Part 14 (1/2)

I'm still not reflected in the lockers. Someone pa.s.ses by, and Rebecca looks up at them. I take the opportunity to move a few inches away so I won't be so near the metal. She turns back and looks at me quizzically.

I splutter, ”It's . . . mucus. I have all these springtime allergies, and I get all filled up with mucus. My stomach and things. All mucus.”

She's smiling lightly. ”Mucus? Are you sure? Not phlegm or sputum?”

”Mucus.” I nod. ”Yes.”

”Okay. I'm serious, though, about calling me,” she says. She goes to pat me on the arm.

I'm terrified her eyes will stray sideways. I stumble backward, yelp, ”Bye!” and turn around and walk so fast that I'm almost running. I can feel her staring at me from behind, confused.

Later, I can't believe I didn't thank her more. Here she came forward and tried to help this big social pariah (i.e., me) and I didn't even thank her. I don't believe it.

I run home through the deserted factory, where no one will be looking for me in car window reflections, or in plate gla.s.s windows. I run home and lie on my bed until the danger is past, and I am once again in mirrors.

That night, I cannot sleep.

I stare groggily at the ceiling, and I can hear their pulses. It is probably my imagination, but I think I can hear my family's pulses spread throughout the house. A matrix of tiny pulses throughout the house, like the movements of mice. I lie there in what should be silence, hearing each different heart kick in contraction. And again. Again. Again.

I lie awake and listen to the clattering of hearts, this festival of cardiac bongos to which I'm not invited. I can hear them through the plasterboard.

I've got to see if it is me hallucinating.

I get up. I open the door to the hallway.

I pause for a moment with my hands resting on the sides of the door frame. A thin breeze crawls up the shapeless, grimy T-s.h.i.+rt I wore to bed and pats my belly.

I can feel their heartbeats all around me. My brother in his bedroom, my mother in her king-size bed, my father tonight in the guest bed, each room with its own distinctive beat.

I choose my brother's room. His pulse is youngest.

I pad over, my feet soft against the carpet.

The k.n.o.b grates as it turns, but I am so careful it is not loud. The tongue of the door clasp retracts like the end of a kiss, and the door swings wide.

Of course, I am not going to do anything. I am just going to prove to myself that I am only hallucinating, that I cannot honestly hear those pulses. That is all I am going to do.

I slip in. I close the door behind me. I will just check.

A few stripes of streetlamp light from between the slatted blinds run across Paul's rumpled bed. I take two paces forward.

Silence. Nothing but silence and the pa.s.sing of a car outside on the street and a high whine of fear in my own head.

It was nothing. Half-sleep. Wishful thinking. A frantic dream. Now there is no heartbeat.

I step to the edge of the bed. To take a closer look. He is tangled in his covers. One gross hairy leg juts out. A hand-held video game is half-trapped under his pillow.

I reach out slowly to touch his neck. I can see his throat flexing with each breath.

Why am I doing this? I ask myself in panic. I ask myself in panic.

I step closer to him. His neck flexes as he turns away, muscles rippling across the surface. He has a mole on his neck. Like a target.

Blood. I can feel the blood skating through his skin, das.h.i.+ng like light on water. The liveliness of mortal flesh.

I lean toward him. Just to take a closer look.

I can almost touch his neck with my tongue.

I crouch there.

Panicked.

His mouth is open idiotically. A slug's trail of drool leads onto his pillow.

I move my hands up to my mouth.

Cover it. Both hands.

Start backing up. Like a broken wind-up toy. Step by step. Toward the door.

Carefully undo the latch.

Go back to my room.

For a while, I just sag there against my bed, breathing raggedly.

He is still just a room away.

I was not going to do anything. Nothing like that. I just went in to check if the pulses were real. They were a dream. That's it. I just wanted to check about the pulses, though.

That was it.

On the wall there is a portrait of someone with no skin. They still look like they're smiling for the artist, but that may be because they have no cheeks.

The doctor is pulling my records. That's what he told me, at least. ”Wait just a sec. Let me pull your records.” So I am sitting in a backless tunic with my bare b.u.t.t on the paper of the table, swinging my legs, and I've read most of the April issue of Highlights for Children. Highlights for Children.

The doctor comes in again.

”Feeling chilly?” he says.

”I have no pants on,” I reply.

”That's true,” he says. ”You don't like the tunic?”

”I feel like I'm dressed for a science fiction film,” I say. ”Maybe this is why the Star Trek Star Trek team always beams up with their backs to the wall.” team always beams up with their backs to the wall.”

He stares at me, frowning, and sits down. He opens the file. For a long time, he looks over the file.

The doctor looks up. ”I've asked for your dental records to be faxed over from Dr. Shenko's office.”