Then I tried again to read—I really did. But my mind kept drifting. I imagined we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We would be one of those couples, the kind that would make other people stop and stare because we’d look so fabulous together.
But then I suddenly realized I’d missed an important step. I hadn’t passed on a message to Jared in return. So I hurried out of my room, knocked on Stewart’s door, and opened it.
“Stewart—”
I froze. Stewart was sitting on his bed, a hideous brown-and-orange knitted blanket draped over him like a tent.
“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” he cried.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s personal!”
Oh, gross!!! I backed out of his room, yanking the door shut behind me. “Just—tell Jared I said hi back!” I shouted.
Under my breath I added, “Pervert!”
I CAME DOWNSTAIRS IN the morning with a bounce in my step because overall, it felt like things were looking up. Even my dad could tell the difference because I hummed a tune over breakfast, and that tune was “My Favorite Things,” a song from Mom’s second-favorite musical, The Sound of Music (her first was West Side Story).
“Someone’s in a good mood.” My dad smiled as he handed me a bowl of porridge (real, not instant). I’d told him over dinner the night before that I’d joined Mathletes, and he was very pleased for me, and so was Caroline, and even Ashley said it seemed like a club that would be happy to have me as a member.
So Dad and I started to sing “My Favorite Things” really loud, and we both thought it was funny that just as we started singing “When the dog bites,” Ashley walked in.
“Want some porridge?” Dad asked her.
“No, thanks,” she mumbled. She grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and left without making eye contact with either of us.
“Oh well,” said my dad. “At least she said thanks. That’s progress.”
I thought about telling him what had happened the night before, when Ashley had opened my bedroom door unannounced. I know what she thought I was doing. I wasn’t. But even Dad doesn’t know about my nightly ritual, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him. Then Caroline came into the kitchen and pretty soon we were all singing “My Favorite Things,” and I forgot all about it.
—
WHEN PHOEBE ASKED ME to join her and Violet for lunch, the day got better still. The cafeteria felt a lot less threatening when I had other people to sit with. I laid out my lunch (two egg salad sandwiches, one apple, one banana, one juice box, two Babybels, and six Oreos) on the table.
“Wow. Someone has a big appetite,” said Violet. Both she and Phoebe were eating fries and gravy.
“My entire lunch probably doesn’t have many more calories than those plates of deep-fried grease you guys are eating,” I replied.
“True.” Phoebe smiled. “But ours tastes better.” She was wearing the best T-shirt ever. It was purple and said, ALWAYS BE YOURSELF. UNLESS YOU CAN BE A UNICORN. THEN ALWAYS BE A UNICORN.
I bit into my first egg salad. “Hey, do you guys know a guy named Jared?”
“Jared Mitchell. The new guy. Yeah. Why?” asked Phoebe.
“I think we’re becoming friends. He wants me to meet him after school, by the gym.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He was rather cryptic.”
“Isn’t it basketball tryouts?” asked Violet.
“No offense,” said Phoebe, “but you don’t seem to have the height for basketball.”
“I’m a mathlete, not an athlete,” I joked.
But Phoebe didn’t laugh. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t trust that guy.”
“Ditto,” said Violet.
“Why not?”
“Just rumors we’ve heard.”
My stomach burbled and churned all afternoon as I thought about what they’d said. If they didn’t trust Jared, why should I? Especially after what he’d almost done to me?
I thought about heading home right after school, but I knew there was no point; it wasn’t like I could hide from Jared forever. So I made my way to the gym, letting loose a few toots as I went. My mind was whirring. What if this was another initiation ritual? I’d read about enough of them in books or seen them in movies. What if he wants to beat me on my bare butt with a paddle? What if he wants to dunk my head in a toilet and flush?
Suddenly a hand clamped down on my shoulder, scaring me so badly I tooted again. “Stewie! There you are!” Jared said. He was in a basketball uniform.
“Actually, I prefer Stewart—”
He gripped my arm. “C’mon.” He was really strong. There was nothing I could do but let myself be propelled along as he pulled me into the gym. “Hey, Mr. Stellar! Coach! I found someone. He’s perfect, don’t you think?”
I’D HAD A SURPRISINGLY good day. Normally my home ec teacher, Mrs. Golshiri, doesn’t like me very much ’cause I talk too much and I burn stuff, but today we got to draw designs for three different outfits. I chose to design casual-but-cute everyday wear. At the end of class, she held up my designs for the whole class to see and said, “These are quite wonderful, Ashley. You clearly have an eye for fashion.”
!!!!
It’s true I’ve always had an eye for fashion, but I’ve only just started doing my own sketches, so I was very flattered. Mrs. Golshiri has talked about the years she spent living in Paris after her family fled the revolution in Iran. Her time in one of the fashion capitals of the world rubbed off on her stylistically speaking, because I can tell that her outfits are of excellent quality, even if they don’t hang on her that well, because she is twenty pounds above her ideal weight.
So I was feeling pretty good when I got home. The house was quiet; the nerd-bot wasn’t back yet. I grabbed myself an apple and plunked myself on the couch to watch one of my soaps.
I was only about five minutes in when I heard a growl behind me. I remember thinking, Shopping Cart can’t growl like that…can he? just before an enormous, furry brown paw gripped my head.
SHE SCREAMED SO LOUD I thought I’d burst an eardrum. Then she leapt off the couch and started pummeling me. She is slender but strong, and taller than me, and also I had zero peripheral vision, so pretty soon I was flat on my back on the carpet. She started kicking me. I tried to shout, but my voice was muffled, and her screams drowned me out.
Then I could hear man-shouts and pounding on the patio doors, and from the eyeholes I caught a glimpse of Ashley running toward the kitchen, screaming, “Daddy, Daddy!” I tried to stand up, but, next thing I knew, Ashley and Phil were standing over me, and Phil was wielding a baseball bat. Then another guy appeared behind him, wielding an umbrella.
“Don’t hit me!” I shouted. It was hot and smelly inside the head.
“Stewart?” said Phil, peering down at me. I could tell he and the other guy had just come back from a ride, because they were wearing spandex bike shorts and club jerseys.
“Yes!”
Phil lowered the baseball bat. I raised my furry paws and yanked on the head. It came off with a few good tugs.
“Oh. My. GOD! You little freak!” Ashley screamed.
“Stewart, what on earth are you doing?” asked Phil. “Why are you in a bear costume?”
“It’s not a bear. It’s a bulldog. I’m the new school mascot. Borden Bulldogs.”
“You scared the crap out of me!” Ashley wailed. She clung to her dad.
I stood up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Wait, that’s not true. I did mean to scare you, but not that bad.”
Phil shook his head. “You should never sneak up on anyone like that, Stewart. Especially not a woman.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I really, truly was.
“This is what I have to live with!” Ashley cried, and she buried her face in her dad’s shirt.
Phil held her close, stroking her hair. “It’s okay, my baby girl, it’s okay.”
It was a very touching moment, father and daughter reu
nited, and I felt a bit proud of myself, since, technically speaking, I was the one who’d brought them together.
But it was over in a flash because suddenly Ashley registered the man standing behind her dad.
She pulled away from Phil. “Who’s he?”
I recognized the guy; he was the driver of the silver MINI. He looked like he was a few years younger than Phil, shorter than him by a few inches, with curly brown hair and dark skin and broad shoulders. I wondered if he’d forgotten his own name because he looked to Phil for help.
“This is Michael,” said Phil. “He’s my…new friend.”
“Hi, Ashley,” Michael said, extending his hand, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Ashley’s face crumpled. She walked out of the room. Michael stood there with his hand out. I felt awful for the guy, so I extended my own furry paw instead. “Nice to meet you, Michael. I’m Stewart.”
Michael mustered a smile. “So I gathered.” He shook my furry paw. Then he turned to Phil. “I think I’ll head back to your place.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Phil said as Michael headed out the patio doors.
“I’m sorry I caused any trouble,” I said.
“It’s okay, Stewart. I know you didn’t mean it.” He looked really sad all of a sudden.
“Is Michael the guy you said you were interested in?”
Phil nodded.
“So you got up the guts to ask him out.”
“I did. I decided you were right. I do have it better than Alan Turing. So I seized the day.”
“Good for you.”
“We’ve seen each other a few times now. Turns out we have a lot in common. We both love the outdoors, skiing, kayaking—and biking.”
“I like someone, too. Her name’s Phoebe. We have a lot in common, too. We’re in Mathletes together.”
“Well, I wish you luck with her.” He glanced toward the ceiling and got that hangdog look on his face again.
“And I wish you luck with her,” I replied.
“Thanks. See you later, Stewart.” He gave my furry shoulder a light punch, then slipped out the patio doors.
WHEN I TURNED ELEVEN, my dad gave me the best birthday present ever. It was a cream-colored cashmere sweater, and it looked spectacular on me. Everyone said so. I still had my kid-body, and life, like my wardrobe, was simpler. But I loved nice clothes back then, too, and, honestly, it was like that sweater was made for me.
Aside from the sweater, he also gave me an album full of family pictures, which frankly seemed a bit quaint and rustic, since all our photos could be accessed on the computer in a nanosecond. If I’m totally one hundred percent honest, I barely glanced at it.
But lately I’ve been pulling out that album and studying it, like I’m a detective trying to solve a crime. I look for clues to try to figure out when it all went wrong. The thing is, I never find anything. It’s a heartbreakingly happy photo album. It’s called TO OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER, and it opens with a picture of my mom and dad when they were young and wrinkle-free and my mom has an enormous belly, which, of course, contains me. They are seriously good-looking and well-put-together, as long as you ignore my mom’s neon-orange Crocs. They were apparently all she could wear ’cause her feet got all swollen in the last two months of her pregnancy. (Personally, I don’t think that is a valid excuse. There is never a valid excuse for ugly shoes.)
In the next photo, Mom and Dad are lying together in a hospital bed, and I am in my dad’s arms, wrapped in a blanket. My mom looks exhausted, and I suspect this is pretty accurate, since she was in labor for thirty-one hours. She looks puffy and gross. If I were her, I would have deleted that photo immediately. I don’t look much better; my shriveled little face looks more gremlin than human.
But I regress. The point is, in that first photo—and even in the second photo, where my mom and I both look hideous—it is painfully obvious that my parents are head over heels in love. They beam at each other like they can’t believe their good luck.
And in all the photos that follow—the three of us on my first Halloween, me wearing a pumpkin costume; my first day of kindergarten; my first dance recital; the three of us on the beach in Maui; the three of us in ski gear up at Whistler; the three of us standing in front of the world’s biggest kielbasa outside some town in Alberta when we drove to the Rockies—they still look really happy.
We all look really happy.
Now, when I look at the album, I sometimes feel like I’m looking at…I don’t know, the life of a Russian spy or something. And my dad is the spy, and the people he works for have given him this whole fake identity, and my mom and I are just unsuspecting dupes who’ve become part of his cover.
But then other times I look at it and I think, No. What I’m looking at is real. ’Cause there’s no way he could fake it for that many years…could he?
My dad has reached out to me a lot. And once or twice, I’ve tried to reach back. But…I don’t know. I just can’t get past the lie.
I agonize a lot over whether or not I’m a gayist. I mean, on the one hand, we have an LGBT club at our school and I am totally cool with that, even if I’ve been known to call the president a Tragic behind his/her back because I can’t tell if he/she is a boy or a girl thanks to all the shapeless clothing he/she wears and his/her unhelpful name (Sam).
But on the other hand, when it hits close to home, it is a whole different story. I just can’t get over the fact that my dad would rather be with men than with Mom.
Meeting Michael just now made that whole part of it very real. I knew he was the guy who’d dropped my dad off this past weekend. The guy who’d leaned in for a kiss.
I felt so depressed all of a sudden. All the good feelings from the day just vanished—poof!—like that.
And then, to make things even worse, Spewart knocked on my door. I shoved the photo album under my covers.
“Go away.”
“Ashley, I said I’m sorry. Don’t you want to know how I became school mascot?”
“No, I do not. I truly do not care.”
“Oh. Okay. ’Cause actually it was Jared—”
SHE HAD THE DOOR open before I’d finished saying his name. “Jared asked you to be school mascot?”
I nodded. “He told the coach he thought I’d be perfect for the job. The guy who did it last year had a growth spurt. And it’s a pretty small costume, so they needed someone who hasn’t reached his full height potential yet. The only thing is, the head kind of reeks, like maybe the guy last year had halitosis—”
“Did you give Jared my message?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And did he say anything back?”
“Yes. He did.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘Tell Ashley to go on Facebook tonight so we can chat.’ ”
Her face went all weird and rubbery, like she was working really hard not to smile. “Did he name a time?”
“He said around eight o’clock.”
“That was it?”
“That was it.”
“Then why are you still standing here?” She started to close her door, but I put my hand out.
“Can I ask you something?”
“No.”
“Why does it bother you so much?”
“What?”
“Your dad being gay.”
“Why are you so interested? Maybe ’cause you’re gay?”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m straight. All my fantasies are about females—”
She slapped her hands over her ears. “Oh my God! You are so disgusting! You think I don’t know what you were doing yesterday under that blanket?”
“Not what you think I was doing.”
“Oh, please—”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were!”
“I wasn’t! I was breathing in my mom’s molecules!” I blurted.
She stared at me. “You were what?”
I tried to explain. “The human body is made up of t
rillions of molecules, right?”
“Maybe. Whatever.”
“Molecules are made of atoms. When someone dies, their molecules break down into smaller molecules as well as individual atoms. So, say a carbon atom is part of a molecule in a person’s leg. When that person dies, that atom could become part of a molecule in something else, like a blooming flower, or even another human being. Or an oxygen atom in your sandwich could end up in a molecule as part of your brain.”
“Ew.”
“Right now, as I’m talking to you, you’re probably picking up a few Stewart molecules and vice versa.”
She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Gross!”
“I don’t think it’s gross. I think it’s kind of beautiful. Everything, and everyone, is interconnected.”
Schrödinger wandered up to me and started rubbing against my legs. I picked him up and held him close to me. “Right now I’m breathing in cat molecules.”
“You are so weird.”
“I don’t think it’s weird to want to stay connected to my mom in any way I can. A lot of her molecules were floating around our old house, so I always felt connected to her there. But then we moved here, and I had to use a specific object to breathe in her molecules.”
“That hideous blanket?”
“It’s not hideous. She knitted it. It’s called an afghan. When she was sick, she used to lie on the couch with it on top of her. So now I go under it once a day and breathe her in for a while. And I just remember her. It’s kind of like I’m collecting a bit of her soul.”
Ashley just stared at me. “Still weird. And kind of creepy.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t expected her to understand. I started to walk to my bedroom, holding Schrödinger.
“But I can’t imagine what it must be like to have your mom go and die on you,” she continued. “So, I don’t know…. Maybe, if I was in your shoes, I’d do some weird stuff, too.” Then she added, “Not as weird, though.”
“So why don’t you try a little harder with your dad? I know he hurt you, but he’s alive. He loves you—”
She closed her bedroom door.