Tuesday (part 2)

T .3

I'm starting to think that, when you sign up for The Program, events begin to conspire against you. We managed to avoid Michael at the front of the school, when I was stripping down, but not for much longer after that; and bless Brandon's heart, but even he wasn't enough to balance out the trauma of having my brother leering at me.

And Bernard...

Oh, hello. My name is Meredith Levine. My Program partner confuses me.

I still hadn't figured out why he'd gotten so mad at me yesterday; as near as I can tell, he's just hostile to everybody. If someone is mean to him, he lashes out; if someone is nice to him, he lashes out. Pretty soon everybody is mean to him; or, at the very least, they do what I do and just try to keep their distance. There are certain things in life you can't help; one of them is the stupidity of other people. The best you can do is just avoid the person and try to make the best of it.

Only, Bernard wasn't trying to avoid me.

The pall he cast over the conversation at break was instant and alarming. Sajel noticed him first, and we all saw the way her face firmed; at first I thought it was Michael, and almost collapsed in despair right there. But when I forced myself to look, it was only Bernard, cave-chested and bristling in the sunlight, his shadow ten feet long.

"You're my Program partner," he said. It was not a question.

"Uhm. Yes," I said cautiously. Bernard might be an improvement over Michael, but he wasn't much of one. "What can I do for you?"

"You're supposed to support me," he said.

"Yes... I suppose... That's true..." I allowed, biting back a few choice words about how slander and defamation are not the same thing as support.

"So, support me," he said, and suddenly I realized that he was presenting himself for a conversation. No, not a conversation—support. He wanted advice.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Bernard Castagne. (Well, the second-to-last thing.) Really, what Derek and Arie had done—that sounded good to me. Not so much the sex as just... Getting away from it all. Just me and Brandon, alone for a little while, with nobody pecking at us for attention. But Bernard was still standing there, and from the gritty look in his eyes and the way he leaned into me, I knew that he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

He dragged me across the little parking lot to the back of the theatre where the drama people and the orchestra rehearse. Brandon and the rest watched with mild eyes.

"All right," I said, feeling extremely exposed. I couldn't see Bernard's eyes, but my nipples and pubic hair prickled, as hair on the back of my neck would. Bernard and my private parts simply should not be allowed anywhere near each other. Bernard and private parts in general, actually, especially if he was going to take his aggressions out on them. That would make great headlines. Three genitally scarred by enraged nerd. And then big old color pictures of my boobs and my pubic area. And then, in subtitle, (Small, ain't she?)

I don't know if Michael was aware of the nerve he hit when he said there was "not much there". My boobs are... I am not as... Fine, let's be as humiliatingly formal as possible: I have small breasts. They have always been a source of anxiety for me. American society is fixated on cup size; you have to have a C or higher, it seems, to get any attention. That, for the record, knocks me, Sajel and Christa straight off the map, leaving only Jane, and Arie if you're feeling generous. (Brandon seems to have gathered some rather flat-chested people around him.)

When I was a child, I wanted to rise to the top. My parents were the driven, education-minded, get-good-grades-or-else flavored parents that Arie has, that Jane has, that Brandon has to some extent. They didn't tolerate failure, it was as simple as that. So I wanted to be a CEO or a corporate executive or some type of powerful, high-up, influential person when I grew up. And, to do that, I needed breasts.

Now, those dreams have died; they died a long time ago—the Christmas before last, to be exact; and you'll learn how and why they died later today—and new ones have grown in their place. Marrying Brandon, now; being his wife, being there to wish him a good day when he goes off to work and help him relax at night if he didn't; having kids, being loved and looked up to the same way my husband is, being the kind of mother that doesn't embarrass my children (the way their grandma doesn't embarrass her daughter)... Those sounds really good to me. But one thing has remained from the old days, one belief I just can't unconvince myself about: To do all that, I need breasts.

Brandon and I look at porn sometimes, if we're particularly bored or out of ideas for what to do next. Brandon steers away from anything that has women with, as he calls them, "watermelon boobs"—because that's approximately how large they are—the type that are obviously silicon, that are so ridiculously large that the place where they attach to the woman's chest is not their widest circumference, the type that you could probably kill somebody with if you hit them with them. Brandon stays away from anything containing those. It limits his options by significant margins.

Stasya did not help. Nastasya Fyodorevna has been my best friend for eight years, since we first met in third grade; the hardest thing about skipping seventh grade was not having her in my classes any longer. But Sex Ed is generally dispatched in sixth grade, and we were together when we first found out what reproduction involves, why our mothers always told us to wipe towards the front after we peed, why we bled out of the hole that babies come out of. The idea that a man would want to stick his thing into that hole was absurd to us at the time, and we laughed whenever we thought about it. (Obviously we don't do that now. Stasya has remained surprisingly reticent, but Caleb obviously satisfies her in every way; and as for Brandon, well, we're only getting married, I'd say he does an okay job.)

But we didn't laugh as hard when our breasts started coming in. At least, I didn't; Stasya loved it. She was excited, she was eager, she liked the idea of 'becoming a woman, ' as she put it, and she induced me to track her progress by means of photography—"It's like measuring your height as you grow up, only, we're measuring my boobs!" The biannual camera sessions continued for some years. "Don't you want me to do yours," Stasya would ask, "don't you want to be able to show your kids how you became a woman?" And I would decline, unwilling to admit that, from the looks of things, 'becoming a woman' had only taken about five months.

Intellectually, I know there's nothing wrong with my breasts. It's not like I don't have any; for child-bearing purposes, they will work just fine. Some people are just naturally shorter and slimmer and less buxom; some are naturally less slim, with a higher optimum weight and larger breasts and a certain sleek gracefulness about them, and look cute in glasses and have the sort of lustrous red-gold hair people would die for—not to name any names, you understand. But just because I am physically less-than those people, doesn't mean I'm biologically so. I know, intellectually, that there's nothing wrong with me at all.

Intellect and emotion are two very different things.

Brandon, dear heart, has always claimed that he doesn't need more than a handful; besides, he says, he wouldn't care if they were concave, because they'd still be mine. But it's been a sore point with me for just about as long as I can remember. Michael had unknowingly hit on one of my strongest insecurities, and even now I was still feeling uncomfortable, defensive, exposed, as though an attack might come from any direction. At least with clothes on you can make them look good! But I didn't have clothes; all I had, at the moment, were my natural charms. Or, rather, my lack of them. And I didn't like feeling unprotected like this at all.

And it was this emotional state that Bernard came charging into.

"I need help," he said shortly, pacing back and forth in front of me.

"All right..." I said. And then, a little piqued at his brusqueness: "Well, most things come with instruction manuals. Sometimes it helps if you read them."

"Girls don't come with manuals," Bernard retorted.

"Well, yes, that's true," I said. "So why are you asking me about them? I don't know them any better than you do."

Bernard stopped in mid-stride. "I'm trying to be serious here," he growled, and I glimpsed a hint of his rage. He hates it when people laugh at him, I realized.

"So am I," I said, letting my own annoyance show for the first time. "Not all girls are alike, Bernard. It would help if you'd specify which one, or ones, you were talking about."

"What does it matter," Bernard said, sounding a bit defensive. "They're all girls, aren't they?"

Maybe he just didn't want to tell me; a lot of people are embarrassed about having crushes on people. "Are you the same as Brandon?" Or maybe he's just an idiot.

"Brandon," Bernard said. "Brandon Chambers?" His eyes shifted; strangely, I would swear he glanced at my breasts. "No," he sneered, "I'm nothing like him."

"Of course you are," I said loftily. "You're both boys, aren't you?"

Bernard gave me a hateful look and kept pacing. I waited for him to speak some more, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, but he didn't. "Look," I said finally, "what problems with girls are you having? Maybe I can help you figure that out."

He seemed to look inside himself for a moment, as though consulting some inner guidance. Finally he said, "I want them to pay more attention to me."

I blinked at him. It seemed like such a mundane goal. Just about every boy in the world wants that, and the only ones who don't are either already dating someone, or gay, and sometimes those still doesn't stop them. He wants to be noticed by girls more. Okay.

"Well," I said, "going naked is a pretty smart way to do that, so I'd say you've taken a good step right there."

"It's not working," Bernard retorted. "It's been a day and a half and nobody's ever tried to Rule Three me, and whenever I ask for relief it takes like five minutes for anyone to raise their hand. They're all total bitches," he finished, snarling.

Well, I suppose your attitude wouldn't have anything to do with it. "Who exactly are you hoping will approach you," I asked. When his anger threatened to boil again, I added hastily, "You don't have to name any names. I just need a... General idea."

"What does that matter," he said (again) defensively (again).

"Well..." I said. "You said you're not Brandon, right?"

"Damn straight I'm not," Bernard said.

Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue. "Well, you and Brandon... Being different people, you understand... Might look for different things in a girl." Patience is a virtue. So is getting through the day without breaking someone's head off. "For instance, I know from personal experience that Brandon likes the kind of girl who is... Serious, and studious, and..." Frowning, grasping for qualities—what's the best way to describe the similarities between Sajel and Jane and I? "And very kind-hearted. That's his personal taste. But he's probably not the only person who looks for that sort of girl. And so we can group them into a category."

"There are patterns, you mean," Bernard said.

"Yes," I said. "There are patterns. If you tell me the kind of girl you like, I can probably predict the kind of boy she likes."

"That's useful," Bernard said, his voice betraying just how useful he thought it truly was.

"The point is..." I said. Patience is a virtue. "You haven't told me what kind of girl you're looking for—" God forbid he be going for the cheerleader type like Shannon Salvolestra, or the sort of center-of-attention glamor-queen Gavin has found in Erica. "—but if she's not the kind of girl who looks for the kind of boy you are... You might be in trouble."

"Get to the point," Bernard said.

"It might be... Wise," I said. "To turn your attentions to the sort of girl who likes the sort of boy you are." Play to your strengths, was what I was telling him, which was much the same advice as Zach gave Christa, way back when. The difference is, Zach believed—rightly—that Christa could snare anyone she wanted; her options were unlimited. Bernard... I was not so optimistic about. I know there are people who like the intellectual type, but Bernard has a crippling set of disadvantages to work around, not the least of which is his outrageous attitude. He seemed to expect girls to swoon over him left and right. It wasn't outside the range of possibility—with a lot of work and careful study, he might be able to become that sort of person—but it was totally out of his grasp right now. No wonder he was always angry. "There are probably people who find you attractive," I said, phrasing carefully—that 'probably' was a calculated choice. "Why don't you talk to them?"

"They're all losers," Bernard said dismissively, suggesting (alarmingly) that 'probably' was 'actually'—and suggesting, furthermore, that he'd met those people and turned them down. That was not a good sign. "They're all ugly and they haven't got any tits."

Bernard, I'd like to introduce you to a concept called Tact. Please, for heaven's sake, spend some time together— "Bernard..." I said, keeping rigid control of my words. "That's a really bad criteria to judge by." Feeling so extraordinarily exposed, fighting with every cell the urge to cover my breasts with my arms. "A woman's... Bustline isn't a factor she can control." Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue. Patience is so a fucking virtue. "It's mostly genetic." Speaking for myself, now, as much as that phantom group of people who, by some miracle or bad luck or malicious twist of fate, had actually found Bernard attractive once upon a time. "I think it's... Really unfair of you to dismiss people over it. It's not something they can control."

"Yeah, well, sucks to be them, don't it," Bernard said, his face ugly.

Breaking heads off is looking more and more like an appealing alternative.

"Bernard," I said, feeling my voice trembling. "I'm afraid I have to go now. I'll think some more on your problem—"

"Hold on, your advice was shitty, you haven't supported me," Bernard protested.

"I'll think some more on your problem, " I gritted, and my face must have been a sight, because Bernard actually fell back a step, his eyes suddenly visible behind those massive spectacles, his eyes suddenly wide. "And you think about it too." Think about all your problems, Bernard. Think about them long and hard.

When I went back to my friends at Stetsen, it was all I could do not to throw up. And though Brandon held me, it really didn't help much. It didn't help much at all.

I don't think The Program is all it's cracked up to be.

T .4

When Arie and I got back to the normal place at Stetsen, satiated and well cleaned-up (though there wasn't a person there who didn't know what we'd been doing), Meredith was nowhere to be seen, conversation was dead, and everyone was habitually staring south, towards the little Caspian Theatre. I had to squint through the rows of cars, but immediately the three situations tied together.

"She's brave," Arie said.

"Yes, she is," I said. As a male student who is more technology-savvy than most, I've had to work with Bernard on several occasions, and he's exactly what Meredith said: hostile. Normally it's not this bad; normally he's able to at least be civil. I think being in The Program must not agree with him at all. But Meredith stood there and took it, brave to the bitter end, until finally she came away visibly shaking.

But when we saw her face, it wasn't tears, as we'd expected. It was rage.

"My God Meredith, you—" Christa said, and Meredith didn't even answer, just stood there with head bent, shoulders quivering, a single hand shoved up, warding us away, a single hand like a slap.

We all stopped as if we'd run into an invisible wall, and we stared at Meredith's shaking form.

Then Brandon took a step across the line. He crossed the distance carefully, as if trying not to make any sudden movements, and he put his hands on Meredith's shoulders. She jerked away, her head coming up, hair flying, his hands thrown loose; and we saw her face, and it was ugly with rage.

But Brandon stood his ground, and as their eyes met, it was as if he had pulled the invisible stopper on her bottle of anger, and it all drained away. The shaking in her muscles died away. Her eyes closed. Her head drooped again, and suddenly we saw how much energy her rage had taken from her.

"My God," I said. "If it takes that much out of her to be angry for five minutes, how does Bernard do it?"

"Well," Christa said crisply. "He's such a huge nerd, he's probably replaced himself with a robot. Robots don't get tired, you know."

"Turned himself into a cyborg or something," Zach said.

"That's the word I was looking for," Christa said, turning to smile at him.

Brandon held Meredith up as they walked the ten feet back to the porch at north Stetsen.

Arie tore loose from my side and ran over and grabbed Meredith in a hug, and a moment later Brandon's arms were around them both. It was like a recharger; I saw how the energy came back into Meredith's legs and heart and face, and she smiled at all of us and said, "You guys are the greatest friends in the world, you know that?"

I noticed that Zach and Christa were still smiling at each other, and their smiles had deepened; and I wondered what was going on over there. But before I could bring it up, Arie asked what had happened, and Meredith explained, and by the time all was said and done, the bell was ringing and it was time for class to resume, and the next time we saw Meredith, it was lunch, and she was due to explain where this fellow named Michael had come from.

We gathered, the seven of us, with our lunches; a number of visitors widening the circle. Stasya, Meredith's best friend, had been fetched and was sitting at her right hand, and Jenny had come wandering by and been flagged over by everyone. Everyone except Arie. It wasn't hard to tell she was displeased. But it would be inappropriate to make a big deal out of it, so she kept her mouth shut, for which I was thankful; Arie doesn't always care whether something's appropriate.

Arrayed and waiting, we looked at Meredith.

"I suppose you're all wondering why I've brought you here today," she began with a bit of a smile.

"You and Brandon are going to break up," Stasya suggested.

"You're going to tell us your superhero identity," I said.

"You have a penis!" Zach shouted.

"Zach, shut up," Christa said, rolling her eyes and grinning.

"If you need one, steal Zach's," Arie deadpanned.

"Why would I do that?" Meredith asked. "Whenever I need a penis, I just go talk to Brandon."

Over the whooping and whistles, Brandon said, "We've worked out a time-share agreement. Meredith's basically self-sufficient for most things, but every now and then you just... Need a penis. What was it you borrowed it for the other day?"

With a malicious grin, Meredith said, "I had to smash some spiders."

Brandon's face underwent most alarming contortions. "And here you told me you just needed a straight-edge."

"I think I also used it to dust under the couch once," Meredith said ingeniously.

"I'm going home and burning that contract up," Brandon grumped.

Jenny, leaning close to me, her eyebrows climbing into the stratosphere, said, "... I see what you meant about 'ain't seen nothin' yet.' "

"In effigy," Brandon said. "I'll draw your face on it and burn it—"

"Burn it with the passions of sweet, sweet love," Sajel interjected with a malicious grin, "so that she burns for you, she pines, she longs... And when she sees you tomorrow she throws herself at you—"

Brandon and Meredith looked at each other with a blushing sort of recognition.

"Sajel, you've been reading too much Shakespeare," Christa said.

"It's all Cavanaugh's fault," Sajel said, referring to their English teacher. "That shit's contagious. Just the other day I heard myself, I swear, speaking in iambic."

"Your misery within my heart doth resound," Christa said. "Um. Verily."

"You broke meter," Sajel said. "Minus thirteen points Christa."

"Shut up," Christa said, grinning.

Brandon and Meredith were smiling at each other, their hands together, smiles tinged with love, totally oblivious to the world around them.

"... Does a penis really make a good flyswatter?" Zach asked.

"Of course," Arie said archly, "it's perfect. Just ask Derek."

I blinked my confusion at the pairs of eyes around me. "I don't want to know how you learned that from me."

"The reason you invited us all here," Jenny said loudly; she was probably feeling a little uncomfortable, not sure where she fit into the group. Stasya, as well, looked somewhat lost, but she was sticking to her guns, trusting in Meredith's original invitation to see her through.

Brandon and Meredith jumped, startled at the interruption. "Oh, uh," said Meredith. "Yeah."

"We've come to tell you about Michael," Stasya said loudly. It got attention. We all wanted to know; there was no doubt about that.

"I guess... I guess I should start from the beginning," Meredith said into the rather sudden silence. And, taking a breath, she did just that.

"My parents are easy-going. They haven't always been. Honestly, Arie, they used to be like yours. Not... Not quite as bad as your mother, but pretty close. Straight A's were the order of the day; my brother and I had very high standards to live up to, and there was no margin for failure. No gray area, either. If we didn't have straight A's, we were automatic failures."

Arie nodded. Christa didn't. "Your parents were like that?? I can't believe it."

"They were," Stasya said. "We used to spend a lot of time at her house, because hers were more permissive about certain things, you know, like, it was a little easier to bend the rules than it was with my parents. But I heard them ream her out a couple of times. It wasn't pretty.

"I remember this one time..." She squinted in thought. "When she was about... When was it, Meredith? The rollerblade thing."

"I was ten," Meredith said.

"Yeah, she was ten," Stasya said, "and she really wanted these new rollerblades. They were already kind of on their way out by then, but she liked 'em, and her parents said, you know... 'Hey, if you, you know, get good grades, if you get especially good grades' rather—I mean, she always got good grades—'then we'll get you these rollerblades for Christmas.' And she got... What was it?"

"Three A's, four A+'s," Meredith said.

"Yeah," Stasya said, "which was definitely within the bounds of the agreement, she should have qualified."

"But she didn't get the rollerblades," Christa said, making the obvious conclusion.

"I offered to let her use my bike," Stasya said, "I mean, I never used it myself, but... It wasn't quite the same thing."

"Basically," Meredith said, "I learned that it didn't really matter. It was a no-win situation. I could get bad grades and be punished by my parents... Or I could get good grades and not get punished, but not really rewarded either." Brandon had her her hand in his and didn't look inclined to let go. "It was hard.

"My only salvation... Was my brother. He was two years older than me, but he was always nice to me. He looked out for me. He wasn't an insensitive asshole like some older brothers. I really admired him—he faced the same treatment that I did, but he was always able to talk his way out of things, in a way I only wished I could. I thought he was really cool, and he had all these older friends who knew all these interesting thigns, and they wore clothes in styles and colors I didn't know existed, and said words I'd never heard... He didn't mind if I tagged along with him and his friends, and he'd go out of his way to keep me included, or to defend me if his friends wanted me gone... I really admired him."

We were all silent. We had witnessed Michael Levine's charisma, the sheer force of his charm, and we could see how a smaller sister—young, naive, a little bit ostracized because of her brainpower, her insistence on self-reliance—could become enamored of him. And that was with him being the narcissistic asshole who had terrorized us earlier. If he'd been the gentle, generous fellow Meredith was describing... Well, there was no hope for it. No hope at all. Jenny and I exchanged glances. We knew—maybe we were the only people here who knew—the sort of bond that can develop between siblings. We could credit this. We could credit this easily.

When I turned away again, Arie was glaring at me.

"But the pressures were too much," Meredith said. "We were all growing up, our parents wanted more of us... We had to start thinking about colleges, about our futures, about all these things kids don't care about. I was a year ahead of almost all of my friends and classes were hard, I didn't have anyone I could ask for help. Our parents didn't seem to realize how damaging all this pressure was, but they pushed us, and pushed us, and pushed us. Inevitably, somebody was going to snap.

"A few days into sophomore year, Michael was sent to the office. He was in Mr. Cavanaugh's English class and, according to reports, he'd been acting funny. He'd been sluggish and hyper by turns, and disruptive enough to warrant attention from Mr. Cavanaugh. Mr. Cavanaugh asked him to calm down. Michael exploded. He started yelling and ranting and screaming—Christa, Sajel, you guys remember. We were across the hall in Ms. Cheney's English class." They nodded.

"Well, Dr. Zelvetti had a look at Michael, and took him to the nurse's office. Nurse Chaplain took some tests, and then called my parents at home. When they rooted through his belongings, they found, hidden around his room and in various quantities, a total of three ounces of cocaine."

The silence was absolute.

"Dr. Zelvetti recommended a local program," Meredith said quietly. "There were rehab options nearby. But my parents... They didn't know what to do; they didn't know at all. Michael said the pressures at home got to him, and I think they panicked. They figured, the best thing for him would be to get him away from home; far away. They found a rehab facility in Utah, almost a boarding school, and packed him up and shipped him off."

My mind tried to process this information, sluggish and confused. We knew Michael had been... Somewhere, somewhere removed enough that none of us had ever met him; for some bad enough reason that Meredith didn't like mentioning it; at some place where he could become as sunken into self-absorption as he was now. But... Cocaine? Dimly I remembered tales of a junior carted away last year for drug abuse; rumors are rumors, and I hadn't paid attention. Now those vaguely-heard tales carried a new dimension.

"He just got out," Meredith said, "yesterday, and they shipped him home. Brandon was here when he arrived, but that's the only reason he knows. Stasya was there... She knows most of it."

"Is that why your parents are so easygoing now," Christa asked.

"Yes," Meredith said. "They received the shock of their lives. My brother, and then..." She hesitated, glancing around. "His condition. He came back that Christmas on a week vacation and he had changed so much..."

I knew what she had been going to say. It hadn't just been Michael. You see, I know a secret about Meredith that nobody else does, except for Brandon, except for her family, except for Dr. Zelvetti and a couple of psychologists. They have to do with the scars on Meredith's wrists, parallel to the ones on Brandon's. Meredith, explaining the incident to me, had only said that her brother had been home for Christmas—she had always mentioned this, but had never qualified it, and I had never asked. Seeing Michael now, it was easy to imagine the pall he had cast over the holiday season; it was easy to imagine poor Meredith, forlorn and lost, looking for a way out.

Nobody else knows, not even Stasya. Evidently she was enamored with her boyfriend at the time—he had descended from college and scooped her up only a few months before, and she was still drunk on the experience. (Meredith says they met at a dance class.) Meredith had decided not to dampen the mood, and evidently the news had just never come out. And, for the most part, nobody notices what they don't look for.

Brandon never moved, but from the way he leaned forward a little, from the intense light in his eyes, I got the sense that, in spirit at least, he was holding Meredith as tightly as he knew how.

"They realized that they'd made a mess," Meredith said. "They realized that they'd got so involved in making sure their kids would have bright futures... They'd forgotten about the present. My mom said it was the most traumatic thing she'd ever had to face—she says it's the worst thing any parent has to face. Having your child come up to you, that you love, and tell you, 'Mom, I hate to break it to you, but all these things you've done, trying to make us into good people? They backfired.' The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all."