We Are All Made of Molecules (11 page)

I'D HAD A SURPRISINGLY
good day. Normally my home ec teacher, Mrs. Golshiri, doesn't like me very much 'cause I talk too much and I burn stuff, but today we got to draw designs for three different outfits. I chose to design casual-but-cute everyday wear. At the end of class, she held up my designs for the whole class to see and said, “These are quite wonderful, Ashley. You clearly have an eye for fashion.”

!!!!

It's true I've always had an eye for fashion, but I've only just started doing my own sketches, so I was very flattered. Mrs. Golshiri has talked about the years she spent living in Paris after her family fled the revolution in Iran. Her time in one of the fashion capitals of the world rubbed off on her stylistically speaking, because I can tell that her outfits are of
excellent quality, even if they don't hang on her that well, because she is twenty pounds above her ideal weight.

So I was feeling pretty good when I got home. The house was quiet; the nerd-bot wasn't back yet. I grabbed myself an apple and plunked myself on the couch to watch one of my soaps.

I was only about five minutes in when I heard a growl behind me. I remember thinking,
Shopping Cart can't growl like that…can he?
just before an enormous, furry brown paw gripped my head.

SHE SCREAMED SO LOUD
I thought I'd burst an eardrum. Then she leapt off the couch and started pummeling me. She is slender but strong, and taller than me, and also I had zero peripheral vision, so pretty soon I was flat on my back on the carpet. She started kicking me. I tried to shout, but my voice was muffled, and her screams drowned me out.

Then I could hear man-shouts and pounding on the patio doors, and from the eyeholes I caught a glimpse of Ashley running toward the kitchen, screaming, “Daddy, Daddy!” I tried to stand up, but, next thing I knew, Ashley
and
Phil were standing over me, and Phil was wielding a baseball bat. Then another guy appeared behind him, wielding an umbrella.

“Don't hit me!” I shouted. It was hot and smelly inside the head.

“Stewart?” said Phil, peering down at me. I could tell he and the other guy had just come back from a ride, because they were wearing spandex bike shorts and club jerseys.

“Yes!”

Phil lowered the baseball bat. I raised my furry paws and yanked on the head. It came off with a few good tugs.

“Oh. My. GOD! You little freak!” Ashley screamed.

“Stewart, what on earth are you doing?” asked Phil. “Why are you in a bear costume?”

“It's not a bear. It's a bulldog. I'm the new school mascot. Borden Bulldogs.”

“You scared the crap out of me!” Ashley wailed. She clung to her dad.

I stood up. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Wait, that's not true. I
did
mean to scare you, but not that bad.”

Phil shook his head. “You should never sneak up on anyone like that, Stewart. Especially not a woman.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, and I really, truly was.

“This is what I have to live with!” Ashley cried, and she buried her face in her dad's shirt.

Phil held her close, stroking her hair. “It's okay, my baby girl, it's okay.”

It was a very touching moment, father and daughter reunited, and I felt a bit proud of myself, since, technically speaking, I was the one who'd brought them together.

But it was over in a flash because suddenly Ashley registered the man standing behind her dad.

She pulled away from Phil. “Who's he?”

I recognized the guy; he was the driver of the silver MINI. He looked like he was a few years younger than
Phil, shorter than him by a few inches, with curly brown hair and dark skin and broad shoulders. I wondered if he'd forgotten his own name because he looked to Phil for help.

“This is Michael,” said Phil. “He's my…new friend.”

“Hi, Ashley,” Michael said, extending his hand, “I've heard a lot about you.”

Ashley's face crumpled. She walked out of the room. Michael stood there with his hand out. I felt awful for the guy, so I extended my own furry paw instead. “Nice to meet you, Michael. I'm Stewart.”

Michael mustered a smile. “So I gathered.” He shook my furry paw. Then he turned to Phil. “I think I'll head back to your place.”

“I'll be there in a minute,” Phil said as Michael headed out the patio doors.

“I'm sorry I caused any trouble,” I said.

“It's okay, Stewart. I know you didn't mean it.” He looked really sad all of a sudden.

“Is Michael the guy you said you were interested in?”

Phil nodded.

“So you got up the guts to ask him out.”

“I did. I decided you were right. I
do
have it better than Alan Turing. So I seized the day.”

“Good for you.”

“We've seen each other a few times now. Turns out we have a lot in common. We both love the outdoors, skiing, kayaking—and biking.”

“I like someone, too. Her name's Phoebe. We have a lot in common, too. We're in Mathletes together.”

“Well, I wish you luck with her.” He glanced toward the ceiling and got that hangdog look on his face again.

“And I wish you luck with
her
,” I replied.

“Thanks. See you later, Stewart.” He gave my furry shoulder a light punch, then slipped out the patio doors.

WHEN I TURNED ELEVEN
,
my dad gave me the best birthday present ever. It was a cream-colored cashmere sweater, and it looked spectacular on me. Everyone said so. I still had my kid-body, and life, like my wardrobe, was simpler. But I loved nice clothes back then, too, and, honestly, it was like that sweater was made for me.

Aside from the sweater, he also gave me an album full of family pictures, which frankly seemed a bit quaint and rustic, since all our photos could be accessed on the computer in a nanosecond. If I'm totally one hundred percent honest, I barely glanced at it.

But lately I've been pulling out that album and studying it, like I'm a detective trying to solve a crime. I look for clues to try to figure out when it all went wrong. The thing is, I never find
anything. It's a heartbreakingly
happy
photo album. It's called
TO OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER
, and it opens with a picture of my mom and dad when they were young and wrinkle-free and my mom has an enormous belly, which, of course, contains me. They are seriously good-looking and well-put-together, as long as you ignore my mom's neon-orange Crocs. They were apparently all she could wear 'cause her feet got all swollen in the last two months of her pregnancy. (Personally, I don't think that is a valid excuse. There is never a valid excuse for ugly shoes.)

In the next photo, Mom and Dad are lying together in a hospital bed, and I am in my dad's arms, wrapped in a blanket. My mom looks exhausted, and I suspect this is pretty accurate, since she was in labor for thirty-one hours. She looks puffy and gross. If I were her, I would have deleted that photo immediately. I don't look much better; my shriveled little face looks more gremlin than human.

But I regress. The point is, in that first photo—and even in the second photo, where my mom and I both look hideous—it is painfully obvious that my parents are head over heels in love. They beam at each other like they can't believe their good luck.

And in all the photos that follow—the three of us on my first Halloween, me wearing a pumpkin costume; my first day of kindergarten; my first dance recital; the three of us on the beach in Maui; the three of us in ski gear up at Whistler; the three of us standing in front of the world's biggest kielbasa outside some town in Alberta when we drove to the Rockies—they still look really happy.

We
all
look really happy.

Now, when I look at the album, I sometimes feel like I'm looking at…I don't know, the life of a Russian spy or
something. And my dad is the spy, and the people he works for have given him this whole fake identity, and my mom and I are just unsuspecting dupes who've become part of his cover.

But then other times I look at it and I think,
No. What I'm looking at is real
. 'Cause there's no way he could fake it for that many years…could he?

My dad has reached out to me a lot. And once or twice, I've tried to reach back. But…I don't know. I just can't get past the lie.

I agonize a lot over whether or not I'm a gayist. I mean, on the one hand, we have an LGBT club at our school and I am totally cool with that, even if I've been known to call the president a Tragic behind his/her back because I can't tell if he/she is a boy or a girl thanks to all the shapeless clothing he/she wears and his/her unhelpful name (Sam).

But on the other hand, when it hits close to home, it is a whole different story. I just can't get over the fact that my dad would rather be with men than with Mom.

Meeting Michael just now made that whole part of it very real. I knew he was the guy who'd dropped my dad off this past weekend. The guy who'd leaned in for a kiss.

I felt so depressed all of a sudden. All the good feelings from the day just vanished—
poof!
—like that.

And then, to make things even worse, Spewart knocked on my door. I shoved the photo album under my covers.

“Go away.”

“Ashley, I said I'm sorry. Don't you want to know how I became school mascot?”

“No, I do not. I truly do not care.”

“Oh. Okay. 'Cause actually it was Jared—”