You Can Go Your Own Way, page 10
Old City Pinball: Nothing.
West Philly eSports: No, if you’ve got something to say, go ahead.
Old City Pinball: Ugh. I mean like, you and your little crew. Sophie and them.
Old City Pinball: All you care about is what people think about you. Whether or not they’re focusing on you.
West Philly eSports: Right, right.
West Philly eSports: Like that jacket isn’t your way of getting people to pay attention to you? All those old band T-shirts?
Old City Pinball: Jesus, you’re still the same, aren’t you?
West Philly eSports: Me?! What about YOU?!
Old City Pinball: Maybe I should have left that post up.
West Philly eSports: Yeah maybe you should have.
Old City Pinball: Thanks for the plants.
CHAPTER 5
Adam
“One of the core aspects of pinball, is the concept of letting go. The steel ball sits there, waiting for you to send it on its way. The possibilities that await it are endless. But it’s up to you to pull and push. To begin the journey. To move forward and essentially, let go. Can you let go?”
—THE ART AND ZEN OF PINBALL REPAIR
BY JAMES WATTS
I close my book as the bus rumbles against the Philly streets, and shove my phone back in my pocket.
I tried.
West Philly eSports: Helen!
West Philly eSports: Where are you and the girls??
West Philly eSports: I’ve been trying to text you all weekend, after everything with Patrick.
West Philly eSports: Hello?
CHAPTER 6
Whitney
West Philly eSports:
We’re open early! Swing on by to catch Blizzard’s big announcement. Like the rest of you, we’re all busy speculating over here and will be live streaming a set from I Fight Dragons on all our HD monitors around the café. Come rock out!
S Marshall:
Any updates about the weather? Are you staying open despite the snow?
West Philly eSports:
Yup, we’re not going anywhere, Marshall! Sidewalks are shoveled, the heaters are on.
Helen Marie:
Is your dad going to be in?
West Philly eSports:
This feels like a text, Helen. No, he’s at a conference. Are you and the girls coming? I can save a table!
Of course. Of course, Blizzard decides to drop a surprise announcement regarding an expansion pack for the latest Starcraft game today. A few days after a social media disaster that I’m barely done cleaning up, and now my feeds are full of people asking if we’ll be open in time for the unveiling. Pictures of people waiting outside, wildly early. Videos. Folks who were just screaming at me less than forty-eight hours ago are now pleading for a seat online.
I think of Adam, his voice echoing in my head, under white twinkling lights, a face full of flurries.
What’s it all matter? None of it matters.
I shake my head, his messages that followed later replaying, scrolling across my eyes like a marquee, and keep walking.
I appreciate the sentiment, but it does matter. It matters to me. I love this. I do.
I mean, I think I do. It keeps me close to Dad. Lily doesn’t have to do anything except be sweet and doted upon, and Nick, he’s at the school Dad wanted him to go to. Me? I need to make myself be seen.
“You don’t have to hold my hand,” Lily grumbles behind me, trailing just a little bit, her little hand vanishing into mine. “I can walk up the stairs by myself.”
I look behind me at her and smile.
“I’ve got no doubt.” I smirk but tighten my grip on her seven-year-old hand as a few people brush by us, bounding up the steps toward Market Street. The roar of the Market Frankford subway line, affectionally known as the “El,” thunders in the tunnel below. I’m still not sure why people call it that, though my dad said it has to do with it being a subway that goes above and underground. An “elevated line.”
Lily scowls at me and huffs, and keeps trudging up the steps, her sneakers slapping against the surface. While I’ve got my mom’s features, the jet-black hair and bright blue eyes, the freckles and the small pointed nose, Lily is all Dad. Dirty blond hair and eyes like emeralds, a look that seems eternally sand-and salt-kissed, even as a second grader who lives nowhere near the ocean. Her face tells the world she’d be at home on a beach with a surfboard.
Not that Dad has ever done a bit of surfing in his life, other than on the internet. Meanwhile I just look at a picture of the sun and my skin starts peeling.
“Why couldn’t Nick watch me?” she grumbles. “It’s way too early to be out.”
“Because he’s out with his friends, making life difficult for someone else today,” I grumble back, thinking about the slowly-tapering-off-but-still-negative comments coming our way, due to his nonsense. I hold back, though. I’m not going to be the sibling who talks down about the other. Let her have her heroes.
University City blooms out in front of me, in front of us, a stark contrast to the gritty, white-and-blue tiled underground of the SEPTA station we’re leaving behind. Large, gleaming buildings with shimmering reflective glass windows glitter in the sun, like hundreds of mirrors reaching up to the sky. Chain restaurants and small eateries line the street, the whole area catering to the bustling college community that calls this neighborhood home. Drexel and Penn, taking up almost all of this.
“I don’t want to hang in the café,” Lily whines as we make our way up Market.
“The sitter isn’t around—” I start.
“I hate Leandra.”
“Okay, well.” I chuckle. “That very well may be, but she’s not free, and I can’t leave you at home by yourself now, can I?” I squat down, the two of us in the middle of the sidewalk. Some folks walk by us, and I feel like I hear an annoyed grumble or two, but I don’t care. “I promise, I won’t stay late. Just need to open, and then we can head home before lunch.”
“Fine,” she huffs and retakes my hand. “But I want to play Magic. With a headset!”
“Sure, whatever you want.” I grin. The fact that my seven-year-old sister is destroying full-grown adults in online games of Magic the Gathering is an absolute delight. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to play that game online unless you’re like thirteen, but oh well. It makes her happy.
We make our way up Market and cross the usually busy street, heading toward Walnut, going deeper into the University of Pennsylvania campus. Despite the bluster of the chilly winter weather and looming threat of heavier snow, the campus still teems with signs of life, large evergreen trees and shrubs smattered between the towering bare oaks. I pull out my phone, and resist the urge to flip through all the social notifications while we’re walking, when it buzzes. I stop and lean against a low brick wall, and see a few messages from Patrick coming through.
Pat
Hey, I’m out with the girls, grabbing breakfast.
Pat
Andrea wants to know if your dad is gonna be at the café?
Pat
They were thinking of stopping by.
Pat
Would it be weird if I came with them?
I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.
My heart sinks. He’s out with the girls? I’ve been trying to wrangle them up all morning; most of the weekend, really, and even tried messaging Helen. I grit my teeth and try to shake it off.
Me
No, he’s at a conference.
Just me running the show with Dana.
Pat
Cool, okay. I’ll let her know.
Pat
Hey. Hope you’re doing okay.
I angrily slide my phone back in my pocket, and try not to let it bother me that he’s out with Helen, Sophie, and Andrea without me. I grab Lily’s hand and keep strolling.
It really is over.
Signs for the big Van Pelt Library and the Perelman Quadrangle point in the direction we’re going; we pass by the People’s Books & Culture bookshop, a huge display for the latest Celeste Ng book in the window, promising an upcoming signing on campus next month. I smile, my well-read and worn copy of Little Fires Everywhere tucked away in my bag somewhere. It’s a favorite read, and the title is a good reminder. Running Dad’s social media for the cafés, there are little fires everywhere online, all the time. This weekend was just another example.
And it’s my job to put them out.
Patrick liked to say I was missing the point of the book and the television series, but whatever. This weekend just proved he doesn’t understand anything about me.
Me and Lily zip around the corner, the bookstore behind us, and I nearly gasp. The pictures and videos on social media weren’t lying. People are here.
We don’t even open until 10:00 a.m., which is early for us, and yet, there they are, lining down the street to get in. I hope Dana, one of our baristas and also one of my favorite people, is here today, and maybe a bit early, considering the news. The line trails enough that some people are pretty close to the bookshop, and if the bookstore was open at this hour, I’d try to nudge them inside there. I love it there, my one place to hide away on my lunch breaks, tucked between paperbacks and the cookbooks shelved upstairs in the small loft.
“Why are so many people here already?” Lily asks, tugging my hand a little.
“There’s a new game announcement,” I groan. “People are excited.”
“Why can’t they watch it at home?”
“It’s the experience.” I look down and smile at her. “They want to be around their friends and community.”
“Whitney!”
Through the corner of my eye I see a hand reach out, and I swat it away. I stop and turn around to spot Aaron, a local who goes to college here, wincing, and cowering away into the line.
“H-hey,” he stammers, all awkward and cautious. A student at Drexel studying something in the video game design department, he’s at the café just about every other day to talk and game with his girlfriend, who lives in Jersey someplace. I know way too much about their relationship due to the fact that he’s almost never early enough to get one of the private, soundproof booths that line the back of the place.
He rubs the back of his head and smiles awkwardly at me, shrugging. With his sharp jaw, stubble, and random emo band T-shirts he always has on, he’d be cute if he wasn’t almost always here, looking at me with the pleading wide eyes of a Pixar character. I look down at today’s shirt, some local group called The Wonder Years that I recognize from stickers all over town. I glance back up at him, and he’s grinning.
“One day you’ll take me up on making you a mix,” he says with a smirk.
“I’m good.” I snort. There’s a beat of silence, interrupted mostly by the people around him in line, chatting amongst themselves and fiddling with phones that aren’t on silent, the clicking of virtual buttons like a symphony of typewriter keys.
“Is this your sister?” he asks, breaking the quiet.
“I’m Lily.” She perks up, but leans in closer to me, pressing against my leg and waist.
“Nice to meet you, Lily.” Aaron smiles. “I have a sister about your age.”
“Is she here?” Lily asks, lighting up.
“Oh no.” Aaron winces. “Sorry. Maybe next time?” he ventures, looking at me with an apologetic glance. “Everything okay? I saw some stuff online about your brother?”
“Is Nick okay?” Lily gasps.
“He’s fine.” I try not to snap at her, and glare at Aaron, and I’m convinced his face is just going to freeze in that wince. “Come on, man,” I whisper.
“Sorry.” He shakes his head. There’s a pause for a beat, and he fidgets around. “So—”
“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. I know where this is going. “Come on, Lil’.”
“Please, Whit?” he pleads. “You know me.”
“If I let you in before everyone else—” I nod at the people in back of him, who suddenly look up from their phones, interested “—people will complain. It’ll be all over the place online. Especially on an announcement day. Are you kidding me?”
“But...” He glances backward at the folks in line, and they stare back at him, a girl with short red buzzed hair and a number of piercings, standing with a guy with a jean jacket on decorated in just as many enamel pins, glaring back, their mouths a thin line. “It’s just...” He turns back to me. “It’s her birthday. And my headset at home just isn’t good enough to keep up with—” But I’ve already tuned him out.
Oh, God.
I am getting him in one of those soundproof booths.
It’s bad enough I have to hear him swooning in the middle of the café, giggling and saying all kinds of compliments that are entirely one-sided, because it’s not like I can hear what she’s saying in return...but a birthday makes it sound like that’ll be turned up from ten to eleven.
I lean toward Red Head and Jean Jacket, who are clearly listening in on this exchange.
“I’ll comp an hour of your time today, on the headsets,” I whisper. Red Head’s green eyes flit toward Jean Jacket. The two of them look older than me, but not by much.
“Two hours,” she says back, quirking a smile. I bite my lip at the sight of her lip ring and shake it off, but she definitely notices and winks at me.
“F-fine,” I stammer out before I turn as red as her hair. That wink was a brutal, unfair attack. I try not to glare too hard at Aaron as I nod at him. “Come on.”
“You should talk to her,” he whispers as we walk, and it takes everything in me not to elbow him in the side.
We stroll up the rest of the block, about half the thing, and there standing at the front doors to West Philly eSports are a few people staring down at their phones and—
“Dad!” Lily wriggles from my grip and bounds over, and sure enough, it’s him. He’s looking down at his phone to the pile of boxes surrounding him. A handful of college-age kids are standing around him, muttering things and peering through the glass doors. I see Nick, swaying on the balls of his feet, staring at his phone.
Dad’s dressed in his black turtleneck and jeans, attempting a tech startup look even though we live in Philadelphia, not Silicon Valley. I can’t help but roll my eyes at the whole getup, when just a few years ago we were still living in our old house in South Philly, where he wore ancient jeans and ripped flannel, like some kind of lumberjack software developer.
“Dad?” I pick up my pace, and he looks up, along with the faces of several other people, in my direction. A smile beams across his face, and his eyes completely light up as Lily dives into his leg, hugging him. He wraps an arm around her and hugs her, and then holds up his phone toward me, looking like a kid eager to show off a new toy.
“Hey, little pixel.” He smiles down at Lily, messing with her hair, and she just beams at the nickname. “Whit!” he exclaims. “Come take a look.” He gestures at the boxes. “Oh, and meet Sean.”
“It’s with an e-a,” he says, nodding at me as though I was interested enough to ask. He’s older than me, maybe in his twenties, with half his head buzzed on one side, a smattering of you-should-really-give-up facial hair, and what looks like a permanent smirk stapled to his face.
He looks like a walking vape pen.
“Cool?” I mutter at Sean, my attention on Dad. “What are you doing here? I thought you got home tomorrow?” I glance over at Nick, who peeks up at me, makes a face, and looks back down at his phone. This whole weekend was his freaking fault, and he can’t even say hello.
“Oh that.” He waves his hand about dismissively. “There was no way I was going to miss this viewing party. Flew right home and overnighted a few new high-definition monitors, once the news hit. Sean here was dropping them off. Do you think we’ll need better HDMI cables?”
“I’m sure we’re fine?” I venture. I’m irritated that he couldn’t be bothered to text or call me that he was coming home earlier, but could absolutely take the time to tell me to help wrangle this together and post about it online. It’s not entirely surprising. I guess I should have expected him to drop everything to make it back here. Being ambushed like this really sends my heart pounding, though, wondering if he’s going to flip out over everything that went down online. “Did you get my texts and emails, though? About the pinball arcade situation?”
“Hm?” He looks at me, confused, and then he nods. “Oh yeah. We paid for the machine, right? Nick told me. Sounds like we’re okay.” He waves his hand around like he can physically brush the words away. I feel someone walking over to us and glance aside to see Nick, rolling up next to me.
“What’s up, sis?” he asks.
“Shut up,” I snap at him. “It might have been paid for,” I say, turning back to my dad, “but everything online has been a disaster,” I press, grabbing for my phone. “Apparently, it’s an old game, vintage. Hard to find. People are not happy and are still demanding an apology.”
“For what?” my dad scoffs. “Besides, once we buy that place and fix it up, none of those people will matter.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s no way in hell Adam’s family is going to let it go,” I huff.
“We’ll see.” He shrugs. “Whitney, if running the social media is starting to wear on you and take over your weekends like this, we should really talk about bringing someone on here.”
My heart slams against my rib cage.
“Give you more time to run around with your friends, maybe get another part-time job?”
“No way.” I shake my head. “I can handle this and I’m good at it. Besides, it’s only making my résumé and future college applications look better.”
Dad gives me a skeptical look before nodding and looking back at his phone, and over at Sean.
“You know, Dad, I have this idea, with the Old City Winter Festival? The thing Mom runs, maybe we could donate something? To the arcade?” I venture. “Do a public thing about it online, get some good favor—”
