XGeneration 1: You Don't Know Me (26 page)

“Nuclear war?” Janis asked Mrs. Fern. “Is that…?”

“PROBABLE.”

Janis’s eyes began to water. “Wh-what can I do?”

“KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN.”

Mrs. Fern turned in her chair so her back was to Janis, her silver hair flowing down to where it disappeared behind the desk. She took her hair up in layers with her long, slender hands, turning it over the top of her head. When the final layer had fallen away, Janis saw a second face. It wavered in and out of focus but appeared to be a younger version of her teacher. The eyes shone with preternatural light.

“No longer can you deny the experiences, Janis.” The face spoke clearly. “There are things to see. Things you have already seen.”

“What? Tell me!”

“Things you have already seen,” she repeated.

When Janis awoke, her head no longer felt like a spool of barbed wire. Her thoughts were clear. And she was standing in her backyard, beside the island of oak trees and azalea bushes, just out of reach of the English ivy that trickled away from the house. Janis peered around. A faint light similar to what she had just observed in Mrs. Fern’s eyes imbued the night. A familiar whooshing sound filled her ears—a sensation she’d denied herself for the last three months.

Now she remembered all the times in those three months she’d awakened in this state only to will herself back to her room, back to dreaming, to normalcy. The occasions must have numbered in the dozens.

Janis rose into the air and turned toward the back line of bushes.

Things you have already seen.

He wasn’t outside tonight, wasn’t pacing or propping his arms against the deck rail, the burning end of a cigarette filling his glasses with red-orange light. The deck was dark, as was the Leonards’ house.

Janis flew to the place in the bushes that had pulled her through the last time. She remembered it was near the tree where her mother emptied compost from the plastic container she kept under the kitchen sink. As Janis extended her arms, she felt herself being repulsed. Then, like air inhaled through a straw, she was siphoned from the backyard.

WHOOSH.

The cement culvert wavered beneath her. She lifted her face to where the Leonards’ chain-link fence stretched to either side, the house looming large beyond. Janis spotted the leaning shed, but it no longer stood in tall grass. A couple of days after seeing Mr. Leonard with the drill, she’d heard the roar of a mower and looked out to see flashes of his shirt beyond the bushes, moving in a line. He had since maintained the yard in a trim state, using a weed whacker to blast away the tall grass and weeds that had once grown along the fence.

The entire yard stood open and naked.

Janis passed through the fence at the edge of the yard and flew up to the shed. It had been a long time since she’d last flown, and a part of her sang with the rediscovery. But she glanced around as she went, making sure that the shadows along the edges of the house were just that—shadows. She hadn’t forgotten the last time. The horrific memory of the shed door opening on Mr. Leonard’s pale face took form in her mind before Janis could stuff it down again.

Keep your eyes open.

Janis peeked up toward the deck before drifting around to the shed’s front. She hovered before the lock, whose bolt seemed larger and more solid than the one she’d seen the last time.

He changes the lock. He mows the yard to eliminate places to hide…

Which could only mean that whatever lay beneath his shed was worth protecting. Janis concentrated, her hands propped against the door. She fell through. The inside of the shed crackled to life around her. She rotated. It appeared the same as it had the last time, although perhaps a little tidier. The pile of kindling still stood in a heap beneath the shelving, but the roach-infested sacking was gone—replaced by a solid piece of plywood.

She probed the plywood with her thought-hands. Yes, the metal hatch remained beneath the pile, as did the electrical field surrounding it. Janis felt along the lines of energy, not pushing too hard. She feared the field had alerted Mr. Leonard to her presence the last time.

Janis withdrew her hands and listened outside before returning her gaze to the kindling. She nodded to herself. That was where the answers lay. Beneath the pile. Down below.

But how to get there?

The vibrations that sustained Janis’s out-of-body state began to fade. Another dream was intruding on her experience, a dream about getting ready for a soccer game but not having the right jersey or shoes, finding holes in her goalie gloves. The vibrations diminished further. The scent of the sea drifted away, but before she could be whisked back to her sleeping body, where the anxiety dream awaited her, Janis pushed her hands beneath the plywood again. She had been so occupied by the hatch that she’d forgotten about the small, square-shaped panel embedded in the cement beside it. Her thought-fingers explored its three-by-three arrangement of blocks. It felt to Janis like a miniature typewriter.

No, a keypad. She would have to remember that…

WHOOSH.

22

Thursday, November 29, 1984

6:50 p.m.

“
What
are you supposed to be, again?”

Scott’s mother frowned past the steering wheel, then over at his outfit. Scott shifted in his seat and glanced down. He had borrowed the shoes from his father—seventies-era derby shoes, two sizes too big. They shifted over tube socks that showed half their length, thanks to a pair of rainbow suspenders that drew his pants nearly to his sternum. One of the front pockets of his shirt bulged with his scientific calculator, the other with pens and mechanical pencils. A plaid bowtie bloomed from the shirt collar. He tapped his old pair of glasses against his thigh, the thick plastic bridge and both bows bound with masking tape.

“It’s Dress-up Night,” Scott said. “We’re supposed to look ridiculous.”

“Well, you’ve certainly succeeded.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

Older brothers chose the costumes for their pledges, and Britt had come up with his—The Nerd Look. Scott kept telling himself it was just for fun and didn’t mean anything, but apprehension stewed in the pit of his stomach. His mother wasn’t helping the situation.

“I see what this is,” she said. “I see
exactly
what this is.”

“What what is?”

“
This.
” She jutted her chin toward him. “They’re going to humiliate you.”

Scott groaned inwardly. He had asked his mom to drive him because the risk was too high with his father. The sight of everyone in costume would have proven too much, shorting out whatever inhibitions his father possessed—and there wasn’t much there to begin with.

But now his mother was getting going with her own thing.

“All of the pledges are dressing up, Mom. It’s fine. It’s just for fun.”

Scott reflected on how that week was the first time Britt had acted anything more than indifferently toward him during the thirteen-week pledge period. He’d smiled, but hadn’t his eyes gleamed like ice when he handed over the suspenders and bow tie and ordered Scott to wear them?

“They’re going to humiliate you, but don’t let them, Scott. Stand up for yourself.” She slapped the steering wheel with both hands, startling Scott. “For God’s sake,
stand up for yourself!
”

Her shrill voice made his heart race.

“Mom, what are you—”

“That’s what
grates
me about your father.” Her eyes glared over the steering wheel, bearing the reflection of the taillights of the car she was tailgating. “He lets Larry walk all over him. ‘You’re supposed to be fifty-fifty partners,’ I tell him. ‘Oh, well Larry wants it like this,’ your father says, or ‘Larry wants it like that.’” She made her voice deep and stupid when she imitated his dad, and Scott didn’t like it. “Now look at him. Look what he’s become.”

Scott watched the street lights passing and felt his heart shrinking inside him like a flaccid balloon.

“And here it is a week after Thanksgiving, and he still hasn’t moved a goddamned thing out of that garage. What is it about the
men
in this family?” When she looked over at Scott, he saw… revulsion? And for the last three months, she had been gushing compliments over his room and his neat appearance.

“Just stand up for yourself,” she said with an eerie flatness.

“It’s… it’s just for fun, Mom.”

“Don’t be stupid. Their idea of fun is going to be a lot different than yours.” She braked hard enough in front of Grant’s house for his seatbelt to lock against him. “Mark my word.”

Scott barely had time to get out and push the door closed before she drove off. He stood a moment at the curb, listening to the cheery laughter from where the driveway wound down into trees, and lights twinkled from a two-story house. He wiped his eyes with his shoulders. Moisture stippled through his shirt. Sniffling, he donned his glasses and touched his hair, cold and slicked over with gel.

Just for fun,
he reassured himself, and made his way down the driveway.

* * *

The first hour involved food and drinks in the backyard. The older members, wearing comfortable street clothes, smiled over their red plastic cups at the costumed pledges who mingled self-consciously in the flood of outdoor lighting. Scott was more than relieved to find the other pledges dressed as absurdly as he was. Jeffrey, who was supposed to be Peter Pan, kept tugging at his too-short frock, mumbling that his tights didn’t leave much to the imagination. Someone—Brad, was it?—waddled around in a full Gumby getup. And Sweat Pea was dressed as, well, Swee’Pea from Popeye: powder-blue pajamas with footies, a big bonnet, and a pacifier on a string around his neck. Scott giggled. It was too perfect.

“Hey, laugh all you want, Stretch,” Sweet Pea said. “But just watch the number of Alpha chicks who come over and pinch these baby cheeks. And believe me, I plan to pinch me some baby cheeks right back. Ain’t that right, Peter Pan?”

He goosed Jeffrey’s right butt cheek, sending the unsuspecting Jeffrey hollering and high-stepping away from him. The reaction looked especially hilarious in his green tights and little feathered hat. Scott roared with laughter along with the pledges, Gumby holding his belly.

“Goddamn.” Jeffrey returned with both hands pressed to his backside.

But even Jeffrey was smiling. And that was the reason Scott had stuck with Gamma. Despite the disastrous first social, despite the fact that Janis felt as inaccessible to him as ever, that was why: his fellow pledges. As clichéd as it sounded, all of the days in Standards, the forced exercises and cafeteria lunches, the signing of The Pact—it
had
bonded the thirteen of them. Scott even began to suspect that they were going to miss their lunches together. He knew he would.

Wayne, Craig, and Chun had been eating at Florida Frost near Sixteenth Avenue, and—now that they were all on good terms again—Scott had a place with them, should he want it. Similarly, he was sure most of the fellow pledges would allow him to tag along on lunches, if he asked. But while he had gotten along with all of the pledges, he hadn’t become particularly close with any of them. The person he
was
the closest to, strangely, was…

“Blake!” the pledges called in unison.

Scott turned to find him striding down the driveway in full football attire—helmet, pads, and a red-and-blue jersey. Janis walked alongside him, her face creased with displeasure. Scott could see why. Her hair had been braided into pigtails and tied off with blue ribbons while her cheeks featured a constellation of large, hand-drawn freckles. And Scott knew from their childhood that she hated dresses. Passionately. The one she wore now was high necked and frilly with blue stripes. Was she supposed to be Pippi Longstocking? The only things missing were the long, mismatched socks, but then Scott had it.

“Wendy!” Sweet Pea shouted.

The others laughed as it dawned on them, too. Yes, Wendy of hamburger-chain fame.

“Oh, c’mon, man.” Jeffrey looked Blake over. “How is that supposed to be embarrassing? This is like a day at the office for you.”

Blake arrived beside them and smiled sheepishly. “Grant knows about me and the Miami Dolphins. What better way to humiliate a Dolphins fan than to dress him up as a Buffalo Bill?”

“Yeah, well, I’ll trade you.”

“I already offered.” Janis flipped up one of her pigtails. “He wouldn’t go for it.”

The others laughed, but Janis’s face held its grimace. When Blake took her hand, Scott suffered a stab of longing so intense he had to turn away.

The thing was, Scott enjoyed sitting opposite Blake at lunch. The sentiment seemed mutual. They had spent much of the last month talking personal computers when Blake’s family had been in the market for one. Scott appreciated that, appreciated him. Even when it became clear that Blake and Janis were an item, Scott found he couldn’t distort his opinion of him for the worse. (And hadn’t the X-Men’s Jean Grey dated Angel before pledging her love to Scott?) If anything, he looked at Blake ever more as someone to model himself after—someone who didn’t have to hide or reinvent himself. He was who he was, which was magnificent, someone Janis deserved. And on that point, Blake was a gentleman. No matter how much the other pledges prodded, he never went into detail about their dates, other than to say that Janis was a “great girl.” And maybe that’s what pained Scott the most—that Blake was getting to discover what he himself had known about Janis since childhood.

Scott slipped his hands into his jacked-up pants pockets and pretended to become interested in Grant, who was plugging a microphone into the stereo system up on the deck. Van Halen’s “Jump” ended abruptly. Grant descended the steps, unspooling the microphone’s cord as he went. In the yard, members were setting up lawn chairs around what looked like a makeshift stage.

“You look about as miserable as I feel.”

Scott turned to find Janis standing at his shoulder, also peering toward the stage. She was close enough that he could see the shine of outdoor lighting along each strand of her braided hair. The space around Scott began to revolve, just like it had that first day of school.