Ordinarily J.P. took a bus home from school in the afternoons. But today he walked. It was a long walk, through Central Park, from one side of Manhattan to the other, and usually he didn't have time. Usually he was in a hurry to get home so that he could finish some project or do his homework in time to watch TV. But today he needed this extra time for thinking.
He strolled through the park, his book-filled backpack thumping against his shoulders. Around him, people walked either babies, their chubby overalled legs dangling from strollers, or dogs on taut leather leashes. Other people roller-skated, jogged, bicycled, threw Frisbees, sailed past on skateboards, or simply sprawled on the grass or a bench.
J.P. paid no attention to any of them. He was completely absorbed in his own thoughts. His posture and stride took on the rhythm of his thinking.
I am in love with Angela Patricia Galsworthy, he thought, and his shoulders straightened. His steps became jaunty.
And she likes me, I'm sure of it, he thought. He almost tap-danced, almost clicked his heels like Gene Kelly twirling romantically down a city street in an old movie. J.P. grinned.
But, he told himself, the reason she likes me—his steps slowed a bit—is because I fibbed. Well, okay, I lied to her.
His shoulders slumped and his backpack began to feel heavy, as if it were weighted with boulders.
And now she thinks—J.P.'s walk had turned into a plod; his feet dragged—"7 have a terrible disease!" he wailed aloud.
"Jeez, kid," a rasping voice said, "don't take it so hard."
Startled, J.P. looked around. The voice had come from a rumpled-looking man who was sitting on a park bench, all alone. Several squirrels scampered around his feet. From a paper bag on his lap, the man drew a handful of peanuts and tossed them to the ground. The squirrels turned instantly into two Super Bowl teams going after a fumble.
The man wasn't watching the squirrels. He was looking at J.P. with interest.
"I'm sorry," J.P. said, embarrassed. "I didn't realize I was talking out loud."
The man didn't bother acknowledging the apology. He tilted his head. He was wearing a filthy baseball cap, and with moist, pink-rimmed eyes he peered up at J.P. from under the visor.
"I got a million diseases myself," he said with a wheeze. "You name it, I got it. But you don't hear me complaining."
"You look all right to me," J.P. said skeptically. It wasn't entirely true. The man looked awful; his shoulders were slumped and his hands shook, though his facial expression was friendly.
"Appearances can't be trusted," the man said. "Name a disease. Go alphabetical."
"What?" J.P. stared at the man.
The man sighed. "A to Z," he explained impatiently. "I got a disease for every letter. Bet you can't match that. Start with A."
The orderliness of the project interested J.P., who was himself a very orderly person. He wandered over to the bench and sat down at the opposite end from the man. The man tossed the last of his peanuts to the head squirrel, the quarterback squirrel, who was instantly sacked by all the others.
"Tell me your name first," the man said, crumpling the empty bag and putting it into his pocket.
"J.P. It's my initials, but it's what everyone calls me."
"Mine's Ralph. Name a disease for A. I got one. Bet you don't."
J.P. thought for a minute. Actually, until today, he had never really had any disease, only chicken pox when he was four. But the man had presented him with a challenge. It seemed more intriguing than a chess game and less troubling than his romantic life at the moment.
"Acne," he announced.
Ralph frowned and leaned forward, squinting with his inflamed eyes to examine J.P.'s face.
J.P. tilted his head to give the man a better view. "See?" he said. "Look at my chin."
Ralph snorted. "Mild," he said. "Hardly counts."
"Well," J.P. told him, "you don't have it at all. What's your A?"
Ralph lifted his baseball cap briefly, with a flourish. His bald head gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. "Alopecia," he announced. He replaced the cap. "Hair loss," he explained smugly. "Got a B?"
"Lemme think," J.P. told him. "I'm sure I do." He sat still for a minute, thinking about his physical self. Then he looked up. "Body odor," he announced.
Ralph looked at him in disgust. "We're talking serious diseases here and you're coming up with routine puberty items. Listen, kid, I'm going to let you have a point for body odor, but it's a gift on my part and I'm not going to maintain my generosity throughout the entire alphabet; got it?"
J.P. nodded. "What's your B?" he asked, with interest.
"Bursitis," Ralph said. "Fancy name for bum shoulder. On to C."
"Easy," J.P. said. "Common cold." As if to prove the point, he sneezed. Ralph nodded, acknowledging the sneeze as legitimate. "What's yours?" J.P. asked.
"Cataracts. Like a coupla window shades pulled down over the eyes. I can't even see to tell time. You got a watch?"
J.P. nodded and looked at his wrist. "It's four-thirty. "
Ralph stood up. "I gotta go. Listen, kid, we only got to C, but like I said, I got a whole alphabet. You wanta admit defeat?"
"You think that's my D?" J.P. asked. "Defeatism?"
Ralph shrugged, coughed, and zipped his jacket. "You got a worse disease for D, tell me tomorrow. I'm here every day. You don't show up, I win by default."
He turned and walked away without saying good-bye. J.P. watched him go. Then, with a puzzled smile, he turned to head on across the park toward his own home. He found himself chuckling as he walked. He already knew what his D was going to be: dandruff.
"Is Mom home yet?" J.P. asked his sister.
Caroline groaned. "J.P., you ask that every single day. And you know she doesn't get home from work till five-thirty. That's not for another half hour."
He shrugged. "Well, there's always a chance the bank could close early. Maybe if they got held up or something." He grabbed a dishtowel and tied it around the lower half of his face. Then he made a pistol out of his right index finger and pointed it menacingly at Caroline.
"This is a stickup," he said in a low, harsh voice. "Give me everything you've got."
"Ha," Caroline said sarcastically. "I've got three baking potatoes and an uncooked meatloaf that Mom put together this morning. Come on, J.P., help me get dinner started. Find a vegetable in the freezer."
J.P. pulled his gunman's mask off, opened the freezer, and pulled out a package of frozen peas. "These are rich in carbohydrates," he said, tossing the package between his hands. "I probably need extra carbs. I have a whole mess of diseases."
Caroline put the meatloaf and potatoes into the oven and adjusted the temperature. "There," she said. "That'll all be done in an hour. I'll cook the peas later. Or Mom can, after she gets home." Then she looked quizzically at her brother. "What do you mean, you have a whole mess of diseases? You're never sick. You're always bragging that you've never thrown up once in your entire life."
"True," J.P. said. "And I've never had a cavity, either." He opened his mouth wide and aimed his teeth at Caroline. "Perfect alignment, too. Unlike some people."
Caroline made a face at him. The dentist had recently told Mrs. Tate that Caroline needed braces. Now there were a lot of telephone calls back and forth to Iowa, where their father lived, calls having to do with the question of who would pay for Caroline's braces.
Herbert Tate said that he would be responsible for J.P.'s dentistry, since his son had inherited his perfect teeth. And Joanna, his ex-wife, could be in charge of Caroline's, since Caroline had inherited her mother's less-than-perfect ones.
"That's not fair!" Joanna Tate had sputtered angrily after she had hung up. "Is it, kids? I ask you: is that fair?"
Caroline and J.P. had both cringed and answered noncommittally. Secretly J.P. thought his mother was right; it wasn't fair. But he loved his dad, and he felt a little guilty, being the one with the perfect teeth.
"Maybe I'll inherit his appendix," J.P. had suggested, "and need expensive surgery when it ruptures, the way he did. That way you'd get even."
His mother had frowned at him and shook her head with a sigh, as if appendicitis was not the solution.
Now, with dinner in the oven and their mother due home soon, J.P. and Caroline wandered into the living room of the apartment.
"How's Angela?" Caroline asked. "Did she like the map?"
J.P. nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks."
"Are you going to ask her to the Spring Fling?"
"I forgot all about it," J.P. admitted. "That's right—it's almost May."
The Spring Fling was a custom at the Burke-Thaxter School: a celebration of the season, a time when all the students and teachers wore wild costumes and spent an entire day in wacky enterprises. Usually J.P. avoided the silliness of it as much as he could. Even when his closest friends dressed as rabbits and bumblebees, J.P. always wore his regular school clothes, and he stood on the sidelines, watching, a little embarrassed, each year, as everyone else danced and sang and participated in skits and contests.
He had been vaguely aware of preparations starting. And he remembered that among the older kids, sometimes a boy and girl got together and created matching costumes so that it would be clear they were a couple.
J.P. had never expected to be part of a couple. He had never thought he would want to be. J.P. had always, before this, wanted to be the dignified, intelligent loner who stood on the sidelines watching revelry of any sort with a slightly bored, amused look.
Now he was astounded to realize that he wanted to be out there in the middle of things, dancing with Angela Galsworthy, the two of them wearing bright orange butterfly wings.
"Angela won't even know about the Spring Fling," J.P. told his sister, "because she's new. They wouldn't have something like that in London. She'll think it's weird."
Caroline giggled. "It is weird. But she'll love it. Anyway, she'll know about it because the new spring calendar came out today. Didn't you get yours?"
She reached into her notebook on the table and pulled out the printed sheet with the Burke-Thaxter logo on top.
"I'll pick mine up tomorrow," J.P. said. He reached for his sister's. "Lemme see yours."
Quickly he glanced down the list of scheduled events: the basketball games, the science fair, the kindergarten trip to the zoo, the parents' meeting, the chess tournament, the—there it was, in a large boxed announcement decorated with computer-drawn flowers—the Spring Fling.
J.P. decided that he would get up his nerve to describe it in more detail to Angela, and ask her to pair up with him in a matching costume.
He took a deep breath. The thought of it was terrifying—it would, after all, be almost a date. His first date. And he was someone who had quite consciously planned never to have a date in his life. Never to fall in love. Never to marry. To devote his life to computer science. To go to MIT and maybe stay there forever, even after graduation, living in one of the labs, coming out only after dark, for food.
He had planned never ever to telephone a girl, except maybe his mother on her birthdays, after she got old.
Now he found his eyes turning toward the telephone on the desk. He thought about calling information to find out Angela's number.
He thought about calling that number.
He thought about asking for Angela. "Ah, is Angela at home, please?" he would say politely to whoever answered. A butler, maybe.
"Is Miss Galsworthy available?" he would say.
He stared at the phone.
Suddenly it rang. He jumped.
Caroline answered it, spoke briefly, then covered the receiver with her hand, turned, and whispered to J.P., "It's for you. It's Angela."