“So listen, bro, Radar’s parents had to leave town real suddenly.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked. I knew Radar’s grandparents were really old and lived in a nursing home down in Miami.
“Yeah, get this: you know the guy in Pittsburgh with the world’s second-largest collection of black Santas?”
“Yeah?”
“He just bit it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Bro, I don’t kid about the demise of black Santa collectors. This guy had an aneurysm, and so Radar’s folks are flying to Pennsylvania to try to buy his entire collection. So we’re having a few people over.”
“Who’s we?”
“You and me and Radar. We’re the hosts.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
There was a pause, and then Ben used my full name. “Quentin,” he said, “I know you want to find her. I know she is the most important thing to you. And that’s cool. But we graduate in, like, a week. I’m not asking you to abandon the search. I’m asking you to come to a party with your two best friends who you have known for half your life. I’m asking you to spend two to three hours drinking sugary wine coolers like the pretty little girl you are, and then another two to three hours vomiting the aforementioned wine coolers through your nose. And then you can go back to poking around abandoned housing projects.”
It bothered me that Ben only wanted to talk about Margo when it involved an adventure that appealed to him, that he thought there was something wrong with me for focusing on her over my friends, even though she was missing and they weren’t. But Ben was Ben, like Radar said. And I had nothing left to search after Logan Pines anyway. “I’ve got to go to this last place and then I’ll be over.”
Because Logan Pines was the last pseudovision in Central Florida— or at least the last one I knew about — I had placed so much hope in it. But as I walked around its single dead-end street with a flashlight, I saw no tent. No campfire. No food wrappers. No sign of people. No Margo. At the end of the road, I found a single concrete foundation dug into the dirt. But there was nothing built atop it, just the hole cut into the earth like a dead mouth agape, tangles of briars and waist-high grass growing up all around. If she’d wanted me to see these places, I could not understand why. And if Margo had gone to the pseudovisions never to come back, she knew about a place I hadn’t uncovered in all my research.
It took an hour and a half to drive back to Jefferson Park. I parked the minivan at home, changed into a polo shirt and my only nice pair of jeans, and walked down Jefferson Way to Jefferson Court, and then took a right onto Jefferson Road. A few cars were already lined up on both sides of Jefferson Place, Radar’s street. It was only eight-forty-five.
I opened the door and was greeted by Radar, who had an armful of plaster black Santas. “Gotta put away all of the nice ones,” he said. “God forbid one of them breaks.”
“Need any help?” I asked. Radar nodded toward the living room, where the tables on either side of the couch held three sets of unnested black Santa nesting dolls. As I renested them, I couldn’t help but notice that they were really very beautiful— hand-painted and extraordinarily detailed. I didn’t say this to Radar, though, for fear that he would beat me to death with the black Santa lamp in the living room.
I carried the matryoshka dolls into the guest bedroom, where Radar was carefully stashing Santas into a dresser. “You know, when you see them all together, it really does make you question the way we imagine our myths.”
Radar rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I always find myself questioning the way I imagine my myths when I’m eating my Lucky Charms every morning with a goddamned black Santa spoon.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder spinning me around. It was Ben, his feet fidgeting in fast-motion like he needed to pee or something. “We kissed. Like, she kissed me. About ten minutes ago. On Radar’s parents’ bed.”
“That’s disgusting,” Radar said. “Don’t make out in my parents’ bed.”
“Wow, I figured you’d already gotten past that,” I said. “What with you being such a pimp and everything.”
“Shut up, bro. I’m freaked out,” he said, looking at me, his eyes almost crossed. “I don’t think I’m very good.”
“At what?”
“At kissing. And, I mean, she’s done a lot more kissing than me over the years. I don’t want to suck so bad she dumps me. Girls dig you,” he said to me, which was at best true only if you defined the word girlsas “girls in the marching band.” “Bro, I’m asking for advice.”
I was tempted to bring up all Ben’s endless blather about the various ways in which he would rock various bodies, but I just said, “As far as I can tell, there are two basic rules: 1. Don’t bite anything without permission, and 2. The human tongue is like wasabi: it’s very powerful, and should be used sparingly.”
Ben’s eyes suddenly grew bright with panic. I winced, and said, “She’s standing behind me, isn’t she?”
“‘The human tongue is like wasabi,’” Lacey mimicked in a deep, goofy voice that I hoped didn’t really resemble mine.
I wheeled around. “I actually think Ben’s tongue is like sunscreen,” she said. “It’s good for your health and should be applied liberally.”
“I just threw up in my mouth,” Radar said.
“Lacey, you just kind of took away my will to go on,” I added.
“I wish I could stop imagining that,” Radar said.
I said, “The very idea is so offensive that it’s actually illegal to say the words ‘Ben Starling’s tongue’ on television.”
“The penalty for violating that law is either ten years in prison or one Ben Starling tongue bath,” Radar said.
“Everyone,” I said.
“Chooses,” Radar said, smiling.
“Prison,” we finished together.
And then Lacey kissed Ben in front of us. “Oh God,” Radar said, waving his arms in front of his face. “Oh, God. I’m blind. I’m blind.”
“Please stop,” I said. “You’re upsetting the black Santas.”
The party ended up in the formal living room on the second floor of Radar’s house, all twenty of us. I leaned against a wall, my head inches from a black Santa portrait painted on velvet. Radar had one of those sectional couches, and everyone was crowded onto it. There was beer in a cooler by the TV, but no one was drinking. Instead, they were telling stories about one another. I’d heard most of them before — band camp stories and Ben Starling stories and first kiss stories — but Lacey hadn’t heard any of them, and anyway, they were still entertaining.
I stayed mostly out of it until Ben said, “Q, how are we going to graduate?”
I smirked. “Naked but for our robes,” I said.
“Yes!” Ben sipped a Dr Pepper.
“I’m not even bringingclothes, so I don’t wuss out,” Radar said.
“Me neither! Q, swear not to bring clothes.”
I smiled. “Duly sworn,” I said.
“I’m in!” said our friend Frank. And then more and more of the guys got behind the idea. The girls, for some reason, were resistant.
Radar said to Angela, “Your refusal to do this makes me question the whole foundation of our love.”
“You don’t get it,” Lacey said. “It’s not that we’re afraid. It’s just that we already have our dresses picked out.”
Angela pointed at Lacey. “ Exactly.” Angela added, “Y’all better hope it’s not windy.”
“I hope it iswindy,” Ben said. “The world’s largest balls benefit from fresh air.”
Lacey put a hand to her face, ashamed. “You’re a challenging boyfriend,” she said. “Rewarding, but challenging.” We laughed.
This was what I liked most about my friends: just sitting around and telling stories. Window stories and mirror stories. I only listened — the stories on my mind weren’t that funny.
I couldn’t help but think about school and everything else ending. I liked standing just outside the couches and watching them — it was a kind of sad I didn’t mind, and so I just listened, letting all the happiness and the sadness of this ending swirl around in me, each sharpening the other. For the longest time, it felt kind of like my chest was cracking open, but not precisely in an unpleasant way.
