This short story is related to my first novel, Between Sunset and Twilight, and its sequel, Shade of Avocado, my serial novel currently in progress here on Substack. This story takes place many years before the events in the novels, however. No spoilers here, but it includes a bit more backstory of some of the characters. I hope you enjoy it. Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!
Best friends become that way for the most amazing reasons. My best friend taught me to read when I was only four years old, months before I began kindergarten. He was six then and was already reading books several grades ahead. I’m talking real books, with chapters and page numbers into the hundreds!
Alfi shared the stories in the books with me, reading them out loud as we’d sit on his front steps in the porch light as evening twilight faded. Or in the afternoons, under the huge, shady tree in my backyard. While there were lots of written pages in these books, there were pictures in some of them, so I would sit at his side to look over his arm at the illustrations as he read the story to me.
Alfi would move his finger across the lines as he spoke them, and I started following his finger when there was no picture on the page. Some of the words became familiar to me, and I couldn’t even recite the whole alphabet yet.
Late that summer, before I started school in September, Alfi had me read a few pages out loud to him. He still had to help me with several words, gently correcting my pronunciation on a few, but then I’d move along again. He was very proud of me when I finished the chapter.
As I got better at reading and advanced through elementary school, Alfi and I would share our books, taking turns reading to each other. We would talk about the stories when we finished reading, what we liked, how the characters acted, or what might happen after the end of the story. When we would run out of books from home or what we’d borrowed from the library, we made up our own stories.
Alfi wasn’t my best friend’s real name, by the way. It was the name I gave him in many of the stories we made up together over our childhood years. He gave me the nickname, Pyx, because I often played the role of a pixie queen in a fairy realm of fireflies. We went back and forth, telling each other pieces of these tales that built on what the last one said. It was probably my best friend who also taught me how to write.
Best of all, he taught me to use my imagination.
We kept this up, reading stories out loud together and making up our own stories all through grade school. Through storytelling, he led me on journeys to incredible places. He took me Around the World in 80 Days, and on a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. We went on a Fantastic Voyage into the brain and heart of a scientist. Together, we visited the Moon, Mars, and the stars.
By the time we were in junior high, we devoured epic fantasy series like Lord of the Rings, A Wizard of Earthsea, and The Chronicles of Narnia.
Our fantasy adventures we composed grew bigger and more complex. Alfi and Pyx, and the roles they played grew up, too. And more complex.
When I was thirteen, it was the year before Alfi would enter high school. We were still both in junior high though, and because I skipped third grade, I was only a grade behind him. I don’t know why I did what I did then.
On Thursday, February 12, I slipped a note to Alfi, leaving it in the usual place, through the vent slot of his school locker:
“Hey, Saturday is Valentine’s Day. Come on over at noon and we can have lunch under the tree. See you then? -P.”
There was a moment of panic as I let the note drop inside and I continued down the corridor. We were best buds. We weren’t valentines. But the note was inside his locker now, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
After school that day, Alfi and I met where we usually did to walk home.
“Sure, Pyx,” he said before saying anything else. “Let’s do lunch Saturday.”
I didn’t understand why, but I was happier on that walk home from school than I could ever remember being.
On Saturday morning, I mashed up several avocados with some finely diced onion into a bowl of fresh guacamole. I added lemon juice to keep it nice and green, and enough chopped peppers for a little heat. Then I went to my room to change clothes. On an impulse, I decided to put on a dress.
A frickin’ dress? Maybe I should wear something else. Do I have time to change? This is no big deal, right? Oh, I’m just going to wear the dress.
When Alfi wandered in the gate, I called through the kitchen window to him. “I’ll bring everything out. Go ahead and sit under the tree.”
I turned on a fire under the cast iron skillet to grill up chicken and cheese quesadillas. I flipped them when the edges were light brown and crispy. I cut them into wedges, then to be extra cute, I trimmed them, sort of, into the shape of hearts.
I poured two hibiscus iced teas that appeared too neon pink over ice in those glasses. Whatever.
I brought out everything on a tray, maneuvering carefully between the drooping limbs and shiny dark green leaves of the huge tree. Alfi was sitting cross-legged on one corner of the blanket I had spread out on the ground next to the trunk.
“Fancy occasion,” he remarked. “That’s a sweet dress, Pyx.”
He noticed the dress. I maintained control of my self-consciousness and I nodded as I put the tray down on the blanket. “Sweet of you to notice.”
Sweet? Oh, man, did I go too far with the dress?
Then, Alfi laughed when he saw the heart-ish-shaped quesadillas.
“You think it’s stupid?” I asked with growing embarrassment. Hearts? ...Really?
“No, no,” he insisted as he tried to quiet his laughter. “It just surprised me. You did it perfect, Pyx!”
“Okay, because it’s…Valentine’s Day.” I shrugged my shoulders. “So, you know…the traditional…heart quesadillas.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Really, I love ‘em!”
I let myself smile at him, convinced now he was not making fun and was truly surprised by my special touches.
“And they look delicious,” he added with sincerity.
We ate our lunch as we had done thousands of times in the nearly ten years we’d been the best of friends. But this was the first Valentine’s Day lunch, dinner, or snack we could recall. As we finished the last of our cheesy hearts, I put my arm around Alfi’s shoulder, giving him a friendly squeeze.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Alfi.”
He turned towards me and hugged me with both arms.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Pyx.”
The two of us gazed at each other, so pleased with our wonderful friendship.
“Oh, hey, I have a surprise for you, too,” he said. Out of his back pocket, he pulled a folded sheaf of notebook paper.
“What’s that?” I asked as he unfolded it.
“I wrote up a little Valentine’s Day adventure for Pyx and Alfi!”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed with a girlish giggle.
“No, really,” he said. “It’s titled ‘Quest for the Heart’.”
I giggled even harder now. “Please tell me this isn’t going to be something stupid.”
“No, now just listen.”
I settled down my amusement and listened.
He was about to read his handwritten manuscript but added, “Oh, and I included a few pictures in here. So, come over where you can see them,” he told me.
I scutched next to him where I could look past his arm at the page. He read the story to me out loud. Alfi moved his finger across the lines, and I followed its movement. I took in the words he read to me with my eyes, my ears, my mind…and yeah, my heart. We paused the story when it was time to admire his amateurish, but adorable sketches of the Fairy-winged Queen of the Fireflies and the Elfin Warrior who protected Pyx’s realm.
Near the end of the story, Pyx rewarded Alfi’s bravery and loyalty with a feast. His cut-and-paste illustration portrayed the Elf and the Queen at the dining table, as Pyx waved her sparkling wand to produce a heart-shaped cake in front of them.
“You see why I started laughing when I saw your quesadilla?” he asked.
“I understand now. This was a wonderful valentine from you.”
“Almost forgot. This is for you, too.” Alfi pulled a little pink box out of his other pocket and presented it to me with a flourish.
I was puzzled at first, but then I recognized it as a box of those little candy conversation hearts. I chuckled and said, “How fun!”
“Open them,” he said. “What do these hearts say?”
I picked one out of the box, a chalky, white heart with red lettering embossed upon it. Alfi looked at me with expectation, the expression he used whenever it was my turn to read out loud.
“It says,” I began, with slight hesitation, considering making up a different phrase than it really said. But I couldn’t come up with a believable alternative. “It says, ‘FIRST KISS’.”
Wow. I pulled that one out at random. After I read it aloud to him, I didn’t know what to say. I sat staring at him before realizing my mouth had formed an involuntary smile. Alfi was also smiling back at me. It broke me out of my speechlessness.
“Okay, Alfi, your turn.” I held the box of candies to him. He plucked out a pastel green heart.
Alfi looked at it with one of his typical twisted grins. Then he turned his head up to face me.
He read it aloud, “‘SOME DAY’.”
