The Stud Book

The day of Lit Expedition, Georgie woke up before Humble and the baby—woke up like a kid on Christmas, ready for her first day back at the work she was born to do.

By the time Humble got up, when Bella started to cry, Georgie was already out of the shower and drinking coffee. So many days lately her head had been cloudy. From morning until noon could pass in a blurry haze, one diaper change after another. Nursing hormones make a woman’s brain less engaged in aspirations. Georgie had read that. And she was prone to barometric migraines. Under a constantly cloudy Oregon winter sky, she could feel the atmospheric pressure shift inside her head. Today her head was clear, with a chance of thinking. Beautiful.

“Big plans?” Hum asked. He scratched his stomach and reached for the coffeepot. He’d forgotten.

That was okay.

Georgie didn’t need Humble’s validation; her plans were important to her. It was a certain kind of peevish wife’s role to begrudge him his own forgetfulness, and she thought of Mrs. Joe Gargery, that belittling drudge, that cautionary tale of an unwilling wife and surrogate mother in the gendered society of Great Expectations. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off since born you were.

“Lit Expedition,” Georgie said, calmly. She had Bella in one arm and was patting the girl’s back. “Arena’s coming to babysit.” She touched her iPod in its docking station. It was already cued to her sound track, and blasted Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture through the house.

“Jesus, that’s loud.” Humble was puffy-eyed. He moved like an older man, totally hungover.

“It’s good for Bella and good for us.”

Then she remembered: Nurse Ratched, in Cuckoo’s Nest, blasted music through the psych ward. Agh! But this wasn’t a ward. It was her house. Humble wasn’t a patient. He could go out if he wanted to.

Anyway, maybe it was time somebody rewrote that book from Nurse Ratched’s point of view.



Upstairs, with the overture still playing, she put Bella in a rocking swing, then squeezed into her best pre-pregnancy skirt. She let her shirt hang out to camouflage the snug waist. It was a gorgeous and generous indigo blue, spun hemp and silk. A lucky, luxury shirt.

Today would be Bella’s first experience with an actual sitter.

It would be Georgie’s day out on her own.

The rocking swing ticked like a metronome, counting down the seconds.

The thought of leaving her baby in anybody else’s care made Georgie half-sick. Really, it did. But she’d see it through. People did this all the time.

The doorbell rang. Humble was in the bathroom, his morning office, and Georgie gave Bella a second look—the girl was buckled in, half-asleep, safe—then ran to get the door. Arena was on time, thank God. She was wearing a tiny T-shirt that said I ♥ OLD PEOPLE. Her jeans were striped jeggings. The girl was tall and thin and made being human in a human body look easy; everything fit and hung and tucked and moved in all the right places.

Georgie felt suddenly short and fat and a little oily. A minute ago, in the mirror, she’d looked fine. Now, she was definitely not sleek. She smiled, invited Arena in, and led her back upstairs. “You’ve changed a diaper before?”

Arena said, “Not really.”

Not really? What did that mean? The girl was still in trouble for selling crystal meth, but Nyla swore up and down that was all a mistake, that it was Crystal Light. Expelled over Crystal Light?

Highly unlikely.

“But you’ve given a baby a bottle? I pumped fresh milk. She’ll be hungry when she wakes up.”

Arena shook her head. Her hair slid down over one eye. “Couldn’t be too hard.”

Downstairs, the front door opened then closed. Humble had left for the day.

Georgie stared at Arena. She’d changed Arena’s diapers. She’d helped give this grown girl a bottle. How was that even possible? Arena ran a hand through her loose hair, but instead of moving it out of her face, she drew it to her lips and slid that forelock between her teeth. She was like a tall five-year-old.

An abandoning mother isn’t a mother. Leave your kid behind and words like this will forever sing in that child-animal’s mind. Leave, and you don’t get it back, you don’t get to erase the mistake, it doesn’t go away. Georgie sang the words back to her own absent mother. To leave for a conference when Bella was so small? That’d be a tiny bit of what Georgie experienced when her mother left for Malaysia.

She couldn’t do it. “You know what? Come with me.” Georgie bent and started packing a diaper bag. “Come to the conference, hold Bella, keep her calm, stay close. I’ll do what I’m there for.” She’d introduce speakers and network.

“Really?” Arena slouched even more, a fragile flower wilting.

But it would be good.

If the baby needed to nurse, Georgie would be there. If Arena bought or sold drugs, Georgie would be there, too. Right?

She tucked extra disposable diapers in her diaper bag. Yes, disposable diapers! She used them. Each diaper took five hundred years to degrade in a landfill, longer than Oregon had been a state, longer than the United States had existed so far. The grandchildren of her grandchildren’s grandchildren would live with that waste, but so what? Today she needed the godsend of high-tech diapering.

Arena slunk along the wall, down a hallway to the dining room. She followed Georgie. “So, what exactly are you doing at this thing?” Her teeth were white and charming in their awkward alignment. Her lips were doll lips.

“Introducing a speaker. It’s part of a conference.” She’d been assigned at least one, and maybe only one as far as she could tell.

“Somebody famous?” Arena picked up a postcard on the table and turned it over as though there was a chance it would be addressed to her.

“Might be,” Georgie said. “They’re all pretty big in my world, anyway.” She packed picture books, a pacifier, extra blankets, a rattle, and a soft toy—anything to calm a screaming baby in a tight moment. Mostly, at six weeks, the answer was always nursing. Boobs, boobs, boobs.

The point of the day was to let Georgie feel like a person with a brain, not a milk dispenser. That’s all she wanted. She put a bottle of frozen breast milk in a side pocket of her diaper bag. Arena leaned on the arm of the couch and stared at the TV like the TV was on, but it was off. Arena said, slowly and quietly, “I like to read, too.”



The conference was in the Convention Center. The parking lot was so big they had to take a shuttle from their car to the entrance. They actually may have parked closer to Georgie’s house than to the place—they were that far away across a broad expanse of parking lots. The three of them sat crowded in two of the shuttle’s sideways-facing seats. The folded stroller jutted into the aisle. Georgie held Bella in her lap. The diaper bag was as big as another rear end, like a person crouched on the floor, a Seeing Eye dog.

Georgie smoothed the dark, silky swirl of her daughter’s hair, looked down, and saw a mark at the edge of her own lucky shirt. It was a milk stain, or a water mark. It was almost invisible but no, there it was. Had that been on the shirt when she put it on?

Then she saw another one, higher up. And a little splatter. Breast milk or toothpaste? Either way, the flickering shuttle bus lights, with their hint of green, brought the stains out like subliminal patterns.



In the Convention Center, Georgie put Bella in the stroller then broke into a power walk to keep her from screaming. Movement usually did the trick. Arena loped along at her side. They found the volunteer coordinator in the lobby at a lone freestanding booth. The woman handed Georgie an envelope and a name badge. Inside the envelope was a form letter:

THANK YOU FOR VOLUNTEERING.… YOUR GUEST TODAY WILL BE MR/MRS/MS. CLIFFORD. PLEASE MEET MR/MRS/MS. CLIFFORD IN THE GREEN ROOM AT LEAST ONE HOUR BEFORE THE ASSIGNED TIME OF THE EVENT

There was a map, a schedule, and a coupon for a cup of Starbucks.

Mr. Clifford? Georgie’s heart picked up. James Clifford was brilliant. He was a well-known anthropological theorist. But then again, there’d also been a woman named Anita Clifford doing widely recognized work, briefly. Maybe it was her.

Arena twisted back and forth, her legs wrapped around each other like a little noodle ballet, her fingers laced. She asked, “Get somebody cool?”

Bella yawned and blinked.

“I think so.” Georgie scanned the schedule until she found the name, Clifford, highlighted. She had less than an hour. She was already late. She hoisted the diaper bag back on her shoulder and gripped the stroller’s handles. “He’s an interesting man. You’ll meet him.”

But where was the Green Room? She turned again to the volunteer coordinator. “Excuse me—”

The woman was busy with somebody else.

Bella hated the stroller. She gave a mewling, fussy cry, trying it out.

Georgie waited her turn. Everywhere she looked, she saw people who looked like somebody she might know. She thought she saw Al Gore, but it was instead a man who looked like Al Gore. Then another one, who looked like Al Gore crossed with Alec Baldwin.

They waited too long—Bella’s cry climbed, louder, then burst into full song. They were already late. Bella screamed and then threw up. Her tiny hands were covered in baby spit and shaking.

Arena wandered off and fed coins into a Coke machine ten steps away. Georgie picked Bella up. She found a wipe in a bag to clean those darling starfish hands, even as the hands grabbed Georgie’s clothes, her best effort at dressing up. “There there, sweets. You’re okay,” she whispered.

Finally, the volunteer coordinator was free. She started packing, ready to leave the booth. Georgie cut in, “Excuse me?” She bounced Bella. “Where is the Green Room?”

The woman hitched up her Dockers. She took a short breath and clicked the cap off a Sharpie. She marked a big X on a map over one tiny room, a square, and handed the map to Georgie.

“How will I recognize my guest?”

The woman took the form letter from Georgie’s hand. She read it, then handed it back. “You’ll see ’em,” she said. Job done, she waddled off.



As soon as Georgie pushed open the Green Room door, she saw him. Right next to a tray of salami and Havarti. Clifford. She saw the red hair on his back, his giant head as it swung her way. His big cartoon character eyes and ever-present smile. Georgie said, “Clifford?”

The dog bobbed its massive head.

There was no mistaking the situation, and no way out.

Arena, behind her, giggled. Georgie shook the dog’s stuffed paw. Then Georgie turned and introduced Arena, because what else could she do? She was ready for full retreat—time to go home. It was time to hit the couch, cuddle with her baby, forget about work, career, networking. Forget about the world. It was time to drink the glass of wine she’d been denying herself since even before she got pregnant and take those pain pills the hospital had sent her home with. They had forty-five minutes to kill with a big red stuffed animal. Her job was to introduce a person in a dog suit.

Another volunteer handed her the assigned script.

“Okay,” Georgie said. She tried to smile. “Let’s go find your stage.”

Bella screamed when she was back in the stroller. Georgie offered her blankets, pillows, and a rattle that attached to the stroller bar with a martian-esque bobbly head, but the baby kept crying. Georgie broke out in a sweat, then gave in and carried Bella, letting the blankets and toys ride. Arena pushed the stroller through the crowded wide conference halls like some kind of middle school science lesson on birth control.

Right away they passed a group of three faculty from Georgie’s school. Georgie nodded, smiled, kept walking. She saw a former student who looked glad to catch her eye. She nodded back, adjusted the baby in her arms, and didn’t break her clip.

Who wants to mingle when your date’s a guy in a dog suit?

Then she saw Brian Watson. Maybe Brian Watson saw her first. Whatever. She saw her ex. The married professor, her professor, the man who never left his wife for her after all. That’d been so many years ago. It should’ve been forgotten. It was forgotten. They’d grown up. They grew out of it. She’d met Humble and fallen in love! Still, she lurched, stumbled against the carpet, tried to turn away.

His rock-star curls were silver—they’d been half-gray before—and still fabulous. He was a Fulbright fellow, an award winner. His skin had a perma-tan, weathered like a cowboy.

Georgie scratched the side of her face and held up the conference paperwork, a map of the booths and stages, to hide behind it.

“Georgie!” he called. His social skills had always been better than hers. Particularly if you count f*cking around as a social skill.

She said, “Brian!” and hoped it sounded spontaneous.

He said, “Look at you, you haven’t changed at all.”

She knew it was a lie—her hair was thinner, her ass was bigger, she had toothpaste on her shirt. She hadn’t changed her clothes at all, was more like it. In this moment, Georgie wanted Humble by her side. She wanted her sexy man, her life.

Brian Watson said, “You brought your family,” and waved a hand.

“Family?” If only. Georgie kept a smile on her face. She followed the wave. There was her crew: Arena, tall and thin and rumpled, who made the world into her own little Calvin Klein ad. Clifford stood with his hands on his hips. The stroller was full of blankets, rattles, a stray pacifier, and the martian-esque bobbly toy. There was something demented about pushing a stroller with no baby in it. Georgie tried not to slouch and not to stick her hip out under the weight of tiny Bella and the massive diaper bag. As a group, they were a family right out of the toy box, a hodgepodge of creatures pulled from different boxed sets. She forced what she tried to present as an easy smile, and said, “Sure. That one’s my husband,” and pointed at the big red dog. “And that’s our latest addition,” the empty stroller. It seemed funny, like a kid’s game, until she said it out loud.

Brian Watson, the smartest infidel in academia, the most gracious of liars, leaned forward so easily, so readily. He glanced at Arena’s boobs. He read her shirt. He said, “I heart old people. Fabulous!” He offered a hand to the dog suit. He said, “Nice to meet you. You’ve got a gorgeous family.”

How did he manage to come off as sincere?

His sincerity made Georgie feel like the cad, like she’d set him up, told him a lie.

Clifford’s smile never faltered. It couldn’t—it was sewn in. Clifford shook Brian Watson’s hand and nodded his big fuzzy head. It was like the dog was half-deaf in that outfit. Who was in there? Knock-knock. Georgie wanted to rap the dog on his head.

She said, “Really, only the baby is mine.”

Brian Watson tipped his chin up, like he was working out a philosophical angle, sinking into brainiac musings.

Georgie said, “The dog, Clifford, is a social signifier employed in this context to convey that interstitial terrain between childhood and adulthood, the locus between television, the great equalizer, and the individuality inherent in fantasy, as seen through the eyes—yes, plastic eyes—of an almost human form intended to elicit a sympathetic response while gratifying basic urges through purporting to know what we can never know, the mind of animals and the mind of the other …”

Georgie was looking for the end of her own sentence, while Brian Watson watched her like an infomercial. Maybe he was thinking about a new paper on hostility and comedy, one disguising the other. Maybe he thought Georgie was a jerk. Either way he held a relaxed, pleasant look on his philosopher’s face. He took one step away. He didn’t laugh. He said, “Did you ever finish that book you were working on? What was it, Vigée-Lebrun?”

She flushed. How could he possibly remember that, and—Oh, God!—had she really been working on it for that long? She said, “I’ve started another book.” The hypochondriac’s guide, her book about baby ailments. He, an academic and an award winner, wouldn’t count that as professional work.

He said, “Really? What’s it about?”

“Health,” Georgie said. “And psychology.”

“Psychological health?” He dragged the words out in an awkward combination of syllables, making the whole thing sound preposterous.

Georgie nodded. “It’ll be a significant contribution to women’s studies—”

“Women’s studies?” he said, nodding as though he understood, but raising his eyebrows at the same time, as though she were talking about unicorns and fairies.

She said, “It’s a nonfiction work offering advice based on a particular study.…” That study was her, Georgie’s life, her own ex perience.

But Brian Watson had already quit listening. A tall, thin woman half his age ran her arm through his, and he shook his silver hair. He said, “Take care, okay? Don’t be a stranger, kid.” He tapped her with a rolled-up program.

The dog turned its big head Georgie’s way. She saw a second set of eyes behind sheer black screens, hidden in the dark fabric of the animal’s mouth. Those eyes—did they look at her with pity? Georgie couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman inside. An androgynous judge. It was somebody who refused to talk. Did this outfit, this Halloween joke, this toddler celebrity, really need an introduction?

Georgie walked. Arena, with the empty stroller, fell in line. Clifford, too.

What kind of parade has my life become? Georgie thought.

She avoided everyone she could until she saw the department chair, her adviser. Part of her tenure committee. “Hello, Dan,” she said.

“So, I see you found your guest,” Dan said. He rocked up on his toes.

“Can you believe it?” Georgie whispered. She turned away from the animal, afraid it could read lips. “Out of all the visiting stars, the professors, the writers, I end up with a stuffed dog.”

The department chair closed his mouth into a thin smile. He gave a slow blink, and said, “I was sure you’d be thrilled.”

“Wait, you knew about this?”

He said, “I set it up. You’re perfect.”

Georgie felt her face grow hot. Her fingers were trembling. She needed to sit. Why was she suddenly “perfect” to introduce a cartoon character?

This didn’t look good for tenure.

She wanted to put the baby down, to walk away, to pull herself together. Her arms were weak and strong at the same time—it was like there was no weight to them, no blood, but like she could swing, could hit something and pack a punch. She wanted to run, to jog, to get off the planet.

“Because I’m a mom?” she said.

“Sure, and it’s fun, right?” Dan clicked his fingers down low, a habit he had.

Not “fun” in any way that he might take it on himself—his serious, academic, male self. He saw her now as a mother, existing in the world of children’s books, not literature.

He saw her as a child.

She wanted to throttle him.

She called to Arena and handed over the baby. Bella screamed immediately, in that psychically attuned way that infants can give voice to the parent’s inner life; Georgie wanted to scream, too. She reached for the stroller. She turned around to grab her diaper bag, too fast, and bumped into a group of men coming up on one side. One man’s shoe hit the side of her wedge heel and knocked her leg out from under her.

She was kicked down.

As she fell, she saw it was a pack of frat boys, strong men in slacks and T-shirts. They had square heads and bodybuilder arms. They had Bluetooth headsets. It was frat boys knocking down intellect, knocking down the academy, the faculty—or just her. A person. The crowd against one. Georgie. She landed on her side, padded by her weight. Oof!

She wanted to cry.

But there was one guy in the middle of the crowd, a man with a lighter build. He was different from the others. He had a nicer suit. He leaned toward her. He had long hair. He tucked a wayward strand of his hair behind his ear as he leaned in. His eyes were wide and brown. They were kind. His mouth opened as though to say something. He licked his lips. Reached a hand. It was Johnny Depp. The frat boys—they were bodyguards, or handlers. They were security.

Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture boomed in the auditorium of her mind.

Georgie reached back. Her fingers were inches from his, from Johnny Depp’s hand. Then she felt herself lifted. Two fuzzy red paws took her by the armpits and helped her up. They pulled her away from Johnny. The brown-eyed man—was that Johnny Depp?—disappeared so quickly. Manly bodies closed in like doors and cut him off from the masses.

Clifford’s paws beat against Georgie’s lucky shirt, her tight skirt, to dust her off. She couldn’t see around the dog’s stuffed and swinging cranium. Where was Mr. Depp? Where was her angel? Johnny!

Clifford picked up the diaper bag in one thick paw and slid it onto his arm. He managed to collect the scattered onesies in his hairy paws and shove them back into the bag. Instead of handing the diaper bag over, the big red dog hoisted it to his own shoulder. The bag looked at home there. He bent for a fallen rattle and rested it on the shelf of the stroller. Baby Bella still screamed in Arena’s arms. Arena was a good kid, but her top skill as a sitter seemed to be acting deaf. She was a shy girl, with no leadership skills.

Clifford reached for Bella. Arena handed her over like a bag of laundry. Bella quit crying. She snuggled in. The dog bowed his massive head over her tiny one and swayed back and forth in a clumsy big-footed waltz. Bella closed her eyes, wrapped in the plush folds of red poly-fibers.

She knew who was inside that costume: a mom. Somebody unemployed. Maybe someone with a graduate degree, out to network. Maybe it was a writer-mom with a book in process, an agent in New York, a dream big as all Manhattan. It was somebody who knew how to sling a diaper bag, push a stroller, and not miss a beat. A person who could take care of a kid without being sidetracked even by Johnny Depp in the flesh. Inside that big dope of a dog, inside that dancing red costume, was at least one part of the woman, the caretaker, Georgie tried to pretend to be. This, she thought, this dog, is how we dress a mom. Her own head felt like a puppet’s then, big and fuzzy, blinking under fluorescent lights, hiding another brain deep inside.





The school halls were quiet when Nyla signed in at the front desk. Students were in class or out on the fields for PE. She took a butterscotch in a translucent wrapper from a crystal bowl on the counter, and was given a laminated visitor’s pass. The principal’s office was down the hall. She made her way over squeaky linoleum floors so clean she could see up her own skirt.

Despite a queasy feeling, she wanted to dance, to slide on the polished floors, raise her arms, and chant, “We got it, we got it, we got it.”

That morning during their daily phone negotiations, Mrs. Cherryholmes had said there was a way, perhaps, to get Arena back in classes sooner than the initial terms of her expulsion. Yes! Victory! Her hopes were high. Nyla had come down to iron out the details.

The butterscotch settled her stomach and obscured the bitter saliva of pregnancy mouth. The vice principal had the outer office, in front of the principal’s rooms. She was on the phone making a soothing cluck and murmur. Still behind her desk, she nodded hello and waved a hand toward a second door, the door to the principal’s quarters.

Mrs. Cherryholmes’s door was open.

Nyla spit the butterscotch into her palm. She tapped on the narrow rectangle of paper-covered glass that marked the door, then went in. Mrs. Cherryholmes stood, tall and composed. She reached out a hand. Nyla flipped the butterscotch from her right to her left. When they shook, that trace of sugar clung and her hand stuck to the principal’s.

She tugged her ponytail into place and sat down.

The principal smiled, all good news. She said, “We have room in a program for your daughter. We’re willing to reconsider the terms of her expulsion, in light of this opportunity. It’s a transitional class specifically for students who benefit most with an additional level of support.”

Transitional sounded good—Arena would be transitioning back in.

The principal said, “We’ll need you to sign a few forms.” She opened a drawer. The paperwork came out. “This is an award-winning educational model designed to maximize a student’s abilities while recognizing the many levels of needs we address in the school system.”

Nyla tried to read the papers. Each page was marked with a red X, directions where to sign. The teacher would be Barry Gibb. Ha! Barry Gibb? She imagined the Bee Gees playing softly. Then she saw the words “documented disability.” She saw words like medication and therapist and delayed learning. There it was: special needs.

She said, “This is special ed?”

Mrs. Cherryholmes took her time. She spoke carefully. “It’s not what you’d consider special education back when we were in school. This is supplemental education, a holistic program designed to integrate learning styles with behavioral challenges and social dy namics.”

Nyla said, “Arena is not a slow learner.”

“It encompasses all levels of challenge. We have space and funding. It’s an opportunity.” Mrs. Cherryholmes looked happy with the plan.

“Funding?” Nyla sensed a state quota to fill. “She’s a perfectly good student.”

Mrs. Cherryholmes said, “She’s an expelled student. I know we don’t want to see our own children as falling behind, but Arena is a student at risk who may have difficulty reentering. Besides, in this program?” Mrs. Cherryholmes paused briefly to let Nyla catch up with her words. “We have fully funded federal art programs five days a week, along with math, science, and twenty-three minutes of physical education daily.”

Nyla asked, “You don’t have that in regular schedules?”

Mrs. Cherryholmes laced her fingers together. She shook her head slowly, and let a frosted lipsticked smile spread. “In this program, all funding is federally protected. They can’t take it away.”

She said it as though, as an educator, she was letting Arena in on a special bargain.

When Nyla hesitated, her pen hovering over the page, Mrs. Cherryholmes added, “Behavioral problems are learning problems. You’re both welcome to meet with our guidance counselor if you’d like to discuss it.”

Nyla touched the tip of the pen to the signature line.

This classroom, designed for special needs, would be a starting place. It didn’t sound awful. At least Arena would be inside the same school as her peers and on track to graduate. She’d only be in a different room. She’d have a specialized teacher. It was better than picking up trash on the side of the road, or staying home, or wandering down to the Temple Everlasting.

Nyla signed the forms, one page after another.



It was dark out by the time Arena swung open their big entryway door. Nyla was in the kitchen and heard Arena drop her backpack then kick off her shoes.

Let the girl settle in, she thought. It was hard not to rush her in the hall and blurt out the news. It’d been hard to wait patiently all day.

Arena padded down the hallway in her socks. She said, “You’re baking?” The house was full of chocolate-infused air. Two layers of cake rested, each on its own cooling rack. Nyla baked when she was stressed and when she was thrilled, and now she contained both emotions at once, practically vibrating with new hope. “We’re celebrating. You’re back in school. I worked it out.”

Arena walked up to the kitchen counter, found a cake crumb, and ate it. She said, “Really?”

“Yep. And guess what? Your new teacher is Barry Gibb. How’s that for a laugh?” Nyla was tickled to have it sorted out.

Arena shook her hair out of her eyes or maybe back into her eyes. She looked at her mother. “Barry Gibb?”

Nyla said, “Well, probably not the Barry Gibb …”

Arena knew exactly who this teacher was. He held a place in her school. She said, “No way, Mom. I am not going to special ed. I’m not. I’m not in that class.”

Nyla tried. She said, “It’s not exactly special ed.…”

But it was. “It is, exactly. So, what, now they think I’m retarded?”

It’d sounded so much better when Mrs. Cherryholmes said it. “I don’t think they use that term anymore. And it’s a good program—”

“Sure, a great program, for kids who need it.”

“Kids who need extra support—”

“Mom, I sold drink mix. That doesn’t mean I’m a lame student.”

Nyla heard her own voice sound false and broken when she said, “It’s where the funding is. They have room for you.” Portland’s schools all struggled for funding. She said, “It’s mostly art classes. You love art.”

Arena said, “I’m not going.”

“You are going. It’s already decided.”

“I’ll drop out.”

“You are not going to drop out of high school.” Nyla kept her voice low and steady. “They can arrest you for that. You’re still underage. It’s only for a few hours of the day.”

Arena’s voice broke when she answered, “It’s eight hours of the day. And they can arrest me for anything. They already did. It was totally unfair. But when they say ‘do restitution,’ or whatever, I’m out there doing it. They put me to work, I go along with it, and now I have the problem?”

“You can’t just hang out at the Temple Everlasting. It’s morbid.” She put a hand to her stomach, as though to reach for the unborn child, to hold that one close.

Arena turned and walked back down the hall the way she’d come in. Nyla followed. Arena slid her feet back in her shoes and reached for her coat where it lay on the couch.

“Where you going?”

Arena said, “Wherever. I’ll meet up with a friend from the work crew.”

She had friends? “Who?”

Arena’s tennis shoe was stuck on her foot like a clog. She bent and untied it, straightened it out. “You don’t know him.”

Still Nyla wanted information. She said, “What’s his name?”

“AKA.” Arena slid her cell phone in the front pocket of her jeans.

Nyla said, “His real name.”

“What do you mean?”

Nyla stepped in Arena’s way, between her daughter and the front door. She said, “AKA? That’s not a name. You didn’t know Mack’s name, down at the Temple Everlasting. And that guy’s not normal.”

“You want me to know their names?” Arena asked. It came out like a challenge.

Nyla said, “I want you to make thoughtful decisions.” She tried to lower the tone of the conversation, to bring sweetness into it. She dropped her voice and put her hands on Arena’s bony shoulders. She said, “This isn’t the life I want for you.” She wanted her daughter to have a life of meaning, with a good education and all good things, like love. Most of all, love. Without the girl’s dad around, she wanted to be Arena’s first source of support, both mother and father, to be everything.

Arena said, “Guess what, Mom? You don’t get to pick a life for me. I do.” She pushed her way past.

Nyla let her go, because really that was exactly the kind of life she valued and offered: one where the girl got to make her own choices. Arena went out the door, down the front steps.

She called out to her fleeing daughter, “Don’t stay out too late.”

Arena was already far down the block.

Nyla yelled, “Darling, you’re still on parole! And you’ve got school in the morning.”





Arena slid her phone out of her pocket. She only had two names in her contacts: her mom, and AKA. She didn’t call her mom now. When AKA answered, his voice was raspy, lower than she’d noticed in person. She asked, “Where are you?”

“Home. You’re welcome to join me.”

She’d never been to his place before. He gave her the address. It was across the river, downtown, a short ride on the city bus.

She found him waiting for her at the bus stop. She smiled at him and he smiled back, and she loved how he didn’t always need to talk. He took her hand, and they walked together to an old brick building with a mini-mart and a Chinese restaurant with a bar downstairs. He pushed buttons to unlock the apartment door. Inside, he led her down a hallway lined with a narrow strip of stained rug. The building smelled like grease, kung pao, and mildew.

She’d never met anyone who actually lived in these old-style downtown apartments. She’d thought the buildings were where alcoholics went to drink and die, and hipsters filmed music videos.

The elevator was rickety with a metal accordion door and yellowed buttons with big numbers on them that looked like they could’ve been made from ivory, or at least fake ivory. It felt like another town, another time.

Arena loved it.

They got out on the third floor. The hallway air was thick with the smell of bacon and cats. AKA had a key to a room at the end of the hall. He pushed the door open. The apartment started out as narrow as a coat closet, and she walked behind him until it opened up into a wider space. There was a man sacked out on a couch, and somebody else in what must’ve been the kitchen off to the side, banging pans. The central room split into halls that led in all directions, like burrows. He pulled her toward one hall, then to a room at the end of it. He closed the door behind them.

The room was big and empty, with a tall row of windows. It was dark outside and the dark turned the windows into mirrors; still, the windows made the claustrophobic web of hallways and the people in the common room not matter so much. AKA had a mattress on the floor. He and Arena dropped down onto it, side by side. There were three pillows, each one thin and flat. He let her have two. He rested on one folded in half, and he rubbed the back of her hand. She said, “Are those your parents, out there?”

He laughed. “Those two? No way.” After a minute, he said, “I answered an ad. I can’t actually figure out how many people live here. I haven’t even seen all the rooms.”

“You’re moved out?” He’d be the first person she met who had moved out of his parents’ place without going to college.

He said, “Something like that.”

Outside a siren sang from far away. AKA wiggled his feet in his high-tops where they rested on top of his blankets. The blankets were thin, like they’d been stolen from a hospital.

Arena looked around the big, empty space of his room. “You know, we could work on my project here. With the mesh?”

He put a hand on her hip. “You mean the one where I’m naked? Bring it on.”

They were so close on the bed.

“I’m not ready for that yet,” she said.

He said, “We’ll take it slow.” His breath moved over her skin. He tugged at her T-shirt.

She said, “I mean, I don’t have a camera.”

“Camera?” His dark eyes opened wider. “We didn’t talk about a camera. What’s the project, porn?” But already he’d relaxed again, like he didn’t object all that much. He traced his finger along the stitching on her jeans.

He had a guitar on a stand in one corner. A few shirts hung in a doorless closet. The chipped floorboards were as textured as the best kind of painting. There was one rickety desk on long, thin legs near a window.

Arena’s cell phone rang in her coat pocket. She let it go. When it rang again, she said, “That’d be my mom.”

AKA rubbed his hand along her thigh.

“She’s freaked out about the Temple Everlasting of Life on Earth.”

AKA said, “Maybe I am, too.” His hand crept up to Arena’s waist, then along her ribs.

She asked, “You think Mack’s trying to brainwash me into a death cult?”

AKA said, “That’s his job.”

Arena pushed away the distraction of AKA’s hand.

He said, “Why do you go there?” Now he sounded exactly like her mom—her mom in a guy suit. The conversation was going off course. Arena needed an ally.

“He’s read a lot,” she said. “I go to talk about heaven, death. The big mysteries.”

“You can talk about heaven right here.” He pulled her closer.

“Seriously. I mean, what’s the point of life, if we’re just going to die?”

“You’re not the first person to wonder.” He inched toward her, and he kissed her. He ran a hand under her shirt.

Arena put her hand over his. She stopped him.

She didn’t know if she wanted that hand under her shirt. There was the scar, near her shoulder. That scar had been there as long as she could remember. It was hers, and it was private.

It was the scar from the car wreck. Her dad, his death, his life, drawn in stitches that had melted into her skin. Sometimes she listened to his records and touched the scar and could almost remember back when she had a dad.

She said, “Mack’s not trying to convert anyone.”

AKA sat up and started unlacing a high-top. His shoelaces made a slapping sound as he pulled each one through the eyelets. He said, “He’s afraid of death.”

“He’s not afraid to think about it.” Arena kicked her worn shoes off easily, one toe against the heel of the other.

AKA tossed one of his shoes toward his closet. He said, “He’s afraid to die alone so he made up a religion.” He unlaced his second shoe.

Arena said, “He didn’t make it up. It’s from the Egyptians, and scientists. It’s a collage of super-respected ideas.”

AKA said, “What I know is, people who’re afraid to die alone? They’re the scariest crew, fueled with apocalyptic fantasies.”

“I don’t think he’s an apocalypse guy,” Arena said.

Her phone rang again. They lay side by side and listened to the short bar of dance music. Arena said, “I can’t wait to move out.”

AKA said, “If you’ve got a free place to live, and decent meals, I wouldn’t ditch it too soon.”

Arena said, “My mom has all these ideas.…”

“Like keeping you safe?” he asked.

“Like keeping me trapped,” she whispered. The phone gave up; the ringing stopped.

He said, “You know, I actually own a house and an acre and a half of woods.” As he said it, he wrapped one broad, long-fingered hand around her thin wrist. The gesture fell somewhere between hand-holding and handcuffs.

“You’re joking.” Sometimes he said things like that. She looked into his eyes, practiced, but this time it didn’t feel like practicing. It felt natural. He was the first person whose eyes didn’t make her gaze skitter.

He said, “It’s in Boring. A farmhouse, with land. In the winter and spring, there’s a pond in back.” Oregon land was dotted with vernal ponds—shallow seasonal ponds that soaked into the ground and dried up in the summer sun.

Boring was a town outside of Portland. The name was a local joke.

She said, “Right. A country estate. And why would you live here?”

He shook his shaggy hair and peeled himself away from her. She felt the draft against her feet where his feet had been. He stood up and shuffled through a clutch of papers. He crossed the room and looked in one warped drawer of his old spindly desk. He closed that one and opened another drawer. He flipped through his stacks until he found a photo, and he handed it to Arena. “Proof.”

It was a picture the size of the photo from the Kirlian photography machine. But this one was a picture not of orange energy, but of a pale green house with a gravel driveway and a tire swing hanging from a crooked apple tree. A dog stood in the sun. A tanned shirtless kid ran barefoot across the lawn. There was a mailbox up close, near where the photographer must’ve been standing.

“I’ll take you there.”

Arena looked at the house, a one-story box.

He put a finger to the photo, as she held it. Arena had never seen AKA smoke, but she could smell smoke on him, and his fingers were stained from nicotine. His nails were bitten low.

The kid in the picture wore torn shorts. His face was as wide and open as the face on his soft-eared dog. The two of them looked happy. The house was big-eyed and welcoming, like it didn’t know a gutter had fallen off. The boy was the same. AKA pointed a nicotine-stained finger at the kid in the picture. He said, “That, right there. That boy is me.”