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When Dan was seven, the Lester’s bought the lighthouse.
His parents were thrilled; the Lester’s ran a snorkeling tour service from the Honolulu cove protected by the lighthouse jetty. A small coral reef was sheltered by the breaker rocks and now there was a lighthouse, night expeditions could be held in safety. Their business was a small one but a steady one, and their house the same: built in the second story of the shop and right on the beach, near the marina where the boat was kept in the off season.
At seven Dan didn’t understand why his parents were so thrilled about the lighthouse, but the Lester’s seemed okay. Ms. Lester smelled like an off brand version of his Mum’s laundry detergent, Mr. Lester like some weird hand cream that Dan would only later realize was the lamp oil. Martyn was boring because all he did was sit and listen to the parents talk. Phil was fascinating, however; he showed Dan a book about plants that could live in the mountains and was almost as excited about Pokemon as Dan was. They stole away to Dan’s room and invented planets that could think and looked at the pictures of tropical fish Ms. Howell painted on the wall, swearing eternal friendship under the Angelfish.
When Dan was ten he learned about black holes.
“They just suck and suck,” he tried to explain to Phil.
“Like math class?”
“No! A different kind of suck, stupid.”
It was hard to find words for a phenomenon that defied their very essence. At recess they lay on the swing that sounded like a spaceship when you pumped and Dan told Phil how everything that touched the black hole became a part of it, how sometimes they were on and sometimes they weren’t but there was no way to tell, how black holes didn’t get bigger - exactly - but they got more important.
“Our lighthouse is a bit rubbish then,” Phil laughed. It was his turn to hold onto the back while Dan pumped. They were getting pretty high. A teacher might come over soon.
“No it’s good,” Dan had reassured, “Black holes don’t work on Lester’s.”
When Dan was fourteen his parents started to teach him how to take the boat out for the tours. They had a motorboat, not a sailboat, which meant that while Dan didn’t have to worry about wind, he did have enough force to ‘potentially kill a man?! Oh my God, Pj shut up!’ It was fun once he got going, like flying, with the wind blasting his hair all over the place and the wind tossing up the surf.
Once he’d mastered it, Dan took charge of the day boat so either or both of his parents could entertain the customers while the other checked equipment or hung back at the shop. There was always a moment of panic when they would jump into the water looking like space aliens, elongated fin feet, bug-goggle eyes, and disappear. Always they’d surface but Dan got captured in a web of what if, and he’d tighten his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and remember black holes.
Another moment of note at fourteen was when Dan swore Phil was never going in the water without him, never going under and not coming back. Dan and Phil were walking up the bluff when Dan told Phil as such. The path to Phil’s Lighthouse (and it was always Phil’s Lighthouse, never ‘The Lighthouse,’ or ‘Lester Lighthouse,’ somehow, always Phil’s) was a treacherous one. It was twisty and steep, stairs carved into the black rock and a handrail made of wood that left you pulling slivers out of your hand for days afterward. To the right of you was a staggering view of an angry ocean, whitecaps, seagulls, insane surfers. Howell’s Snorkeling was on the right, tucked into sand and coral and what Pj called ‘the most precious coral reef in all of existence.’ Whenever you told an adult you were going up to the Lighthouse you got a safety lecture, but if you told anybody 24 or younger you got a high five.
“Don’t worry Dan,” Phil had grinned, “Black holes don’t work on Lesters.”
Fifteen was when Phil’s plant obsession, in Dan’s opinion, started to get out of hand. Biology textbooks and counting the daffodils in the flower box in front of Howell’s Snorkeling escalated to buying a season’s pass to the conservatory, naming all Dan’s houseplants, asking for a Venus Flytrap for his birthday.
Dan obliged and Phil named the plant Susan. He refused to admit this was an awful name for a plant. Phil collected plants like some people amassed spare change- gently, happily, interchanging and giving away. Phil’s plants weren’t even his most of the time: the snapdragons that grew around the school fence, the Ficus in Lilly Singh’s front lawn, the willow tree that hung over the sidewalk.
The problem didn’t lie inherently with the plants themselves, or in the fascination Phil had with them, exactly, but if he got anymore there’d be no more space for Phil to sleep. Even if he couldn’t stand in the room Dan knew Phil wouldn’t get rid of any. As it was, he could hardly force himself to kill dandelions.
“Phil!” Dan protested one day, “For God’s sake, they’re weeds!”
“But they don’t know that!” Phil’d whined, and Dan groaned, and Mr. Lester trudged out of the lighthouse and got rid of the dandelions with an oddly gentle hand.
When Dan turned sixteen he got to drive the boat for the night tours. Dan had this wonderful ritual with himself, with the silence. Alarm rings would rouse him, he’d dress then slip down the stairs, check the boat, load whatever equipment was necessary, then pickup the customers and whichever parent was leading the tour back at the shop again. That was in no way the exciting part. The responsibility. Driving the boat.
Exciting was the quiet world and the hundreds of lamp-like stars, the hundreds of thousands of particles that made up one square inch of the moon, feeling the moonlight on his skin, the God-what-if-gravity-stops when Dan looks up and space is a million and five times more exciting than science class would have you believe. The exciting part is Dan left on the boat for an entire hour while everybody snorkels and it’s just Dan and the universe and Phil’s lighthouse, lazily keeping watch over the entire ocean.
It only takes two weeks before it’s Dan and the universe and Phil.
It only takes two weeks before Phil’s sleeping over when Dan’s Boat Alarm goes off and Phil tags along because even now, even at sixteen, Phil sleeps lightly and Dan is clumsy. Ms. Howell is giving the tour that night. She rolls her eyes and makes Phil wear a life jacket but then she steps into the glassy water and once Dan gets his breath back and loosens his grip on the steering wheel, it’s Dan and the universe and Phil.
They lay on the roof of the boat and Phil looks like a beach ball in the lifejacket and they talk about moving to a big city when they’re older and whether or not the pros outweigh the cons of rainbow sherbet, and if the moon picked a starter they would probably pick Squirtle.
Soon it’s a regular thing for them to take the boat out. Nobody minds as long as they stay in the inlet. Sometimes they’ll study and sometimes they’ll talk, and mostly they’ll lie on the roof communicate in profound and pretentious silence.
Phil turns seventeen and so does Dan.
Phil still has his plants but now he’s progressed to growing them himself. Soil is perpetually under his fingernails and smeared across his forehead. Dan bought Phil a watering can for Christmas that is put to work immediately; somehow Phil remembers how much water each plant needs and how often. Every place a plant could be there is. On top of cupboards, a creeper vine that barely clings to the outside of the lighthouse, filling each windowsill are flowers, Phil’s room is not unlike a small jungle.
Dan fondly brushes off the dirt and says Susan is a stupid name, but Phil Lester will be Phil Lester and Dan rather likes Phil Lester.
School asks Dan who he plans to be and what he plans to do and Dan says he’s still thinking, and he is, kind of, because his parents will expect that Dan’ll take over Howell’s Snorkeling, and his teacher says he’s got enough aptitude to be a lawyer, and nobody expects Dan to move to a big city and rename the planets, but that’s all he wants.
Pj Liguori says he’s going to be a famous director, and he spits on the floor when he leaves.
Phil told them he was going to be happy.
Dan and Phil and the Universe happens more and more. Once they talked about fairy tales and fables while the water lapped at the boat like it was trying to erode it, and Dan points out all the constellations while Phil makes his own.
Phil says, “My favorite was Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Dan goes,
“Well you would,” and Phil smirks.
“I liked the climbing,” is his retort, “I liked the sky. They shouldn’t have cut down the beanstalk.” Dan looks at the milky way, turns to see Phil, they’re so different, so the same.
“Mine was Hansel and Gretel.”
Phil turns his head for an explanation and Dan smiles quietly.
“I liked the witch,” he continues, and Phil breaks into a smile that’s saved especially for Dan.
Time logged at the lighthouse increases. Dan and Phil fly up all the twisty stairs to the lamp and Phil will lean over the edge to watch the breakers frash on the rocks that protect the teeny reef and Howell’s Snorkeling while Dan tells him to ‘Get back from the edge, Jesus Christ,’ and spews off fun facts about nebulas.
“How do you feel about London?” Phil asks one of those days, all gangy limbs and bright yellow socks.
Dan immediately knows what Phil’s asking and he’s pleased and dimpled when he says, “London sounds great.”
The sky is opaque glass with space on the other side and if anybody could make a backyard garden in a windowsill or in a shared London flat it would be Phil. Later that day Dan traces the Angelfish on the wall and laughs quietly to himself. Life is strange.
Twenty years old is when they finally get the funds together and say their goodbye’s. Mr. Howell cries and Ms. Lester says she’d have given them flower seeds but they couldn’t go over the border. Ms. Howell gives them a glossy-paged book of tropical fish she drew and Mr. Lester’s smile is watery but he hugs tight. Martyn, who has been quiet this whole time, clasps Phil’s hand like an old man and says he’ll water the plants.
“I hope the lighthouse is okay without you,” he confides, “You were always the brightest thing there.”
Pj is the one who drives them to the airport. Feet are scuffed at the terminal and last minute fondness is exchanged through dry smiles and stupidly complex handshakes. There is an appropriate amount of nostalgia.
“Good luck with the directing,” Dan says, and Pj grins languidly.
“Name a planet after me. Stay hydrated. Take care of each other and if you don’t text I’ll kill you.”
Twenty one is scary and big and coming together. The flat doesn't have a lot but it has enough, a couple houseplants, and a piano. Phil works part time in a bakery and Dan is going to be an astronomer. Dan tried once to pinpoint what about the flat was homey, and ranted about loud neighbours and leaky washing machines to Phil for at least a solid hour, only to realize home was the very thing he’d just been talking to. Phil says home isn’t just one thing and he makes pasta for dinner that’s overcooked but also raw.
When they are twenty two nothing is different but everything changes.
Perhaps it doesn’t, and the only thing that alters is the realization. Dan finds himself knowing the next train stop before the voice announces it and drops down side streets to shops he doesn’t even remember learning about. Space and London are both so massive but he learns about both of them. Astronomy isn’t an easy field of study but Dan is fascinated and determined and there’s a Venus Flytrap named Susan on his work desk that Phil wheedled over the border.
Martyn and Pj call. That is pleasant and scary. Martyn calls more than Pj to let them know about moving the lighthouse to an electric system and Howell’s Snorkeling repainting the dock. If Martyn feels chatty then he’ll talk about the size of the waves or the angle the wind blew the palm trees. At some point Dan and Martyn start talking and it’s a missed opportunity friendship (Almost. Not quite.). On the phone Pj is exactly as he was in person. They tell each other nothing and know everything; it’s nice talking to Pj, like being caught in a hailstorm and getting robbed, but nice.
Downsides, Dan tells Phil, are all the lights. Dan and Phil and the Universe is reduced to Dan and Phil and maybe-that's-Jupiter-Phil-that’s-a-helicopter. Perhaps galaxies can wait until Dan has a really good telescope but sometimes Dan worries they were only meant for the cove. Unlike the stars there are many plants. Bedecking the balcony, hallway, kitchen, study, and Phil’s bedroom.
“Sometimes I miss it,” Dan says one wistful night. There is an open textbook that’s being liberally ignored. “We grew up in a good place.”
Phil smiles and Martyn was right, he’s brighter than the lighthouse.
“We did. But it’s still there. We’re still here. We did it! It’s not an ocean or Lilly’s ficus or the constellation of Team Rocket, but it’s home. It’s ours.”
Twenty three is light and warm and the plants that grow on the moon.
All the rest is much of the same.