Saturday, 10:30 AM
The park was deserted when I arrived. It wasn't the usual park, but an open field on the outskirts where remote-control aircraft enthusiasts gathered on weekends. I had seen Phil's car parked at the entrance, and for some reason I couldn't explain, my feet carried me toward it.
I had my sketchbook with me. In the weeks since Alex had lent me that book on perspective, I had been practicing obsessively. I drew the houses on the street, the trees in the garden, the clouds passing over our heads. But my drawings were still clumsy; the lines didn't meet where they should, the proportions were a disaster.
But that morning, as I walked toward the field, I wasn't thinking about drawings. I was thinking about Alex, about the message she had sent me the night before: "Tomorrow I'm going with Gloria to buy a dress. I don't want to go, but she says it's important for the wedding. Do you think it matters?"
I had replied: "What matters is that you feel good about what you choose. Not that you look like anyone else."
She had only sent a thumbs-up. But that morning, when I passed her house on my way to the park, I saw her leave with Gloria. She was wearing her favorite gray sweatshirt and an expression that mixed resignation and curiosity. Gloria took her by the arm with an energy that seemed ripped from a coffee commercial, and the two walked off down the street.
Alex didn't see me, but I saw her. And in the way she walked, her shoulders a little straighter than usual, I knew my message had reached her.
Later
Phil was standing next a gleaming model airplane, hands on his hips, with an expression that mixed the excitement of a child with the concentration of a surgeon. Jay was a few meters away, arms crossed, jaw tight, as if he were about to witness a disaster. The morning sun reflected off the plane's wings, giving it an unreal glow.
"Leo!" Phil spotted me first, and his face lit up with that contagious energy he always had. "What a coincidence! Did you come to see the plane?"
"Just passing by," I said, approaching with my hands in my pockets. "That model... is it new?"
"New and improved," Phil said, stroking the wing with his hand. "Jay lent it to me. Well, not exactly lent. He said I could fly it, that he trusted me."
Jay grunted from where he stood. "I said you could try. I didn't say I trusted you."
"It's the same thing," Phil replied without losing his smile.
Jay approached, studying me with that mixture of curiosity and distrust he always showed with strangers. His eyes scanned my sketchbook, sneakers, and clothes.
"You here for the show too?"
"I came to draw," I said, showing the sketchbook. "But I stayed to see the plane."
"You draw?" Phil asked with genuine interest.
"I try. I'm not very good."
"What do you draw?"
"Landscapes, houses, and sometimes planes," I admitted. "I'm learning perspective."
Jay took the sketchbook from my hands without asking. He flipped through it with thick fingers, and for a moment I thought he was going to mock me, but he didn't.
"This is good," he said, pointing to a drawing of Dunphy Street I had done the previous week. "The horizon line is in the right place. The proportions... not bad."
"Jay knows about drawing," Phil said proudly.
"I learned that in college," Jay said, handing the sketchbook back. "It's not the same as drawing for pleasure."
"Do you draw for pleasure?" I asked.
Jay looked at me. For a second, I saw something in his eyes I hadn't expected: a spark of interest.
"I used to," he said. "Before, when I had time."
"Why did you stop?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he pointed to the plane. "Are you going to fly it, or are you going to give a lecture?"
Phil straightened up. "Ready for takeoff, commander."
Jay rolled his eyes, but there was a smile hidden in the corner of his lips.
The plane took off with an electric hum. Phil guided it in a wide arc, gaining altitude, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Jay watched from a distance, arms crossed, but his eyes followed every movement of the machine.
"Is it going well?" I asked, approaching Jay.
"It's going well," he admitted, reluctantly. "Phil has a steady hand for these things. Always has."
"Always?"
Jay sighed. "When Claire first brought him home, I thought he wouldn't last. He was too... enthusiastic. Too optimistic. Too confident that everything would work out."
"And that was bad?"
"For me, yes," Jay said, and his voice was softer than I expected. "I come from a world where nothing works out if you don't push. Where you have to distrust people until they prove they're worth it. And Phil... Phil showed up acting as if he was already worth it without having proven anything."
"And now?"
Jay looked at me. "Now he's been proving it for sixteen years. And I... I'm still waiting for him to fail."
I didn't know how to respond. It wasn't my place. But something in his voice, in the way he watched Phil fly the plane with the joy of a child, made me understand that Jay wasn't waiting for Phil to fail. He was waiting not to have to admit that he had already won.
It was then that Phil called Jay from the other side of the field.
"Jay, come here. I want to try a trick."
Jay walked toward him with slow steps. I followed, keeping a prudent distance.
"What trick?" Jay asked, suspicious.
"The one you used to do with Claire and Mitch when they were kids. Threading the needle."
Jay raised an eyebrow. "You're going to do that?"
"Sure. Why not?" Phil was already placing the plane on the ground, adjusting the controls. "You go to the other end of the field with the hoop. I fly the plane through."
"What if you fail?"
"I'm not going to fail."
"What if you fail?"
Phil looked at him for a second. His smile faded, and I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before: determination. Not the cheerful determination of someone who always expects the best, but something deeper. Something that had been building for sixteen years.
"I'm not going to fail," he repeated.
Jay looked at him. Then, without a word, he took the hoop and walked to the far end of the field.
I stayed next to Phil, watching Jay walk away. His back was straight, his steps firm. But when he reached the far end and raised the hoop, his hands trembled slightly.
"Is he nervous?" I asked.
"Yes," Phil said. "But not about the plane."
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Phil tried to be a pilot. The plane decided to be a missile.
Jay tried not to get emotional. He failed.
Leo learned that drawing planes is safer than flying them.
And Alex discovered that red is her color. Gloria knew it all along.
Who was more dramatic? Phil crashing or Jay pretending he didn't care? ✈️💥😎
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