Kids Like Us

by Hilary Reyl

  “So I’m getting it wrong?”

  “You say that like it’s a crime. Getting it wrong is the most human thing there is.” She looked at her pale feet in the water and pointed her toes, which have lavender polish on the nails. “I was up with Arthur most of last night because we were figuring out something we both misunderstood. He thought that I still wanted to be with Jason because I made some jealous comment about Jason’s skinny new actress girlfriend. I guess I’m a little fixated on her, but that doesn’t mean I like Jason anymore, or that I want him back. I can’t stand Jason. Arthur is so much more wonderful. I was treating Arthur like I could tell him every negative idea that passes through me, I guess because I trust him. Only I have to understand that it’s not all about me. And it’s not all about him either. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes,” I said, but not because it made sense. I said it because I wanted this moment to be about her and not me. “Did you work it out?” I asked. I was asking because I cared. Because I like Arthur.

  “Yeah, we’re going to be great.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said.

  She squeezed my hand. “Now what are we going to do about Alice?” she asked.

  “She’s asked me to meet her today. At the bakery, for madeleines. We’ve already been once together and we had a good time, or at least I did. Should I go again?”

  “Of course you should. Are you sure she’s aware of the robot thing?”

  “Everyone’s aware of everything.” This was an exaggeration. I don’t usually exaggerate. It felt weird, like I was suddenly doing the splits when I never could before.

  “You should go see her if she’s asking. Give her a chance.”

  When Elisabeth said this, it was 2:00 p.m. I asked her if she would drive me to town at 3:30 p.m.

  She said yes.

  3:45 p.m.

  Marcel first hears the name “Gilberte!” flying across the park, through a crowd of children and their nannies. It’s like magic after so many years of dreaming about her. The name goes whizzing like a ball in the air, aiming for a target.

  Hearing Gilberte’s name is awesome, but it’s also a reminder that Marcel is not the one calling her. It’s the caller who actually knows her. Not Marcel. The caller gets to fling Gilberte’s name with “a lighthearted cry.” Marcel just gets to listen. Even though he’s getting closer, Marcel is an outsider. Like me, waiting in the small green square outside the boulangerie for Alice, a boy trapped inside a robot.

  Thursday, June 16

  10:30 p.m.

  She kisses you. No kidding. For real. On the bench, on the lips. She says, “Robots can’t kiss. So you can’t be a robot.” Then she laughs.

  Kissing is uncomfortable, but it is the kind of uncomfortable that you crave at the same time that it makes you anxious. It’s like being tickled. You can’t stand it, but as soon as it stops you want it again. Really badly.

  She says she didn’t realize how much she liked you until she thought you were mad at her and wouldn’t see her anymore. When you miss a person is when you know they are important.

  Alice explains about Simon. “He couldn’t understand why you weren’t more mad when you found out about how the group was using you for the party and the movie scenes. He said that you didn’t ever get pissed off. You were bizarrely cool. Robotic. Simon gets angry a lot. He hits people and breaks stuff. So you being so cool about us using you, this didn’t make sense to him. Like you can’t be a real boy if you don’t get mad. The rest of us, we convinced him he was being stupid. Then we made a joke that you are a sweet robot, like R2-D2 in Star Wars, the cute little guy. So it was funny. Especially since you are so tall.” She stops and looks straight at you. “Don’t worry so much about it,” she says.

  You say you aren’t worried anymore and that it is time to buy madeleines.

  She laughs again. “What a great idea,” she says.

  You go into the bakery and buy a bag of madeleines. Outside the bakery, she takes your hand and starts to lead you out of the square. She wants to walk to Chenonceau to watch the funeral scene for Henri II. It’s in its second day of shooting. You will see Simon, Michel, Georges, and Kevin. Mom has cast them all.

  Walking takes half an hour. Alice holds your hand the whole time. She bites her nails. Her green nail polish is almost all worn away.

  The castle, clouds, and trees are perfectly reflected in the river. It is a painting. Until you and Alice get close and go into the gardens, and the place comes alive.

  Lots of people at Chenonceau are in Renaissance costume for Mom’s movie. Your friends from school are wearing tights, bloomer shorts, and blouses. Mom has them lined up with the other extras along the main allée of the château. Asparagus Man is standing next to Mom, watching the action on a screen. When he winks at you, you don’t even mind.

  You say hi to Arthur, who looks preoccupied.

  You do something you’ve never done before. You imagine watching this scene from Mom’s movie, on a day in the future, with Layla in her basement, while thinking back to these moments at Chenonceau. Does this mean you are getting what they call “sequencing”? Does this looking ahead make you a more normal kid? Or does it show you that you are unique, because no one else in the world but you will watch Mom’s movie with Layla in her basement while recalling Asparagus Man’s wink and recognizing the cool kids from school dressed up in tights, pretending to be all depressed because King Henri is dead, when they are really completely happy to be in Mom’s movie?

  During a break, Simon comes over to you and Alice. His shoes are dusty brown leather slippers instead of Doc Martens. You manage to look up into his face, where you see two competing things. He is looking at you. At the same time he is constantly glancing at Gloria Seegar, who is talking to Mom. Gloria is wearing a black silk dress. There are strings of black beads all through her hair.

  “Ça va?” he asks. You are surprised to hear in his “Ça va?” the question, “Are you angry?”

  You catch your breath. How could Simon be playing Papa’s Ça va game if he isn’t a true friend?

  “Ça va,” you answer, meaning, “I don’t think I’m angry anymore.” “Et toi, ça va?” meaning, “And you, are you feeling sorry?”

  “Ça va,” he replies, meaning, “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  By the time you get to the end of the Ça vas, you and Simon are okay.

  You meet Alice’s mother. She is nothing like Odette. She does not wear a purple wrap of crepe de Chine or a pink silk dress with a strand of pearls. She wears green cargo pants and work boots, and she does not act like a snob. Her face is tanned and wrinkled from working in the sun. She has freckles. She does not force eye contact.

  Alice says to you, “Let’s go to Catherine de Médicis’s private garden to see the roses and orange trees.” You wander together away from the crowd. On a hill of lavender sloping down to the castle’s moat, she says she wants to listen to your music. You share earbuds and lie down on the ground staring at the sky, holding hands.

  When the sonata is over, she rolls to face you and asks, “Can I ask you a question?”

  You nod. You are interested in what her question is going to be, but you are more interested in kissing her again.

  She speaks softly because she is very close to you. “I know you don’t like being called a robot, but do you like being different? Or do you even feel different from other people?”

  “You want to kiss,” is all you can say. It comes out as a flat statement, rather than a question.

  She does not seem to mind how inappropriate your response is. “Okay,” is all she says, and then she waits with her mouth hanging in the air a breath away from yours. She waits for you to cross the space, which you do. You pull her into you.

  Everywhere her body meets yours, a little wall tumbles down.

  “I really like you,” Alice whispers in between two kisses.

  Alice calls me “you.” So “you” has been right all along.

  Friday, June 17
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  4:30 p.m.

  I’ve gone back to school.

  And I’m going to go to Simon’s party tomorrow. I will recognize enough people there for it to be okay. Besides, Alice will help me. She talks a lot about how Simon misses his dad. It’s why he sometimes drinks too much. The thing we have to watch, she says, is that Simon doesn’t get so wasted that he gets totally sick all over his house while his mom is away.

  I haven’t said anything more to Layla about the moth party. She doesn’t know I’ve decided to go for sure. Ever since she started sending me stuff about the neurodiversity movement, I’m avoiding mentioning my general-ed friends. I’m scared that if I tell her that I am going to Simon’s house to drink beer on a Saturday night, she’ll say that I am “living vicariously” through these neurotypical kids.

  I could argue back that she and I are vicarious people. But I won’t.

  Instead of telling her about my real teenage plans for the weekend, I tell her about cooking rabbit with prunes. It was the first thing Elisabeth ate after she made up with Arthur. I also give Layla descriptions of my buzzing-fly music, the rhubarb jam on baguettes in the morning, and the hawthorns I still visit every day. I want her to believe that I am still me.

  She is smarter than that.

  How are the French moths? How is it that you are not mentioning them these days? How is Gilberte? Do you think our phones are instruments of communication or torture?

  Layla has latched on to The Center’s questioning strategy. She’s become such a master of the question that she can parody it. She’s playing with me because I’m not telling her everything.

  I answer her text: Moths got to be extras in a big scene in the movie. Funeral for the king, killed jousting. The dead king used to be Peter Bird. Gloria is queen. Fuchsia is mistress. Moths delighted. Only Gilberte wasn’t in it. And her name is really Alice.

  How is she? Will you be going to Simon’s generaled party?

  After behavioral therapy, it’s almost impossible for me not to answer a direct question. But I figure something out. Instead of responding to her questions, I ask her my own. This is another way to show empathy and interest.

  What is your favorite episode of Season Three? Who is your favorite Beatle?

  Episode seven, when Bates is freed from prison. Paul. I am still waiting to find out how Gilberte is. How are your plans for the generaled party faring or not faring?

  “Merde,” as Papa would say.

  I just told you Gilberte’s real name is Alice. She isn’t from the book. But it’s okay. I will go to the party with no illusions. Don’t worry.

  Then she texts a video of her big, beautiful hands playing the chorus to “Yesterday” while she sings along. “Oh, I believe in yesterday.”

  The sound of her voice brings me back to the music room at The Center. Thanks to movie-industry donors with special-needs kids like us, the music room at The Center is state of the art. Most important for Layla, it has a Steinway baby grand. Her voice bounces off the padded walls as she plays and sings. She says “Yesterday” is my song because I’m so into nostalgia, being a Proustian and all. She loves to sing me this song. It’s her idea of a joke that never gets unfunny.

  Only, I’m starting to think that Layla is the nostalgic one. She’s the one who doesn’t want us to change.

  Saturday, June 18

  3:20 p.m.

  I haven’t taken my headphones off all day. I can barely look at anyone, not Mom, not Elisabeth, not Arthur, and especially not Asparagus Man.

  Everyone is hanging around the house because there is some big official event at Chenonceau, so there can be no shooting. To fill the day, Baxter Wolff organized a private tour of another château, called Chambord, but none of us wanted to go. We are all exhausted. This morning, we slept until eleven. Breakfast tasted like metal. Even the rhubarb jam.

  I can’t go to Simon’s party. I’m so nervous about it that I’ve spent hours pacing around the cottage, staring at my shoes. The outlines of Layla’s silver moths are burned into my eyes.

  I’m not scared of being laughed at. I’m scared of drowning. I’m scared I’ll forget my basic skills: pass the ball back and forth; pass the words back and forth. I’ll drop everything. Alice will abandon me. It will all become chaos.

  Only if I stay away, the moths will figure I haven’t understood that the robot thing was only a joke. It’ll make them feel unforgiven. Alice will think her kisses didn’t mean enough, which is not true. And I’ll also disappoint everyone here at home. Elisabeth has said she will drive me to the party and pick me up at any time. I don’t want to see her face struggle to stop looking sad if I don’t go. Arthur has said that if he were my age, I would be the kid he would want to hang out with. I don’t want him to think I’m ignoring him. I don’t want Mom to ask, “Are you sure?” And I really don’t want Asparagus Man to quote Foucault at me.

  But I don’t want to go to the damn party. I should stay home tonight. I should stay inside my head, and be proud of who I am.

  Sunday, June 19

  3:10 a.m.

  I did go to Simon’s. Here is what happened:

  When Elisabeth asked me what time I wanted to leave the cottage, I told her I wasn’t sure I could do it. I was all geared up for her bad reaction. Only there was no reaction. She didn’t try to convince me to go. She only said to tell her if I changed my mind. Her voice was flat, but I didn’t detect irritation. She went back to having Arthur quiz her on chemical compounds with multicolored flash cards.

  Then Mom mentioned that a group of people were planning to meet some of the cast for dinner at Baxter’s place. He’d hired a famous chef and challenged him to make a paleo meal. Paleo means eating the way they figure prehistoric people ate, with fish, meat, and vegetables, and almost no grains, dairy, or starches. It’s fashionable. Mom thinks it’s funny. She said she’s sure that, even if the chef has to work within the rules of the paleo diet, the result will be spectacular, “kind of like Shakespeare working within the confines of the sonnet.” If I didn’t feel like going to Simon’s party, she said I should come with her and Joe, aka Asparagus Man, to Baxter’s instead because it would be an experience.

  Asparagus Man seconded her invitation to the paleo dinner.

  I got a text from Alice saying that she would understand if the party didn’t sound fun to me and that we could hang out soon.

  There was no pressure on me to go. And suddenly I wanted to go. I had a burst of confidence. Alice would be happy to see me. And so would everyone else.

  Simon lives in a housing development on a street called rue Racine. His house is white and cracked with a rusty swing set in the yard for his little brother.

  When Elisabeth pulled in front of the house, there were eight mopeds parked along the low concrete wall by the street. In the yard, we saw a green plastic table with sodas, beers, and a big bowl of chips on it, along with a few smaller bowls of what they call gâteaux apéritifs, which are the salty snacks they have here with drinks, little pretzels, and tiny orange crackers. Mom says gâteaux apéritifs are tacky, not to mention gross. For before dinner, she prefers pistachios and crudités. I’m sure Marcel’s grandmother would agree. But neither of them would ever come to a party at Simon’s.

  “This is your first boum,” said Elisabeth when the Smart car stopped.

  Boum is slang for a party.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Okay, so this isn’t a teaching moment. It’s more of a going-for-it moment. Just one thing: try not to drink too much. Your body isn’t used to it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have fun. Text me when you want to come home. I’m not going to the paleo dinner. I have to work. Arthur says he’ll keep me company but I told him he should go if he wants.”

  The Smart car drove off. Elisabeth was disappearing along with it. My mind can’t hold her back anymore. She is going away from me, to Stanford and then to become a real doctor. My bubble is getting thinner.

  There is a crowd of mostl
y familiar shoes on the hard brown grass of Simon’s small yard, next to the green table with the snacks. Simon is handing me a beer, which foams when I pull the tab, spilling over. I watch the foam bubble on the grass by my foot.

  Techno music starts to play on a weak sound system. It’s a good thing the sound is not strong because, even though I like repetition, that single relentless beat makes me insane.

  My first sip of beer spreads through me, putting some distance between the music and me. When I take another sip, the music gets even further away. My skin stops tingling from the stress of it. I get more comfortable. A few more sips and I stop caring about the stupid techno beat. I glance up from the ground to see faces. A Giotto boy smiles at me. Kevin.

  Where is Alice?

  Some time has passed. The sun is setting. It must be after 9:00 p.m. I have had three beers and three large handfuls of chips.

  Simon is wasted. I have seen enough people at Mom’s parties to recognize when a person is drunk. They touch you too freely and get too close to you when they talk. It can be scary. All that sloppy affection. Only with Simon, it’s okay when he puts his skinny arm around my shoulders because it helps me keep my balance, since, for the first time, I’m drunk too.

  He jokes that R2-D2 is not such a bad nickname.

  “I understand,” I say.

  “No,” Simon says, “you don’t understand. Do you get exactly why I called you a robot?”

  I say that I have a few ideas but that I am not sure which one is right. I say, let’s talk about something else.

  He does not talk about something else. He says he still can’t believe that I didn’t get furious when Alice wrote me that letter about the party. Like I’m a different species from him because I don’t have anger. He’s sorry he called me a robot, but that’s what he meant. “You don’t defend yourself,” he says. “You’re missing something,” he says, “in your personality.” Is he saying I have a screw loose? Because I don’t get mad enough? Because I don’t rage?