No news yet from Lish. Will there be news? Was she just screwing with me? I care way too much.
Uncle Jim walks into the kitchen and eyes me suspiciously. “Do you have a boy in your bedroom? Is that what I just saw zipping through our backyard?”
“If you saw a boy in our backyard, I’m thinking you should up the prescription on your contacts. It was probably the Schusters’ cat. He has thumbs, you know.”
My lips pucker in a whistle, then somehow I manage to stop myself. I am not a whistler. Nor am I someone who wakes up bright and cheery. And I certainly am not, nor have I ever been, a person who gets all giddy because she may soon be in contact with her MTB. Her EMPTY.
“Well, since you’re in such a good mood, and really, I don’t need to know, I have something I want to tell you,” Uncle Jim says mysteriously.
My toast pops enthusiastically, and I catch it. At least I would if my toast flew out of the toaster instead of lethargically peeping a mere two inches above the slot. I pinch the tip of my toast with disregard for the fact that my bread has turned into “toast” through the process of being heated. The toast is so toasty that, as I had earlier desired, it is now flying through the air. The slice lands on the floor with a crumbly thunk.
“Sit down, Aggy. You’re wound up today, aren’t you?” Uncle Jim eyes me as he helps me pick up the toast and put it on a plate.
“Thanks.” I laugh. “I don’t know what my deal is.” I bounce in my seat. This is getting very annoying.
Uncle Jim sits across from me, without breakfast or coffee, and looks at me intently. “I have some really big news, which may be hard for me to get out, so please don’t interrupt. And, for god’s sake, sit still.”
“Yes, sir,” I respond mockingly at his attempt at authority.
“Agatha, this is serious.”
“Sorry. I’m listening. Even if I can’t stop moving, I promise you I’m listening.” I wiggle my butt in my chair.
“Okay. Away we go.…” Uncle Jim takes a few deep breaths and closes his eyes to center himself. “So, I am going to meet my MTB next week. In Houston, of all places.” Uncle Jim smiles to himself at the thought of Houston. I don’t know if it’s the specific city or that he will have to leave the house to get there.
“She must be pretty special to get you all the way to Texas,” I interject.
“That’s the piece I want to talk to you about. Not Texas, exactly—”
I can’t resist interrupting with, “I hear they have excellent toast in Texas.” I’m chuckling to myself with pride at the corny joke, when Uncle Jim explodes.
“I’m gay, Agatha!” He covers his mouth with his hands the second he emits those words, as though he can’t believe he let them escape.
It takes me all of two seconds to process, before I shout, “Why the hell didn’t I figure that out? And why the fuck didn’t you ever tell me?” I feel angry at Uncle Jim for hiding this fact from me, hiding it from the world by holing up in our attic for the last five years. But mostly I’m angry at him for holding it in so long. What a complicated burden to live with every day, seeing himself in the mirror with a man’s Name splayed across his chest, and not wanting to admit to it. “I’m not mad at you,” I add hastily to clarify. “I’m mad for you.”
“I get that you deal with a lot of your issues through anger, Agatha, but that’s not how I work. You have to imagine what it was like for me when the Naming happened, and there was Michael Delacorte on my chest. God, I haven’t said his name to anyone but your mom.” I think Uncle Jim is blushing, but it’s hard to tell under his stubble. “I’ve never been what you’d call a dater. I mean, I had one ‘girlfriend,’” Uncle Jim air-quotes, “in high school, but that was all hand-holding and group dates. In college, I studied. Really, I thought I was asexual.”
“But you must have known you were leaning toward guys. Didn’t you want to test it out?” asks the teenage horndog.
“No, Agatha, I’m an introvert and an agoraphobe on top of it. Not to mention I’ve never been a hugely sexual person, even when I allowed myself to think about men. To admit that I was gay would mean adding a whole lot of other complications to my life. I preferred to deal with it by locking myself in your house and writing smutty fiction for people in need. It was a hell of a lot easier than touching real humans.”
I mull this over for several minutes. Uncle Jim gives me space and makes his coffee. When his mug is poured he sits back down.
“What changed your mind?” I finally manage to ask.
“You.” Uncle Jim smiles at me.
“Me?” I sit back in surprise. “What did I do?”
“You lived your life honestly, Agatha, and passionately, which could not have been more opposite to how I’ve been living mine. Talking to your mom about Australia, that was very brave. Dating outside of your MTB, that was, too. I admire you. And now your mom has started dating.”
“Allegedly,” I add.
“Get a grip, kid. They’ve already schtooped.”
“No! TMI! TMI!” I cover my ears.
“Anyway, your mom is moving on, and she doesn’t need her spinster brother getting in the way. Plus, Michael sought me out, and it felt so good to be wooed like that. We get along famously, so we’re going to see how that works in person.”
“I am very happy for you. Really.” I check the clock and realize I’m late for work. “I have to go to work. We can talk more later.” Uncle Jim squeezes me into an endearing hug, and my heart fills with joy at how open and relaxed he seems. “One more question: Would you still think all those good things about me if I ended up meeting my MTB?”
Uncle Jim blinks with blissful bewilderment. “My dear, like your mother, what I want for you is happiness. Go after it, wherever it may be found. Don’t wait until it comes to you.” He laughs and rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. “Or you could be sitting in an attic imagining love instead of living with it.”
And that is why Uncle Jim writes the books.
CHAPTER 36
Uncle Jim’s news has me driving well over the speed limit to work. I’m barely able to focus on the road, let alone how fast I should be going on it. It’s amazing how his life has completely changed just because of the Naming. First, he was a guy, albeit an in-the-closet guy, but still living his life. Then the Naming happens, my dad moves out, and Jim moves in and never leaves. And here he is: gay and possibly in love. I wonder what this all means for Savannah Merlot.
More important, what does this mean for me? Still no word from Lish. At a stoplight, I text:
What did you do?
The light turns green, and I drop the phone onto my seat. I never thought I’d say this to myself, but there are too many choices. It would be one thing if falling in love was the way it used to be thousands of years ago: Someone hits you over the head with a club. Bam! You’re in love. Then you have babies and live to the ripe old age of twenty-two. Phones and computers have added infinite ways to find people, also adding infinite choices. Then whammo! The Naming goes down, and things are supposed to be easier: Look, now you don’t have to choose! Your perfect mate has been selected for you by … whom exactly? That’s the shiftiest part, the piece that throws me more than choosing someone: How do any of us know the Name on our chest is the real deal? What if it wasn’t the science of pheromones or the divine intervention of God helping us find a mate? What if Satan is playing a joke on the human race, yucking it up in hell when everyone’s love lives go to shit and the divorce and murder rates skyrocket? What if his goal was to turn the next generation, the kids who result from Empty love matches, completely against the idea of love so that reproduction ends altogether and the human race dies out?
What if Hendrix Cutter is super ugly?
God, I’m an asshole.
I arrive at work, head swimming with Uncle Jim’s news and the cacophony in my brain. Reluctantly I relinquish my phone to my locker. Nothing a repetitive day at Haunted Hollow can’t fix.
My desire for normalcy is b
lown out of the electric blue river when I pass Luke at the Ghoster.
“Aggy!” he calls out to me, and I meet him at the ride. Luke clutches me in his arms and spins me around. “I have the best news! I’m going to visit Scarlett next week!” He doesn’t wait for my reaction. “Sam Hain said he’d give me the week off. Anything for love, he said. Can you believe it? I knew he was a softy.”
I’m glad Luke isn’t giving me room to speak because I have little to say. I knew turning eighteen would change things, but I had no idea how much.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Luke looks down at me with an expression reserved for Great Dane puppies.
“That’s…” I search for the appropriate word. “Awesome,” I announce. I don’t think that was the word I was looking for, but it came first alphabetically.
Luke hugs me again obliviously. “Park’s open. I’ll tell you all the details at lunch!”
I toddle off to the Dinghies, questioning how I went so quickly from sexified un-girlfriend to his girl/friend.
Again, I have to wonder: A chemical reaction, or is Luke just a really intense boyfriend kind of guy? Uncle Jim seemed to turn pretty quickly from hermit to husband. Lish is on her way to domesticity and mommyhood (I gag a little every time I think about that tiny Travis inside her). It’s as though Choice has become a myth or legend, a concept so imaginary and fantastical I’ll be locked away if I continue to pledge my allegiance to it.
If my morning hadn’t been so busy with a steady stream of children boarding the Devil’s Dinghies, I might have stolen a trip to my locker for a check of my phone. Lunch can’t come fast enough, and by the time my break arrives and Keely moseys to my booth I’m bolting full-speed to the staff room. I zip past Adam, my breasts bobbling in every direction, and I dare him with a sneering glance to look at them. Unable to avert his gaze, he simply turns around and I win.
I rip my locker open and fish out my phone. There’s a text from Lish; an annoyingly minimalist line reads:
I did something.…
Why is she so infuriating? Does she think she’s funny? This is only my life we’re talking about here.
Or not.
Why am I getting so worked up?
I attempt to fool myself into calm. What’s the big deal if Lish messaged Hendrix Cutter? I don’t care. Who is this guy anyway except some Australian dude whose name is surreptitiously written upon my physical being?
When I say it that way it sounds so important.
I type to Lish:
I have a short break. What did you do? Did you send him a message? What did you say? Did he write you back?
I hit send, and wait for a reply. When she doesn’t respond instantly I type:
I’m waiting.
When she still doesn’t respond in a timely enough fashion, I grab my lunch and stomp outside to a bench, phone gripped tightly in my fist. I make it through half a PB and J plus four Doritos before she decides to stop torturing her best friend.
I wrote him. I have not heard back. Found a pic. Want me to send?
This text is too much for me, and I simultaneously knock over my can of Grape Crush and spill my remaining Doritos. Both are instantly swarmed by a colony of bees.
I switch benches and type frantically:
a) What did you say to him?
b) I don’t know, do I want you to send it?
My knee bounces frantically as I watch the bees pollinate my chemically flavored corn chips. Is this why they’re going extinct? Because of my careless Dorito-dropping?
My phone cackles, and I can’t unlock the screen fast enough to read it.
a) A LOT.
b) Hell to the yes.
Carolyn, my supervisor and anti-MTB-er extraordinaire, passes my frazzled form on the bench. The tattoo she chose to cover her MTB is blantantly on display, jeering at me while I writhe in confusion. Or maybe she just says hi.
With only two minutes left in my meager lunch “hour,” I don’t have time to read Lish’s message and look at a picture of Hendrix Cutter. I weigh my two options: Either I can see the words my best friend wrote to a dude whose name is currently on my body, or I can see the dude whose name is currently on my body. Let’s not forget that Lish could have said or told him anything, and I should probably be rolling on the ground among the bees in mortified agony at the embarrassment she’s caused me.
Break is over. I have to return my phone to my locker and get back to work. Hastily I type:
Send the pic!
Not even a millisecond after the text goes out, I receive a chimed reply.
I knew you’d say that. Here you go!
And here he is.
Hendrix Cutter.
At least, I hope it’s Hendrix Cutter and not some other guy Lish found in a botched web search. Or potentially another guy named Hendrix Cutter.
But I really do hope this is him.
He has short brown textured hair that looks effortless but like he probably fixes it every day. His left ear peaks into a point, although not enough to be elfish. His eyes are dark, but they look more green than brown or black when I zoom in. His nose, a tad crooked, I’d like to imagine from a bout he had over a Vegemite sandwich as a child, is peppered with freckles. Not entirely perfect, but not snaggly, teeth peek out from his full lips in the picture’s smile.
You know that part in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! when the Whos are singing, and the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes bigger? That’s not how I feel. It’s more like my heart, so engorged with the possibility of love, is pressing out of my rib cage and reaching out to touch the picture. Or better yet, the Name on my chest.
Even if Lish didn’t seek this picture out, I instantly know I would recognize him anywhere as Hendrix Cutter.
And this scares the shit out of me.
CHAPTER 37
After seeing—and experiencing—Hendrix Cutter for the first time, I’m happy to sequester my phone to my locker for the rest of the day. In fact, I’m so freaked out by my reaction that instead of taking my phone out of my locker after work, I stay late to paint without revisiting my locker at all. I buy a burger and fries from Concessions before the park closes and pop a squat at the Devil’s Dinghies wall. The transformation is rather wondrous, if I do say so myself. The colors are much brighter, and the lines are cleaner, which makes the wall visible from farther away in the park than it used to be. Maybe that’s why my guest numbers seem to be up. I’m busy admiring my handiwork, thus am startled when a gravelly voice says, “Nice job. Looks real good.” It’s Brian from maintenance, wielding his trusty pole for lost-item fishing.
“Thanks,” I reply. “I think so, too.” We look to the wall as if it might give us something else to talk about. It does not. Brian begins shuffling away, when I say, “Brian, do you mind if I ask you something?”
“You already did,” he yuks. One of those.
“How about another question, then?”
“Did that, too.” Lord.
I ignore the witty banter and inquire, “Do you know your MTB?”
Brian’s expression rarely fluctuates from unenthused, but he looks like he just saw the ghost of the guy allegedly killed on my ride.
“Sorry. Too personal?” I backtrack.
“Yup.” A major wordsmith, this one.
I watch Brian drag the net through the fake river, and I can’t help myself. “You don’t have to tell me specifics, but did you have anything happen to your body when you found her? Or him? I don’t judge.”
Brian slowly sloshes the net back and forth at nothing in particular. I can tell he’s thinking by the movement of deep lines on his forehead.
“Hey, you two.” Sam Hain approaches the grassy area where Brian and I stand. When Sam begins talking to me, I see the worry relax on Brian’s face. He slinks away from us and into the tunnel like Gollum. Maybe he’ll find his precious.
“Not much of a talker, that one.” Sam nods in Brian’s direction.
“I think I might have offended
him.” The corner of my mouth tugs town in embarrassment.
“I don’t know if Brian gets offended. He is a private man, though. What did you say?”
I move closer to Sam Hain, but not too close. His short stature and muscular build remind me of a sumo wrestler but with clothing; a waft of incense drifts from his hair. At least, I think that’s what the smell is: something sweet and smoky. Perhaps it’s barbecue sauce aftershave.
“I asked him a question about his MTB,” I whisper.
Sam Hain lets out a raucous laugh, a sound I would never guess could come out of this man. He rests his hands on his stomach, as I imagine Santa does. When he finally manages to settle himself, he confides, “Brian doesn’t talk about his MTB. He lives with his mom, who needs lots of assistance, and he hasn’t had a girlfriend since he started here in 1993. I suspect it’s a lot of pressure for a guy like that, going through life a little lonely but okay with things, the ladies of the Internet keeping you company, and then you find out there’s a girl somewhere who you’re supposed to be with? What does a guy like Brian do with something like that?”
“My uncle ignored his MTB for six years. Then it turned out he’s gay.” I shrugged.
“The Naming really fucked us all up, didn’t it? I feel bad for you kids, never getting a chance to sow your wild oats like we did.” Sam winks at me in commiseration.
“It does complicate things,” I concur.
“You and Luke seemed to do all right for yourselves.” Sam Hain winks at me again.
Oh God. Does he know we had sex on one of his rides? Is this the part where he fires me?
“I always liked when my kids found summer love here at Haunted Hollow.” Sam looks off into the distance dreamily. “I though the Naming would end that for sure, and then Brian finds a condom wrapper in the river here at the Dinghies.” Is there a way to stop one’s face from turning as red as a cherry snow cone? “Warms my heart,” Sam muses. “Anyway, what did you want to ask Brian? Maybe I can answer for him.”