House Rules

by Jodi Picoult

  What if I'd been born first, and was the one who wound up with Asperger's? Would he be standing here wishing I wouldn't notice him, too?

  Before I can even let myself get good and guilty, Jacob starts talking. He doesn't look at me--he never does--but that probably means all his other senses are more finely tuned. --It's episode twenty-two today,|| he says, as if we have been in the middle of a conversation. --An oldie but a goodie.||

  --How many times have you seen this one?|| I ask.

  He glances down at his notebook. --Thirty-eight.||

  I'm not a huge fan of CrimeBusters. In the first place, I think the acting is bad. In the second place, this has to be the richest CSI lab ever, with all its bells and whistles.

  Something tells me that the fuming chamber at the state lab in Vermont looks a lot more like Jacob's duct-taped old fish tank than the CrimeBusters version, which is jazzed up with blue neon lights and lots of chrome. Plus, the investigators seem to spend a lot more time figuring out who's going to jump into bed with whom than they do solving crimes.

  All the same, I sit down next to my brother on the couch. There's a good foot of space between us, because Jacob isn't crazy about being touched. I know better than to talk when the show is on--instead, I limit my editorial comments to the moments when there are commercials for erectile dysfunction drugs and OxiClean.

  The story line involves a girl who's found dead after a hit-and-run. There's a paint scrape on her scooter, so the sexy CSI takes it to the lab. Meanwhile, the dude who does the autopsies finds a bruise on the girl's body that looks like a fingerprint. The crusty old CSI photographs it and takes it to the lab and gets a hit--some retired government employee who's drinking his prune juice and using a Clapper when Crusty and Sexy show up. They ask him if he's had a car accident lately, and he says that his car was stolen. Unfortunately for him, the CSIs find it parked in the attached garage. Caught red-handed, he admits that he was driving and that his foot hit the accelerator instead of the brake. When Sexy examines the car, though, she finds the driver's seat pushed back too far for the old man's height, and the stereo set to hip-hop. Sexy asks if anyone else drives Grandpa's car just as a teenage boy enters. Gramps admits that after hitting the girl on her scooter, he banged his head, so his grandson drove him home. Needless to say, no one believes him, but it's his word against theirs until Crusty finds a piece of tooth lodged in the steering wheel, which gets matched to the grandson. The kid's arrested, and his grandfather gets released.

  The whole time I am watching this, Jacob is scribbling away in his notebooks. He has shelves full of them, all filled with crime scenarios that aired on this TV show. --What do you write down in there?|| I ask.

  Jacob shrugs. --The evidence. Then I try to deduce what will happen.||

  --But you've seen this one thirty-eight times,|| I say. --You already know how it's going to turn out.||

  Jacob's pen keeps scratching across the page. --But maybe it'll end differently this time,|| he says. --Maybe today, the kid won't get caught.||

  Rich

  On Thursday morning my phone rings. --Matson,|| I say, answering.

  --The CDs are in alphabetical order.||

  I frown at the unfamiliar voice. Sounds like some kind of speakeasy password. The CDs are in alphabetical order. And the bluebird wears fishnet stockings. And just like that, you get entry to the inner sanctum.

  --I beg your pardon?|| I say.

  --Whoever took Jess hung around long enough to alphabetize the CDs.||

  Now I recognize the voice--Mark Maguire. --I assume your girlfriend hasn't returned yet,|| I say.

  --Would I be calling you if she had?||

  I clear my throat. --Tell me what you noticed.||

  --I dropped a handful of change on the carpet this morning, and when I picked it up, I realized that the tower that holds the CDs had been moved. There was a little sunken spot in the carpet, you know?||

  --Right,|| I say.

  --So these professors--they've got hundreds of CDs. And they keep them in this four-sided tower that spins. Anyway, I noticed that all the W s were organized together.

  Richard Wagner, Dionne Warwick, Dinah Washington, the Who, John Williams, Mary Lou Williams. And then Lester Young, Johann Zumsteeg--||

  --They listen to the Who?||

  --I looked on all four sides--and every single CD is in order.||

  --Is it possible they always were, and you didn't notice?|| I ask.

  --No, because last weekend, when Jess and I were looking for some decent music to listen to, they sure as hell didn't look that way.||

  --Mr. Maguire,|| I say. --Let me call you right back.||

  --Wait--it's been two days now--||

  I hang up and pinch the bridge of my nose. Then I dial the state lab and talk to Iris, a grandmother type who has a little crush on me, which I milk when I need my evidence processed fast. --Iris,|| I say, --how's the prettiest girl in the lab?||

  --I'm the only girl in the lab.|| She laughs. --You calling about your mailbox note?||

  --Yeah.||

  --Came up clean. No prints at all.||

  I thank her and hang up the phone. It figures that a perp who alphabetizes CDs is smart enough to wear gloves while leaving a note. We probably won't get any prints off the computer keyboard, either.

  On the other hand, the spices might be organized by indigenous regions.

  If Mark Maguire is involved with his girlfriend's disappearance, and wants to lead us on a very different profiling track, he might conceivably alphabetize CDs--the least likely thing I'd ever expect of Mark Maguire.

  Which could also explain why it took him twenty-four more hours to do it.

  In any case, I am going to take a look at those CDs myself. And the contents of Jess Ogilvy's purse. And anything else that might indicate where she is, and why she's there.

  I stand up and grab my jacket, heading past dispatch to tell them where I am going, when one of the desk sergeants pulls at my sleeve. --This here's Detective Matson,|| he says.

  --Good,|| another man barks. --Now I know who to get the chief to fire.||

  Behind him, a woman in tears twists the leather straps of her handbag.

  --I'm sorry,|| I say, smiling politely. --I didn't catch your name?||

  --Claude Ogilvy,|| he replies. -- State Senator Claude Ogilvy.||

  --Senator, we're doing everything we can to find your daughter.||

  --I find that hard to believe,|| he says, --when you haven't even had anyone in this department investigating it.||

  --As a matter of fact, Senator, I was just on my way to your daughter's residence.||

  --I assume, of course, that you're meeting the rest of the police force there. Because I certainly wouldn't want to find out that two whole days had gone by without this police department taking my daughter's disappearance seriously--||

  I cut him off midsentence by taking his arm and propelling him toward my office.

  --With all due respect, Senator, I'd prefer it if you didn't tell me how to do my own job--||

  --I damn well will tell you whatever I want whenever I want until my daughter is brought back safe and sound!||

  I ignore him and offer a chair to his wife. --Mrs. Ogilvy,|| I say, --has Jess tried to contact you at all?||

  She shakes her head. --And I can't call her. Her voice-mail box is full.||

  The senator shakes his head. --That's because that idiot Maguire kept leaving messages--||

  --Has she ever run away before?|| I ask.

  --No, she'd never do that.||

  --Has she been upset lately? Worried about anything?||

  Mrs. Ogilvy shakes her head. --She was so excited about moving into that house.

  Said it beat out the dorms any day ...||

  --How about her relationship with her boyfriend?||

  At that, Senator Ogilvy stays blissfully, stonily silent. His wife spares him a quick glance. --There's no accounting for love,|| she says.

  --If he hurt her,||
Ogilvy mutters. --If he laid a finger on her--||

  --Then we will find out about it, and we will take care of it,|| I smoothly interject.

  --The first priority, though, is locating Jess.||

  Mrs. Ogilvy leans forward. Her eyes are red-rimmed. --Do you have a daughter, Detective?|| she asks.

  Once, at a fairground, Sasha and I were walking through the midway when a rowdy group of teenagers barreled between us, breaking the bond between our hands. I tried to keep my eye on her, but she was tiny, and when the group was gone, so was Sasha. I found myself standing in the middle of the fairground, turning in circles and screaming her name, while all around me rides spun in circles and wisps of cotton candy flew from their metal wheels onto a spool and the roar of chain saws spitting through wood announced the lumberjack contest. When I finally found her, petting the nose of a Jersey calf in a 4-H

  barn, I was so relieved that my legs gave out; I literally fell to my knees.

  I haven't even responded, but Mrs. Ogilvy puts her hand on her husband's arm.

  --See, I told you, Claude,|| she murmurs. --He understands.||

  Jacob

  The sensory break room at school has a swing hanging from the ceiling. It's made of rope and stretchy blue material, and when you sit inside it, it wraps you like a cocoon. You can pull the sides close so that you can't see out and no one can see in, and spin in circles.

  There are also mats with different textures, wind chimes, a fan. There's a fiber-optic lamp that has hundreds of points of light that change from green to purple to pink. There are sponges and Koosh balls and brushes and Bubble Wrap and weighted blankets. There's a noise machine that only an aide is allowed to turn on, and you can choose to listen to waves or rain or white noise or a jungle. There's a bubble tube, about three feet tall, with plastic fish that move in lazy circles.

  In school, part of my IEP is a cool-off pass--a COP. If I need to, at any time, even during an exam, my teachers will allow me to leave the classroom. Sometimes, the outside world gets a little too tight for me, and I need a place to relax. I can come to the sensory break room, but the truth is, I hardly ever do. The only kids who use the sensory break room are special needs, and walking through the door, I might as well just slap a big fat label on myself that says I'm not normal.

  So most of the time when I need a break, I wander around the hallways. Sometimes I go to the cafeteria to get a bottle of Vitaminwater. (The best flavor? Focus, kiwi-strawberry, with vitamin A and lutein for clarity. The worst? Essential.

  Orange-orange. Need I say more?) Sometimes I hang out in the teachers' room, playing chess with Mr. Pakeeri or helping Mrs. Leatherwood, the school secretary, stuff envelopes.

  But these past two days, when I leave my classroom I head right for that sensory break room.

  The aide who staffs the room, Ms. Agworth, is also the Quiz Bowl teacher. Every day at 11:45 she leaves to make photocopies of whatever it is she's using in Quiz Bowl later that day. For this very reason, I've made it a point to use my COP pass at 11:30 for the past two days. It gets me out of English, which is a blessing in disguise, since we are reading Flowers for Algernon and just last week a girl asked (not in a mean way but truly curious) whether there were any experiments under way that might cure people like me.

  Today, I enter the sensory break room and make a beeline for the Koosh balls.

  Holding one in each hand, I wrestle my way into the swing and pull the material closed around me. --Morning, Jacob,|| Ms. Agworth says. --You need anything?||

  --Not right now,|| I murmur.

  I don't know why people with AS are so sensitive to things like texture and color and sound and light. When I don't look someone in the eye, and when other people very pointedly look away from me so they don't appear to be staring, I sometimes wonder if I even really exist. The items in this room are the sensory equivalent of the game Battleship.

  Instead of calling out coordinates--B-4, D-7--I call for another physical sensation. Each time I feel the weight of a blanket on my arm, or the pop of Bubble Wrap under my body when I roll on it, it's a direct hit. And at the end of my sensory break, instead of sinking my battleship, I've just found a way to locate myself in the grid of this world.

  I close my eyes and slowly spin inside this dark, close ball. --Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,|| I murmur.

  --What's that, Jacob?|| Ms. Agworth says.

  --Nothing,|| I shout. I wait until I've swung in three more slow pivots, and then I emerge.

  --How are you doing today?|| she asks.

  It seems like a pretty gratuitous question, given the fact that I wouldn't be in this room if I were able to tolerate sitting in class like neurotypical people. But when I don't answer, she doesn't pry. She just keeps reading her trivia books and jotting down notes.

  The largest fish in the world is a whale shark, at fifty feet.

  Four million marshmallow Peeps are made each day.

  (That sort of makes me wonder who on earth is buying them when it's not Easter.) It takes the average adult man thirteen minutes to eat his dinner.

  --I've got one for you, Ms. Agworth,|| I say. --The word ass is in the Bible 170 times.||

  --Thanks for that, Jacob, but it's not really appropriate.|| She shuffles her papers and looks down at her watch. --You think you'd be okay for a few minutes, if I ran down to the office to make some copies?||

  Technically, she is not supposed to leave me alone. And I know there are certain other autistic kids who use the sensory room that she'd never stop watching like a hawk--Mathilda, for example, would probably fashion a noose out of the rope on the swing; Charlie would start tearing the shelves off the walls. But me, I'm a pretty safe bet.

  --No problem, Ms. A,|| I say.

  In fact, I am counting on it. And the moment the door closes behind her again, I pull the cell phone out of my pocket. As soon as I flip it open and press the power button, it lights up: little blue squares around each number, and a picture of Jess and Mark on the screen saver.

  I cover Mark's face with my thumb.

  It's Thursday, and today I'm allowed to call her. I already broke the rules and called her twice before from this phone--dialing her own cell number, even though I knew I would be automatically dumped into voice mail. Hey, so, this is Jess, and you know what to do.

  I am already starting to forget the notes in the song of her voice.

  Today, though, instead of hearing her message, I heard a tinny voice telling me that this wireless customer's mailbox is full.

  I'm prepared for this. I have memorized the phone number she gave me a week ago, the one that belongs to the new house. I dial it, even though I have to do it twice because it's unfamiliar and the numbers get tangled in my head.

  A machine picks up. Hey, this is Jess at the Robertsons' house. They're out of town, but you can leave a message for me!

  I hang up and dial it again.

  Hey, this is Jess at the Robertsons' house.

  I wait till the beep, and then I hang up. I turn off the power button on the cell phone, too. Then I speak my message, the same words I say to her every Thursday: See you in three days.

  Emma

  By Thursday, Jacob looks like the old Jacob, but he still isn't back to normal. I can tell by the way he's distracted--I'll set a full dinner plate down in front of him and he won't eat until I remind him that it's time to pick up his fork and dig in--and by the moments I catch him rocking or bouncing on the balls of his feet. His meds don't seem to be helping. And I've heard from teachers at his school that he's been spending nearly half the day in the sensory break room.

  I've called Jess Ogilvy twice, but her voice-mail box is full. I'm afraid to bring her name up to Jacob, but I don't know what else to do. So after dinner on Thursday, I knock on the door of his bedroom and let myself inside. --Hi,|| I say.

  He looks up from a book he is reading. --Hey.||

  It took me two years to realize that Jacob had not learned to read along with the rest of
his kindergarten class. His teacher said he was among the most gifted language arts students, and sure enough, every night, he would pick out a book from a big basket in his room and read it aloud. But one day I realized that what everyone assumed was reading was actually just Jacob's photographic memory. If he'd heard the book once, he could spit it back. Read this, I had said, handing him a Dr. Seuss book, and he'd opened it up and started the story. I'd stopped him, pointing to a letter.

  What's that?

  A B.

  And what sound does a B make?

  He hesitated. Buzz, he said.

  Now, I sink down beside him on the bed. --How are you feeling?||

  --Interrupted,|| Jacob says.

  I take the book out of his hands. --Can we talk?|| He nods. --Did you and Jess have a fight on Tuesday?||

  --No.||

  --When you went to her house, she didn't say anything to upset you?||

  He shakes his head. --No, she didn't say anything.||

  --Well, I'm a little lost here, Jacob, since you came home from your tutoring session very upset ... and I think there's still something bothering you.||

  Here is the thing about Asperger's syndrome: Jacob won't lie. So when he says he didn't have an argument with Jess, I believe him. But that doesn't mean he wasn't traumatized by something else that relates to her. Maybe he walked in on her having sex with her boyfriend. Maybe he got freaked out by her new residence.

  Or maybe it has nothing to do with Jess, and he ran across an orange construction zone sign on the way home that required him to take a detour.

  I sigh. --You know that I'm here when you're ready to talk about it. And Jess, too.

  She's there if you need her.||

  --I'm going to see her again on Sunday.||

  --Same bat-time,|| I say. --Same bat-channel.||

  I hand him back his book and realize that tucked beneath his arm is the old Jemima Puddle-Duck toy he used to carry as a child. Jacob carried her so fiercely that I had to sew a leopard cape onto her back because her fur kept rubbing bald. It was a ritual piece, according to Dr. Murano--something Jacob could hold to calm himself down. She described it as a way to reboot, to remind him that he's all right. Over the years, Jemima was retired to make room for more discreet objects that could be tucked in his pockets: a photo-booth strip of the two of us, so folded and faded you could barely see our faces; a small green pebble a teacher brought him back from Montana; a piece of sea glass Theo gave him for Christmas one year. In fact, I haven't seen this stuffed animal in ages; she's been buried in his closet.