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“It doesn't
matter what he thinks,” David hisses, moving from his majestic perch near the
mantle. “It has to happen. It's what's best.” He kneels down next to me, grabs
my hand, and speaks intensely, playing the good father trying to talk some
sense into his stubborn offspring. “Son, you're too young to understand what
happens in the world. Some things just have to be done. Sacrifices have to be
made. We all do things that aren't exactly what we want to do, but later, when
we look back on it, those decisions lead to wonderful results.”

I stare into my
father’s eyes, unblinking. I've never looked into them before; I've always been
too afraid.
 
Our eyes are the same, jade
green, flecked with dark spots at the center.
 
It makes me feel incredibly sad.

“Chris, are you
listening to me?” David stands over me now, lips pursed tightly. “I'm telling
you something very important, Chris. Are you listening?”

“Yes, Dad. I’m
listening.”

I guess my
subservient tone takes the wind out of his sails; he huffs back to his place at
the mantle and frowns. “Good. Jim McFarland will be here this evening, and I
want you to be nice to him. Just get to know him. I think you’ll find that he’s
a very likeable person.”

Warren clears
his throat. “Of course, all personal decisions are up to you, Chris,” he says,
trading pointed looks with David.
 
“We
would never force you into a relationship.”

“No.” David
says through gritted teeth. “We wouldn’t do that. But I want you to keep an
open mind, Chris. He’s a well-connected man, and—”

“I’ll be happy
to spend some time with him,” I mumble at the floor.

Warren leans
toward me. “Are you sure?” He grabs my chin so I’m looking into his eyes. “Chris,
you don’t have to.”

At first it’s
just a tickle in my nose, but then tears well up in my eyes, drip down my
cheeks, and my mouth trembles trying to keep it all in.
 
Sobbing, full on sobbing like a baby, there I
sit on the Louis
Quatorze
couch, staining the velvet
with perverted tears. I will not be that thing. I will not be that thing.

Warren puts a
beefy arm around my shoulder. “No, don’t cry. We can cancel tonight.”

“We most
certainly cannot cancel,” David says, although his tone is a little softer
since he realizes I’m totally losing my mind. “Chris, why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,”
I mumble between sobs. I do know, though. I know and I can’t tell, and if I
admit it, if I admit what I am, what Carmen did to me and how I feel about her,
then there will be no way to pretend anymore. I have to keep it locked away. I
have to make it be quiet. And it’s not fair. It feels so wrong. Why? Why did
this all have to happen to me? “Excuse me,” I mutter, running for the stairs
and the relative safety of my room.

Jana’s door is
open, but I don’t want her to see me crying, so I dash past. That doesn’t stop
her, of course; seconds later, she barges into my room. “Hey, where’ve you
been?” Flopping onto my bed, she stretches out. All I want is to be left alone.
“They’ve been looking for you all afternoon. Big doings tonight.”

“Yeah.”
 
I ease into my desk chair, turn my back to
her. Maybe the silence will give her a clue.

I feel her
watching me, and seconds tick by. “Are you okay?”

Any answer I
give her will result in teasing or worse, so I just keep quiet. I stare at the
geode on my desk, counting the purple crystalline ridges inside the rough stone
egg.
 
I hear her get up from the bed, and
then she’s kneeling next to me, staring up into my face like a dog waiting for
a treat. “Seriously. What’s up?”

“I don’t want
to talk about it.” I swivel away from her, still hiding my swollen face.
 

She’s quick,
though. She dodges around to the other side of the chair, grabs the arm, and
swings me toward her. “Have you been crying?”

The word
‘crying’ stabs at me, and more tears come. “Go away.” I put my head down on the
desk, willing her to disappear.

I hear her go
to the door, close it softly, then turn the lock. Her breathing is close; her
hand is on my shoulder. It can’t be compassion; she must be looking for an
advantage, information she can use.
 
I
can’t give her anything.

“Chris.” Her
voice is different, softer. “Is it the McFarland thing?”

The name causes
a new round of sobs to heave up from my gut.

“Did…did he
tell you
you
had to marry that
fucktard
?”
 
I can’t help it. When she says that word I
have to laugh. I’m laughing and crying at the same time. She grabs my shoulder,
eases my head up from the desk, turns me toward her, and pats my face. “
Fucktard
,” she says seriously.

“Stop.”

“
Fucktard
.” Now I’m laughing as hysterically as I was crying
a minute ago. I’m so messed up. She grins and bounces back to the bed. “I knew
I could get you to snap out of it. Now, let’s talk about what’s going on.”

The laughing
winds down, but I still don’t face her. “What is there to say? And why should I
talk to you?”

She’s silent
for a moment. Then she says, “I’m not the person you think I am.”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” I grab a tissue from the box and blow my nose.

“I mean, you
think of me as your annoying older sister, which I am, but I know a lot about
things that you don’t even understand.”

I swivel the
chair toward her. “Like what?”

“Like…” She
plucks at the blue-and-white quilt on my bed. “Like why you don’t want to get
married. To any guy.”

Shock freezes
me. She followed me. She must have. Why? How could I not have seen her? If Jana
overhead that whole conversation at the coffee house…she’d love to see me sent
off somewhere for rehab. But she couldn’t prove it, right? Maybe if I really
tried to act Parallel at the dinner tonight, maybe then if she told they
wouldn’t believe her—

“Chris?” She
stares expectantly. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah.” I have
to watch how I answer. I have to choose every word with absolute care. She
might even be recording the conversation. “You don’t know anything about me,
Jana. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

She laughs.
Laughs. I want to slap her.

“Chris,
seriously. You’re so tragic. And everything is so obvious to everyone but you.”

“What do you
mean?” Cold stabs my heart.

“I’ve known
what you are for years. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

I turn away,
not sure how to respond. “You’re wrong.”

She jumps up,
grabs the chair and swings it toward her again. “You’re Perpendicular, Chris.
Perpendicular. You like girls.”

Then she starts
laughing.

Heavy footsteps
on the stairs. Warren jiggles the doorknob. “Why is the door locked?”

“We’re planning
a surprise!” Jana almost sounds hysterical. Christ. “Can’t tell you yet.”

He doesn’t
leave right away; I can almost feel his confusion through the door. Jana and I
have never been allies before, and in fact, we’re most often active enemy
combatants. Just what I need…more suspicion. I jump up, unlock the door, and
open it. “She’s just being a goof,” I say, waving toward my sister as if she’s
mental.

Warren studies
my face; I can’t hide from him, and he knows something is desperately wrong.
But I can’t tell him. I have to finish talking to Jana first, find out what she
knows or what she’s guessing, find out how to make sure she doesn’t tell
anyone. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks. “I am absolutely willing to call
McFarland and
Lainie
Goldman myself and tell them to
forget about tonight, no matter what David says.”

“
Lainie
Goldman?” I say, too quickly. “Why is she coming?”

“Anything
political going on, she’s there. You know how she is. She wants a piece of
McFarland too. I bet she’s kicking herself that she doesn’t have a son to offer
up.” He grimaces. “Hey, don’t look so worried. She won’t muddy things up too
much.”

What I’m
thinking has nothing to do with McFarland. If
Lainie
Goldman is coming…”Is she bringing that girl with her?”

“Hmm?” Warren
frowns at me. “What girl?”

“Nobody. Somebody
from the
Perp
League. Some girl from California.”

He shakes his
head. “I can’t keep up with you. Uh…yes, I believe she did say she was bringing
a guest. Why?”

“Nothing,” I
say quickly. Too quickly? “No reason. She’s just…a California person.”

“Ah.” Warren
nods knowingly. Relief washes over me. “Right. Those Hollywood types. She
probably fits right in with
Lainie
and her…taste.”Warren
pats my hair, then pulls me in for a bear hug. “I love you.”

“I love you,
too,” I whisper. I want to tell him, I really do. But I can’t. “Be down in a
minute.”

He leaves with
one glance back at me to be sure I’m not totally losing my mind.

I turn to Jana
angrily. “Why did you say that?” I ask.

I close the
door softly. She’s not leaving until I know what she knows. Oh, God, and Carmen
might be coming to my house. “Why did you call me that?”

She smiles,
swings herself casually onto the bed again. “The part where I said you were
Perpendicular?”

“Shut up,” I
hiss at her. It feels like she’s shouting, although I know she’s not. “Stop
saying that.”

She is suddenly
quiet, and stares at me with solemn eyes. “Sit down a minute.” She pats the bed
next to her. Reluctantly, I sit. “I’m not laughing at you. I just know what
it’s like to pretend to be something you’re not.”

“You’ve never
pretended to be something you’re not. You’re a rebel, you get in trouble, you
do what you want.”

Jana nods
slowly. “Remember in fifth grade, when they separated the boys and girls and
had The Talk? About
Perps
and Parallels?”

“You mean that
stupid cartoon about the genes and chromosomes? Kind of. Why?”

She glances at
me. “They said that Perpendiculars had some defect in their genes, that they
caused all society’s problems with unwanted pregnancies, abortions, crime,
instability. That’s why they’re in the minority. Like, nature selected them out
because they’re dangerous and cause all these problems.”

“Yeah, yeah, I
remember. ‘Conscious Continuation Makes for a Peaceful Nation.’ So?”

“You’re not any
more mentally unstable than anyone else. So…what if they’re wrong? What if
Perpendiculars really aren’t causing all the problems, but they’re easy to
target because there are fewer of them?” She licks her lips and inches closer. “And
what if there are fewer of them because the Church and the government want them
gone?”

“That’s crazy.
That would mean that everything we’ve ever believed is wrong. That all the
people we know are murderers. That the Bible is wrong too. And the
Constitution.” It’s too much to take in at once. “There must be reasons. I
mean, if nature selects Perpendiculars out of the gene pool, isn’t that proof
that there’s something wrong with them?” I stare at Jana, who shakes her head
and smiles at me as if I’m an adorable puppy.

“I’m not
surprised that you don’t know anything about it. Everything is filtered, so
nobody has the real information.” She paces to her window, stares out at the
straw-yellow field. “They kill them, Chris. Torture them Parallel. The church
owns the government. Church donors contribute almost 80 percent of the money to
secular campaigns. And since the
Anglicants
are the
Senate, and they contribute a lot to the Representatives, who do you think runs
things, really?”

“But you’re
talking about people being thrown away, just locked up without anyone knowing
where they are!” Even for Jana, this all sounds crazy. “Do you really think
they could get away with that?”

She stares at
me, unblinking. “They get away with it every day, because nobody believes they
can get away with it.” Jana sits on the edge of her bed, breathes heavily, and
then says, “David is part of it. He knows. He knows what they do.”

“I can’t
believe that.” I sit on the floor at her feet. “I mean, he’s…he’s a jerk, but I
can’t believe he’d allow torture.”

She shakes her
head again. “You don’t get it. To them, it’s not torture. It’s righteousness.
They’re saving the world.”

“By killing
innocent people?”

“By ridding the
world of a plague.” She slides off the bed, sits next to me, runs her toes
through the plush of the carpet. “If you don’t see Perpendiculars as human,
it’s much easier to get rid of them. Like roaches. Then everything is nice and
clean.”

I still don’t
want to believe her. “But if what you say is true, why hasn’t someone objected?
Somebody must have noticed.”

“The people who
notice don’t stick around for very long. That’s why you don’t hear about it.”
She gestures with her chin toward the window. “That’s why we stay so hidden.
And why the Resistance has to win. People, good people, are dying simply
because they are.
 
What kind of God would
want that?” She pauses, as if weighing a decision. “I want to show you
something.”

She grabs my
hand and leads me soundlessly down the hall to her room. She locks her door,
and motions for me to sit on her bed. I watch as she opens the biggest drawer
in her ancient desk, pulls out a stack of heavy textbooks, yanks out what I
guess is a false wooden drawer bottom, and then gingerly lifts out a parcel
wrapped in brown paper, tied with fraying twine. “Here,” she says, handing the
bundle to me.

“What is this?”
I touch it carefully, as if some rebel virus may jump off and infect my hand.