House Rules (9 page)

6. I could call her whenever I want, not just Thursdays.

7. I would treat her so much better than Mark.

And of course, the most important reason of all:

8. If I had a girlfriend, I‘d appear to be more normal.

Come on, Jess says, tapping me on the shoulder. You and I have work to do. Your mom says this place has a gluten-free pizza. They make it on some kind of special crust.

I know what love is. When you find the person you are supposed to love, bells ring and fireworks go off in your head and you can‘t find words to speak and you think about her all the time. When you find the person you are supposed to love, you will know by staring deeply into her eyes.

Well, that‘s a deal breaker for me.

It is hard for me to explain why it is so difficult to look into people‘s eyes. Imagine what it would be like if someone sliced your chest with a scalpel and rummaged around inside you, squeezing your heart and lungs and kidneys. That level of complete invasion is what it feels like when I make eye contact. The reason
I
choose not to look at people is that I don‘t think it‘s polite to rifle through someone‘s thoughts, and the eyes might as well be glass windows, they‘re that transparent.

I know what love is, but only theoretically. I don‘t feel it the way other people do.

Instead, I dissect it:
Oh, my mother is putting her arms around me and telling me how proud
she is of me. She is offering me her last French fry even though I know she wants it. If
p
then
q.
If she acts this way, then she must love me.

Jess spends time with me that she could otherwise spend with Mark. She doesn‘t get angry with me, except for the time when I took all the clothes out of her closet in her dorm room and tried to organize them like mine. She watches
CrimeBusters
when we are together, although the sight of blood makes her faint.

If
p
then
q.

Maybe I‘ll tell Jess my idea today. And she will say yes to being my girlfriend and I will never have to see Mark again.

In psychoanalytic theory there is a phenomenon called transference. The therapist becomes a blank screen, onto which the patient projects some incident or feeling that began in childhood. For example, a patient who spends sessions silent might be asked by the therapist if there is a reason she doesn‘t feel comfortable making free associations. Is it because she is afraid the therapist will find her comments stupid? And then, lo and behold, the patient breaks down.
That‘s what my father used to call me. Stupid.
Suddenly, with the dam broken, the patient will begin to recall all sorts of repressed childhood memories.

My mother never called me stupid; however, it would not be a far reach for someone to look at my feelings for Jess and assume that, in the context of our relationship as tutor and pupil, I am not in love.

I‘m just in transference.

A medium gluten-free pizza, I say to the mountainous woman at the cash register, who is Greek. If she‘s Greek, why does she have an Italian restaurant?

Jess nudges me.

Please, I add.

Eye contact, Jess murmurs.

I force myself to look at the woman. She has hair growing on her upper lip.

Please, I repeat, and I hand her the money.

She gives me back my change. I‘ll bring it over when it‘s ready, the woman says, and she turns back to the wide mouth of the oven. She sticks an enormous paddle inside, like a tongue, and pulls out a calzone.

So how‘s school going? Jess asks.

It‘s okay.

Did you do your homework?

She doesn‘t mean my academic homework, which I
always
do. She means my social skills homework. I grimace, thinking about our last lesson. Not quite.

Jacob, you promised.

I didn‘t promise. I
said
I would try to strike up a conversation with someone my own age, and I did.

Well, that‘s great! Jess says. What happened?

I had been in the library at the bank of computers, and there was a kid sitting next to me. Owen is in my Advanced Placement physics class. He is really quiet and very smart, and if you ask me, he has a little bit of Asperger‘s in him. It‘s like gaydar; I can tell.

For fun, I had been on a search engine researching fracture pattern interpretation in the skull, and how you can differentiate between blunt-force trauma and ballistic trauma using concentric fractures, and that factoid seemed to be the perfect opening salvo for a conversation. But I remembered Jess saying that not everyone is wowed by someone who‘s the human equivalent of a Snapple cap. So instead, I said this:
Me: Are you going to take the AP test in May?

Owen: I don‘t know. I guess.

Me (snickering): Well, I sure hope they don‘t find semen!

Owen: What the hell?

Me: An AP test acid phosphatase test it‘s used with a forensic light source to test
for presumptive semen. It‘s not as conclusive as DNA, but then again, when you get a rapist
who‘s had a vasectomy, there won‘t be any sperm, and if an AP test and a 530-nanometer
trispot is all you‘ve got

Owen: Get the fuck away from me, freak.

Jess has gone all red in the face. The good news, she says evenly, is that you tried to initiate a conversation. That‘s a really big step. The fact that you chose to discuss semen is unfortunate, but still.

By now we have reached the table in the back where Mark is waiting for us. He is chewing gum with his mouth wide open, and wearing that stupid orange sweatshirt. Hey, Chief, he says.

I shake my head and take a step backward. That sweatshirt, he wasn‘t wearing it when I first saw him. I bet he put it on on purpose, because he knows I don‘t like it.

Mark, Jess says, after glancing at me, the sweatshirt. Take it off.

He grins at her. But it‘s more fun when you do it, baby, he says, and he grabs Jess and tugs her into the booth, practically onto his lap.

Let me just come out and say I don‘t get the sex thing. I don‘t understand why someone like Mark, who seems completely hell-bent on exchanging bodily fluids with Jess, isn‘t equally excited to talk about the fact that snot, bleach, and horseradish can all give you false positives for blood during presumptive tests. And I don‘t understand why neurotypical guys are obsessed with girl breasts. I think it would be an enormous pain to have those sticking out in front of you all the time.

Fortunately, Mark does take off the orange sweatshirt, and Jess folds it up and puts it on the seat where I can‘t see it. It‘s bad enough just knowing it‘s
there,
frankly. You get me mushroom? Mark asks.

You know Jacob isn‘t a fan of mushroom …

There is a lot I‘d do for Jess, but not mushrooms. Even if they‘re touching the crust on the far side of the pizza, I might have to vomit.

She pulls her cell phone out of her pocket and sets it on the table. It is pink and has my name and number programmed into it. It might be the only cell phone that has my name in it. Even my mother‘s cell phone lists our number as HOME.

I stare down at the table, still thinking about Mark‘s sweatshirt.

Mark, Jess says, sliding his hand out of the back of her shirt. Come
on.
We‘re in public. Then she addresses me. Jacob, while we‘re waiting for the food, let‘s practice.

Practice waiting? I don‘t really need to. I‘m fairly proficient at it.

When there‘s a lull in the conversation, you can toss out a topic that gets people talking again.

Yeah, Mark says. Like: Chicken nuggets are neither chicken nor nuggets.

Discuss.

You‘re not helping, Jess mutters. Are you looking forward to anything this week in school, Jacob?

Sure. Rampant dismissal and abject humiliation. In other words, the usual.

In physics I have to explain gravity to the rest of the class, I say. The grade‘s half on content and half on creativity, and I think I‘ve found the perfect solution.

It took me a while to think of this, and then when I did I couldn‘t believe I hadn‘t thought of it before.

I‘m going to drop my pants, I tell her.

Mark bursts out laughing, and for a second, I think maybe I‘ve misjudged him.

Jacob, Jess says, you will
not
drop your pants.

It completely explains Newton‘s law

I don‘t care if it explains the meaning of life! Think about how inappropriate that would be. Not only would you embarrass your teacher and make him angry but you‘d be teased by other students for doing it.

I don‘t know, Jess … you know what they say about guys with long IEPs …,

Mark says.

Well,
you
don‘t have an IEP, Jess answers, smiling. So there goes that theory.

You know it, baby.

I have no idea what they‘re talking about.

When Jess is my girlfriend, we will eat pizza without mushrooms every Sunday. I‘ll show her how to enhance the contrast of fingerprints on packing tape, and I will let her read my
CrimeBusters
journals. She‘ll confide that she has quirks, too, like the fact that she has a tail that she keeps hidden under her jeans.

Okay, maybe not a tail. No one really wants a girlfriend with a tail.

I have something to talk about, I say. My heart starts pounding, and my palms are sweaty. I analyze this the way Dr. Henry Lee would analyze any other piece of forensic evidence and store it away for the future:
Asking girls out can cause changes to the
cardiovascular system.
I would like to know, Jess, if you would like to accompany me to a movie this Friday night.

Oh, Jacob well done! We haven‘t practiced that in a whole month!

On Thursday I‘ll know what‘s playing. I can look it up on Moviefone.com. I fold my napkin into eighths. I could go out on Saturday instead if it‘s better for you. There is a
CrimeBusters
marathon, but I am willing to make a sacrifice. Surely that will show her how serious I am about this relationship.

Holy shit, Mark says, grinning. I can feel his eyes on me. (That‘s the other thing about eyes; they can be hot as lasers, and how would you ever know when they‘re about to be turned on full force? Better not to risk it, and to avoid eye contact.) He isn‘t showing you some communication skill, Jess. The retard is actually asking you out.

Mark! For God‘s sake, don‘t call him

I‘m not a retard, I interrupt.

You‘re wrong. Jacob knows we‘re just friends, Jess says.

Mark snorts. You fucking get
paid
to be his friend!

I stand up abruptly. Is that true?

I guess I have never thought about it. My mother arranged for me to meet with Jess.

I assumed Jess wanted to do it because she (a) is writing that paper and (b) likes my company. But now I can picture my mother ripping another check out of the checkbook and complaining like always that we don‘t have enough to cover our expenses. I can picture Jess opening the envelope in her dorm room and tucking that check into the back pocket of her jeans.

I can picture her taking Mark out for pizza, using cash that came from my mother‘s bank account.

Gluten-rich mushroom pizza.

It‘s not true, Jess says. I
am
your friend, Jacob

But you wouldn‘t be hanging out with Forrest Gump if you didn‘t get that sweet check every month, Mark says.

She turns on him. Mark, go away.

Did you say what I think you said? Are you taking
his
side?

I start rocking back and forth.
Nobody puts Baby in a corner,
I quote under my breath.

This isn‘t about sides, Jess says.

Right, Mark snaps. It‘s about priorities. I want to take you skiing for the afternoon and you blow me off

I didn‘t blow you off. I invited you along to a standing appointment I had, one that I couldn‘t just change at the last minute. I already explained to you how important plans are to someone with Asperger‘s.

Jess grabs Mark‘s arm, but he shakes her off. This is bullshit. I might as well be fucking Mother Teresa.

He storms out of the pizza place. I don‘t understand what Jess likes about him. He is in the graduate school of business and he plays a lot of hockey. But whenever he‘s around, the conversation always has to be about him, and I don‘t know why that‘s okay if it‘s Mark talking but not if it‘s me.

Jess rests her head on her folded arms. Her hair is spread out over her shoulders like a cape. From the way her shoulders are moving, she is probably crying.

Annie Sullivan, I say.

What? Jess looks up. Her eyes are red.

Mother Teresa saved the poor and the sick, and I‘m not poor or sick. Annie Sullivan would have been a better example to use, because she‘s a famous teacher.

Oh, God. Jess buries her face in her hands. I can‘t handle this.

There is a lull in the conversation, so I fill it. Are you free on Friday now?

You can‘t be serious.

I consider this. Actually, I am serious all the time. Usually I get accused of not having a sense of humor, although I am capable of that, too.

Does it matter to you that Mark is the first guy who‘s ever told me I‘m pretty? Or that I actually
love
him? Her voice is climbing, each word another step on a ladder. Do you even care if I‘m happy?

No … no … and yes. I am getting flustered. Why is she asking me all these things? Mark‘s gone now; and we can get back to business. So I made a list of the things people sometimes say that really mean they‘re tired of listening to you, but I don‘t know if they‘re right. Can you check it?

Jesus Christ, Jacob! Jess cries. Just get lost!

Her words are huge and fill the entire pizza place. Everyone is watching.

I have to go talk to him. She stands up.

But what about my lesson?

Why don‘t you think about what you‘ve learned, Jess says, and get back to me?

Then she stomps out of the restaurant, leaving me alone at the table.