Yearbook Read online

  My mother, who is a pediatrician, beamed at him. “That’s wonderful news!” She was thrilled because her parents live in the Seattle area and she’s always wanted to go back. She’d already been in touch with a practice that she wanted to join and all we needed was for my dad to get the right job. Everything was really coming together for us, my parents kept saying, forgetting that there was a third person to this family. Me.

  We’d lived in Phoenix for ten years, long enough that it was the only place I really remembered, and therefore, the only place I really belonged. I had friends in Phoenix and a history in Phoenix. Not all of it was perfect, but all of it was mine. I’d never been on board with this plan and they both knew it.

  After hugging each other and giving each other congratulations, they both looked at me with a little bit of fear in their eyes. We were standing in the kitchen where I had risked my mom’s wrath by starting to eat my dinner before it was done. I’m an only child, which is lonely on the one hand and also kind of nice on the other. What I say carries a lot more weight, I think, than if I had a bunch of brothers and sisters. But, in this case, I could have used some backup.

  “You both know I don’t want to move,” I said. “I’m not excited. I’m not happy about this. I don’t want to go.” I put my spoon on the counter and grabbed the keys to the car. “I’ll be back. I’m going to the gym to shoot around.”

  Neither of them tried to stop me. They just shot those significant looks at each other that annoy me. As I backed out of the driveway, I could see through the kitchen window. They were sitting at the table, talking. As much as I hoped they were saying, “Well, Tyler’s upset, so we’d better just stay,” I knew they weren’t. At least I was missing some of the excited planning that was going on in there. I had known this was coming, but now that the axe had fallen, I felt more anger—and more sorrow—than I’d expected, and it was ticking me off.

  I wondered if I could talk them into letting me stay behind to finish out the basketball season. We’d started some informal practices in the past two weeks and it was obvious that the team was going to be phenomenal this year. I wanted to be a part of it, not a part of some other team in Seattle.

  As I drove to the high school, I hoped that Coach would be staying late and that the gym would be open. I needed to run fast down the court, to see the ball sail through the air into the hoop, to drive hard to the basket, to feel the way the basket springs back under my hands after a slam dunk, to feel my feet slide along the hardwood floor. Basically what I had in mind was a completely sensory experience—feeling and seeing and not thinking at all.

  The side door to the gym was unlocked. Perfect. I opened it and went in, then stopped. There were people and newspapers and paint and wire all over the gym. “What’s going on?” I asked the girl closest to the door. I must not have done a very good job at keeping the frustration out of my voice. She turned and looked at me with a smile on her lips.

  Talk about a sensory experience.

  Our school is huge, but I would have known if I’d seen this girl before. It wasn’t so much that she was pretty, although she was. It was more that she was interesting-looking. Her eyes were really big, bright green, and alive. And she smelled like cinnamon, or something else spicy and different. She definitely didn’t smell like the gym. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a long braid, and she was wearing jeans and flip-flops and a T-shirt. Nothing showy, but still she caught your eye. “They’re working on a float for the Homecoming Parade,” she said. “Are you here to help?”

  “No,” I said. “I was hoping to play some ball. Who are you? You don’t go to school here.”

  She laughed. “No, I don’t. I’m here for the weekend, visiting my cousins. I’m from Tucson.”

  “Who are your cousins?” I asked.

  She pointed to our student body president, Libby Snow, who was obviously in charge tonight. She stood in the center of the activity, coordinating the efforts. “Libby’s my cousin. She brought me along tonight to help. I’m in charge of this.” She pointed to a huge pile of tissue paper squares. “I’m folding them into flowers for the float.”

  I raised one eyebrow at her, which girls usually find attractive and sardonic. “That’s kind of a mind-numbing project for a Friday night, don’t you think?”

  She raised one eyebrow back at me, which I found attractive and sardonic. “It would be more interesting if I had someone to talk to. Lib’s pretty busy with supervising those guys over there, so she abandoned me. She smiled. “I owe it to her, though. Last year, when I was in charge of the junior prom at my school, she helped me decorate.”

  I weighed my options. I could leave and go home to face the music, leave and head over to Max’s house to hang out with my friends, or stay and fold tissue paper flowers with a girl who didn’t even live here. I chose the path of least resistance, which also seemed the path of most interest for some reason. “All right,” I said. “Show me how to fold the flowers. Might as well donate an hour or two in the name of school spirit.”

  “Really?” she said. Smiling, she handed me a square of blue paper. “I’m Maya, by the way.”

  “Tyler,” I said, sticking out my free hand. We shook hands and I sat down next to her on the floor. She showed me how to fold the paper and staple it. It was a pretty mindless job. But that was good. I could still talk to her, think about how angry I was at my parents, and staple away.

  “When you’re done, throw them in here,” she said, tossing one into a clean plastic garbage can. “Then, when it’s full, we’ll take them over and attach them to the float.”

  “Maybe I’ll get a chance to practice my game after all,” I said, aiming my tissue paper flower straight into the garbage can.

  “Are you on the basketball team?” she asked.

  “Is he on the basketball team? He practically is the basketball team,” said Libby, who had come up behind us. “Hey, Tyler.”

  “Hi, Libby,” I said. “I came here to play, but it looks like you’ve taken over the gym.”

  “Yeah, I guess we did,” she said, looking around at the mess. “Sorry about that. It looks like you’ve met Maya. Maya, you should know that Tyler is the only guy who could ever give Noah a run for his money on the court.”

  Noah was Libby’s older brother. He had been a huge star on the basketball team, but he graduated right before I got to high school. Everyone still talks about him and it’s his records I’m out to beat.

  “How is Noah, anyway?” I asked. “He ended up taking a basketball scholarship to that school in Utah, right? But then Coach said he was taking a break for a couple of years, going to New Zealand or something?”

  “Yeah, he went to Australia,” Libby said. “He took a two-year leave to serve a mission for our church. That’s why Maya is here. He just got home this week and everyone came to see him and hear him give his talk at our church meetings this weekend.” She stopped, distracted. “Oh no. Those guys are starting to attach the balloons to the frame and it’s nowhere near time for that yet . . .” And she was gone.

  Maya tossed a flower toward the can. She missed by a mile.

  “Not your sport?” I teased her.

  She laughed. “Not at all. I’m a swimmer. It doesn’t require any hand-eye coordination.”

  “No wonder you’re so tan. You must have been a lifeguard this summer.”

  She nodded. “It’s the perfect summer job. What did you do?”

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “I went to a lot of basketball camps so there wasn’t much time to get a regular job. But when I was home, I worked some for my neighbors doing yard work, helping one of them frame his garage, stuff like that.”

  “No wonder you’re so tan,” she said.

  “Yeah, but that’s about to change.” I threw some more flowers into the can a little harder than was necessary. “My parents just told me tonight that we’re moving to Seattle. All it ever does there is rain.”

  She looked at me with what appeared to be true sympathy in h
er face. “You’re moving? Now?”

  I nodded. “Well, as soon as my parents find a house, which won’t take long. They’ve been scoping out neighborhoods and homes for months and they know the area really well. That’s where my mom is from. And even if we don’t find a house, we’ll rent something. They want to be up there for me to start school there in January. It sucks.”

  “I hear you,” she said. “We moved from Utah to Tucson my freshman year in high school. Talk about an awkward time to change schools. I was insecure enough about starting high school anyway. I was so mad at my parents that I didn’t speak to them for a week.” She laughed. “They actually probably appreciated that since all I’d been doing before then was whining. I have three brothers too and all they were doing was whining.”

  “I’m trying to decide which one I should do, myself,” I said. “I’m an only child, so if I quit speaking to them, they’ll notice for sure. So maybe griping about it nonstop would be better. I should decide soon so I can get started.”

  Maya walked an armful of flowers over to the garbage can and started letting them drift down into it, one by one. I noticed that she had stuck one of the flowers into her hair, which was the golden-yellow color of the hardwood floor in the gym.

  “Nice touch,” I said, standing up and bringing my flowers over to the garbage can.

  “What?” she said.

  “The flower in your hair,” I said, leaning in close enough to pull it out.

  She laughed. “I was getting bored until you got here.”

  “Are you bored now?” I said, sticking the flower back into her braid. Then I stepped back to admire the effect and to see what she was going to say.

  Maya grinned. She had one of those smiles that took over her whole face, crinkling her eyes and wrinkling her nose. It was cute. “Nope,” she said, walking back to the tissue paper pile. I followed her.

  “It’s good to talk to someone who doesn’t know you once in a while,” she said. “It’s fun to talk to people who don’t have any preconceptions about you and what you do and who you are and who will give you a chance the first time they meet you. That’s one of the things I liked about moving, once I noticed it. Of course, not everyone was like that. There were jerks in Tucson just like there were jerks at my old school. But it felt good, in a way, to have a clean slate. And it was also good to feel the same way about other people—every new person was a potential friend. I didn’t have all the preconceptions about people that everyone else did because they’d all grown up together, you know what I mean?”

  “I bet that came in handy when you ran for junior class president,” I said.

  “It did, but that’s not why I ran. I ran because I wanted to get really involved and give back to a school that I felt like had given a lot to me.” She stopped. “Hey—how did you know I was class president?”

  “A guess,” I said. “Why else would you be in charge of the junior prom? And I would vote for you in a second.”

  “Speaking of preconceptions, I’m trying not to have any about you,” she said. “But it’s hard when you keep coming up with these little pickup lines. You’re one of those guys who’s always sweet-talking the ladies, aren’t you?” There was some sarcasm in her voice, but enough warmth in her eyes and smile that I didn’t take offense.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But, preconceptions aside, what do you think?”

  She surprised me by getting very serious. “I think you’re a good guy. A good person.”

  It was quiet for a second. I don’t know why it felt so good to have a perfect stranger tell me I was a good person, but it did. Then the teasing look came back into her face. “But I’ve been wrong before.”

  We talked for the rest of the evening and into the night, until every tissue paper flower was stapled and thrown into the garbage can and then until every flower in the can was glued onto the frame of the float. Somewhere along the way Maya acquired a lot more tissue paper flowers in her hair—I may have had something to do with that—and I picked up a lot of advice about starting over in a new school.

  When the float was finished, Libby went to the student government room to put some things away, and Maya and I sat on the bleachers to wait for her. I didn’t want to leave until they did. The gym was empty except for the two of us, the float, and the basketball standards at either end. Maya said, “Are you going to be okay with your move?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t want to think about the future, just the present. I told her that, and she laughed.

  “I understand,” she said. “What are you going to miss the most about living here?”

  “Basketball, and the guys on the team,” I said without hesitation. “And the way night feels in the desert.” She gave me another raised-eyebrow look. I held up my hands. “Not a pickup line. Haven’t you noticed the way it feels here? So dry and dark but alive. I love that.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s true. It does.” We sat there for a second, thinking. I was remembering a camping trip with my dad a few years ago, one I hadn’t thought about in a long time. We had been camping up on a mesa in his little two-man tent that he’d had since college and we’d had one of our deeper conversations. At night, we’d warmed up cans of Dinty Moore stew on his camp stove. We’d each had our own pan and we’d sat there together eating the stew right out of the pan with our spoons and sticking big pieces of French bread in there to mop up the rest. We’re big eaters, my dad and me. The sun went down, and the night sounds in the desert were picking up. I could smell the sagebrush and the smoke from our campfire. When I’d finished sopping up the last of my stew, my dad had put some more brush on the fire and we’d started making s’mores. (Like I said, we’re big eaters.)

  I remembered laughing really hard when my dad brought out a bunch of those yellow marshmallow chickens that they sell at Easter to use in our s’mores. I don’t know how old they were, but they were definitely on the stale side. My old man cannot resist a bargain. The stick was kind of short, which meant my fingers got too hot after a while. My dad and I took turns spearing the poor Peeps with the little dry sticks and roasting them over the fire. “This is kind of sadistic,” he said, and I had to agree. We spent a long time cracking jokes and stuffing our faces. Then we’d sort of had a talk after the sun went down and we were both resting in our sleeping bags. His tent had kind of a skylight. He unzipped the window in the roof of the tent and we looked out through the netting.

  “Check out all the stars, Ty,” he said from his sleeping bag.

  “There’s a lot more here than in the city,” I said. There were about a million of them.

  “No kidding,” he said. “It always makes me feel kind of small.”

  “What do you think is out there?” I asked him. I’d never really known how my parents felt about religion or what happens after you die. I tried not to think about that too much.

  “I don’t know, kiddo,” he said. I remember feeling proud that he felt like I was grown-up enough for him to be honest like that with me. “I’d like to think that there’s a God and that more stuff happens after we die, but I’ve never been really sure.”

  He was quiet for a few minutes. Then he steamrolled over me in his sleeping bag and we started laughing so hard that we forgot all about the other stuff.

  I didn’t know what Maya had been thinking about while I’d been remembering, but I soon found out.

  “You could negotiate a deal with your parents,” she said after a moment. “Tell them that if they’ll let you stay behind or if they postpone the move until after the basketball season, you promise to be happy about the move and give it all a fair chance. It’s worth a try.”

  “You think that would work?”

  “It might, if you really mean it and live up to it when you do move,” she said. “I don’t know your parents or anything, but it could be worth a shot. There has to be someone they would trust leaving you with, or something they could work out for a couple of months if they felt like it would
be a good thing for your family.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling hopeful for the first time. “They might go for that. The season’s only until March. Maybe it would be worth a couple of months to them to have me be a happy little camper.” The minute I said that, I thought again about that camping trip, and I decided that my dad and I would have to find some good places to go camping in Washington if it quit raining for a minute. That was one thing to look forward to, at least. I’m sure it wouldn’t smell or feel the way camping in the desert does, but I bet we could find some cans of stew and I think we could still both fit into that little tent. On second thought, maybe we should invest in another one.

  The float was done. It was time to go home. Libby, her boyfriend James, Maya, and I were the last ones left. We walked toward the parking lot in a group, but Maya and I lagged a little behind.

  “I wonder if I’ll see you again,” I said. “This has all been kind of surreal.”

  “You could come to Noah’s homecoming,” she said. When I looked blank, she said, “You know, that meeting he’s speaking at, about Australia. The one at our church. It’s Sunday at 9:00 a.m.”

  “Nine in the morning on the weekend?” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Coach is coming,” Libby added, turning around. “And some of the guys from the team will probably be there. We’d love to have you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it. That’s pretty early, but it might be cool. You don’t think Noah would think it was weird that I came? I mean, I don’t really know him.”

  “Oh no,” Libby said mischievously, winking at Maya. “I think he’d understand.” We arrived at Libby’s car. “Let me write down the address for you,” Libby said, opening the glove compartment and pulling out a pen. Maya donated a tissue paper flower from her hair to write the address down on and handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, waving as they all climbed into their car. “Thanks for everything, Maya,” I added. “The moving advice, all of that.”