And then I’m off the phone, and then everything hits me all at once, and I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain. Turk sets up the guest room, puts me to bed, and closes the door. Within seconds I’m deeply asleep.
The craziest thing happens while I’m sleeping. I open my eyes and focus on the ceiling, and I swear I see my grandfather’s face there. Hovering over me. Staring down at me. Calm, serene. Just there.
I don’t freak out. I don’t yell out to see if Turk can come in and see what I see. I just look. The more I look, the more I’m sure of it, that it’s the outline of his face. Once in a while, it’s like the face of the Burger King dude, and then it morphs back to my grandfather.
I think about mirages. I realize I don’t know. I want it to be him.
So it is him. Like Laurelei said. It’s true for me.
We smile at each other, me and my grandfather. And I decide that I will never share this with anyone. This secret I’ll carry with me the rest of my life.
When Grandpa fades, I close my eyes and sleep some more, and it’s a calm sleep. When I wake up, there are voices in the other room, amiable voices. I hear Aisha laughing, and then Turk laughing, and I wrap the blanket around me and feel this content feeling in my chest. It’s how I used to feel on days when I pretended to be sick and stayed home from school, and my grandparents would be in the living room and I’d be all cozy in bed. I would stare at a spot above the window, just stare at it, until the room became distorted and the window would lose all proportion and the spot would suddenly be so big, and me so small. I’d feel a buzz in my head as I breathed and stared, and I felt — safe. There was safety in being small. I knew in those moments it was all going to be okay, and it was delicious, that strange, distorted little place of my own, with the comfort of my grandparents just beyond the door.
I savor it for a while, and when I’m ready, I get up and walk out to the living room.
Aisha is sitting in my spot on the couch, sprawled out with her arms above her head and her feet on the floor. Gomer is lying on her stomach. When she sees me, she shoos Gomer away and looks at the floor in front of her. She says, “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she says again, creating an imbalance of heys, two against one.
I study the floor too.
“Oh my God,” Turk says. “Do you have any idea how over the bickering children thing I am? I’ve had you both here for, what, three minutes? No wonder I didn’t have any kids. Exhausting.”
I steal a glance at Aisha just in time to see her stealing one at me.
Turk points to the door. “Out,” he says. “And no, I’m not abandoning you, because heaven knows there are enough abandonment issues here to sink the Titanic. You’re going out into the world to say what you need to say to each other. And then you’re coming back here, and I’m making dinner, and we’ll eat it like one big happy family, which we will be, because you’ll have your shit together. Understood? Understood.”
We tentatively walk toward the door.
“Go, go,” he says, waving his hand. “I’ll be eagerly awaiting the new and improved and made-up Carson and Aisha. God, do I hate conflict.”
I walk down the stairs behind her, a little bewildered by whatever that was. It’s funny getting to know a grandfather when you’re already seventeen. It’s like you should already know his quirks, but you just don’t.
“You okay?” she asks when we’re at the bottom of the stairs. She sits down, so I do too.
“I guess so,” I say, looking down at the ground. “I’m exhausted thinking about it, but I’m glad I know. We’re flying home —”
“He told me,” Aisha says.
“I’m well aware that I’m an asshole. The volleyball game was not my finest hour. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “Me too. And just so you know, Brianna’s over. She wanted a one-time thing. So I guess I probably overreacted about how exciting it all was.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but in truth I feel relieved. Does that make me a bad person?
“I do that again and again. I get all excited about someone new, and it’s too much, too soon. I did it with Kayla and I did it again here.”
I don’t have a whole lot of relationship wisdom to share, so again I just say, “Sorry.”
“I’ve never been looked at like that before,” she says.
I cock my head at her. “You’re looked at everywhere you go, actually.”
“Maybe. But this was different. It was, like, people liked what they saw, instead of me just standing out as different. I loved it.”
I take a look at my friend, my beautiful friend. She is even better on the inside than the outside, and people don’t know that. They don’t see it. I wish people could see what I see. “I get that,” I say.
“I’m not your sidekick,” Aisha blurts out.
“What?”
She turns toward me. “All this trip, it’s like, Carson’s stuff. We’re in my car, but this is Carson’s journey. To find your grandfather. Did it ever occur to you, even once, that I might be doing this for me too?”
I bite my lip. I’m learning to not say the first thing that comes to my mind, I guess, because I don’t say, This wasn’t just some trip. This is my life we’re talking about here. My grandfather. My dad. And then I’m so glad I don’t say it, because I hear it, and for the first time it occurs to me: Me. My life. Aisha. Her life. Shit. How come I’m so selfish and stupid and dense sometimes? She has her own life, and all this time I was treating her thing with her dad like it was some side issue, when for her it’s the issue.
I close my eyes, afraid to look at her. Finally I get up the courage to speak. “You’re right. I didn’t get that. I’m sorry. I get a little in my head, I guess.”
She nods, and then she smiles a bit, and I think, Say something! Say you’re cool with it! Say a joke! Anything!
But she doesn’t say anything. Just keeps that little, content smile on her face.
As an old lady pushing a shopping cart saunters by, Aisha says, “I’m okay if you want to be the sidekick in my life.”
“I’d be lucky to be that,” I say. “And by the way, you can kiss girls. I’ll learn not to want to stab them in the eye.”
“So can you. And I’d be jealous if you started kissing some girl too, by the way.”
I blush, for the first time ever with Aisha.
“Thanks for that,” I say.
EARLY THE NEXT morning, we take a nice stroll with Gomer through the Castro, Turk’s neighborhood. He explains that when he moved there, back in 1975, it was pretty much all gay. It’s become a lot more mixed, he says, his expression sour.
“So diversity is a bad thing?” I say.
Aisha and Turk share a look. “I forgot we have a breeder in our midst,” he says. He pats my shoulder condescendingly as we keep walking. “No, sweet child. Diversity is not a bad thing. But neither was having one neighborhood in all of America — back then, anyway — where it was considered normal to be gay. In fact, that would still be a nice thing.”
I say, “So you want to be normal? That sounds boring.”
They share another look. This has been happening a lot, this two against one thing. In the last fifteen hours, Aisha and Turk have become this team, and for once I’m not jealous. I get it. They have something in common. I’m just happy to see Aisha smiling and joking.
Scratch that. Aisha, Turk, and Gomer are a team. I’m not sure if Gomer is gay, but he did sleep with Aisha last night — the lucky dog. He hasn’t left her side since, possibly because she gives him these epic belly rubs. He stretches out on his back and she scratches his belly with both hands. In response, Gomer’s eyes and mouth open as wide as they can.