5

 Messages you find—in food or possibly in other inanimate objects

 People who can talk to objects and hear their histories (only a TV thing?)

 Mind control

I’m off and on about the whole mysterious-messages-from-the-beyond thing, maybe because all the websites on the subject are kind of tired. A lot of what I’ve found on the web is about people who see divine images in the things they eat. Especially toast. Toast is a big medium for spiritual symbols and portraits, most specifically of the kind relating to Jesus Christ. I’m not sure why this is. It seems like such a weird way for a deity to communicate something really important, like a Second Coming. I mean, isn’t toast something you eat in the morning when you’re sleepy and not really paying attention? Wouldn’t it be better to put a holy message in something like a rock? Something that’s going to stick around if you don’t notice it the first time? Something that’s not going to go bad if you need to hold on to it for a while?

I found this blog once about how corporations are putting images into foods as a kind of subliminal messaging system. It also has instructions on how to home compost, but mostly it’s all these pictures people have taken of food with “distinctly political” messages in it. There’s a picture in there of a soup stain on this guy’s tablecloth that does actually look like an elephant eating a donkey.

This guy also said government cheese is all implanted with a chemical that makes people vote Republican.

I told Tiffany about this once, you know, thinking she’d be concerned as a person working in the food service industry, and she was basically like, “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”

Tiffany’s theory is that we, that is, us members of Western society, are constantly having symbolism, in her words, “crammed down our throats.”

“It’s everywhere. Messages on what to eat, who to love, what to buy—all that is pretty much already set in our corporate system and disseminated through everything from television to pizza,” she noted as she grabbed a blueberry from the toppings bar and sucked it from her fingers to her mouth. “You know I wrote my thesis on beauty pageants and their connection to the fast-food industry, right? I told you that, right?”

“Uh,” I stammered, staring intently at Tiffany’s fingers, which, I had just noticed, did not look like the cleanest in the world. “Do you always eat that stuff with your bare hands?”

“Oh”—Tiffany pressed her hands against her chest—“pardon me, Miss Manners. Do you want your free toppings or what?”

There was a moment of silence while Tiffany bored holes into me with her purple-black eyes, and I tried to do as quick an analysis of Tiffany’s fingers as possible. Are they more or less gross than Tesla’s hands? I asked myself, because I eat what Tesla has her fingers all over all the time.

Less.

“Free toppings, please,” I concluded.

“I thought so.”

All this has led me to wonder if maybe there was some connection between bread and Christianity that merited further investigation. Like, was there some commercial thing behind Christians’ obsession with bread? Or maybe it was chemical?

 Subliminal messages

 Hallucinogens

*   *   *

The next morning, I was swimming in crosses. Everything looked like a cross to me: telephone poles, the plus signs on the blackboard, roads intersecting on my drive to school.

Kenneth White, meanwhile, spent the day vying for the title of Quietest Person in Aunty. Math, silent. Bio, quieter than cement. I can only imagine he ate his lunch in silence, too. Every class, he just sat, slumped, in his seat, his arms folded over his chest. Like he was posing for a painting or something. He never looked around. Never talked to anyone. Just sat there with his book open and his pencil on his notebook.

Staring.

At.

Nothing.

Maybe he was confused because all he did at home was Bible studies. Maybe he was snickering in biology because we were looking at what Mr. Jenner called the building blocks of life, and Christians think the building blocks of life are … I’m not sure, actually. Probably not gooey cells, though. Sometimes, I’d sneak a look and he’d be squinting ahead or looking out the window. His face as still as glass.

The only audio evidence of his existence in Aunty was the heavy, rubbery sound of his big boots clomping down the hallway from class to class.

At the Mystery Club meeting after school, Thomas shook up his healthy snack-in-a-bottle (which looked like kale and smelled like garbage). “Those boots are killing me,” he moaned. “I mean, he’s not a terrible-looking guy. But those boots! Puh-lease! Those boots are o-ver.”

“Yeah, and his dad thinks we’re all going to hell,” I said, licking the remnants of my snacks of cheesy twists off my fingers.

Thomas paused midshake. “That does not change the fact that his boots are ugly, Montgomery, but thanks for bringing that up, again.”

It was Thomas’s turn to pick a topic for Mystery Club, and so we talked about superpowers and what superpowers Thomas thinks are over- and underrated. Thomas’s list of overrated superpowers is very long. Basically anything you’ve seen any man do in a comic book, he’s over it.

“I think we’ve all had enough of flying, yes?” he said, grabbing a piece of chalk and starting a superhero cartoon sketch on the board. “And lasers.”

“I always thought the laser thing was kind of confusing,” I added from my semi-prone position on the floor, “because technically a laser should just shoot through a person, but it never does. It just, you know, zaps. And pings off things.”

“I think it’s time we refocused on people who can melt and reform into different objects and creatures,” Thomas concluded, stepping back from his drawing. It was a very bumpy superhero.

“Like Jell-O?” Naoki asked, holding her hands out like she was holding a big clump of Jell-O.

“More like lava,” Thomas said.

“Doesn’t feel very super,” I said. “What’s so great about dissolving?”

“Did you see Terminator 2?” Thomas asked.

Naoki shook her head. “Who’s in that?”

“Not all of us are into old-timey movies, Thomas,” I groaned.

“The former governor of our great state,” Thomas noted, drawing a loose caricature on the board with a single stroke. “Mr. Schwarzenegger.”

Naoki shrugged. “He’s an actor?”

“Someday,” Thomas said, dropping the chalk and dusting off his hands, “I will take you on the Netflix retro tour.”

“I’m sure it will be very enlightening,” Naoki said, stepping forward to take a closer look at Thomas’s sketches. “You’re a good drawer.”

“Thank you,” Thomas cooed, taking up his chalk to write out his keywords on the board. “And so, in conclusion to my conclusion, survival and adaptation, yes, is as super as it gets, darling. Let’s have more melting heroes. It’s time. Plus if you can reform into a nice-looking guy in a decent suit … well then, that’s a whole new ballgame, yes?”

“If I had a superpower,” Naoki added, walking over to where I was lying on the floor and dropping down into a graceful kneel, “I’d have superhealing.”

“What do you want, Monty?” Thomas asked, swinging around to point at me.

I tried to picture myself, landing on a battlefield with a team of superheroes, watching them all pull out their weapons. Ready for the enemy. But still, I thought, you’d never know what was coming at you. It’s like rock-paper-scissors. You pull out a rock, someone has paper, you’re doomed. “Omnipotence,” I said, finally.

“You want to be all-powerful,” Thomas asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh,” I said. “No. What’s it called? To know everything.”

“Omniscience.” Naoki said, tilting her head. “I think that would be tiring. I mean, everything. And knowing it. You could never go see a movie again.”

“No thanks,” Thomas said.

“Okay, maybe not everything,” I conceded. “Just … what’s coming at me.”

Thomas stood and picked up his bag, which that day was this kind of weird-looking basket like you would expect Mary Poppins to use or something. “So concludes the meeting of the fabulous Mystery Club. And now,” he finished, bowing deeply, “I’m off to continue my valiant effort to bring some modicum of culture to Jefferson High.”

“Draaaamedy,” I droned.

“Dramedy,” Naoki repeated, watching Thomas slip out the door. “It’s such a funny name. It doesn’t feel like a word.”

“It’s not. Oh hey!” I said, reaching into my bag and pulling out the Eye. “Look! It arrived!”

“Oh!” Naoki leaned over and put her face close to the dangling stone. “It’s like a mirror, it’s so black!”

I sat up and lay the stone flat on my hand. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

Naoki moved so she was squished right next to me, seeing it from my angle, presumably. “Does it work?”

“Um, I don’t know. I haven’t really done anything with it yet. I mean, yesterday I tried to see if any of, you know, the typical ESP things would work with it. But nothing really happened.”

“Well,” Naoki said as she stood and slung her bag over her shoulder, “you’re supersmart. You’ll figure it out.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound convinced and not just disappointed. I slipped the stone back into my bag and scrambled to my feet.

In the hallway, Naoki stopped and put her finger on my chest. “You just have to figure out what you need to know,” she said. “I bet that’s it.”

“Could be,” I said.

Naoki headed off to her locker, and I turned to head home.

What do I need to know?

I mean, maybe it’s not about a person, I thought. Maybe it’s something bigger. Don’t I have a whole list of stuff I wanted to know? I mused, grabbing my phone out of my pocket and scanning through it … until I nearly slammed into a wall, much to the amusement of what looked like the football team, and Matt Truit.

“Nice going!” some guy in a baseball hat yodeled.

“Watch your face, Sole!” Matt hollered. “Bus-ted!”

Clearly, knowing the basic layout of the school would be a start.

*   *   *

I spotted the posters on my way home from school.

THE REVEREND WHITE WILL SAVE YOU

They were everywhere, on telephone poles and mailboxes all over, colorful, glossy photos of the Reverend White in various poses. The Reverend White had white hair and wore white suits. In the pictures, he had his arms around men and women, presumably couples, some of them with babies.

WE WILL SAVE THE AMERICAN FAMILY, TOGETHER.

The Reverend White looked down at me from every corner.

“We will save you,” he said. He sounded so confident in my head.

I stood on the street corner, California breeze brushing past me as I looked up at him.

Save me or save this town from people like me? I thought. Save me or destroy me?

Destroy you.

Oh yeah?

I spent the next two hours running from telephone pole to telephone pole, ripping down every poster I could find. He was everywhere, staring at me as I reached up and tore him in half. I needed the superpower of a million Reverend White poster-seeking hands. Until then, one at a time.

THE REVEREND WHITE IS HERE TO SAVE YOU!

Riiiiiiip!

When I got home, I still had two of the posters balled up in my pocket. The house was humming. As soon as I opened the door, I was flooded by the smell of fatty saltiness, chicken and potatoes. I could hear Momma Jo throwing around pots and pans. I tried to let the door click closed as quietly as possible.

“Set the table, whoever that is!” Momma Jo yelled over the rattle of chopping.

“Special dinner night,” Tesla added, her voice bouncing. She was doing jumping jacks in front of the TV in the living room.

“Why don’t you set the table?” I asked, kicking off my boots into the chaotic pile of shoes that is our doorway.

“She asked you,” Tesla snapped as she switched to a kind of high-knee running on the spot. She had a little warm-up outfit on. Pink and green stripes. Like a Christmas elf.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Tesla and I have the same mom egg and uterus and the same sperm donor. Tesla looks like the angel to my devil. I’ve got straight black-brown hair that hangs long and wouldn’t keep a curl if I glued one in there. Tesla’s got this crazy almost-red curly hair that she’s always fighting to keep in a ponytail, with, like, a million plastic bands and barrettes. Tesla’s a ball of energy. Everything she does has bounce. I don’t think it’s even possible for her to tiptoe. Like, even if she wanted to.

Last year we got our pictures taken for Mama Kate’s birthday, and the photographer spent, like, an hour telling Tesla how much she looked like all these different movie stars.

“What are you? You’re like a young Susan Sarandon. You know who that is? Smile for the camera there, Susan!”

Tesla had smiled and carefully adjusted the sleeves of her flowery dress. Her favorite.

I think I had on a polyester dress I’d found at a yard sale, and I was wearing it because it didn’t have a rip. And I’d been specifically told I could not wear anything with a rip for this timeless memento, which was one of the few things I could do for Mama Kate, who did so much for me. According to Momma Jo.

“I’m not saying you have to wear a doily, Monty,” Momma Jo had grumbled, picking through my stack of clothes. “I’m just saying … hey, is this my sweater? What are you doing with all my stuff?”

At the photographer’s studio, as I leaned on a giant prop foam heart, the photographer had smiled. “Oh,” he had added, gesturing toward me, just as he was about to snap the last picture, “and you, big sister, you look … very grown up.”

“Just take the picture,” I’d grimaced, pulling at the tight sleeves on my dress.

Of course, I have no interest in looking like a celebrity. I think celebrity culture is basically a waste of time.

That, and my aversion to buying any clothes new from a retail chain has led most people at my school to think I’m either a Goth or a hippie. Which is hilarious to me. Because if any of them would actually do any research on either of those two things, they would see I’m not either.

I’m not buying into a look. I’m refusing to conform to most people’s obsession with looks.

“I’m nothing,” I told Thomas once.

“You’re just you in your momma’s clothes,” he retorted. “You’re a teenager dressed as a lesbian in her forties. Bravo.”

Back at the house, which smelled more and more fried by the second, Tesla dropped to the floor and started crunches.

“First of all,” I countered, moving from the doorway of shoes to the carpet so I could stand over her, “she didn’t ask me. She said ‘whoever.’”

“She said ‘whoever,’ but that means you,” Tesla huffed, crunching. “I can’t set the table. I’m training.”

“For the Olympics? A noble quest?”

“It’s Tesla’s big game tomorrow!” Mama Kate said as she jogged down the stairs. “Semi-regional girls’ junior soccer championship game tomorrow.”

Right.

I think it always kind of, sort of bummed my moms out that I’m not, in any way, shape, or form, into any kind of sports.

Not even archery. Not even bowling. Not even darts.

My moms are sporty people. They hike, they bike, they ski, they rock climb, they play lesbian baseball every first Thursday of the month. Momma Jo was a professional field hockey player when she was younger, field hockey being this weird sport where people play hockey on grass instead of ice.

My moms met at an international lesbian intramural sports tournament. When Mama Kate sprained her ankle in a soccer game, Momma Jo drove her to the hospital. Just because. And that was it. Mama Kate even left her college so they could go to the same school in Canada.

Then they moved back here when Momma Jo’s company opened an office in California.

I asked Momma Jo once if there was some category for that on the sperm donor form. Like, if there was a box you could check for sporty or athletic. Momma Jo said the only boxes they cared about were human and male.

“It’s not sperm that makes you sporty,” she added. “Trust me, I know.”

The best evidence for this would be Tesla, who is made from the exact same genetic stuff as me and is supersporty. Every month, it seems, it’s a different sport and a different team and a different animal. In the fall, during soccer season, it was all about the Namaste Yoga Studio Cubs, because that’s who sponsors soccer teams in California, yoga studios. Sorbetties.

“Dinner!” Momma Jo howled, banging on a pot with her big wooden spoon.

Tesla hopped up and bounded into the dining room. I strolled. Because it’s not a race and I, unlike Tesla, do not feel the need to be exercising every minute of the day.

I love our dining room. One year for Christmas my moms decided we should repaint it so it was more festive. So the walls are red stripes (Momma), lavender (Mama), pink (Tesla), and black and blue stars (me). Plus all our plates are from garage sales and antique places, Mama Kate’s obsession, so they’re all different. I always make sure I get the red bowl with the bull’s-eye in the middle. Mama Kate found it on my birthday last year.

So anyway, there we were, eating Tesla’s favorite night-before-the-big-game meal, deep-fried chicken burgers, sweet potato fries, potato salad, and beans, like a regular lesbian family.

“So what’s the name of the other team?” I asked.

“The Canyon Tires Elementary Crows.”

“Tough team?”

“Uh, yes.” Tesla pushed her plate back. “So I think we should pray. To win.”

“What?” I coughed.

Momma Jo, who has a big laugh, dropped her chicken burger and laughed big. “You think that’s the tiebreaker?”

Tesla frowned. I laughed. Mama frowned. Mama Kate is super into the idea that you shouldn’t laugh at kids unless they’re telling you a joke.

Momma Jo dropped her fork and put her hands in the air. “Okay, okay! Look. It’s not a bad idea, Tesla. I just, I think what I’m saying is … What? I’m saying praying doesn’t win games. Praying is something people do as part of something much bigger, like a religion.”

Mama Kate put her hand on Tesla’s hand. “What we’re trying to say is, sweetie, praying is not something you do just so you can win a game.”

“No kidding,” I murmured, two fries in my mouth.

“Other people are praying,” Tesla protested, folding her arms over her chest, pushing her lips into an angry knot.

“Tesla,” Mama Kate sighed.

Tesla banged her fist on the table. “Abigail’s parents are praying. Caitlin’s parents are praying. Sarah’s parents are praying. Pearl’s parents are praying. If they all pray and I don’t pray, we could lose.”

“Well,” Momma Jo said, “they’re probably praying because their parents pray as part of their religious practice.”

“Why don’t we have a religious practice?” Tesla cried.

“We don’t need one,” I snapped.

“Maybe we do need one,” Tesla snapped back.

“I’m going to get dessert,” Mama Kate said, and she picked up her plate and pushed out her chair.

“I don’t want any.” Tesla pouted.

I watched Mama Kate disappear into the kitchen, kind of bent over a bit like she was searching the floor for a lost quarter.

“Why don’t you just chill out?” I hissed.

“Why don’t you just mind your own business?” Tesla hissed back.

Momma Jo looked at my black and blue stars. “Montgomery. Enough. Tesla. There are lots of things that different families do differently. This is one of them. Some people eat certain dishes, some people wear different clothes, some people go to church, some people have two dads…”

“Who has two dads?” Tesla huffed.

“Elton John’s kids,” I piped in, my mouth still partly full of fries.

“Shut up, Monty,” Tesla barked.

“Ricky Martin’s kids,” I added, pointing another fry at Tesla.

“Mon-teeee!” Tesla jumped out of her chair and pointed an angry finger at me across the table. “Shut up!”

“Montgomery,” Momma Jo said, her voice like a hammer. A slightly tired hammer.

In the kitchen, pots and pans rattled. I could just see Mama Kate, leaning on the counter.

“Excuse me,” I said, slamming my knife down on the table, which was louder than I wanted it to be. “First of all, how come she gets to tell me to shut up? Second, how come Tesla gets to act like a little brat just because she’s not allowed to pray? Maybe there are bigger things than soccer games, Tesla. And just because everyone in this stupid town thinks you should pray, Tesla, doesn’t mean you have to do it. Grow up!”

“Shut up, Monty!”

“You shut up!”

“Enough!” Momma Jo banged the table with her palm.

There was a crashing sound in the kitchen, plates fighting in the sink.

“I’m outta here.” And, of course, by “outta here” I meant, “I’m going to my room.”

Because, at sixteen, I can’t just charge off into the sunset. Just to my room. A place to contemplate why it is I shouldn’t yell at my sister. Even though she is being an idiot.

Tesla is the only person I currently know who’s been a kid with two moms her whole life, too.

And most of the time she’s the dumbest person I’ve ever met.

Like, why does she want to pray now?

I tried to imagine Tesla standing in whatever it is they call that space by the soccer field where the teams sit, with all her friends. And her friends being like, “We should all pray.” Maybe there was even some kid who told the other players that our moms don’t pray because they’re lesbians.

How stupid is it to have to explain why it’s so much more complicated than that?

I lay down on my bed and looked at the ceiling.

Mama Kate’s parents are really religious. Evangelicals. Believers in the Second Coming. When we were little, they would give Tesla and me religious-type stuff all the time. Like, for our birthdays they would send us books like Good Christian Girls tucked into the covers of regular books. They slipped little gold crosses into birthday cards signed, Jesus loves you. Once they sent us cards of Jesus where you could shift the card and he would look up at the sky, the thorns on his head twinkling.

Tesla was so little when most of this was happening. She’d just fold them up into her dollhouses or cut them into snowflakes. She called them “man cards.”

When I was little, I thought Jesus was, like, this person my grandparents knew. Like a great-uncle. Great-Uncle Jesus from Kansas.

Typically, as soon as they were unwrapped, Mama Kate would swoop in, take the presents away. Promise to take us to the store and get us something else. Then she’d go into the kitchen, sit at the table, call her parents.

“Yes, but I’m asking you to stop, Mom. Yes. I know. Okay, well, we don’t do that in our family. Yes, I do have a family, Mom. Dad, I’m not talking about it. No. Yes, I do, Dad. Mom. I’m going to hang up now. I do love you. Goodbye.”

While Mama Kate talked, I would sit outside the kitchen door, my fingers tucked under the metal threshold that separated the carpet from the tile, and wait for her to hang up the phone. Then I would go in and make sure she was okay.

The room was always so quiet and still after those phone calls. I could feel the fridge and the lights vibrating under my feet. “Mama?”

Sometimes she’d wipe her eyes with the corner of the tablecloth or her sleeve.

Sometimes she’d look at the ceiling. Sometimes there would be tears when she looked at me. “Hey, sweetie. Do you want a snack?”

Why is it so earth-shatteringly scary to see your parent cry? It’s like the worst weapon in the world. Like the worst kind of kryptonite. “Is everything okay, Mama?”

“Oh. Sure, sweetie,” she’d say, her voice all wobbly. “I’m just sad. Not too sad. But sad.”

Once when I was six, after a really bad phone call, Mama Kate went to bed and didn’t come out for dinner. So I made her a heart of Rice Krispies treats, which I stuck to her door, piece by piece. Because you can do that with Rice Krispies treats. Kids at school did it all the time.

Of course, most kids at school weren’t dealing with a particularly nasty infestation of ants. Who apparently love Rice Krispies treats.

“Don’t worry about it,” Momma Jo said, even though ants are one of her least-favorite things. “You tried to do a nice thing, so it’s okay. Weird but okay.”

That whole week it was Momma Jo, not Mama Kate, who came and picked me up from school. Because Mama Kate was feeling bad, she said.

It was the first and only time I ever dreaded seeing Momma Jo. Because it meant something was wrong.

It wasn’t always that bad. Mostly, Mama Kate would just get a little sad and then we’d have frozen yogurt together.

Sometimes we would just get a spoon of frozen yogurt and share it. Mama Kate said ice cream was the best treat when you were feeling bad because you could just feel everything melting away.

“I am going to stop them from calling,” I told her once, not sure how I would do that. “I’m going to take all our phones.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Mama Kate said. “Just eat your fro-yo. See how it’s sweet on your tongue? Then gone? It’s like magic.”

*   *   *

There was a knock on the door. Momma Jo’s knock. Two hard raps.

“Monty?”

“Yeah?”

She opened the door a crack. “All right. So. No one should tell you to shut up. Yes? But we’re a family. We need to support each other. Tesla’s your little sister and sometimes she needs the big-sister kind of support.”

“Okay,” I said, not moving from my prone position on the bed. I’d wedged myself between many rejected sofa pillows, removed from the living room over the years, to form my bedroom nest.

Momma Jo leaned on the door. “Tesla’s game is at four thirty. I want you to be there. Montgomery? Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll go.” Still not moving. Still like a log. In the wrong, yes, a little, but still offended. So. Not moving.

“Okay,” Momma Jo said, slowing closing the door, possibly waiting for some movement. “Good night.”

Sometimes when Tesla and I are fighting really bad, Momma Jo will tell me the story of how Tesla and I used to hug all the time. Like, I used to hug and carry her around the house, her feet dragging on the carpet. I don’t know when we stopped.

I kicked some cushions off the bed and rolled onto my back. The house was quiet. Just a little bit of a murmur from the TV downstairs. I grabbed the stone from my bag and the card from my desk.

In sight

not see

[flip]

black light

not be

Not be?

Not be what?

Not be dealing with all this crap anymore, maybe.

Dangling the Eye in front of me, I could see my face in the stone.

Eye know, I said to my dangling reflection.

And then I just felt ridiculously dorky, so I put it around my neck and tried to pretend I hadn’t just been sitting in my bed talking to a rock I ordered on the Internet.