The plush on my seat has a hard, rough spot. I feel it with my fingers—someone has stuck gum or candy there and the cleaning compound hasn’t taken it all. Once I notice it, I can’t not notice it. I slide my brochure between me and the rough spot.
Finally the program moves out of history and into the present. The latest space-probe photographs of the outer planets are spectacular; the simulated flybys almost make me feel that I could fall out of my seat into the gravity well of one planet after another. I wish I could be there myself. When I was little and first saw newscasts of people in space I wanted to be an astronaut, but I know that’s impossible. Even if I had the new LifeTime treatment so I would live long enough, I would still be autistic. What you can’t change don’t grieve over, my mother said.
I don’t learn anything I don’t already know, but I enjoy the show anyway. After the show, I am hungry. It is past my usual lunchtime.
“We could have lunch,” Eric says.
“I am going home,” I say. I have good jerky at home, and apples that will not be crisp much longer.
Eric nods and turns away.
On sunday I go to church. The organist plays Mozart before the service starts. The music sounds right with the formality of the worship. It all matches, like shirt and tie and jacket should match: not alike but fitting together harmoniously. The choir sings a pleasant anthem by Rutter. I do not like Rutter as much as Mozart, but it doesn’t make my head hurt.
Monday is cooler, with a damp chill breeze out of the northeast. It is not cold enough to wear a jacket or sweater, but it is more comfortable. I know that the worst of the summer is over.
On Tuesday it is warm again. Tuesdays I do my grocery shopping. The stores are less crowded on Tuesdays, even when Tuesday falls on the first of the month.
I watch the people in the grocery store. When I was a child, we were told that soon there would be no grocery stores. Everyone would order their food over the Internet, and it would be delivered to their doors. The family next door did that for a while, and my mother thought it was silly. She and Mrs. Taylor used to argue about it. Their faces would get shiny, and their voices sounded like knives scraping together. I thought they hated each other when I was little, before I learned that grownups—people—could disagree and argue without disliking each other.
There are still places where you can have your groceries delivered, but around here the places that tried it went out of business. What you can do now is order groceries to be held in the “Quick Pickup” section, where a conveyor belt delivers a box to the pickup lane. I do that sometimes, but not often. It costs 10 percent more, and it is important for me to have the experience of shopping. That’s what my mother said. Mrs. Taylor said maybe I was getting enough stress without that, but my mother said Mrs. Taylor was too sensitive. Sometimes I wished that Mrs. Taylor was my mother instead of my mother, but then I felt bad about that, too.
When people in the grocery store are shopping alone, they often look worried and intent and they ignore others. Mother taught me about the social etiquette of grocery stores, and a lot of it came easily to me, despite the noise and confusion. Because no one expects to stop and chat with strangers, they avoid eye contact, making it easy to watch them covertly without annoying them. They don’t mind that I don’t make eye contact, though it is polite to look directly at the person who takes your card or money, just for a moment. It is polite to say something about the weather, even if the person in front of you in line said almost the same thing, but you don’t have to.
Sometimes I wonder how normal normal people are, and I wonder that most in the grocery store. In our Daily Life Skills classes, we were taught to make a list and go directly from one aisle to another, checking off items on the list. Our teacher advised us to research prices ahead of time, in the newspaper, rather than compare prices while standing in the aisle. I thought—he told us—that he was teaching us how normal people shop.
But the man who is blocking the aisle in front of me has not had that lecture. He seems normal, but he is looking at every single jar of spaghetti sauce, comparing prices, reading labels. Beyond him, a short gray-haired woman with thick glasses is trying to peer past him at the same shelves; I think she wants one of the sauces on my side, but he is in the way and she is not willing to bother him. Neither am I. The muscles of his face are tight, making little bulges on his brow and cheeks and chin. His skin is a little shiny. He is angry. The gray-haired woman and I both know that a well-dressed man who looks angry can explode if he is bothered.
Suddenly he looks up and catches my eye. His face flushes and looks redder and shinier. “You could have said something!” he says, yanking his basket to one side, blocking the gray-haired woman even more. I smile at her and nod; she pushes her basket out around him, and then I go through.
“It’s so stupid,” I hear him mutter. “Why can’t they all be the same size?”
I know better than to answer him, though it is tempting. If people talk, they expect someone to listen. I am supposed to pay attention and listen when people talk, and I have trained myself to do that most of the time. In a grocery store sometimes people do not expect an answer and they get angry if you answer them. This man is already angry. I can feel my heart beating.
Ahead of me now are two giggling children, very young, pulling packets of seasoning mix out of racks. A young woman in jeans looks around the end of row and snarls, “Jackson! Misty! Put those back!” I jump. I know she wasn’t talking to me, but the tone sets my teeth on edge. One child squeals, right beside me now, and the other says, “Won’t!” The woman, her face squeezed into a strange shape by her anger, rushes past me. I hear a child yelp and do not turn around. I want to say, “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” but it is not my business; it is not all right to tell other people to be quiet if you are not the parent or the boss. I hear other voices now, women’s voices, someone scolding the woman with the children, and turn quickly into the cross-aisle. My heart is running in my chest, faster and stronger than usual.
People choose to come to stores like this, to hear this noise and see other people being rushed and angry and upset. Remote ordering and delivery failed because they would rather come and see other people than sit alone and be alone until the delivery comes. Not everywhere: in some cities, remote ordering has been successful. But here… I steer around a center display of wine, realize I’ve gone past the aisle I wanted, and look carefully all ways before turning back.
I always go down the spice aisle, whether I need spices or not. When it’s not crowded—and today it’s not—I stop and let myself smell the fragrances. Even over floor wax, cleaning fluid, and the scent of bubble gum from some child nearby I can detect a faint blend of spices and herbs. Cinnamon, cumin, cloves, marjoram, nutmeg… even the names are interesting. My mother liked to use spices and herbs in cooking. She let me smell them all. Some I did not like, but most of them felt good inside my head. Today I need chili spice. I do not have to stop and look; I know where it is on the shelf, a red-and-white box.
I am drenched in sweat suddenly. Marjory is ahead of me, not noticing me because she is in grocery store shopping mode. She has opened a spice container—which, I wonder, until the air current brings me the unmistakable fragrance of cloves. My favorite. I turn my head quickly and try to concentrate on the shelf of food colorings, candied fruit, and cake decorations. I do not understand why these are in the same aisle with spices and herbs, but they are.
Will she see me? If she sees me, will she speak? Should I speak to her? My tongue feels as big as a zucchini. I sense motion approaching. Is it her or someone else? If I were really shopping, I would not look. I do not want cake decorations or candied cherries.
“Hi, Lou,” she says. “Baking a cake?”
I turn to look at her. I have not seen her except at Tom and Lucia’s or in the car to and from the airport. I have never seen her in this store before. This is not her right setting… or it may be, but I didn’t know it. “I—I’m just looking,” I say. It is hard to talk. I hate it that I am sweating.
“They are pretty colors,” she says, in a voice that seems to hold nothing but mild interest. At least she is not laughing out loud. “Do you like fruitcake?”
“N-no,” I say, swallowing the large lump in my throat. “I think… I think the colors are prettier than the taste.” That is wrong—tastes are not pretty or ugly—but it is too late to change.
She nods, her expression serious. “I feel the same way,” she says. “The first time I had fruitcake, when I was little, I expected it to taste good because it was so pretty. And then… I didn’t like it.”
“Do you… do you shop here often?” I ask.
“Not usually,” she says. “I’m on my way to a friend’s house and she asked me to pick up some things for her.” She looks at me, and I am once more conscious of how it is hard to talk. It is even hard to breathe, and I feel slimy with the sweat trickling down my back. “Is this your regular store?”
Yes, I say.
“Then maybe you can show me where to find rice and aluminum foil,” she says.
My mind is blank for a moment before I can remember; then I know again. “The rice is third aisle, halfway along,” I say. “And the foil’s over on Eighteen—”
“Oh, please,” she says, her voice sounding happy. “Just show me. I’ve already wandered around in here for what feels like an hour.”
“Show—take you?” I feel instantly stupid; this is what she meant, of course. “Come on,” I say, wheeling my basket and earning a glare from a large woman with a basket piled high with produce. “Sorry,” I say to her; she pushes past without answering.
“I’ll just follow,” Marjory says. “I don’t want to annoy people…”
I nod and head first for the rice, since we’re on Aisle Seven and that is closer. I know that Marjory is behind me; knowing that makes a warm place on my back, like a ray of sun. I am glad she cannot see my face; I can feel the heat there, too.
While Marjory looks at the shelves of rice—rice in bags, rice in boxes, long-grain and short-grain and brown, and rice in combinations with other things, and she does not know where the kind of rice is that she wants—I look at Marjory. One of her eyelashes is longer than the others and darker brown. Her eyes have more than one color in them, little flecks in the iris that make it more interesting.
Most eyes have more than one color, but usually they’re related. Blue eyes may have two shades of blue, or blue and gray, or blue and green, or even a fleck or two of brown. Most people don’t notice that. When I first went to get my state ID card, the form asked for eye color. I tried to write in all the colors in my own eyes, but the blank space wasn’t big enough. They told me to put “brown.” I put “brown,” but that is not the only color in my eyes. It is just the color that people see because they do not really look at other people’s eyes.
I like the color of Marjory’s eyes because they are her eyes and because I like all the colors in them. I like all the colors in her hair, too. She probably puts “brown” on forms that ask her for hair color, but her hair has many different colors, more than her eyes. In the store’s light, it looks duller than outside, with none of the orange glints, but I know they are there.
“Here it is,” she says. She is holding a box of rice, white, long-grained, quick-cooking. “On to the foil!” she says. Then she grins. “The cooking kind, not the fencing kind, I mean.”
I grin back, feeling my cheek muscles tighten. I knew what kind of foil she meant. Did she think I didn’t know, or was she just making a joke? I lead her to the middle cross-aisle of the store, all the way across to the aisle that has plastic bags and plastic storage dishes and rolls of plastic film and waxed paper and aluminum foil.
“That was quick,” she says. She is quicker to pick out the foil she wants than she was with the rice. “Thanks, Lou,” she says. “You were a big help.”
I wonder if I should tell her about the express lines at this store. Will she be annoyed? But she said she was in a hurry.
“The express lines,” I say. My mind blanks suddenly, and I hear my voice going flat and dull. “At this time, people come in and have more than the express lines sign says—”
“That’s so frustrating,” she says. “Is there one end or the other that’s faster?”
I am not sure what she means at first. The two ends of the checkout go the same speed, one coming as another leaves. It’s the middle, where the checker is, that can be slow or fast. Marjory is waiting, not rushing me. Maybe she means which end of the row of checkout stands, if not the express lanes, is faster. I know that; it’s the end nearest the customer services desk. I tell her, and she nods.
“Sorry, Lou, but I have to rush,” she says. “I’m supposed to meet Pam at six-fifteen.” It is 6:07; if Pam lives very far away she will not make it.
“Good luck,” I say. I watch her move briskly down the aisle away from me, swerving smoothly around the other shoppers.
“So—that’s what she looks like,” says someone behind me. I turn around. It is Emmy. As usual, she looks angry. “She’s not that pretty.”
“I think she is pretty,” I say.
“I can tell,” Emmy says. “You’re blushing.”
My face is hot. I may be blushing, but Emmy didn’t have to say so. It is not polite to comment on someone else’s expression in public. I say nothing.
“I suppose you think she’s in love with you,” Emmy says. Her voice is hostile. I can tell she thinks this is what I think and that she thinks I am wrong, that Marjory is not in love with me. I am unhappy that Emmy thinks these things but happy that I can understand all that in what she says and how she says it. Years ago I would not have understood.
“I do not know,” I say, keeping my voice calm and low. Down the aisle, a woman has paused with her hand on a package of plastic storage containers to look at us. “You do not know what I think,” I say to Emmy. “And you do not know what she thinks. You are trying to mind-read; that is an error.”
“You think you’re so smart,” Emmy says. “Just because you work with computers and math. You don’t know anything about people.”
I know the woman down the aisle is drifting closer and listening to us. I feel seared. We should not be talking like this in public. We should not be noticed. We should blend in; we should look and sound and act normal. If I try to tell Emmy that, she will be even angrier. She might say something loud. “I have to go,” I say to Emmy. “I’m late.”
“For what, for a date?” she asks. She says the word date louder than the other words and with an upward-moving tone that means she is being sarcastic.
“No,” I say in a calm voice. If I am calm maybe she will let me alone. “I am going to watch TV. I always watch TV on—” Suddenly I cannot think of the day of the week; my mind is blank. I turn away, as if I had said the whole sentence. Emmy laughs, a harsh sound, but she does not say anything else that I can hear. I hurry back to the spice aisle and pick up my box of chili powder and go to the checkout lanes. They all have lines.
In my line there are five people ahead of me. Three women and two men. One with light hair, four with dark hair. One man has a light-blue pullover shirt almost the same shade as a box in his basket. I try to think only about color, but it is noisy and the lights in the store make the colors different than they really are. As they are in daylight, I mean. The store is also reality. The things I don’t like are as much reality as the things I do like.
Even so, it is easier if I think about the things I do like and not about the ones I don’t. Thinking about Marjory and Haydn’s Te Deum makes me very happy; if I let myself think of Emmy, even for a moment, the music goes sour and dark and I want to run away. I fix my mind on Marjory, as if she were an assignment at work, and the music dances, happier and happier.
“Is she your girlfriend?”
I stiffen and half turn. It is the woman who was watching Emmy and me; she has come up behind me in the checkout line. Her eyes glisten in the store’s bright light; her lipstick has dried in the corners of her mouth to a garish orange. She smiles at me, but it is not a soft smile. It is a hard smile, of the mouth only. I say nothing, and she speaks again.
“I couldn’t help noticing,” she says. “Your friend was so upset. She’s a little… different, isn’t she?” She bares more teeth.
I do not know what to say. I have to say something; other people in the line are now watching.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” the woman says. The muscles around her eyes are tense. “It’s just… I noticed her way of speaking.”
Emmy’s life is Emmy’s life. It is not this woman’s life; she has no right to know what is wrong with Emmy. If anything is wrong.
“It must be hard for people like you,” the woman says. She turns her head, glancing at the people in the line who are watching us, and gives a little giggle. I do not know what she thinks is funny. I do not think any of this is funny. “Relationships are hard enough for the rest of us,” she says. Now she is not smiling. She has the same expression as Dr. Fornum has when she is explaining something she wants me to do. “It must be worse for you.”
The man behind her has an odd expression on his face; I can’t tell if he agrees with her or not. I wish someone would tell her to be quiet. If I tell her to be quiet, that is rude.
“I hope I haven’t upset you,” she says, in a higher voice, and her eyebrows lift. She is waiting for me to give the right answer.
I think there is no right answer. “I don’t know you,” I say, keeping my voice very low and calm. I mean “I don’t know you and I do not want to talk about Emmy or Marjory or anything personal with someone I do not know.”
Her face bunches up; I turn away quickly. From behind me I hear a huffed, “Well!” and behind that a man’s voice softly muttering, “Serves you right.” I think it is the man behind the woman, but I will not turn around and look. Ahead of me the line is down to two people; I look straight ahead without focusing on anything in particular, trying to hear the music again, but I can’t. All I can hear is noises.
When I carry my groceries out, the sticky heat seems even worse than when I went in. I can smell everything: candy on discarded candy wrappers, fruit peels, gum, people’s deodorant and shampoo, the asphalt of the parking lot, exhaust from the buses. I set my groceries on the back of the car while I unlock it.
“Hey,” someone says. I jump and turn. It is Don. I did not expect to see Don here. I did not expect to see Marjory here, either. I wonder if other people in the fencing group shop here. “Hi, fella,” he says. He is wearing a striped knit shirt and dark slacks. I have not seen him wear anything like this before; when he comes to fencing he wears either a T-shirt and jeans or a costume.
“Hi, Don,” I say. I do not want to talk to Don even though he is a friend. It is too hot, and I need to get my groceries home and put them away. I pick up the first sack and put it in the backseat.
“This where you shop?” he asks. It is a silly question when I am standing here with grocery sacks on my car. Does he think I stole them?
“I come here on Tuesdays,” I say.
He looks disapproving. Maybe he thinks Tuesdays are the wrong day for grocery shopping—but then why is he here? “Coming to fencing tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. I put the other sack in the car, and close the back door.
“Going to that tournament?” He is staring at me in a way that makes me want to look down or away.
“Yes,” I say. “But I have to go home now.” Milk should be kept at a temperature of thirty-eight degrees F. or below. It is at least ninety degrees F. here in the parking lot, and the milk I bought will be warming up.
“Have a real routine, don’t you?” he says.
I do not know what a false routine would be. I wonder if this is like real heel.
“Do the same thing every day?” he asks.
“Not the same thing every day,” I say. “The same things on the same days.”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, you regular guy, you.” He laughs. It is a strange laugh, not as if he were really enjoying it. I open the front door and get into my car; he does not say anything or walk off. When I start the engine, he shrugs, an abrupt twitch of the shoulders as if something had stung him.
“Good-bye,” I say, being polite.
“Yeah,” he says. “Bye.” He is still standing there as I drive off. In the rearview mirror I can see him standing in the same place until I am almost to the street. I turn right onto the street; when I glance back, he is gone.
It is quieter in my apartment than outside, but it is not really quiet. Beneath me, the policeman Danny Bryce has the TV on, and I know that he is watching a game show with a studio audience. Above me, Mrs. Sanderson is dragging chairs to the table in her kitchenette; she does this every night. I can hear the ticking of my windup alarm and a faint hum from the booster power supply for my computer. It changes tone slightly as the power cycles. Outside noises still come in: the rattle of a commuter train, the whine of traffic, voices in the side yard.
When I am upset it is harder to ignore the sounds. If I turn on my music, it will press down on top of them, but they will still be there, like toys shoved under a thick rug. I put my groceries away, wiping the beads of condensation off the milk carton, then turn on my music. Not too loud; I must not annoy my neighbors. The disk in the player is Mozart, which usually works. I can feel my tension letting go, bit by bit.
I do not know why that woman would speak to me. She should not do that. The grocery store is neutral ground; she should not talk to strangers. I was safe until she noticed me. If Emmy hadn’t talked so loud, the woman would not have noticed. She said that. I do not like Emmy much anyway; I feel my neck getting hot when I think about what Emmy said and what that woman said.
My parents said that I should not blame other people when they noticed that I was different. I should not blame Emmy. I should look at myself and think what happened.
I do not want to do that. I did not do anything wrong. I need to go grocery shopping. I was there for the right reason. I was behaving appropriately. I did not talk to strangers or talk out loud to myself. I did not take up more space in the aisle than I should. Marjory is my friend; I was not wrong to talk to her and help her find the rice and aluminum foil.
Emmy was wrong. Emmy talked too loud and that is why the woman noticed. But even so, that woman should have minded her own business. Even if Emmy talked too loud, it was not my fault.
Chapter Six
Finally the program moves out of history and into the present. The latest space-probe photographs of the outer planets are spectacular; the simulated flybys almost make me feel that I could fall out of my seat into the gravity well of one planet after another. I wish I could be there myself. When I was little and first saw newscasts of people in space I wanted to be an astronaut, but I know that’s impossible. Even if I had the new LifeTime treatment so I would live long enough, I would still be autistic. What you can’t change don’t grieve over, my mother said.
I don’t learn anything I don’t already know, but I enjoy the show anyway. After the show, I am hungry. It is past my usual lunchtime.
“We could have lunch,” Eric says.
“I am going home,” I say. I have good jerky at home, and apples that will not be crisp much longer.
Eric nods and turns away.
On sunday I go to church. The organist plays Mozart before the service starts. The music sounds right with the formality of the worship. It all matches, like shirt and tie and jacket should match: not alike but fitting together harmoniously. The choir sings a pleasant anthem by Rutter. I do not like Rutter as much as Mozart, but it doesn’t make my head hurt.
Monday is cooler, with a damp chill breeze out of the northeast. It is not cold enough to wear a jacket or sweater, but it is more comfortable. I know that the worst of the summer is over.
On Tuesday it is warm again. Tuesdays I do my grocery shopping. The stores are less crowded on Tuesdays, even when Tuesday falls on the first of the month.
I watch the people in the grocery store. When I was a child, we were told that soon there would be no grocery stores. Everyone would order their food over the Internet, and it would be delivered to their doors. The family next door did that for a while, and my mother thought it was silly. She and Mrs. Taylor used to argue about it. Their faces would get shiny, and their voices sounded like knives scraping together. I thought they hated each other when I was little, before I learned that grownups—people—could disagree and argue without disliking each other.
There are still places where you can have your groceries delivered, but around here the places that tried it went out of business. What you can do now is order groceries to be held in the “Quick Pickup” section, where a conveyor belt delivers a box to the pickup lane. I do that sometimes, but not often. It costs 10 percent more, and it is important for me to have the experience of shopping. That’s what my mother said. Mrs. Taylor said maybe I was getting enough stress without that, but my mother said Mrs. Taylor was too sensitive. Sometimes I wished that Mrs. Taylor was my mother instead of my mother, but then I felt bad about that, too.
When people in the grocery store are shopping alone, they often look worried and intent and they ignore others. Mother taught me about the social etiquette of grocery stores, and a lot of it came easily to me, despite the noise and confusion. Because no one expects to stop and chat with strangers, they avoid eye contact, making it easy to watch them covertly without annoying them. They don’t mind that I don’t make eye contact, though it is polite to look directly at the person who takes your card or money, just for a moment. It is polite to say something about the weather, even if the person in front of you in line said almost the same thing, but you don’t have to.
Sometimes I wonder how normal normal people are, and I wonder that most in the grocery store. In our Daily Life Skills classes, we were taught to make a list and go directly from one aisle to another, checking off items on the list. Our teacher advised us to research prices ahead of time, in the newspaper, rather than compare prices while standing in the aisle. I thought—he told us—that he was teaching us how normal people shop.
But the man who is blocking the aisle in front of me has not had that lecture. He seems normal, but he is looking at every single jar of spaghetti sauce, comparing prices, reading labels. Beyond him, a short gray-haired woman with thick glasses is trying to peer past him at the same shelves; I think she wants one of the sauces on my side, but he is in the way and she is not willing to bother him. Neither am I. The muscles of his face are tight, making little bulges on his brow and cheeks and chin. His skin is a little shiny. He is angry. The gray-haired woman and I both know that a well-dressed man who looks angry can explode if he is bothered.
Suddenly he looks up and catches my eye. His face flushes and looks redder and shinier. “You could have said something!” he says, yanking his basket to one side, blocking the gray-haired woman even more. I smile at her and nod; she pushes her basket out around him, and then I go through.
“It’s so stupid,” I hear him mutter. “Why can’t they all be the same size?”
I know better than to answer him, though it is tempting. If people talk, they expect someone to listen. I am supposed to pay attention and listen when people talk, and I have trained myself to do that most of the time. In a grocery store sometimes people do not expect an answer and they get angry if you answer them. This man is already angry. I can feel my heart beating.
Ahead of me now are two giggling children, very young, pulling packets of seasoning mix out of racks. A young woman in jeans looks around the end of row and snarls, “Jackson! Misty! Put those back!” I jump. I know she wasn’t talking to me, but the tone sets my teeth on edge. One child squeals, right beside me now, and the other says, “Won’t!” The woman, her face squeezed into a strange shape by her anger, rushes past me. I hear a child yelp and do not turn around. I want to say, “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” but it is not my business; it is not all right to tell other people to be quiet if you are not the parent or the boss. I hear other voices now, women’s voices, someone scolding the woman with the children, and turn quickly into the cross-aisle. My heart is running in my chest, faster and stronger than usual.
People choose to come to stores like this, to hear this noise and see other people being rushed and angry and upset. Remote ordering and delivery failed because they would rather come and see other people than sit alone and be alone until the delivery comes. Not everywhere: in some cities, remote ordering has been successful. But here… I steer around a center display of wine, realize I’ve gone past the aisle I wanted, and look carefully all ways before turning back.
I always go down the spice aisle, whether I need spices or not. When it’s not crowded—and today it’s not—I stop and let myself smell the fragrances. Even over floor wax, cleaning fluid, and the scent of bubble gum from some child nearby I can detect a faint blend of spices and herbs. Cinnamon, cumin, cloves, marjoram, nutmeg… even the names are interesting. My mother liked to use spices and herbs in cooking. She let me smell them all. Some I did not like, but most of them felt good inside my head. Today I need chili spice. I do not have to stop and look; I know where it is on the shelf, a red-and-white box.
I am drenched in sweat suddenly. Marjory is ahead of me, not noticing me because she is in grocery store shopping mode. She has opened a spice container—which, I wonder, until the air current brings me the unmistakable fragrance of cloves. My favorite. I turn my head quickly and try to concentrate on the shelf of food colorings, candied fruit, and cake decorations. I do not understand why these are in the same aisle with spices and herbs, but they are.
Will she see me? If she sees me, will she speak? Should I speak to her? My tongue feels as big as a zucchini. I sense motion approaching. Is it her or someone else? If I were really shopping, I would not look. I do not want cake decorations or candied cherries.
“Hi, Lou,” she says. “Baking a cake?”
I turn to look at her. I have not seen her except at Tom and Lucia’s or in the car to and from the airport. I have never seen her in this store before. This is not her right setting… or it may be, but I didn’t know it. “I—I’m just looking,” I say. It is hard to talk. I hate it that I am sweating.
“They are pretty colors,” she says, in a voice that seems to hold nothing but mild interest. At least she is not laughing out loud. “Do you like fruitcake?”
“N-no,” I say, swallowing the large lump in my throat. “I think… I think the colors are prettier than the taste.” That is wrong—tastes are not pretty or ugly—but it is too late to change.
She nods, her expression serious. “I feel the same way,” she says. “The first time I had fruitcake, when I was little, I expected it to taste good because it was so pretty. And then… I didn’t like it.”
“Do you… do you shop here often?” I ask.
“Not usually,” she says. “I’m on my way to a friend’s house and she asked me to pick up some things for her.” She looks at me, and I am once more conscious of how it is hard to talk. It is even hard to breathe, and I feel slimy with the sweat trickling down my back. “Is this your regular store?”
Yes, I say.
“Then maybe you can show me where to find rice and aluminum foil,” she says.
My mind is blank for a moment before I can remember; then I know again. “The rice is third aisle, halfway along,” I say. “And the foil’s over on Eighteen—”
“Oh, please,” she says, her voice sounding happy. “Just show me. I’ve already wandered around in here for what feels like an hour.”
“Show—take you?” I feel instantly stupid; this is what she meant, of course. “Come on,” I say, wheeling my basket and earning a glare from a large woman with a basket piled high with produce. “Sorry,” I say to her; she pushes past without answering.
“I’ll just follow,” Marjory says. “I don’t want to annoy people…”
I nod and head first for the rice, since we’re on Aisle Seven and that is closer. I know that Marjory is behind me; knowing that makes a warm place on my back, like a ray of sun. I am glad she cannot see my face; I can feel the heat there, too.
While Marjory looks at the shelves of rice—rice in bags, rice in boxes, long-grain and short-grain and brown, and rice in combinations with other things, and she does not know where the kind of rice is that she wants—I look at Marjory. One of her eyelashes is longer than the others and darker brown. Her eyes have more than one color in them, little flecks in the iris that make it more interesting.
Most eyes have more than one color, but usually they’re related. Blue eyes may have two shades of blue, or blue and gray, or blue and green, or even a fleck or two of brown. Most people don’t notice that. When I first went to get my state ID card, the form asked for eye color. I tried to write in all the colors in my own eyes, but the blank space wasn’t big enough. They told me to put “brown.” I put “brown,” but that is not the only color in my eyes. It is just the color that people see because they do not really look at other people’s eyes.
I like the color of Marjory’s eyes because they are her eyes and because I like all the colors in them. I like all the colors in her hair, too. She probably puts “brown” on forms that ask her for hair color, but her hair has many different colors, more than her eyes. In the store’s light, it looks duller than outside, with none of the orange glints, but I know they are there.
“Here it is,” she says. She is holding a box of rice, white, long-grained, quick-cooking. “On to the foil!” she says. Then she grins. “The cooking kind, not the fencing kind, I mean.”
I grin back, feeling my cheek muscles tighten. I knew what kind of foil she meant. Did she think I didn’t know, or was she just making a joke? I lead her to the middle cross-aisle of the store, all the way across to the aisle that has plastic bags and plastic storage dishes and rolls of plastic film and waxed paper and aluminum foil.
“That was quick,” she says. She is quicker to pick out the foil she wants than she was with the rice. “Thanks, Lou,” she says. “You were a big help.”
I wonder if I should tell her about the express lines at this store. Will she be annoyed? But she said she was in a hurry.
“The express lines,” I say. My mind blanks suddenly, and I hear my voice going flat and dull. “At this time, people come in and have more than the express lines sign says—”
“That’s so frustrating,” she says. “Is there one end or the other that’s faster?”
I am not sure what she means at first. The two ends of the checkout go the same speed, one coming as another leaves. It’s the middle, where the checker is, that can be slow or fast. Marjory is waiting, not rushing me. Maybe she means which end of the row of checkout stands, if not the express lanes, is faster. I know that; it’s the end nearest the customer services desk. I tell her, and she nods.
“Sorry, Lou, but I have to rush,” she says. “I’m supposed to meet Pam at six-fifteen.” It is 6:07; if Pam lives very far away she will not make it.
“Good luck,” I say. I watch her move briskly down the aisle away from me, swerving smoothly around the other shoppers.
“So—that’s what she looks like,” says someone behind me. I turn around. It is Emmy. As usual, she looks angry. “She’s not that pretty.”
“I think she is pretty,” I say.
“I can tell,” Emmy says. “You’re blushing.”
My face is hot. I may be blushing, but Emmy didn’t have to say so. It is not polite to comment on someone else’s expression in public. I say nothing.
“I suppose you think she’s in love with you,” Emmy says. Her voice is hostile. I can tell she thinks this is what I think and that she thinks I am wrong, that Marjory is not in love with me. I am unhappy that Emmy thinks these things but happy that I can understand all that in what she says and how she says it. Years ago I would not have understood.
“I do not know,” I say, keeping my voice calm and low. Down the aisle, a woman has paused with her hand on a package of plastic storage containers to look at us. “You do not know what I think,” I say to Emmy. “And you do not know what she thinks. You are trying to mind-read; that is an error.”
“You think you’re so smart,” Emmy says. “Just because you work with computers and math. You don’t know anything about people.”
I know the woman down the aisle is drifting closer and listening to us. I feel seared. We should not be talking like this in public. We should not be noticed. We should blend in; we should look and sound and act normal. If I try to tell Emmy that, she will be even angrier. She might say something loud. “I have to go,” I say to Emmy. “I’m late.”
“For what, for a date?” she asks. She says the word date louder than the other words and with an upward-moving tone that means she is being sarcastic.
“No,” I say in a calm voice. If I am calm maybe she will let me alone. “I am going to watch TV. I always watch TV on—” Suddenly I cannot think of the day of the week; my mind is blank. I turn away, as if I had said the whole sentence. Emmy laughs, a harsh sound, but she does not say anything else that I can hear. I hurry back to the spice aisle and pick up my box of chili powder and go to the checkout lanes. They all have lines.
In my line there are five people ahead of me. Three women and two men. One with light hair, four with dark hair. One man has a light-blue pullover shirt almost the same shade as a box in his basket. I try to think only about color, but it is noisy and the lights in the store make the colors different than they really are. As they are in daylight, I mean. The store is also reality. The things I don’t like are as much reality as the things I do like.
Even so, it is easier if I think about the things I do like and not about the ones I don’t. Thinking about Marjory and Haydn’s Te Deum makes me very happy; if I let myself think of Emmy, even for a moment, the music goes sour and dark and I want to run away. I fix my mind on Marjory, as if she were an assignment at work, and the music dances, happier and happier.
“Is she your girlfriend?”
I stiffen and half turn. It is the woman who was watching Emmy and me; she has come up behind me in the checkout line. Her eyes glisten in the store’s bright light; her lipstick has dried in the corners of her mouth to a garish orange. She smiles at me, but it is not a soft smile. It is a hard smile, of the mouth only. I say nothing, and she speaks again.
“I couldn’t help noticing,” she says. “Your friend was so upset. She’s a little… different, isn’t she?” She bares more teeth.
I do not know what to say. I have to say something; other people in the line are now watching.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” the woman says. The muscles around her eyes are tense. “It’s just… I noticed her way of speaking.”
Emmy’s life is Emmy’s life. It is not this woman’s life; she has no right to know what is wrong with Emmy. If anything is wrong.
“It must be hard for people like you,” the woman says. She turns her head, glancing at the people in the line who are watching us, and gives a little giggle. I do not know what she thinks is funny. I do not think any of this is funny. “Relationships are hard enough for the rest of us,” she says. Now she is not smiling. She has the same expression as Dr. Fornum has when she is explaining something she wants me to do. “It must be worse for you.”
The man behind her has an odd expression on his face; I can’t tell if he agrees with her or not. I wish someone would tell her to be quiet. If I tell her to be quiet, that is rude.
“I hope I haven’t upset you,” she says, in a higher voice, and her eyebrows lift. She is waiting for me to give the right answer.
I think there is no right answer. “I don’t know you,” I say, keeping my voice very low and calm. I mean “I don’t know you and I do not want to talk about Emmy or Marjory or anything personal with someone I do not know.”
Her face bunches up; I turn away quickly. From behind me I hear a huffed, “Well!” and behind that a man’s voice softly muttering, “Serves you right.” I think it is the man behind the woman, but I will not turn around and look. Ahead of me the line is down to two people; I look straight ahead without focusing on anything in particular, trying to hear the music again, but I can’t. All I can hear is noises.
When I carry my groceries out, the sticky heat seems even worse than when I went in. I can smell everything: candy on discarded candy wrappers, fruit peels, gum, people’s deodorant and shampoo, the asphalt of the parking lot, exhaust from the buses. I set my groceries on the back of the car while I unlock it.
“Hey,” someone says. I jump and turn. It is Don. I did not expect to see Don here. I did not expect to see Marjory here, either. I wonder if other people in the fencing group shop here. “Hi, fella,” he says. He is wearing a striped knit shirt and dark slacks. I have not seen him wear anything like this before; when he comes to fencing he wears either a T-shirt and jeans or a costume.
“Hi, Don,” I say. I do not want to talk to Don even though he is a friend. It is too hot, and I need to get my groceries home and put them away. I pick up the first sack and put it in the backseat.
“This where you shop?” he asks. It is a silly question when I am standing here with grocery sacks on my car. Does he think I stole them?
“I come here on Tuesdays,” I say.
He looks disapproving. Maybe he thinks Tuesdays are the wrong day for grocery shopping—but then why is he here? “Coming to fencing tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. I put the other sack in the car, and close the back door.
“Going to that tournament?” He is staring at me in a way that makes me want to look down or away.
“Yes,” I say. “But I have to go home now.” Milk should be kept at a temperature of thirty-eight degrees F. or below. It is at least ninety degrees F. here in the parking lot, and the milk I bought will be warming up.
“Have a real routine, don’t you?” he says.
I do not know what a false routine would be. I wonder if this is like real heel.
“Do the same thing every day?” he asks.
“Not the same thing every day,” I say. “The same things on the same days.”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, you regular guy, you.” He laughs. It is a strange laugh, not as if he were really enjoying it. I open the front door and get into my car; he does not say anything or walk off. When I start the engine, he shrugs, an abrupt twitch of the shoulders as if something had stung him.
“Good-bye,” I say, being polite.
“Yeah,” he says. “Bye.” He is still standing there as I drive off. In the rearview mirror I can see him standing in the same place until I am almost to the street. I turn right onto the street; when I glance back, he is gone.
It is quieter in my apartment than outside, but it is not really quiet. Beneath me, the policeman Danny Bryce has the TV on, and I know that he is watching a game show with a studio audience. Above me, Mrs. Sanderson is dragging chairs to the table in her kitchenette; she does this every night. I can hear the ticking of my windup alarm and a faint hum from the booster power supply for my computer. It changes tone slightly as the power cycles. Outside noises still come in: the rattle of a commuter train, the whine of traffic, voices in the side yard.
When I am upset it is harder to ignore the sounds. If I turn on my music, it will press down on top of them, but they will still be there, like toys shoved under a thick rug. I put my groceries away, wiping the beads of condensation off the milk carton, then turn on my music. Not too loud; I must not annoy my neighbors. The disk in the player is Mozart, which usually works. I can feel my tension letting go, bit by bit.
I do not know why that woman would speak to me. She should not do that. The grocery store is neutral ground; she should not talk to strangers. I was safe until she noticed me. If Emmy hadn’t talked so loud, the woman would not have noticed. She said that. I do not like Emmy much anyway; I feel my neck getting hot when I think about what Emmy said and what that woman said.
My parents said that I should not blame other people when they noticed that I was different. I should not blame Emmy. I should look at myself and think what happened.
I do not want to do that. I did not do anything wrong. I need to go grocery shopping. I was there for the right reason. I was behaving appropriately. I did not talk to strangers or talk out loud to myself. I did not take up more space in the aisle than I should. Marjory is my friend; I was not wrong to talk to her and help her find the rice and aluminum foil.
Emmy was wrong. Emmy talked too loud and that is why the woman noticed. But even so, that woman should have minded her own business. Even if Emmy talked too loud, it was not my fault.
Chapter Six
I need to know if what I feel is what normal people feel when they are in love. We had a few stories about people in love in school, in English classes, but the teachers always said those were unrealistic. I do not know the way they were unrealistic. I did not ask then, because I did not care. I thought it was silly. Mr. Neilson in Health said it was all hormones and not to do anything stupid. The way he described sexual intercourse made me wish I had nothing down there, like a plastic doll. I could not imagine having to put this into that. And the words for the body parts are ugly. Being pricked hurts; who would want to have a prick? I kept thinking of thorns. The others aren’t much better, and the official medical term, penis, sounds whiny. Teeny, weeny, meanie… penis. The words for the act itself are ugly, pounding words; they made me think of pain. The thought of that closeness, of having to breathe someone else’s breath, smelling her body up close… disgusting. The locker room was bad enough; I kept wanting to throw up.
It was disgusting then. Now… the scent off Marjory’s hair, when she has been fencing, makes me want to get closer. Even though she uses a scented soap for her clothes, even though she uses a deodorant with a powdery sort of smell, there’s something… but the idea is still awful. I’ve seen pictures; I know what a woman’s body looks like. When I was in school, boys passed around little video clips of naked women dancing and men and women having sex. They always got hot and sweaty when they did this, and their voices sounded different, more like chimpanzee voices on nature programs. I wanted to see at first, because I didn’t know—my parents didn’t have things like that in the house—but it was kind of boring, and the women all looked a little angry or frightened. I thought if they were enjoying it, they would look happy.
I never wanted to make anyone look scared or angry. It does not feel good to be scared or angry. Scared people make mistakes. Angry people make mistakes. Mr. Neilson said it was normal to have sexual feelings, but he did not explain what they were, not in a way that I could understand. My body grew the same as other boys’ bodies; I remember how surprised I was when I found the first dark hairs growing on my crotch. Our teacher had told us about sperm and eggs and how things grew from seeds. When I saw those hairs I thought someone had planted the seeds for them, and I didn’t know how it happened. My mother explained it was puberty and told me not to do anything stupid.
I could never be sure which kind of feeling they meant, a body feeling like hot and cold or a mind feeling like happy and sad. When I saw the pictures of naked girls I had a body feeling sometimes, but the only mind feeling I had was disgust.
I have seen Marjory fencing and I know she enjoys it, but she is not smiling most of the time. They said a smiling face is a happy face. Maybe they were wrong? Maybe she would enjoy it?
When I get to Tom and Lucia’s, Lucia tells me to go on out. She is doing something in the kitchen; I can hear the rattle of pans. I smell spices. No one else is here yet.
Tom is sanding the nicks off one of his blades when I get to the backyard. I begin stretching. They are the only couple I know who have been married so long since my parents died, and since my parents are dead I cannot ask them what marriage is like.
“Sometimes you and Lucia sound angry at each other,” I say, watching Tom’s face to see if he is going to be angry with me.
“Married people argue sometimes,” Tom said. “It’s not easy to stay this close to someone for years.”
“Does—” I cannot think how to say what I want to say. “If Lucia is angry at you… if you are angry at her… it means you are not loving each other?”
Tom looks startled. Then he laughs, a tense laugh. “No, but it’s hard to explain, Lou. We love each other, and we love each other even when we’re angry. The love is behind the anger, like a wall behind a curtain or the land as a storm passes over it. The storm goes away, and the land is still there.”
“If there is a storm,” I say, “sometimes there is a flood or a house gets blown away.”
“Yes, and sometimes, if love isn’t strong enough or the anger is big enough, people do quit loving each other. But we aren’t.”
I wonder how he can be so sure. Lucia has been angry so many times in the past three months. How can Tom know that she still loves him?
“People sometimes have a bad time for a while,” Tom says, as if he knew what I was thinking. “Lucia’s been upset lately about a situation at work. When she found that you were being pressured to take the treatment, that also upset her.”
I never thought about normal people having trouble at work. The only normal people I know have had the same jobs as long as I have known them. What kind of trouble do normal people have? They cannot have a Mr. Crenshaw asking them to take medicine they don’t want to take. What makes them angry at their work?
“Lucia is angry because of her work and because of me?”
“Partly, yes. A lot of things have hit her at once.”
“It is not as comfortable when Lucia is angry,” I say.
Tom makes a funny sound that is part laugh and part something else. “You can say that again,” he says. I know this does not mean that I should say what I said again, though it still seems like a silly thing to say instead of “I agree with you” or “You’re right.”
“I thought about the tournament,” I say. “I decided—”
Marjory comes out into the yard. She always goes through the house, though many people go through the side yard gate. I wonder what it would feel like if Marjory were angry with me the way Lucia gets angry with Tom or the way Tom and Lucia have been angry with Don. I have always been upset when people were angry with me, even people I didn’t like. I think it would be worse to have Marjory mad at me than even my parents.
“You decided…” Tom does not quite ask. Then he glances up and sees Marjory. “Ah. Well?”
“I would like to try,” I say. “If it is still all right.”
“Oh,” Marjory says. “You’ve decided to enter the tournament, Lou? Good for you!”
“It is very much all right,” Tom says. “But now you have to hear my standard number-one lecture. Go get your stuff, Marjory; Lou has to pay attention.”
I wonder how many number lectures he has and why I need a number lecture to enter a fencing tournament. Marjory goes into the house, and then it is easier to listen to Tom.
“First off, between now and then, you’ll practice as much as you can. Every day, if possible, until the last day. If you can’t come over here, at least do stretches, legwork, and point control at home.”
I do not think I can come to Tom and Lucia’s every day. When would I do the laundry or the grocery shopping or clean my car? “How many should I do?”
“Whatever you have time for without getting too sore,” Tom says. “Then, a week before, check all your equipment. You keep your equipment in good repair, but it’s still good to check it. We’ll go over it together. Do you have a spare blade?”
“No… should I order one?”
“Yes, if you can afford it. Otherwise, you can have one of mine.”
“I can order one.” It is not in my budget, but I have enough right now.
“Well, then. You want to have all your equipment checked out, have it clean and ready to pack. The day before, you don’t practice—you need to relax. Pack your gear, then go take a walk or something.”
“Could I just stay home?”
“You could, but it’s a good idea to get some exercise, just not overdo it. Eat a good supper; go to bed at your usual time.”
I can understand what this plan will accomplish, but it will be hard to do what Tom wants and go to work and do the other things I must do. I do not have to watch TV or play games on the ’net with my friends, and I do not have to go to the Center on Saturday, even though I usually do.
“It will be… you will have… fencing practice here other nights than Wednesday?”
“For students entering the tournament, yes,” Tom says. “Come any day but Tuesday. That’s our special night.”
I feel my face getting hot. I wonder what it would be like to have a special night. “I do my grocery shopping on Tuesday,” I say.
Marjory, Lucia, and Max come out of the house. “Enough lecture,” Lucia says. “You’ll scare him off. Don’t forget the entry form.”
“Entry form!” Tom smacks himself on the forehead. He does this whenever he forgets something. I do not know why. It does not help me remember when I try it. He goes into the house. I am through with my stretches now, but the others are just starting. Susan, Don, and Cindy come through the side gate. Don is carrying Susan’s blue bag; Cindy has a green one. Don goes inside to get his gear; Tom comes back out with a paper for me to fill out and sign.
The first part is easy: my name, address, contact number, age, height, and weight. I do not know what to put in the space marked “persona.”
“Ignore that,” Tom says. “It’s for people who like to play a part.”
“In a play?” I ask.
“No. All day, they pretend to be someone they’ve made up, from history. Well, from pretend history.”
“It is another game?” I ask.
“Yes, exactly. And people treat them as if they were their pretend person.”
When I talked about pretend persons to my teachers, they got upset and made notes in my records. I would like to ask Tom if normal people do this often and if he does it, but I do not want to upset him.
“For instance,” Tom says, “when I was younger I had a persona named Pierre Ferret—that’s spelled like the animal ferret—who was a spy for the evil cardinal.”
“What is evil about a bird?” I ask.
“The other kind of cardinal,” Tom says. “Didn’t you ever read The Three Musketeers?”
“No,” I say. I never even heard of The Three Musketeers.
“Oh, well, you’d love it,” he says. “But it would take too long to tell the story now—it’s just that there was a wicked cardinal and a foolish queen and an even more foolish young king and three brave musketeers who were the best swordsmen in the world except for D’Artagnan, so naturally half the group wanted to be the musketeers. I was young and wild, so I decided to be the cardinal’s spy.”
I cannot imagine Tom as a spy. I cannot imagine Tom pretending to be someone named Pierre Ferret and people calling him that instead of Tom. It seems a lot of trouble if what he really wanted to do was fence.
“And Lucia,” he goes on. “Lucia made a most excellent lady-in-waiting.”
“Don’t even start,” Lucia says. She does not say what he is not supposed to start, but she is smiling. “I’m too old for that now,” she says.
“So are we both,” Tom says. He does not sound like he means it. He sighs. “But you don’t need a persona, Lou, unless you want to be someone else for a day.”
I do not want to be someone else. It is hard enough to be Lou.
I skip all the blanks that concern the persona I do not have and read the Ritual Disclaimer at the bottom. That is what the bold print says, but I do not know exactly what it means. By signing it I agree that fencing is a dangerous sport and that any injuries I may suffer are not the fault of the tournament organizers and therefore I cannot sue them. I further agree to abide by the rules of the sport and the rulings of all referees, which will be final.
I hand the signed form to Tom, who hands it to Lucia. She sighs and puts it in her needlework basket.
Thursday evening I usually watch television, but I am going to the tournament. Tom told me to practice every day I could. I change and drive over to Tom and Lucia’s. It feels very strange driving this way on a Thursday. I notice the color of the sky, of the leaves on the trees, more than I usually do. Tom takes me outside and tells me to start doing footwork exercises, then drills of specific parry/riposte combinations.
Soon I am breathing hard. “That’s good,” he says. “Keep going. I’m having you do things you can do at home, since you probably won’t make it over here every night.”
No one else comes. In half an hour Tom puts on his mask, and we do slow and fast drills on the same moves, over and over. It is not what I expected, but I can see how it will help me. I leave by 8:30 and am too tired to go on-line and play games when I get home. It is much harder when I am fencing all the time, instead of taking turns and watching the others.
I take a shower, feeling the new bruises gingerly. Even though I am tired and stiff, I feel good. Mr. Crenshaw has not said anything about the new treatment and humans. Marjory said, “Oh. Good for you!” when she found out I was going to be in the tournament. Tom and Lucia are not angry with each other, at least not enough to quit being married.
The next day I do laundry, but on Saturday after cleaning, I go to Tom and Lucia’s again for another lesson. I am not as stiff on Sunday as I was on Friday. On Monday I have another extra lesson. I am glad Tom and Lucia’s special day is Tuesday because this means I do not have to change the day I do grocery shopping. Marjory is not at the store. Don is not at the store. On Wednesday, I go fencing as usual. Marjory is not there; Lucia says she is out of town. Lucia gives me special clothes for the tournament. Tom tells me not to come on Thursday, that I am ready enough.
Friday morning at 8:53 Mr. Crenshaw calls us together and says he has an announcement to make. My stomach knots.
“You are all very lucky,” he says. “In today’s tough economic climate I am, frankly, very surprised that this is even remotely possible, but in fact… you have the chance to receive a brand-new treatment at no cost to yourselves.” His mouth is stretched in a big false grin; his face is shiny with the effort he is making.
He must think we are really stupid. I glance at Cameron, then Dale, then Chuy, the only ones I can see without turning my head. Their eyes are moving, too.
Cameron says, in a flat voice, “You mean the experimental treatment developed in Cambridge and reported in Nature Neuroscience a few weeks ago?”
Crenshaw pales and swallows. “Who told you about that?”
“It was on the Internet,” Chuy says.
“It—it—” Crenshaw stops, and glares at all of us. Then he twists his mouth into a smile again. “Be that as it may, there is a new treatment, which you have the opportunity to receive at no cost to you.”
“I don’t want it,” Linda says. “I do not need a treatment; I am fine the way I am.” I turn and look at her.
Crenshaw turns red. “You are not fine,” he says, his voice getting louder and harsher. “And you are not normal. You are autistics, you are disabled, you were hired under a special provision—”
Normal’ is a dryer setting,” Chuy and Linda say together. They grin briefly.
“You have to adapt,” Crenshaw says. “You can’t expect to get special privileges forever, not when there’s a treatment that will make you normal. That gym, and private offices, and all that music, and those ridiculous decorations—you can be normal and there’s no need for that. It’s uneconomic. It’s ridiculous.” He turns as if to leave and then whirls back. “It has to stop,” he says. Then he does leave.
We all look at one another. Nobody says anything for several minutes. Then Chuy says, “Well, it’s happened.”
“I won’t do it,” Linda says. “They can’t make me.”
“Maybe they can,” Chuy says. “We don’t know for sure.”
In the afternoon, we each get a letter by interoffice mail, a letter on paper. The letter says that due to economic pressure and the need to diversify and remain competitive, each department must reduce staff. Individuals actively taking part in research protocols are exempt from consideration for termination, the letter says. Others will be offered attractive separation allowances for voluntary separation. The letter does not specifically say that we must agree to treatment or lose our jobs, but I think that is what it means.
Mr. Aldrin comes by our building in late afternoon and calls us into the hall.
“I couldn’t stop them,” he says. “I tried.” I think again of my mother’s saying: “Trying isn’t doing.” Trying isn’t enough. Only doing counts. I look at Mr. Aldrin, who is a nice man, and it is clear that he is not as strong as Mr. Crenshaw, who is not a nice man. Mr. Aldrin looks sad. “I’m really sorry,” he says, “but maybe it’s for the best,” and then he leaves. That is a silly thing to say. How can it be for the best?
“We should talk,” Cameron says. “Whatever I want or you want, we should talk about it. And talk to someone else—a lawyer, maybe.”
“The letter says no discussion outside the office,” Bailey says.
“The letter is to frighten us,” I say.
“We should talk,” Cameron says again. “Tonight after work.”
“I do my laundry on Friday night,” I say.
“Tomorrow, at the Center…”
“I am going somewhere tomorrow,” I say. They are all looking at me; I look away. “It is a fencing tournament,” I say. I am a little surprised when no one asks me about it.
“We will talk and we may ask at the Center,” Cameron says. “We will bounce you about it later.”
“I do not want to talk,” Linda says. “I want to be left alone.” She walks away. She is upset. We are all upset.
I go into my office and stare at the monitor. The data are flat and empty, like a blank screen. Somewhere in there are the patterns I am paid to find or generate, but today the only pattern I can see is closing like a trap around me, darkness swirling in from all sides, faster than I can analyze it.
I fix my mind on the schedule for tonight and tomorrow: Tom told me what to do to prepare and I will do it.
Tom pulled into the parking lot of Lou’s apartment building, aware that he had never before seen where Lou lived while Lou had been in and out of his house for years. It looked like a perfectly ordinary apartment building, built sometime in the previous century. Predictably, Lou was ready on time, waiting outside with all his gear, other than his blades, neatly stowed in a duffel. He looked rested, if tense; he had all the signs of someone who had followed the advice, who had eaten well and slept adequately. He wore the outfit Lucia had helped him assemble; he looked uncomfortable in it, as most first-timers did in period costume.
“You ready?” Tom asked.
Lou looked around himself as if to check and said, “Yes. Good morning, Tom. Good morning, Lucia.”
“Good morning to you,” Lucia said. Tom glanced at her. They’d had one argument already about Lou; Lucia was ready to dismember anyone who gave him the least trouble, and Tom felt that Lou could handle minor problems on his own. She had been so tense about Lou lately, he thought. She and Marjory were up to something, but Lucia wouldn’t explain. He hoped it wouldn’t erupt at the tournament.
Lou was silent in the backseat on the way; it was restful, compared to the chatterers Tom was used to. Suddenly Lou spoke up. “Did you ever wonder,” he asked, “about how fast dark is?”
“Mmm?” Tom dragged his mind back from wondering whether the middle section of his latest paper needed tightening.
“The speed of light,” Lou said. “They have a value for the speed of light in a vacuum… but the speed of dark…”
“Dark doesn’t have a speed,” Lucia said. “It’s just what’s there when light isn’t—it’s just a word for absence.”
“I think… I think maybe it does,” Lou said.
Tom glanced in the rearview mirror; Lou’s face looked a little sad. “Do you have any idea how fast it might be?” Tom asked. Lucia glanced at him; he ignored her. She always worried when he indulged Lou in his word games, but he couldn’t see the harm in it.
“It’s where light isn’t,” Lou said. “Where light hasn’t come yet. It could be faster—it’s always ahead.”
“Or it could have no movement at all, because it’s already there, in place,” Tom said. “A place, not a motion.”
It was disgusting then. Now… the scent off Marjory’s hair, when she has been fencing, makes me want to get closer. Even though she uses a scented soap for her clothes, even though she uses a deodorant with a powdery sort of smell, there’s something… but the idea is still awful. I’ve seen pictures; I know what a woman’s body looks like. When I was in school, boys passed around little video clips of naked women dancing and men and women having sex. They always got hot and sweaty when they did this, and their voices sounded different, more like chimpanzee voices on nature programs. I wanted to see at first, because I didn’t know—my parents didn’t have things like that in the house—but it was kind of boring, and the women all looked a little angry or frightened. I thought if they were enjoying it, they would look happy.
I never wanted to make anyone look scared or angry. It does not feel good to be scared or angry. Scared people make mistakes. Angry people make mistakes. Mr. Neilson said it was normal to have sexual feelings, but he did not explain what they were, not in a way that I could understand. My body grew the same as other boys’ bodies; I remember how surprised I was when I found the first dark hairs growing on my crotch. Our teacher had told us about sperm and eggs and how things grew from seeds. When I saw those hairs I thought someone had planted the seeds for them, and I didn’t know how it happened. My mother explained it was puberty and told me not to do anything stupid.
I could never be sure which kind of feeling they meant, a body feeling like hot and cold or a mind feeling like happy and sad. When I saw the pictures of naked girls I had a body feeling sometimes, but the only mind feeling I had was disgust.
I have seen Marjory fencing and I know she enjoys it, but she is not smiling most of the time. They said a smiling face is a happy face. Maybe they were wrong? Maybe she would enjoy it?
When I get to Tom and Lucia’s, Lucia tells me to go on out. She is doing something in the kitchen; I can hear the rattle of pans. I smell spices. No one else is here yet.
Tom is sanding the nicks off one of his blades when I get to the backyard. I begin stretching. They are the only couple I know who have been married so long since my parents died, and since my parents are dead I cannot ask them what marriage is like.
“Sometimes you and Lucia sound angry at each other,” I say, watching Tom’s face to see if he is going to be angry with me.
“Married people argue sometimes,” Tom said. “It’s not easy to stay this close to someone for years.”
“Does—” I cannot think how to say what I want to say. “If Lucia is angry at you… if you are angry at her… it means you are not loving each other?”
Tom looks startled. Then he laughs, a tense laugh. “No, but it’s hard to explain, Lou. We love each other, and we love each other even when we’re angry. The love is behind the anger, like a wall behind a curtain or the land as a storm passes over it. The storm goes away, and the land is still there.”
“If there is a storm,” I say, “sometimes there is a flood or a house gets blown away.”
“Yes, and sometimes, if love isn’t strong enough or the anger is big enough, people do quit loving each other. But we aren’t.”
I wonder how he can be so sure. Lucia has been angry so many times in the past three months. How can Tom know that she still loves him?
“People sometimes have a bad time for a while,” Tom says, as if he knew what I was thinking. “Lucia’s been upset lately about a situation at work. When she found that you were being pressured to take the treatment, that also upset her.”
I never thought about normal people having trouble at work. The only normal people I know have had the same jobs as long as I have known them. What kind of trouble do normal people have? They cannot have a Mr. Crenshaw asking them to take medicine they don’t want to take. What makes them angry at their work?
“Lucia is angry because of her work and because of me?”
“Partly, yes. A lot of things have hit her at once.”
“It is not as comfortable when Lucia is angry,” I say.
Tom makes a funny sound that is part laugh and part something else. “You can say that again,” he says. I know this does not mean that I should say what I said again, though it still seems like a silly thing to say instead of “I agree with you” or “You’re right.”
“I thought about the tournament,” I say. “I decided—”
Marjory comes out into the yard. She always goes through the house, though many people go through the side yard gate. I wonder what it would feel like if Marjory were angry with me the way Lucia gets angry with Tom or the way Tom and Lucia have been angry with Don. I have always been upset when people were angry with me, even people I didn’t like. I think it would be worse to have Marjory mad at me than even my parents.
“You decided…” Tom does not quite ask. Then he glances up and sees Marjory. “Ah. Well?”
“I would like to try,” I say. “If it is still all right.”
“Oh,” Marjory says. “You’ve decided to enter the tournament, Lou? Good for you!”
“It is very much all right,” Tom says. “But now you have to hear my standard number-one lecture. Go get your stuff, Marjory; Lou has to pay attention.”
I wonder how many number lectures he has and why I need a number lecture to enter a fencing tournament. Marjory goes into the house, and then it is easier to listen to Tom.
“First off, between now and then, you’ll practice as much as you can. Every day, if possible, until the last day. If you can’t come over here, at least do stretches, legwork, and point control at home.”
I do not think I can come to Tom and Lucia’s every day. When would I do the laundry or the grocery shopping or clean my car? “How many should I do?”
“Whatever you have time for without getting too sore,” Tom says. “Then, a week before, check all your equipment. You keep your equipment in good repair, but it’s still good to check it. We’ll go over it together. Do you have a spare blade?”
“No… should I order one?”
“Yes, if you can afford it. Otherwise, you can have one of mine.”
“I can order one.” It is not in my budget, but I have enough right now.
“Well, then. You want to have all your equipment checked out, have it clean and ready to pack. The day before, you don’t practice—you need to relax. Pack your gear, then go take a walk or something.”
“Could I just stay home?”
“You could, but it’s a good idea to get some exercise, just not overdo it. Eat a good supper; go to bed at your usual time.”
I can understand what this plan will accomplish, but it will be hard to do what Tom wants and go to work and do the other things I must do. I do not have to watch TV or play games on the ’net with my friends, and I do not have to go to the Center on Saturday, even though I usually do.
“It will be… you will have… fencing practice here other nights than Wednesday?”
“For students entering the tournament, yes,” Tom says. “Come any day but Tuesday. That’s our special night.”
I feel my face getting hot. I wonder what it would be like to have a special night. “I do my grocery shopping on Tuesday,” I say.
Marjory, Lucia, and Max come out of the house. “Enough lecture,” Lucia says. “You’ll scare him off. Don’t forget the entry form.”
“Entry form!” Tom smacks himself on the forehead. He does this whenever he forgets something. I do not know why. It does not help me remember when I try it. He goes into the house. I am through with my stretches now, but the others are just starting. Susan, Don, and Cindy come through the side gate. Don is carrying Susan’s blue bag; Cindy has a green one. Don goes inside to get his gear; Tom comes back out with a paper for me to fill out and sign.
The first part is easy: my name, address, contact number, age, height, and weight. I do not know what to put in the space marked “persona.”
“Ignore that,” Tom says. “It’s for people who like to play a part.”
“In a play?” I ask.
“No. All day, they pretend to be someone they’ve made up, from history. Well, from pretend history.”
“It is another game?” I ask.
“Yes, exactly. And people treat them as if they were their pretend person.”
When I talked about pretend persons to my teachers, they got upset and made notes in my records. I would like to ask Tom if normal people do this often and if he does it, but I do not want to upset him.
“For instance,” Tom says, “when I was younger I had a persona named Pierre Ferret—that’s spelled like the animal ferret—who was a spy for the evil cardinal.”
“What is evil about a bird?” I ask.
“The other kind of cardinal,” Tom says. “Didn’t you ever read The Three Musketeers?”
“No,” I say. I never even heard of The Three Musketeers.
“Oh, well, you’d love it,” he says. “But it would take too long to tell the story now—it’s just that there was a wicked cardinal and a foolish queen and an even more foolish young king and three brave musketeers who were the best swordsmen in the world except for D’Artagnan, so naturally half the group wanted to be the musketeers. I was young and wild, so I decided to be the cardinal’s spy.”
I cannot imagine Tom as a spy. I cannot imagine Tom pretending to be someone named Pierre Ferret and people calling him that instead of Tom. It seems a lot of trouble if what he really wanted to do was fence.
“And Lucia,” he goes on. “Lucia made a most excellent lady-in-waiting.”
“Don’t even start,” Lucia says. She does not say what he is not supposed to start, but she is smiling. “I’m too old for that now,” she says.
“So are we both,” Tom says. He does not sound like he means it. He sighs. “But you don’t need a persona, Lou, unless you want to be someone else for a day.”
I do not want to be someone else. It is hard enough to be Lou.
I skip all the blanks that concern the persona I do not have and read the Ritual Disclaimer at the bottom. That is what the bold print says, but I do not know exactly what it means. By signing it I agree that fencing is a dangerous sport and that any injuries I may suffer are not the fault of the tournament organizers and therefore I cannot sue them. I further agree to abide by the rules of the sport and the rulings of all referees, which will be final.
I hand the signed form to Tom, who hands it to Lucia. She sighs and puts it in her needlework basket.
Thursday evening I usually watch television, but I am going to the tournament. Tom told me to practice every day I could. I change and drive over to Tom and Lucia’s. It feels very strange driving this way on a Thursday. I notice the color of the sky, of the leaves on the trees, more than I usually do. Tom takes me outside and tells me to start doing footwork exercises, then drills of specific parry/riposte combinations.
Soon I am breathing hard. “That’s good,” he says. “Keep going. I’m having you do things you can do at home, since you probably won’t make it over here every night.”
No one else comes. In half an hour Tom puts on his mask, and we do slow and fast drills on the same moves, over and over. It is not what I expected, but I can see how it will help me. I leave by 8:30 and am too tired to go on-line and play games when I get home. It is much harder when I am fencing all the time, instead of taking turns and watching the others.
I take a shower, feeling the new bruises gingerly. Even though I am tired and stiff, I feel good. Mr. Crenshaw has not said anything about the new treatment and humans. Marjory said, “Oh. Good for you!” when she found out I was going to be in the tournament. Tom and Lucia are not angry with each other, at least not enough to quit being married.
The next day I do laundry, but on Saturday after cleaning, I go to Tom and Lucia’s again for another lesson. I am not as stiff on Sunday as I was on Friday. On Monday I have another extra lesson. I am glad Tom and Lucia’s special day is Tuesday because this means I do not have to change the day I do grocery shopping. Marjory is not at the store. Don is not at the store. On Wednesday, I go fencing as usual. Marjory is not there; Lucia says she is out of town. Lucia gives me special clothes for the tournament. Tom tells me not to come on Thursday, that I am ready enough.
Friday morning at 8:53 Mr. Crenshaw calls us together and says he has an announcement to make. My stomach knots.
“You are all very lucky,” he says. “In today’s tough economic climate I am, frankly, very surprised that this is even remotely possible, but in fact… you have the chance to receive a brand-new treatment at no cost to yourselves.” His mouth is stretched in a big false grin; his face is shiny with the effort he is making.
He must think we are really stupid. I glance at Cameron, then Dale, then Chuy, the only ones I can see without turning my head. Their eyes are moving, too.
Cameron says, in a flat voice, “You mean the experimental treatment developed in Cambridge and reported in Nature Neuroscience a few weeks ago?”
Crenshaw pales and swallows. “Who told you about that?”
“It was on the Internet,” Chuy says.
“It—it—” Crenshaw stops, and glares at all of us. Then he twists his mouth into a smile again. “Be that as it may, there is a new treatment, which you have the opportunity to receive at no cost to you.”
“I don’t want it,” Linda says. “I do not need a treatment; I am fine the way I am.” I turn and look at her.
Crenshaw turns red. “You are not fine,” he says, his voice getting louder and harsher. “And you are not normal. You are autistics, you are disabled, you were hired under a special provision—”
Normal’ is a dryer setting,” Chuy and Linda say together. They grin briefly.
“You have to adapt,” Crenshaw says. “You can’t expect to get special privileges forever, not when there’s a treatment that will make you normal. That gym, and private offices, and all that music, and those ridiculous decorations—you can be normal and there’s no need for that. It’s uneconomic. It’s ridiculous.” He turns as if to leave and then whirls back. “It has to stop,” he says. Then he does leave.
We all look at one another. Nobody says anything for several minutes. Then Chuy says, “Well, it’s happened.”
“I won’t do it,” Linda says. “They can’t make me.”
“Maybe they can,” Chuy says. “We don’t know for sure.”
In the afternoon, we each get a letter by interoffice mail, a letter on paper. The letter says that due to economic pressure and the need to diversify and remain competitive, each department must reduce staff. Individuals actively taking part in research protocols are exempt from consideration for termination, the letter says. Others will be offered attractive separation allowances for voluntary separation. The letter does not specifically say that we must agree to treatment or lose our jobs, but I think that is what it means.
Mr. Aldrin comes by our building in late afternoon and calls us into the hall.
“I couldn’t stop them,” he says. “I tried.” I think again of my mother’s saying: “Trying isn’t doing.” Trying isn’t enough. Only doing counts. I look at Mr. Aldrin, who is a nice man, and it is clear that he is not as strong as Mr. Crenshaw, who is not a nice man. Mr. Aldrin looks sad. “I’m really sorry,” he says, “but maybe it’s for the best,” and then he leaves. That is a silly thing to say. How can it be for the best?
“We should talk,” Cameron says. “Whatever I want or you want, we should talk about it. And talk to someone else—a lawyer, maybe.”
“The letter says no discussion outside the office,” Bailey says.
“The letter is to frighten us,” I say.
“We should talk,” Cameron says again. “Tonight after work.”
“I do my laundry on Friday night,” I say.
“Tomorrow, at the Center…”
“I am going somewhere tomorrow,” I say. They are all looking at me; I look away. “It is a fencing tournament,” I say. I am a little surprised when no one asks me about it.
“We will talk and we may ask at the Center,” Cameron says. “We will bounce you about it later.”
“I do not want to talk,” Linda says. “I want to be left alone.” She walks away. She is upset. We are all upset.
I go into my office and stare at the monitor. The data are flat and empty, like a blank screen. Somewhere in there are the patterns I am paid to find or generate, but today the only pattern I can see is closing like a trap around me, darkness swirling in from all sides, faster than I can analyze it.
I fix my mind on the schedule for tonight and tomorrow: Tom told me what to do to prepare and I will do it.
Tom pulled into the parking lot of Lou’s apartment building, aware that he had never before seen where Lou lived while Lou had been in and out of his house for years. It looked like a perfectly ordinary apartment building, built sometime in the previous century. Predictably, Lou was ready on time, waiting outside with all his gear, other than his blades, neatly stowed in a duffel. He looked rested, if tense; he had all the signs of someone who had followed the advice, who had eaten well and slept adequately. He wore the outfit Lucia had helped him assemble; he looked uncomfortable in it, as most first-timers did in period costume.
“You ready?” Tom asked.
Lou looked around himself as if to check and said, “Yes. Good morning, Tom. Good morning, Lucia.”
“Good morning to you,” Lucia said. Tom glanced at her. They’d had one argument already about Lou; Lucia was ready to dismember anyone who gave him the least trouble, and Tom felt that Lou could handle minor problems on his own. She had been so tense about Lou lately, he thought. She and Marjory were up to something, but Lucia wouldn’t explain. He hoped it wouldn’t erupt at the tournament.
Lou was silent in the backseat on the way; it was restful, compared to the chatterers Tom was used to. Suddenly Lou spoke up. “Did you ever wonder,” he asked, “about how fast dark is?”
“Mmm?” Tom dragged his mind back from wondering whether the middle section of his latest paper needed tightening.
“The speed of light,” Lou said. “They have a value for the speed of light in a vacuum… but the speed of dark…”
“Dark doesn’t have a speed,” Lucia said. “It’s just what’s there when light isn’t—it’s just a word for absence.”
“I think… I think maybe it does,” Lou said.
Tom glanced in the rearview mirror; Lou’s face looked a little sad. “Do you have any idea how fast it might be?” Tom asked. Lucia glanced at him; he ignored her. She always worried when he indulged Lou in his word games, but he couldn’t see the harm in it.
“It’s where light isn’t,” Lou said. “Where light hasn’t come yet. It could be faster—it’s always ahead.”
“Or it could have no movement at all, because it’s already there, in place,” Tom said. “A place, not a motion.”