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Living with seven people is a lot to handle, especially for someone quieter like Paul. He slips under the radar, except for when he’s supposed to be doing something to help out, like taking out the trash, and then it feels like they’re timing him to the second.
You’d think that you could never feel lonely either, in a house full of people, but sometimes the amount of people is what highlights to him that he’s alone. He and Lena are close because they’re the youngest, but they still have their differences. His brothers like that he’s on the football team, but they also like to mess with him because he’s the baby of the family. And no one’s quiet like he is, and no one wants to change the recipe like he does, and sometimes, when he’s really sad, he thinks they put him in the basement not because they want him to have his own space, but because it makes it easier to ignore him.
So when it’s his birthday, and Paul’s family surprises him with Greg’s old pickup, he doesn’t mind that it’s a hand-me-down at all. He hugs everyone because they’ve always been a hugging family, and no one gives him shit because it’s his birthday, and the hugs are warm and secure. That night, after his cake, he tells Ma he’s going out for a drive so he can see the stars, and she kisses his cheek and tells him to have fun and drive safely and not worry about curfew tonight. She’s been lax about curfew ever since half of her kids have graduated high school, but it’s still reassuring to hear her say that, and know he doesn’t have a timeline tonight.
Truthfully, he’s going to see the stars because he thinks that somewhere he can see the stars is somewhere that’s quiet, and somewhere that’s quiet is somewhere he can think. He thinks that people might think he’s stupid, and it’s true he’s not good with words, but sometimes he thinks it’s just because he needs the space and time to think, and everything move too fast for him to have time to put his thoughts together.
Paul drives out of Squahamish, past many fields, until he gets somewhere that feels far away from other people. He cuts the engine and climbs in the truck bed to look at the stars. With his knees pulled up into his chest, he wonders about which dots form constellations and which ones are actually planets. After a few minutes like that, he switches to lying down on his back, hands clasped on his stomach.
It’s finally peaceful. There’s still the sounds of crickets and stuff, but there’s no people sounds. It’s not like church, where it’s quiet because they’re honouring God, or like school, where it’s quiet because they’re taking a test—it’s peaceful, but there’s no punishment if the peace is broken. He sighs, because there’s no one around to question the sigh, and then sighs again, louder, because he can, and because it feels nice.
When it’s gotten a little colder than he can bear, he gets back into the cab of the truck and turns the engine on. The clock comes on, set 10 minutes ahead in an attempt to get better at being on time because there’s so many people in their family that it’s hard to do so. It reads 11:27, which means it’s 11:17. Curfew was 10:30, and he’d headed out at 10. He doesn’t know how long he’d been driving before he stopped, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been out here. Time had totally slipped his mind the second he started driving. It’s nice, like nobody’s expecting anything of him. Usually, the only way he can get that feeling is when he stays up late until he’s the only one awake, and even then, he knows it’s only temporary, because in however many hours, they’re going to need him to grind the meat, or clean up the shop, or whatever his chores for the day are. Out here, so far away from everything and everyone, it’s easier to pretend there’s nothing waiting for him. He doesn’t need to be anyone or anywhere. No one knows he exists. It’s not like he minds having to do chores; he loves his family, and he loves making sausages and brats. It’s just that it all gets to be a lot sometimes. But tonight in the fields is peaceful, and the peace lasts when he’s driving home, and when he’s getting ready for bed, and when he falls asleep.
He now does these nighttime drives whenever he needs to get away. Sometimes he likes pretending that he’s getting out—he’s going to bring his sausages to an interested food critic; he’s going to culinary school; he’s going to have a sausage stall at a bigger farmer’s market than the one in Squahamish; he’s going to start his own sausage shop; he’s even just going to spring break (never mind that it’s often not in the springtime). It doesn’t feel like he’s lost or aimless when he has somewhere he’s pretending to go. It doesn’t feel like he’s tied to Squahamish.
And then one day he’s having a really shitty time. He goes to school and sees he’s gotten a 70% on his English essay, and English has never been his strong point, but he really had tried on that one, and he really had felt like he’d done a decent job; at lunch with the football team, no one hears him when he tries to comment on someone’s story or tries to tell his own story; and then at home, of course he can’t even get one word in when they’re talking before dinner, at dinner, or after dinner, and then they’re asking him to help clean up the shop and take out the trash. It’s not like these things don’t happen often, but there’s something about today, and everything happening at once, that makes it feel worse than usual.
He has to listen to everyone, but no one ever has to listen to him. It feels like the words are physical, like he can feel them inside of him taking up space, making it hard to breathe, weighing him down. They all get trapped inside of him because he takes too long to put them together.
He feels like he needs to scream, but that if he does, he might never stop. This ride, he decides to listen to a different playlist, a collaborative one he and Lena had made when they were in their emo phase together. They’re mostly out of their emo phase now (it had been an eighth grade through tenth grade thing, mostly), but it has its uses, like now, when he just wants to sing loudly to get those screams out. Even though it kind of upsets him to think about it too much because he’s kind of mad at Lena because he’s kind of mad at everyone right now. He thinks he’s got a decent voice, and he took choir when they had to choose choir or band, but right now, he doesn’t care about sounding good at all.
At some point, he stops singing and just yells, a sound that's in his speaking octave but stretches out and out, 'til the whole car is filled with it, 'til it becomes someone sitting next to him and keeping him company, 'til it threatens to shatter the windows with its mass. He yells 'til his lungs are heaving and the sound is faltering and then coming to a stop. He feels better, like the frustration and sadness left with the sound. With one final, soft sigh, he goes quiet again. The rest of his routine continues as usual—the drive to a random field where he looks at the stars until he's cold and tired in a comforting way.
He still goes on his peaceful drives, but he now also goes on his yelling drives when he needs.
He and Ellie have been doing what Ellie calls reconnaissance. Really, they're kind of stalking Aster, but “reconnaissance” makes it feel like they're in a spy flick. Also, Ellie says it'll help them get to know Aster better (isn't that the point of dates?) and Ellie seems to enjoy it, so Paul enjoys it too. He likes to think that they're friends. Tonight, they've just gotten home from what felt like a fairly successful mission. Ellie's unlocking her front door and he's waiting in the car. He wants to make sure she gets in safely before he takes off.
"Where are you going this late?" Ellie asks, one hand on the doorknob, turning around to take in the way Paul's car is angled to drive away rather than drive home. She means late for him, because he knows she has an 11:40 shift (is what she's doing considered a shift?) and she usually does people's essays while waiting, and she knows he has a (no longer enforced) 10:30 curfew.
"Oh uh, I like to drive out to fields to look at the stars sometimes," he says. She frowns, something she does a lot. Stargazing's probably one of those things she finds cliché, which makes it stupid to her.
"Do you at least have a blanket?" she asks. He blinks, surprised, then shakes his head.
"Wait here," she says, then opens the door and heads in to her house.
She comes back outside with a blanket that she hands to him.
"Do you wanna come with me?" he blurts out. Their hands are touching around the blanket. He's never asked anyone, never particularly wanted company for these drives, but no one has ever given him a blanket, much less asked if he had one because they worried about him getting cold. She frowns, and he wonders if maybe it was stupid to ask.
"We'll have to be back before 11:40," she answers. He nods and pulls the blanket in. "Let me go leave a note for my dad and lock up the house?” He nods again. Maybe the frown isn't a this is stupid face; maybe it's just her thinking face.
While he waits for her, he turns on the music. His phone is already plugged in, so he just needs to go to Spotify and select a playlist. He goes with the playlist he uses for calm drives. The volume is low, because it's nice to have a quiet background noise, like Mr. Chu’s movies, not a loud background noise, like home.
Ellie must like this kind of music too, because throughout the drive, she'll sway her head or tap her legs in time to the songs. He wonders if she listened to this type of music before or after she started playing guitar. He wonders when she started playing guitar.
"You play the guitar good." The words are out before he realises they'd been coming, and then it's too late to do anything but commit. "Is that an instrument you learned in school?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he watches her startle a little. He thinks she's surprised he's asking about her. She's used to being invisible too, just for different reasons.
"I didn't learn any instrument in school," she says. He thinks maybe that's the end of it, because he's noticed she doesn't really talk about herself. But then she says, "My parents wanted me to learn piano, because playing an instrument strengthens your brain. They found a Chinese private tutor who lived close to the Asian store. It was far away, so we'd make it a whole outing. Piano class Saturday morning, then Chinatown the rest of the day. I played piano, my mom played guitar, and my dad had a good voice, so we used to joke that we could form a band. I was in lessons from when I was 5 'til when my mom died.
"And my mom taught me how to play guitar. I still play both instruments now, obviously, but most of the time, it's learning songs I like by ear, or writing my own. Sorry. That was a lot.”
"That's okay. I think it's cool to learn about friends. What does learning by ear mean?" Paul glances over.
"It means I don't need sheet music; I listen to the song and I can figure it out from there," Ellie explains.
"Wow. That's really cool. You should post videos on Rapidgraph, or YouCube."
"I don't think anyone here really wants to listen to Ellie Chugga Chugga Chu Chu," Ellie says dryly. It's sad, hearing her call herself that.
"Well," he says quietly. "Well, that's true here, but on YouCube, it's easier to reach people outside of Squahamish. That's why the next part of my plan is to email food review accounts on YouCube."
"Why stop there? You could make your own YouCube account.”
"I don't think I can yet. I wouldn't have that many recipes to share. But your dad totally should. His food was yummy. A-and he wouldn't even need to talk or translate if he didn't want to. The ingredients and recipe could be added in after, and you could translate, or I could use a dictionary and you could just check it when I'm done," Paul says.
"Maybe," Ellie says, staring out the windshield.
"And maybe I could even cook with him. It'd be a Chinese-Polish fusion! There's probably not that many channels like that; it'd be something original," he continues, ignoring her lack of enthusiasm. He's learned that she doesn't mean anything by it; she's just not a very emotional person.
"You'll have to see if my dad wants to do that," Ellie says.
"He's okay with my cooking. It’s only a matter of time before he's okay with me cooking with him," Paul says decisively.
They fall into a comfortable silence the rest of the drive, the music on low. He stays a little closer to Squahamish than usual so that he can bring Ellie home in time.
After he cuts the engine, they get out of the cab and into the bed, leaving the tailgate down. Ellie lays the blanket down so they have a little padding beneath them, and they lie down on top of it. For warmth, they pull the sides of the blankets over themselves.
"The stars are beautiful," Ellie murmurs. Then she switches tracks. "You asked me about my mom once, and one of the things I said was fun. My mom was fun because she was spontaneous and adventurous. She'd say she felt like looking at the stars, and we'd do what you do—we'd drive to fields and she'd spread a blanket on the ground. We didn't have a pickup truck or minivan, with the three of us."
"Wow. She does sound fun," Paul says, his volume matching Ellie's.
He tries to imagine his family doing the same, if they were even interested. They'd have to take more than one car. It'd probably be Greg and Marcy in their own car, and the rest of them in the minivan. He and Lena would sit in the back, and Pete and Tommy would take the middle. It'd be a good thing that he and Lena took the back, because Pete and Tommy are not above kicking seats. If Pete and Tommy were bored, they'd complain about the drive, but Ma and Pa would ignore them, and they'd go on their phones and complain about the lack of service. Lena would have music downloaded in Spotify, and she'd give Paul an earbud so they could drown out their brothers. When they finally made it to a field, they'd pull over. Ma and Pa would realise they didn't remember a blanket. The people that brought jackets could sit on theirs, but everyone else would sit on the ground, except Greg and Marcy, who'd sit on the hood of their car. Everyone would be in awe, and they'd finally be quiet. In the car, Pete and Tommy would talk, but this time, they'd be talking about the stars, like maybe Pete would swear up and down that he saw a grouping that looked like the poop emoji, and Tommy would tell him to come off it and Ma would call him childish, but he'd say they were just jealous they hadn't noticed it.
He and Ellie are mostly quiet, and he's glad he has a friend he can watch the stars with, especially one who's as smart as she is, but has never made him feel stupid. He likes that they can be quiet together instead of feeling like they need to fill up the silence. It's the kind of peace he felt when he first started doing this.
"Did your mom know the constellations?" he asks. She shakes her head.
"No, she just liked looking at them. But there's a Chinese folk tale my parents told me. There's this Cowherd whose family didn't treat him well, and he gets kicked out of the house, with only an old cow. One day, the old cow tells the Cowherd that there will be fairies from the heavens bathing in a nearby spring, and that their clothes are what allow them to go back. So he goes, and he falls in love with one of the fairies, the Weaver. She falls for him too, and because she doesn't have her clothes, she stays there. They get married and have two kids. When the Jade Emperor finds out, he gets mad, and has his servants take the weaver back to the heavens. Seeing the cowherd's distress, the old cow tells him to turn its skin into a flying coat. The Cowherd does and it works, but then the Queen Mother of the West creates a river to block him. A flock of magpies wants to help, so they create a bridge for him to cross. The Jade Emperor realises that the Cowherd truly loves the Weaver, so he agrees to let them meet on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month every year on this bridge—it would take a lot of time and energy for the magpies if they met any more than that anyway. That river is the Milky Way, but I don't know what the other ones are."
"That's really cool. I mean, it's a really sad story, but it shows what people do for love, and it's cool to have a folk tale about why something exists," Paul elaborates.
"Yeah. Do you know any constellations?" Ellie asks. Now it's Paul’s turn to shake his head.
"I've always wanted to learn though. Maybe we could learn together," he says.
"Yeah, maybe."
They're quiet until it’s time to pack up and get back into the cab.
"Do you ever get tired doing it?" Paul asks. He realises he was vague just now, but Ellie still understands what he means.
"It's my job to do it," Ellie says simply.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't get tired. I mean, I love my family and I love making sausages, but I still get tired. Sometimes it's the reason I go on these drives. But sometimes it's just the kind of tired where I need sleep," he explains.
"I don't get tired of doing it—it's an easy job. I don't get tired while doing it either. I actually feel more awake at night. If anything, I get tired during the day, when we're at school." Paul smiles, picturing Ellie fighting not to fall asleep while a teacher continues their lesson.
"Did you ever fall asleep in class?" he asks.
"No, but I've nodded off before," Ellie admits. Paul snorts.
"She liked turning her lights off so that we could see the board better, and she had a monotone voice," Ellie says defensively.
"Oh don't worry; I'm not judging. I've fully fallen asleep in class before. I don't remember getting less sleep than usual either. I was sitting in the back, and my friend tapped my desk to wake me up before the teacher caught me. Luckily it was also dark, but that was because we were watching a video." Ellie looks at him with a smile, and he smiles back at her.
"Sometimes, I see shooting stars. I've even seen the northern lights before," Paul says, changing the subject because he's kind of surprised they didn't spot any shooting stars tonight; he's seen at least one every other time.
But even if they did see a shooting star tonight, he's not sure what he'd wish for. He feels like the team has been getting really good; his friendship with Ellie is good; he might even be starting a friendship with Mr. Chu; and he thinks he's got something good with Aster, like they make each other happy. Maybe it would be a wish that the people around him continue to be happy.
"My mom would turn it into a competition of who saw the most shooting stars. It taught me to focus, to keep a careful eye on my surroundings." It explains why she always seems so watchful and thoughtful.
They head back with time to spare. He gets ready for bed as she gets ready to do her job. Maybe one day he'll ask if he can watch or even help, just to see what it’s like.