need of an upgrade.

Felix and I walked over to the Bison Paddock. No, I do not know the difference between bison and buffalo. And I don’t know why we find them so fascinating when they don’t do much other than stand around and sometimes sit and occasionally graze in the grass. It’s cool to have animals that look like they belong back in the Ice Age living right in the middle of San Francisco. Especially since, as Dad likes to
remind us, real estate doesn’t come cheap here. But if you’re looking to go where the action is, you’re not going to find it with the buffalo.

Felix and I like to imagine what they’re thinking. We manufacture drama. Love triangles and hidden secrets and terrible betrayals.

He pointed to the one nearest to us. “He’s decided that he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body and hasn’t worked up the courage to tell his family he’s about to start hormone therapy.”

“She’s got a spending problem.” I pointed to the one sleeping under the tree. “She stays up all night buying things she doesn’t need on the Home Shopping Network and then crashes hard most of the day.”

Maybe what we like so much about the buffalo is the simple fact of them. They never change. They aren’t going to surprise you by doing something unexpected. They’re going to stand, or sleep under a tree, or graze a bit.

That’s all.

Actually, the part about them never changing isn’t entirely true. Buffalo have lived in Golden Gate Park since the 1890s, at least that’s what the sign on the fence says, so unless they have some crazy life expectancy, they die and then get replaced by other buffalo that look just like them.

That’s why we create drama for them. Lives that stay the same day in and day out don’t make any sense to us.

We walked out of the park to find a café where we could get a coffee and Felix could show me some of his drawings. He clutched his sketchbook proudly to his chest.

I’ve never been particularly skilled at living in the moment
or
being here now
or whatever it is yoga and meditation are supposed to teach you. So maybe it was the perfect weather, or the fact that we’d won 2–0, or the steadfastness of the buffalo, but at that moment I was able to appreciate how lucky I was to have a friend like Felix De La Cruz.

I’m not telling you this to impart some sort of touchy-feely wisdom about gratitude or whatever, but as I walked out of the park with Felix, I thought about how you had not one best friend, but two. Schuyler and Liv.

They were both at the soccer game.

You said you had plans with a friend, and I wondered: Liv or Schuyler?

I didn’t consider the possibility that your plans were with neither of them.

REMEMBER HOW WE USED TO
tell Mom everything?

It’s different with Dad. He’s easygoing and fun to be around, but still, even with Mom’s short temper and intolerance for a dropped jacket in the front hall, she’s always been the one we’ve turned to when we needed someone to put things in perspective.

Sometimes I think about how after they broke up Mom and Dad settled in the most ironic of places: Dad on bedrock, Mom on landfill.

Dad lives in Noe Valley on solid, unmovable ground, while Mom bought a place in the Marina, which is sort of like purchasing a high-priced sand castle. The ’89 earthquake practically leveled her entire neighborhood. That was before we were born, obviously, but we know the stories, and we’ve seen the pictures: it’s only a matter of time before
the next shifting of the plates mixes us up like a bunch of Boggle cubes.

So it’s funny that Dad, the risk taker, and Mom, the cautious one, live in converse seismic zones.

Because Mom is our bedrock. She’s the one who’ll be there no matter what the tectonic plates decide. I don’t want to say anything bad about Dad, because I adore him and he’s a great father, but he’s maybe a little bit like the castle made of sand. Fun, whimsical, not entirely reliable.

Anyway, back to telling Mom everything. I know growing up is about figuring out how to carve out private space and what to keep to yourself. That can be tricky, but I think we found it easier than most to cut Mom out because we had each other.

If I’d been in third grade instead of ninth, I’d have come home from school in those first weeks and said “Mom, there’s this boy. His name is Sam. I think I kinda love him.” But instead I came home and said “Fine” when she asked how it was going and “Nope” when she asked if anything interesting had happened.

You weren’t more forthcoming with Mom, which wasn’t anything new. But when you started to be vague with me, I wasn’t about to put up with it.

Even so, it took a few weeks or so to work up the courage to ask, in a roundabout way: What gives?

I knew I couldn’t just look at you meaningfully and say
What’s wrong with you lately?
or
Is there something you want to tell me?

Instead I waited until we were on the bus from Mom’s to
Dad’s. Usually Mom drives us or Dad picks us up, but they both had other things on their calendars, and anyway, we’ve always enjoyed navigating San Francisco on our own.

“Life would be so much simpler if they’d just buy me a car,” you said. “It’s not like they can’t afford it.”

“I don’t think that’s the point.”

“What is the point, then? Some sort of lesson? What, exactly, do they think I’m learning by riding the bus?” You pointed to an advertisement above my head. “Oh, I guess it’s critical I learn Dr. Laslow can brighten my smile
and
laser away my unwanted, unseemly hairs for only $999.”

I looked up at Dr. Laslow and his creepy white teeth.

“Yeah, Mom and Dad can be so unreasonable,” I said, even though I could see why they’d refuse to buy a barely seventeen-year-old a car. Especially in a city where no one can go more than seven miles in any direction without reaching its limits. Where did you need to get on your own? Why couldn’t you just be content with riding the bus with me, or catching a lift from Mom and Dad?

Anyway, my goal wasn’t to defend Mom and Dad, it was to commiserate with you, to remind you that you could talk to me.

But you were texting.

“I don’t think I want to be a junior,” I said.

You looked up. “What?”

“I don’t ever want to be a junior.”

“Why?” You went back to texting, a little annoyed.

“Because it seems too hard. Too much work and pressure and stuff.”

You shrugged. “Don’t worry. You’re smart as shit. You’ll do fine.”

Strike one.

“It just sort of seems like your year is off to a bad start. Usually you’re more excited about school.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said. Translation:
Please leave me alone so I can concentrate on this text
.

Strike two.

So I decided to follow a wisp of suspicion I hardly knew I had.

“What did you do last Saturday after the game?”

You didn’t look up from your phone. “Huh?”

“After the soccer game at the Polo Fields last Saturday. Where did you go?”

“The de Young.”

“With Liv?” Schuyler wouldn’t be caught dead at an art museum.

“No.”

“Schuyler?” I asked, incredulous.

“No.” You shoved your phone in your bag and looked at me. Daring and confident. “With Mr. B.”

“You went to a museum with Mr. Barr? On a Saturday?”

“Shhh.”

“What, is it a secret?”

“No, you’re just really loud.”

I was definitely using my outside voice.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“That’s weird, is all.”

“What’s weird? He’s my art teacher. I’m taking a painting
seminar and there was an Impressionist show at the de Young.”

“Did anyone else go with you?”

“No. So?”

“So that’s weird.”

“You’re weird.”

You opened your bag, dug around for the phone you’d just put away, and went back to staring at the screen. I’d rattled you.

You could have lied to me. Told me that you’d gone to a museum or a movie or the beach with Schuyler or Liv and I’d have believed you. But you trusted me. It was a test balloon of sorts—to say out loud that you spent the afternoon alone with a teacher who has a reputation.

And I shot that balloon right out of the sky.

I’m sorry for that. I really am.

I tried telling myself maybe it wasn’t so weird. City Day is a place where students are given special attention and unique opportunities to learn and grow, and blah, blah, blah.

But your neck got red. You took off your sweater. You were hot and rashy, which happens when you’re caught in an uncomfortable situation, and I know because it happens to me too. When I saw the color creeping up to your face I should have backed down. I’m your sister, and I want more than anything to be on your side.

As I sat and watched you text with angry fingers, all I wanted was to get off the bus and back on your good side.

So I decided that you, like most girls at City Day, had a harmless crush on Mr. B. I decided I was reading too much into everything, as usual. I should let it go.

We were on our way to Dad’s. It was a Friday night and we had no plans. I still liked these sorts of nights the best, when it was just you and me at home with some version of our family.

We hopped off at 24th and Church. I offered to carry one of your bags. You let me—accepting my olive branch.

We played Bananagrams until midnight. Sonia begged off early because she had a brief she had to work on over the weekend. You and I should have followed her, considering our game the next day was at nine against one of the strongest teams in the league. But prudence, especially while in Dad’s care, is not our strong suit. Between you, Dad, and me we finished a pint and a half of Mitchell’s Grasshopper Pie ice cream, after an extra-large deep-dish calamity from Paxti’s Pizza.

I went to bed bloated but happy. Dad stood on the threshold to my room and said, “Good night, Monkey Number Two.”

That’s always been Dad’s nickname for me because you are Monkey Number One.

“Good night, Pops.”

“Sleep well.” He kissed the top of my head.

“I’ll try.”

I closed the door behind him and turned around to find the Creed brothers sitting on my bed.

You ate too much, huh?
Parker nodded sympathetically.

You’ve got a game tomorrow. You should be taking care of your body
, Duncan said.

I stood and stared at them. Trying to convey with a look
that they were on my bed and I needed to get in it, like, immediately.

Do you want us to go?

I was so, so tired.

They stood up and I climbed under my covers, turned out the light, and closed my eyes.

Nell
, Duncan whispered in the dark.

I put a pillow over my head but it didn’t block the sound of his voice.
Her neck was creeping red
.

I’M SURE YOU THINK I
tried out for the fall play just to get nearer to Sam Fitzpayne.

Sure, when I walked by the drama room and saw his name on the sign-up sheet it lit a fire under me and I wrote my name up there too, but it wasn’t only Sam. You were changing. Pulling away from me. The survivalist in me must have known that I needed something other than soccer, other than being N. Golden, Monkey Number Two. I needed to do something for me, and yes, you’d worked on the musical your freshman year, but I wasn’t following in your footsteps. I wanted to be onstage, not behind the scenes, and anyway, you know how I love me some Shakespeare.