The silence was the worst part.
Until, right on cue, the familiar first notes from the orchestra sounded off. One by one more and more musicians joined and in seconds the theme he knew by heart was in full swing. Watching closely this time, many fidgeted and adjusted in their seats as their hands moved deftly up and down their instruments.
Everything listed to the side, and the crest of a great wave was just visible above the heads of the adults on the upper deck. As the cruise liner swayed back to being fully upright, there was a bit of halt in the musical number as anyone caught off guard worked to get back to their place in the piece.
At the height of the song, doors leading below deck burst open. Rows of kids dressed in perfectly pressed beige blazers and khaki slacks marched out, looking as at-ease with the movement of the deck beneath their feet as grain would be rippling in the breeze. This would have been their fifth time at it, after all. As most took their seats, one girl adorned in a shiny sash kept walking, beaming and bright-eyed, all the way to the podium flanked by faculty.
The Dean stepped aside with a flourish, which must have been hard with his watch, shooting sunbeams off each of its diamond-encrusted surfaces, weighing down his hand. Only once she had taken her place at the podium and cleared her throat theatrically into the mic did the boom of the orchestral piece dial down to background noise.
"Though all of our wonderful guests have busy schedules of saving lives, steering multimillion dollar companies, engineering medical cures and many, many other amazing ventures, on behalf of my fellow fifth graders, I thank you for joining us to celebrate the end of another year of academic excellence at Wolfing Preparatory Academy," she said. An undercurrent of polite muttering and applause went up from the crowd lounging on the upper decks of the ship. It was the same speech as every other graduation, but it never got old. "I'm your host and top of the class, Bette Scarsborough-"
Applause defeaned her next words. The seated students whooped and hollered and she gracefully curtsied as they did, doubling the ruckus. Almost all the faculty and quite a few of the parents joined in. After several minutes, once it had died down, she smoothed down her sash and continued, "But I wouldn't be standing here without my number one supporter and constant positive influence-"
"Cliff Noa?"
He paused the video. Instantly, the silence crawled through him, slow and icy and far too familiar. Cliff fought his way out of comfy groove his dad had worn into the sofa and to his feet. But he didn't know why he bothered-nothing had changed.
Gray early morning light was beginning to flood the condo. No one stood in the expanse of the kitchen behind him, no one was opposite him on any of the other couches in the living room, and past the open bathroom door it was clear the interior was decidedly empty.
He made his way into the hall and rapped on the closest door. "Dad?" he called. But of course, there was no answer. Dad would've come back grumbled as he had to sleep in his own bed for a few hours for once, and left again for work hours ago, when Cliff was still asleep. But just to be certain, he crept a few feet past it to his own room. His WPA uniform hung, still and mute, right where he'd left it months ago,
The same. Everything. Just like it always was. Cliff returned to his spot in the living room, stomping as he did so just to push the silence away for a moment at a time. An ant could crawl along the countertops and it would be impossible to miss. He knew, because it had happened before. So where did that-
"Cliff Noa?" The voice crackled.
And this time, with his eyes peeled, he'd seen it. For the first time, the white screen near the front door had turned on. Cliff stepped towards it, but didn't need to try messing with it to understand what was going on.
Sixteen stories down, parked against the curb, was a checkerboard-patterned limousine he'd seen almost every day of school. Immediately Cliff pressed himself to glass, trying to get a better angle for the rest of the courtyard. Manicured lawn boxed in by stone stretched off to wrap around the building. The bus drove past the private stop, but otherwise no other signs of life came into view. The hedges lining the glittery marble walkway that led to the front doors swayed in an early morning breeze.
Then, a figure walking towards the limo came into view, stopping for a moment next to the only hedge that hadn't been trimmed of its-what did Dad call them? Inkberries?-and she flicked a fat bunch of them. The branch snapped off and fell into the leaves. She clapped a hand to her mouth and whipped her head in a 360.
When she turned her face towards him, Cliff almost fell over. Bette Scarsborough was standing in front of his home.
And she wasn't leaving. Why wasn't she leaving? Cliff must have heard her call his name four or five times in the thirty minutes he stood there watching her pace back and forth. For one horrifying moment he saw the bus go past again, but thankfully it didn't stop and let the one other person he knew off. But it wouldn't be too long now before it did.
But Cliff couldn't go down there and talk to Bette. Not after last time. He always made sure to sit as far away from her as possible in class, and if there was one thing about Wolfing, it was the personal excellence was the only kind of excellence. He'd heard of other school doing group projects and group activities, but whenever the other kids of class found time to socialize, all he could was sit and watch. SIlently.
He'd never been to another country. He'd never been on a plane, to an amusement park or a restaruant that didn't have a drive thru. And Bette was always in the center of their crowds, laughing about a celebrity she'd met or her newest once-in-a-lifetime experience she'd had that month. Cliff would watch them, imagining himself standing right beside her, talking about all the cool things he'd done and basking in the glow of their attention.
And now Bette herself had been standing outside for almost 45 minutes. Waiting. For him.
He bit his lip. Then he darted off for his room to put on the fanciest things he owned. In seconds he was riding down to the ground floor, clad in his Wolfing blazer and slacks. He wished he could check himself in the metal of the doors, but the distorted brown blots of his head and hands balanced on the vague beige shapes of his school clothes gave him no indication of how appropriate he looked for the upcoming conversation. He was thankful for the mechanical whirring of the elevator, the small ding of the doors and the clack-clack-clack of his shoes on the polished wood flooring of the lobby. If it had just himself, his throughts, and the silence, he was certain he'd have lost his nerve halfway through and run back to his room.
She was speaking into the intercom as he approached, no doubt repeating his name for the twentieth time, and even though the thick glass double doors muted her, he could tell she stopped mid-word when she spotted him. Cliff waved his keycard to cue the doors to slide open, but his legs were so tingly energy racing through his nerves made him forgot to step outside, and he had to do it all over again with her staring at him the entire time, openmouthed.
Even when a guest lecturer called on her in the middle of their spiel he hadn't seen Bette at a loss for words, but now she just looked him up and down for what felt like an hour. Her hair was in a fancy style to go with her clothes from fancy French designers he couldn't pronounce. He wouldn't be surprised if she was on her way to an opera performance after this. Cliff would have said something, but he didn't want to make whatever it was worse.
Then she put her foor in the rail of the door, preventing it from closing. "No doorman, not even a clerk at the desk. Where are all the other tenants?"
"Sorry, it's just me and my Dad."
She gave him an incredulous look. "Are you sure? My chauffeur drove me past yesterday and we saw a man coming out of the building."
Cliff's ears burned. "That would be my Dad." He didn't blame her, but it was still an embarrasing conversation to have. Cliff had round eyes, his Dad did not. Cliff had brown skin, his Dad was pale. Cliff's hair was tight and frizzy and more brown than reddish on the reddish-brown scale, his Dad's hair was jet black and would be straight if he ever let it get past a shadow on his head.
A flicker of recognition passed in her face but it was gone just as quickly. "Then it's true. It's all true. Mother and Father will never believe me when I tell them! All this time and you never said anything?"
"Sorry!" Cliff said, normal as can be.
Bette grinned like he'd just spilled something on himself and she was trying not to notice. "What are you apologizing for? Cliff, the Scarsboroughs, the McCades, even the Bectons have been trying to buy a condo in this place for a home near the capital since forever. I heard rumors that your family, and only your family, lived in this entire building."
"Oh." Running up and down rows of empty rooms on over a dozen floors had gotten old years ago. Not even the maintenance staff ever did more than sign their names and immediately do whatever they were paid to. "It's just home. I didn't know it was anything special."
"Nothing special," Bette chuckled. She swept into the lobby and headed for the middle. Cliff followed, watching her turn a slow circle, taking in the heavy, unoccupied front desk, the neatly arranged, and also empty, sofas and couches arranged around an entertainment center that Cliff had seen on for the New Years' Countdowns and not much else. Eventually, her circle came back to its starting point: him.
She grinned again, this time in a way that made Cliff maure sure his tie hadn't somehow come undone, but when he looked up she was tapping her chin.
"So... is that why you're here? Just to confirm that I actually live here?"
She made her way towards him and easily leaned on his shoulder like he was a locker. "Yes. But now that I have, Cliff, I think you can help me."
"Of course!" After all this time, after all the days sitting across from each other in the same room, she'd literally walked right up to him and offered him a second chance. "Whatever it is, whatever you need count me in!"
"Wow!" She pushed off from him and went to lean against the back of one of the couches. "Where's that attitude in class? You're always so quiet. But I'm glad to hear it, because..." she beckoned him closer, throwing glances around as if to make absolute certain they were alone. Then she cupped a hand to her mouth. "Heard of the Donor's Dinner?"
Tension edged into his nerves at the word 'dinner'. For the second time that day, Cliff was sure he'd have retreated back to his room, except with her gaze locked squarely onto him, he couldn't find the courage to move. She was clearly content to let the silence creep up while she waited on an answer, and just when the nothingness started feeling like it was crawling all over him, he asked, "Is that some kind of summer assignment?"
Cliff's ears burned at the sound of her laughter. Even when she had finally calmed down enough to open her eyes, the sight of him made her start back up again. After what had to be another hour, she wiped a tear from her eye and shook her head. "It's a meal the Dean has with the most prominent financial contributors to Wolfing before every school year starts. This'll be my family's fifth time attending but our first time hosting. Only problem is, we just had to fire our caterer, and since you've turned out to be full of surprises, I had an idea after coming here."
A secret dinner? He tried relaxing his hands, but he felt as though they might crack. Cliff hadn't ever heard of anything like that. No one had even mentioned it in the many, many bragging sessions the other kids engaged in between lessons.
"You want me to make something?"
This time, when Bette laughed she had to clutch her sides and take great, heaving breaths to reel herself in. The burn in Cliff's ears spread to his entire face while she tried to contain herself.
"You? Oh, you are so funny! Absolutely not!" She got to her feet and wandered around the lobby. "It's going to be for a few of the Dean's closest personal guests and their closest personal guests. Maybe you can have your caterer handle the meen-yar-deez for us?"
Cliff didn't have a caterer. Cliff didn't know a caterer. And he definitely did not know that word she just said. But still, a second chance. If he pulled this off, he'd have something cooler and more exclusive than anyone else in their class, except Bette. He would be able to stand next to her, dead in the center.
With his new friends.
"No problem," he said. "So, when's the Donor's Dinner?"
000000000000000000
"Sorry kid, no idea."
Cliff thanked the driver and stepped off the bus. He flopped into the bus stop seat, immediately regretting it when the hard metal, molten from the summer sun, stung him.
This evening. Or rather, five hours from now. He had five hours to help cater Bette's super secret dinner, and he didn't even know what he was supposed to bring. The last three bus drivers had no idea what a meen-yar-deez was either, and they weren't about to let him hold up their route to ask each passenger individually.
If he didn't find out, he'd have no idea what to make, If he didn't know what to make, he'd embarrass Bette. If he embarrassed Bette...
Cliff rocketed to his feet. If he stayed still for even a second longer he'd have probably caught fire, and not from the sun. No, that would absolutely not happen. It was a word. A weird word, but someone had to know what it meant. Cliff looked up and the down the road, wishing a car would appear, but he knew better than to think anyone would wander down a private road. But before today, he'd never have thought he would have a conversation with a classmate again, so maybe he'd get lucky.
Half an hour later, his luck hadn't gotten him anywhere, but the bus schedule did. Cliff stood, waited for it to come to halt in front of him. He stepped forward to get on, hit something solid and immediately staggered backward and tripped over the curb, sitting down hard on the gravel in front of the bus stop.
"Whoa! Gotta watch where you're headed, big buddy!" Above him, the person standing at the entrance to disembark leaned down, hand outstretched. He was a good-looking white guy who Cliff guessed was high school aged, maybe a senior. The guy wasn't sweating at all underneath his thick trapper hat, thicker parka and even thicker coldweather sweats. Against the mild but very much there DC summer heat it reminded Cliff of the bus riders he sometimes saw talking to their reflections in the windows.
But that wasn't what was off. Not even close. "You're getting off here?" Cliff asked.
The High School senior blinked. "'Course I am! ...Unless that's weird?"
"Very. This stop is pretty much only for people who live or work here." Cliff knew both people who fit the first category and any from the second wouldn't be riding the bus.
"Then of course I'm not!" He reached out and snatched Cliff to his feet, taking the time to dust him off a bit. "Sorry about the confusion. And the fall. And the weirdness."
The guy stepped back to allow Cliff to get on. The bus driver had started closing the door when Cliff held up a hand and admitted he didn't have any money.
"Then can you not hold us up any more?" The driver asked from behind his bushy mustache.
"Sorry, I just have a question. It's really important. Do you know what a meen-yar-deez is?"
"No." The driver said before he'd even finished asking. "Now get off. Please." He operated the lever that opened the door and stared pointedly at Cliff. All he could do was sigh and step off.
"A dessert!"
Cliff turned around. The weirdly-dressed guy was leaning out of a bus window, looking right at him. "Sorry, are you talking to me?"
"Yeah!" He shouted, getting louder as the bus pulled away. "They're tiny desserts! You serve 'em at the END OF A SEVEN COURSE MEALLLL!"
Dessert. Bette had put him (well, his caterer) in charge of dessert for the Donor's Dinner. And even better, they were tiny. It was just like last time, except now he knew exactly what not to do.
Cliff raced down the sidewalk and got halfway up to the lobby door before pausing in front of the only unpruned hedge lining the walkway. In the center there was a giant gap where the barberry bunch Bette had messed with fell through. When the gardeners came by, they were going to be forced to dig through it to fish it out. He could just pretend he didn't see it and leave it for them, that was their job, after all.
He took a step away. Then another. And a third. Then, with a long exhale, Cliff trudged back to the bush, which just about came up to his neck. He had to balance on his tiptoes in order to see down into it. The barberry bunch sat atop a tangle of branches at around the midpoint of the bush. Delicately, Cliff crooked his arm into the gap to reach for it.
Two bright orange spots snapped open deep down. Cliff's heart did a double beat and he yanked his arm back, immediately wincing when the open air hit the new thin cuts running up and down his arm from the thorns. The bush rustled, and then went still. Again, Cliff leaned over into the gap. Slower this time, and the two orange dots hadn't moved from their spot.
I should just walk away. He thought.
But he waited. And waited. And when the two orange dots disappeared, Cliff struck his hand in as quick as he could and ripped out the broken branch.
A dark shadow raced from the bush and into the lawn. Thin pinpricks of pain reminded Cliff about the branch and he nearly dropped it, instead holding it by two fingers in his uninjured right hand.
Dozens of thin traces of bright red stood out against his brown skin, running up and down his hand and arm. Cliff tried to examine the branch, but between the silence of the lobby, the smarting of his cuts and the building pressure in his chest he couldn't concentrate. Once he was back inside the condo, he threw it on top of the DVD player and made his way to the kitchen.
Running one hand under icewater, he felt through the fridge with his other. Taro, nope. Poi, absolutely not. He just needed something easy enough for him to make, and much more importantly, normal enough for the dinner guests to eat. He opened up a drawer at the bottom of the fridge-coconut milk. Instantly knew he'd found what he was after.
And not an hour later, Cliff was painfully aware of a new problem.
Sure, he'd eaten coconut bars a ton. But trying to work backwards from only having tasted it was a much tougher time than he anticipated. The very first batch he'd wasted over an hour on trying to shovel up burnt sugary coconut before giving up and throwing the entire pan away. He'd failed even faster on the second batch, watching it go up in flames thanks to an errant turn of the stove knob. After that was doused with faucet water, the third batch refused to thicken for some reason.
Again and again he tossed out failures. It was darkening outside, meaning Cliff's deadline was stalking closer and closer. He went to heft the carton of coconut milk and realized there was barely any left.
"Please please please." Cliff repeated over and over while he tipped the last of the liquid into the pan. As the pans sizzled and mixing bowls sloshed, part of him was annoyed his Dad hadn't come home yet, but another, much larger part of him was glad to be by himself, which was a much newer, much less welcome sensation. After all, he wasn't technically allowed to use the use the stove by himself. Minutes later, while dialing down the heat to combat the smoke issuing from the pot, he made sure to push that particular thought down as far as it would go.
Finally, he had a batch. His first one with no burns or thin, runny edges or discolorations - and after he'd taken a plastic knife to them, they were only ever so slightly misscut. Cliff stuck the sheetpan in the freezer to get them to hold shape faster in the little time he had left, but realized he'd forgotten one thing.
He swabbed a finger along the rim of the mixing bowl he'd used and tasted the mixture.
Automatically, Cliff spat out the gritty, watery assault on his sense of taste. His teeth ached from the syrupy residue clinging to them and the sour aftertaste crawled down his throat no matter how much he coughed and hacked. Cliff slumped against the countertop and slid slowly down its side, not caring then the knobs and handles raked across his back. This was it. He'd blown second chance faster and harder than the first. The thought of bringing two dozen inedible lumps of coconut-flavored erasers to the Donor's Dinner made him want to transfer schools. Knowing Bette was relying on him for this, had trusted him with this, and he had ruined things for her made him want to stay right where he was forever.
The front door to the condo creaked open. Cliff pressed the heels of his palms to his face, which did nothing to stop the heat welling up in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks. Cliff didn't make a sound around, instead the twenty-second-long yawn confirmed for him that his Dad had finally come home from work.
"The stove is on? Cliff knows he's-oh no, Cliff! What happened to you?"
Cliff felt an hand close around his shoulder, and another other trace along his hands and arm where the inkberry bush thorns had sliced him. "I ruined it, Dad," Cliff said, his voice thick with emotion. "All I had to do was make it taste good and I'd have friends and fix everything and-"
"What?" He felt his Dad move, no doubt swiveling his head to take in the state of the kitchen. He heard him sniff the air and set the coconut carton upright with a hollow plep. "You're making haupia?"
"No, Dad! Just call them coconut bars like a normal person!" Cliff shouted.
His Dad didn't respond. Instead, the hand compressing his cuts moved. Cliff heard the mixing bowl scrape on the countertop and his Dad smacked his lips. Then a repeat. Then a third. "Mmm," his Dad hummed.
Cliff couldn't believe it. He wrenched himself out of his Dad's grip and stomped to his feet. "Why lie about this?" He spat. "It's disgusting. I know it's disgusting. You're not going to convince me it's-"
"No, Cliff! I'm serious! Either my taste buds are broken or this haup-these coconut bars are delicious! At least if you used this stuff to make them." Cliff watched as his Dad took an exaggerated swab of the batter and closed his entire mouth around his finger. Then, between smacks of his lips, he said, "Or your taste buds are broken. This is better than anything I've ever made, that's for sure."
Cliff didn't want to give his Dad the satisfaction of thinking he'd bought such a quick lie. But he also, desperately, wanted to hope that maybe all his senses really had just gone haywire at that one particular moment. He grabbed the bowl from his Dad's grasp and turned his back to him. It didn't smell any different. But it did look different - airier, with an appetizing dusky white color. Cliff dipped a finger in and licked the edge of his nail.
It was sweet, with a strong, pleasant tropical note that danced on his tongue. Cliff rushed to the freezer and opened it, fishing out the sheetpan.
"That is indeed a lot of haupia."
"Coconut bars," Cliff said immediately. It couldn't have been longer than ten minutes, and yet the bars were perfectly set. Their color had changed to a more photogenic dusty yellow rather than the neon white they had been, and even weirder still, the bars were cut so symmetrically he could have used them for math homework.
"Now what's this about friends and fixing everything?" His Dad asked.
Cliff explained his conversation with Bette, getting up every other sentence to make sure the food hadn't suddenly changed back. His Dad listened intently as he did, changing things out of his faded yellow workbag as Cliff spoke. Cliff couldn't help but notice a colorful manila folder he'd never seen before that was quickly buried beneath the boring brown work diagrams of his Dad's that he'd seen millions of times before.
"And then you walked in and, well..."
His Dad whistled. "And to think, the most interesting thing that happened to me today was an owl crashing into me."
"Bette - she and her parents are coming to get me pretty soon, so I was wondering if..." Cliff didn't bother finishing his sentence when he saw his Dad make that thin, lopsided smile. He leaned back and crossed his arms. "It's fine."
"I'm sorry, Cliff. I really, truly am. I'm pretty much just home for a pitstop. There were a bunch of call outs and-"
"It's fine." Cliff got down off the barstool and checked the fridge again. Sure enough, the coconut bars hadn't gone anywhere in the last minute. "I'm gonna clean up before they get here."
The silence clung to him as he returned to the kitchen twenty minutes later. His Dad was nowhere to be seen, but on top of the kitchen island was the a note.
You know how to reach me if you need me
I love you, Cliff, and I really am sorry :(
The family cell phone lay on top of that folder his Dad had set out. Cliff googled "minyardees" and it corrected him to "mignardise".
A bite-sized dessert served at the end of a meal, Cliff read. Knowing that's what it was for sure alleviated some of the tightness building in his shoulders. Cliff hoped when he got to High School he wasn't going to be forced to take French. Clearly that was some kind of torture.
The table was still full of stuff his Dad hadn't packed back up - a splash of color-coded diagrams his Dad drew for the employees to review at his job. Purple, gray, bluish, an ugly muddy color, all the same as Cliff had looked through hundreds of times before with nothing else to do by himself at home, and one by one he chucked them into the garbage. He was about to do the same to the last one on the table when he realized it was quite a bit heavier that the others. It was the manila folder, though in the corner there was thir address... huh, it was a chunky envelope.
And addressed to him.
He stood up straighter. Not once in his life had Cliff ever gotten mail that wasn't electronic. He'd seen his classmates bring Amazon packages to school, and sometimes mail with his Dad's name on it would be sitting in the lobby, but never anything that looked like this.
This envelope had an alternating border of blue and dark red, the combination of which tickled Cliff's senses in a pleasing way. On the purple rubber stamp in the center was a shield sectioned off into four with weird animals in it that would look at home tattooed on a skater. Cliff popped the seal and slid out the contents enough to read it.
Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was emblazoned across the top. Cliff had never cared about learning magic tricks, but in spite of his dwindling interest, he pulled out more of the envelope, skimming it.
Until he saw his name.
He reread the passage more closely. Dear Mr. Noa, it is with great pride that we inform you of your acceptance to Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Cliff crumpled up the letter, envelope, and in a moment of spite added the note his Dad left him and tossed it in the trash. How old did Dad think he was? Hate it or not, Cliff couldn't escape Wolfing Preparatory Academy, and whatever this joke was supposed to achieve, all it did was remind him of that. Just then, Cliff noticed he'd forgotten to sweep a second copy of the ugly mud-colored diagram into the trash.
He reached for it, stopping only when he heard a voice crackle, "Cliff Noa?"