Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Read Free Page B

came home and gave the patch to my dad.
    “I think you’re making a mistake.” That’s all my dad said.
    I’m not going to wind up in the slammer. That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I just mouthed off. “If you make me go back, I swear I’ll start smoking pot.”
    My father gave me a strange look. “It’s your life,” he said. Like that was really true. And another thing about my father: He didn’t give lectures. Not real ones. Which pissed me off. He wasn’t a mean guy. And he didn’t have a bad temper. He spoke in short sentences: “It’s your life.” “Give it a try.” “You sure you want to do that?” Why couldn’t he just talk? How was I supposed to know him when he didn’t let me? I hated that.
    I got along okay. I had school friends. Sort of. I wasn’t wildly popular. How could I be? In order to be wildly popular you had to make people believe that you were fun and interesting. I just wasn’t that much of a con artist.
    There were a couple of guys I used to hang around with, the Gomez brothers. But they moved away. And there were a couple of girls, Gina Navarro and Susie Byrd, who liked to torment me as a hobby. Girls. They were mysteries too. Everything was a mystery.
    I guess I didn’t have it so bad. Maybe everybody didn’t love me, but I wasn’t one of those kids that everyone hated, either.
    I was good in a fight. So people left me alone.
    I was mostly invisible. I think I liked it that way.
    And then Dante came along.

Five
    AFTER MY FOURTH SWIMMING LESSON, DANTE INVITED me to go over to his house. He lived less than a block from the swimming pool in a big old house across the street from the park.
    He introduced me to his father, the English professor. I’d never met a Mexican-American man who was an English professor. I didn’t know they existed. And really, he didn’t look like a professor. He was young and handsome and easygoing and it seemed like a part of him was still a boy. He seemed like a man who was in love with being alive. So different from my father, who had always kept his distance from the world. There was a darkness in my father that I didn’t understand. Dante’s father didn’t have any darkness in him. Even his black eyes seemed to be full of light.
    That afternoon, when I met Dante’s father, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and he was sitting on a leather chair in his office, reading a book. I’d never known anyone who actually had an office in his own house.
    Dante walked up to his father and kissed him on the cheek. I would have never done that. Not ever.
    “You didn’t shave this morning, Dad.”
    “It’s summer,” his dad said.
    “That means you don’t have to work.”
    “That means I have to finish writing my book.”
    “Writing a book isn’t work.”
    Dante’s father laughed really hard when he said that. “You have a lot to learn about work.”
    “It’s summer, Dad. I don’t want to hear about work.”
    “You never want to hear about work.”
    Dante didn’t like where the conversation was going so he tried to change the subject. “Are you going to grow a beard?”
    “No.” He laughed. “It’s too hot. And besides, your mother won’t kiss me if I go more than a day without shaving.”
    “Wow, she’s strict.”
    “Yup.”
    “And what would you do without her kisses?”
    He grinned, then looked up at me. “How do you put up with this guy? You must be Ari.”
    “Yes, sir.” I was nervous. I wasn’t used to meeting anybody’s parents. Most of the parents I’d met in my life weren’t all that interested in talking to me.
    He got up from his chair and put his book down. He walked up to me and shook my hand. “I’m Sam,” he said. “Sam Quintana.”
    “Nice to meet you, Mr. Quintana.”
    I’d heard that phrase, nice to meet you , a thousand times. When Dante had said it to me, he’d sounded real. But when I said it, I felt stupid and unoriginal. I wanted to hide somewhere.
    “You can call me Sam,” he