Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Yeah, I study Japanese on Thursdays. I just didn’t understand your usage.”

Sam wanted to show her the new synagogue he’d been working on for the past two weeks. He wondered if it was the best expression of the best of him, and he wondered if she’d like it.

The bus pulled up to the Washington Hilton — the hotel at which Sam’s bar mitzvah party would theoretically take place in two weeks, if an apology could be wrested from him — and the kids disembarked and scattered. Inside the lobby hung a large banner: WELCOME 2016 MODEL UNITED NATIONS. A few dozen suitcases and duffels were piled in the corner, nearly every one containing something it wasn’t supposed to. While Mark struggled to do a head count, Sam pulled his mother aside.

“Don’t make a big deal when you talk to everyone, OK?”

“A big deal about what?”

“About anything. Just don’t make a big deal.”

“You’re worried that I’m going to embarrass you?”

“Yes. You made me say it.”

“Sam, we’re here to have a blast—”

“Don’t say blast .”

“—and the absolute last thing I’d want to be is a drag.”

“Or drag .”

Mark gave Julia a thumbs-up, and she addressed the group: “Can I have everyone’s attention?”

Everyone withheld his attention.

“Yoo-hoo!”

“Or yoo-hoo ,” Sam whispered to no one.

Mark unleashed a baritone that made charm bracelets into wind chimes: “Mouths shut, eyes up here, now !”

The kids silenced.

“OK,” Julia said. “Well, as you probably know, I’m Sam’s mom. He told me not to make a big deal, so I’ll keep this to the essentials. First, I want to let you all know how totally psyched I am to be here with you.”

Sam closed his eyes, willing himself to unlearn object permanence.

“This is going to be interesting, challenging, and awesome.”

Julia saw Sam’s closed eyes but didn’t know what she’d done.

“So … just a bit of housekeeping before passing out room keys, which I believe are cards and not keys, but we’ll call them keys. You’ll find that I’m a very laid-back person. But laid-backness is a two-way street. I know you guys are here to enjoy yourselves, but remember that you’re also representatives of Georgetown Day School, not to mention our archipelago home, the Federated States of Micronesia!”

She waited for applause. Or anything. Billie filled the silence with a single clap, and then she was holding the hot potato of awkwardness.

Julia continued: “So, I’m sure it goes without saying, but recreational drug use isn’t going to happen.”

Sam lost muscle control of his neck, his head slumping forward.

“If you have a prescription for something, of course that’s fine, so long as it isn’t used recreationally or otherwise abused. Now, I realize most of you aren’t even thirteen, but I also want to broach the subject of sexual relations.”

Sam walked to the side. Billie followed him.

Mark saw what was happening and intervened: “I think what Mrs. Bloch is trying to say is, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want us to tell your parents about. Because we’ll tell your parents about it, and then you’ll be in deep shit. Got it?”

The students collectively affirmed.

“My mother is why Kurt Cobain killed himself,” Sam whispered to Billie.

“Cut her some slack.”

“Why?”

As Mark handed out key cards, he said, “Take your stuff to your rooms, unpack, and don’t turn on the TV, and don’t have anything to do with the minibar. We’ll meet at my room, eleven twenty-four, at two o’clock. If you have a device, input it: eleven twenty-four at two. If you don’t have a device, try your brain. Now, being smart and motivated young people, you will use this time to go over position papers so you’re sharp for this afternoon’s minisessions. You have my cell number in case, and only in case, something comes up. Know that I am omniscient. Which is to say, even without being physically present, I can see and hear everything. Goodbye.”

The kids took their key cards and dispersed.

“And for you,” Mark said, handing Julia her key card.

“Presidential Suite, I assume?”

“That’s right. But president of Micronesia, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks for saving me back there.”

“Thanks for making me an icon of cool.”

Julia laughed.

“Wanna grab a drink?” he asked.

“Really? A drink drink?”

“An imbibable relaxant. Yes.”

“I should check in with Jacob’s parents. They’ve got Benjy for the weekend.”

“Cute.”

“Until he comes back a latency-phased Meir Kahane.”

“Huh?”

“He was a deranged right-wing—”

“You need need a drink drink.”

And then, suddenly, there was nothing logistical to go over, no small talk to indulge in, only the inching shadow of their conversation at the bespoke hardware gallery, and all that Julia knew but wouldn’t share.

“Go make your call.”

“It will only be five minutes.”

“Whatever it is, it is. Text me when you’re ready and I’ll meet you at the bar. We have plenty of time.”

“It isn’t too early for a drink?”

“In the millennium?”

“In the day.”

“In your life?”

“In the day , Mark. You’re already drunk on your bachelorhood.”

“A drunk person wouldn’t point out that a bachelor is someone who has never been married.”

“Then you’re drunk on your freedom.”

“Don’t you mean aloneness?”

“I was imagining what you might say.”

“I’m drunk on my new sobriety.”

She thought of herself as being unusually astute about the motivations of others, but she couldn’t parse what he was doing. Flirting with someone he desired? Bolstering someone he felt sorry for? Innocently bantering? And what was she doing? Any guilt she might have felt about flirting was now so far beyond the horizon it might well have been right behind her. If anything, she wished Jacob were there to watch.

They used to have their own secret lines of communication, ways of smuggling messages: spelling in front of the young children; whispering in front of Isaac; writing notes to each other about a phone conversation in progress; hand and facial gestures organically developed over years, like when, in Rabbi Singer’s office, Julia pressed two fingers to her brow and gently shook her head while flaring her nostrils, which meant: Let it go . They could find a way of reaching each other around any obstacle. But they needed the obstacle.

Her mind leaped: Jacob had forced Sam to listen to a podcast about messenger birds in World War I, and it captured Sam’s imagination — he asked for a homing pigeon for his eleventh birthday. Delighting in the originality of the request and, as always, wanting not only to go to any length to provide for her children, but also to be seen as having gone to any length to provide for her children, she took him seriously.

“They make wonderful indoor pets,” he promised. “There’s a—”

“Indoor?”

“Yeah. They need a big cage, but—”

“What about Argus?”

“With a little conditioning—”

“Great word.”

“ Mom . With a little conditioning, they can totally be friends. And once—”

“What about pooping?”

“They wear pigeon pants. Basically a diaper. You change it every three hours.”

“No burden there.”

“I would do it.”

“Your school day is longer than three hours.”

“Mom, it would be so fun ,” he said, shaking his fists in the way that once inspired Jacob to wonder if he might have a sprinkle of Asperger’s. “We could take it to the park, or to school, or Omi and Opi’s, or wherever, attach a message to its collar, and it would just fly home.”