Crystal

  "I think we should stop for tonight, but I definitely want to try this again. As long as we keep it experimental, of course," he added.

  "Experimental . . . of course," I answered, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I was never one of those girls who got all dreamy when they talked about boys and kissing, but I never thought it would be cold or clinical, either.

  "I wonder if Ashley's going to tell her other friends about this," he said.

  "I'll make sure she doesn't."

  "They'll make up stories about us anyway," he said, holding his eyes on mine "They probably already have."

  "Probably," I agreed.

  There was a long moment of silence between us. To me, it was as if we had fantasized the kisses we'd shared. It had all been so fast it was one blurry memory. Only the graph in my hands with my comments confirmed that I hadn't been dreaming

  "I'd better get home," I said.

  "I'll walk you." He smiled at my surprise. "I don't think I could do any reading, concentrate on anything, or go to sleep for a while anyway," he explained.

  I laughed to hide what I was feeling, the same excitement still echoing in my body.

  He opened the door, and we started out. We were almost to the door when we heard someone call from the living room.

  "My mother," Bernie said under his breath.

  A very elegant-looking woman, dressed as if she was on her way to an important ball or just returning from one, came toward us, her long diamond-studded earrings swinging from her lobes. Her styled hair was nearly platinum, the strands so perfectly shaped I wondered if she was wearing a wig. She was tall, with an hourglass figure that seemed held together by wires and pins. When she stepped out of the shadows and drew closer, I saw that her face was so free of wrinkles it looked like a mask Her temples were stiff, pulling back on her eyes as if her skin had shrunk. Her nose was small, but the nostrils were a little too large. The puffiness in her lips made her smile seem painful. It was more of a grimace.

  The fingers of her left hand were full of rings. She looked like a walking jewelry store with her diamond necklace, hairpin, and bracelets. I thought she might have taken a bath in expensive perfume. The scent arrived days before she did.

  "Who's this, Bernard?" she asked.

  "A friend," he said quickly.

  "Why don't you introduce me? You've never had a friend over before, and especially not a female friend," she said, her eyes fixed on me.

  "This is Crystal," he said. "Crystal, my mother."

  "Hello," I said quickly.

  "Crystal who?" she asked without replying. "Crystal Morris," Bernie said. "She was just going home."

  "Morris? Which Morris is that? Charlie Morris from the advertisement agency?"

  "No," Bernie said. "I'm walking her home." He practically lunged at the front door and opened it.

  "It's nice to meet you," his mother said as I started after him. "It's about time Bernie brought someone home," she added. She looked as if she could shatter her face by changing expression too rapidly. I gazed back at her once and then hurried to catch up to Bernie, who was already out of the house.

  He closed the door behind me and nearly jogged down the walkway.

  "Maybe we shouldn't have run out like that, Bernie," I said, catching up. He walked faster.

  "All she wants me to do is have girlfriends, listen to rock music, and dress like some teenage movie or television star," he muttered. "Look at her," he said, stopping and gazing back at his house. "If that was your mother, would you want anyone to meet her? She just likes to embarrass me." He started walking again. "It's about time you brought someone home,' " he mimicked. " 'Especially a female friend.'"

  "She's probably just worried about you," I offered.

  "No, she's not. She's worried about herself, about what it will look like if I'm not a so-called normal young man. Let's not talk about it. It just gets me angry," he said.

  We walked silently until we reached my house. It was an overcast night, and there was a chill in the air. Our breath could be seen in vague little puffs. Neither of us was really dressed warmly enough.

  "You hold onto these," he said at the door. He handed me the graphs. I hadn't noticed them clutched in his hand.

  "We should probably just leave them in your room:' I said.

  He shook his head. "Sometimes, when I'm in school, she goes into my room and searches it, looking for something bizarre. I deliberately left a dissected frog reeking from formaldehyde on the table one morning, and she stayed away for a while, but she still spies on me from time to time. I don't want her finding these papers," he said. "She would never understand."

  "Okay," I said, taking them. I was certain Karl and Thelma wouldn't understand, either, but I wasn't ready for our experiments to end.

  "Good night." He hesitated. "I really enjoyed our experiment:' he said. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow." He turned to leave and then stepped back to kiss me quickly on the cheek again.

  I stood there with my hand on my cheek, watching him disappear up the sidewalk. Then I went inside, my brain whirling, a potpourri of emotions making me dizzy. Karl was still up, but Thelma had gone to bed.

  "She was very tired tonight. She kept falling asleep in her chair, so I got her to go to bed:' he explained. "How are you doing?"

  "Okay," I said.

  "Good. Well, the worst is over," he declared. "Now we'll return to a normal life."

  What is a normal life? I wanted to ask. Was it a life full of loneliness and fear? Was it a life in which we ignored each other? Thelma wasn't all that different from the day I had arrived. Instead of returning to the real world because of me, she continued to work at getting me to join her in makebelieve. Karl remained steadfast and loyal to his organized schedule. I had met many new kids my age, but many of them seemed even more troubled than I was, and they had always had families!

  "I'm going to sleep, too," I said. "Good night."

  "Good night. See you in the morning," he called, his eyes still following the words on the page of the magazine in his hand.

  I went to my room and got ready for bed. After I slipped under the covers, I leaned back on my pillow and reached for the graphs. I knew what I had written on mine, but I didn't know what was on Bernie's.

  His numbers were as high as mine, but what he wrote on the bottom drew my interest.

  I have never been strongly attracted to anyone this way before. I wonder if this means Crystal is special or if it is a natural reaction to kissing a pretty girl.

  Most everyone else, I thought, would think what he wrote was very strange, but I knew this was the only way Bernie could say "I love you."

  For now, it would have to do.

  I had great hope for tomorrow.

  Tonight, for once, it was easy to close my eyes, dream, and fall asleep.

  10 Heart's Desire

  Ashley looked frightened when I confronted her at school the next day. Bernie had been afraid that she would go around spreading stories about us, but instead, she was afraid we would spread stories about her.

  "Did you stay?" she asked me in a whisper when we met at our lockers in the hallway. She checked to be sure no one could overhear our conversation.

  "Yes," I said.

  "And did you do it?" she quickly followed. "Of course," I said, slamming my locker shut

  and starting for homeroom. She trailed along like a puppy tugged on an invisible leash.

  "What happened?" she gasped.

  I stopped and spun on her. "If you want to know so much, why didn't you stay?"

  "I couldn't," she said, her face looking as if she would break into hysterical sobs any moment.

  "Did you tell anyone? Helga, for example?"

  She shook her head so vigorously I thought her eyes would rattle.

  "Good," I said, continuing on to homeroom. She remained beside me, step for step, until she saw Bernie, and then she lowered her head and went to her seat.

  Bernie looked at her and then
at me, his eyes full of questions. I indicated it was all right, and he relaxed his shoulders. He didn't speak to me until we were passing to our first class. When he approached, Ashley stepped away again.

  "I can't meet you for lunch today," he said. "I promised to help Mr. Friedman set up his equipment."

  "Okay," I said quickly.

  "Is everything all right?"

  "Yes," I replied.

  "Then you'll be at my house the same time tonight?"

  I paused, and he searched anxiously for the answer in my eyes.

  "We'll move on down the chart," he added.

  "I'll be there," I said. We walked on to class. At lunch, Ashley couldn't wait to join me.

  "Are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked as soon as she put her tray on the table and slipped into the chair beside me.

  "We only kissed twice," I remarked, my voice as coldly factual as could be.

  "Only two? Why just two?"

  "It's hard to explain it to someone who wasn't there," I said, "but it was all very scientific. Nothing bad happened."

  She actually looked disappointed. "Did you like kissing him?"

  "No. I mean yes. I mean . . . listen, I can't talk about it like this," I said sharply. "It makes it sound dirty."

  She nodded as if she understood. "I'm not trying to make fun of you, Crystal. It's different for you and Bernie," she said sadly. "You're both so smart. I felt like I didn't belong there with you two, and I was frightened. If you ever want to tell me anything, I promise I'll listen and keep it all to myself."

  I saw that although she couldn't be part of our experiments, she wanted to feel as though she was special, as though she was in on it and had clearance to know top-secret things. Ashley is still a little girl, I told myself. For her, this is all still a game, like "you show me yours, and I'll show you mine." However, if I drove her away, she could turn on us and might spread stories.

  "Okay," I promised. "I'll tell you stuff when there's something to tell, when there are real, scientific conclusions."

  She smiled. "Can you come over to my house Friday night and have dinner with me and my mother?" she asked. "My father is still away on a business trip," she added before I could ask. From the way she spoke about him, I understood that he was away almost as much as he was there. "Maybe you can help me with my math for the big test next week."

  "I'll ask my parents," I promised. She beamed.

  I understood that Ashley wasn't very popular and was rarely invited to anything. The other girls treated her as though she was socially below them, an outsider because of her size and timidity. Despite what had occurred at Bernie's house, I was rapidly becoming her best friend. She looked up to me and liked the fact that although the other girls weren't necessarily friendly, they were not anxious to challenge me head on, either. Years of institutionalized life had hardened my outer shell, perhaps. I was certainly unafraid of girls like Helga, back-stabbers who gossiped about you in the girls' room but shut right up when you were face-to-face with them. They had so many misconceptions about orphans. If they wanted to believe I was capable of scratching their eyes out, let them, I thought. Long ago, I learned that if I couldn't have another girl or boy like me for who I was, it was better they feared me. At least then I was safe.

  As the school day drew to a close, I felt excitement building inside me like distant thunder on the horizon. Every once in a while, a small jolt of electricity shot through my heart. My stomach sizzled and didn't stop. I could barely eat dinner. How far would we go on Bernie's chart? When I gazed at the pages alone in my room, they felt like fire in my hands. The heat traveled up my arms and swirled around my heart. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw how flushed my cheeks were and how charged my eyes appeared. Would Karl take one look at me and understand? Would Thelma, whose daily dose of passion through the television set could choke Venus?

  "Are you feeling all right tonight, Crystal?" Karl did ask at dinner.

  Thelma looked up anxiously.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm just a little concerned about my first math exam:'

  "Oh," Thelma said with a laugh. "You'll probably get a hundred. Won't she, Karl?"

  "She'll do well," he agreed. "Being nervous about your tests is all right as long as it doesn't interfere with your performance. It's the students who don't worry about their tests who do the worst. You're a truly self-motivated young lady, Crystal. We're very proud of that, aren't we, Thelma?"

  "What? Oh, yes, we are, dear. The other parents are going to be so jealous of us," she added happily. "Your school grades were one of the first things Karl considered, right, Karl?"

  "Yes, they were," he admitted.

  I gazed at both of them and thought for a moment. If I had received Cs instead of A's, they wouldn't have adopted me. It didn't seem right somehow to base so much on test results, certainly not when it came to making someone your daughter. If my grades fell off, would they give me back?

  "Ashley Raymond asked me if I would have dinner with her and her mother this Friday," I said. "Would that be all right?"

  "Actually," Karl said, "that would be perfect. I don't think we'll be back in time for dinner. I was going to have Thelma prepare something for you to heat up."

  "Back in time? Where are we going, Karl?" Thelma sounded confused.

  "Don't you remember, Thelma?" he asked softly. "We have an appointment with the doctors and administrator at the clinic concerning your father's condition. He's going to have to be moved to another facility where he can get more round-the-clock attention."

  "I hate doing those things," she muttered. "Can't we just phone them?"

  "No, dear. There are papers to sign. It won't take that long." He smiled at me. "Thelma doesn't like to remember sad things With the time it takes to go to the home and back, I didn't want you waiting on us for dinner, Crystal."

  "Maybe she can go with us, Karl?"

  "You just heard her say Ashley invited her to dinner, Thelma. Let her get to know other children her age," Karl declared. "You want her to have friends, don't you?"

  "Yes," she said in a small voice. Ever since her mother's death, she seemed to be even more withdrawn and afraid of real life. I thought if she could crawl right into the television set or into a book, she would.

  "That's settled, then," Karl said.

  Thelma started to eat again and then stopped. "You know what's on tonight, Crystal? Romance Theater, and it's a brand-new story," she said.

  "I'm studying for my math test with Bernie Felder," I said. It wasn't a total lie. I expected Bernie and I were going to do some of that.

  "Oh. Well," she said, thinking, "maybe I'll tape it for you to watch with me later this weekend, okay?"

  "That would be nice," I said, and she looked satisfied.

  Karl stared at me with troubled eyes. I avoided his gaze and finished my dinner. After helping Thelma with the dishes, I went to my room, gathered my books, and stuck our graphs into my notebook. Thelma was already involved in a television program. Karl was settled in his chair, reading the Wall Street Journal.

  "Don't be too late," he called when I went to the front door.

  "I won't." I took a deep breath and went out.

  It was a clear evening, the stars looking somehow bigger, brighter. The street was quiet, but the shadows looked deeper and longer, and my heart filled my ears with a thumping so loud I didn't hear any cars go by. When I reached Bernie's front door, I felt as if I had floated to it. My finger trembled against the door button. I heard it ding inside, and moments later, Bernie opened it.

  "Hi," he said.

  "Hi." I stepped in, half expecting to see his mother, too, but as usual, his house was quiet.

  "No one's home," he said quickly, and followed that with a conspiratorial smile. "Don't worry. We're not going to be interrupted."

  "I thought we might study a little for the math test, too," I said.

  "Sure, but it's going to be easy. Mr. Albert's first tests always are. He likes to give everyone
the feeling they can do well. False hope," he quipped as we walked to his room. As soon as we entered, he closed the door and then turned to me. "Did you bring the graphs back?"

  "Yes," I said, taking them out of the notebook and handing them to him.

  He gazed down at them as if he had forgotten what was written.

  "Good," he said, and looked at me. "Are you ready?" I hesitated, and he looked worried. "You still want to go on with the experiment, don't you?"

  "Sure, sure I do." I wanted to tell him how much I'd been thinking about our kisses, but I was afraid he wouldn't want to continue if I wasn't serious about the experiment.

  I couldn't help but hope that for Bernie too, our experiment was more than just a scientific test.

  Bernie's kiss started off sweet like the first time, but soon he became more insistent, forcing me to kiss him deeper and longer. These sorts of kisses made me nervous, but not in the good, special way I'd felt before. As Bernie pressed his lips and then his body against mine, I couldn't help but feel that he wanted to do more than just kiss.

  Pushing him away, I took a step backward.

  "Bernie, stop, we need to take breaks to write down our results." I hoped I sounded calm; inside I felt as if my heart would break from beating so quickly.

  "Aw, come on, Crystal, it was just starting to get interesting." He stepped toward me and reached out to put his hands on my shoulder.

  "Bernie, no, I'm not comfortable with this." I turned away and walked toward his desk. I grabbed my chart and started to write down my results, but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't do much more than scrawl.

  "Crystal, I don't understand. Did I do something wrong? Don't you want to continue with the experiment?" Bernie sounded hurt, and although I knew we had to stop this, I didn't want him to think I didn't like him.

  "No, Bernie, it's nothing like that. It's just that . . . this is starting to feel like more than an experiment . . . and I don't think I'm ready for that." I hoped he would appreciate my honesty.

  "Well, fine, Crystal. I guess you're just like Ashley . . . too scared to do anything adult, even in the name of science!" He stormed to the bedroom door. "I can't believe you're acting like this is something . . . something wrong or dirty or whatever. You're obviously way younger than I thought I think you'd better leave, Crystal. And don't bother coming back:'