Dev Dreams, Volume One

by Ruth Madison

  “Did you go out with Jake last night? Do you know where he is?” Paul asked.

  “I don't know,” Lucy replied, her fingers combing her bangs, “No one answered when I called last night.”

  “Mr. Miller,” the teacher interrupted, “I would appreciate it if you would sit forward on your chair.”

  Paul swung forward and smiled innocently. Sophie saw Lucy roll her eyes.

  After school Paul and Sophie went straight to the Kenley house. They found that Lucy was there too.

  “Don't talk to me,” she said.

  “Don't worry about it,” Sophie said. She sat down next to Paul on the steps and waited. No one was home and there was no indication of where they had gone. After twenty minutes, the family car pulled up. The parents got out first. Their faces were tight and drawn. Alex got out next and said, “Okay, nobody say anything.”

  “What would we...oh,” Lucy said as Jake got out of the car. He had a cane in his hand, but he was holding it in the middle, as though he was just waiting to hand it over to someone else. Sophie noticed that he didn't step forward, but leaned against the car.

  “It's a misunderstanding,” Jake said, “Just a mistake.”

  “What? What's going on?” Lucy said.

  “They think,” Jake said, “They think I have MS.”

  Sophie gasped.

  “What?” Lucy said, but everyone ignored her.

  Mrs. Kenley tugged at the bottom of her suit and said, “There are treatments. We'll be aggressive.”

  “Not now, Mom,” Jake said.

  “Jacob, you listen to me,” Mrs. Kenley began, but her husband took her shoulder and guided her toward the house. “There will be time to talk about this,” he said. When the two adults had entered the house, Sophie, Paul, Alex, Jake, and Lucy remained outside.

  “It’s nothing, really,” Jake said, “They said there’s no way to know for sure yet. I just pulled a muscle or something. Alex, tell them it’s crazy.”

  “It’s crazy,” Alex whispered, but he was looking down. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  ***

  The next week Jake put the cane in his locker and stayed close to the walls as he walked around the school. He was late to every class. For the one class he had with Sophie and Paul he showed up seven minutes late and the teacher lectured him on respect for the class. Paul and Sophie looked at each other and Paul shrugged.

  Jake finally gave up after he fell in a classroom and grabbed hold of a desk that then toppled over on top of him. The teacher was furious at the disruption and thought he was drunk. She sent him to the office.

  He retrieved the cane and tried to pretend it was the latest fashion accessory. For gym class he had a note from the doctor and when the gym teacher, who was also Jake’s baseball coach, read it, he coughed gruffly and said, “I guess we won’t be seeing you at practice anymore.”

  “Looks that way,” Jake said.

  He skipped a math class and went to the cafeteria early and just sat in the empty room. The first lunch bell rang and people began to arrive. Sophie walked through the door with a red stain spread over the front of her shirt. For a second he thought it was blood, and then he realized it was ink. She saw him, but didn’t let recognition register on her face. Since he was in the popular crowd he didn’t ever talk to his brother’s friends at school. This time, though, he called out, “Is that what they mean by a fashion statement?”

  “Do you really have to make a comment?”

  “Sophie, you look ridiculous.”

  “That’s just what I needed to hear. Thanks. Why don’t you just lend me your jacket like a gentleman?”

  Jake smiled and pulled his jacket off. He handed it up to her and she put it on, covering the red ink stain that had spread across the front of her shirt.

  “Tell me how this kind of thing happens to you.”

  Sophie shrugged. She sat down next him at the cafeteria table. “I didn’t realize I had left the pen uncapped, and I was listening to the teacher, and I before I knew it, the pen was bleeding onto my shirt. What are you supposed to do about that? I can’t just go home and change.”

  “By this time I would think you’d put spare clothes in your locker.”

  “Look, you live your way and I’ll live mine. Do you even have lunch now? What are you doing here?”

  “Free period. Lucy is meeting me here.”

  “Oh.” Sophie stopped abruptly. “Is that going to be weird?”

  He didn’t answer and his eyes drifted past Sophie. She turned around to see Lucy coming into the lunchroom.

  Jake reached down and pulled a cane out from under the table. He stood shakily, leaning on it.

  “See you around, Sophie,” he said, “I’ll get my jacket from you tomorrow.” She heard a tightening in his voice.

  Sophie watched Lucy’s face as Jake walked unevenly toward her. Lucy wasn’t watching him. She was leaning on the doorframe, looking bored, and scanning the cafeteria to see who was around. To her, Sophie didn’t even register: she was just another piece of furniture.

  Jake followed Lucy into the hall. She stopped in front of a locker, but her eyes darted to the people walking by. He waited for her attention.

  “People are staring at us,” she hissed.

  “They’re curious, what do you expect?”

  “Is there somewhere we can be alone?” she said.

  “I don’t want to walk that far,” he said and watched the red spots of embarrassment spread along Lucy’s neck.

  “Jake,” she said, “Please. This is hard for me.”

  “That’s funny, it’s been easy for me.”

  “Don’t be a jerk. It affects me too.”

  “Can you put that on hold for a minute? Just forget about yourself for a tiny moment?”

  “This is really heavy. This is more than I can deal with.”

  “Is heavy in again? Are we using that word now?”

  “See, how can we get through this when you can’t even talk about a serious subject?”

  Jake sighed. “You are no fun to talk to, Lucy.”

  “Well, lucky for you, you won’t have to talk with me anymore.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and walked away.

  He had planned to break up with her anyway, but he preferred that it be done in his own time. What kind of girl breaks up with her boyfriend right after he’s been diagnosed with a progressive neurological disorder? Wasn’t there a required waiting period?

  He turned around and went back to the cafeteria. His brother was sitting with the usual two cohorts. Sophie was still wearing his jacket. He smiled at the way all three spoke so enthusiastically to each other. Jake's friendships were so much about appearances and not saying the wrong thing, he could never be as free as that.

  He walked over to the table and said, “Hey, guys, can I join you?”

  They all turned around and looked behind them, trying to figure out who he was talking to.

  “That's funny,” Jake said. Alex pulled over another chair and Jake sat down. There was a pizza in the middle of the table. “Where did that come from?” Jake asked.

  Alex snuck out and got it during his study hall,” Sophie said.

  Jake looked over at her plate and raised an eyebrow. She had picked each element of the pizza off and had them all arranged separately on her plate.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “This is how I eat pizza,” Sophie said, crossing her arms in front of her defensively.

  “Seriously?”

  “Don't make fun of me! Just because Alex lets you control his life, doesn’t mean you have any business telling me how to live!”

  Alex looked away, but there was a smirk on his face and Paul caught his eye and started laughing. “Just let her eat her pizza,” Alex said.

  ***

  The next morning Jake was watching the back of Lucy's head in calculus class. She was sitting in the front, pretending he didn't exist. Jake sat on the side, not even pretending to listen to t
he teacher. He just let his eyes bore into her. She could feel it, he knew she did. And she was listening in her head to all her justifications over and over and over.

  When the bell rang Lucy rushed to throw her books and papers together and get out the door, but everyone was rushing out and she had to wait. Jake got in her way and she had no choice but to look at him.

  “Hello, Jake,” she said.

  “Hello, Lucy, what? happening?”

  “Not much.”

  “No? Not too busy?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Having a conversation. People who know each other do this.”

  “Don't be a jerk.”

  “I'm just being friendly.”

  “And I'm leaving.” She passed him and hurried down the hallway.

  “Man, what are you up to?” Paul asked.

  “Just making her squrim.”

  “You know you guys were totally wrong for each other.”

  “I know.”

  “Let's go meet Sophie and Alex for lunch.”

  Jake didn't argue. He hadn't hung out with his supposed-friends in days and he was having a hard time caring if they saw him with his brother's friends.

  That night Jake was supposed to go to the symphony with his family.

  “Too much walking for me,” he said. His mother began to make tittering noises. Any reminder of what the diagnosis upset her. Jake caught Alex's eye and grinned. His brother knew it was just an excuse. Although, it was true he felt very tired.

  “All right, Jake,” their father said. “Take it easy, we'll be home late. Come on, Alex.”

  After they left, Jake settled on the couch with a ham sandwich and turned on the TV. Rather than watch it, he thought about what had happened to him. As an infant he had learned to walk, but now he wondered why he had bothered, if the ability was simply going to be stolen away. His body, even at his young age, had rebelled. The limbs no longer obeyed him and he was now condemned to spend the rest of his life losing things: movement and functions and also girlfriends, jobs and, most likely, his sanity.

  He couldn't imagine what the future would look like, he had no concept at all. He looked at the cane leaned against the wall and felt a strange combination of hatred and gratitude. His feet were not going to stay stable against the ground, the cane at least let him continue to move without falling over constantly.

  The doorbell rang and Jake grumbled to himself. His one evening to be alone and undisturbed, but he couldn't be left in peace. He considered not answering, but it rang again and his curiosity got the better of him. He held onto the furniture as he made his way to the door, looking down at his feet as he walked, fascinated by how they seemed to not even be his. They were doing their own thing, barely under his control at all, like wayward pets.

  When he opened the door, he discovered Sophie standing on the stoop.

  “Do you have an aspirin?” she said.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  She walked past him to the kitchen and began digging around in the cabinets. “I've got a bad headache,” she said when he made it to the kitchen, well after her.

  “So you came all the way here. You must have more on your mind then a aspirin.”

  “You're a sharp cookie.”

  “Why do you think I get As in school?”

  Sophie laughed before she swallowed the pills and put the glass in the sink. She sighed. “How do you know I just didn't have aspirin at home?”

  “So you took the bus all the way over here. Wait a minute. My brother.”

  “Okay, yes, Alex asked me to check up on you.”

  “I don't believe this. He's out of the house one night...”

  “He's just worried about you, and Lucy, and everything. Come on, don't be mad. I brought my toothbrush, we can have a sleepover party.”

  “Want to watch a movie?” Jake said.

  “Sure,” Sophie smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?” he said, already walking to the living room to rummage for the video.

  “Are you scared?” Sophie said.

  Jake stopped and turned to look at her. He said, “No one will talk about it.”

  “You know me,” Sophie said with a smile, “Asking the hard questions, searching for the answers.”

  “Have you been watching the news for fun again?”

  “Tell me really.”

  He put the DVD in and sat back down on the couch. Sophie came and sat beside him. As the movie started, Jake said, “Whatever I have, I will lose. It is scary. It's scary to think that I don't know what I'll be able to do and not do months from now and years from now. I've always been the strong one, I can't find my place any more.”

  “You're still you,” Sophie said quietly. “And whatever comes in the future, you'll figure it out.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She nodded and eventually said, 'Thanks for letting me stay over.”

  “No problem,” Jake said, “But next time you talk to my brother you can tell him that if he doesn't mind his own business I'll break his neck.”

  “I'll be sure to relay the message.”

  Sophie stretched out on the couch. She sighed and pressed her head back into the couch's throw pillows.

  Jake watched the whole movie, and when he pressed stop and turned off the TV he discovered that Sophie was fast asleep. He shook her legs gently, but she just moaned and pushed her head further into the pillow.

  He leaned over and touched Sophie's face gently. He brushed her brown hair back away from her face. Sophie didn't wake up. That medicine must have been the drowsy kind. Trust Sophie to never read the label.

  She was an adorable walking disaster. He was glad his brother had befriended her when she moved to town. His life would not be the same without her daily mishaps.

  He put a blanket over her and went next door to his father's study. Lately he had been sleeping on the couch there.

  ***

  Sophie woke up uncertain where she was. She had slept through the night and was wakened by the sun coming in the living room window. She thought back and remembered starting to watch a movie with Jake, but then her memory went blank. Oh dear. Somehow she had fallen asleep and left him alone when she was supposed to be keeping him company.

  She should do something nice to make up for it. She wandered back to the kitchen and started poking around the refrigerator. Sophie didn't really cook, but she remembered her mother once told her you could make eggs sunny-side-up in the microwave.

  She took a couple out and broke them into a bowl. After the microwave was finished, she pulled out the bowl and looked down skeptically. The eggs looked rubbery and there was a crust over the yoke. She took a fork and started poking at them.

  When the fork tine hit the yoke, there was a sudden pop and Sophie shrieked and dropped the bowl. The egg had exploded and pieces of it were covering the room. There were bits of yoke in Sophie's hair, on her cloths, on the ceiling of the kitchen, and the counters and floor and chairs.

  Moments later Jake was in the doorway staring at her.

  “What on earth have you done?”

  “Sorry,” Sophie said, biting her lip. “I made kind of a mess.”

  Jake laughed. “Well, let's just get it cleaned up, then.”

  Jake's parents and brother all arrived in the doorway at the same moment. “Are you all right?” his mother asked Jake.

  “Do I look like the one in trouble here?” he said.

  Everyone cleaned up while teasing Sophie. There was no doubt that Sophie was a klutz. Jake had never been clumsy in his life until recently. Sophie fell over for no reason all the time, but no one had ever given her the excuse of a progressive neurological disorder.

  She was foolish to think that Jake was ever going to see anything in her. She always screwed things up. He needed to be with someone who could take care of him as his body weakened, not someone who was likely to cause more trouble. The end of the year was approaching fast. They would all graduate
and she would probably never see him again.

  ***

  Jake was often alone in the hallways now, as he took his time to walk between classes. Sometimes he took a little more time than necessary. The teachers wouldn't complain anymore. They had had some kind of secret meeting in which his condition had been whispered. One day he was walking around a corner when he saw someone huddled on the floor at the far end of the hall.

  “Are you okay?” he called, but the figure didn't move. He started to walk closer, then he recognized the briefcase laying on the floor. He had to stop himself from trying to run, remembering that his legs would no longer allow it. He walked as fast as he could and quietly cursed the strange jerking movement of his legs. “Paul?”

  Paul lifted his face and looked up at Jake. His eyes were puffy and black, almost swollen shut. Blood was oozing from a cut on his cheek and his lip was swollen up. He clutched his stomach and Jake saw more blood puddling under him.

  “Oh my God” Jake dropped to the ground and touched Paul's shoulder. “What happened?” But it was a stupid question. He knew what had happened. Derek had happened. “Hang on,” Jake said, “Just hang on. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Alex's number.

  “I'm in class, Jake, this better be an emergency,” his brother's voice said.

  “It is.”

  “Are you okay?” Sudden alarm in his voice.

  “Come to the hallway outside room 128 and hurry.”

  Another student came walking around the corner. “Hey, you,” Jake called, “Get the principal and the nurse, would you?” The student nodded and stared at Paul while he started to run toward the office.