GRAND & HUMBLE
By
Brent Hartinger
PUBLISHED BY:
Buddha Kitty, Inc. on Smashwords
Copyright © 2011 by Brent Hartinger
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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For Michael Jensen, who is both grand and humble
And for Steve Fraser, who is just grand
HARLAN
Two faces. Two sides to the same person. That's what Harlan's English teacher was getting at. It was so obvious, he couldn't believe everyone else hadn't seen it right from the start. How could they be so blind?
"Harlan?" Mrs. Woodburn said to him from up near the blackboard. "Perhaps you'd like to enlighten the class with your opinion on the subject at hand."
"My opinion?" Harlan said, with the perfect drawl.
"Yes, your opinion."
He grinned. "My opinion is that blue is a really good color on you. It goes with your eyes."
There was a moment's silence, like the instant after you slam the gas pedal, but before the spark plugs fire and the tires squeal out.
Then they squealed. All at once, the class started laughing, just like Harlan had known they would. And Mrs. Woodburn blushed. Harlan had known she'd do that too.
But Mrs. Woodburn was more self-possessed than he'd thought. "Thank you so very much, Harlan," the teacher said, trying to keep her voice even. "I'll keep your opinion in mind when I'm dressing each morning. But I'm wondering if you have an opinion on the subject of The Scarlet Letter."
"Oh," Harlan said. "That subject at hand." The class snickered again, if only at the boldness of his banter.
"Harlan, just answer the question!" Mrs. Woodburn was getting impatient. It was, therefore, time to get serious. The difference between Harlan and the idiots who spent their afternoons in detention was that he always knew not to push things too far.
"Split personality," he said without missing a beat.
Mrs. Woodburn hesitated. "What about it?"
"That's my opinion. That's what you're getting at. It's like the characters have two different sides to themselves. Opposite faces."
"Which characters?"
"Hester, Chillingworth, Dimmesdale," Harlan said. "Pearl too, in a way. They all have public personas that are at odds with their private ones. And the challenge they have in The Scarlet Letter is whether or not they can reconcile the two conflicting natures in their souls. The characters who do—Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl—find peace. The character who can't—Chillingworth—doesn't. According to the author, he shrivels away 'like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun.'"
Mrs. Woodburn stared at him. He'd struck her speechless, and he'd intended that too. Just because he was popular and athletic and good-looking, that didn't mean he wasn't smart. Why was that always so hard for people to remember?
"Thank you, Harlan," Mrs. Woodburn said simply.
Harlan leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out under his desk. Mrs. Woodburn wouldn't be calling on him again anytime soon.
* * * *
"Hel-looo?" Harlan's girlfriend, Amber, said as they stood together in the crowded school hallway. "Earth to Harlan."
"What?" he said, eyes suddenly focused on her.
"You're not listening to me, that's what."
"Am so."
"Then what did I just say?"
"You were talking about how you went shopping. At the mall."
Amber glared back at him. "I don't know how you do it."
It's not that hard, Harlan thought. She was always talking about shopping at the mall. Either that or her role as Guinevere in the school production of Camelot.
"You are so slick," Amber went on. "You're a—what's the word? Rube?"
"Rake," Harlan said. "A rube is a hick. Or maybe you mean 'rogue'?"
"No, I'll go with 'rake.' That sounds right. Rhymes with 'snake.'"
Harlan met her grin for grin. Amber was blond and beautiful, but he was no mere planet orbiting blindly around her. No, he was the center of this solar system, not her.
"It's like what you said to Mrs. Woodburn in English today," Amber said. "How do you get away with stuff like that? That's sexual harassment, you know that?"
"No," Harlan said. "It's only sexual harassment if you're old and fat and bald. I'm seventeen and hunky, so it's just me being charming."
Amber rolled her eyes. "Where do you wanna go for lunch today?"
"What?" Harlan said, suddenly uneasy.
"Lunch?" Amber said. "Off-campus? What we do every single day at noon?"
But Harlan barely heard her. In his mind, he had been transported to a different place and time. The surroundings there were shadowy and indistinct, but one thing was very clear: in that place, Harlan was choking. In his mind's eye he struggled, gagging, trying to cough up whatever was in his throat. It wasn't working; he was suffocating, and no one was helping him. Harlan was experiencing all this, feeling the fear and anxiety of choking, even the bodily sensations—a sharp, throbbing ache in his throat. But at the same time, he was outside the vision, watching it all from one side, engulfed by the images, as if in an IMAX theater of the mind, but unable to affect the outcome.
The experience was also silent—completely, eerily silent. Was it a premonition of lunch that afternoon? That part still wasn't clear, but it sure felt like he was seeing the future.
"Harlan?" Amber said.
"What!" he said, jumping. Harlan was a lot of things, but he'd never been jumpy, at least not until these past few weeks.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Harlan said, his mouth dry as toast. "I'm fine."
The vision had gone as quickly as it had come. But the effects lingered. Harlan was flushed, his pulse pounding.
The fact is, it wasn't just the characters in The Scarlet Letter who had two faces. Lately, Harlan did too. One face was calm, cool, and collected, always steady, always in control—one of the load-bearing social supports that kept Roosevelt High School from collapsing. That face had been elected student body president by the largest margin in school history.
But the other face of Harlan Chesterton? Not so confident—in fact, downright fearful. And moody. And easily distracted.
There was a reason, of course. For the past few weeks, Harlan had been having these occasional premonitions of disaster—visions of what seemed to be the future, usually of death. At least they'd started out as occasional. Now he was having them two or more times a day.
Were they really foretelling the future? Harlan had never had the nerve to find out. Once he had "foreseen" something, he did everything he could to avoid the time and place in which it seemed likely to occur.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Amber asked.
"What do you mean?" Harlan said, determined to keep from shaking.
"You look funny."
"I'm fine."
"Okay, okay." Amber sighed. "So what do you say?"
"About what?"
"About what I was saying!"
But this time, when Harlan tried to guess what Amber was referring to, nothing came up. What was it that she had been talking about? Suddenly he couldn't remember.
"Lunch!" Amber said. "Where do you want to go?"
Right then, an image of himself choking once again torpedoed through his mind. It was just as all-consuming, just as silent. And once again Harlan was forced to watch, and to feel the experience, but was unable to control or affect the outcome.
"Harlan?" Amber said.
"What!" he said, jumping again. "I'm skipping lunch today!" he said, almost a shout. "I have to study."
"Are you serious?"
"I've got to go talk to someone," Harlan said. "I'll see you later, okay?"
And without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked away. It felt more like running, though, and in a way, that was exactly what it was.
* * * *
If there really were two Harlan Chestertons these days, there was still one place where they came together—the swimming pool after school during his swim team workout. And why not? Mind and body joined together while he was swimming; it seemed only right that the two Harlans should come together there too.
Harlan lived to swim. He thought of it as flying—defying gravity, breaking the bonds of earthbound existence.
He'd heard people complain before about the heaviness of water, about how it could swallow you up or about its darkness. But for Harlan, water was liquid light, and swimming was freedom itself.
He hadn't always felt this way. He remembered the first time he'd been to a pool, when he was three years old and his mom had taken him to the golf club for his first swimming lesson. Harlan had had a fit, had refused to even put his foot into the water. But his mom hadn't pressured him like most of the other moms. No, she had simply brought him back to the pool, day after day, sitting with him by the pool's edge while the other kids had their lessons. Halfway through the summer, Harlan finally decided to join them in the water. He'd loved it, of course. And by the time he was seven, he was ready for the swim team.
So he had his mother to thank for his love of swimming? That was ironic, Harlan thought, especially given his feelings for her lately.
He was halfway through the warm-up before his buddy Ricky showed up. They'd been working out together since they were nine. Ricky knew him better than anyone else in the world.
'"S'up?" Ricky asked, long and lean in his black Speedo. Ricky Loduca was Guamanian—his birth parents had been born in Guam—which basically gave him as much street cred as being black, but without all the racism.
"Hey!" Harlan said, grinning.
"Let's do it," Ricky said, hopping into the pool alongside Harlan. But right before they pushed off, Ricky asked, "Hey, you drive to school today?"
"Yeah," Harlan said.
"Cool," Ricky said. "I have to leave early." On days that Harlan rode to school with Amber, Ricky usually drove him home.
"It's cool," Harlan said.
And then they were swimming side by side, in a lane all their own. As he finished his warm-up, Harlan immediately felt a connection with Ricky. People sometimes asked him if it got lonely, spending all that time underwater, alone with your thoughts. But for Harlan, swimming was the opposite of lonely. No, swimming was all about connection. It was about being totally attuned to the swimmers around you, feeling their wakes, drawing on their energy. When Harlan swam a set side by side with Ricky, they supported one another, pushing each other to swim faster, pulling each other when one fell behind. He may have been "alone" underwater, but he wasn't really.
Hey, you drive to school today? Suddenly, Ricky's totally innocuous question replayed in Harlan's brain. What did it have to do with anything? But because Harlan was thinking about driving, not focused on swimming, the connection with Ricky suddenly broke. He was still swimming side by side with him, but now Harlan was alone.
And inside his head, he was suddenly in a different place and time. A city street at night? A truck—or was it a van?—was bearing down on Harlan. He could see the expanding headlights, could watch the vehicle veering to one side as the driver tried to swerve away at the last second.
It was too late. The van still caught Harlan head-on. (Was Harlan in a car too? That part wasn't clear.) Everything that followed seemed to happen simultaneously: the fan of flashing sparks, the shattering glass, the wrenching metal, and—overwhelming everything else—the searing, straight-to-the-core-of- his-being pain. And it was all happening in perfect silence.
Harlan was having another premonition. But in the swimming pool? That was the one place where he felt most at home in the whole world.
Not today. The same vision swept back through his mind, like the backwash from a crashing wave. The van tried to swerve, then smashed into him once again. Harlan's heart pounded—wild, exploding pulsings that replaced the quick, even beats from the workout itself. This car crash was going to happen—Harlan knew it!
Harlan was coughing. Like he'd swallowed water. He wasn't swimming forward anymore. Now he was paddling upright in the water, but gasping for air.
A wave splashed in his face, causing him to swallow more water. Harlan began to struggle—flailing, almost.
Like he was drowning.
Which was impossible. Harlan could never drown—he loved the water! So why was he struggling now?
In an instant, Ricky was at his side, treading water, holding him up. The connection was back—in a way. Now they weren't supporting each other; now it was just Ricky supporting him.
"Har? You okay?" The concern in Ricky's eyes was obvious, even through swim goggles.
Harlan coughed. "I'm fine," he said. "I just swallowed some water."
Ricky stared at him. He knew that swimmers like the two of them never "swallowed water," at least not the way Harlan had. It would be like a star baseball pitcher suddenly falling off the mound. It just didn't happen.
Harlan pushed away, treaded water on his own. He hesitated, waiting for the premonition to come crashing back yet again. But it didn't.
"It's okay," Harlan said at last. "I'm fine. Let's just keep going, okay?"
Ricky finally nodded and they pushed off, swimming side by side again. But for Harlan, the memory of his latest premonition trailed behind him like an anchor.
MANNY
Everything was out of focus. Manny had to squint to see what was going on in the theater in front of him. Problem was, he wasn't in a movie theater. He was in a stage theater—or "thea-tuh", as the actors liked to quip—with rehearsals of the school play taking place before him. So the problem wasn't an out-of-focus movie projector. No, the problem was him—a pounding headache that was affecting his eyesight. He squeezed his temples and that helped with his headache, but it didn't put anything back into focus.
"You okay?" said Keith, his assistant in the lighting booth.
"Huh?" Manny said. "Oh, yeah. Just tired." He was quick to change the subject. "We're still going to need those forest gobos for the fairy scenes. Did you ever track them down?"
"Backstage, I think."
Manny stared at Keith, oily-faced and gangly, too tall for his folding chair.
"Maybe I should go get 'em, huh?" Keith said.
"Thanks," Manny said, and in a second he was thankfully, blissfully, alone again. He looked down at the control panel in front of him. He loved the thought that from this seat he could control every single one of the sixty-two lights suspended from the ceiling of the theater in front of him—each lantern painstakingly plotted, gelled (or not), hung, and focused by Manny, and Manny alone. As a result, he controlled the look and feel of everything that happened down on that stage. Did that make him a control freak? Maybe not, but it definitely made him a geek. Let's face it, to the rest of the school, lighting design was just a notch above Chess Club—and even that was probably an overly optimistic assessment.
Okay, so Manny Tucker was a geek. He knew it, and he was okay with it. No, really. It didn't bother him. Not at all. Yes, he did lighting design, but he was damn good at it—a Barbizon Award regional finalist two years running (with an excellent shot at being named national winner this year!). What was the deal with being popular, anyway? Why would anyone want to have to spend two hundred dollars for the "right" pair of pants? It was just so much easier to wear black all the time like the other backstage geeks.
He looked up at the stage where Amber Hodges—Guinevere in the school's production of Camelot—was running through the dance steps to the "Lusty Month of May" number. She was the perfect example of how crazy it was to be popular. Why would anyone want to be in the spotlight like that? Why would she want the pressure of all those eyes on her? Though, Manny had to admit, she was kind of hot.
Okay, more than kind of hot. Gorgeous. She almost sparkled, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with Selma's costumes or Manny's lighting. The rest of the stage might be out of focus, but Amber couldn't ever be.
"Hey, Moonbeam," said a voice from behind. "Better get a Kleenex for that drool."
"Huh?" Manny jumped; he'd always been jumpy, and he hated himself for it. Jerry Blain was suddenly alongside him in the lighting booth. Amber's boyfriend? No, she hung with a different jock—same model, slightly different exterior. But what was Jerry Blain doing in the school theater—much less in Manny's lighting booth?
"Sorry?" Manny said to him.
Jerry laughed. "I see you starin'! Too bad you don't got a pair of X-ray specs, huh?"
"I'm the lighting designer. It's my job to stare at Amber Hodges."
"Not like that, it isn't!"
"What's it to you, anyway?" Manny said.
"Just don't get any ideas, Moonbeam. She's way out of your league."
Wait a minute, Manny thought. The lighting booth was his territory! Jerry wasn't even supposed to be in here! So why didn't Manny say something?
Because he was a geek, that's why. And while that meant he didn't have to worry about spending two hundred dollars on a pair of pants, the result was he had no power whatsoever. It also meant he wasn't allowed to talk to—or, apparently, even look at—Amber Hodges.
"What do you want, anyway?" Manny asked him.
"Just out in the hallway waiting for my buds," Jerry said. "Thought I'd come and see what's happening back in loserville."
"Well, I'm busy, okay?"
"O-kay!" Jerry said, enunciating like a kindergarten teacher. "But keep your eyes on the control board, Moonbeam, otherwise you'll need a Kleenex for more than just drool."
And with that he turned to go, laughing as he went.
* * * *
Manny still had a headache, and the caffeine in his double shot of espresso was only making things worse. He'd come to this coffee shop to talk with his friend Elsa about the video they were making together. The movie was called Momster, and it was about how terrifying a mother could look from the point of view of a small child. But right now their video was the last thing on his mind.
Elsa had a face like the moon—soft and pleasing, with an actual glow (and an admittedly pockmarked surface). She was also deaf, which meant that she used ASL—American Sign Language.
It's all about perspective, she said, motioning with her hands. We need to force the perspective to make the mother look really, really scary.
That shouldn't be too hard. Manny answered in ASL too. His signing was more than decent, which made sense given all the time they'd spent together.
Part of me wishes we could cast a real child, Elsa went on. But it'd be such a hassle to work with him. Besides, I guess it's funnier if we just dress an older actor in baby clothes.
Manny nodded. An adult actor playing the child. It was a good idea—like most of Elsa's ideas. She had this great sense of the visual, of pattern and design. Was it because she was deaf, or was that a stereotype? All Manny knew was that he loved doing creative projects with her. It had been strange when they'd first met back in the fourth grade, her deafness. But it was immediately clear that they were kindred spirits; he'd never met anyone else so into the arts. So they hadn't let the language barrier come in the way of their becoming best friends. (It helped that Manny hadn't had any other friends!) Soon they'd collaborated on a whole string of creative projects: movies, websites, even an annual haunted house in her garage. Manny had never felt more alive than on the warm summer nights he spent over at Elsa's house, planning their latest project. Or waking up on a Saturday morning, knowing he had a full day to spend with his friend—and at least two days before he had to drag himself back to the dreariness of school again.
Which was why it was so frustrating that he hadn't been able to concentrate on any of their projects lately. He couldn't go on like this. Somehow he needed to get back in control. And maybe he could start by laying off the double shots of espresso and finding some aspirin for his headache.
Out of the corner of his eye, Manny saw Elsa making waving motions at him. He looked up at her.
What's wrong? she signed.
So she'd noticed he'd zoned out on her. It's rude to look away from anyone while she's talking, but it was doubly rude to do it to Elsa; looking away from a deaf person who signed made it impossible for her to talk.
Nothing, Manny signed. Just tired. I'm sorry.
Another nightmare?
He wished he'd never told Elsa about the nightmares. He'd been having them for weeks now. It hadn't been every night at first, but it was now. It was bad enough that he had to dream them; he didn't want to also have to talk about them.
Manny nodded glumly.
The same thing happen? Elsa signed.
He stood up from his chair. Do you want a biscotti? I want a biscotti.
You hate biscotti, Elsa said. Everyone hates biscotti. Don't change the subject.
He sank back down into his chair. The dreams are nothing. It's no big deal.
Elsa just stared at him. She didn't need to make motions with her hands for him to know what she was thinking; it was all written right there on her face. If they're nothing, she signed at last, why do you keep having them?
They'll go away, he said.
Eventually. But what are you going to do in the meantime?
Elsa was right. It wasn't just his eyes that were out of focus; it was his whole life. And he just knew that he would keep having these nightmares until he somehow got his life back into focus. The nightmares were about the fact that his life was out of focus. But how did a person go about putting his life back into focus?
We can make an oversized papier-mache baby rattle! Manny suddenly signed, changing the subject again. So it'll make our actor look like a real baby. And maybe a great big rocking chair?
This time, Elsa took the bait. Her face broke into a smile and she was off and running, building on his idea with another one of her own.
* * * *
It was after eleven o'clock, and Manny was exhausted.
Exhausted, yes, but also frightened—by his bed, of all things. Who ever heard of a person being afraid of his bed?
It looked perfectly comfortable—was perfectly comfortable. His dad was embarrassed that he wasn't able to afford new sheets for Manny to replace his Lord of the Rings ones from a few years back. But Manny loved those sheets, even at age seventeen. And there was a thick layer of blankets, just the way he liked it. He loved the cozy feel of all that material pressing down against his body.
Of course, Manny's fear wasn't really about the bed itself; it was about his dreams. He couldn't bear the thought of another nightmare.
He looked over at his computer. As much as the bed repelled him, the computer seemed to be enticing him, calling to him, drawing him close. He'd already updated his blog for the day—twice—but he couldn't go to bed without checking his e-mail one more time.
He did, and found nothing. Not even any spam.
As long as he was online, he decided to surf over to a couple of his "favorites." But there weren't any new postings on any of his online friends' blogs, and there wasn't anything going on in any of his usual chat rooms.
He glanced at the backpack lying next to his desk.
Homework! He still had homework to do!
Okay, so maybe he didn't have any homework per se. But he could always review his notes.
Review his notes? Manny had never "reviewed his notes" in his entire life. What was he thinking?
He looked back at the computer screen, but now it was blurry too. He rubbed his eyes, but that just made his headache worse.
Manny needed to go to sleep.
He turned to the bed again. The way the blankets were askew, it looked like the bed was grinning at him. Ironically, he couldn't even count on lying awake, tossing and turning. He knew he'd fall asleep just moments after his head hit the pillow. It wasn't until he woke up in the middle of the night, pulse pounding and sheets drenched in sweat, that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep again.
He sighed. There was no point in trying to delay the inevitable. He stood up, stripped down to his Jockey shorts, and climbed into bed. With that, he braced himself for the worst, and closed his eyes.
HARLAN
Harlan opened his eyes to a flood of sunlight. He was lying in bed under a single sheet—he hated blankets, even in winter, so at some point during the night he'd kicked the bedspread off. But he'd fallen asleep with his curtains open, and now the clear morning light filled his room like a liquid, cleansing and clarifying every surface.
It was Saturday, he realized. No school.
He looked around. He couldn't get over how different everything looked, how the world almost glowed. It was like he'd woken up in a commercial for laundry detergent.
He started laughing.
He couldn't help it. It wasn't just the darkness that the daylight had washed away; it was everything—the gloom, the anxiety, the fear. This morning, he actually felt giddy. He couldn't remember feeling this good in weeks. Oh, he remembered feeling lousy in the days before, and he remembered why: his premonitions of disaster. His last premonition had been the one in the swimming pool, where he'd imagined he would be hit by a van. That had been one situation he could definitely not avoid; after all, it's not like he could never get into a car again. And so, after the workout, he had—slowly and cautiously—driven home.
Nothing had happened. He hadn't even seen a van, much less come close to being hit by one.
And in the light of this brand-new day, the whole incident just seemed so utterly ridiculous. No one could predict the future. He saw that now. How could he have been so stupid?
There was an urgent knock on the door. "Harlan? What's wrong?" His mom.
"Nothing," he said.
The door swung open. "What was that I heard?"
"Me," Harlan said. "I was laughing."
"Oh." She stared at him. "Why?" His mom thought something was wrong because he'd burst into spontaneous laughter. Somehow, every problem with their relationship could be found right there in that one little exchange.
"Because I felt like it," Harlan said. "Because I felt good."
She kept staring at him. The first thing people always said about his mother was that she was beautiful. Harlan supposed that was true. She certainly had the "look"—the hair, the clothes, the makeup (especially the makeup; it had been so long since he'd seen her without it that he honestly couldn't remember what she looked like). She definitely didn't appear to be an ordinary mom; she didn't feel like an ordinary mom either. To Harlan, she was more like the idea of a mom than a real person. The words and actions had all been there—the unqualified praise for his sixth-grade dried-leaf collection, the obligatory attendance at the most important of his swim meets. But they felt hollow somehow, a little too deliberate, too perfect—like the motions of the animatronic robots inside a ride at Disney World. Especially lately.
"You should get moving," she said.
Moving? he thought. But even as he thought this, he remembered. He had a morning swim workout, then SAT Prep at the community college, a practice session of French Debate, and finally his volunteer work with deaf kids at the YMCA.
Suddenly he didn't feel so giddy anymore.
"Oh, and your father's invited you to a banquet tonight," his mom went on. "The Bittle Society."
His father: United States Senator Lawrence M. Chesterton, Very Big Cheese. Was it his imagination, or did the morning sunlight just dim? As for the Bittle Society, that was a local organization that—well, Harlan wasn't exactly sure what they did. As far as he could tell, it was a group of filthy-rich people who sat around congratulating themselves for being so rich—and for being smart enough to elect a politician like his dad, who did everything in his power to keep them rich.
"But Ricky and Amber and I are going to a party tonight," Harlan began, "and I said—"
"A party?" his mom interrupted. "Will there be drinking?"
Harlan rolled his eyes. "Mom." She was always going on about her fear of his drinking or taking drugs—mostly, he was sure, because of how it would make his dad look if it ever got out to the press.
"Well, it doesn't matter," his mother said, "because your father's getting an award tonight, and you need to be there. Besides, this is one of the few weekends he gets to spend at home. He wants to spend it with you. Don't you want to spend it with him?"
This was typical of his mom—a precise combination of obligation and guilt. It was all spin, of course. His father got some kind of award every weekend he was home—usually from organizations like the Bittle Society. And if the Senator had really wanted to spend time with Harlan, he would have taken him to a baseball game. No, what he and Harlan's mom really wanted was to use their son in the latest of an endless series of photo ops. He wasn't sure why he had even bothered raising an objection. Harlan had learned long ago that there were some battles you just couldn't win.
He started to slide out of bed, but stopped. "Do you mind?" If his mom wasn't going to let him see her without makeup, he wasn't going to let her see him in his boxers.
* * * *
Harlan stared at the wall—why would anyone put carpeting on a wall?—and wondered how many banquets like this one he'd gone to in his life. Five hundred? A thousand? He had to have been to at least fifty in this very hall. He thought, Maybe I should start scratching hatch marks in one of the bathroom stalls.
Since the evening had started, Harlan's father had spoken to him a grand total of three sentences, and they had all been in the car on the ride over. So much for his father's wanting to spend time with him.
"You look like you want to be here even less than I do," said a voice from one side. For cocktails, everyone was still standing.
"What?" Harlan said. It was a woman—in her mid-thirties, nice-looking but not beautiful. Somehow Harlan knew in a glance that a Bittle Society dinner was not her natural habitat. Her outfit, for example. White blouse, purple skirt, silver jewelry—not inexpensive, but nothing remotely high-fashion, everything chosen to last. In fact, now that Harlan looked at her, he could swear the woman looked familiar. "No," he told her, maybe a little too firmly. "Not at all."
The woman smiled. "Relax. It's not that obvious."
"I know you," Harlan said suddenly. "You're Beth Farrell. The novelist." Always address people by their names, Harlan's mother said. Studies show that the sound people most like to hear is their own name spoken out loud.
"That's me," said the woman. "Ever read any of my books?"
"I—" He hadn't, but he wondered if he should lie. He knew his mother would want him to. On the other hand, it seemed like such an obvious lie, so easy to expose. "No," he said at last. "But now I will."
"Don't bother. I just like asking people that. I can always tell when they're lying. And you'd be shocked how often that is."
Now Harlan smiled. He liked her.
"I'm Harlan—"
"Chesterton," she finished. "The senator's son. I know who you are." Harlan wasn't surprised. Everyone always knew who he was.
"So, Ms. Farrell—"
"Beth."
"You're a member of the Bittle Society?"
"Um, no." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Bunch of right-wing bluenoses, but don't quote me on that." Her hair smelled like a forest of cedar and pine, as if she'd been out hiking in the woods that very afternoon. "Still," Beth went on, "just because they're Republican, that doesn't mean I won't take their money. I'm here to get an award, just like your dad."
As if by reflex, they both turned to look at Harlan's father, holding court over by the hors d'oeuvres—close, but not too close, to the bar. His dad adjusted his glasses. He looked mild-mannered because he was; Harlan's mom was the power behind that throne.
"Must be tough," Beth said.
"What?" Harlan said.
"Having a father like that."
He knew he should be nervous, talking to someone unfamiliar about something as personal as this—especially given that she was a writer. He knew what his mother would say about a situation like this: smile politely and change the subject.
"It's not that bad," Harlan said.
"Uh-huh." She obviously didn't believe him. "So are you planning on following him into politics?"
"Probably," Harlan said. In some families, it went without saying that the children would go to college. In his family, it went without saying that Harlan would go into politics (and go to college!). He'd been groomed for it his whole life. And he already knew he would be very good at it.
"So is that what you really want to do?" Beth asked.
"What?" Harlan said. He'd been asked a lot of questions at functions like this, but he'd never been asked that one before.
But suddenly there was his mom, appearing out of thin air. "Beth!" she said, all popcorn and pinwheels on the surface, but Harlan could hear the creaking of very thin ice under her breath.
"Victoria," Beth said to his mother. The feeling was obviously mutual.
"Excuse us, please," his mother said to the novelist. "There's someone I want Harlan to meet."
Harlan knew there wasn't really anyone his mom wanted him to meet. She just didn't want him talking to Beth Farrell.
"It was very nice to meet you, Harlan," Beth said, but his mother was already ushering him away, like a Secret Service agent whisking the president away from a would-be assassin.
"So," Harlan said to his mother when they were away from Beth and the crowd. "It's been an hour, and I talked to twenty-five people. Twenty-six, if you count Beth Farrell. I'm leaving, okay?"
"Leaving?" His mother was predictably horrified. "We haven't even had dinner! And what about the award?"
"I told you this morning: Ricky and Amber and I are going to a party. I can call him, and he'll come pick me up."
But as they talked, Harlan sensed that Bruce, his father's chief of staff, had pricked up his ears, even several clusters of people away. His mom noticed too.
In a second, Bruce was at their side, all pomaded and twitchy. "You're leaving?" he said to Harlan.
Harlan nodded hesitantly.
"What?" his mom said to Bruce.
"It's just that you know how the senator's numbers are down among Asian-Americans," Bruce said.
Harlan just listened. The scary part was, he already knew exactly where this was headed.
"What are you saying?" his mom asked Bruce.
"I'm saying that a family visit to that Thousand Cranes League banquet later tonight might make one hell of a Christmas card."
Bruce and Harlan's mother both turned to look, full-bore, at Harlan.
"Mom—" he started to say.
"Not here, Harlan," she said. That was the rule: absolutely no dissension in public. But apparently it only counted as dissension when he disagreed with his mother, not when she disagreed with him.
Bruce smiled at him; whenever he smiled, he reminded Harlan of a child molester. "Just an hour, Sport. That okay?"
Harlan shrugged. "I guess." Then he turned to go.
"Where are you going?" his mom asked.
"Outside for a smoke."
"Harlan! Not where people can see!"
"Smoking?" Bruce said to Harlan's mom, concerned. "Since when did he start smoking?"
"It's a joke," Harlan said. "I don't really smoke."
"Thank God," Bruce said. Then he added, with another pathetic smile, "That stuff'll kill you, Sport."
"Harlan, you know better than to make jokes like that," his mother said, already turning away. "Someone might overhear."
* * * *
The fog was thick in the streets outside the convention center. If it hadn't been for the sidewalks, he'd probably have been wandering in circles.
Harlan wasn't an idiot. He knew what Beth Farrell had been insinuating back in the convention hall. So is that what you really want to do? She'd been saying he was just doing what his parents wanted him to do. Well, no duh! Harlan knew he didn't have control over his life. He never had. Oh, sure, he had control at school—almost complete control, even over the teachers, which was kind of ironic when you thought about it. But that was all small stuff. The big stuff, the story line of his life, he was powerless to change. It was a little like the premonitions themselves, really: he could watch his life, like on a viewscreen, but he couldn't direct it.
It was so much easier this way. Beth Farrell had no idea of the kinds of forces his parents could bring to bear on a person in order to get their way. His mom ran their family life like she ran his dad's reelection campaigns—namely, to win. That meant she had no problem playing hardball when she had to. Once, when he was in the seventh grade, Harlan had been acting slightly rebellious at home. Then his Boy Scout troop, which had been about to hold its annual fundraiser, found that the restaurant that was donating the food suddenly had "problems" with the Health Department inspectors. Word quickly leaked that it was all Harlan's fault; everyone—from the other scouts, to the troop leaders, to the owners of the restaurant—had been furious with him. Needless to say, Harlan had quickly fallen back in line with his parents, just as he had done so many times since then.
The fog surrounded Harlan now, so thick he could barely make anything out. It was like being in an alien world, some planet without substance, a place of steam and gas. Or maybe it was a passageway between worlds, a shifting corridor through the swirling mists of time. The fog smelled musty, like frayed furniture in a long-abandoned house.
Is that what you really want to do? That's what Beth Farrell had asked. But Harlan wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life. He was seventeen years old—how could he know? And until he figured that out, he might as well do what his parents said. Someday, he'd figure out what he wanted. Then he'd stand up to his parents.
Someday. Just not now. Now he had to get back to the convention hall before his mom called out the FBI.
But which was the way back? He turned himself around, looking for a sign or landmark. Suddenly Harlan realized he was lost in the fog. It flowed around him like paint being swirled in a can, pressing in on him, confusing him. It made him dizzy. The fog even seemed to muffle sound.
But he wasn't lost, not really. He took a deep breath of the stale air, trying to clear his head. He knew this city. Besides, he couldn't have walked more than six or seven blocks. He just needed to keep walking until he came to a building or landmark that he recognized.
A pair of street signs materialized out of the fog. He had reached an intersection. The corner of Grand and Humble.
Everything was okay. Harlan knew this intersection. He hadn't gone more than three blocks from the convention center. Maybe he'd been walking around in circles after all.
He stepped off the curb, into the crosswalk.
And right into the path of an oncoming bus.
MANNY
Manny braced himself for the blow, but it didn't come.
He looked around. He was standing on a wide, sandy beach in the middle of a scorcher of a day. But was it a beach? When he looked for the ocean, he didn't see it. The sand sloped downward like a beach, and he definitely smelled the ocean, but there didn't seem to be any water. How had he come to be in this place anyway? It was like he had just appeared here, as if in a dream.
And why was he bracing himself? Why had he been so certain there was a blow coming?
There were people near him, a man and woman in their late twenties. They definitely weren't dressed for the beach. He was wearing a tuxedo, and she was wearing an elegant black dress. They were hurrying away from Manny, up the sand, and he couldn't see their faces. But they looked familiar somehow.
"Manny?" a voice said from behind.
It was his dad. He was dressed as a lifeguard—in red shorts and a white T-shirt that read "Lifeguard," even with a whistle around his neck.
"Dad?" Manny said. "Why are you dressed like that?" His dad wasn't a lifeguard; he worked as a paralegal.
"It doesn't matter," his dad said. "Come on, let's eat." He gestured toward a table in the sand. It had been set with a crisp white tablecloth, crystal goblets, and silver serving dishes. It looked nothing like a table his dad would set. It looked like a table that the man in the tuxedo and the woman in the dress would eat at. Why had his dad taken their table?
"This doesn't look right," Manny said. "I don't think we should be here."
"Why not?" his dad said, smiling. "Sit. Eat." He guided Manny toward the table and set him down—firmly—into one of the two chairs. "Now eat."
"But, Dad—"
The plate in front of Manny was covered with a lustrous silver lid. His dad lifted it. But it wasn't food on the plate underneath; it was a pair of broken wire-rim glasses. The frames were bent and twisted, the lenses shattered.
"Dad?" Manny said, confused. "What is this?"
"What?" his dad said innocently. "Eat." He poured something from a decanter into Manny's crystal goblet; it looked and smelled like gasoline. "And drink."
"But I can't eat or drink that!" Manny said.
His dad didn't answer. He wasn't listening. He was staring over at the area where the ocean should have been, a blank expression on his face.
"Dad?" Manny said. "What is it?"
His dad turned to him and smiled again, but this time it was an unfamiliar grin—dark, unsettling. The instant Manny registered that smile, a shadow fell over them both, like something had blotted out the sun. Manny felt a rumble, heard a roar that grew louder by the second.
He glanced up. It wasn't just the sun that had been blotted out. It was the entire sky.
Blotted out the sky? What could blot out the sky?
Then he knew. "Tidal wave!" he shouted. That's why there hadn't been any ocean—it had all been sucked out into the massive wave! "We need to get out of here! We need to run!"
He glanced up at his dad again, but now his father's face was all in shadows. Even so, and even over the roar of the wave, Manny could tell that his dad was laughing.
And then the wave crashed down on top of them.
At the instant of impact, Manny woke up. He sat up in bed. He was soaking wet, but not from any wave. From sweat.
* * * *
Manny shuffled into the kitchen feeling like the Mummy—the shambling, lethargic mummy from the original movies in the 1930s, not the agile, computer-animated one from the crappy remakes.
"Well," his dad said, seated at the table, looking up from his newspaper. "You look like hell."
"Uh-huh," Manny said, pouring a cup of tea from a pot on the counter. It had been a good four hours since he'd woken up from the nightmare—of course he hadn't been able to get back to sleep—but it still felt weird to be with his dad. The strangest thing about the dream was how out of character his dad had acted. Now it felt like one of those movie scenes when the character thinks he's awake, but is really still in the nightmare. Manny almost expected his dad to leap up from the table brandishing the knife from Psycho.
"Another nightmare, huh?" his dad said.
Manny nodded, searching for a clean plate.
"And to think you could be dreaming about sex like most teenage boys."
"Dad," Manny said. "Do you mind?"
"What? You don't wanna talk about sex with your dad? Why in the world not?"
"Dad!" But Manny couldn't keep from smiling. The truth was, his dad was the opposite of nightmarish. He was best described as boyish—clean-shaven and bouncy, often impetuous, more like an older brother than a dad. Of course, that didn't mean he couldn't also be strict, like the time he wouldn't let Manny and Elsa go to that Xena: Warrior Princess convention in Pasadena, California. But at least he always let Manny make his case. Manny's dad was pretty much the perfect authority figure—someone who had actually earned, and deserved, respect.
"I had a dream too," his dad was saying. "I was the Head Munchkin, and I had to deny membership in the Lollipop Guild to the Keebler Elves."
Okay, so maybe the Munchkin dream didn't make Manny's dad sound like some awesome authority figure. But the fact that he was willing to say things like that was exactly what made Manny's dad so great. He also loved to cook, kept houseplants, even hugged his son. Manny had always wondered what it meant that he had such an emotionally accessible dad; was that what had made him one of the arty-fruity types at school? He also wondered how his dad had ended up such a nontraditional guy. Was it because he'd had to be both father and mother to Manny? Manny's mom had died when Manny was two months old. Skin cancer, his dad had said once. It was one of the things Manny and his dad didn't talk about—one of the very few things.
"So," his dad said, suddenly all ears. "Tell me about your dream."
Manny glanced at the clock on the stove. "Shouldn't you be on your way to work?"
His dad sipped his tea. "I can be a little late. Come on. Talk."
Manny dished up two fried eggs from the pan on the stove. "I got creamed by a tidal wave."
"I think I'm detecting a pattern. What was it last night? A herd of elephants? And before that, it was a locomotive. Didn't you actually get hit by a falling safe once? Or maybe it was an anvil."
"There was one thing different," Manny said.
"Really? Do tell."
"You were in it."
"Me? What'd I do?"
Manny considered lying, but he didn't seem to be able to do that to his dad. "Well, it's not real flattering."