one

HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED SO MUCH TV that you feel like your eyeballs are burned out of their sockets? You’re sick in bed or something, and at first it’s fun, no excuses, no place else to go, you just lie there in your feverish daze watching the pictures swim. Or it’s raining out and you decide to stay in and watch movies all afternoon. But after a few hours, your body gets stiff and you start to lose your perception somehow. Like, the trees outside are a little too distant, and your own limbs don’t seem to move the way you want them to. You’re surprised to find that you’re real, that you’re moving around in some completely different world from the one you were just watching so closely. You’re real and your voice is too loud and your movements are all over the place. You look in the mirror, expecting to see someone else—this character you thought you were—but it’s just boring old you, same as ever.

That was how I felt after I’d spent almost the entire weekend on an X-Files bender. Just lying in bed, going from one episode to the next, only getting up to pee and eat and change DVDs. When Rory and I used to watch it, we rationed it out. One episode every Friday night, exactly at 9 p.m.—just like when it was first on the air. With other shows we watched, we didn’t care—we’d throw in a Buffy or Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD on a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon, whenever. But with X-Files, we wanted it to be as real as possible. We wanted to feel what it felt to be older, to have been watching the show when it was originally on. But more importantly, we wanted a sense of ceremony. The X-Files wasn’t just any TV show we were watching. It was our show. It was our escape hatch. It was our secret world. It spoke to our solitude, to that inescapable feeling we had that we were the only two people on this whole miserable planet who understood each other. And, in our minds, we were just as cool as they were—at least, we wanted to be.

The other FBI agents on the show might have thought Mulder and Scully were losers, banished to their basement office, chasing after UFOs. But we knew better. Mulder and Scully had to deal with a lot of weird-ass situations, and they suffered their share of damages on their quest to find the truth, but they never lost their shit. They were the coolest of the cool. And, more than that, they had each other, even when it seemed like the rest of the world was out to get them. They were connected. It didn’t matter if Mulder and Scully weren’t officially boyfriend and girlfriend. They were beyond those kinds of labels. The connection they had was deeper than kissy-faces or pet names or making out in the back row of the auditorium during Special Assembly. It was the same kind of connection that we had. Rory and I. He was my Mulder and I was his Scully, or at least, I wanted to be. If I couldn’t be his girlfriend, then I wanted to be his soul mate, that one person that he confided in, that he trusted with his deepest, darkest dreams. But Mulder never went and got it on with his gay boss. Not unless you read Internet slashfic, anyway. And would he have told Scully about it if he did?

But that was the Rory and me of four months ago, back before I left. Now I was back at Janet and Leo’s, and Rory wasn’t speaking to me and there was nothing else to do all weekend long, even if I had been allowed to leave the house. It was the sticky end of a rainy summer, steam coming off the pavement in thick waves, too hot to go outside. I’d read all the books I checked out from the library, and now I needed something to quell the air-conditioned boredom. I figured I’d work on the Guide, with or without Rory. Before I left, we were in the process of creating a comprehensive guide to every X-Files episode that ever aired. Rory was the best at it—the kid literally wrote epic poetry about Agent Scully. But now he was too busy doing the deed with his creepy boss to care about some TV show. Not to mention the whole not-speaking-to-me thing. Fine, then—I was no slouch. Who’s to say I couldn’t finish it by myself? The only problem was, I hadn’t seen an episode of The X-Files in months. I had to get back in the loop.

So I picked up where we left off, Rory and I. I watched the entire end of Season Three on Friday night. Spent Saturday watching Season Four and part of Season Five. Sunday was the rest of Season Five, then the first movie, and now it was time for Season Six. At this point, it was dark out again and I was hitting the fast-forward button from time to time, skipping a few episodes here and there. Truthfully, I was so fuzzed out on TV overload, I was starting to feel like I didn’t care if I never saw Mulder and Scully again. Guide or no Guide. But I had to keep going. I’m not sure why, but in the back of my mind, it had something to do with Rory, with proving some kind of point.

I knelt down to put the Season Five DVDs away and start on Season Six. My ears buzzed in the artificial-feeling silence of my room. I could hear Janet and Leo downstairs. Leo was practicing his short game on his indoor putting green. I heard the tap of his putter against the ball, the faint pok! sound it made when the ball landed in the shallow plastic cup at the end of the narrow green felt.

“She’s eighteen in a week. You can’t keep her under house arrest,” Janet said. I stayed very still, listening.

“As long as she lives under this roof, she’ll go where I tell her to go and do what I tell her to do.” Pok! Leo hit another ball.

“You’re not in the Navy anymore,” Janet said, pausing. I could almost see her, swirling her glass, taking a drink. “And I’ve already lost a daughter. I’m not going to lose my granddaughter, too.”

“Now you’re being melodramatic.” Pok! “And it’s two different things. Chris abandoned her child. I’m supposed to condone that behavior? That’s not the way we raised her. That’s her own rebellion. I won’t have it.”

“Yes, Leonard, you’ve made that abundantly clear. And I know you wanted to protect Lula from Christine’s irresponsibility, but you made it impossible for Chris to even try—”

“I made it impossible? You think this situation is my fault?”

“Not entirely, no. But you never could understand—” Janet said something else, speaking so quietly I couldn’t hear.

. . . Pok!

“At any rate, you’re right that this is different.” I heard the ice in Janet’s glass again. “But I think we have to give Lula some freedom. She’s been up there alone all weekend. You want some vegetable for a granddaughter, just lying around watching TV?”

“Of course not. Why don’t you take her down to the Tennis Club or something?”

“She hates tennis.”

“Jan, when school starts, she’ll have plenty to do. I’ll take her and drop her off. And if she can behave herself, then maybe she can have her extracurriculars. But I don’t want her running all over creation, doing God knows what with God knows who.”

Pok!

“I think this requires a more delicate touch,” Janet said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear.

“Delicate.” Leo grunted. He tapped the ball again. This time, silence. I guess he missed.

WHEN YOU’RE A KID, HAVING A birthday in August sucks. You try to have a party, and everybody’s gone on their last-ditch vacation before school. Twice my birthday actually fell on the first day of school—that was the worst. And when you’re not all that popular anyway, birthday parties are kind of a joke. They’d been getting better in the last few years, small events, just me and Rory going on a movie bender at the Regal 7, or Leo driving us over to the roller rink in High Point. But of all the crappy birthdays I’d had, this one, number eighteen, took the proverbial cake.

Janet and Leo thought their little surprise would be good for us. Rory actually wore a necktie. He looked miserable. This was the first time we’d seen each other since the night I left. Things had been weird between us ever since I first got back in touch with him. I called him from Santa Fe, and we had this strained conversation where I told him I was all right and he kept saying how he knew all along that I was going to be okay, and he was glad nothing bad had happened, but he kept almost-crying and then he hung up really fast. I emailed him a couple of times, but he didn’t respond. His phone always went to voicemail when I called. When I got back to Hawthorne, I went by his house three times, and there was never anybody at home. And now, finally, here we were at my favorite Chinese restaurant, Empire Garden, with the Pu Pu platter flaming away in the middle of the table, and Rory still wasn’t speaking to me. Leo wasn’t really speaking to me, either. So. Wow. Happy birthday to me.

“So, Rory,” Janet patted his arm. “You must be excited. It’s finally senior year.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rory smiled politely, tight-lipped. He didn’t say anything else.

“Did I hear right, you’re on the football team this year?” Leo chimed in.

“Yes, sir. I made the team. I don’t know if I’ll play any games, though.”

“That’s big news, son. Good for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Unbelievable,” I muttered.

“What?” Rory said. I cleared my throat.

“I said it’s unbelievable. You. Playing football.”

“What’s so unbelievable about it?” Rory looked squarely at me. “Unbelievable that I could play, or unbelievable that I didn’t ask your permission?”

“No, it’s unbelievable that—” I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. Something really mean. I couldn’t believe it would even come into my mind.

“Unbelievable that they’d have a fag like me on the team?” Rory said.

“Hey, now,” Leo said, grimacing.

“Rory!” Janet gasped.

Wow, what I was going to say wasn’t that bad. I was going to say: Unbelievable that they’d let you on the team knowing that you’d rather read Jane Austen than Sports Illustrated. But whatever.

“It’s nothing you all don’t know,” Rory shrugged.

“They know?” I asked him. “You told them?”

“You’d be surprised what all gets talked about when you’re not around.” Rory looked at me, his mouth a steady line.

“Oh, is that the deal? You talk to everybody but me? Did my grandparents know about Andy before I did? That’s awesome. You three just hanging out together, sharing.”

“Who’s Andy?” Janet asked.

“Well, you haven’t exactly been available since last spring. Sorry I didn’t fit into your busy travel schedule,” Rory muttered.

“Hey, you’re the one who told me to fuck off,” I replied. “So don’t be upset that you got what you wanted.”

“Lula, that language!” Janet shushed me. Leo gritted his teeth. He never did have any tolerance for my severe potty mouth, even though I learned all my best swear words from him. Rory laced his fingers and pressed his fists against the table edge, like he was getting ready to pray. He looked at me. Then he looked at Janet and Leo. He cleared his throat.

“Mr. and Mrs. Monroe, thank you for inviting me. I think I should go.” He stood up very quickly. “Happy birthday, Lula.”

He laid his napkin neatly on the table, pushed his chair in, and walked out. A gentleman to the end.

OF COURSE, THE FIRST THING JANET did when she heard I was coming home was head over to Hawthorne High to tell them I was coming back to school and make sure everything was copacetic. She figured all I’d have to do was pass all my finals from eleventh grade, and then I’d be all set for senior year. But it was more complicated than that. I’d amassed triple the absences allowed by the district, the Summer School session had already closed, yada yada. There was no way around it: I was going to have to repeat eleventh grade.

“Repeat, my foot,” Janet told me she told them, and marched straight down to the guidance counselor’s office, which was empty, because it was summer. Once located, the guidance counselor, Mr. Peeler, suggested that I take the GED and spend a year at the local community college, making awesome grades and doing some awesome community service or working some awesome part-time job, maybe at an awesome non-profit, and then applying, with the rest of my appropriate age group, for some totally super awesome college, as if nothing un-awesome had ever happened. (No, my language skills haven’t suddenly devolved—Mr. Peeler literally used the word “awesome” more than a fourteen-year-old skateboarder. He thought it helped us relate to him. Or something.)

So I took the GED. And suddenly I went from high school washout to—ta da!—college student. Even if it was just community college, Janet and Leo were pretty pleased. I only had three classes to deal with: Concepts in Earth Science, Intro to English Lit, and Intro to American History, despite the fact that English Lit, American History, and I had been introduced already, and we’d really hit it off. But mostly I was happy that I wouldn’t have to deal with the humiliation triple-header of getting the cold shoulder from Rory every day, having to retake Sam Lidell’s class, and having all my former classmates lord their senior status over me. As a newly minted college student, I was allowed to ride my bike again. And to hang out with my new friend, Jay.

Jay was actually named Julia. Julia Fillmore. But everybody called her Jay. I met her in the school library on Orientation Day—she was a student, too, but she worked at the library as part of the work-exchange. She caught me staring at her tattoo when I came back to check out a book. Jay had two interlocking female symbols, in rainbow colors, on the inside of her right forearm. She told me I looked like that girl from the Missing posters, and I told her I was. “Cool,” she said. “I found you.” We talked for a while, and then she asked me if I wanted to come over and hang out sometime. She lived right off campus, and we could just watch a movie and drink some beer or whatever. I went over one afternoon, and next thing I knew, I was telling her the whole story. About Rory and Sam and how I ran away and all. I felt like I was reeling off this epic tale, but Jay seemed pretty unimpressed by the whole thing. She just cocked an eyebrow and said, “Interesting” or “I can see your point there.” Anyway, it was nice to finally have someone to talk to.

Jay was biding her time, just like I was. She’d been right in the middle of getting her master’s degree in Art History from Smith College when she dropped out. She’d gotten into a messed-up relationship with one of her professors, a woman named Carol who had a kid. It left her so wrecked, she moved back home to Hawthorne, where she rented a crummy little factory house from her elderly aunt. Jay was trying to leave art behind completely and start over with a degree in psychology. According to Jay, my crush on Rory and my Incident with Sam was no big deal, and I shouldn’t even worry about whether I was gay or straight because my whole thing was less about sexual identity than it was acting out a whole psychological somethingorother, which Jay described using terms like Kinsey scale and gestalt that I only pretended to understand. At any rate, I figured Jay should know, since she was twenty-six and she’d had a whole, serious, life-altering relationship with this woman at Smith. This woman who had a kid.

“Kids make it complicated,” Jay told me, exhaling smoke and looking sad. No, not sad. Jay had a great way of looking like she was too cool to care but like it was the heaviest thing and she couldn’t carry it anymore. She looked both ways at once.

“How old was the kid?”

“Seven. She was great, too. I thought I never wanted kids, you know? But then . . . ughhh.” Jay groaned and waved her hand. Conversation over. Jay could do that, just wave her hand and change the subject. It seemed like Jay was always in charge, even though she insisted that her life was a mess and she couldn’t believe she was back in this shithole town. Jay dressed like she couldn’t decide if she was a hippie or a punk. Like, she’d wear bellbottom jeans and Doc Martens with a ripped-up T-shirt that had some band name on it: The Slits or The Breeders or X-Ray Spex. Jay was tall and dark-haired and really pretty, but she never wore makeup because she said she hated all that beauty regime bullshit the media forces down our throats.

Well, sometimes she wore eyeliner. And mascara.