Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,50

letter Lena didn’t recognize, like a combination of a Z and an E.

A few of the kids were speaking English. Some others were speaking a language Lena couldn’t guess. She peeked in. On the wall were more posters: a picture of an apple with the word “apple” beneath it in English, and below that, in presumably the language they were speaking. A jumble of letters and symbols. Other pictures of a dog, a violin, a slice of cake.

There were eight small desks. A larger one for an adult, with a few adult-sized chairs placed around the room. And a container filled with Legos that was big enough a kid could get completely covered in them.

A boy was standing alone in a corner, holding a soccer ball and whispering to it, “I hate you, Dad. I hate you, Dad.”

Two girls were holding dolls. The dolls and the girls were wearing name tags: Madison F. and Madison T. The girls were whispering to the dolls. The girl on the left with eyes like polished brown stones looked up at Lena. She waved. Made her doll wave too.

16

Charlie turned 26 and threw a party to celebrate. His house was small—even before the party had officially started, it felt filled with the friends who had come to help push furniture against the walls or set up the bar and desserts. Lena was used to college parties: If it started at 10, you got there around 11:30 when everyone was buzzed enough to have fun. Here the party started at 8:30 and people were almost perfectly on time. A small crowd was already formed around Charlie. They were telling jokes and asking him what he was going to do during this 27th year.

A woman with curly red hair pushed through to say, “No wonder you’re this way. Cancer.” The woman burped and walked away. Charlie looked upset for a moment, then shrugged.

Everyone resumed talking quickly to smooth the moment away. Lena looked from talking mouth to talking mouth. She couldn’t believe all these people could pretend something so weird hadn’t happened. Lena pulled out her phone to text Tanya, knew Tanya would think everyone’s reaction was just as weird as the thing the girl had said. One of the pleasures of going to parties with Tanya was they equally enjoyed people-watching. They could spend hours afterward talking about the way a girl danced using her scarf as a prop, the guy who was trying so hard to be deep, the couple who were obviously fighting but thought they were being convincingly in love. Lena overheard the redheaded woman saying, “Well, it could be worse. He could be a Virgo. Nothing is worse than a Virgo man.”

Lena put her phone in her pocket. She didn’t want to spend the rest of the night worrying about whether or not Tanya would text her.

The doorbell rang. It was Charlie’s parents stopping by with a cake from the grocery store. The royal-blue cake frosting read HBD FROM DINOSAUR LORD!!! A toy raptor wearing armor and a black coat was sitting on the cake next to the message.

“Someone somehow got your cake,” Charlie’s dad said. He kept looking at Charlie, the cake, his wife, the people gathered around to celebrate. He touched the side of Charlie’s head, his shoulder, and said, “I’m so proud of you.”

Lena felt emotional watching Charlie’s dad’s reactions and went to get another drink.

“God, Charlie better hope he ages like his dad,” a woman was saying.

“Black don’t crack,” another white woman said with a pleased look on her face.

Lena spoke a little to Mr. and Mrs. Graham. They were very polite and they, too, said, The longer you’re here, the easier it gets. When Lena walked away to get a beer, she overheard some of Charlie’s friends talking about how formal his parents were. It’s forever middle school with Josie and Andre. They acted like it was a bad thing, but Lena thought it was nice. A woman handed Lena a shot. It tasted like watery coffee and grain alcohol. “We’re calling it a Charlie,” the woman yelled in Lena’s ear.

“Rude,” Lena said, but the woman didn’t hear her.

Mariah grabbed Lena’s arm and told her a person’s soul is completely formed by the time they turn 24. She was drinking a cup of tea out of a mug. “I don’t mean someone can’t change.” She blew at the steam. “But all the margins for change are fully formed.”

Lena had no idea what that meant. “Cool.”

“You have