Mrs. Mednikov steps out on the porch, cat-quiet in her slippers. I’m tempted to cover my drawing, but I’ve never done that with my art before.
Her tea smells of orange and cinnamon, and when I glance over my shoulder, she’s taking in my sketch.
“This drawing. This is how you feel?” she says.
I answer the only way I can. “Yes.”
She’s never hugged me or squeezed my hand, but I feel her embrace in the tender way she says, “I pray the end of your trials is near.”
“Me too,” I say. Me too.
The painting moves swiftly as if it demands to be painted. It tells me which colors to use, where to throw light and deepen the dark, how to angle my brush, and how long, short, strong, or delicate the strokes should be. I work until the sun begins to set, then put the canvas aside to dry.
I roll my shoulders and shake out my hands. The portrait’s so honest, just looking at it makes me nervous.
One last look around, and I gather my dirty brushes and go inside. I’m washing the brushes out in the kitchen when my phone lights up and it’s Kev. My lips curve into a smile. “Hi. I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
“Hey,” he says. “Are you busy?”
I wipe a wet brush on a paper towel, checking the bristles for any paint I’ve missed. “Depends.”
“There’s this party…” He says it like he’s sure I won’t want to come. I get it. I’ve turned him down before.
“You sound like you want to go,” I say.
“It’s the Geminids, this is your chance to see them.”
Clearly, he’s talking about an indie band. “I don’t know them,” I say.
“I promise, you’ll love the Geminids. Biggest meteor shower of the year.”
I smile so big at his excitement, my cheeks crease. “So where’s the party?” I say, imagining a kegger on some rooftop at Caltech.
“Mount Wilson.”
I picture the mountains just north of Pasadena. Mount Wilson’s where all the TV towers are. “Okay. I’m in.”
“Great! I’ll be there in twenty—oh, and dress warm. It’s going to be freezing up there.”
Mount Wilson is up an old highway that winds into the mountains, but we’ve barely left town before it feels like we’re hours away. There are no streetlamps and hardly any other cars. The forest hugs the road on both sides, but I glimpse the valley below through the gaps between the pines. “It looks like someone shook a jar of gold glitter over Pasadena,” I tell Kev.
He doesn’t answer or maybe he didn’t hear me.
Something changed in the half hour between his calling me and showing up at my house. He’s bobbing his head and nodding along to the music that’s playing, but he feels far away.
What’s going on? I wonder. I pick up the CD lying on the console and flip it over to see what we’re listening to: a bluegrass band, Mandolin Orange.
“Kevin Walker partying on a school night,” I tease. “Did you blow off physics study group?”
“No, that’s tomorrow,” he says quietly.
I don’t get it. He was so excited an hour ago. “Did something happen before you picked me up? You seem upset.”
Kev makes eye contact with me for the first time in miles. “My dad called. He’s stopping by.”
“He’s coming to see you?”
Headlights flood the inside of the car, and we duck our eyes until they pass.
“He’s doing a layover on his way to Korea,” Kev says.
“Sounds like he misses you.”
“Dad hates LAX and he hates layovers. He’ll do just about anything to avoid both those things.”
I think back to what Kev told me when we went to see the butterflies. “Do you think this has to do with your grades?”
“That. Or the cancer’s back.” Kev tries to sound matter-of-fact, but his voice catches.
“Kev. I didn’t know.” I rest my fingers on his sleeve, unsure if he wants to talk or not. “Can I ask what kind?”
“Bone cancer. He’s been clear five years, but that’s no guarantee.”
A hollow opens in my gut as I picture Mom bandaged and unconscious, becoming a ghost before my eyes. “Are you close, you and your dad?”
“We got close. After Dad lost his arm, he started taking me with him when he had to travel outside the US.”
China. Poland. Dubai. Now I know why Kevin’s traveled everywhere. “It’s different when it’s just you two, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Kev slaps the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “I don’t want to think about any of this tonight, okay? Tonight I want to hang out and watch the Geminids put on a show.”
“All right. I’m good with that.” I’ve seen Kev stressed, but this feels different. I’m praying his dad’s visit doesn’t mean he’s sick again.
We drive deeper into the mountains, and patches of snow glow under the pine trees, caught in our headlights. Kevin begins to hum along to Mandolin Orange, and I smile to myself because I can feel his mood get lighter. The guitar, mandolin, and bass are a perfect soundtrack for the night-quiet highway.
After we turn onto the road for the observatory, I catch Kevin singing under his breath. He wasn’t shy about singing in front of me on Thanksgiving, so I pretend not to listen. His voice drops down so I can barely hear him. “I’m a fool for the finest girl, but she’s no fool for me….”
My heart doesn’t know which way to go, if he’s singing about me or someone else. Like the girl at Caltech or the one at home who broke his heart, Chantal.
I don’t want us to just be friends, Kevin. I want you to sing that song to me.
When we finally get to Mount Wilson, the small parking lot is almost full of cars. We park and get out, and the cold combs through my hair.
Kevin pulls his beanie down over his forehead. “You want your hat?” he says, and tosses it to me, then tucks a blanket under his arm.
The white dome of the big observatory peeks through the trees, along with smaller rounded top towers. Kev and I start down a paved path where pine cones as big as my boot lie scattered. All around us, the mountains are dark and deep. We walk beside each other, hands stuffed in our pockets. Our arms bump every few steps, and I wonder what would change if I reached for his hand.
The night is still except for the wind rustling the trees. The quiet seeps into us and makes us whisper. Kevin points out two slender steel towers. “Most of the telescopes here are for nighttime observation, but those two track the surface of the sun. The astronomers make a pencil drawing of the pattern of sunspots every day.”
“That seems so bizarre,” I say. “Can you get any lower tech than that?”
“I know, right? But supposedly the drawings give them better data.”
As we get closer to the buildings, the quiet is broken by bursts of laughter or cheers. We pass a small museum, which is closed for the night, and take a walkway that leads left to the domed observatory.
People have set up portable telescopes on tripods along the path. They cluster around the instruments. The unexpected scent of hot coffee draws my attention to a folding table loaded down with paper plates of cookies and bags of chips.