“I know that poem. ‘Hold fast to dreams / For when dreams go / Life is a barren field . . .’ ”
“Frozen with snow,” Joshua finished. She applauded.
He had to take the chance. If she’d stayed with him for coffee on campus, maybe she’d agree to a real date. “Would you go out with me, Bianca? We could go to the beach. I’ll bring food.” He talked fast so she couldn’t reject him straight off. “We could make it family style. I’ll bring my boy and you could bring your . . .”
“Daughter,” she said. She looked at him intensely, and if anyone else had stared at him like that he would’ve been creeped out. But he liked it when she did it. Like he was a painting she was studying. He watched her golden eyes flicker as she deliberated.
When she didn’t say anything, he nudged, “So you’ll come?” Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.
“Yes.”
Huntington beach would be swarming with crowds on a Saturday in August, so Joshua had arrived early to claim a spot beside the pier on the amphitheater grass. He kept checking his phone to make sure Bianca hadn’t texted him to cancel.
“Can I play in the sand, Dada?” Jayden had been calling Joshua “dada” since he could talk. After “cup,” “ma milk,” “ducko,” and “nanana” (for banana), “dada” was up there with the firsts. Joshua had been there for them all.
“Stay close to the car,” Joshua said, lugging a plastic ice chest from the trunk. On top of the chest, he stacked an oversized umbrella, a flannel blanket, and a duffel bag of beach toys. Over his shoulders, he hoisted two beach chairs. Around his neck he strung an army-green messenger bag packed with sunscreen, hats, extra clothes and underwear, windbreakers, Jayden’s allergy medicine, and his inhaler.
Jayden reached through the rail, picked up a handful of sand, and threw it over his head. “Are we moving to the beach?”
“No, why?”
“You brought a lot of stuff.”
Always be prepared. He’d learned that early. His older sister, Olivia, had birthed Jayden while coming down from God-knows-what, and she’d dropped him off at Joshua’s dorm before splitting. She’d been in and out of jail, but Joshua hadn’t heard from her in two years. After what they’d gone through in the system, he couldn’t let that happen to the little guy. Child protective services had dragged him and Olivia out of their cokehead parents’ house when he was thirteen months and Olivia was four years old, the same age Jayden was now. They’d stayed together in foster care the first couple years, but like everything else in his life, they’d been broken up. He couldn’t remember their first place, but Olivia had told him a white lady took care of them, that she was nice, didn’t yell. Gave them grape suckers. Joshua tried to picture the white lady who’d held him and changed his diapers, but he couldn’t see her. So he pictured a streak of white light instead. A supercharged light that had infused him with special abilities. Second senses. He mentioned this to Olivia once, and she’d punched him in the arm, hard. “She was just a white lady, you weirdo. And you don’t have any special powers. You’re just a weird boy.”
“Well why’d she send us back, then?”
“Had her own baby. A shiny pink-and-white one. Not all black and blue like you.” She’d stuck out her tongue.
Joshua had said he wasn’t black or blue but brown like a candy bar.
Olivia hadn’t laughed. She’d hardly ever laughed.
“You’ll be black and blue if they ever split us up and I’m not here to protect you, Joshy. Sissy boy. Bet you’re gonna turn out gay.” She punched him again, harder, but he didn’t cry. “I’m just Joshin’ you,” she said, laughing finally. “You know I love you. I’m the only one who does.” By Olivia’s twelfth birthday, their foster mother Patti had sent Olivia back, but she’d kept Joshua until high school.
And when they’d grown up some more and Olivia had gone into the next system, the criminal justice system, he’d kept her kid for her. He’d kept her kid safe.
“Kinship caregiver,” they’d called Joshua when Olivia became incarcerated. Quick fingerprints and a background scan had granted him temporary custody of Jayden, but he’d made sure to jump through every hoop to keep his nephew stable in his home, the two of them moving from the dorms to an apartment across campus. Soon he’d earn his bachelor’s in human services and could become a youth counselor. He’d make it permanent then, make it official. For now, they relied on the foster care checks each month along with his scholarships and grants.
Like he said, they did all right by each other.
Crossing the boardwalk, they dodged bikers and joggers with dogs, heading toward the grassy steps where dreadlocked and tie-dyed musicians beat steel drums. The rhythm got Jayden pounding at the air with his palms and doing his imitation of beatboxing, spitting as he played. “Dada, I be jammin’,” he said in his best Bob Marley.
“Ya, mon,” Joshua said, arranging the picnic spread for Bianca. He asked Jayden if the girls would like it, but Jayden only said, “Can I have a juice?”
“Sure, grab one from the chest.”
A few seconds later, Joshua felt ice chunks at the back of his neck. “Hey, you little turd, good shot, but quit wasting ice. I’m trying to make a good impression here.”
“What’s a ’preshun?” Jayden fiddled with the plastic straw in his juice box.
“Im-pression. It’s like, we want Bianca and her daughter to like us. To think we have good manners and behave ourselves.”
“But it’s a lie! We’re wild.” He roared.
Joshua laughed. “We are wild. But let’s pretend to be civilized—for the ladies.”
Jayden sipped through his yellow straw. “Fine.”
They’d gone to the stationery store the night before and picked a suede journal with gold-lined pages and embroidered flowers on the cover. On the inside flap, Joshua had written, To Dreams. Write yours, Bianca. Would she think he was a weirdo, or worse? Most girls assumed he was gay cause he was a “nice guy,” as they put it. He didn’t hit on them or make lewd comments or jokes. He hated sports. Instead, he watched cooking shows and reruns of old sitcoms. He and his foster mother Patti used to watch I Love Lucy. His favorite episode was when Lucy dressed up like Superman so her kid wouldn’t be disappointed at his birthday party, but then the real guy showed up all buff and Lucy got stuck on the balcony in a bizarre getup and an old-school football helmet with pigeons landing all over her until Ricky found her and of course she had some ’splaining to do. Oh man, that was funny.