4. Kristy. It hurts just to write her name. Still. I think I really did love her. Straight up, sober love. I had all these fantasies that I would go to Columbia (which was my first and only choice—I thought I couldn’t wait to move back to NYC and live on my own—hah, what did I know then?!?!), and Kristy would go to a college somewhere not too far away. She’d come into Manhattan on weekends, and we would be a real couple there, free and happy and out—at least, to each other. I’d have waited into eternity for her to tell her family even if that meant her being mine only privately; though now, I have to say I would never accept that. After Kristy freaked out on me and stopped seeing or talking to me, I, too, freaked out. Got together with several different guys (guys seemed safe—they couldn’t devastate me like a girl could). Nothing all the way. But several Everything But situations. I became a real party girl—I’d do anything to get attention and not think about the hurt.
5. Brendan. He was the boy I used to get back at Kristy. He was her cousin, a bronze California surfer god who went to Yale. I’d met him when he was using her family’s car and came to pick Kristy up at my house one time when she and I were studying together. (Our study sessions really were Kristy and me kissing and talking and holding each other for hours up in my room, and I swear, those “study times” with her felt like the happiest moments of my life to that point, truly AH-MAY-ZING; no schoolbook ever got opened.) Soon after Kristy dumped me, I found Brendan online and posted a comment on his page. He invited me to a college party, and we hooked up. We went out a couple more times, and I posted pictures of us together on his page—nothing really dirty, but it was obvious we’d gotten together—because I knew Kristy would see the sexy pix. She worshipped Brendan like a brother. I know it was mean and manipulative of me to do that, but I have no regrets on that one. All is fair in love and war—isn’t that the saying? Also, every girl should get to be with a beautiful surfer god at least once in her life, I think. Especially if doing so will hurt the girl she really loves. Although Brendan was rather vapid and vain and way too into working out, but holy shit, he was so nice to look at, and touch. Really, no regrets. Not really, really. OK, so maybe it was sort of sleazy of me. But satisfying, in the moment.
6. Bryan. Oh, regrets. Big-time regrets. I regret hurting him. I really, really regret losing a good friend. But … after what he did to me, and said about me … fuck him. He got his payback on me. The score is settled. Even if I *might* try to make amends to him when I get out. But it’s entirely possible that I am not that big a person and won’t. I don’t know. File him under: “Dilemma Dude, to Be Figured Out, and Possibly Amended, Later.” (I might also swing out a “sorry” e-mail to Hideo while I’m at it. We’ll see.)
7. Ghana. I think I was having some sort of manic peak when I went after him. That night of the Astronomy Club party, I was as high as I’d ever been, on what my technological prowess could accomplish. I needed to burn off some of that energy. I wish I hadn’t done it with someone who had a girlfriend, though. Note to future self: Don’t do that fucked-up shit that hurts people. Be honorable in your relationships.
Hmmm … that seems like a good goal. Strive to be honorable. It’s not all about sex. The heart matters, too. Mine does, at least. Or should. WANTS TO.
Well, lookee here, Very thought as she finished writing her list and flipped to a fresh page in her composition book. The beginning part of the book was filled with her handwritten thoughts and feelings and lists, but this new, empty page presented possibility. Space was available on the page, and in her heart. Not that Very was planning to go on a romantic hunt, especially not at ESCAPE now that she had barely a week left, but the possibility loomed. She was a free woman. She could act accordingly. When the time was right. And, more important, when and if the right person came along.
Maybe she could be not such a disaster, in the future?
CHAPTER 30
“There’s disaster,” Jones muttered to Very out on his porch as she sat next to him in the early evening of her Day Twenty-two. Jones was smoking a pipe while she sorted through a container of old buttons for the right ones to sew onto the cardigan she was bedazzling and planning to give to Aunt Esther upon her escape from ESCAPE.
“No,” Very explained, “that’s the genius of the sweaters. They seem like disasters, but they’re really quite fashion-forward. You have to look beyond the mismatched pieces and—”
“I wasn’t talking about your sweaters,” Jones interrupted. He gestured with his pipe to a young male walking toward the house. “I’m talking about the gentleman there. Repeat offender. Went AWOL last time—disappeared into the night and broke into the church charity store in town. He arrived this morning for his fourth rehab stint here. Fun kid, but a complete disaster.”
Very thought it strange that Jones would gossip about a resident; she’d never heard him do so before. She said, “I thought the rule was no more coming back to ESCAPE after three failed attempts.”
Jones said, “You’re right. The rule is supposed to be three strikes and you’re out. Unless the parents are so rich and desperate to palm their kid off that they’ll offer to finance constructing a dedicated space for smoking and caffeine if Dr. Joy will take their son back one more time.” So that explained Jones’s out-of-character gossiping. Jones’s cookie-and-caffeine income, and the pals-dom of regular visits from residents, could be threatened by the proposed new space. But being genial Jones, he still extended his hand to shake the hand of the stranger, who’d now reached them on the porch. “Greetings, Vikram. Welcome back. How you holding up?”
He was a tall, dark, handsome stranger, this Vikram. He had skin the color of a yummy soy latte; a ‘fro-like shock of thick, curly black hair standing straight up, seemingly without the aid of mousse or other hair products; Bollywood-film-star-worthy hazel eyes; and a jaw and chin graced with black stubble. He was the tiniest bit chubby, in a way that made Very instantly want to pinch the small fold of his stomach. His height and girth made him look rather like a black bear, but the really tender, cuddly kind that wouldn’t massacre people camped out in the woods in the middle of the night. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with a bird picture stenciled on it, and he was barefoot, like Very.
Vikram said, “Holding up okay, Jones. If being sent back to rehab by court order after a little hacking incident”—Vikram here cough-hacked over the words “hacking incident”—“is considered to be ‘holding up okay.’”
“What’d you hack into this time?” Jones asked. “Not the feds again, I hope.”
“No, not the feds. Even my parents couldn’t have saved me from jail if it had been that again. Nah, this time it was a big toy company. It just pisses me off the way some dolls are built to send fucked-up body-image issues to young girls. I have a younger sister, man, and she is so messed up in the head about her body because of those stupid dolls. I decided to send a little protest message to the manufacturer. Changed the images for some of the key products on the company’s Web site, to something closer to explicitly porno.”
The wonderfully contradictory thing about his tirade against sexualized dolls was that as Vikram proclaimed it, he was staring at Very’s boobs with unabashed admiration. Honestly, she couldn’t help but like him.
Jones said, “Your clown needlepoint from last time is framed now. It’s inside the house if you want to see it—use that marker from your previous stay to help ease you back in this round.”
Very suddenly remembered Kate and Erick’s needlepointing story about the repeat ESCAPEe, and them pointing out the clown face he’d left behind. “You’re the guy who made the needlepoint clown face?”
Vikram smiled. Hot hot hot. Very’s knees wanting to buckle buckle buckle. Vikram looked to Jones. “You framed my needlepoint and put it up on the wall? I’m touched. Truly touched. Thanks, man.”
Jones turned to Very. “Very, it’s your turn to lead the newbie. Why don’t you show Vikram his spot on the wall? I want to finish my pipe out here. Vikram, cost of coffee has go
ne up twenty cents. Cash only.”
Vikram saluted Jones. “Aye!”
Very and Vikram went inside the house and approached the wall of framed needlepoint pieces, which looked like a collection of art therapy projects gone psych ward, with pictures of cell phones turned into guns, elves beaming demented laser rays from their eyes, and “Home, Sweet Home” turned to “Help, Somebody, Help!”
“This is the most mental wall I’ve ever seen,” Vikram said.
“I know, right?” Very said. She extended her hand now to shake Vikram’s. “I’m Very. It’s short for Veronica.”
A huge smile erupted across Vikram’s face now. “Of course it is. Was your online handle, perhaps, ‘Very LeFreak’?” He looked to her boobs for confirmation.
She returned the stare to his chest, to that bird on his T-shirt. “Is that …?” she said.
“The hermit thrush,” Vikram affirmed. “Yes. The state bird of Vermont.”
She imagined a turban covering his ‘fro of black hair.
VIKRAM WAS EL VIRUS!
“Twenty-eight messages!” Very exclaimed.
“Twenty-eight days!” Vikram said.
“Calvin Coolidge! WHAT THE FUCK?!”
“Also from Vermont.”
“Gerald Ford? What did he have to do with it?”
“Married to Betty Ford. Famous rehab place in California. Get it?”
“Oh!” Very sighed. Then she shoved Vikram. Hard. “You asshole! I almost went on a mission to presidential libraries looking for you.”
“Really?” he said, flattered.
Very plopped down into a chair and buried her face in her hands. “This is bad,” she muttered. “Bad.”
He plopped down next to her. “Why?” he asked.
The girl who couldn’t shut up in Keisha’s office now felt reduced to a blubbering mess. “… was doing so well … didn’t even think about you … Why now, El Virus, why now?”
He leaned over to whisper into her ear. “It’s fate. Us, meeting here of all places. Finally. It’s meant to be.”
Very stood back up, intending to leave, but her feet remained planted on the floor. She couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. This was too confusing.
El Virus—rather, Vikram—inspected her more thoroughly this time, going from her chest down to her feet, then up to the crown of her head. “Sometimes I could see strands of your red hair around your shoulders. Especially in the Elizabethan-costume pictures. Well done, by the way. Funny, though. You don’t look at all how I imagined.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Very huffed.
“You look better,” Vikram said.
She took her turn to appraise him. Truthfully, he looked better than she’d imagined. Starship captains had nothing on this chunkiest of himbo specimens.
The problem was, she’d stopped imagining El Virus at all. And she’d gotten rather used to not thinking about him, or obsessing about him, or letting him be the fantasy through which she spiraled out of control.
“Are you Indian?” she asked him. She’d always wondered about this.
“Half Indian, half Jewmerican.” Haji Jew-boy. Of course. “Don’t worry. I’m just a nice boy from Scarsdale, underneath my mad confidence and sexy swagger. Loves me a good brisket along with a good game of cricket.” Vikram performed what appeared to be, confusingly, an Irish jig around Very.
This was too much, having El Virus here now. Very had less than a week left to go. She hadn’t caused any trouble, made any waves, formed any attachments. She was clean. She wanted to stay that way.
But this boy! He was so luscious to look at. And a good dancer! Maybe Very could get a little bit dirty with this one. Maybe? Pretty please?
Although, seriously. Everyone knew the outcome of online romances that turned into Real World meetings. Either they were complete disasters and the two people in question turned out to have no chemistry together whatsoever, or one of the two people turned out to be a serial killer. These would be BAD outcomes. Alternatively, there was historical precedent for the couple in question finding the fairy-tale ending, two virtual people turning out to be real, live soul mates, and together walking off into the sunset (real or virtual, no matter at this point), The End. This would be considered GOOD. There was no in-between for this type of situation. Who ever heard of “Oh, we had this passionate, intimate online affair, and then when we finally met, we were sort of lukewarm on each other, and we fooled around a little but fizzled out quickly.” HO-HUM. That never happened.
Very inspected Vikram now. She sang out the song that had immediately cued to her brain: “Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?”
Vikram responded in the same song: “Please don’t ‘Run run run run run run run away.’”
That’s exactly what Very should do.
Run run run run run run run away.
She darted out the front door, away from Jones’s house, and back to the privacy of her own cabin.
This was a disaster. She thought she could deal.
She couldn’t.
CHAPTER 31
El Virus was watching her. Since his arrival, Very had felt his demon eyes upon her, everywhere and all the time: in the dining hall, during morning calisthenics, while she hung linens to dry outside. Forty-eight hours since his arrival at ESCAPE; two excruciatingly long days and nights of prying eyes, curious looks, psychic inquisition.
She’d been doing her best to ignore him, to pretend her final week at ESCAPE hadn’t brought her this disaster that had landed in her lap like a tiger and not like a kitten. But Very had never been a person who could survive the silent treatment. Or, the plain curiosity. Plus, tigers were as cute as kittens, just more … dangerous to deal with.
The only way to put out this V-match fire was to contain it.
Late at night as Day Twenty-four wound down, Very resolved to fight the El Virus / Vikram combustion head-on. Technically, lights-out (or “lamps-off”) was supposed to happen at 11 p.m. for residents, who were of course welcome to cleanse their souls in the privacy and darkness of their own cabins, in whatever non-technological manner they saw fit, no judgments. But people still managed to wander outside the confines of their cabins, with only moonlight and starshine to guide their steps.
Very appeared at the back window of El Virus’s cabin just before midnight. She knocked on the partly open window. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she whispered.
Through the window, Very saw a light that was most certainly not an oil lamp brighten under some bedcovers. Then Vikram appeared at the window, wearing women’s pajama shorts (Hello Kitty! He shopped at Target online, too!) that made Very want to lunge for him through the window. “I thought you were giving me the cold shoulder,” he whispered to Very.
She’d like to warm him up but good. She couldn’t help herself. But she’d stay strong. Get to know him first.
“I’m thawing,” Very said.
“Finally!” Vikram said. He threw a shirt on and climbed out the window. “C’mon!” He grabbed her hand and started to sprint.
“I can’t see!” Very protested.
Vikram reached under the elastic band of his shorts and handed her an iPhone.
Behold, sweet Jesus!
He said, “There’s a flashlight app on there. I invented it. $1.99 download, includes police lights, disco lights, strobe lights, the works. Made a shitload of money on that app. We can escape now and just go get married if you want. I’ve got enough banked away to support us for a while.”
“Just let me hold your iPhone like this for a while,” Very murmured. How beautiful and smooth the machine felt against her skin. She tapped it on, found the flashlight application, and let Vikram lead the way. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Shhh,” he said. “There’s a secret path. Leads to a cozy spot just above the ESCAPE grounds.”
“You mean, the other end of Jones’s watchful eye.”
“Exactly.”
They tiptoed through the fore
st and let the moonlight and iPhone light lead them to a spot at the shoreline just past the ESCAPE grounds’ perimeter, separated by a thick stand of trees that hid the escape route. Vikram found the cove like a pro. He led them to a rocky patch of beach, where they sat down on the ground as the lake lapped nearby.
They paused for barely a minute to catch their breaths and admire the moonlit lake, and then Very started the for-real conversation. “If we’re going to get married, I should probably know something about you first. So, you. Tell me about.”
Vikram said, “I’m a Leo, with Capricorn rising, I believe. Age: twenty. Height: six-two. I like long walks to private lakeshore spots, I prefer not to wear shoes, I secretly want to be a ballroom dancer or covert electronic assassin, and I really dig beautiful redheads. I’m a great cook. Could we please have the sex now?”
Very laughed. “Where’d you get the iPhone, husband?” She tapped it back on to inspect it thoroughly, checking out the games he had loaded, making sure his music selection wasn’t sucky, and avoiding looking at his photo collection—what if other online girls had played with him as she had? Very didn’t want to know. She handed the gadget back to Vikram, surprised that she didn’t mind letting it go so easily. She’d made it this far. No use cheating now.
Vikram said, “I left the iPhone buried under a clothesline last time I was here.”
“You knew you’d be back?”
“Just playing it safe.”
“How’d you slip the phone past security, anyway?” Very asked.
Vikram shrugged. “Bribe. Cash.”
How simple! Cash. Very hadn’t even thought of it. She was almost glad she hadn’t. The time away from it had maybe helped her head to clear somewhat.