Page 101 of What You Wish For

“Not even a spaghetti noodle!” he shouted. “Not even a square of Jell-O!” He was still tossing that apple up and down, barely even looking at it. “Not even,” he said at last, lowering his voice, “a piece of belly-button lint.”

A ripple of laughter from the kids.

“Some of you,” Duncan went on, turning all around the room, pointing at the kids, “were barely even born the last time I juggled.”

The kids cheered.

“So I’m sticking with easy,” he said then, lifting up the apple, and saying, “Like this donut!”

“That’s not a donut!” the kids called out.

Duncan was standing near Clay, and, with that, he leaned over and picked up an orange off his tray. He held it up for the kids. “You might think this watermelon is too heavy,” he said next, as the kids launched into giggles and protests, “but I’m telling you, as long as it’s round, I got this.”

“That’s not a watermelon!” the kids shouted.

“Now, I just need one more round thing,” Duncan said, and the kids quieted to see what he was going to choose. “What should it be? A pomegranate? A tomato? A cactus?”

“A cactus isn’t round!”

He sidled his way over toward the faculty tables now. “It’ll be hard to top the watermelon, but I’ll try.”

That’s when Duncan noticed an unpeeled kiwifruit on the lunch table in front of me. He met my eyes and started walking my way.

Quietly then, just to me, under the din, he said, “Who packs an unpeeled kiwifruit in their lunch?”

“Ran out of time,” I said, tapping the paring knife I’d also brought.

Then Duncan winked at me and turned back to the room.

“I’ve got it!” he shouted. And the kids quieted to see what it would be.

He stepped closer to me, leaned over, picked up the kiwi, held it up, and shouted, “An avocado!”

The kids went nuts.

Duncan made his way back toward the stage at the far end—never breaking his rhythm with the apple and the orange. He climbed the stage steps without stopping.

He had their attention now. Lucky for all of us, he had not forgotten how to juggle.

And once he let himself start, it was like he’d never stopped. At first, it was just a simple circle, but then he started adding in pops and surprises, syncopating the rhythm. I left my table and moved closer to the stage, mesmerized by the sight, lost in the easy rhythm. He tossed the orange up high and caught it. He Hacky-Sacked the kiwi with his shoe. He tossed the apple between his legs and behind his back.

He created a marvelous, transcendent little moment of magic.

And then, once it was all over, he went back to the edge of the room, reassumed his military posture, and reapplied his poker face like it had never happened.

But it had happened.

And I’ll tell you something. Even as I eyed him for the rest of lunch, looking stern again, and boring again in that same-old-same-old identical gray suit with that identical navy tie… I knew something was different.

Because when he’d caught that kiwi on his shoe a few minutes before, his pants leg had flipped up, and I’d seen something hidden under there. Something I couldn’t unsee.

The socks he was wearing today? They had polka dots.

The next night, our activity was to walk downtown to the movie theater that played the documentary about the Great Storm of 1900. “It’s very tragic,” Babette had warned me, and I had explicit instructions to stress themes of resilience in conversation afterward.

On the walk there, I couldn’t stop talking about the juggling.

“You’re just… so good,” I kept saying.

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