Crystal

"Good," I said.

  "What?" Ashley cried. "Crystal, I thought you were just kidding!"

  "Don't be chicken, Ashley," Bernie said. "It's not like we're doing anything serious--just kissing?'

  "But I don't want to be judged against Crystal . I've never kissed a boy before!" she cried, turning to me for help.

  I wanted to make Ashley feel better and tell her I'd never kissed a boy, either, but I wanted to keep my inexperience from Bernie. "You'll have to swear to keep this a secret. You know what someone like Helga would do if she found out."

  Ashley looked at Bernie and then at me apprehensively.

  "You're not going to get pregnant or anything like that," Bernie promised. "You're just going to discover more about yourself, and it will be knowledge that will make you wiser, stronger. That's the purpose and power of knowledge."

  "He's right," I said. "Okay?"

  "Maybe," Ashley said. "I'll see," she added cautiously, but I could tell she was almost as intrigued about it as we were.

  Bernie volunteered to set up what he called the control procedures. He said we would be more secure if we met at his house. With some reluctance, Ashley agreed.

  "This is like playing doctor," she whispered to me when we left my room.

  "Did you ever do that?" I asked. She shifted her eyes to Bernie and then to me.

  "No," she said. "Did you?"

  "No, but I wanted to," I admitted.

  She took a small breath and said, "Me, too:'

  Then she hurried to join her mother and leave, frightened by her own confession.

  The funeral the next day was simple and took less time than I expected, probably because Karl had everything so well organized. After the church service, the undertaker's car took us to the cemetery. Grandpa looked very fragile, clinging to the arm of a special- duty nurse Karl had hired. Thelma seemed like someone drugged, right from the moment she woke and dressed. Whenever I looked at her, her eyes were unfocused and distant. It was as if they were open but shut off, and she was not seeing or listening to anything that went on around her. She had retreated into her own mind. Maybe she was replaying one of her television programs.

  Karl led her about, moving everyone along gracefully and efficiently. Some of the people from his office attended the church service, but at the cemetery, there were only two other elderly couples who had been friends with Thelma's mother, her father and the nurse, Thelma, Karl, me, Ashley's mother, and the minister.

  It really wasn't a good day for a funeral. It was too warm and bright with a nearly cloudless sky, the blue more like turquoise. At the cemetery, the air was filled with the aroma of freshly cut grass. Birds flitted from tree to tree, and squirrels frolicked about the tombstones as if the entire cemetery had been created for their sole pleasure.

  I couldn't help wondering what my real mother's funeral must have been like. I imagined myself finding out where she was buried and going to visit her grave someday. What would I say? Who would hear it, anyway? Was Bernie right? Was there nothing left of us afterward, or did something precious linger, something we didn't understand, couldn't understand?

  On the way home, Thelma finally spoke. She said, "Poor Mom. I hope she's not alone."

  That was what Thelma was most afraid of, I thought, being alone. For years, her television programs had provided her with the families and friends she never had in real life. They had filled her life with distraction and kept her from thinking about her own loneliness. Karl thought adopting me would help, but I still didn't feel I was giving them much, and I certainly didn't feel we were a family. At least, not what I thought a family would be like.

  Grandpa came home with us to eat, but he fell asleep in his chair after having only a few bites. He looked as if he had shrunken and withered with his sorrow. I hoped in my secret heart that someday, somehow, I would find someone who loved me as much. That, I thought, was the true antidote to loneliness, the best cure of all.

  Two days later, Grandpa had a stroke and was taken to the hospital. He didn't die, but he was so incapacitated Karl had to arrange for him to be placed in permanent institutional care. Thelma couldn't stand the thought of visiting him in such surroundings.

  "Why do we have to grow old?" She moaned. "It's not fair. Elena doesn't look a day older than she did when I first started to watch Shadows of Forever We should all live inside a television program."

  Karl shook his head helplessly and went back to his business magazine. I returned to my homework, and our lives continued as if we were three shadows searching for a way to become whole again.

  We visited Karl's father, but it wasn't any more successful a visit than the first one. He grew impatient with Thelma's sad demeanor and Karl's criticism of his lifestyle and went off to be with his friends. A few days later, Karl's brother Stuart finally drove over from Albany to meet me and offer his sympathies to Thelma. He was taller and thinner than Karl, but he had colder eyes and a hard, chiseled face on which a smile settled only fleetingly. He asked me questions about school Jtit seemed uncomfortable when I spoke to him and looked at him. I noticed he avoided my eyes and didn't look directly at me when he spoke to me.

  After Stuart left, Karl revealed that his brother had almost become a monk. He said it was still possible that one day he would.

  "People make him nervous," he said. "He cherishes solitude."

  "How does he work as a salesman, then?" I asked. "Salesmen have to meet people."

  "He does most of his work over the telephone. He's a telemarketer."

  I was disappointed. I had been hoping my uncle would be friendlier and more fun. I had even imagined going to visit him in Albany. I complained about it to Bernie and Ashley the day after.

  Ever since we had decided to be part of an experiment, Ashley began to hang around with me, and consequently with Bernie, more at school. She sat with us at lunch.

  "My biggest hope was that I would become part of a real family," I said, "and have relatives with parties and birthdays, anniversaries and weddings. All of it. Sometimes I feel more alone than I was at the orphanage."

  Ashley looked very sad for me, her eyes full of pain, but Bernie sat musing for a moment as if I had brought up a topic from science class.

  "Family is overrated," he suddenly declared with that confident, really arrogant air in which he answered questions and made statements in class. "It's a myth created by greeting-card companies. People are too into themselves to be that sort of thing anymore."

  "That's terrible. My family isn't into

  themselves," Ashley protested.

  Bernie's eyebrows nearly touched as he creased his lips. "Your father is always traveling. You told us that yourself a few days ago, and your mother is terrified of becoming old, just like mine. Face it," he said, nodding at me, "we're not so much different from Crystal. No one really listens to us. Usually, we're in the way. At best, we're a mild annoyance."

  "I'm not!"

  "We're all orphans," Bernie muttered. "We're all searching for something that's not there."

  "That's not true. You don't believe that, Crystal, do you?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I don't want to believe that, but I don't know?'

  Ashley looked terribly distraught, ready to get up and run away. Then Bernie leaned in to whisper. "Let's not worry about all that. Let's get to our experiment. I'm ready," he said. "My house tonight, about seven-thirty. Okay?"

  I looked at Ashley. Her face suddenly changed from dark to light, her eyes shifting nervously as she looked at me and then at Bernie.

  "Fine," I said. "Ashley?"

  "Okay," she said in a small voice. "But I'm not an orphan"

  Bernie laughed. I hadn't heard him laugh that hard before. It brought a smile to my face, and that made Ashley smile, too.

  Across the cafeteria, the other students who had been looking at us with disdain were now suddenly full of curiosity about us.

  But nowhere near as much as we were about ourselves.

  9 In the Name of Science r />
  " This is a graph," Bernie began, holding up a grid. "There's one for each of us."

  Ashley and I sat on two chairs in his room while he stood and lectured. Ashley said it felt as if she were back in school. I asked her to be patient.

  "This will be session one," he continued, closing and opening his eyes with annoyance. "We will do the same things each session and rate our reactions to them on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most intense. Our objective is to determine how kissing affects us, which kisses we like best, and so on. Understand?" he asked. He did sound and look like Mr. Friedman, our science teacher.

  "No," Ashley said, shaking her head. "It sounds like gobbledygook. What does a graph have to do with kissing?"

  "The graph doesn't have anything to do with it. It's just a way of recording reactions scientifically:' Bernie sighed with frustration. He looked at me. "You see why I could never be a teacher?"

  Bernie shook his head, took a deep breath, and returned to his chart.

  "We'll meet here every night over the next week or so," he said.

  "I still don't understand what we're doing," Ashley whined.

  "Ultimately, we're going to see which kinds of kisses we like best, dry, quick pecks or long, wet ones," Bernie said a bit cruelly. "You have thought about kissing a boy before, right? Just pretend I'm whatever boy you're in love with this week, and plant one on me."

  Ashley sucked in her breath and held it. She looked as if she might explode. Her eyes bulged. She looked from me to Bernie and then started to shake her head.

  "I won't do that," she said. She kept shaking her head.

  "You're not going to sit there and tell us you've never thought about kissing a boy?" He was getting exasperated. "It's natural to think about it."

  She couldn't get any redder, I thought, and I felt myself blushing as well. All this talk about kissing was making me as nervous as Ashley.

  "It's very important that we're honest with one another," Bernie emphasized. "In science, honesty is essential. We can't hide truth, and we can't pretend. No one here is going to laugh or make fun of anyone else, either. We're serious, and we're going to be adult about it, right, Crystal?"

  "Yes," I said, surprised myself at how clinical Bernie made it all seem. It didn't even sound sexy or mysterious. Which is how I always dreamed it would be.

  "Why is he the one telling us everything we have to do?" Ashley complained.

  "You asked me to help with this experiment, and I've done it," Bernie said.

  "I didn't ask. Crystal and I were curious about kissing, and you butted in, right, Crystal?"

  "Yes, but we need Bernie's help."

  "You're going to do this?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said, looking at Bernie, who seemed more determined and purposeful than ever. "I'm very interested, and I know we'll learn a lot more about ourselves."

  She glued her huge eyes to my face for a moment. "Well?" Bernie demanded.

  "All right," Ashley said. "If Crystal's going to do it, I'll try."

  "Good," Bernie said. He walked over to his door and locked it. Then he went to the windows and closed all the blinds tightly. Ashley's eyes followed his every move. He handed each of us a graph.

  "The numbers at the side correspond to the activities," he explained. "It will be easier if we just refer to them by their numbers. On the top as you see are the dates, beginning with today. As long as we keep this scientific, we'll do fine," he added.

  He went to a cabinet under his wall of shelves and opened it.

  "What's that?" Ashley asked before he had a chance to explain

  "It's a digital blood-pressure cup, and it also records pulse."

  "Where did you get that?" she asked, as if it were some forbidden fruit.

  "You can get these anywhere, Ashley. They sell them in drugstores. It's no big deal," Bernie said. "Now, when you're aroused," he continued in his scientist's voice, "your blood pressure should rise and your pulse, of course, will quicken. Let's take our blood pressures and pulses right now before we do anything else, so we'll know what to consider normal and what not, okay? Who's first?"

  "I'll start," I said, and Bernie fit the cup around my arm. When I was done, he measured Ashley.

  "You must be a little nervous," he said. "I wouldn't expect your pressure to be this high."

  He did his own, which was as low as mine.

  "How come you two are so calm?" Ashley asked suspiciously. "Aren't you nervous, Crystal?"

  "No." It was true. Now that we were ready to begin, I was more anxious than nervous to find out what it felt like to be kissed.

  She looked skeptical. "Now what?" she asked. Bernie sat across from us, crossed his legs, and gazed at his notes.

  "Now, we should kiss. Ashley, you want to go first?" he asked.

  Ashley popped up from her chair like a jack-inthe- box. She fumbled with the door lock and ran out before Bernie could ask her what she was doing. Moments later, we heard the front door slam.

  Bernie and I looked at each other.

  "I don't think she was quite ready for this," he said with a smile.

  "I think you did all that just to get rid of her," I said, finally beginning to understand why he had been so clinical.

  His eyes met mine as he tried to hide the truth.

  "I knew she wouldn't be ready. Why waste time with her?"

  "Why did you want to do this?" I asked. "Remember," I quickly followed, "honesty is essential in science."

  He started to smile and stopped to put on his serious face again. "I've had different feelings about you, different from what I've felt about other girls, and I wanted to understand why," he explained.

  "So this is still an experiment?"

  "Yes," he said "What else could it be?"

  I wanted to say it could be love; it could be romance. I wanted to say that maybe we shouldn't dissect our feelings, that maybe that would destroy them, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want to drive him away, and there was an excitement that started as a small trembling in my legs and moved up my spine until my heartbeat quickened.

  "Should we get on with this?" Bernie asked. His eyes were full of anticipation and hope.

  Once, at the orphanage, I had caught a girl named Marsha Benjamin in a very passionate embrace with a boy much older than she. His name was Glen Fraser, and I remember being afraid of him, afraid of the way he looked at me. I was too young to understand why at the time, but when I saw him and Marsha kissing, his hand under her skirt, his body moving roughly against hers, forcing her to turn so that he could move between her legs, I gasped first in fear and then in astonishment. I started to run away but stopped, unable to shut my curious eyes. The truth was, I was fascinated with Marsha's face, with the way she let her head fall back, with her small moans, and especially with her hands, first trying to stop it all from happening and then, suddenly, apparently filled with uncontrollable excitement, pulling her hand away from his to hold him behind his neck as if she were clinging to him for dear life.

  He turned and saw me standing there, watching them. He didn't get angry. He smiled coolly and said, "There's room for one more."

  I ran. I ran so hard and fast someone would have thought I was being pursued by a monster. Years later, I would think the monster was inside me. I wanted to conquer it, to be unafraid, and I thought that would never happen until I was fulfilled and loved by someone I could feel good about. Now I wondered if Bernie could be that person.

  "Yes," I replied finally, "let's go on with it."

  Bernie smiled, and then, as if he read my thoughts, he said, "We'll go slowly, of course, and if either of us is uncomfortable, we'll stop immediately. That would only ruin the experiment, anyway."

  "Fine," I said, swallowing back the lump of nervousness that tried to rise in my throat.

  Bernie walked over and began to kiss me. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift, but I could feel my heart pounding crazily, and I worried that Bernie could feel it, too. I pulled away, and Bernie slo
wly dropped his hands from my shoulders.

  Bernie lifted his eyes slowly and gazed at me. "How do you feel?" he asked.

  "Very nervous," I said

  "You're the bravest girl I ever met. I didn't think you would do this," he confessed, and I thought I heard a faint quiver of nervousness in his voice.

  "I told you," I said, trying to sound brave, "I'm as interested as you."

  He nodded.

  "What do we do next?" I asked.

  "Why don't we try a French kiss? You know, with our tongues?" he said. "You tell me everything that's happening to you, and do the same, okay?"

  I nodded. I began to wish I'd left with Ashley, but I knew it was too late to turn back now. Besides, I was curious about Bernie and the way his kiss had made me feel.

  "Ready?"

  "Yes," I said. I looked up at the ceiling and then at him, and we both stood there.

  His eyes drank me in from head to toe. I had never had a boy look at me the way Bernie was doing. It made my head swim.

  "My heart is pounding," he said. He began to walk around me. "I'm nervous, and I'm afraid I might do something wrong," he admitted. He sounded like someone reporting from outer space--as if I weren't in the same room as him, experiencing the same feelings and emotions.

  "Me, too." I wanted to be honest about my reactions, for the sake of the experiment, of course. "What?"

  "Everything you said," I said, my voice cracking, my eyes closing as he walked around me. I could feel his breath on my neck. A moment later, he was in front of me again, only inches away.

  "I'm going to close my eyes," he said, "and then I'm going to try this French kiss thing, okay?"

  He closed his eyes and kissed me.

  I wasn't too sure I liked this kind of kiss. I felt as if I could tell what Bernie had had for dinner. I'd seen kids kiss in school like this, and they seemed to enjoy it, so I decided to try to like it. After a while, my heart began pounding stronger, and my hands started to feel sweaty. This time, though, it was Bernie who stopped our kiss.

  "Wow." He shook his head as if he were trying to clear the fog out. "Now I see what all the hype is for."

  "Um. . . yeah, me, too." I couldn't help but wonder if kissing all boys felt this nice.