The Year of Dan Palace: A Novel

by Kristen J. Tsetsi

She resembled a long-ago crush of his who’d worn a bright yellow headband to hold back thick brown hair. Brandi. She’d said yes to Empire of the Sun and they were boyfriend and girlfriend for three weeks after that, kissing for the first and only time in the stairwell between second and third periods. He’d have been all right to die then, standing in the hallway watching Brandi walk to her geology class after that kiss, but not later that year when he found out he would get to play drums in the school band. He wouldn’t have wanted to die before learning to keep a rhythm. There were so few perfect times to die.

She pointed her chin at Dan’s glass. “A real power drink. When did you start drinking scotch?” “When you left.” “Habitually?” “No.” “Some effect I had. I couldn’t even turn you into an alcoholic.”

She sipped her martini and titled her head, looking at him so directly that he shifted in his chair. “Do you know,” she said, “one of the reasons I never wanted to talk to you after that day is that I just couldn’t believe you would do something like that on purpose, which—” “I didn’t.” “—which made me want desperately to stay with you. Up to that moment, you were … We worked so well. But who is so distanced from the person he says he loves, who cares so little for that person as a person, that he doesn’t see what’s happening right beneath him?” She put down her glass. “I was so in love with you. So in love, you know?

Nina, when he’d told her about the end of the world, had at the very least respected him enough to believe that he believed it. There was no ridicule, just disappointment. April was so pragmatic that she would probably find herself having to agree that the world would end someday while confronting no barriers to an impulse to add that he was an idiot or a fool for imagining it could happen now, to him.

And … I don’t know. I don’t know what else. Whatever I wanted, I think. And I wouldn’t waste time with second guesses.” “Why don’t you just do that now?” She bit the tip of the breadstick and shrugged. “Why doesn’t anyone do the things they want to do? What would I do all by myself in a tent on a beach with no reason for it?”