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“Yeah.
Honestly, I don't like that guy. I think he's kind of strange.”

“What do you
think?”

“Me?” Warren
asks brightly as he hoists himself up from the chair. “I don't know. I guess if
David thinks it's a good idea—”

Play it
careful. “Yeah. I told him I wasn't crazy about it. But he’s going to be the
next bishop, Dad says. And then he’d run the Senate, and whatever else. And
then our family would have it made. I guess I’ve
gotta
be the good, dutiful son.”

Warren frowns,
his green eyes staring intently at me. It makes me squirm. Unlike David, I
don’t like using people.
 
But we’re
talking survival. He says, “The good, dutiful son. And you probably meant it,
too.”

 
“Sure.” I can’t look him in the eye. I have to
change the subject. “Hey, were you and Dad a match?”

He busies
himself cleaning the counter. “A match? You mean arranged?”

“Yeah.” His
back is to me, but I can see him stiffen just a bit.

He turns and
slowly lowers himself into a chair, frowning. “We were.”

“You were
matched? How old were you?”

He grins
sheepishly. “I was your age. Seventeen.”

“But…You never
told us that.”

He shakes his
head. “It’s not something I thought you needed to know, Chris. And now, it
doesn’t matter. We grew to love each other.” He’s still frowning, though. “It
just…isn’t the way I pictured you getting married, that’s all.”

“Did you want
to get married?”

He grins. “No.
I was planning journalism school, big career in broadcasting. Marriage was not
at all what I wanted, but it turned out to be great. I went to school while
David was in seminary, worked in New York for a while when he was an interim
minister and working his way up the ladder…My parents knew it would be good for
me.”

“But you had to
give up what you wanted to do. You didn’t have much of a career.”

He snorts. “I’ll
have you know that I have several broadcasting awards collecting dust in the
attic. What do you think I did before you and your sister were born? I didn’t
hang out knitting booties. I broke some major stories in my time.”

“Don’t you miss
the excitement? I mean, what could you have done if you hadn’t been married?”

“You can’t
think about what you would’ve done. I did a lot, I did what I was supposed to
do, and now I’m blessed with a great life.” He slaps the table and springs up
from the chair. “This’ll be great for you, you’ll see. David has an uncanny
sense about things like this.”
 

Great. There is
one last hope… “Once I turn eighteen, you can’t match me, can you?”

“No,” he
admits, shrugging his shoulders. “And Jim McFarland…I don’t know. Maybe I’m
just not ready to let you grow up yet. But David really does want the best for
you, and for Jana.”

 
I want to believe what he says but…it’s hard
when it feels so wrong. David is working against the clock. If he wants me
strategically placed, he has to do it soon.
 
What does that mean?

I stand up,
give him a big hug, and try not to start crying. “Hey,
gotta
go. Andrea's waiting for me. Thanks for the muffins.”

“Chris,” he
calls as I pull on my jacket. “We can talk to him. If he knows how you feel…”

I can’t answer
him. Forget McFarland. If Dad knew how I feel, how I can’t stop obsessing about
a woman, he’d have me sent to prison.

I see
Andi’s
crazy red hair streaming behind her as she pumps her
legs ferociously on the swings. When she sees me, she abruptly digs her heels
into the gravel and stops, then runs toward me.

“Hey,” I call,
trotting to meet her halfway.

“
Shh
.” She grabs my arm and wordlessly drags me toward the
picnic shelter.

“Whatever your
emergency is, mine is way bigger.” I stumble after her, tripping over my own
feet. We land on a concrete bench stained with old gum.

“You didn’t
tell your dad about...the thing in church?”

I almost choke.
“Are you serious? Of course not.”

 
She doesn’t hear me. “That girl, the one you
touched...Sheila knows who she is.” Sheila, one of Andrea's mothers, is well
connected with the gossipy element of the church community.
 
She knows who the girl is. I don’t think I
want to know. But
Andi
goes on.

“She's visiting
from the west coast. Her name is Carmen.”

“And?”

Andi
sighs heavily. “Here's the emergency part: her body
mother's on the national
Perp
League board.”

 
“The
Perp
League?
Great. This all just gets better and better.” The
Perp
League. The group tasked with finding ways to get rid of people like—people who
are deviants.
Not me. I can’t think me.
 
“
Andi
, I’m not…you
know.”

She gazes back
at me. “No, of course not. Anybody could have feelings in the moment, right?
That doesn't make you Perpendicular. It doesn't mean you like girls now, does
it?”

“Right. Anybody
could have feelings in the moment. You’ve done that, right? With a guy, I mean?”

She just stares
at me. “No.”

“Oh.” I swallow
hard, stare at the scarred picnic bench. “So, everybody doesn’t feel that way,
I guess. I mean, it’s not normal.” I look up at her. Her face mirrors my own feelings
of disgust mixed with confusion and fear. “
Andi
, I
just can’t be…that.”

“No, of course
not.” She rubs my arm, and then a look of horror crosses her face. “Oh, my God,
Chris, you're not attracted to me, are you?”

“No,” I answer
with a shudder. “Yuck.”

She smiles,
relieved, then frowns and says, “Why not?”

“Well, you're
like my sister,
Andi
! Even if I wasn’t...normal, it
wouldn’t mean I’d like every girl I see!” God, if this weren’t so awful, it
would almost be comical.

“Well, the
Perp
League thing is a big deal. You can’t see her. Don’t
even try looking for her. If this girl's body mother is on a mission to save
you godforsaken
Perps
—”

“I don't even
know if I am a
Perp
,
Andi
!”

“Oh, my God,
Chris, of course you are!”

Silence. A
barrier slams between us, suddenly; a truth that we both unconsciously
acknowledge but consciously ignore has roared into our reality like a
hurricane.

“I don't know
for sure that I am,” I whisper.
 
“Maybe
that girl had manly arms or something.”

A small,
embarrassed giggle escapes
Andi's
lips, then becomes
a full-on laugh. And I join in, relieved to be doing something besides
questioning my questionable mental health. “Manly arms?” Andrea gasps. “Seriously?”

“Okay, okay.
Maybe you're right. Maybe I am...maybe I am Perpendicular.” I swallow hard;
it’s the first time I’ve said the word, seriously, in connection with myself,
and it feels like the ringing of a large, annoying buzzer signaling the end of
an admittedly boring, but normal, life. “Oh, Jesus,
Andi
.
I can’t be. I just can’t.” Sobs well up from my gut, fueled by years of pushing
down what I knew to be true, days and weeks and moments of killing desires and
ignoring hunches, slapping down the small stirrings of any kind of physical
feelings. Flashes of memory flood my mind, tiny things that, when added up,
give me the answer as sure as any mathematical equation.

Andrea puts an
arm around me and leans her head against mine and my body shakes. “I've thought
you might be that way from when we were little. You just never quite...fit in.”
She sighs, takes my face in her hands, and smiles compassionately at me, wiping
away the damp from my cheek. “Nobody has to know, Chris. It can be our secret.
I won't tell.”

“But...if it is
true, then what am I supposed to do about it?”

“Nothing.”
Andi
sits on the table, staring at me. “You do nothing.”

“What about
this Jim McFarland stuff?” I wipe my face on my coat sleeve.

“Huh?”

“I was trying
to tell you.” I slump against the weight of what my father wants me to do,
which seems even more awful now. “Dad took me out in the
Spyder
yesterday to talk about this guy, Jim McFarland, who wants to marry me and get
me into college.”

Andrea stares
at me in disbelief. “He’s arranging a match for you?”

“Some political
thing. This guy McFarland is the next California bishop, which means he’ll be
head of the Senate eventually, maybe even the first
Anglicant
president. David thinks if I marry him, I’ll be set for life. Warren isn't
crazy about the idea, though, so maybe I can get him to help me persuade Dad
that it's a bad idea.” Sure, and then I can convince Dad that even though I'm
queer as a three-dollar bill, I'm still his beloved son and deserve his
respect. I feel sick. “They were matched. Warren and David.”

“Wow.”
Andi
shakes her head. “I knew they did it in the big
political families, but you guys…why?”

 
“David wants me taken care of, and I guess it
would set him up too. And once I turn eighteen, he can’t legally make me do it,
so time is running out. But now…I mean, how can I marry somebody, knowing what
I am?
Andi
, I can't be a Perp. It means I’m mentally
unstable, diseased, dangerous. This is going to ruin my life.”

 
She nods slowly, then says, “Well, maybe not.”

“How can it not
ruin my life? My choices are that I can lie about what I am and marry somebody
I don’t love, or I can be hospitalized for mental illness and deviant sexual
behavior.
 
How is any of that not about
my life being ruined?” I slam my hand down on the table, and it throbs with
pain. It feels good. It makes me forget, for a nanosecond.

“Let me think
for a minute.” She sits on the bench, stares at the dirty cement floor of the
picnic shelter. “We need a plan of action.”

“How about we
run away and join the circus? I can be the sideshow freak and you can sweep up
elephant poop or something.”

“Not helping.”
She sighs and frowns at me with sad brown eyes. “On one hand, I think you
should avoid her at all costs. But then I think…I think you’re going to have to
see her again. If you do, maybe you'll find out that it's nothing after all.
Or...” We both knew where that “or” was going, and it was not a happy place.

“How do we do
that? How do we see her?” Part of me feels electric at the thought of seeing
her again. I know that part is trouble. But…almost as if I know it in my bones,
I know I will have to see her.

We huddle on
the bench,
Andi
trying to shelter me with her shorter
arm. “She’s visiting. Mom said she was staying with the
Goldmans
.”

“
Lainie
Goldman is the head of the local
Perp
League.” Great. “Well, I guess I could go to a meeting. Wonder if they'd be
able to tell? Do they have
Perp
-sniffing dogs or
anything?”

Andi
laughs, then shrugs into me with her shoulder. “Don't
worry about that. I'll go instead. They meet for brunch at noon on Mondays—”

“That’s today!”

“Yes, genius.
So, I'll introduce myself, or get Sheila to do it, and then get the girl to
meet me for coffee. You can then conveniently show up.”

“I'd sort of
like to go to the
Perp
meeting.” After saying the
word several times, it is starting to feel more comfortable, like a pair of
shoes that pinched at first but are starting to wear in. “I'd like to know what
they do. Do you know?”

Andi
starts to speak, but frowns and stops herself. “I
don't really know what they do, actually. I've never been to a meeting, and all
I've ever heard Sheila talk about is how they're just a bunch of bitter bitches
who don't get enough sex.”

“She said that?”

“Well, she
didn't know I was listening,”
Andi
says, grinning.

A thought pops
into my head, a radical thought. “Have you ever questioned the whole
anti-Perpendicular thing? I mean, I know why we’re supposed to reform them,
what the Church teaches and all that. But…have you ever thought it was…I don’t
know…stupid?”

Andi
shrugs. “I never really thought about it.
 
But I guess…it’s just not normal, and it’s
against God’s word and all that.” She glances at me. “I never knew one, so it
wasn't something that I really ever worried about.” We stare silently at the
brown grass.

“It’s in the
Constitution. It says right there that Perpendiculars are a threat to the order
of the State, to national security. Why?”

Andi
glances at me. “I never really paid that much
attention in Civics class either.”

“Neither did I.
But…why are Perpendiculars such a huge threat? What could they do to the
country? How can loving someone be so terrible?”

Andi
sighs. “I don’t know. It’s just always been that way.
I guess because…if you go against the system, and
Perps
were allowed, we’d have unwanted pregnancies, sexual violence—everyone knows
that
Perps
are promiscuous and spread disease. They
get pregnant accidentally, then have a bunch of kids the state has to raise. I
mean, it just doesn’t make any sense. The family would be destroyed. And if the
family is destroyed, the country is destroyed.”

“You seem to
have thought about it a lot, actually.”
Andi
looks as
surprised as I do. I guess when you’re raised with it, it sort of soaks into
your DNA whether you like it or not. But this is different. This is…me.