"The hell of it is," said Nancy, "it's more fun going shopping when you're a guy than when you're a girl."

Madison turned her head carefully to look at Nancy. It was just one of the things she had learned over the past couple of hours. With her shoulder-length hair all tied up and stuffed, and not well, under a baseball cap, it was one thing to turn her head, and quite another to turn it without spraying passersby with a shower of blonde hair. But at the same time she couldn't turn delicately; the whole thing had to look natural, as if she wasn't hiding a mane under a baseball cap. They'd spent more time stopped in corners fixing things than they had shopping.

"That's just because you get to drag me into the lingerie shops and watch people's eyes bug out when we start discussing stuff," Madison said.

"Don't tell me you aren't enjoying it," Nancy said, grinning.

"I'm not enjoying it," said Madison, and stuck her tongue out at her.

"Hey," Nancy said, "don't point that at me unless you intend to use it."

Madison rolled her eyes and took her tongue back in. Ever since Madison had used this line on her last week, Nancy had been using it back. They still hadn't broached the issue of what had happened between them, but Nancy was at least joking about it, and Madison thought that a good sign.

"It's a good thing it isn't too crowded here," Nancy said, "or going to the bathroom might've been more of an adventure than it has."

"No kidding." The first question Madison had had to ask herself was which bathroom she was going to use. She looked like a guy—nobody had said anything yet either way, which Madison took to mean that she was doing a good job of this whole crossdressing thing. But, if she looked like a guy, it wouldn't do to go stepping into the women's room. And yet she wasn't sure she wanted to go into the men's room either. What if something went disastrously wrong and she was revealed for what she was? She didn't want to be around guys when that happened. Especially since she didn't have Devin for protection at the moment. (Not that Devin was likely to be any protection, timid little whelp that he was, but at least he'd be one of the guys. As opposed to some exotic alluring foreigner outsider. As opposed to being female.)

The correct answer, she decided, was to get it right the first time, so that she wouldn't have to be ducking into washrooms every fifteen minutes to cinch this or adjust that. And wasn't that a guy thing anyway? When she went to the bathroom with her girl friends, the guys would all be standing aroound outside waiting when they were done, and complaining that the girls had taken double the time. Men just went pee faster, that was the only explanation she could come up with—which made sense, considering all the dangly-out-front parts and the fact that they didn't have to wait for stalls to open up. Men just peed faster.

Or, at least, so she figured until she went into the men's bathroom to get her hair straightened out.

"Oh my God they don't even wash their hands," she hissed to Nancy. "That was Dwight fucking Herlinger and he didn't wash his hands after he went pee."

"Dwight Herlinger?" said Nancy.

"All of them."

"So, you mean... They just... They handle their... And then they just go straight out again?"

Madison nodded.

"I am never touching a man again," said Nancy.

"That can't be," Madison said. "That can't... I mean, it can't last, can it? I'm sure they... Like, some time when they grow up, they learn to, you know, to not be so... So..."

"Infested?"

"I mean, what if they do that after they masturbate?"

"Hon, I don't think men ever grow up," Nancy said. "I think they stop growing at about the age of fifteen."

There were other reasons why Madison didn't want to use the men's room.

"How can we even be the same species as them," she said to Nancy. "I mean, we like flowers and ponies and things that smell nice and look pretty. They like mud and sweat and explosions and guts flying everywhere."

"Well, we must be the same species," said Nancy, "because we can breed with them."

"So? There's interspecies breeding in other animals. I mean, like, I know some birds can do it, and there's probably—"

"Really? Birds?"

"Yeah, I heard it on the news somewhere. My point is, just because they're different species than us doesn't mean that we can't crossbreed. I mean, what about apple-pears?"

"But then, how come it breeds true," Nancy said. "Shouldn't the result be a hybrid, a half-man half-woman? Instead of kids who are entirely-male and entirely-female?"

"...Umm," said Madison, realizing that Nancy had a good point.

"Shouldn't people like you be the rule, not the exception?" said Nancy.

"...Okay, so maybe we aren't different species," said Madison. "But we might as well be."

"God, yeah," said Nancy. "Anyone who doesn't wash their hands after taking a piss... I mean, what the hell is that?"

And so they spent a pleasant fifteen minutes discussing the foibles of the opposite sex, laughing at the dumb or weird little behavioral tics, sometimes pointing out people they were passing by: boys with their waistbands belted around their knees; boys in wifebeater shirts with their nipples crisping in the air-conditioned mall; boys standing impatiently outside Macy's or Victoria's Secret; girls standing impatiently outside the video games stores. The moms waiting patiently—or sometimes not-so-patiently—as their kids scrambled around the miniature play area built into the mall: "How come you never see the dads at these things? How come it's always moms?"

And, of course, the peeing standing up.

"What does it look like," Nancy asked her.

"It was..." Madison shrugged. "It's just rectangular, and white like all toilets, but the bottom lip sticks out so there's, like, a little sink down there." She had no idea why Nancy was treating the stand-up urinal like an object of religious value. "And there's this little semicircular cup stucking out of the bottom for some reason. It looks the same as the last three times you asked."

"Yeah, but, I can't visualize it, I don't under—"

"Oh, for crying out loud. I'll draw you a picture, if it's that important to you."

"No, I think I get what it looks like, but, I don't understand how it's used."

"You stand in front of it, undo your pants, point your guy-bits at the wall and you let go. Or, if you're a girl, you stand in front of it and let go and then realize you're a girl and you're going straight into your panties. God, I wish there was some way around that."

"Some way around— What?!" said Nancy.

"I wanna learn to pee standing up."

"Uh, honey, you kind of don't have any guy-bits you can point at a wall," said Nancy.

"I know, but... Christ, I dunno. Couldn't they come up with, like, a device or something?"

"A what?"

"You know, some sanitary helper object that I just take around with me and, like, install down there whenever I have to go pee?"

"You'd better wash it out when you were done, or that would be the most disgusting thing ever," said Nancy. "And how would you carry it around? Would it fit in a purse? Or in your massive manly boy-pockets?" Nancy was envious of the ginormous pockets on Madison's cargo pants, not just the knowledge of urinals, and she had quickly installed most of her things into the vast array of pockets. Madison felt her pant legs swinging wide with every step, and she made a truly alarming amount of noise, but Nancy didn't have a purse for the first time in years. It was pretty cool.

"I dunno. But, like... I mean, if I'm gonna do this a lot, I should learn to pee standing up, right?"

"No, you shouldn't," said Nancy, "because even if you get up to the urinal and drop trou, everybody's still gonna notice that you aren't pointing your guy-bits at the wall and instead have some sort of weird prosthetic plastic penis. Which, incidentally, you just pulled out of your purse and/or massive manly boy-pockets. How's that gonna keep a low profile?"

It was only once they got outside, back to the car for the drive home, that Madison squared off against Nancy on the topic that really concerned her.

"Okay, so. It's been like a week, practically. It's been a while, is the point. But you've been avoiding me, kind of, and so has Devin—"

Nancy looked up. "Devin's been avoiding you?"

"Yeah, I dunno why. Ever since all of everybody came over that Tuesday."

"Why, what'd you do to him?"

"I have no idea!" said Madison. "But we'll figure that out later. Right now we gotta talk about you."

Nancy turned a flinty eye on her. "I haven't been avoiding you, Madison. I've been busy. My mom dumped that whole college-applications thing on me, so I've been researching where to apply and starting to write essays. There's a fucking ton of them, by the way. She also signed me up for some tutoring to get all those applications filled out properly and, as she put it, 'maximize my chances' for getting in. It's a lot of money, and I need to take it seriously." She was calm, not defensive, but Madison could tell she'd had to rehearse this moment, prepare herself to defuse the situation.

"Well, doing the tutoring I get," Madison said. "But just researching colleges? We could've done that together."

"Yeah," said Nancy. "We could've. What's it to you?"

Oh, for crying out loud. Madison slammed her car door shut with more force than was truly necessary. "What it is to me is what I told you after we were... Together. Nancy, if you're having second thoughts about that, I want you to tell me. I think you've been avoiding me because something about the situation makes you uncomfortable, and if that's so I wanna work it out with you. You're my friend. I need as many of those as I can get. So spill."

"You're not gonna like hearing it," said Nancy.

"So? Whatcha gonna do? Hold it in and ignore me until it's too late, and hurt me even more? Or hurt me a little bit, now, and get it over with? It's like a band-aid. You pull it off in one quick motion and get it all over with."

"You've never pulled off a band-aid before, have you," said Nancy, sounding amused.

"...That's beside the point," said Madison. "The point is that this isn't just your friendship, Nancy. It's mine too. Whatever it is, it's between the two of us. And don't you think I should have some say in it as well?"

"You're not gonna like it," said Nancy again, and Madison just gave her a direct look, and Nancy sighed. "All right, all right. I'll talk."

Madison pulled the car out into traffic. "Good. Jesus. If I'd known it was gonna take this much effort, I'd've brought some irons and pincers. Did you like what we did?"

"Yeah," said Nancy.

"Did you want to do it again?"

"I... I wouldn't mind," said Nancy, shrugging.

"Even if I said I wasn't sure I wanted to do it to you?"

"Isn't that... Isn't that kind of self-contradictory? I mean, you said I could do it with you, but you won't do it with me—"

"No, no, I said I didn't wanna do it to you. I'm totally okay with you, y'know... You going down on me. But I'm not sure if I'm—if I'm, what, willing to reciprocate." She bulled on before Nancy could protest. "If that means you aren't interested, that's fine. Truthfully, I'm okay either way. But I'm just saying."

"So, you want me to eat you out, but you won't eat me," Nancy said. She laughed. "Jeez, Madison, you really are a guy."

Madison shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable. "Well... So what if I am. I feel bad, believe me I do—" It sounded lame even as she said it, true or not. She remembered her father's words: Saying 'I'm not stupid!' just proves you are. The same principle was clearly at work here. "—but I just... I'm not interested in that. I'm not a lesbo." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nancy wince. "Okay, maybe that's a little rude, but, it's the truth. I just don't..." She sighed. "Fuck, I mean, what am I. Apparently, a straight girl. With testicles."

"At least they aren't hanging," said Nancy judiciously. "I mean, they're nicely concealed in this case."

"Thanks," said Madison. "So what about you? Where do you stand?"

Nancy was silent for a bit, and then she gave a weird little laugh. "The funny thing is, even if you said, 'Okay, Nancy, you're allowed to go down on me, but I'm not gonna go down on you,' I'd be okay with it."

Madison turned to her. "What, are you that lonely? I mean, you could get a boyfriend or something. You got Don Calhoun to date you, and he's hardly a toad."

"Totally aside from that whole pressure-his-girlfriend-into-doing-it-with-her thing," said Nancy, her voice thick with irony.

"Yes, aside from that," said Madison, completely serious. "The Don of Before. The one you were actually attracted to. You got his attention." Gentler: "It's not like you have no chances with guys, Nancy."

"I know, but that's not the problem at all," said Nancy. She sighed then, and the sound of it stayed with Madison forever—a long draught, like the warm musty air from the bottom of her soul. "The truth is...

"I think I'm gay."

Madison felt her mind go slate-blank for a moment. Then brake lights rippled in front of her as the light turned red, and thankfully she had the presence of mind to stop the car before she trundled on into somebody. Then she could safely turn her head to stare at her best friend. "You're..."

"I think I'm gay," said Nancy, and the simplicity of the statement spoke for itself.

"Jesus Christ," said Madison. "I didn't know I tasted that good."

"Better than freaking Don Calhoun did," said Nancy without heat. "That was the first sign. I mean, I never swallowed after the first time. All the other girls were saying that it was supposed to taste good, but I thought it was awful."

Madison, who realized she had probably been one of those 'other girls' once—not to Nancy; they hadn't been friends yet; but to others—said, "You do realize we were all just making that up, right? Like any of us had any experience back then. Hell, I still don't know what it tastes like. Probably the only one who does is Haley. And besides, I don't think if it's a big deal if you don't like swallowing some guy's stuff."

Nancy gave a shrug of indifference. "Well, that was the first sign, but it wasn't the only one. I mean... Christ, I dunno. You were talking about the Don I was attracted to. The truth is, I never really was attracted to him. He asked me out, and I'm all like, you know— Well, hell, he was the first boy who ever did. Don't tell me that's not a big deal."

"I won't," said Madison. "It is a big deal. God, I remember how excited I was when Sean Cormier first asked me out. And, honestly, I wasn't entirely sure I liked him either."

"What, like, 'Oh, he's available, and he likes me, but I'm pretty sure I could do better'? That sort of thing?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Yeah, exactly," said Nancy. "That's how it was with me. But I never... He just didn't do it for me. And then, afterwards, when I would be looking around and trying to find a boy I hoped would ask me out... There just.. Wasn't." She sighed. "For a long time I thought I was asexual."

"Because you didn't see anyone you were attracted to," Madison supplied.

"Yeah," said Nancy. She gave an abortive laugh: "I started getting desperate, too. I mean, fuck, I was even looking at porn to try and find some hot guy to drool over." She snorted. "Not that that works. All the guys in porn are really, really ugly."

Madison blinked. "What? That's... That's ridiculous. Why?"

"God, I dunno," said Nancy. "I guess they just know that girls aren't looking at it, so the guy doesn't have to be anything special."

"But you didn't say they were boring, you said they were ugly."

"They are. Butt-ugly."

"There's sort of a distance between transparent and butt-ugly."

"I know. Like I said, I haven't figured it out either."

"But... Looking at the porn... I guess that must've helped you figure things out, right?"

Nancy gave a short, cold laugh. "Yeah. So I'm watching these dirty movies, and of course the point is to make the guy who's watching it feel good about himself, you know? The girl's all moaning and twisting and it's stroking his ego. And he's supposed to go, 'I am a manly man, I take exquisite pleasure in my ability to please women in bed, ha-ha,' and then he squirts all over the keyboard. Well. Here I am, and I'm watching the thing, and I realized... That's exactly what was going through my head. That's exactly what was going through my head. —Not the squirting-all-over-the-keyboard stuff, but... You know. 'Wow. Wouldn't it be an achievement to make a girl come? Wouldn't it be something to be able to pleasure her like that.'

"And suddenly I realized that, whenever I'd be off in thought, or just letting my eyes wander, I was looking at other girls."

There was nothing Madison could really say to that. "When did you realize this?"

"About... God, I dunno. About a year ago."

"So... What you did with me must've been the last nail in the coffin," said Madison.

"Chyeah, just a little. It wasn't... I mean, God, Madison, Don did stuff to me, too. It wasn't just, you know, him-first wham-bam-thankyouma'am. I mean, he wasn't enthusiastic about it, but... He was like, It's the polite thing to do, you know?"

Madison grimaced. "And here I was all going to—"

"Oh, no, no, Madison, that's not what I meant!" Nancy cried. "I wasn't— God. Foot-in-mouth disease much? I was just trying to tell you that I had experience with it. That he had... That somebody had done it to me."

"It's okay," said Madison. "I'm a jerk and I know it. So Don was doing stuff on you."

"Yeah, and... I just couldn't get into it, you know? I felt so bad about breaking up for him, because he cared, he fucking cared, but I just... I didn't. And then here we are and we're alone in your room and I... I saw a chance, and I... Took it."

"So you were using me to test out your hypothesis?" said Madison. Before Nancy could reply, she smiled. "Always wanted to be a guinea pig."

"You're not mad?" Nancy said.

Madison shrugged. "I suppose I could be. But it's over and done with now; what would be the point? Besides, I came really hard. You're pretty darn good at that."

"Thanks," said Nancy. "You're taking this really well, all things considered."

Madison shrugged again. "It hasn't really hit me yet. I haven't had time to think about it." This was flat truth; she'd been too busy sorting through Nancy's account and making the right leaps to really digest it all. "Wait 'til tomorrow."

"Ha. When I get to turn your own words against you? 'If it's bothering you, then talk to me about it.' "

"So turn 'em against me," said Madison in a fit of flippancy. "You're allowed. In the meanwhile, though, I still need your help with Devin."

"Why, what's he doing?" said Nancy.

"Ignoring me. I don't know why. He just... It's like you were, last week. He talks. When I corner him. Otherwise he doesn't return my phone calls or... God. What do I have to do to get two normal friends on my side. If one of you isn't giving me the cold shoulder, the other is."

"Well, speaking only from personal experience," said Nancy, "we cold-shoulder you because we're scared of hurting you, or perhaps getting hurt by you."

"I would never—!"

"No, of course not, not intentionally," said Nancy. "But as I of all people should know, sometimes the hurt just happens. So, did you say anything to him that might've hurt his feelings? Or been taken the wrong way?"

"Christ, I dunno," said Madison. "We had quite a bit of a conversation after everybody left."

"About what?"

"About... Stuff."

"About what we did?" said Nancy, giving Madison a damnably perceptive glance.

"Well, I had to talk to somebody about it, and you were avoiding me too!" Madison said. "I didn't tell him any details. I just said that... Things had happened between us, and they seemed to have made you uncomfortable—which was really the only important stuff to begin with."

"That's true," said Nancy. "Fair enough. Anything else?"

"Nothing really," said Madison. "I mean, I thanked him for being my friend. God knows I don't have so many people doing that right now. Who else was I going to talk to about this?"

Nancy was so silent at this that Madison almost apologized—she hadn't meant it that way. But then Nancy said, "Very kind of you, I'm sure. How did he react?"

"What? How did he react? To what?"

"To you thanking him. For his friendship."

"I dunno, he... Umm. Well, he seemed appreciative, but..."

"But not, you know, accepting? He wasn't, like, enthusiastic about being thanked?"

"No, not particularly. Why?"

Nancy shook her head and made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "You are such a girl, Madison."

"I'm a what? Five minutes ago you were saying I was a guy."

"Madison, he has a crush on you."

This was another blank-slate moment, but this time they were on the freeway and Madison struggled to keep focus. Devin? Sweet, high-voiced, wimpy little Devin?—having a crush on her? But he was so... "You can't be serious."

"I'm serious. Madison, you know you're a pretty girl, no matter what else is going on. Is it really a surprise that somebody would find you attractive?"

"But... Then... Shouldn't he be happy to be my friend? I mean, if he weren't, I'd be cutting him out of my life and he'd have even less chance."

"Madison, does he have a chance?"

Madison opened her mouth... And then closed it again.

"If you think about him right now, you don't really see him as being attractive, right? He's not... He's just one of the girls. He's cute, he's fun, he's reliable, but he doesn't make you all, you know, hot and bothered. You just aren't attracted to him."

Madison spared a look for her friend. Nancy's face was grave, and her eyes seemed to hold some ancient wisdom.

"Is this what they mean when they talk about the 'Friend Zone'?" she asked. She'd heard the term from the boys—Craig, Brent, any of the satellite boytoys her former friends had occasionally dragged into orbit—but never much thought about it, or what it meant. She'd always figured what she did now, that (if anything) it must be an advantage.

"This is what they mean. It's just how girls are wired. Hon, there's 'attractive' and then there's 'safe'. Sometimes they're mutually exclusive. Most of the time, in fact. Just think about what kind of a relationship you might have with Devin. He's smart, he's attentive, he's kind—you know he'd open doors for you, or cook you soup if you got sick, and that he'd never push you to, you know, do inappropriate stuff with him. Does that sound enticing to you?"

No, it didn't. As a matter of fact, it sounded boring. Nancy's description made her think of the tea parties she'd held with her dolls at a young age: lace and flowers and tiny, tiny cookies. And an extreme emphasis on where precisely your pinkie finger landed while handling the teacup. She'd outgrown those years ago. And, while she didn't think tiny, tiny cookies were Devin's idea of a good time...

"So what do you think I should do?"

"I think you should call him up and ask him out."

Madison was getting tired of forcing herself to concentrate on the road. "Nancy, you just said that I don't find him attractive. You just said he'd bore me!"

"And I'm probably right," said Nancy. "But, hon, he adores you. He really, really really likes you. Give him a chance."

Madison shot her a narrow look. "How much did he pay you to say that?"

"So what if he did? Madison, give the kid a chance. What've you got to lose? And where, precisely, are you going to find someone who knows you as well as he does? He knows about the CAIS, he knows about the testicles... And he's still interested. Tell me where else you're going to find someone who can offer you that. Hell, tell me where else you're going to find someone who will let you cross-dress in public with him."

She just has to keep being right, doesn't she. "So how much did Devin pay you to say that?"

"Nothing," said Nancy. "We haven't talked. This is just me telling you what I see."

"You can see that he's crazy about me?" said Madison.

"I feel confident about making that assertion, yes," said Nancy.

"God, if it's that obvious, why didn't I see it."

"Well, because it's you he has the crush on. You never see it clearly if you're involved. You know how it is."

So, after Madison had dropped Nancy off, and changed out of her man-clothes, she called up Devin. And, when he didn't pick up, she kept calling until she did.

This turned out to be a mistake. "Madison, this is a really bad time. My uncle is... Well, let's just say that he hates getting interrupted and leave it at that."

"Oh, I, umm... Shit. I'm sorry. Umm. Can I call back?"

"I'll call you," said Devin, with no hint of his usual smile, and hung up.

Yikes, thought Madison. That didn't turn out well.

To ease her agitation she went on the Internet and started looking around for material on women managing to pee standing up. Her very first search turned up approximately a gazillion hits. Wow, I can't believe... Wait, no. This is the Internet, God's greatest gift to deviance. I shouldn't be surprised at all. She adjusted the content filters on her search engine and tried again.

There were, indeed, a number of 'sanitary helper objects' available, from subtle to outrageous—one, called the "Shewee," was a twelve-inch-long gold facsimile of a penis—and, even more than that, she found instructions for going unaided. Evidently there were female urinals in Europe, which involved either straddling some low protrusion or bending forward to urinate backwards against some surface. Madison could already see how the male urinals found in every American public facility could be adapted to such a use. She could also imagine the public-decency furor. How would one achieve such a straddle?—would she have to drop her trousers and then waddle forward? What about if she was wearing a dress, how would she keep all of that out of the way? And what about this whole bending-forward-with-her-pants-around-her-ankles business? She could see the Christian right making a huge fuss about that.

And then there were the reach-down, grab-hold-and-let-go instructions. The female vulva, wrote one site, is soft and malleable; with a little bit of pressure, the stream of urine can be aimed without causing damage or obstructing flow through the urethra.

Madison frowned.

In her bathroom, the door securely locked and the toilet seat up for safety's sake, she ran over the memorized instructions in her mind. They had seemed fairly clear to her while sitting in front of her computer, but now she realized they required a certain amount of geographic knowledge of her own private parts, and the simple fact was that Madison had never seen what she herself looked like down there. It was all tucked inside and down below, unlike a boy's junk which hung out and (so far as she could tell) could be moved around a bit; barring the anatomical impossibility of somehow wedging her head between her own thighs, she would never lay eyes on the place. Unless I was some sort of yoga god or something. But Nancy had seen, hadn't she. —And, for that matter, so had Dr. Winters, the gynecologist. Christ, there's people who are more intimate with my intimate areas than I am! Next chance I get, I'm lying down in front of a mirror.

Okay. The site said to "use your hands to spread your outer or inner labia, pulling upwards and outwards." This was much harder than it seemed, since she was holding the hem of her shirt against herself with her chin and could barely see past the rucked fabric. "Lift to the desired angle, and then release urine into toilet in an arc, making sure to keep labia out of the stream to avoid spray." What the heck do they mean by—

Then she found out.

Later—after some more research, after reading some testimonials online, after getting her hand mirror out so that she actually could see what Mother Nature had wrought down there—she would understand that her labia minora, the inner lips of her vulva, had gotten in the way. Under normal circumstances they did not interfere with the urinating process, but when her vulva was being deliberately deformed this way, they interfered with the single direct stream that she was supposed to issue. But she didn't know that yet. Right now, all she noticed was that, instead of shooting in a straight line directly at the toilet, she had managed to achieve split ends: there were two streams falling from of her, and none of them were aimed at the toilet.

Holy crap holy crap holy crap. There's a muscle in there somewhere that lets me stop peeing, that lets me clamp down— Where is it, where is it! Where— Ah, there we go. I knew I had voluntary control over it. God, I should've practiced that just in case. She thumped down on the toilet seat, looking to either side of her at the splatters on the cabinet and wall. God, I better clean this up before it starts smelling, or before Mom notices. Oh, Jesus, I got some on my pants. I have to change my clothes now. Maybe next time I should do this in the shower.

Of course, this was when her phone rang.

"Hi, um, Devin. Umm. Hi."

"Hi Madison. ...Umm. You sound tired."

"Yeah, I just, umm. Had an adventure."

"Ohh?" Devin had not been precisely hostile at first, but now he sounded curious.

"Yeah, um. Well. ...Adventure. Let's just leave it at that. What can I do for ya?"

"Well, you called me," said Devin. "Almost got me in trouble, too, I might add."

"Really? How?"

"My uncle Toshiro was... Well. He wasn't happy with me. Let's just leave it at that."

"Wasn't happy with you? Why, what'd you do?"

"Let's just leave it at that, Madison. What can I do for ya?"

His voice wasn't angry—she had a hunch that it would take a lot to get Devin angry—but it was clear that he didn't want to talk on the issue. And when she'd said those exact same words, he'd let her divert him. It was only fair to return the favor. "Well. Actually, umm. I just, um. Wanted to ask you a question."

"Well, you've got me. You can ask."

When Nancy had told her to ask Devin out, Madison had shrugged: it sounded so easy. Just ask him. But now... Kind of like the peeing-correctly thing. Or at least non-disastrously. She could see a lot more potential disaster from this question than just missing the toilet. What if Devin actually didn't like her? What if he was was offended that she would ask? What if he decided he never wanted to talk to her again? She didn't have enough friends that she could afford...

Is this what guys go through when they ask a girl out? Jeez, they're braver than I thought. We all figured... I mean, they don't even have to push babies out of themselves. Not that this is anything as painful, but... It certainly serves.

"Madison? You still there?"

Madison shook her head, forcing herself to focus. "Sorry, umm. Just... God, I still need to pee."

There was a long silence, in which Madison very specifically did not check the mirror to ascertain the precise shade of red her cheeks blossomed with.

"Well, seeing as how that wasn't a question, I don't think that's what you wanted to ask me."

"Umm, yes, umm."

"Does it have something to do with the adventure?"

"No, the adventure was something else. Listen, are you doing anything tonight? Do you wanna go out with me?"

Now there was another long silence, punctuated only by Devin's non-committal "Umm... Go out?"

Madison felt failure burning in her gut, but she'd come too far to back out now. "You know, go out. Grab dinner, see a movie. Boy-girl kind of thing. Goodnight kiss. That go out."

"Are you... Are you asking me out?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Why, is that unusual?"

"Actually, yes," said Devin, "I've never been on a date before. Nobody's ever asked me. And all the girls I ask turn me down."

"Well, why don't we start over then, and you can ask me, and I won't turn you down. That way you'll have the experience."

Devin laughed. "No, I think we can skip that part." Madison felt for a wild moment that she had never been so glad to hear a sound in her life.

"Are you serious? Are you seriously asking me out?"

"Yes, I'm serious! Jesus! You think I go around asking out wimpy timid Asians just for kicks?"

"Well, I've found out some pretty strange things about you recently..."

"Shut up."

"I'll need to talk to my family. Getting in trouble with them is generally not conducive to being allowed to go out on a Friday night. But hey, it's worth a shot!" Devin sounded a lot more excited than she had ever heard him be about anything. That, at the very least, was worth something.

She had stripped off her soiled pants and was beginning to scrub the floor with some paper towels when Devin called back. "They said yes, they said yes! I can't believe it! After all that other mess I figured they wouldn't let me go, but I think they were just that impressed that I was finally going on a date!"

"Awesome," said Madison, on her hands and knees, the phone clenched between ear and shoulder. "So, what? Six maybe?"

"Yeah, that should be fine. You might have to come get me, though, I'm not sure if the Volvo will start." She could almost hear the eye-roll. Devin's family of three was making do with two cars—one a new sedan, the other a decrepit relic from the time of the dinosaurs.

"You know, that's never made any sense to me. You said your family saves money like crazy. But if they don't even spend it on important things, like fixing a car, what's the point?"

"You tell me, I just live here," said Devin.

In the end, the Volvo did not start. Madison—after changing into slightly girlier clothes, though she retained the massive manly boy-pants for the benefit of the massive manly boy-pockets—piled herself into her Saturn and drove the ten minutes to Devin's house.

She had been here before—a modest one-story affair which was, despite the best efforts of its owners, slowly going to disrepair—but she had never been inside; Devin had always waited for her on the front stoop. This time, though, he was nowhere to be seen, and she was obliged to come up the walk and ring the doorbell. She was met by a grizzled, bleary-eyed man in a wifebeater. He said nothing, merely gave her a long, analyzing look. Madison, scraping together what she remembered of Devin's family history, realized that, since his father was white, this man could not be him. It was certainly not Devin. But who was it?

"Umm... Good evening," she said to break the oppressive silence. "I'm here to meet Devin Albright? Is this the right house?"

Without looking away the man turned his head and yelled some foreign into the house. Promptly a woman's voice answered in the same language, at the same volume. Madison assumed they must be speaking Japanese, but for all she knew it could be Martian.

A moment later a woman appeared at the doorway. "Ah, hello. You must be Madison? Devin has told me much about you." She was wearing real clothes (a marked contrast to the man who had opened the door), and stout—a good head shorter than her male companion, who himself was shorter than Devin—with a welcoming smile on her face. "I'm Naoko Albright. It is good to finally meet you."

"Hello, Mrs. Albright," said Madison, extending her hand. Contrary to Devin's comments, this woman had perfect control of her L's and R's. But then, if she married a man with a last name like Albright, she must've had to learn quickly. "It's good to meet you."

"Devin should be out in a moment. I think he is very excited about his first date." Mrs. Albright gave her a wink. "Would you like to come in?"

At this, the grizzled male companion gave a burst of rapid language and left the threshold. Madison was trying to decide how to reply when Devin arrived in a clatter of shoes-on-hardwood-floor. "Okay okay I'm here! Sorry for making you wait."

"It's okay, Madison and I were just having a nice conversation," said Mrs. Albright. "Now, remember what your uncle told you, and be home by 10." She gave Devin a kiss on the cheek. "Have fun."

"Aww, Mom," said Devin, turning red. Madison was glad they had that in common.

"What, am I not allowed to see off my only son on his very first date?" said Mrs. Albright, smiling. "This is a significant moment! You're seventeen, after all!"

"Yes, Mom, I remember what age I am," said Devin with a patient smile. And with that they set off.

"So, what," said Madison when they got to her car. "Dinner? Movie? Movie and then dinner? Something else entirely?"

"I'm okay with anything," said Devin with an easy smile. "What do you want to do?" This was her first exposure—though far from her last—to his style of indecision.

"Well, what do you want to eat?"

"I dunno. What do you want to eat?"

"I'm okay with anything. What do you want to eat?"

Devin shrugged.

"Look, it's your first date. It's your choice."

"Don't say that, or I'll pick something you might not like," said Devin.

"What, like raw fish?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Wait. I was joking."

"I told you not to ask me to pick," said Devin, grinning. "Have you ever had sushi before?"

"No. It's raw fish."

"Well, there's a first time for everything," said Devin.

"I'm not gonna eat raw fish!"

"You don't have to. There's sushi that doesn't involve raw fish."

"Well..." said Madison, skeptical. "Okay."

She had never been to a Japanese restaurant before. Devin took her to one which, according to him, would not be too scary for her: he took all his white friends here, he said, when introducing them to Japanese cuisine. Of course, it wasn't anything like the food-court derivatives found at the mall; there was tea in round, barrel-like ceramic cups with thick walls, and thatched seating in blond wood, and actual wooden chopsticks which Madison had absolutely no idea how to use. Nor, for that matter, how to split: on her first attempt, one stick sheared off at an angle. Devin laughed and traded his pair to her; these she split smoothly down the middle. "Don't worry. It happens to everybody. Sometimes it's just a production defect."

"I have no idea what any of this food is," said Madison. "I mean, what's a 'chicken tekiyari'?"

"Teriyaki," said Devin. "It's a kind of sauce. You should try it, it's good."

"What about 'tebban'?"

"Tebban? Where's that? We go here so often I practically have this menu memorized."

"Uh... Entry 11D," said Madison.

"11... What? Oh, D11," said Devin. "Teppan. It's kind of a stir-fry type thing. Might be too adventurous for a first-timer, but it's good."

"And what the heck is a 'Deppie's Drug'," Madison said, looking at the specialty-sushi menu. "Why would you name something after an illegal addictive substance? And who the heck is Deppie?"

She became aware that Devin was looking at her strangely. "What?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Umm... Read off entries E12 through E17."

"What?"

"Read off entries E12 through E17," said Devin as if it were the most logical thing in the world. "Just humor me, Mad."

Squinting at the unfamiliar words, Madison did. They were all sushis of one kind or another, and all under their Japanese names, meaning she had absolutely no idea what they were—at least not without reading the English descriptions (which, thank God, existed). All the words and letters were in funny configurations, and she didn't have any old habits to rely on. "Okay, umm... Okay. 'Ninjin (cooked carrot), 6 pieces, $2.00. Horesno (cooked spinach), 6 pieces, $2.00. Tukawan (pickled radish)—eew." She glanced at Devin to see his response, but there was none. Then she had to find her place again. "Right, tukawan, tukawan... 6 pieces, $2.00. Okay, they're all 6 pieces for $2.00, so I'll skip those parts. Umm... Umm? Umeey? Or maybe it's 'ooh-may'?" The word was Ume, and she had no idea how to pronounce it. "Well, it's plum paste, in any—plum paste? What the heck? Oh-kay then. And then natto, which is fermented soybeans? Are you trying to gross me out? And then, finally, E18, which is yamabogo, or wild carrot."

When she put the menu down, Devin was looking at her funny.

"So..." she said. "Was that your brilliant idea for saving money, by making me not eat?"

"Read along with me," said Devin. "E12: ninjin. E13: horenso."

"I said that.

"No, you said 'horesno'," said Devin.

Madison squinted at the menu. "Did I? Sounds like a city."

"It's 'horenso'. Japanese doesn't do 's-n'."

"Well, excuse me," said Madison, not sure how she was supposed to be reacting. Was he making fun of her?

"E14: takuwan, not tukawan. E15: ume." He pronounced it 'ooh-may', though with more flattened vowels. "E16: natto. And E17: yamagobo, not -bogo."

Madison said, "Well, I'm not particularly fluent in Japanese. I think I did a pretty good job."

"No, you did an excellent job, this isn't easy, but..." Devin rubbed his face with one hand. "Madison, I wonder if you have dyslexia."

"What?!"

He gave an uncomfortable shrug. "It just... All the things you've mentioned, about taking ages to get reading done, and... I mean, you're not dumb, Madison. That much is clear from your grades. You're not dumb by any means. So why should reading be so hard for you?"

"So, what, you took me to a Japanese restaurant just to find out?" said Madison, half-irritated.

"No, actually, the idea just occurred to me in the last few minutes. Hearing you mispronounce... Well, just about everything, honestly. Hon, you misread 'Debbie'. You know a Debbie. Deborah Whitmire."

He was so kindly about it that Madison could find an excuse to take offense at the tone of his voice. And if he was right...

"So, what?" she said. "Do we just... So am I dyslexic or something? How do you even know? ...How do you even know?"

He sighed. "I had a friend who had it. I just remember what he went through. I'm no expert or anything. But he had the same symptoms: he was flipping words left and right, he hated reading, and he totally wasn't stupid."

"Do I know him?"

"Probably not. He moved away in fifth grade."

"Great." She had been hoping to compare notes. "So... What?"

"So... You'd probably go to an expert or something. Find out for certain."

"Oh."

"In the meanwhile, though... What do you want to order?"

"What?" said Madison.

Devin smiled. "We're sitting in a restaurant, Madison. Do you want food?"

After her little adventure, she had almost forgotten. Not to mention that the contents of some of those sushi rolls had really turned her off. "Umm... Maybe you better order for me."

A full-blown grin this time. "You aren't nervous about me picking, like, octopus or squid or fermented tofu for you?"

"Look, just shut up and order, or I'll stop trusting you," said Madison, and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Hey!" said Devin. "Don't point that at me unless you plan to use it."

Madison gave him a dirty look and retracted her tongue. But as the minutes passed and Devin ordered the food, she watched him silently, wondering at the comment. What would it be like to become... Intimate with him? Nancy had said the exact same thing to her, of course—heck, Madison had said it to her first—and since she and Madison had since been lovers...

Did she like Devin? Was he attractive to her? She wasn't at all sure. Certainly he was pretty handsome, if in an overwhelmingly Asian way—he looked Japanese, but he made it look good—but that wasn't necessarily it. For one, he was shorter than her; not by much, but there it was. For two, he was so... Well, he was so shy. Looking at him—retiring, sensitive, always polite—she couldn't see him taking charge of things. Craig had always been the master in their relationship; so had Sean: always pushing at her, always wanting more. And while she had fended them off, it was something of a turn-on to know they were so enamored of her. She simply couldn't see Devin pushing that way, and while it would be a relief to not constantly be on-guard that way, she didn't know what his self-control would do to her attraction to him.

Maybe this was a mistake. I mean... What if he really has fun, and wants to go out again? Because, for my part... Well, I know he means well, and he's really sweet, but finding out that I might have dyslexia is not really my idea of a good first date.

When the food arrived, it was much better than she had anticipated. First there was a salad with an interestingly spicy dressing, and then hot soup which Devin snatched away and fished in with his chopsticks for a moment, before handing it back: "Okay, now you can drink it without running into chunks of anything." As it turned out, he had taken out some bits of seaweed and tofu chunks. The seaweed didn't sound too bad, but she was glad for the absence of the tofu. Especially since the soup didn't come with spoons: you were supposed to lift the bowl up to your face. Thankfully, Devin took pity on her and asked for a fork, before she had to (try to) use the chopsticks on her entree. It looked like chicken and tasted like chicken—except for the teriyaki sauce, of course, but that was yummy too. In the end, Madison decided she couldn't complain about her first foray with Japanese food.

Devin offered her a piece of sushi, of course, but she decided on principle she didn't want to touch it. Devin started to tell her what was in it before she made him stop: in the end, she just didn't want to know. Food that was cooked was okay by her, but not a whole lot else.

When the bill came, they had a short, animated argument over who was going to pay it. Devin said that he should pay for his half at the very least, and maybe the whole thing as well. Madison wasn't having any of it. "In case you haven't forgotten, I have balls too. So that whole argument about testosterone goes out the window. We're on an even footing here."

"Yeah, but..."

"And don't tell me those other bits of flesh make any difference," said Madison. "If you wanna argue about having other dangly bits down there, I'll play the I-Have-Breasts card. And I think you'll agree that's much more impressive than yours."

"No, I was simply going to say that I've been brought up to believe that the man should pay on dates."

"What is this, the 1800s? No, a man does not have to pay on dates. I'm an independent woman. I brought my wallet. I can take care of myself and you."

Devin grinned. "Fine. You can pay this time, but you have to let me pay on our next date."

Madison gave him an angular look. "Are you trying to trap me into something?"

Devin grinned ever more broadly. "If I say yes, will you let me pay for dinner?"

Madison gave a huff and slammed some money down on top of the check.

After they left, Devin looked at her and said, "So, were you serious about seeing a movie?"

"Well, I dunno," said Madison. There wasn't anything she particularly wanted to see; it was summer blockbuster season, and while those were fun, she didn't think they were really appropriate for a first date. "Do you wanna? Anything you want to see?"

"Well... Not really," said Devin. "Wanna just walk around downtown? There's plenty of interesting shops around here."

For a while, they said nothing as they walked, just soaking in the ambiance. It wasn't that late, and the downtown area was bustling—families, bands of single men and women, couples out taking the air. Some of the kids were laughing, some screaming; some of the bands of singles were laughing, some not. Some of the couples were holding hands. One, a pair of men, were even trading kisses as they walked. Watching them, watching everyone, Madison wondered what she looked like to them—she and Devin, walking next to each other. The men looked so cute together.

Madison had always wanted to be one of those people. But when she asked the others—Wanda, Haley, Jessica—what she and Craig looked like together, no one said anything. Oh, he's cute, they said. You look so good in that skirt, they said. You go really well together. But nothing about the affection. Nothing about the love. Nothing, in short, about the things that mattered.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Devin said. "Or was that just your equivalent of the lesbian fantasy?"

"The... The what??" said Madison.

"You know," said Devin. "Threesome. Every man says he's totally in support of lesbians, but what he really means is that he wants to walk in on two girls having sex... And then join them. You got this look on your face when we passed those two guys. And so I figured..."

Madison said, "Have you ever loved someone before?"

Devin looked at her for a moment, silent.

"Well... If you're asking if I've ever had a crush on someone before... Yes," he said. "The first time was..." He smiled. "It was this girl. Rosaline Shandworth. She was cute as a button—blue eyes, strawberry red hair. I thought she was an angel. She was the most beautiful girl you could find at Robert Banks Grade School. I was six."

That explains the low standards, Madison thought. "That isn't really what I meant."

"Well, what did you mean?" Devin asked, smiling. " 'Love' is a multi-purpose word."

"You said you haven't been on dates with anybody, right."

"Yeah, so my experience with romance is limited. No girlfriends or anything."

"Well... I mean, that doesn't necessarily stop you, does it? Do you have... I mean, have you ever loved anybody?"

Devin was silent for another moment.

"It's such a broad topic, Madison. I mean... Well, could you possibly give an example, maybe? Of what you're trying to find?"

"I..." She cast around for one. "I don't... Oh, Christ, I don't know. I mean... When I was with Craig, right? It was like... Wow, five months, I've been in this for a long time."

"It is a long time. The average for people our age is about six weeks."

"But he never... God, I dunno. He never took notice of me. It wasn't like... Well, it's not like I want some guy who's just, you know, who's draped all over me. Who's all whipped or anything. But... It was like, Craig never wanted to just... To spend time with me. You know? We'd all meet up in a gang at lunch and it'd be, you know, me and Nancy and the others, and then him and all the boyfriends, and... There was never any... The circles never touched, you know? It was like, he wanted to be seen with me on his arm, but he... Well, that, and, the sex."

"Yes."

"I mean, he..." She felt her cheeks coloring. Was this really the thing to be talking about? With Devin? On their first date? And yet she had never felt uncomfortable in his presence, and she saw no reason to start now. "Well. It's not like we really got anywhere. But... You could tell. You could tell it was on his mind."

"Well... Madison, I don't mean to be a pessimist, but... I mean, yes. We're teenagers. I have sex on my mind. You have sex on yours. The question isn't, Am I horny; the question is, How am I going to let that affect me. I mean, how long's Brent been with Haley?"

"A... A couple years, I think. Maybe a little less."

"He stuck it out. He figured—rightly, it seems like—that if he was willing to be a good boyfriend and be, you know... Do the romantic things Haley wanted out of him, she might, eventually... Give it up. So... They traded, I guess."

"Yeah," said Madison. "Yeah, I guess that... I guess you can look at it that way. I mean, I know I was... I knew I should probably... Consider it. Eventually. If Craig was, you know. Loyal enough. Or whatever. God, I dunno. What would I reward with sex?"

"I don't know, but if you ever figure it out, please be kind enough to tell me," said Devin in a dry voice.

"Ha. Yeah, seriously... I mean, if I had told Craig... Heck, if I knew what I'd need from him before I was willing to give him sex, then... Then maybe..."

"You'd still be together with him?"

Madison made a face.

"Would you want to still be together with him?"

"No, not particularly. I—"

"Well, that's good to hear. I mean, seriously, Mad. Craig?"

She laughed. "No, it's that it might've... Maybe he would've... Cared. A little more. Maybe he wouldn't... Wouldn't've been such a jerk. When he dumped me."

"Did you tell him... The truth?"

A hopeless laugh. "Everything."

"And... Did he tell other people?"

"Everything. Even Dr. Z heard about it, and I sure didn't tell her. God, when I saw his face... He was like, 'Eeew, I kissed a guy.' Homo moment, you know? A whole five months full of 'em."

"Well... Maybe it's just as well you didn't do it with him, then. He probably would've had a complete freak-out and died on your lawn."

She looked at him. He wasn't smiling.

She sighed. "Well, at least you didn't do that."

"Die on your lawn?"

"Ha-ha, yeah... Two in a couple of weeks, we would've had to move."

"So... Judging from your comments, I think we can safely say that you didn't love Craig."

"Nope. Nope nope nope. Not at all. I wanted to... I mean, I... Well, I gave him every chance, you know? More than every chance. It wasn't too long before I had a hunch he was only interested in one thing, and it probably wasn't between my ears, you know? Or my breasts," she added pointlessly.

He blinked at her. "Huh? What's between your breasts?"

"Heart."

"Oh. Ohh. Okay, I guess I... Well, I was figuring, what, cleavage? That's just empty space, right?"

"Yeah, it's not really between my... God, what if I had that too? First testicles, and then my... Heart, you know, just... Hanging out there. Thump-thump thump-thump."

"Umm. Riiiiight," said Devin. He was smiling.

"Well, anyway, he had, as you said, only the one thing on his mind. And I know... I know for a fact that he was starting to lose patience. That he wasn't... God, I wonder what he would've done. Either dumped me, or, or tried to... I dunno, tried to pressure something out of me. Either way, I guess I'm lucky he just ran off."

"I'd say so. Any other notable relationships?"

Sean Cormier, and some random dates, and a very brief fling with Rhagesh Chaudhury. "No, just... More of the same. More of guys, you know, pawing at me. It wasn't anything special."

"Nothing you were actually looking for, in other words," Devin said.

"Right, yeah... Nothing that made me happy."

"So what are you looking for?"

To look cute together like those two guys. "I don't even know. I'll just—I'll know it when I see it, right? Whatever it is. I know it when I see it."

"And you saw it. In those two guys."

"Yeah, in... I mean, you know? They love each other. You could see it just in the way they walked together. In their eyes. They totally weren't ashamed to, to show the world that they love each other, and they totally shouldn't be, not love like that. Anyone who would argue against a love like that is... Has no heart. You know? And I just keep thinking... When's it my turn to have that? When's it my turn to feel that? I mean, if I felt that way about a boy, sure I would have sex with him. Why does everybody approach it all wrong?"

It was an outburst. She could feel her eyes prickling.

Devin's hand touched her shoulder. "I know how you feel. I, I totally... Isn't it weird? That you're so popular, you have guys falling all over you—"

"Had. Had guys."

"Well. Yeah, I guess. But still, there was that. And then I'm... Nobody looks at me twice, you know? Wouldn't give me the time of day. The exact opposite reasons, and yet we arrived in the same place, at the same time. Weird, huh?"

She sighed. "Yeah. Weird. But at least we have friends now. At least we... We found people. We found somebody."

She felt bad for having dominated the conversation like this. Not to mention how close she had come to starting to cry. So she shifted the conversation away for the moment. "What about you? What was... Who was that guy?"

"What guy?" said Devin.

"The one in your house."

She felt rather than saw Devin's face pale. "...Oh," he said finally. "You met Uncle Toshiro."

"Umm, yeah, I met Uncle Toshiro. What was up with that? Does he speak English?"

"Umm... Honestly, I don't know. Maybe? I mean, he... He's..." There was a long pause as Devin seemed to search for the right word. "...Interesting," was what he finally came up with.

"Oh?" After all that build-up, she thought this was a pretty lame description.

"Yeah. He... Well, as probably guessed, he's my mother's brother, not my dad's. My grandma died and he lost his job all at the same time, so my mom invited him to come live with us here. He had nothing keeping him there, so he came. But... I donno. He's so... Uninterested in things. He doesn't... I mean, he got a job, but, only because he met some other Japanese people. He used to be an engineer, he's smart, but, he won't go out and do that here. Because that would require him to speak English, and..."

"Wow," said Madison. "What does your dad have to say about this?"

Devin was silent for a moment. "My dad died."

Madison felt the world swaying under her. "Oh God, I'm sorry. I didn't..."

"It's okay, you didn't know. I mean... It's not like I told you or anything."

"What happened? How did it happen?"

Devin shook his head. "Cancer. They thought they caught it all but then they found it in his liver. I was thirteen."

"Oh God Devin, I'm really sorry." She wanted to give him a hug or something—at least—but he seemed remote from her, isolated in his grief; there wasn't anywhere to touch him.

"Yeah, so am I," Devin said. "I mean, it... Ugh. I think maybe... That might've been part of why Mom asked Uncle Toshiro to come. Because... Because my dad had just gone, and... You know? Have some, what, some paternal figure in my life? Not my dad, but, better than nothing, right?"

"And how did that work out?" She thought she knew.

Devin gave a bark of laughter. "Not so well. Uncle Toshiro thinks I'm too effeminate."

Madison had no answer for that. Because, yes, of course, Devin was effeminate. But it was the American way to let him be that, if he so chose—and evidently not the Japanese way.

"I mean, you've heard about the Asian emphasis on having sons," said Devin. "Which it's too late for anyhow, because my uncle never married—"

"Gee, I can't imagine why," said Madison.

"—and so when he dies, our branch of the family dies with him," Devin said. "It's not like I'm carrying on the Toyogami name. But nonetheless he sees me as... An heir, or something like that. And... Well. I am not exactly the kind of heir he would choose for himself."

"So?" said Madison. "Who cares? You're not his son, you're not his heir. He doesn't have any control over you."

"All right," said Devin. "Why don't you go tell him that?"

Madison opened her mouth.

Then she closed it again.

"Yes, you see my problem," said Devin.

"He's not the kind of person who takes 'No' for an answer, is he."

"No, not particularly."

"My way or the highway?"

"Essentially."

"Why does your mom put up with it?"

"Well... Partially it's because she's Japanese, and there's that whole stress-on-compliance thing. She grew up over there. —And, I'm not saying it's, like, you know, foot-binding and stuff like that. (Though that was an exclusively Chinese tradition anyway.) I'm sure they've gotten better since. But I also know that... Old values die hard. And Asian cultures have a higher emphasis on compliance, on going with the flow... 'The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.'

"But it's also that... Well, my uncle's smart. He didn't just, you know, barge in and start making demands. It happened slowly. And he... Well, she's heard him complain about me, but she doesn't know that it's gone any further than that. She doesn't hear when he comes to my room at night and chews me out.

"And... He's family. He's all that's left. She doesn't have any other siblings, her parents are dead, my dad's dead, his parents are still alive but they live in Ohio so we see them, like, once every five years? And they weren't... Mom was never close to them. Not like there were, there were fights or anything, but... They weren't close in the way that Mom would turn to them if something went wrong. So it's just her, and me... And Uncle Toshiro."

"Who doesn't like you."

"Who doesn't like me."

He was staring at the ground as he walked, his emotions plain on his face. Nancy would have laughed to see him, so upset about what other people thought of him. Nancy was less sensitive than other people; Nancy was a lot harder to rein in.

"We're the same that way," said Madison. "Two people whom no one can accept the way they are."

"Yeah," said Devin. "I guess we are the same."

They were standing in the middle of the sidewalk on Main Street, staring at each other. Madison felt strangely as though she'd never seen him before. Of course that wasn't true... Or was it? Here were sides of him, aspects of him she'd had no idea existed. Here was someone who really, truly understood how she felt, who had been where she had been. Here was someone who was disliked for no good reason at all. Impulsively she reached out and took his hand.

He looked down at it, and then up at her face—actually up, for she was slightly taller than he. He smiled, and she smiled back.

And when they walked on, they kept their hands linked.

Madison didn't remember much else of what they talked about. They strolled up and down the entire length of the street, a process which took over an hour, chatting about this and that and everything: the foibles of cheerleaders and jocks; what precisely Haley saw in Brent, and what he saw in her; how stupid all the movies looked, and how smart they were for saving money and not going to them. They pointed at the silly things they saw in the storefronts, and the curious things whose uses they could not divine. Madison gaped at a pack of people dressed in Guy Fawkes masks, waving signs for the Scientology website and blasting some 80s pop music; Devin had to explain to her what "RickRolling" was. And through it all their hands remained linked. It was unlike anything she had experienced since those first early days with Sean Cormier, when they had been young, so young (only fourteen!) and even their most risque activities seemed to have the shine of innocence over them. Before she'd really understood what sex was. Before she'd found out about herself, and the weird genes that cursed her. Before.

When they pulled up in front of Devin's house at 9:53, she found she didn't want him to leave. She had enjoyed his company, enjoyed the ease of conversation, enjoyed the lack of pressure. She walked him to his front door to prolong the experience. But at the same time she was totally apprehensive. He hadn't made a move on her, hadn't indicated by word or deed that he had enjoyed their outing in anything but a platonic fashion. Would he want to do this again? Had she failed utterly?

"Well," she said.

"Yeah," he said.

"Umm," she said.

"Heh-heh," he said.

A pause while she scratched her head and he looked away.

"Look, I... I really had fun tonight."

"So did I."

"Umm, would you like to, umm... Do it again?"

"Sure, that'd be, that'd be fun, umm. Yeah. I'd love to."

"Okay. Umm. Call me." She made the phone sign with her fingers; God!—as if she needed to!

"I will."

"Umm... Good night."

"G'night."

He looked a little confused... Which was basically how she felt. If he was going to make a move, now would be the time. She had hinted, very broadly, that she was receptive—heck, she had practically rubbed it in his face. And yet he wasn't...

And then she remembered that this was Devin—Devin, gentleman to the very end, even in the face of stupidity. Devin, so self-conscious, so underconfident. He would never paw at her breasts. He would never try. That was beyond him in both behavior and audacity.

If it's gonna be anyone, it's got to be me.

She started to lean forward. His eyes widened in dismaying fashion and he leaned back.

She pulled back, feeling her cheeks heat. Right. Well. That took care of that business. He doesn't; he isn't; he wouldn't...

...Or would he? The boy who's never been kissed, never been out on a date—would he?

She realized in that moment that there was only one way to find out. And with that realization came a cold feeling of determination like iron around her, and she leaned forward and pasted him before he could react.

He tasted of teriyaki sauce. She had closed her eyes because she didn't want to see his expression, but in a moment she felt the tension ebb out of him, felt the way his lips and frame relaxed against hers. She leaned into it for just a moment before pulling back.

When she opened her eyes, he looked shell-shocked.

She patted him on the shoulder. "Next time, we'll try that before the end of the night."

He grinned and giggled a little and nodded. "Okay."

"G'night," she said.

"Good night."

She wondered if he looked back at her retreating figure as he crossed the threshold. She knew she did.