She liked to smoke pot.
If she went to CHS, she was known by a name other than Fiona, and dressed and behaved so differently from how she had been at the party that no one who would have seen her at school recognized the description. But most likely she didn’t go to CHS. I had assumed she did because she had been at a party with lots of CHS kids, and having the Who shirt and being in drama had made it seem like she had to be one of the CHS drama mods. But that wasn’t necessarily the case. She could go to another high school but know some of the CHS drama mods well enough that she would be invited to their parties.
In fact, the Who shirt was the only definite mod-related thing about her, so maybe she wasn’t even a real fake mod at all. Maybe the drama people at her high school were all on 130
some other trip (though I don’t know what—crochet-core?) and the Who shirt was just random, or worn because she knew she’d be hanging out with CHS drama mods on that particular evening.
There was another reason I had assumed she went to CHS, though. Something in the back of my mind that had been bugging me, though I didn’t consciously realize what it was at first: somehow she had known I was from Hellmont.
I had instinctively assumed that she had reached that conclusion because she didn’t recognize me from school at CHS, which would have made it obvious. Most kids from Hillmont went to Hillmont High, though a small chunk, from the hills, mostly, went to CHS. No Clearview or Clearview Heights kids ever went to Hillmont, that I knew of—CHS was a much bigger school, and had kids from several towns. What I’m getting at is: if Fiona didn’t go to CHS herself, it wouldn’t have been at all obvious that I was from Hillmont. I mean, even if she knew a lot of CHS kids, she couldn’t have been positive that she could identify every one, especially a random dweeby one, if she didn’t go there. She would have assumed I went to CHS, like almost all of the kids at the party, right? She would have said “How’s tricks in Queerview?” And I would have said “Homoerotic.” And the pop-up devil-he—oh wait, that was before the devil-head started popping up. Those were simpler times.
Now, maybe she had just guessed right, or had mentioned Hillmont randomly. Maybe not, though. But I couldn’t figure out how or why she would have known anything about me. Man, maybe she was psychic after all.
So where did you go if you lived in Salthaven but you didn’t go to CHS? OMH (Old Mission Hills) possibly. I didn’t know a whole lot about the school system out there. I was going to have to do some research. Or maybe she wasn’t 131
even from Salthaven or Salthaven Vista. Sooner or later, thinking about all this, everything started to go in circles and I had to take a break.
In my fantasy, Fiona is still a mod, a real one, and she and I are living in a grimy, sweaty gray underground flat in Carnaby Street, London, listening to “Substitute” on a little gramophone. I’m standing in the doorway in a parka and she’s on a couch in a houndstooth miniskirt and go-go boots.
We’re both crying, but I can tell by how she’s looking at me through the tears that she wants it. The time, I mean . . .
I woke up the next morning feeling pretty stupid about all that “Fiona must have known who I was all along” crap. Who was I, Miss Marple? Sam Hellerman, please assemble all the guests in the drawing room, and you might want to take the precaution of bringing along your revolver. I rather suspect there may be trouble. Does that mean you have cracked the case, Aunt Jane? Oh my, yes. I have known for some time.
People can be very, very cruel. . . .
There was really only one blindingly obvious conclusion here: I was starting to lose my marbles.
I wondered how long this part was going to last. I mean, mooning over the mystery woman, wondering who she was, where she was, what she was doing and with whom, and why she was doing it, walking around feeling like I’d just been punched in the stomach. I was starting to get a little tired of it. Don’t get me wrong. I still enjoyed thinking about expressing my horniness in the context of the mystery woman. I did it all the time. And I still tended to feel fairly lovey-dovey and soppy and emotional when I thought of her, imagining what it might be like to be going out with Fiona and doing sweet, ordinary boyfriend-girlfriend things like going to the library 132
and making out, or going to the movies and making out, or ridiculing normal people at the mall. And making out.
Actually, you know what? I’m still not all that clear on what’s involved in doing sweet, ordinary boyfriend-girlfriend things. I just assume it’s a lot of making out and groping in public, sex in cars, blow jobs in public restrooms, going to movies, eating at restaurants, listening to the radio, arguing about trivia, and—what else? Do you help each other with your homework? Play Scrabble, build models, buy food at the grocery store and cook it for each other, meet at the Rec.
Center or at the beach for a game of volleyball with her Nair-commercial friends? Does she ask you which dress makes her look fatter, like Carol does with Little Big Tom? Does she throw a stapler at you and stop talking to you for days when you can’t figure out the right answer? Do you share your secrets and deepest fears with one another, or are those subjects still just as weird and awkward and best not brought up, maybe even especially to someone to whom you are constantly, incessantly, relentlessly giving the time?
I only mention it because I have this idea, a dream, really, that part of what it would mean is that the boyfriend is in this little club with the girlfriend where when one is hurt or troubled or being assailed by the cruelties of the world, the other decides not to be on the side of the world, but to join forces with the other member of the club against the world, even if it’s frowned upon, even if it’s a doomed scenario, even if the world is definitely gonna win. Like you’re allies. The last rem-nant of your people. A Sex Alliance Against Society. But maybe I have it all wrong. It does sound like a quaint, far-fetched idea, now that I’ve put it in words. And also overly dramatic, if something can be o. d. and q. at the same time.
Nevertheless, Fiona was like that in my mind. What does 133
it have to do with “having sex,” as Sam Hellerman might put it if he were in a particularly dainty mood? I’m not all that sure. But I know it’s related somehow.
Having made out with Fiona that one time made the issue seem more real. But that was an illusion. There wasn’t any difference at all between the idea of being in a Sex Alliance Against Society with Fiona and the idea of being in one with Kyrsten Blakeney. Both notions were remote, impossible, out of the question, preposterous. Both girls were, with regard to me, equally imaginary.
And I was sure, as sure as I was that C. S. Lewis invented Narnia, that neither of them would, in the unlikely event that the option were ever to come up, fail to choose the world. Of course not. I probably wouldn’t, either, if the world would have me.
MAKI NG AM E N DS
It wasn’t till a couple days after Little Big Tom and I got in touch with our feelings on the occasion of his apologizing for the Stratego Sex Incident that I happened to glance at the stack of deconfiscated weapons-and-tactics magazines on my dresser.
I hadn’t noticed it before, but Little Big Tom had put a Post-it on the top magazine. It said “look in the closet.” I frowned and slid open the closet door and, well, maybe you guessed it already, but I was totally thrown: there was a guitar case in there with a Post-it on it that said “Merry Christmas in advance.”
Damn. Little Big Tom had trouble expressing himself in spoken words, but he was a master of concise communication in Post-it form.