Vtt

By Timothy LaBadie

VTT is a mind-bending story within a story set in San Francisco and New Orleans in the late 1990s. In this science fiction novel you meet a reincarnated boy who remembers having been killed not so long ago, a voodoo priestess who can shoot sparks from her fingertips, a carnie magician with gold contact lenses who wants to take over the world, a deranged computer technician, a house that sounds like its having an orgasm, a headless goat, a laughing rabbit, and a snake tattoo that crawls.

The antihero, Crazy Jack, at age thirty, is on a permanent LSD trip. He lives with his cat in the basement of an old Victorian. Jacks friend Charm is a tattoo artist and free spirit raised in Sebastopol.

Binding everything together is a virtual technology that has gone awry. All who even touch it are held captive by it.

VTT includes three love stories, two failed marriages, a murder mystery, and as many illusions, delusions, and hallucinations as could possibly fit within its covers. Its a sci-fi adventure that moves characters from one city to another, natural to supernatural, boyhood to adulthood, and mystery to enlightenment. There is something here for everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 7, 2005
• ISBN: 9781462825202

Timothy LaBadie

Timothy S. LaBadie is the founder and chairman of the board of CrossCheck, Inc., the nation’s largest independently owned payment guarantee company. He is the past president of American Marketing Corporation and The Green Sheet, Inc., a national financial services newsletter and magazine publisher. He is also founder and past president of Hasslinger Studios, a fine art cast glass sculpture studio, and Planetspin Productions, which included retail record stores as well as concert and music video production. Mr. LaBadie started writing stories in the third grade and his writing now includes numerous essays, short stories and novels. VTT, his fourth novel, is the first to be published. He has also published Evolve or Die, a collection of essays on business. Mr. LaBadie lives and writes in California. He resides with two kids, two dogs and one wife.

Book preview

VTT

Timothy LaBadie

Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Timothy LaBadie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

26607

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Over Ten Months Later

Chapter Two

Earlier That Same Day in The City by the Bay

Chapter Three

One Day Earlier

Chapter Four

Same Day, Different Views

Chapter Four Point Five

A Long Day That Started in Haight-Ashbury

Chapter Five

The Creator Meets His Creation

Chapter Six

The Book Lives

Chapter Seven

Each Reader Her Own Story

Chapter Eight

Into the Heart of the Storm

Chapter Nine

Reality to the Rescue

Chapter Ten

Our Boy Hero

Chapter Eleven

Where the Writer Meets His Creation

Chapter Twelve

NightScreams, Chapter One

Chapter Thirteen

Into the Plenum at T. Lab Inc.

Chapter Fourteen

Ralf Just Keeps Traveling

Chapter Fifteen

Have Tattoos, Will Travel

Chapter Sixteen

Another Showdown to Go

Chapter Seventeen

Twissle, Twassle, Twussle, Twome, Time for This One to Come Home

Epilogue

My son was reading the first printing of this novel when he asked me how Charm got a copy of NightScreams and also how she came to New Orleans. I grabbed the book from him to show him and couldn’t immediately find the section. After paging diligently through the entire novel, I still found no sign of the missing section.

After three weeks of searching I found that in the final pass of the editing process, a whole chapter had disappeared. I have no explanation. It was as if some other entity had simply removed it. I’ll leave this to your own imagination. Or ask Robin.

So now the missing chapter has been reinserted. My daughter suggested that it have no page numbers. it is called CHAPTER FOUR POINT FIVE, A Long Day That Started in Haight-Ashbury. It’s on the Contents page between CHAPTER FOUR and CHAPTER FIVE.

For all of you that read the novel without this chapter, I hope it now makes more sense. Thank you for your patience.

Not once did I sit down to work on this book and not think about my good friend Burt Welsh. If you know the Nort, then you know why. Someday I hope he tells me the rest of story about Commander Mike and Jimmy. But then again, realizing that he has no concept of time, someday might be forever. Thanks, Doctor Byrd.

Acknowledgements

This book took far too long to write. When I began, I didn’t have any good writing habits established. Actually, I didn’t have any writing habits, period. I have a lot of people to thank for the final product.

Like my previous book, Evolve or Die, the wonderful cover design for this book was done by Carson. I shot the photograph of the sculpture She’s Going Out Of My Mind. The sculpture itself I made in clay and then cast in black glass. Then I took Carson’s layout and made a painting from it, which she then took a picture of and used for the cover. Creation can be a complicated thing.

Right after I finished the painting, my dog Charlie ran into the podium, knocking the heavy sculpture down and breaking its nose off. I guess everything happens right on time. Thanks, Charlie. You’re still my favorite model.

To Clive Matson, an especially warm thank you; and thanks also to all the others of my writers group, including Willie Gordon, Chris Keating and Kevin Coleman.

Thanks to Bob and Paul for reading an earlier rendition of the novel and giving me their input. Sorry I twisted your advice for my own purposes.

Thanks to the mother of my children for giving me so many reasons to spend more time writing.

Hi Mom. Hi Dad. I love you. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be me. And I really like me. I hope you still do after reading this book.

Prologue

Lorraine fumbled with the thin cord that hung from the electronic book. It looked like a Palm Pilot, but it was larger and had a lid. Though she fumbled, she inserted the plug into the phone jack on the wall behind the bedside table with such strong concentration, almost as if doing so was a spiritual experience. Her movements were like a ritual in anticipation of what was to come. She had read the book many times before, yet each time she read it the story seemed different; she could not remember what would happen next.

She didn’t know where the book originated from, only that she had received three copies in the mail. The one she was using was a plug-in. The other two were wireless. One of the wireless versions she put in her underwear drawer for safekeeping; the other she gave to her brother Jack, thinking he would enjoy the unusual technology and hoping he would read it. The form letter that came with the books explained that these were beta versions and that her copies were given to her with the express understanding that she would participate in the enclosed marketing research. The letter requested that she use either the wireless or the plug-in copy and give at least one of the other two copies to a friend or family member along with a copy of the enclosed evaluation form. The form letter was signed by R. Hood. The return envelope was addressed to R. Hood, P.O. Box 1159, San Francisco, California. She had not bothered to fill out the evaluation form and return it.

She stood at the side of her bed for a moment just looking at the book’s cover, which she usually tried to avoid. It displayed a screaming face with the title, NightScreams, at the top and the author’s name, Alex Randolf, at the bottom. She did not understand what the cover image and title had to do with the wonderful story inside. Even though she realized that a book cover was usually created to sell the book and had little to do with the story, she thought this cover was extremely misleading. In fact, it was as if someone had designed it to drive away potential buyers. Why would someone want the book not to sell?

She smoothed her pillowcase with one hand, placed the book upon it with the other, and in one motion folded the sheet and blanket back with both hands. She smiled at the result. The elegant bedcovers lay folded across the end of the bed. She glanced at the wallpaper in the bedroom, which was color coordinated, green and gold with a touch of dark maroon, to match the bedding. Perfect. Well, almost, she thought.

Lorraine entered the bathroom, also wallpapered but in foil, flipped on the clear plastic light switch, and placed a hand on the white marble counter as she brushed her teeth using the latest electronic toothbrush. It timed each section of her mouth for her as she brushed, beeping when it was time to move on. After it beeped three times to signal completion, she washed her hands. Smiling into the mirror above the sink at her clean teeth, she rubbed a white lotion into her hands and then her face.

The wall behind her held a floor-to-ceiling mirror that bounced back her image. She looked at it approvingly. Picking up an antique brush, she brushed her mousey blond hair. Thin stranded but very full, it puffed out and fell to the shelf of her voluminous breasts like a wisp of cotton candy. Her taut face showed signs of her forty years, yet she accepted them without remorse. The small wrinkles she saw there were created from smiling and laughing. Her skin was not as tanned as it used to be. She spent less time in the sun than when she was younger. And though she’d always been an outdoors girl, her complexion wasn’t as tough as some women from overexposure. All in all, her 5’11" big-boned frame with a thin waist and large hips was still in wonderful condition.

Satisfied at last, she smiled to her image, placed the brush next to a matching hand mirror on the counter, and twirled her way on tiptoes back to the bed. Her extremely short saffron nightgown swished through the air around her. She thought it was cute. She felt much smaller when she wore it than she actually was, and twirling made her feel giddy and childishly simple.

Lorraine stopped twirling. Her husband had bought this gown for her quite a while ago, back when they were first married. He had never liked it on her, probably because it looked better on the woman who had modeled it for him. Before he came home tonight, she would put it back in the drawer, as usual. She pushed the unwanted thought of her husband aside as she slid between the sheets and closed her eyes to concentrate on the coolness on her skin. She loved the crisp feeling of new sheets, making her feel heavenly clean. She was enraptured.

Lorraine heard branches tapping and scrapping against her second-story bedroom window. She had wanted to have the gardener trim them for sometime now. As she listened, the wind jostled the leaves and made a hollow whistling sound on the side of the house. It made her tingle inside. It reminded her of when she was a child. She used to close her eyes to watch the red glow behind her eyelids as she listened to her mother vacuum the house. The hair on her legs and arms would stand up and wave as if electrified. It was exhilaratingly sensuous for someone so young.

Tap-tap-tap! The branches sounded like someone outside wanting desperately to come inside.

Still with her eyes closed, Lorraine reached beside her head and found the book. Holding it in both hands, she opened the front cover and her eyes. Her fingers slipped comfortably into the depressions on both the front and back covers, which were receptacles for fingertips. The device made beeping tones as it dialed a phone number. A high-pitched squeal sounded as the two modems shook hands.

The tap-tap-tap at the window became louder and more urgent, but Lorraine did not bother to look up. Words had appeared already on the screen. She grinned and settled in for what she hoped would be a long night. The book always knew right where she had left off from her last reading. As she began to read, she was transported once again into the story … .

missing image file

Robin came running down the street to meet her, his tall lank figure moving like a swimmer through water, his shoes tap-tap-tapping on the concrete walk as he approached, a hollow sound, she thought, like someone tapping on glass. The breeze sounded in her ears, making everything else seem distant. Her skin tingled.

Leaving the walk, Robin swept her off the lawn where she stood waiting for him and twirled her in the air, her saffron nightgown spinning. He was taller then her by a couple of inches. She laughed and tossed her head back, her fluffy blonde hair floating outward.

Robin placed her down gently on a blanket spread out over the grass. The sun was shining off to the west, flickering through the leaves of the twisting California oaks all around them. Looking down at herself, at her nightgown, she felt like a flower in a field.

Before she placed the book that was in her hands onto the grass beside her head, she glanced at it. The title had changed to VTT. The author’s name had changed to Timothy LaBadie. And it had become a simple paper book with pages rather than an electronic book with a screen. She thought it strange how the book changed every time she entered the story, and yet the book’s transformation was her way of knowing with absolute certainty that she had been transported into the story again. That and Robin’s presence. This was his world.

You’re beautiful again tonight, Robin whispered in her ear, hugging her one more time before he let her rest. The chiseled planes of his face shadowed a deep contrast.

You always say exactly what I want to hear, she responded lightly. Lorraine spread her hair out around her face as she lay her head down.

It is a goal of mine. You might say that I was made for it. He swooped down and knelt beside her, his attention like an elk’s waiting for the next sound, the next movement.

Every time he said the same thing to her, that she was beautiful again tonight; and every time he said it, it made her feel beautiful. A little recognition could go such a long way, she thought. With the sincerity and certainty in his voice came her own self-confidence. She was definitely loved by this wonderful man, the man of her dreams.

Tonight was special, for tonight was the night when she would give herself to him completely. She had finally convinced herself that doing so could not be an act of unfaithfulness to her husband. After all, she was simply lying alone in her bed reading a book, wasn’t she?

It felt so real when Robin touched her. As he brushed his hand across her forehead and through her hair, what seemed like a thousand emotions wrapped up into one came as a wave from her head and ran down the outer layer of her skin to her thighs. The next wave rumbled through her, making her feel faint and tingly. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. She was hanging on so that she wouldn’t lose herself, so she wouldn’t drown. She wondered how one small body could contain so many emotions.

Lorraine felt Robin lie down beside her, felt his breath upon her neck, his lips’ soft touch. He pulled her chest towards his, using his hands behind her shoulders, and kissed her passionately on the lips. Breath came short as Lorraine’s heart beat faster, in rhythm to the wave she rode. The breeze blew across her skin.

Like experiencing a dream, or more accurately a movie, she thought, she saw time foreshorten. On the silver screen people could get into a car at one location and get out at another with no time lapse in between, yet everyone in the audience knew that they had just driven somewhere. She had the memory of undressing, but she could not remember experiencing it firsthand. She had wanted that moment to linger. She had wanted to feel her clothes fall slowly, tingling her skin. Yet the moment was gone; it was only a memory.

Together Robin and Lorraine lay, flesh to flesh, moving slowly at first. After a few false starts, minor hesitations, subtly significant adjustments, their movements then flowed smoothly, decisively. For Lorraine, this was what togetherness should feel like, where his desires seemed nonexistent, her desires their only goal. Together they worked through physical exertion for the glory of their pleasure, each chasing blissful fulfillment. Their saline sweat mixed with their passion to cast a rainbow in the sky. And for that moment, they were that rainbow, lighter than air, two souls in the breeze finding ecstasy in each other’s arms. They climaxed in unison, tossing and turning in triumph.

Calmness came as they drifted, intertwined, each thoughtless and carefree. And then Lorraine noticed for the first time how uncomfortable the bumpy ground was beneath her with Robin’s weight on top of her. Yet she clung to him, her legs and arms wrapped around him, not wanting the moment to end. She clamped her eyes shut, but within only seconds they opened again of their own accord. The sky was shifting rapidly. Off in the distance, dark clouds were approaching. The breeze turned to a gust.

Robin straightened his arms and pushed his face far enough away from her to look into her eyes. She gazed at his eyes, brown and dark, his black hair cropped and spiked, like from electrical static, and his skin, tanned and fresh, crisp and moist. A frown ran across his face. There’s a storm brewing in the east. It won’t be long before it comes this way.

Lorraine thought about his comment for a moment before she said, Storms don’t come from the east.

Limply he disengaged himself from her without changing his body position and smiled when she helped him by squeezing. She grinned back at him and rolled to place her elbows on his hips. Her hands wrapped around him and massaged his shoulder blades. His back was tight from holding himself above her. His leg and arm muscles, toned and sinuous, rippled and then relaxed. He tried to stay where he was.

Lorraine, we’re in love, right?

Without hesitation she said, Yes, but … . Coincidently she had been thinking about how love was such an important word to say and yet so meaningless. She was suddenly cut off from her thought and sentence before she could finish either.

You’re married, and I’m a character in a book, he added, completing her sentence for her.

Oh, Robin, stop teasing me.

Okay, Lorraine. We won’t talk about it, he said, but remember that no matter what happens, I love you. He paused for only a second, it seemed, but to her amazement she found they were dressed and standing beside each other—another one of those abrupt changes that happen all the time in movies and stories.

I think it’s time we go. That storm looks like it’s about to break. He kissed her before she had time to protest, rubbed her stomach, and whispered in her ear. I leave you with this gift, directly from my heart to you.

She tried to ask him what he was talking about but found … .

missing image file

She was lying in her bed reading I leave you with this gift, directly from my heart to you on the screen of this odd yet compelling electronic book. She closed the cover and noticed the title had changed back to NightScreams. She placed the device on the bedside table. Looking up at the ceiling, she smiled and rubbed her belly, feeling wonderful inside.

Suddenly bolting upright in bed and looking at the clock, she noted that two hours had gone by. Her husband would be home soon. She jumped up and quickly changed her nightgown, putting the short saffron one into the drawer. She calmed down as she got back in bed. The sheets still smelled wonderfully clean and fresh, yet they were not as cool as before.

Tap-tap-tap came softly from her window as she turned off the bedside light. She actually fell asleep, before her husband came home, by listening to the branches scrape against the window of the house.

Six weeks later Lorraine looked noticeably pregnant, much more pregnant than six weeks could explain. Even though both she and her husband had wanted a baby for a long time, he had been diagnosed six months ago as sterile. Now he was no longer living with her, had left in a huff, and had not told her where he was going. He was embarrassed. She had betrayed him. He knew it was not possible for him to be the father of their child, her child.

Lorraine paced the living room floor, glancing at herself ever so often in the mirror, looking at her bulbous belly. She frowned, felt confused, and then smiled. Turning to the side, she smiled again. She touched her belly with her fingertips. She felt her roundness—stirred it, stroked it, grabbed it, jiggled it, and caressed it. Still confused but happy in some strange way, she walked to the bedroom. She fell backwards on the bed. The mattress was comforting somehow. She slid one hand beneath her belly and placed the other on top. She fondled it. She grabbed it with both hands and moved it. And it kicked back.

How could she have become so pregnant in so short of a time period? She hadn’t even had time to choose a doctor yet! What was going on? But then again, it felt right somehow. Everything was going to be okay. She didn’t hurt any more than was normal for expectant mothers. Nothing felt wrong, yet she felt sad in some way and she was not sure why. She really did want to have a child, she reasoned with herself. And this one seemed almost heaven-sent, considering how long she and her husband had been trying.

Lorraine rolled to one side, grasped her huge stomach, and began to weep. She whimpered under her breath about love lost and love found as she cried softly. She hugged herself and rolled to her other side, whispered tearfully, Alex, and rolled again. Whimpering words of endearment, moans of pain, and tears for both, she moved into a fetal position and rocked.

She knew she should go to work and be a good example for her employees, but she felt that going to the hospital might be more appropriate. She rolled again, stared up at the ceiling, pulled up her knees, and sighed. With one last roll to her side, she sat up quickly, a startled expression upon her face.

Alex? She looked around the room. Who’s Alex? she said aloud. She rested her hands on her belly, and then looked down at it. Are you my little Alex? Did you just tell me that? And is it time? It couldn’t be time. It’s only been six weeks, not nine months.

She wondered how long the drive to Novato Community Hospital was and whether she could manage getting there by herself when the time did come. It would be soon.

Chapter One

Over Ten Months Later

You are not going, young man, and that’s final!

Lorraine, don’t be … Alex began.

Don’t you ‘Lorraine’ me! I’m your mother!

Lorraine paced the kitchen. The morning sun glistened off the stainless steel countertop where her son Alex sat with crossed forearms. He was lean but strong, a cowboy’s body, small at 5’6" but growing daily. His legs were long and his butt so small it almost didn’t exist. His brown hair was parted on the side with a cowlick tossing the bangs out over his forehead. His blue eyes glistened from beneath his hair, an intensity that was disarming, his long face too big for his body. Even though irritated at the moment, he carried a smirk of self-possessed mental agility, looking for an advantage, a way out.

Look, I’ve got a life out there, Alex said impatiently.

You’re only ten months old!

Look at me, Lorraine. I’m at least fifteen. And remember, I died over a year ago.

Lorraine seemed to be in denial about Alex’s physical age. She had given birth after an unexplainably short pregnancy. If anyone should remember how young he was, she should.

Dead over a year ago? Hogwash! You look fine to me.

Lorraine, I …

Mother!

Okay, Mother then! You know I’ve got to find Gorge.

Gorge, Shmorge! I know, I know, I know! The fate of the whole world depends upon this trip! But can’t you grow up first? God didn’t create the world in a day. I don’t know why you think you have to save it in one. Give yourself some time. It’s a big job saving the world! Maybe you should take a nap first.

Don’t patronize me. You think this whole thing is just the imagination of your little boy? Well, let me ask you something. Don’t you think it’s a little strange that I look fifteen when I was born just ten months ago? For God’s sake, Lorraine, I shouldn’t even be able to walk yet!

She grabbed some faxed sheets that had only recently fallen on the counter. She waved them in the air with one hand and leaned on the counter with the other. Do you know what that man is doing to me? He wants half of my business on top of the house!

She paced the floor and then went to the phone. I don’t have time for this right now, Honey. I need to go to my attorney’s office. She turned to face him as she lifted the phone. He’ll be the death of me, she said, referring to her husband. Now go play upstairs while I make this call and then go to see my attorney. I’ll be back in an hour. We’ll talk then.

Alex sighed, rolled his eyes, and walked away. He was feeling somehow guilty for his parents’ separation. Was he to blame? At the bottom of the stairs he stopped at Lorraine’s purse and, looking over his shoulder to the kitchen, took a few $20 bills from her wallet. He replaced the wallet carefully next to the pack of Benson and Hedges. While he stuffed the money into his jeans, he listened to Lorraine’s muffled voice from the kitchen. He could not hear what she was saying to her lawyer, but it didn’t sound like her normal dreamy self. She sounded nasty.

Alex ran up the oak stairs of their middle-class suburban house in Novato, California. It was multilevel with sunken rooms that seemed to be everywhere, a sign of the times.

Up and down the street were houses with similar floor plans rearranged slightly to give the impression of individuality. Upstairs in his room, he looked at his bag, already packed for the flight to New Orleans, lying on his bed. He put on his blue jean jacket, grabbed a pack of Benson and Hedges from the front pocket, pulled on his cowboy boots, and climbed out the window to the roof. He sat facing the fenced backyard with trees and lawn bordering that of their neighbors. His yard had a richer look to it, green and well manicured.

Lighting up, he listened to that strange popping sound that only cigarette paper has when it burns. The first inhalation was always the deepest and the best. He blew it toward the sky, looking and listening. Three sparrows were up there pumping air to float and follow each other. It appeared to be a lot of work. Everything seemed like a lot of work.

Alex’s skin tightened from the brisk air. The sun hurt his eyes, but he strained them to stay open. His standards for himself demanded no squinting allowed. He thought about the words his parents had when he was smaller, younger. They were curt and hurtful. They were meant to be. His parents had not known he was old enough to understand. Though he had not figured out the motor skills to talk, he could listen and understand.

The full story of their breakup, which Lorraine had described to him in a fit of anger one day about the impending divorce, was still painful for Alex to think about. Soon after Lorraine’s husband, David, left her, which was before Alex was born, he contacted an old high school girlfriend and had an affair. When Lorraine found out, even though he had already moved out, she confronted him. He blamed her, so she punched him hard in the face, cracking his tooth, which caused his gums to become a deep squid purple. He ran from what used to be his home with tears running from the one eye on the side of his face he held, the cheek already swelling. The next day she filed for divorce.

Now, today, sitting on the roof of Lorraine’s house, Alex felt the guilt tighten his stomach and twist his intestines. He doubled over and looked at the tips of his cowboy boots, which were facing each other. Softly gasping for breath, he inhaled again. Tears rolled down his cheeks and met beneath his chin. He felt fifteen years old, all right, with all its emotional insecurity. Yet he knew that he was really thirty-three years old. He was a man. He had a wife, Maggie. And his last name was really Randolf, not McGiff. of course, all those things were before he had died and been reborn as Lorraine McGiff’s son. It was very confusing. He tried to make sense of it with his fifteen-year-old mind, but it just wouldn’t settle. If he was Alex Randolf, where was his wife?

He thought back to the days when he and Maggie had first started going together. During his first semester in college he had met a fellow named Rick. Rick was a good foosball player, so Alex played defense to his offense. They were a marvelous team. Many champion players from different states lost heavily to Rick and Alex, though the two of them never entered official games. They liked the bar scene instead, playing for beers and drinking until they could play no more. Every few weekends Rick would be unavailable to play. Those were the weekends when Rick’s childhood sweetheart would visit, and they would lock themselves in his room until Sunday night, when she would have to leave. So that first semester Alex never really got to know Maggie, Rick’s girlfriend. A quick hello or good-bye was the limit of their conversation.

Rick flunked out at the end of that first year, but he did not tell Maggie. To Alex’s surprise, on the second day of his second year at school, he found a note from Maggie under the windshield wiper of his ‘66 pickup truck. She had decided to enroll to be with Rick, the note said, but he was gone. Alex was the only person she knew on campus, and she was wondering if they might do something together one of these nights. The note seemed to plead with him, reminding him that she did not know anyone else there.

It was strange. After only a couple of nights together, Maggie moved into Alex’s room in the men’s dormitory. No one who lived there seemed to mind her getting up in the morning and showering with the guys, brushing her teeth with them, or running around at night in her nightgown. She was pretty, but not in a way that drew the attention of strangers. Though she was tall and lean, elk-like, she was awkward for her height, a touch uncomfortable with herself. To Alex, she was a wild thing, something to stalk, visually, through the campus, through the dorms, the gas stations, as if she could hide behind the trees, anything vertical, a gas pump even. And Alex found Maggie to be sharply intelligent, unlike most of the other girls, unlike almost anyone Alex had ever encountered. It was refreshing just to listen to her talk. All he could do was sigh.

He wasn’t quite sure where his mathematical abilities would lead him in college, but that was his major. Math, calculus, trajectories, and applied physics—he was fascinated by them. He also took classes about writing and philosophy, even though they didn’t apply to his major. He loved the sound of words, the thrill of intellectualizing. And he reveled in