It was the first day of auditions for Almost, Maine, and from behind the stage Floyd watched the first few students read their parts for Mr. Moderick. The teachers were somehow working together, again. Floyd was relieved that the play wasn’t as boring to watch as it was to read. At this point, there was no set to speak of, but they were working on it. He turned around when he heard Mrs. Robeson start to talk to the stage crew backstage. He walked back and saw her showing something to the students. It looked like a small diorama set on a table. Mr. Manse was his usual silent self, standing off to the side.
“You see?” said Mrs. Robeson. “It’s going to be very simple. There will be variations, but most of the scenes are going to be like this. Outdoors, and either in the day or at night.”
The small stage showed what Almost, Maine was going to look like. It was a dark stage with a snowy floor, and a backdrop showing the silhouettes of trees against a blue sky. Off to the side was a jagged wall topped off with the slanted roof of a house above it.
As Floyd watched, Peyton came in and stood up next to him. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Hey,” Floyd whispered back.
Mrs. Robeson took a step back. “Mr. Manse has been making dioramas for years as a personal hobby.” Mr. Manse bristled when a few pairs of eyes glanced over at him. “He was kind enough to make this small model as an example for us all. The backgrounds will alternate, though they will all resemble this. Some will be foggy, some will show stars. Some will show a partial moon, like this. Any ideas?”
“Don’t you think it’s pretty?” Peyton asked Floyd. “I can’t wait to see what it will look like in real life.”
“Yeah,” said Floyd. Peyton’s enthusiasm triggered something in him, and suddenly he wanted to do something she’d notice. He stepped forward and raised a hand. “What about the Northern Lights!” he almost screamed. A couple people were slightly startled.
Mrs. Robeson nodded. “Good! Good idea! The Northern Lights would be perfect for the tone of a couple of the scenes. They are mentioned in the play, but they aren’t usually on display. Yes. I wonder if we could do something special with that? Hmm...perhaps a kind of mobile that will hang in front of the backdrop. Hmm…interesting idea.” The teacher turned to Floyd. “What’s your name? Lloyd?”
“Floyd,” the boy answered.
“Well, that was a very good idea, Floyd.”
“Thanks,” the boy answered. He looked over to see Peyton smiling back at him. She raised her hand and they exchanged a quiet high-five.
“Awesome,” she said under her breath.
Floyd’s mood soared. He felt like he was in love with Peyton, but he didn’t know for sure. He didn’t know what that was supposed to feel like. But every time she was pleased with him he felt a hundred feet tall. He knew that she treated everyone like she did him. He wasn’t special. The only one she seemed to be different around was Richard Sato. He was older, he was cooler, and she kind of doted after him in the same way Floyd did with her.
Should he try to act different? To act like he was cool? He didn’t know if he could do that. His life was structured around safety, and there was no way to look cool when you were constantly on the lookout for danger. A cool guy wouldn’t care about danger. He wouldn’t care about anything. That’s what being cool was. Not caring. Floyd realized, with a heavy heart, that he, unfortunately, cared about everyone and everything. He couldn’t even fake cool.
There was a tap at his shoulder. It was Peyton getting his attention. “Lloyd’s auditioning.” Floyd followed her to the stage side and they watched Lloyd and a girl standing at the center holding manuscripts.
“’Sad and Glad’. Page twenty-two. Go ahead. Lloyd is playing Jimmy, Becky is Sandrine.”
Lloyd and the girl faced one another, and they went into the scene. Jimmy and Sandrine greet each other for what seemed like a month to Floyd. People were laughing, but Floyd didn’t see what was funny. He hated this play so much. It was like hearing dogs barking at each other. He looked over at Peyton, she was enjoying it immensely. She looked like she might start applauding before the actors were even finished. Why was he the only one who hated Almost, Maine? It sure seemed like he was. What was he missing? It made Floyd feel out of place, which was a very Floydian way to feel.
When the scene wrapped Peyton started clapping. She was the only one who was, because it was an audition. She turned to Floyd. “You should really try out for a part. You’d be great!”
Floyd was taken aback. Why would he be great? “Really? You think I’d be great?”
“Of course, I do. You’d be awesome.”
“For what part?”
“Oh, here!” she ran and borrowed someone’s manuscript. She flipped through it as she walked back. “Right here.”
Floyd skimmed it. The scene was called It Hurts. He’d heard a little about it. It was about a man who feels no pain, so he has to keep a list of what’s dangerous in a notebook so he knows what to avoid. The man admits to being weird and that people tend to avoid him.
“It made me think of you, for some reason,” said Peyton.
In the halls of academia, where people are paid to fret over the things nobody cares about, every type of accident is cataloged and recorded. But, as things stand right now, the world’s three most famous types of accidents are: 1) the Plunge Incident; 2) the Contraption Misadventure; and 3) the Vector.
The Plunge Incident was first defined by a man named Acronius, a 12th century Benedictine Monk who was scraping his words into a smelly sheet of cowskin. He wrote that a Plunge Incident is ‘any event leading to a body, after losing purchase at a superior height, being mostly, or entirely, consumed in a pool of liquid or collection of loose rubble'. Imagine Floyd Piccolo unwisely participating in an activity dangerous to Floyds. An activity, like, let's say, recklessly walking across his backyard in bare feet, when a sinkhole from beneath the earth suddenly appears, soil succumbing to a hundred years of erosion at the very moment Floyd strode across it. Floyd would scream and claw at the earth as down he went, believing in the false hope of rescue. Very soon, he would be immersed in sewage up to his chin, which would ruin the money in his wallet. Plunge Incidents can be a mess.
The Contraption Misadventure was first defined in 1928 by Sue McGovern, a tired mother of twenty-three children who was writing during one of the few months of her life she was not expectant. She described it as 'the resulting calamity due to the intricate mechanical confluence of two or more systems leading to an unintended consequence'. You've seen these in cartoons. A foot kicks over a bucket that sends a ball-bearing through a domino sequence of impossible coincidences, click-clack, which ends with an entire city in flames and a news reporter sticking a CHANNEL 4 microphone in Floyd Piccolo's face(of course, Floyd would be involved on some level). Even though Contraption Misadventures don't happen often, and often have terrifying results, they are just about always very entertaining to watch.
Lastly, The Vector, though the writer wasn’t the first to identify the concept, was most famously mentioned by Reed Milgrom, a writer for National Geographic Magazine who was researching a story about a boy being struck by a meteorite in a shopping mall. He wrote "It's a special kind of luck to be selected by the universe, out of billions of people scattered across this planet. To be struck, but not killed, in such an unlikely fashion. It's not bad luck, exactly. It's something that exists outside values of good or bad. It's being part of the process of reality, an integral part. To be the receiver of a cosmic message. The questions are: what is that message saying? And, most importantly, is the message intended for Floyd Piccolo, or is it meant for the rest of us?"
Floyd Piccolo, understandably, didn’t like being in shopping malls. Sometimes, though, even the most loathsome ideas can change their face when put to you by the right person. Lloyd had been sick from the school that day, and Floyd was heading home after class, walking alone down the corridor to exit the building, when he heard his name being called out from behind him.
“Floyd! Wait up! Wait up!” he heard. He turned to find the dazzling, smiling face of Peyton Flores coming his way. She walked right up to him. “Hey, Floyd,” she said.
“Hey,” Floyd responded, trying to hide the glee he felt every time his name was spoken by this person.
“I’m going to the mall with my dad. You wanna come? He’s gonna be here in a few minutes.”
His history with shopping malls was instantly forgotten. Meteorites? What’s a meteorite? Never heard of such a thing. Can I have one? What flavors does it come in? “Yeah. Cool,” he said with a tone bordering on giddy.
“Great! Let’s go, buddy. You and me.”
Floyd laughed. “Are we buddies, now?” he asked with a giggle.
“Of course! Best buds.”
“Cool.”
A minute later, they were out front waiting for Peyton’s father. Joca and Maria Flores, Peyton’s parents, were both Brazilian and spoke English with elegant accents. Their selection of their daughter’s first name was a deliberate attempt to sound contemporary and American. Peyton also spoke Portuguese, but there was no sign of Brazil in her English, nor was there any American in her Portuguese. She switched between the languages as easily as shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“Come on, daaaaad,” she drolled, rolling her eyes. Her father was one minute late. “It’s like eighty o’clock! Hurry up.”
“Is it eighty o’clock, already?” asked Floyd, whipping out his phone and checking the time. Both of the kids laughed.
“Here he is!” cried Peyton.
Joca pulled up in a Lincoln Navigator and both kids jumped in the back seat. Peyton’s father looked at Floyd in the mirror. “Who’s your friend, Anjo?”
“Floyd, Dad. He’s Floyd.”
“Hello, Floyd! I never met a Floyd before. You can just call me Joca.”
“Okay, Mr. Flores,” Floyd answered.
The Tallulleigh Shopping Center is twelve miles outside of Bowl Valley, and Peyton talked most of the way there. Floyd was only noticing now how loquacious the girl was, and he found it delightful. When they got inside the shopping mall, Floyd had trouble concealing his nervousness. Floyd actually stopped for a moment, his eyes wandering up to the ceiling. Peyton noticed.
“What’s wrong, Floyd?” she asked sweetly.
Floyd snapped back to reality. “Uh, nothing.”
“Something wrong with the skylight?” she asked, pointing up.
Floyd immediately began walking again. “No. Nothing.”
“You’re just acting funny.”
“Sorry.”
She smirked. “You don’t have to be sorry, Floyd. I’m not complaining. I’m just curious.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She stopped abruptly and pointed up at the ceiling. “What about this skylight?” she teased.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“What about that one?” she pointed to the next.
“All really good skylights,” he said amused.
“That’s what I think. Really good ones.”
“It’s not the skylights, actually,” he said.
“Really? What is it?”
“It’s just...malls.”
“Oh. It’s malls,” she said. “What’s wrong with malls? Should I be worried?”
“Nothing. I just had, you know, a thing.”
“What kind of thing?” she asked a little more seriously. His faint nervousness made her a tiny bit concerned for him.
“Well...I got hurt. Real bad.” He couldn’t believe what he was saying. Was he opening up to Peyton Flores: Dream Girl? Was he crazy? He was pretty sure she already thought he was weird. This would remove all doubt.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”
“No. It’s okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Okay. So, what happened? Was it this mall?”
“No. Not here. I got this...” he yanked his shirt’s collar and turned around, revealing a big scar on his left shoulder.
Peyton’s eyes shot wide open. “Oh, my god! You poor thing! What is that?”
“I got hit by a space rock.”
“A what? A space rock?”
“Yeah.”
“At a mall?”
“Yeah.”
“At a mall? Inside the mall?”
“Yeah.”
She stood back, she threw up her hands then crossed her arms. “That’s...that’s...” she repeated. “Amazing!”
“Really?” Floyd asked puzzled.
“You got hit by a space rock in a mall? Floyd, what could be more amazing than that? I t doesn’t still hurt, does it?”
Floyd shook his head. “No.”
Floyd really wanted to get into it. He wanted to tell her everything. How crazy his life was, but he checked himself. What would she think if she knew everything? Getting hurt once like that seems pretty astonishing, but being Floyd wasn’t. It wasn’t just scary, it was lonely. He didn’t want her to pity him. He didn’t want to be cute like a sad puppy. Girls want to pet a sad puppy, they don’t want to be its girlfriend.
“So, you were thinking about that, just now?” she asked.
Floyd didn’t know what to say to that. “A little, I guess.”
She walked up close to him. “Well, you know, in a way you’re lucky,” she said. “In a small way.”
“Really? How?”
“Because you are the one person on earth who will never, ever get hit by a space rock in a mall. That happening to the same person twice? Impossible. Never happen. You are the safest guy on earth from space rocks in malls. In fact...” she turned her back to him and plugged her fists into her sides, standing proudly. “I’m willing to stand right in front of you, right under this skylight. That’s how sure I am you are never going to meet a space rock, again. I’m 100% positive.”
Floyd had a smile that was impossible to hide. “I wish I was as sure as you.”
Peyton wanted an Orange Julius, so they headed to the food court. Floyd wondered to himself if these drinks were safe. After all, they all came from the same machine. It was a communal food source. There might be a problem with the cup or straw, but that seemed unlikely. He’d never been injured by a paper cup. The straw? Floyd didn’t like to talk about it. He took a chance and ordered one, it was something a normal person did, and he wanted her to think he was a normal person. “Not bad. I like Orange Julius,” he said.
“I always have one. We spent a part of the summer in Fortaleza. Couldn’t get them there.”
“Where’s Fortaleza?”
“It’s in Brazil.”
“Oh, right.”
“My father was overseeing some construction along the beach.”
“Is it nice there?”
Peyton’s face lit up. “Oh, Floyd! It’s the most wonderful place in the world!” She said. She looked happy enough to take flight and soar through the sky. “We spent Christmas there. You should see the decorations in the city. All the lights. Amaaaaaazing!”
“Sounds really nice.”
“It is. And the food, even if they don’t have Orange Julius, it’s the greatest food on earth!”
“Wow.”
“It has the greatest barbecue on earth, too! In fact, it has the greatest everything on earth!”
“Wow,” said Floyd, then he frowned slightly. “It must stink to have to be in Bowl Valley when you could be in Fortaleza where it’s warm.”
Peyton nodded a little, then changed her mind. “Bowl Valley’s got good stuff, too. Even when it’s cold.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
Peyton smiled sweetly, then she pinched him several times. Floyd laughed and defended himself, gently swatting at her hand. Then she gave her Orange Julius a big slurp. “The people, silly,” she said.
Although there had been no incidents on that particular September day, which was nice, when Floyd arrived at drama club the first sight that caught his eye was Richard Sato painting one of Mrs. Robeson's backdrops. All around him were students watching him at work. They were of all ages, freshman to seniors. He addressed them all like a professor. And yes, Floyd noticed, they were mostly girls. Normally, he would have thought 'good for Richard', but one of those girls was Peyton.
"I like to do it backwards," Richard said. "Branches are easy to draw, usually. They craze off in random directions. I do them first, though, making it as interesting a shape out of them as I can. I like to think of them as arms waving farewell. After that, I go to the bottom and do the roots and grass. I do the trunk last because I like to challenge myself by changing the natural order of things. Changing your point of view risks messing the whole thing up, but it's good to challenge yourself because I believe that's how you grow as a person." Richard smiled, his teeth two rows of perfect, ivory rectangles.
Peyton saw Floyd and waved a little. Floyd waved back. Midway through the wave Peyton started walking towards him. She stood next to Floyd, then turned around and pointed. "Don't you love those trees? Wow, I've never found painting so interesting. Richard can make anything fascinating. Don't you think so?"
Floyd didn't know what to say. In the second-and-a-half of time Between Peyton asking him the question to when he answered her, Floyd did about four hours of thinking. If he was negative, he would come off jealous. Which he absolutely was. If he was disinterested, he would come off dismissive about something Peyton liked. Floyd realized that he didn't have an answer because he didn't know how he felt.
"Trees are cool," Floyd said. It was not exactly the homerun he needed.
Peyton nodded with a smile. "I just think it's all him."
"Make sure you remind Floyd who you are, Peyton," a voice said. It was Lloyd, once again, creeping up from behind him with a wry grin. "He frequently forgets that people exist."
Peyton turned to Floyd, held out a hand. "Pleased to me you. My name is Peyton Antonia Calvacanti Flores. How do you do? Floyd is it?"
Floyd faked a laugh. He would have found this legitimately funny if it hadn't been about him. He shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you, too.”
"Oh, hey, did you guys see? Look," said Peyton. She led them to a table where pieces of something lay. It looked like several curvy poles connected with wires.
"What is it?" asked Lloyd.
"It's the Northern Lights," she answered.
"Really?" said Floyd. "Wow. I just said it and it happened."
"It really is going to look great."
Lloyd picked up one of the pieces. It was heavier than it looked. "How is this the Northern Lights?" he asked.
"It'll look better hanging. These things are like the folds in the waves."
"Oh. I see it," said Floyd.
"It's using colored cellophane."
"Sandwich wrap. Totally cutting-edge theater tech," said Lloyd.
Some bickering voices carried into the room from the hallway. Mrs. Robeson was speaking louder than she usually did, and Mr. Moderick seemed to be holding back about an encyclopedia's worth of replies.
"Listen, Randy," Mrs. Robeson said. "There is simply not enough room in the little theater. Not for my production, or yours. I don't appreciate you going behind my back."
"I just want to give this school what it needs, right now. That's all I'm doing."
Mrs. Robeson shook her head. "What doesn't that even mean? Okay, but speaking for me with Ted, telling him I agreed with you, that was very underhanded."
"I swear to god, Linda. I didn't do that. All I told him was that we'd talked about using the little theater for staging some larger productions. That we can do more in that theater than we have tried before."
Mrs. Robeson's nostrils flared furiously. "That's exactly what I mean! We never had such a conversation."
"Yes, we did!"
"It was not like the way you characterized it! You said I said a lot of things I didn't. You were trying to get my show moved to the little theater to get that monstrosity of yours in up here."
"Well, if I made a mistake, I'm sorry about that."
"If I remember that conversation correctly, we were discussing the PTA forcing problem students on the art programs. I'm not even sure if the issue of the little theater even came up."
"It did, Linda. It did. And I still agree with you on the problem students issue. We're not psychiatrists."
"Well, I'm glad we agree on that. As far as moving to the little theater. I am not moving this production down there."
"My show is much bigger than yours."
"You don't even have a full script!"
"Yes, I do. I've had it for a while."
"We already have some of the scenery finished!"
"You've barely done anything!"
"Oh, Randy. It's just not done this way!"
"Why don't we ask the students what they want to do?"
"You are out of your mind!"
"A quick vote."
"We are NOT going to do a referendum! This is high school, Randy! These are kids! For Pete's sake, these are kids! I don't care if you and Ted go way back, I am not letting you shut down Almost, Maine for your idiotic circus! I will fight this to the very end!"
Mrs. Robeson stomped off, leaving Mr. Moderick's finger, pointing at the spot where she'd been three seconds before. He stood there for what seemed half of forever, then pulled back his finger and drifted away, thinking he was preserving his dignity.
Peyton, Floyd and Lloyd, like most of the students, had stopped what they were doing to gawk at the arguing teachers. Lloyd seemed to think it was funny.
"What the heck are they talking about?" Lloyd asked. "Is there another play, or something?"
Floyd shrugged. "I don't know."
Peyton was just as curious. "How can there be another show? Nobody's doing anything. There's no one building a set."
"I've seen plays with no sets," Lloyd said. "Or just a little set. Just some chairs and a table. Stuff like that."
A voice called to them. It was Richard. "Hey, Peyton! I'm gonna start those flowers now!"
Peyton turned excitedly. "I'm coming!" She snapped happily. She gave the brothers a little wave. "See you, guys!"
"See ya," said Lloyd.
"Yeah, bye," Floyd mumbled. He sounded as miserable as a lobster in a pot.
Lloyd noticed. He scratched his chin. "Hmm."
"What?" Floyd asked.
"I'm just picking something up. That's all. It's okay."
"What do you mean, Lloyd?"
"Oh, stop it. I know when you are bummed about stuff," Lloyd said sympathetically. "Just listen, okay? Peyton and Melanie are friends. I don't want anything messing everything up. You know what I mean?"
Floyd nodded. "Uh-huh."
"I just think the four of us together will be fun. I don't want that screwed up. I don't want you asking Peyton out and making things awkward."
Floyd frowned. "I wasn't gonna ask her out."
"You want to though, right?" Lloyd asked with an exaggerated wink. He had the grin of a trickster on his face, pretty confident that he knew the answer.
"I don't know."
"I know. I'm not saying you and Peyton wouldn't be dope, but I don't want you getting hurt and things getting weird. She's into Richard, anyway. Just put this on the back burner for three or four...centuries." Lloyd was trying to get a laugh out of Floyd, but it wasn't working.
If there is a word for a frown that is even frownier than a frown, then Floyd was doing it. But he nodded, seeing the sense in what Lloyd was saying. "Okay."
"I want you to start doing more things, Floyd. I want the four of us to do things. It'll get you out more. That's my whole point. We're gonna be like the Beatles. The Fab Four."
Floyd sighed. Everything Lloyd was into was old. "Yeah, I get it."
"There's a time and a place, Floyd. This isn't the time, even if it is the place. But...someday. Who knows? When we're seniors, Richard will be in college."
"Right."
It wasn't just that it wasn't the right time, Floyd doubted this was the right place, too. And if there was a third thing it needed to be, it wouldn't be the right that, either.