I nod and am immediately hit with a blast of cool air. My eyes fall closed.
“Which flight are we on?”
My eyes fly open. “You think we should memorize the flight number?”
“No, dingus.” Yumi snorts, shaking her head. “We’re on the first flight, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay?” She doesn’t have to say anything else. Stressing out about getting off this flight, mowing down the octogenarians in row 34 might save thirty seconds, but it won’t be the difference between first place and last place.TheAdventureverseis always made in the challenges.
“Okay.” I look down, loosening my grip on my backpack straps. “Thanks.”
And I want something from her that she won’t give me. I want an acknowledgment of what just happened—Yumi recognizing a spiral born from a combination of pent-up restlessness and anxiety and overstimulation, and stopping it with ease. A reluctant return to form:You aren’t alone, Noe. I got you. You do the heights and I’ll do the executive functioning.
She’d said that to me once.
When I was first diagnosed with ADHD—what felt like just another series of letters to join the alphabet soup in my file—my psychiatrist explained that I would always struggle with executive functioning. Always. Like, forever.
Having only ever dealt with colds and broken bones to that point, this was terrible news: Something was wrong with me that couldneverbe fixed, never be healed, wouldn’t go away, even given infinite time and chicken noodle soup. For the rest of my life, I would struggle to manage time, handle frustration, switch between tasks, and generally focus. Faced with an eternity of suck, I refused to talk to my dad, merely staring at my reflection in his truck’s side mirror and marinating in the unfairness of it all until he gave in and dropped me off at Yumi’s house.
In a borrowed bathing suit, I’d walked circles in the Panganibans’ aboveground pool, working with her to create a whirlpool as I recounted what Dr.Benelli said. I remember the way she laughed.
She threw her head back and let the current of the water push her forward.“You have ADHD? That’s your big news? That’s not a surprise to anyone.”
“That they have ADHD?” I asked, misunderstanding but diligently marching on.
“No!”Yumi flung herself backward, flattening out her body and floating atop the water. Her bathing suit was a polka-dotted black one-piece, and the purple ruffles around the leg holes fluttered as she drifted.“That you do.”
“Oh,” I said.
The mesquite trees that lined her backyard were blooming,yellowish pods growing between the needle-like leaves. Between them and the shade created by the Panganibans’ house, the pool was out of direct sunlight for most of the afternoon. But I didn’t like the way the pods sometimes drifted down into the water.
“Where’d you go?”Yumi asked, suddenly appearing beside me in the pool, her head tilted to the side.
“Hmm?”I shook my head.“I was just looking at the trees.”
“Oh, yeah, they’re cool, right? Anyway, it’s not like it’s a bad thing, it’s just who you are. You’re Noelle and you have ADHD. I’m Yumi and I’m Filipino.”
“That’s not the same,” I protested with a laugh.
She shrugged.“It’s close. Can’t change it, right? Anyway, I thought of something. What did your doctor say the problem was?”
“Executive functioning,” I repeated carefully.
“That’s like what an executive assistant is for, right?”
That season ofThe Adventureverse, the winners had been team of executive assistants, creatively deemed by production as Team Executive Assistant. Yumi became obsessed with executive assistants as a result.
“I guess?”
“Good! I’ve always wanted to be an executive assistant”—she’d only found out what they were two months prior, but sure—“so I’ll just be yours, right? I can help! I’ll ask my mom for a planner.”
The Executive Assistants had a planner.
“Anyway, hey, look at this!”She splashed me as she launched into a sloppy underwater handstand, lifting one arm to wave to me from beneath the surface.
That’s what I want, here and now, on this rainy day in Paris. But it’s not what I get.
