Chapter 26

Oak Ridge, TN – Sunday, May 29th, 1983 – 8:25 AM

Jon rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 8:25. Hot damn, he had actually managed to get back to sleep.

He sat up suddenly. Where was the notebook? The contact lenses? He had been so addled when had woken up from the dream last night, he hadn’t thought about them, but he didn’t remember seeing either of them. He glanced beside his bed—the plain gray contact case was still on the nightstand, undisturbed. He patted down the sheets until he found the black notebook, safe and sound. He looked in the back, making sure all the money was still there. Nothing missing. It was strange, he thought, that the pages were rigged to his finger prints, he thought as his finger brushed them and the type changed, and the same with the ATM doohickey, but the money and travelers checks were just there, unconcealed.

Or, then again, maybe it wasn’t so strange—it wouldn’t really prove anything or lead to anywhere, and if something had happened and somehow a stranger found the notebook, the money would probably serve as a distraction. Or maybe Dr. Bernhard had just run out of time. Or had had Alzheimer’s and forgot. Or maybe he hadn’t known what the hell he was doing. Bingo, Jon thought.

He shrugged, putting the notebook down. He actually felt a little less judgmental this morning. He had decided to go on the run from the government and the police and who knew who or what else, with some very powerful and very dangerous technology, on the advice of a manic-depressive girl who was, weird suicidal tangents aside, really cool and, yeah, Jon had kind of had a thing for her all year. Admittedly, over the past two days it had gone from “having a thing” to being entirely consumed with her, so perhaps his judgment wasn’t really in the best shape, but maybe he could sort of see how Bernhard had ended up making some of the decisions that he had.

Jon didn’t guess, from the outside, it would look like he knew what the hell he was doing. Hell, from the inside it didn’t really look like he knew what he was doing. But, after talking to Megan, he felt sure it was the right thing to do. After several hours of thinking about spending the indefinite future on the run, the two of them together, staying alone in cheap motels across the country, with a potentially endless supply of cash–assuming the ATM do-jigger Dr. Bernhard had left him actually did what it was supposed to–it actually seemed like a good idea. After the dream, it just seemed inevitable. Inexorable. Perfect.

Also, considering that he had only seen a little of what the artifact was able to produce, and what he had seen so far was pretty damn cool—well, that figured in there, too. Mostly, though, he saw a summer alone in hotels and motels and motor lodges across the country with Megan.

He still wasn’t exactly happy that Dr. Bernhard had stuck him with this thing, put him in this position, and lied to him since pretty much the moment they met—but he was beginning to understand how something that seemed irrational to one person could make perfect sense to somebody else. Or how even if something seemed crazy, not just to other people but maybe even to you, you still might go ahead and do it. You still might want to do it. You might want to do it so much that it didn’t really matter how poorly thought out or irrational a thing it actually was.

Jon, when I met you, I hadn’t talked with you for an hour before I knew you had been sent into my life for a reason, Bernhard’s disembodied head had said. That in sixty-eight years of life, you were one of the few people I had met that I knew I could trust. That I felt for sure that I should trust. Even with great power. Perhaps especially with great power.

“Doc,” he murmured. “I’m afraid you were misinformed.” He couldn’t get the idea of getting a chance to peak into the shower while Megan was washing at the hotel out of his head. Or what if she was taking a bath and wanted him to wash her back? Or he could leave something in the bathroom, and have to come get it while she was taking her shower. That was a good one. And what if they could only get a room with one bed? The possibilities were intoxicating. And he was supposed to be entrusted with great power? He couldn’t go five minutes without thinking about how she had kissed him—the flick of her tongue across his lips. The softness of her skin. How she had put her hand behind his neck, pulling his head forward with her thin fingers, the slow, brief caress of her fingertips across the nape of his neck. Great power? He couldn’t be trusted with his own brain!

He had dreamt that he had been present at something like the creation of the universe—something incredibly huge and immeasurably powerful had been happening in front of him and all around him for almost the entire dream. Yet now, all he could think about was Megan, lips full and wet, rolling her tongue around his forefinger. That was where his head was at. Could something like that really happen? Or maybe even better? Even now, he knew he ought to care more about the artifact than getting to spend time with, and maybe even fool around some, with Megan. That if he was going to do this thing—and he was—then it ought to be for the sorts of reasons Dr. Bernhard had said. The sorts of social, geopolitical things Megan had alluded to. Not because he had a crush—well, let’s be honest, more than a crush—on Megan. Not because he wanted to get to spend a lot of time alone with her. Not because he might get to sneak a peak at her in the shower. But because there was something worth going on the run for.

They might end up in jail, or shot and killed, or blown up somehow by the artifact itself. It seemed like a remote possibility, but he thought it was possible that they could unleash the artifact—accidentally do something that started some internal doomsday clock. Or make it radio back to the Kanamits that supper was ready and they could have their cookbook back. Some risks were more likely than others, but when the most minor of them was jail, they were risks to be considered carefully.

In the end, he knew he’d think it was too risky. He knew common sense would tell him that he wasn’t the guy, that Dr. Bernhard had made many terrible mistakes of which picking Jon as the steward of his precious artifact was just one, and that Jon needed to turn it all back over to whoever it belonged to. That, yes, there was risk there, too, but it was much more limited, and allowed him to wash his hands of the whole mess as much as he could. Given that he had no practical idea of what to do, or what he should do, except start running, packing it all up and going on the lamb made no sense. Considering that Dr. Bernhard picking a fourteen year old kid he had known for a year as the custodian of some super-powerful alien artifact was patently irrational, it would follow that doing anything consistent with what the patently irrational person had wanted him to do was even more irrational. Considering the risks extended beyond Jon but to everybody Jon knew, including his mom and Stacey and Megan and Johnny Two and on and on, he was going to be responsible for what happened to a lot more people than just him. Viewed from a detached, outside perspective, Jon could see clearly how what he was going to do made no sense.

But Megan trumped that. Completely. Given a little time to ripen, his acquiescence to Megan had become a purpose of its own. As trite as his reasons seemed when he put them into words, the physical sensation in his body was one of mission. That this was something that he had to do. The reasons in his mind seemed small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but they had a fundamental logic all their own which could not be resisted. Like the needle of a compass always pointing north, no matter which way he turned it, Jon was drawn—magnetically, gravitationally—in one direction. No matter which way he looked at it, there was really only one way to go. And the more he thought about it, the more powerful that force became. He was being drawn, inexorably, to Megan.

But not just by Megan—he was drawn by what was drawing her. There was a true north, a direction they were both supposed to go together and, even if it didn’t make any sense, he knew he was going to go that direction.

No, he didn’t think Bernhard had made any sort of rational decision, sticking him with the book—but Jon thought he was beginning to understand it a little better. Sometimes, he thought, maybe you did things because you had to do them. You just made up the reasons for why you did what you did later on. You made excuses, because you really couldn’t explain why you chose the path you ended up going down. And Jon could not rationally explain why he was embarking on the path he was. It was going to make a mess of everything in what had been, with a few minor exceptions, a pleasantly uneventful life, up to this point. He was going to do something that was going to change it significantly. Forever. He was actually excited about it.

Because of Megan, yes. But not just because of Megan. For once, he was going to jump into the water without testing it with his toe. He was going to live life, really live it, not just sit in his room and fantasize about living it. His mom sometimes explained her seminar and continuing-ed addiction—and her perpetual serial dating—like this: Jon, life is short. You’ve got to grab it by the balls. While he didn’t guess she had meant that to advocate running from the FBI and the government and who-knows-what-else with an incredibly hot girl—a girl more than a year older than Jon—he didn’t think seminars on how to find himself and classes on how to become a paralegal would constitute “grabbing life by the balls” for him.

Megan had kissed eight boys and two girls—one a college girl. She had dropped acid—at school! On exam day! While, yes, one part of him did think that was monumentally stupid, another part—the part that hadn’t really looked forward to sitting around the house programming and playing video games all summer—had been impressed when he had heard it. That part would have been actually been impressed had she stopped and told him at school. Impressed and, yeah, a little jealous. He would never have done it himself, even if given the opportunity, but still. It was a big world, and life was a busy, bustling place, and he had been sitting at home, programming his computer, playing his videogames, and fantasizing about . . . new and improved chemistry sets. And spending his summer reading textbooks, for God’s sake.

Pathetic, he thought, feeling not a little disgust towards his initial urge to just hand the book and briefcase over to the authorities, whomever they might be. Megan, who was the one who had gotten zapped at the bus station, was not nearly such a pussy. Maybe she was manic-depressive or bipolar or just nuts, but she definitely wasn’t a wimp. She didn’t wring her hands over what might happen if she went off the beaten path—hell, she wasn’t afraid of completely uprooting her life. At all. She was excited by the prospect.

And there was something else. Megan saw something in Jon. Something exciting. She saw something that was interesting to someone like her, someone who had done and seen and been so much more than he had. She saw someone who would completely, permanently alter his life, for her and, perhaps, for some noble principal that she saw but, frankly, he still didn’t. But she saw that potential in him. She saw something in him that Doreen did not. That the teachers at school did not. That almost everybody he knew—well, except for Dr. Bernhard, who had apparently figured that Jon would just love to go running across country with stolen government research—did not. To them, he was dull, boring, geeky Jon.

Megan, on the other hand, saw someone that she wanted to go on the run with, staying at seedy motels and hiding out, indefinitely, completely changing her life, unalterably and forever, to go with him. Not Johnny Two, not the eight guys and two girls she had previously locked lips with, but one wholly unremarkable Jon Edmonds.

Jon picked up the gray contact case and opened it. Fuck it, he thought, flipping open the case as the words BIONIC VISION glowed faintly on the top at his touch. No time like the present. If he really was going to live life, it was time to start getting busy.

Gingerly, he pulled one thin, filmy lens from the contact case. There was a stack of them in each compartment, and no contact solution, but getting just one out was easy—it almost seemed to jump onto his fingertip. He held it up to his left eye, trying to remember how Doreen put her contacts in—didn’t she use a squirt-bottle or something?—when it jumped from his finger, onto his eyeball.

“Yaagh!” Jon yelped involuntarily. For a second, it felt like something big—a peace of grass or a hair or something—had gotten stuck in his eye. As he blinked, the sensation faded, and glowing green type floated, semi-transparent, in front of him. INSERT OTHER LENS, the words instructed.

“Okay,” he murmured, picking up another lens—this time, he looked more closely, and as he put his finger near the stack of lenses, one did seem to launch itself off the stack and adhere to his finger. “Wow,” he murmured. When he held it up to his right eye, he was a little better prepared, and didn’t jump when the lens leapt from his fingertip and attached itself to his eye. He blinked, as green type began to scroll across his room, from ceiling to floor.

TO ACTIVATE/DEACTIVE, BLINK: SHAVE-AND-A-HAIRCUT.

Jon did blink. Huh? Shave-and-a-haircut? Oh, yeah: the old cartoon gag. Knocking out shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits, on a door or a table or a wall. Dr. Bernhard had asked him, actually, if he had been familiar with the old shave-and-a-haircut routine, Jon recalled, casually introducing the topic into a discussion about old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Another entry in the Dr. Hermann Bernhard Hall of Bullshit, apparently.

ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE PERPETUAL ZOOM/WIDEANGLE, BLINK TWICE, LOOK: LEFT-RIGHT, LEFT-RIGHT.

ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE INFRARED/NIGHT VISION: LOOK UP-DOWN, LEFT-RIGHT.

ACTIVATE/DEACTIVE X-RAY VISION. BLINK THREE TIMES, LOOK UP-DOWN, UP-DOWN.

Jon’s eyes widened. X-ray vision? No way. No-frickin’-way.

ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE VISION SHARING. LOOK: LEFT-RIGHT, UP-DOWN, BLINK TWICE.

WINK TO SCROLL THROUGH AVAILABLE SIGNAL FEEDS. TO ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE BROAD-SPECTRUM MULTI-VARIABLE ANALYSIS, BLINK FOUR TIMES, LOOK: LEFT-DOWN, LEFT-DOWN.

FOR ADVANCED SETTINGS, BLINK TWICE, LOOK RIGHT-UP, RIGHT-UP.

TO DISPLAY INSTRUCTIONS AGAIN, ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE BIONIC VISION BY BLINKING SHAVE-AND-A-HAIRCUT.

Jon knew what he was doing first. He blinked three times, then looked up and down, up and down. For a moment, he couldn’t see a real difference. Then he noticed that his room seemed absent of color. Then, he noticed, there were stains on the wall. Shapes. As he looked closer, he realized they weren’t on the wall, but in it. He was seeing the framing and electric wires beneath the plasterboard. And something else, he realized, trying to discern the outlines—and as he did so, his wall seemed to all but disappear, plasterboard, wiring and wood framing, and he was just looking into the bathroom, as if someone had some and removed the wall. It was largely colorless and everything in it seemed a little plastic, as if all the surfaces had been coated in a uniform, matte-finish polyurethane. But everything was distinct. It was like he was look straight into his bathroom—like his wall had just disappeared, and, if he wanted to, he could just stand up and walk right in. The bathroom mirror did not appear to be reflecting anything, not even the bathroom, but there was a faint glow in the middle of it. Jon stared, focusing on the glow, and the back wall of the bathroom seemed to fade away, and he was looking directly into his mother’s bedroom, where she lay in bed, propped up on a pillow, reading a magazine. She was brighter than most of the neutral gray stuff around her—she was the glow. She was outlined in a halo of white light. What was that? Heat detection or something?

Jon lifted up his hand, focusing on that, as the bathroom wall and the wall to his own room seemed to magically restore themselves. At first, his hand looked like nothing more than an inky outline, and then he saw bones.

“Yikes,” he said. He wiggled his fingers. He could see translucent muscle and sinew moving his finger bones around. “Cool!” He tried to focus a little short of his hand, and the bones and muscle vanished, replaced with luminous white skin, a fuzzy halo of incandescence radiating outward from his hand. He thought of the dream—how he had watched as his hands disappeared. How Megan had glowed, seemingly illuminated from the inside. Strange, the similarities.

Jon tried looking in the mirror on his wall, but he didn’t see his reflection—instead, the mirror looked gray, and when he tried to look closer at it, it seemed to disappear, revealing the wall behind it. Then that faded away, and he was looking outside at the ratty bushes and the garbage cans. He looked up, trying to focus just beyond the ceiling, and—even though expecting it—he gave a little yelp as the ceiling vanished, and he was looking straight into the attic. Then, he was looking at the morning sky, which was a neutral, undifferentiated gray in X-Ray vision mode. Then, suddenly, that vanished—and his entire field of vision was full of stars.

“Holy crap,” Jon muttered, looking back down. At first he wasn’t even able to make sense of the visual static, and he instinctively tried to focus on something closer. For a bare instant, he recognized the outside wall of the house three houses down, then the furniture in their next door neighbor’s dining room, then the inside of the laundry room, then his own bedroom. “Holy crap,” he repeated. Then his brow furrowed. He focused back on the inside wall, looking through the bathroom and then into Doreen’s room. She had shifted in bed, but was still otherwise preoccupied reading a magazine. It was Sunday morning. Shouldn’t she have been busy getting ready for church? Jon glanced over at the old digital clock on his nightstand, which was a mess of screws and wires and a circuit board. Whoops. He tried to refocus so he was looking outside the clock and could make out of the time: 8:37. But he could still see the inside of the clock, like fuzzy stains that receded into the surface, beneath the face. Okay, that could get irritating. He blinked three times, then looked up and down, up and down. The stains on his clock quickly faded, and color returned.

He looked around his room. Everything looked normal again—well, almost normal. He noticed after a moment that everything seemed crisper. Sharper and more distinct. He could make out stains on the ceiling—real stains—that he hadn’t noticed before, faint but distinct. He could make out cobwebs in the corner and dust on the blinds. He saw a tiny spider-web crack in the corner of the lower left window pane. Then he noted with a start he could clearly read the copyright statement on Blondie poster hanging on his wall—even though it still looked incredibly small, he could clearly read the tiny type: Copyright © 1980, Island Records, it warned him. Wow.

Apparently, in addition to the extra added features—X-ray vision, infra-red vision, etc—it also just made his vision better. A whole lot better. That was something else. Megan would be blown away.

Which made him think about Megan, and the fact his mom was apparently planning on skipping church this morning. She’s going to be getting ready for her ex-boyfriend reporter, he realized. She’s probably reading Newsweek or something. Then, he knew, she would probably do all the housecleaning Jon never did—mopping the floors, dusting on top of things, getting the gross stuff out of the tub and from around the toilet in the bathroom.

So, if Megan was planning on dropping by this morning, and just hanging back until his mom left, she was going to be waiting a long time. He hoped she’d call, like he had suggested. He could call her, but didn’t want to risk disturbing her parents early in the morning. Well, maybe she’d see his mom was here and just come on and knock on the door, anyway. It wouldn’t hurt anything for Doreen to see that Jon could have an attractive lady caller, early Sunday morning. Why, she might suspect that her geeky son might actually have a girlfriend. Heh!

She was going to be in for the shock of her life, when she found out Jon and Megan were had run away together. He had started composing his “Dear Mom” letter in his head, because he didn’t want to just up and disappear. He thought he might try and throw Doreen off the scent, once they left, by writing that he and Megan were eloping. At first he had thought of maybe actually explaining at least some of what was going on—that Dr. Bernhard had stolen something, say it was for a good reason even though Jon really wasn’t so sure that was true, and that he was going on the run with it, and maybe leave some stuff behind from Dr. Bernhard’s briefcase for Doreen to protect herself with. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that was not a good strategy, and thought it was probably more likely that the less she knew, the better off she was.

So, he’d leave her a note that explained everything—it just wouldn’t be entirely true, was all.
Jon got out of bed, grabbed a fresh t-shirt and some underwear, and went to take a shower before his mom got up and got busy cleaning. After drying his hair and pulling on his pants and putting on his sneakers, he sat back down on his bed and pulled out the black notebook. He found the last place he could remember reading from last night, but after just a few sentences found he just wasn’t in the mood right now. He was more interested in trying to get some specific information about the stuff in the briefcase. There was a blank tab about three-quarters of the way through the neatly written pages, which Jon turned to. There was nothing on the tab itself, but as he turned to the following page of college-ruled notebook paper, he saw Dr. Bernhard had written, in large block letters, ENEMIES OF A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC PEOPLES, followed by an extensive list. The first one was the United States of America. The next was The U.S. Military. Next was Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Jon glanced down to the bottom of the list, where it read: Sanitation Department. Sanitation Department? Jon chuckled. More of that rarefied Bernhard wit, no doubt.

Jon let go of the tab and touched Dr. Bernhard’s enemies list. Immediately, the type changed—to a manifest of contents for the briefcase, as Jon had suspected.

Jon paused. The first item on the list was BIONIC VISION, the one he had picked out on a lark. Odd. He guessed Dr. Bernhard had known that such an idea would have immediate appeal to Jon—they had, after all, spent almost an entire afternoon once discussing the merits (and flaws—oh, the tragic flaws) of The Six Million Dollar Man. The description in the notebook touched on the basics that Jon had already read, scrolling by in wall-high green type, when he first put the contact lenses in. He also noted something else he had kind of figured he was going to need—a process for letting someone other than himself use them. As far as he had been able to tell, Dr. Bernhard had keyed everything he had left for Jon to work for Jon only. Megan had been able to see the book itself in action, but Jon wasn’t sure if that was because Jon had just been holding it, or because he had been in the room, or something else. He still didn’t know what had precipitated the transformation of the dull-looking college textbook into the ornate book of magic it had become. Had it happened when Jon had activated the video cassette? Or had it been something else entirely?

Hard to say. What he did know now was the HOLOGRAPHIC DECOY Megan had been so excited about taking home and playing with hadn’t worked for her because he hadn’t activated it to work for her. It wasn’t complicated–all he had to do was tap out shave-and-a-haircut (ha, ha) on the backside and have Megan touch it, and her fingerprints would be added to the list of authorized users. Most of them worked like that, he noticed as he read. BIONIC VISION required that he put the contacts into the other person’s eyes, and some of the smaller items weren’t actually keyed, they just required an activation code—the INSTANT OIL SLICK and STICKY SMOKE SCREEN and SUPER-HILARIOUS LAUGHING GAS—good grief, super hilarious laughing gas?—just required he tap a code or twist the capsule back and forth for activation. The BIONIC EAR just required that the user already be wearing the BIONIC VISION contacts. And the list of things it could do—long distance listening, hearing through walls, listening to—was that serious? Listening to wires? He was supposed to be able to hear phone conversations and other land transmissions by listening to the wire?

It also sported some heavy duty radio reception. Pre-configured for police band and military radio frequencies, including encrypted communications, it also featured it’s own long-range communication band, “that does not even use electromagnetic frequencies for conduction, thus completely beyond the ability of anybody on earth, except you and anyone you choose, to use it to communicate.” Holy crap.

Even though he had already found what he was most worried about—how to make it so things like the contact lenses would work for Megan—the list of pre-packaged items that Bernhard had prepared was incredible. Some items, like BIONIC VISION and BIONIC HEARING were flagged with little red exclamation points, apparently emphasizing their importance, as was the one labeled NANOCOAT AEROSOL. He paused, reading the description. It was apparently one of the non-descript silver cylinders—the one with the faintly embossed exclamation point on the side, and its feature list and instructions were something else again.

Apply liberally for enhanced tensile strength, projectile resistance
and impact distribution, surface traction, and force
focus/amplification.

Instructions included applying to shoes, "for undifferentiated traction on slippery or sticky surface, for preserving surface tension on soft surfaces, such as quicksand—“ Jon stopped, shaking his head. Again, where the hell had Dr. Bernhard envisioned him going? The Amazon jungle? He continued reading: “—quicksand, wet concrete, soft mud, even water or lighter liquids.” He stopped, looking up wide-eyed at nothing. No way. That couldn’t mean what Jon thought it meant. Was that seriously saying he could spray something on his shoes and—and what? Walk on water? No frickin’ way! Oh, wow, Megan was going to freak.

Applied to clothes, it made them fireproof and bulletproof. That was what it said. Bullet. Proof. Holy frickin’ mother of crap. It was just too much. Despite what he had seen, it was too much to take in. It was, like, spray on superhero. While it wouldn’t adhere to human skin—it said so in the instructions—it referred him to DRAGON SOAP—where the hell had Bernhard come up with some of these names, anyway?--which suggested it be lathered on completely “for maximum invulnerability”. Jon couldn’t help laughing. Soap that made you invulnerable. Soap. Damn. All the money Bernhard could have made, cornering the soap market. He certainly had already come up with some cool product names.

Jon continued to read the list, familiarizing himself with at least the basic purpose of everything in the briefcase. Some incredible stuff—although no flying shoes, skateboards, or jet skis, despite the book itself being full of instructions for making such magical stuff. Bernhard had apparently not cared much for flying. Jon was busy marveling over the SUPERKEY—not only did he have a penlight that would start cars, there was a SUPERKEY that would conform to the tumblers in any lock of any shape and size, and, in essence, open almost any door—when the phone rang.

He answered it immediately. “Hey,” he said casually, reasonably certain it was Megan. “Howzit doing?”

“Hey,” Megan said. “Doing great, actually. How’d you know it was me?”

“Nobody calls here at nine o’clock on a Sunday. Hang on for a second.”

“Sure,” she replied. Jon waited a few seconds, until he heard the click on the line. “Hello, hello?” Doreen asked breathlessly.

“It’s for me, mom. It’s just Megan.”

There was a pause. “Megan?”

“You know, from yesterday?”

“I know who Megan is,” Doreen snapped. Jon guessed she was expecting it to be for her—her reporter boyfriend, pining for her, calling from the road or some such nonsense. Despite the fact that Doreen’s boyfriends almost never called her, period.

“Hey, Mrs. Edmonds,” Megan said. “Hope I didn’t wake anybody up.” She sighed. “I just, you know—I couldn’t wait to talk to Jon.” Jon stifled a laugh. Megan was so great. He had always had a thing for her, but it hadn’t been until the last few days he had realized just how great she really was. She was, like, super-great. “I was hoping, if he wasn’t busy, that he could come to the library with me today.”

“The library doesn’t open until 2:00 on Sundays,” Doreen said, sounding cross. Almost jealous. “It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh, I know, I was hoping we could go to the park together, first,” Megan replied, not missing a beat. “Go for a walk and talk. I love talking with Jon. He is so great.”

No, Megan was so great. The wisdom of running away with her seemed clearer with each passing moment. Yeah, he did love his mom and, yeah, their relationship was pretty good. But—

As if to illustrate the point, Doreen said: “Isn’t—I mean, I thought you and Johnny Miller were dating, right?”

Jon frowned, his cheeks getting hot. That she would actually say something like that. Christ, Doreen! He thought. Get a freaking life, okay?

Megan laughed. Pointedly. “Oh, no, no way. I mean, Johnny Two is all right and all but, I mean, come on. I don’t think I’d ever see him if he and Jon didn’t hang together so much. I mean, Jon is just such a great guy. So smart. He listens, he thinks about what he says before he says it—” Jon wasn’t sure, but he thought he had just heard a fairly direct, and adult, slam at his mom come out of Megan’s mouth. What a babe!

“—not to mention, he’s, like, way cuter than Johnny Two.”

Hardly, and Jon new it. And so did Doreen. But maybe that was the point.

“I—ah, you know, I just—I didn’t know you guys had gotten so close. I thought you and—so, I mean, I don’t want to pry—you guys are—dating?”

“Mom!” Jon exclaimed.

“Jon never said anything about having a girlfriend, and—”

“Mom! Could you please stop it?”

“I mean, you’ve never gone out, both of you, except with Johnny Miller, and I always thought—”
Doreen paused, perhaps rethinking what she was about to say, and Megan filled with the gap nicely. “Well, we haven’t really discussed it, Mrs. Edmonds, but I’ve known for a lot longer than Jon has how much I like him. I sure hope I’m his girlfriend. I know I sure want to be. But no, nothing official. No rings or anything. Yet.”

“Oh,” Doreen said. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought maybe she was actually embarrassed. Jon smiled. Good. Baiting Megan on the phone, actively trying to get Megan to say something to the effect of Oh, I’d never like a geek like Jon—she should have been embarrassed. “Don’t stay on the phone long, please, I’m expecting a call,” she finished brusquely, and the line clicked.

“Damn,” Jon said, after his mom had hung up. “You are incredible. That was amazing. You are—you’re the perfect woman.”

“Ha! Trouble-maker is more like it. Larry is right about that—I just can’t help it. I’m sorry if I pissed her off, it’s just—it’s just that you are a great guy. Even if you do, you know, need to buy another pair of pants.” She giggled. “You don’t deserve that kind of shit. I know we’re always talking about my parents and stuff, but your mom is a ho.”

Jon laughed. “No, she’s not, she’s just a perpetual teenager—you know, like Muffy and Eva, only she’s forty years old and she’s still like that. If you had buckteeth and thick glasses—”

“—and no boobs!” Megan volunteered merrily. “Although my first two teeth do kinda stick out—”

“Hah! You still offend her sense of universal order. Girls as hot as you don't like you don’t like guys like me.”

“Maybe in her universe,” Megan said. “Anyway—”

“Anyway, thanks,” Jon interrupted. “You didn’t have to say all that.”

“Oh, yes I did,” she replied. “I’m not letting her get away with that bullhockey—I mean, what is she saying about me? ‘Wait, I thought you were a shallow, superficial slut’. I don’t know, I guess, but I think I’m better than that.”

“You are,” Jon agreed.

“But, just so we’re clear, I wasn’t saying all that just to piss off your mom. I mean, sure, that’s part of it. But I meant everything I said.”

Jon paused a moment, trying to digest that. Sure, he had sort of hoped that she at least sort of meant what she had been saying to his mom. He had kind of figured that, yeah, she probably did sort of mean what she was saying. But was she saying she just flat out meant it a hundred percent? Every last word? Jon opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of exactly what to say. In his mind, Megan whispered to him: I was waiting for you. I was waiting for you to touch me with your fingers.

“Okay, no noise on your end,” Megan murmured after a moment. “Let me re-state that. What I’m saying was that, yeah, if it was Johnny Two and it was his mom being a snot about him, I would have said the exact same thing, because I do like Johnny, and he wouldn’t deserve it, either. I just—I wouldn’t mean it as much about him.”

“I—” Jon started. What could he say? I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I want to have your baby! No, he couldn’t. Yet better words to say weren’t making themselves available. “—I mean, I—thanks. Thank you.” Thank you? Thank you? He couldn’t think of anything better than that? Shit!

“’Thank you’,” Megan repeated. “Hooo-kay, maybe on the phone with your mom wasn’t the best place to broach the subject. Sorry, I don’t—I mean, I know you probably think I’m a slut, but I haven’t ever done this—trying to tell a guy I dig him—and I’m just sticking my foot deeper in my mouth, aren’t I? Are you there? I hear you breathing.”

“I don’t think you’re a slut,” Jon blurted. “I never thought that. You are—I—you’ve got all these guys that hang around you at school—”

“See,” Megan said. “I told you you think I’m a slut.”

“No, I mean, I just don’t see why you would like me—I mean, Ron Derrick, he's always hitting on you. And he’s so good looking I’m attracted to him.”

Megan laughed. “I’ll see if I can set you two up sometime. Although I really don’t think you’re Ron Derrick’s type. He likes them that don’t think or talk too much, except about him—he’s a big, strong, clear-skinned, moony-eyed creep. Yes, I put up with him. Yes, I had a moral obligation to touch his stomach—and, damn, it is a washboard. But you know what? Ron is seventeen years old and he’s in ninth grade. He’s been in juvenile three times, each time because he got drunk and beat somebody up.”

“Yeah, I heard about that—”

“Uh-huh. And you think I’d go for a shallow creep because I could wash my socks out on his abdomen?” Her tone was humorous, but faintly scolding. “You don’t think much more of me than your mother does.”

“No, no. I’m sorry. Bad example. But Johnny Two is a good guy, he does good in school, he’s definitely got more money than I do—”

“And he's a blonde God on a skateboard," Megan finished. "But I like you. I don’t care what boys drool on me at school. They’ve done the same thing to Carla since she was thirteen—she went out with a guy almost exactly like Ron Derrick in tenth grade, and he broke two of her ribs. Johnny is a nice guy with a big house and I kind of had a crush on him last summer. I know I was moony about him and you probably got tired of hearing about it. But I’ve had a lot of time to spend with both you guys this year. And I like you. If you don’t like me—I mean, that way, you know—then that’s fine. I mean, we’re friends, no matter what, right?”

“You would actually want to be my girlfriend? You know, be seen out in public, at the mall, at school—”

“God! You are such a dweeb. Yes, of course! Though, sometimes, I’m not so sure what you think of me—”

“Sorry, I—I don’t have a lot of practice at this. I haven’t really, you know, actually—you know, dated anybody. And, I—would really like to—I guess, date, right?—do that with someone like—I mean, not someone like you, but you. Actually you. I mean—”

“Okay! Enough! It’s painful to listen to that. Let’s make it simple. I like you. Do you like me?”

“I—yes. Yes, I do. A lot.”

“And I like you a lot. Since—well, under the circumstances, we might be spending a lot of time together, right?”

“Yeah, actually–” Jon started.

“So it would make since for us to be, like, an item, right?”

Jon nodded at the phone. “An item. Sure.”

“And even if that wasn’t the case, that we wouldn’t be spending so much time together, I’d still like us to be, you know, an item.”

“Item,” Jon agreed.

“So, does that sound good to you?”

“Yes, that sounds—that sounds great. I’m just still—a little surprised, is all. I really did think you had a thing for Johnny Two.”

“I sorta kinda did, last year. But, you know, I thought I was dropping the hints pretty heavy since Christmas. I mean, I’ve known for the last six months I was going after you.”

“I—I guess I was just dense. Or—sometimes you can’t believe something, because it just seems to good to be true, right? I just—”

“I was just calling you three times a week and talking to you half the night. Asking you to walk me home—I’d go and find you, so we could get out of school before Johnny Two showed up. I even tried Carla’s show-way-too-much-cleavage strategy. You can’t tell me you didn’t notice that. That, you know, normally I didn’t walk around with my boobs practically falling out of my shirt.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Jon said, and felt his cheeks get hot. “I mean, yeah, I thought you had to have done that on purpose—”

“I was wearing a bra I hadn’t worn since I was twelve. To, make ‘em, you know, really stick out. I bent over and stuck them in your face to get the popcorn.” She laughed. “Hel-lo!”

“Hello,” Jon said. “You’re right. I should’ve seen it, I guess—”

“For future reference, when a girl keeps touching your hand and laughing in the cafeteria, in class, after school, then practically flashing you—she may be trying to tell you something.”

“Yeah—I—” Jon stopped. “Sorry. I guess I—look, you think maybe we can finish this conversation in person?”

“In person? And seal the deal?”

“Seal the deal,” Jon agreed.

“Then, I make my case,” Megan said, sounding as pleased-as-punch. “Kill two birds with one stone, actually.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Look, I called you because I thought I’d invite you over here. I’m home all alone this morning.”

“Huh? What happened?”

“Carla went out with her—ah, new boyfriend, freshly acquired after she got stood up last night, and hasn’t been home. I have a pretty good idea where they are, but, I sorta suggested some places I’m pretty sure they aren’t, to lead mom and Larry on a wild goose chase. So, they left me on my own. Anyway, I think I’m probably good for the morning. You wanna come over?”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Jon said. “Bye.”

“See you in five,” Megan agreed, and hung up the phone. Jon grabbed his school knapsack out of the closet and tossed in the black notebook and the contact lens case in it. He rummaged through the briefcase, getting out the BIONIC EARs and the NANOCOAT AEROSOL—he had to use that stuff—and also the book itself, and put the collection into his knapsack. He pushed the briefcase towards the back of his closet, and tossed some shirts on top of it.

He almost flew across the living room. It wasn’t just talk—and sweet and wonderful enough, had it been just talk, just noise to irritate Jon’s perpetually teenage mother. But she had meant it. She wanted them to be an item. He had stammered and stuttered and said the wrong thing, just now and especially when she had kissed him last night. And she still wanted them to be an item. Jon and Megan. An item. He had never realized what a beautiful word “item” was. He murmured it to himself as hit the front door. “Item,” he whispered. “I-tem-muh.”

He looked back as he opened the door. “Bye, Mom!” he yelled. “I’m going out to see Megan! I’ll probably be gone awhile! Have a good day!” And without giving Doreen a chance to poke her head out, Jon hopped out the door and slammed it shut.

Jon marveled at the idea as he virtually sprinted the three blocks to Megan’s house. An item. Jon and Megan. Wow.

Life was good.