A Sense of the Infinite

128

A FEW DAYS AFTER STEVEN WENT to New York, I got my first letter from him. It was in a plain white envelope that someone had stepped on; there was a dusty footprint on top of the address.

Dear A, the letter said.

How goes the Society of Pee Sisters? Have you gained girth? I miss your furrowed brow. Send me some artwork.

Steven McNeil

I wrote back:

Dear Steven,

Please find enclosed a Pee Sisters ID card, valid for entry into any opposite-sex bathroom in the Western world. While my brow remains furrowed, the nutritionist assures me I am now eating almost as much as three beavers, six raccoons, or one medium-size deer, which is apparently an improvement. I miss you.

A. Schultz

129

WIN AND I STARTED WRITING OUR one-act play together. We mostly worked at her house. Win had a nice room. We’d get lost in our ideas for hours, thinking up all the details of the set and costumes, writing and rewriting the script. Somehow, bits of other conversations always snuck in.

Win had brown hair that curled on its own. She had a button collection. She was obsessed with anime. She had an older sister who lived in Chicago and was in a band, and a half brother and half sister who lived with their mom in Virginia. She had once spent the night in a cave during a rainstorm. She had a boyfriend, Felix, who was a professional juggler. He was homeschooled, so he could do whatever he wanted, and he traveled around with this juggling troupe and did shows in schools. He had invented a juggling pattern and named it after her: it was called Win’s Wiggle and it involved six balls. She showed me a video. It looked hard. The balls went so high, and the flow of them really did seem to wiggle in the air.

One day I was at her house and I noticed a pair of scissors on her desk.

“Hey, Win,” I said. “Can you give me a haircut?”

I sat on the floor and she sat above me on her bed. Her hands moved around my head. “How short do you want it?” said Win.

“Short.”

“Like bowl-cut short?”

“Like spring chicken short.”

“Oh man,” giggled Win. She started snipping, schick, schick, schick. She snipped forever. Shards of hair fell on my shoulders and lap.

When Win was done cutting my hair, we took a picture of the pile of hair and texted it to Steven. He texted back immediately.

is that what i think it is?

I texted back.

your finger needed company.

I walked home from Win’s house feeling lighter. My neck and ears got cold, but it was a good cold, a clean cold.

“You cut your hair!” said Mom. “Wow!”

I smiled back at her, a real smile. I floated wordlessly up the stairs to my room.

130

“NICE HAIRCUT,” SAID BOB.

“Thanks,” I said. “My friend cut it.”

When he reached for my food journal, his arm knocked into a stack of basketballs, which promptly collapsed into bouncing, rolling chaos in the tiny office. I leaped up from my chair and Bob leaped up from his. When we had stuffed the basketballs out of the way, we were both disgruntled and Bob was covered in a film of sweat.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “They keep saying they’ll move those.”

“Do you want to get out of here?” I said.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I believe you owe me some pizza,” I said.

131

THE YEAR WAS ROLLING TO AN end. Teachers started opening the windows in classrooms again. Outside the funeral parlor, purple and yellow crocuses were pushing up from the ground. Win and I performed our play at the One-Act Play Festival.

“We dedicate this performance to the memory of Steven McNeil’s finger,” we a

Dominic and Kris filmed it, to send him. The play was surrealist. We wore mustaches, and dug for butterflies that were burrowed underground.

132

IN MAY, JEANETTE FIELDING CALLED TO see if I could pick up a few shifts at the ice-cream shop before coming on full-time in the summer. I had nothing better to do on the weekends, so I said okay.

On my second shift, I was leaning against the counter chatting with Phi

“I’ll get this,” I said, and I turned to the ice-cream case to take their order.

“Hi there,” I said in my usual way. “What can I get for you?”

There were six of them: a mom, a dad, two grandparents, a little girl with pink beads in her hair, and—

Loren Wilder.

Loren Wilder.

Loren Wilder was in the ice-cream shop.

The others were hovering around the ice-cream case, peering down at the flavors. Loren was the tallest, hanging back to let the others see. He saw me too. Our eyes locked, and his face dawned with a smile of surprise.

“A

Phi

“Hi, Loren,” I said.

My body reacted before my brain had a chance to get a word in. I smiled at him, the way water falls, the way rainbows form in the mist. Happiness. It lit inside me, simple as a bird taking off.

“How are you?” he said.

“How are YOU? How was the rock-climbing trip?”

We babbled at each other over the ice-cream case, our words less like words than the spouting of fountains, the happy clanging of trams.

“What kind of ice cream do you want?”

“Um,” he said. “Um.”

It was as if our smiles had temporarily stu

“What’s good?” he said.

“Pralines and cream,” I blurted.

I don’t know where it came from. But as soon as I said it, I knew it was true. Pralines and cream was delicious. Pralines and cream was the most exquisite flavor of ice cream in the world. Suddenly, I was filled with the knowledge of sweetness.

“Okay,” said Loren. “I’ll have that.”

We were quiet while I scooped it, although I could tell we were both eager to speak. His grandfather was paying. Phi

“Do you get off work soon?” said Loren.

“Three o’clock.”

“Do you want to—I mean, I could come back,” Loren said.

“We can go to the gorge!” I said.

“Yes!” said Loren. “Yes!”

“Loren,” shouted his little sister from the door. “We’re GOING.”

“See you,” he said. “I’ll come back in—I’ll come back.”

He hurried out the door after his sister, almost dropping his cone.

I hummed. I buzzed. I felt like a fountain turning on again after a winter spent cradling dry leaves. I bent over the ice-cream case with the scoop.

“A

I couldn’t speak. I had just taken the first bite.

Portrait of the artist as a person in bliss.

133

THE WEEKEND OF MY GRADUATION, Pauline drove down from Maple Bay. I came home from my last day of school to find her and Mom at the kitchen table with a pot of tea. When I walked in, they looked at me strangely. I said hello, and Pauline gave me a hug.

“How are you, sweetie?” she said.

While she asked me about school, Mom got up from the table and went into the kitchen to refill the teapot. As she walked out, I caught a glimpse of her face. It was filled with an emotion I couldn’t name. Something huge. My chest tightened.