The Way Out

I was turning to leave my first day of Social Emotional Learning when I found the notebook.

“Nina!” Melody Lin yelled through her mask, “is that your phone?”

We’d finished up with our first socially-distanced workshop, our first time back at school in almost a year. For the past hour, six feet apart, we’d broken into six groups on the field, fourteen plus a teacher per group. It had been exciting (and weird) to be back. I was seeing my friends for the first time in months. The sunshine felt good, but everything felt off-balance. There were chalk lines on the field to show us where to stand.

In the grass, on the edge of one of those chalk lines, lay a little black notebook the size of a phone.

At first I thought it was a phone, until I looked closer. It looked kind of like the notebook an old person would carry around to keep phone numbers in. It had an elastic strap holding it together. There weren’t many people still around. Melody poked at it with her toe like hands were a bad idea. We were the only two left on the field.

“Not mine,” I said to Melody.

I crouched down to look closer at the book and flipped it over with a fingertip.

“Don’t touch it!” Melody yanked her toe back. “I have to go, my mom is waiting. Maybe it’s a teacher’s?”

On the cover, in gold pen, someone had written, “$20,000.”

“Get a wipe or something!” hollered Melody over her shoulder as she left.

I had a pack of tissues in my bag. I was getting one out when my phone buzzed in my back pocket. Mom. I fumbled the tissue with one hand and swiped to answer with the other.

“Hi.”

“Nina, you’re coming out in the North Lot, right?”

I managed to pick up the notebook firmly within the tissue, no chance my fingers were touching it. Dangling it, I swiveled to look one direction and the other. Right. There were two different pickup spots.

“I think so.”

“North Lot? Or South Lot? You checked your sheet?”

Mom’s talking like I got the instructions on a piece of paper. Now I can’t remember. We were supposed to follow a certain path when leaving campus, to avoid coming into contact with people arriving. Was I supposed to leave from the same lot where Mom had dropped me off?

Mom gets frustrated with me about these things. She really cares about details and schedules. She wants me to get better at being on top of stuff like this, says I’ll need it when I’m a grown-up. To prove to her I’m on it, I take my phone from my ear, tap out of her call into Gmail, search through my inbox for the instructions email. The traffic around my mom plays through the speakerphone, her impatience pulsing like that green return-to-call bar at the top of the screen.

To answer faster, I stuff the notebook in my back pocket where my phone normally lives, so that I can scroll my inbox with both thumbs.

“North Lot.” I say, confidently.

“OK, I’m at the light. See you in two minutes.” If I’m any later than that, she’ll call me again. I pick up my pace, hurry past the security guard at his temperature-taking station to my mom’s car idling in the lot, totally forgetting the notebook.

Now, fifteen minutes later at home, I hear my phone buzz, but realize I don’t feel my phone buzz in my back pocket. My phone isn’t in my pocket—it’s across the room on my desk. That familiar lump in my back pocket isn’t my phone, it’s the little black notebook.

I have just accidentally stolen from someone.

In a rush of guilt, I pull the book from my pocket. Almost as quickly, I toss it onto my nightstand. Forgot the tissue this time, have to run to wash my hands.

Lying awake that night, I can’t sleep, thinking about how I have someone’s special notebook. What if they need it right now? What’s worse, it’s probably a grown-up’s. I am holding onto a teacher’s personal possession, haven’t even tried to figure out who it belongs to. That $20,000 on the cover probably means they’re keeping track of money in it, or something.

I can’t sleep. I grab my phone and scroll feeds, text friends. I fall asleep.

The next morning, I wake up before my alarm. That never happens. My brain’s been worrying about the notebook even while I’m asleep. Daylight’s just starting to come in through the curtains.

I roll over and let my eyes focus on the notebook where it sits on my nightstand. I’ve got to figure out who to give it back to. I reach out to grab it. My eyes aren’t focusing this early in the morning, so I flip open the front cover and squint.

“In case of loss, please return to:___________________________,” it reads. “As a reward, $___________”

There’s a place to put your name, but whoever owns this? Didn’t fill it in. I startle awake. Reward? Am I going to win $20,000 by returning this?

I roll onto my back, holding the book above me at arm’s length. I think about me winning $20,000, celebrating on Instagram. Should I read it?

I drift back to sleep for a minute and the book falls straight onto my face, butterflied.

I pop awake and claw it off, and run to wash my face. Did it touch my mouth?

I sneak looks at the notebook all during Zoom classes throughout the day. After the reward page, there’s a handwritten page with this. It’s some kind of self-help guide:

THE WAY OUT

(Do Every Day)

STEP ONE:

Spend time outdoors in the sun before you spend time on devices.

Already blown that one. I’ve been on my phone since before breakfast, and I haven’t been outside. I’ve hardly been outside in months except the backyard; Dad won’t let me.

STEP TWO:

Phone off 1 hr. before bedtime, no phone in bedroom, no notifications. No email after work or on weekends. Group chats instead of Insta or FB.

Wouldn’t you miss important stuff?

STEP THREE:

Don’t drive if you can ride your bike instead

That’s easy: I don’t have my license. School and clubs kept me too busy, which is ironic because they also made mom drive me all over town. Lockdown’s made me secretly happy not to add all that CO2 to the environment. But I can’t remember the last time I rode a bike.

STEP FOUR:

Write a little. Hand-write.

Also easy. I keep a journal already: you’re reading it.

STEP FIVE:

Pics mean it didn’t happen. Stop filming everything.

STEP SIX:

Nothing’s as important as your health.

There’s more writing in the pages after this. Someone’s diary. Dates at the top show they started writing when lockdown started. But still no name. Do I read through it? Someone’s life is in here. As I emerge from my sad, sore Zoom hunch at the end of remote school, I’ve decided: I’ve got to return it. $20,000 might be at stake! But how?

My email pings and answers that question a few minutes later. My SEL teacher:

Nina, Melody says you may have my notebook. Can you bring it to campus this afternoon? I can meet you at the North Gate at 4pm.

Of course! Ms. Edwards. Nothing about the $20,000, though. 4pm’s in half an hour. Can I make it? Mom won’t drive me—we literally don’t leave the house, nowadays. SEL won’t happen again till next week. My anxiety spikes.

But then, something breaks. So much worry about what I touch and where I go. So many months cooped up. I remember the notebook’s advice: “Ride your bike instead.” School’s not far away.

Five minutes later, I’m masked up and pedaling my old bike down the driveway. I don’t think Mom heard, she’s on a WebEx for work.

I get to school twenty minutes later, heart pounding.

Ms. Edwards opens the gate from the inside before I’ve gotten too anxious. She’s walking her own bike.

“Hi Nina! You found it?”

It feels weird, talking to a teacher about something other than class. I don’t know Ms. Edwards that well. She has no Insta. When she’s not teaching SEL, I know she keeps campus wi-fi running.

“Sorry to make you come all the way into school just for this,” I say.

“Oh, I’m here anyway,” she says. “Every day.”

“Wait, really?” Somehow I’d pictured everyone being at home, everyone’s life changed dramatically by lockdown. “I thought only essential workers?”

“Tech’s pretty essential.” She’s laughing under her mask.

I hadn’t thought about people behind the tech powering classes—people having to work on campus like nothing’s changed.

“I read some of it,” I blurt out, “to try to figure out whose it was.”

She pauses, considering. “That’s ok, I guess. What part?”

“The part with the steps.”

She looks relieved.

“It’s like a self-help guide, right?”

She wheels out beside me. “Kind of. It’s steps I do to take breaks.” She pauses. “It’s also my journal about this,” she gestures at the empty street.

“This?”

“Quarantine. About how things can be change, for the right cause. Using COVID as a reminder that things are out of balance.”

It feels weird to have an adult telling me this much. Everything’s weird nowadays. I think about Step One. “I spend too much time on technology, too.” I say.

“I already did, in this job” she says, “and now, it’s like, threefold. Everything done over screens. Evenings, weekends—it’s like being chained to a computer. It’s too much.”

“Work-life balance! Like they talk about in school.”

“Like they talk about in school.” Her expression’s unreadable. We both walk our bikes a little. “Do you feel balanced?”

I think about SAT’s coming up, about papers coming due. The clubs I’m president of. How at first lockdown felt like vacation but now it’s more stress. How we keep trying to do everything like it’s normal, but everything’s changed. I change the subject.

“Why’d you write $20,000 on the cover?”

She laughs again. “Computing, sitting, is really bad for you. I did the math, once. $20,000 is how much I’ve spent on health with this job, on massages for my neck, contact lenses for failing eyes, space heaters, Vitamin D, Advil. Doctors’ appointments, probiotics for poor digestion. Standing desks, physical therapy.” She sighs, “Therapy therapy, for stress. The Steps are to fight all that.”

She stops and looks at me. “You said you wanted to be a programmer, right? Last SEL session?”

Our icebreaker game. I nod.

“Don’t. Be something else. Take my advice. I'm saving you more than just $20,000.”

My visions of $20,000 have evaporated. Something else takes their place. An honesty like hers.

“I just said I want to be a programmer because adults say to want that. What I really want to do is write.”

She tilts her head back and eyes me, holds out her hand. “That’s good!”

I give her the notebook.

“Just not on a computer. Get yourself one of these.” She holds up the book, turning away. “Thanks, Nina.”

She rides off.

I watch her go. I don’t know what to do. Head home, I guess. I’m looking pretty sweet, alone with my sixth-grade helmet and my pink bike. What’s there to do but laugh? Everyone should see me like this. I pedal off, fumble out my phone to record myself for TikTok and almost get hit by a car. I screech to a halt.

Holy shit.

I get it: “Pics or it didn’t happen” almost meant I “didn’t happen”.

I take a deep breath. Slow down. No rush. No need for pics. Is this what driving’s like? The road feels big, scary. So much to watch for. I’ll write about this when I get home. Just got to focus, to balance.