How Did You Get This Number Part 4

The time we drove upstate to visit the small, artsy town of Beacon, she seemed disappointed that it only took two hours to get there. She had rented a jeep. We ate French onion soup at a diner with cake plates on the counter. As we cleaned the cheese from the side of the bowl with our fingers, I asked April if there was anything she didn't love about this Alaska of hers. She thought for a while. She was dismissive of Juneau and Fairbanks. She mentioned the people there wearing Carhartts all year round. When I said, "What are Carhartts?" I was told with exasperation, "They're very Fairbanks."

As the day wound down, we ducked in and out of the crafts and antiques shops of the rainy Rockwellesque streets. April picked out a set of hand-painted mugs.

"Look at this one." She held a yellow striped mug by its handle. A three-dimensional porcelain bee stuck to the rim.

"When are you going to use that that in real life" in real life"

"I just installed mug hooks in my kitchen," she replied, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"And"-she sidled up to the antique cash register-"this is real life."

I was distraught when she moved back home, though my sadness was tempered by the shipping rates to Alaska that resulted in her unloading half her worldly possessions onto me. Among other things, I became the proud owner of three "decorative" ledges, a set of ice-cream bowls, and two egg coddlers-everyday objects that I couldn't conceive being a part of my every day but that made me miss April each time I ate lo mein out of the ice-cream bowls or used the egg coddlers for bourbon.

It was only six years later, as I arrived in Alaska just past midnight, that I understood how strange it was for her to be in New York in the first place. If you're lucky enough to become truly close with a stranger in New York, there will still be a part of you and a part of them that's reduced to novelty. You can know everything about them, every detail of their childhood-every name of every hamster-and there will always be something that you can't help but view as an accessory. It's difficult to pa.r.s.e out someone else's formative moments from their trivial ones when you weren't there to witness either. April's being from Alaska was no different from her being my adopted friend or my actress friend or my friend who fact-checked at a magazine by day and stripped at Scores by night. Her Alaskanness was the piece of her framed on the wall. A point of entry taken for granted, no more a part of the room than the door frame.

IN THE WEEKS BEFORE WE LEFT FOR THE WEDDING, the other members of the bridal party, now securely fastened in their heated SUV bucket seats, displayed the same level of casual awe and antic.i.p.ation regarding our trip to the top of the planet. E-mail chains wound back and forth. This time next week, we'll be in Anchorage: can you believe it!? next week, we'll be in Anchorage: can you believe it!? I couldn't. Alaska felt like a slightly exaggerated trip to the Northwest on one hand, and like Pluto, that forlornly demoted planet, on the other. I couldn't. Alaska felt like a slightly exaggerated trip to the Northwest on one hand, and like Pluto, that forlornly demoted planet, on the other.

As I laid out my long underwear, I took my globe down from a bookshelf and sat on my floor with my legs stretched out. It is a world in which one can still book a flight to Yugoslavia. A world in which there is a dotted line that curves down Germany in semi-fetal position, dividing it into East and West. I imagine the boardroom discussion about the globe, the now dated debate as to how to represent the Berlin Wall.

GLOBE GUY #1: Let's look at the Great Wall of China. What'd we do there?GLOBE GUY # 2: That's not a border.GLOBE GUY #1: Well, we can't go around just doling out lines. If tomorrow I make a bay out of banana peels, do I get to have an estuary? No, I don't.GLOBE GUY #2: But you can't cross the wall without getting shot or paying someone not to shoot you. So, by the Mexican definition, they should get a line.GLOBE GUY #1: You're fired.GLOBE GUY #3 (leaning on a stack of atlases in the corner, sporting a watch fob; he lights a cigarette (leaning on a stack of atlases in the corner, sporting a watch fob; he lights a cigarette): You could always make it ... dotted.Silence all around. GLOBE GUY #2: You know you can't smoke in here. GLOBE GUY #2: You know you can't smoke in here.

I rotated the globe east, my finger fixed on the lat.i.tude at the crown of the world. Printed in eight-point type were the dates explorers first set snowshoe on the North Pole. Except, because it's my globe we're talking about, the paper had been scratched away, and instead of reading Reached North Pole Reached North Pole, it says ached North ached North. I found this so amusing, I immediately e-mailed it to the one other bridesmaid who refers to Central Park as "the woods."

She responded: That's hilarious! Are you bringing your own waders? Because I've been looking online and I think it might be unhygienic to rent them That's hilarious! Are you bringing your own waders? Because I've been looking online and I think it might be unhygienic to rent them.

But now, one week and four thousand miles later, it appears I have been duped into false camaraderie. I know these women call the urban centers of the Lower 48 "home." I've witnessed some of them order brunch as if they're competing to see whose food gets spat in first. But apparently they have also been camping in northern Michigan and skiing in Colorado. Voluntarily. All of a sudden it turns out they spent their childhoods spotting coyotes outside Jackson Hole or hiking the Appalachian Trail. I begin to suspect we share a different definition of "amateur" when it comes to the greatest of great outdoors. As they select fly-fishing rods without hesitation and brandish Clif bars at the slightest stomach growl, I realize these women are not kindred. They are nature's pool sharks. A few days on a glorified Outward Bound excursion, and out come the hourly declarations of their need for fresh air, reveries of piney appreciation and mountain worship that peak with vows to chuck their mainland lives and move to Alaska at once. They are up for everything and I am down for the count, slipping on some rocks and falling a.s.s-first into the Russian River wearing head-to-toe fleece. They have cameras with multiple lenses and a base tan of outdoorsy-ness that prevents them from asking inane questions about why ice melts. Whereas I am bright red with ignorance, my dilettante skin verbally peeling in the backseat with each misp.r.o.nounced inlet.

This could be part of a larger problem. If there is a line finer than my globe's tiny stream of German dots, it is the line between acclimation and simulation. Between partic.i.p.ation and sublimation. Basically: what's being a good sport and what's the plot of a bad romantic comedy? City gals don't trek up glaciers in designer heels any more than country folk wander down dark alleys to ask g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers for directions. People tend to be more tofu-like, able to absorb whatever environment they're dropped into. But where does the adaptability end and your actual personality begin? At the rehearsal dinner, someone will tell me I bear a striking resemblance to the Inputs, the only Inuit tribe legally allowed to hunt whale. I will be disproportionately flattered by this information, and intrigued by the possibility of decreasing my Con Ed bill by heating my apartment with blubber. I have what it takes to be part of the Alaskan fabric. But that doesn't mean I'm about to go out and harpoon a humpback.

I AM SATISFIED WITH JEFF'S DEFINITION OF "SCAT," as it feels like what I have come to refer to as Alaskan Logic. That is, something so fundamental it never occurred to me. If you'd like to be reminded of your mortality, go into any drugstore around Juneau. Next to the deodorant and the toothpaste are packages of windproof matches and water-purifying tablets. The "welcome basket" in our cabin included a bag of granola, socks, trail maps, and a giant bell labeled "bear bell." I thought this was a joke. Just the way "seal be gone" spray or "anti-puffin" darts might have been a joke. But later, when April sat us down by the roaring fireplace in the middle of August and doled out a pre-hike lecture on bear safety, the bell seemed just a bit less funny.

I had a flash of April's expression back in New York when I relayed my distilled version of the polar bear story. A moat full of teenage-boy blood swirled around in my imagination.

As recently as last week and as close as a mile away, a woman was on her front porch and was mauled by a bear. She had startled the bear by leaning down to pick a flower. She was without a bell. The fact that she was reaching not for a half-used cigarette b.u.t.t but for a flower-one of G.o.d's little sprinkles!-made the story exponentially worse. Unlike the legend of the polar bears, this one was far more real. Perhaps it's just because I'm not a big swimmer, but I do like to pick a nice wildflower.

The other women dispersed to their neatly organized canvas totes and quilted duffel bags. A tinny chime set off as each bell made contact with its owner. I stood there, smiling into the middle distance between me and the fire, trying to recall if I had kept the bear bell or if I threw it away with the gift wrapping. April waved her hand to unglaze my face.

"Sloane."

"Yes? Present."

"Do you have your bear bell?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to go get it?"

"Get what?"

"The bear bell."

"Get the bear bell?"

"Yes, get the bear bell."

"Sure, I'll go get the bear bell."

I ransack my luggage, removing most of the items from my suitcase until it is light enough for me to lift and shake. I listen closely, as if it were an enormous cell phone. I am filled with grat.i.tude when I hear a faint ringing in one of the outside pockets. Clap if you believe in keeping your limbs, Tink! When I return to the fire, everyone is already at the bottom of the driveway, packing themselves into a big van. Most have their hair in high ponytails, with their respective bells tucked into their swinging manes.

Usually I am hesitant about wearing my hair in a high ponytail. I didn't cheerlead for a reason. Also, I once heard that rapists prey on women with ponytails, pulling them like handles. But now that my pinnacle danger has been transferred to getting scalped by a f.u.c.king bear scalped by a f.u.c.king bear, I am only too quick to loop the ribbon around the tight elastic. I join the chorus of chiming initiated by every sharp turn the SUV takes. Safety first.

It's ten-thirty p.m., and the sun is finally beginning to set. The sun itself isn't directly visible from the backseat, but its presence is acknowledged by the snowcaps on each peak. These turn a deep pink when the clouds break above them. Jeff lowers his visor to avoid direct eye contact with the sudden flashes of light that bounce off the road. Meanwhile, the rivers we pa.s.s are an incongruously bright tropical blue, largely because they are not rivers. They are glacial runoffs, surging with the purest water on the planet. Alaska is what happens when w.i.l.l.y Wonka and the witch from Hansel and Gretel elope, buy a place together upstate, renounce their sweet teeth, and turn into health fanatics. The gutters swell with spring water. The streets are paved with Swiss chard.

As we round a bend in the road, we come upon a field of my favorite and only distinctly unhealthy unhealthy Alaskan specialty, the Ghost Forest. In the past week, I have seen twelve sea lions, four otters, three moose, one bald eagle, and a crazed puffin with a seagull vendetta. But nothing reminds me I'm in Alaska like the Ghost Forests. Alaskan specialty, the Ghost Forest. In the past week, I have seen twelve sea lions, four otters, three moose, one bald eagle, and a crazed puffin with a seagull vendetta. But nothing reminds me I'm in Alaska like the Ghost Forests.

"Those are freaky-looking," says one of the bridesmaids in dismissive disgust. As a policy, she oohs and aahs only at things with paws. Maybe I should get out of the car and slap some oven mitts on the branches.

But she's right. They are freaky-looking. In 1964, a ma.s.sive 9.2 earthquake devastated southcentral Alaska. It was by far the most powerful in U.S. history, and one of the largest recorded of all time. It created a lethal tsunami that reached as far as the Hawaiian islands and pinballed between them. Back in Alaska, there were aftershocks-disguised as 6.0 full-blown earthquakes-for an entire year. I imagine the Alaskan terrain itself looking down at California and thinking, My earthquake eats your earthquake for breakfast. My earthquake eats your earthquake for breakfast. When the plates shifted, the land not only cracked but actually dropped toward the earth's core. This happened so quickly that the root systems of whole forests were exposed, flooded, and destroyed. But the wood itself was preserved from the inside out by salt water. Refusing to rot like normal dead trees, the Ghost Forests remain to this day, the wet dream of Edward Gorey's landscape architect. They are vegetative vampires-so pale they glow at night, branches sharp like fangs, not dead but frozen. As the car speeds along, I try to pick out one tree from the blur on which to focus, following it from the front of the window to the back. When the plates shifted, the land not only cracked but actually dropped toward the earth's core. This happened so quickly that the root systems of whole forests were exposed, flooded, and destroyed. But the wood itself was preserved from the inside out by salt water. Refusing to rot like normal dead trees, the Ghost Forests remain to this day, the wet dream of Edward Gorey's landscape architect. They are vegetative vampires-so pale they glow at night, branches sharp like fangs, not dead but frozen. As the car speeds along, I try to pick out one tree from the blur on which to focus, following it from the front of the window to the back.

That's when it happens.

My seat belt tears tight across my chest. My stomach lurches, gravitating toward my lungs. My neck bends forward and returns upright. The car swerves and the tires screech and I hear Jeff scream, "Oh, s.h.i.t! Oh, s.h.i.t!" with unmitigated panic. Thoughts are corralled into half-seconds. My head is on fire, my synapses cast in the role of hero and trying to get every image out of the back of my mind and up front to safety. I wonder if we are careening off a cliff. I think, No, it's August-what's there to glide on? Are we even on a cliff? No, it's August-what's there to glide on? Are we even on a cliff? I see ice. People can careen off ice. Am I going to die like this? Will I drown? And is that so bad? There's more glory in smacking proactively into an iceberg than being smacked into by a taxicab. I try to remember what happens when you drown. Is it as merciful a situation as dying in a fire, where you pa.s.s out from smoke inhalation before you're burned alive? I see ice. People can careen off ice. Am I going to die like this? Will I drown? And is that so bad? There's more glory in smacking proactively into an iceberg than being smacked into by a taxicab. I try to remember what happens when you drown. Is it as merciful a situation as dying in a fire, where you pa.s.s out from smoke inhalation before you're burned alive?

The car stops. We are propelled forward again, and then flopped against our seatbacks, and then... nothing.

No gla.s.s shattering. No explosion. I feel my face, checking off features with my fingertips. As I drop my hand and stare forward, I realize that our car is not the problem. The problem is the pickup truck ahead of us, which has flung itself from a side road and is ahead of us. Its driver is clearly drunk and swerving wildly. If anyone needs to be having half-second death fantasies, it's this guy.

A baby brown bear comes ambling out of the woods. As Jeff's cursing echoes in my head, my newly acquired vocabulary kicks in, momentarily translating "s.h.i.t" to "scat." But after the word zips around, it lands on my primary definition of "scat." I think: Run, little bear, run Run, little bear, run.

But there's no time. The truck plows straight into the cub. The driver speeds off in the same direction he approached (i.e., a sampling of all of them). The noise of the bear being hit is actually not so bad. But the visual isn't doing my denial any favors. The bear rolls next to our car and goes limp, a mound of fetal fur moving up and down, but barely. We gasp in unison, the sound of our warning bells banging against our necks. As we crane to see if the bear is still breathing, April and Jeff spring out of the car. Even for them, this scene is unusual. They flank the bear on either side, preparing to hail oncoming traffic to prevent it from getting hit twice. But no traffic comes. Jeff calls the park service, and we wait. There's no telling how long it will take them to get out here. The animal attempts to distance itself from a widening puddle of blood, leaning on one arm for a moment before collapsing in exhaustion. He can't seem to grasp why the bones and cartilage and muscle that were working so well a moment ago will no longer hold. The blood is growing darker, so that it looks like a flat extension of his fur. It is easily the most upsetting thing I have ever seen.

"I hit a moose in Montana once," one of the bridesmaids says, trying to help.

Everyone turns to look at her. She starts to speak again but doesn't. There's nothing to say. A moose is worse for one's car, but it's ultimately much less cute.

Oh, no.

I seek out the cuddly paw fanatic, and sure enough, her bottom lip is trembling. She can't hold back. She starts crying.

"It'll be okay," says the moose killer.

No, it won't.

The girl becomes hysterical. But in the wrong direction. She worries that the bear will cryogenically heal and become rabid. Having seen her apply a similar level of concern over an egg omelet with cheese on top, which was supposed to be an egg-white omelet with cheese on the side, I a.s.sume her panic will subside at any moment. Instead, her words become increasingly nonsensical, a mixed bag of ranting and dramatic gasps that hack away at my sympathy for the bear. "It's not that big a deal," I want to yell. Except that it is that big a deal. My resentment is rising. I am trying to absorb the situation and would like to do my absorption in peace. In general, I prefer to record all traumas and save them for later, playing them over and over so they can haunt me for a disproportionate number of weeks to come. It's very healthy.

I turn away from her and try to concentrate on the bear, who has now put his baby snout flat to the pavement, his eyes and nose forming a trinity of black spots that look up, searching for a spot on which to fixate. This is more nature than we bargained for, to be sure. Exactly how much more? I find myself longing for yesterday, when I was intimidated by trail mix.

Hysterical Girl continues to be so. I roll down the window, and April leans over me and holds her hand, trying to calm her down, but it's no use. She frenzies herself into a dull mumble, leans over my lap, and implores April and Jeff to get back in the car. She screams as though gathering the troops to retreat on the beaches of Normandy. I rub my ear. I am on the verge of slapping her, convinced it's the humane thing to do, when she pauses and, with the support of a giant heaving breath, belts out: "What about the mama?!" "What about the mama?!"

They say if you give a monkey enough time, he'll type Shakespeare. Presumably, you'd have to give him a typewriter as well. But that's neither here nor there. Either way, the same is true for the neurotic. I whip around and blink at her, my bear bell following me.

"She makes a solid point," I say to April.

When a squirrel makes a poorly timed highway excursion, I am not particularly concerned about its mother emerging from a tree to gouge my eyes out. A bear is another matter. This road cuts straight through a thick forest. Mama can't be far off. And if the punishment for picking a wildflower is scalping, there's no way crippling a cub has a lenient ending. April gets back into the car, her face red and scrunched. She wipes her eyes on her sleeve. Jeff is still on the phone with the park service, looking out for nonexistent traffic.

"Did anyone get the license plate?" he shouts.

"958XPO," I recite. Everyone turns and glares at me, possibly even the bear.

"What?" I look around. "I grew up in the burbs. We were all afraid of getting kidnapped. I used to memorize the license plates of shady vans."

I may not know how to gut a salmon or BeDazzle a gun case, but I am not without my skills.

Just then a car pulls up behind ours, and a man in a Navy Seals T-shirt and green fishing hat emerges. He adjusts the hat as he walks forward. He adopts a "What seems to be the problem here?" swagger that feels out of place. The problem is apparent, the picture painted: baby bear, injured, blood on pavement. The man and Jeff stand over the bear. The introduction of a stranger somehow reactivates the hysterics of the pa.s.senger to my right.

"Oh my G.o.d," she snorts. "What's he doing here?"

I don't know, driving home? Making waffles? It's his state, not ours. What are we doing here? I can feel the tingling in my hand as if I've already slapped her, so right does it feel. Before I left for Alaska, my sister told me to (a) fly safe and (b) watch out because "I hear everyone has a gun." I glare at our sniffler. Now, I think, would be such a good time for that to be true. Although after her last revelation I wonder if she sees something I don't. Perhaps danger has a color. Perhaps this man's aura is flashing neon red and is visible only to unnerved women. Meanwhile, the conversation on the road is growing heated. I make a move to get up, only to realize I've had my seat belt fastened this whole time. By the time I unbuckle it, the man has taken a wide step toward the bear.

"Hey," I say, surprised at the sound of my own voice.

The bear tries to get up once again, this time with less success and the bonus indignity of defecation. We are helpless as goldfish behind the SUV's gla.s.s. The man lifts the back of his T-shirt to reveal a small holster. He removes a handgun and shoots the bear point-blank in the head four times.

The blood goes black.

Our bells are silenced.

The sound of gunshots reverberates off the tree trunks and rocks around us. I wonder about avalanche triggers. There's a collective whimper in the car. I have always wondered what I would do if I was in one of those movies where someone gets stabbed or eaten alive while I'm in the closet or under the bed. The last thing one wants is to be unprepared when one walks into the bathroom to find their spouse has been making toast on the ledge of the bathtub again. again. Now I know. I would do nothing. I would just stare. Make a note of it and replay it later. Now I know. I would do nothing. I would just stare. Make a note of it and replay it later.

Which I will, and recklessly. I know each time I tell this story, I damage my memory of it. Each time it moves a little further away from what happened. The visuals are fading, merging what dead animal fur looks like and what I think think dead animal fur looks like. I remember the polar bears in the zoo and think perhaps it's just a bear-specific issue. All stories involving bears and blood are subject to literal and mental disfiguration. And yet I can't resist the retelling. Look how dead animal fur looks like. I remember the polar bears in the zoo and think perhaps it's just a bear-specific issue. All stories involving bears and blood are subject to literal and mental disfiguration. And yet I can't resist the retelling. Look how real real Alaska got. Look at the beauty and the beasts. More than one person will react by saying, "Nice how everyone in Alaska has a gun in their car." Prior to my arctic excursion I would have dismissed this as a gross generalization. Now I nod. Alaska got. Look at the beauty and the beasts. More than one person will react by saying, "Nice how everyone in Alaska has a gun in their car." Prior to my arctic excursion I would have dismissed this as a gross generalization. Now I nod. Yes. Nice Yes. Nice.

I took one hundred thirty-two photographs in Alaska, one hundred of which are of icebergs. Sometimes you can see otters or fishing poles in the background. Sometimes you can see the Ghost Forests, betraying their vampire-like nature by showing up in pictures. Mostly it's a lot of ice. I blind people with iceberg photos. Here's an iceberg from far away. Here it is again, up close. Here's a chunk of it floating in the water. Here it is from the boat, from the sh.o.r.e, from the side, give me cold, give me big, you're chiseled like an ice sculpture, you're a cube and the ocean is your gla.s.s. Brrr, baby, brrrr. The pictures are frustrating.

What I want to say is: Here is a country that is ours but not ours. A crazed landscape of death and marriage with designated bells to acknowledge both. Here is the longest breath of fresh air you will ever take, the bluest stream you will ever dip your hand in, the humane thing to do. Here is my friend, who I miss so much. I may have found new people with new novelties, perhaps even better suited to my own. But none to go kayaking on the Hudson with me. None to look up more than they look down. None to remind me that this is, and has always been, the real world as long as people are here to witness it. Why does none of it show up on film? Maybe I just need a better camera.

If You Sprinkle

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

-SHAKESPEARE, VIA Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I had little red circles stuck to my chin, cheeks, and forehead when Zooey Ellis warned us that Rachel Hermann was going to be joining our slumber party. We sat in a circle as Zooey instructed us to be extra-sensitive because Rachel was new to school. And because she had two mommies. No one, under any circ.u.mstances, was to bring this up. Nor were we to acknowledge this abomination of a situation by encouraging Rachel to bring it up. Giving credence to this unnatural and-let's face it-unfashionable union would risk making Rachel "feel the shame a child of her age should never have to feel." Zooey's parents were Republicans. had little red circles stuck to my chin, cheeks, and forehead when Zooey Ellis warned us that Rachel Hermann was going to be joining our slumber party. We sat in a circle as Zooey instructed us to be extra-sensitive because Rachel was new to school. And because she had two mommies. No one, under any circ.u.mstances, was to bring this up. Nor were we to acknowledge this abomination of a situation by encouraging Rachel to bring it up. Giving credence to this unnatural and-let's face it-unfashionable union would risk making Rachel "feel the shame a child of her age should never have to feel." Zooey's parents were Republicans.

I nodded in unison with the rest of the girls, memorizing Mrs. Ellis's words as they funneled forth from a miniature version of her pouty mouth. One of the red stickers came loose from my chin and fell on the carpet. I plucked it up, pinching it in my nail bed, but when I went to put it back on, I saw that its minuscule circ.u.mference was already covered with carpet fibers. So I sat on it instead. The sticker, meant to double as a "zit," was part of a board game called Girl Talk, an early-'90s version of truth-or-dare, designed to sanction prep.u.b.escent cruelty via laminated cardboard. Accompanying the board itself were zits peeled from an adhesive sheet and doled out to those who refused to partic.i.p.ate in dares. Imagine the karmic opposite of candy dots. Girl Talk was the main reason I wound up enrolling in a college without a Greek system.

The game began by spinning a plastic arrow so cheap and lopsided that you didn't "spin" it so much as flick it very fast. The arrow touched down in one of four pie-shaped categories of clairvoyance: MARRIAGECHILDRENCAREERSPECIAL MOMENTS.

The whole concept of forecasting and fortune telling was very en vogue at the time, often taking the form of origami finger puppets that told you when you'd lose your virginity and where you'd live when you grew up. Soda-can tabs predicted the first letter of your future husband's name, candles melted to reveal secret scrolls, moods were exposed depending on the temperature of your ring finger. The future was everywhere, and it was all very illuminating. Girl Talk simply did the grunt work for you, its forecasting preprinted on triangular cards that fit into the board like the courses in TV dinner entrees.

To its credit, Girl Talk was downright empowering compared to Mall Madness, a game of fiscal responsibility that encouraged girls to buy everything in sight until they found a boy to do it for them. Girl Talk was also strangely complicated, a layered enterprise with rules complex enough to make the ancient Chinese game of Go look like Candy Land. Before you put your fate in the hands of a plastic wheel, you had a choice. You could either tell the truth or pick from a series of dares. These ranged from the coy ("Call a boy and ask him who he likes") to the suspect ("Act like Pee-wee Herman for one minute") to the dehumanizing ("Lap up a bowl of water like a dog").

Imagine, if you will, the legal repercussions of a game manufactured today in which underage girls are encouraged to call strangers' homes in the middle of the night. Or to leave the house sporting a "silly outfit." It's all fun and games until someone winds up in the back of a cop car, clutching a Cabbage Patch Kid. In hindsight, I am proud that I declined to imitate a convicted child molester or a.s.sume a doggie position in order to win a board game. As if all this wasn't enough, you needed "household" items to play, including shoelaces, a short-wave radio, and a blindfold. Were we preparing for our future fiances or the apocalypse? Or both?

The Special Moments cards were far and away my favorite. Even as kids, we recognized the dated presumption that all our special moments would have to be found outside outside the colored wedges of Marriage or Career. Nope, no joy there. Cue the visual of grown Girl Talk players, seeking out their "special moments" by going on shopping sprees beyond their means, binge-eating their children's Easter candy, and sitting on dressing room benches, trying on La Perla underwear and weeping.... the colored wedges of Marriage or Career. Nope, no joy there. Cue the visual of grown Girl Talk players, seeking out their "special moments" by going on shopping sprees beyond their means, binge-eating their children's Easter candy, and sitting on dressing room benches, trying on La Perla underwear and weeping....

It's easy to point at the past and say, "Can you believe we ever thought this was okay?" It makes one wonder what contemporary nuggets of idiocy we're producing. What we call "normal" now will eventually be viewed as cultural carbon monoxide-the silent killer of logic and good sense, imperceptible until we all wake up in ten years surrounded by photos of women wearing sungla.s.ses sized for bullmastiffs on their way to stick vials of stroke medication into their eyebrows. Looking back, I can't decide which makes me cringe more-that I avoided speaking to Rachel Hermann about her home life or that I partic.i.p.ated in a game that predicted the number of babies I would one day expel from my body as dictated by the first digit of my area code. That would be nine. Who wrote this s.h.i.t? Mormons?

If I had been permitted to ask Rachel questions, I'm not sure what they would have been. But what I can say is what they wouldn't have been. They wouldn't have been about the devil's musical stylings that were the Indigo Girls. Or hemp. Or why one of her mothers wore gym shorts in the middle of winter. I wished I could spin an arrow and it could land on a new category called Reality. I wondered: What was Rachel's life like? What did she make of us? Did she have to put stickers on her face and drink from a dog bowl where she came from? If you have two mommies, can you still play one parent off the other? Were you saddled with two bad cops or blessed with two pushovers?

"Hey"-one of Zooey's minions poked me in the biceps-"I think you're missing a zit."

She bounced her index finger in close proximity to my face, counting my battle scars. Then she consulted the rule-book, searching for a punishment for the intentional smuggling of fake pimples.

For all its many flaws-and there were many-at Girl Talk's core was the single lesson that prepared me for truth-or-dare. Which prepared me for "I never." A thread of advice that strung through all the drinking games of New England and, subsequently, life as I know it. I learned that if you want to get out of something, it is always better to tell the truth. Not because it is the moral option, but because nine times out of ten, it's less work. The path of least resistance. Turn the pockets of your past inside out, beat your peers to the punch, expose yourself, and bore the people around you into leaving you be. Two-mommied Rachel knew this, too.

When she arrived after dark, it somehow made sense that she would be dropped off later than everyone else, that her parents parented differently than ours did. Not so much because there were multiple sets of b.r.e.a.s.t.s involved, but because Rachel had just moved to the East Coast from California. What the time difference didn't account for, the Berkeley mentality did. "Seven p.m." was more of a suggestion than a fact.

Rachel was tall for our age, lanky, with wide-set eyes that would be identified by any modeling scout as "Jackie O-like" but which were identified by our peers as Kermitlike. She had already begun to hunch. If I have ever come to the defense of a celebrity who claims to have been called Olive Oyl or Skeletor as a child, Rachel is the reason. But for all her physical discomfort, she had a sense of calm about her. Her voice, which never surpa.s.sed a certain octave, made me conscious of keeping my own exaggerated squeaks to a minimum. She seemed a bit older and a lot wiser than we were, the way people who have lived elsewhere seem when you're twelve years old. If I could make a graph of our miniature society, charting how much Rachel spoke, how many stories and crushes of her own she shared, how many times she complimented other girls, Rachel would fall exactly in the center. Over the next few years, she landed in this spot with apparent effortlessness. Whereas my endeavors to fit in were always soaked with effort. Alas, taking stock after each chauffeured trip to the movies and each sleepover, I calculated too many failed jokes, too little volume control, or too much forced mysterious silence on my part. Or, worst of all, zero attention from Zooey.

ASIDE FROM THE TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD FRESHMAN, the most unrealistic aspect of teen movies is how conscious the upper echelons are of their own status. Whereas in real life, such hyper-awareness of group dynamic would only damage one's social standing. Cafeteria tables may be as delineated as nation-states, but the borders remain invisible at all times. Getting caught muttering Shakespearean monologues about one's plans for coup-staging would make you seem schizophrenic. When it comes to pointing out middle-school injustice, it's not just impolite to point-it's unproductive. At the time I thought we were all conscious of this system, undetectable to the naked eye as it was. As it turns out, the bird's-eye view of grade school is not to be found at the top of the tree. The alt.i.tude of popularity actually makes you a little stupid.

I know this because in adult life, I am friendly with a girl who would have been portrayed as a Queen Bee in any teen drama but at the time clearly thought of herself as, say, an affable ladybug. A Marie Antoinette figure who unconsciously abused and misunderstood her position. Oblivious to the system, she a.s.sumed that the populace of other cliques was composed of people who shared different interests, who she just didn't know as well. Recently she said to me, "Can you believe it? Craig Marcos got divorced."

I scrolled through the contact list in my head until I produced an image the approximate size and shape of someone named Craig Marcos.

I said, "Craig Marcos got married?"

The blithe a.s.sumption that I kept tabs on her friends, that I'd be invested in their contemporary lives, would be insulting if it wasn't so flattering. She viewed her world not in cliques but as this borderless ma.s.s of fun where the only reason she might not see you at a secret party was because you were across town at an even better and more secret party. It was downright touching. How can you not want to hug Marie Antoinette just a little bit when she suggests replacing bread with cake? It's made of sugar and flour. It's not like it's a bad bad idea. idea.

Zooey was a different animal. One got the feeling she was abnormally aware of her power within this falsely inclusive echelon. But she would never wield it against me. Not because I had done anything especially cool to warrant my turn skipped in that great Girl Talk game of life. I simply had too much on her.

The incident had taken place in fifth grade, a time when I was regularly raising my hand and asking for the bathroom hall pa.s.s during math cla.s.s. The "pa.s.s" was a normal-sized key with a wooden block the size of a brick attached to it. This was meant to broadcast the administration's lack of faith in our ability to hold on to small objects. Still, I would rather clutch in my hand that corroded block, which every child who didn't wash his or her hands had just clutched, than spend half an hour writing numbers on a blackboard. Afflicted with the plight of the right-brained, I had no gift for percentages or protractors. I raised my hand for the hall pa.s.s with increasing frequency.

I'd wander around the school grounds, kicking acorns on the concrete beneath the basketball net and stopping to appreciate the big mural outside the auditorium. Little did I know I was about two pee-break excursions away from my math teacher calling my mother and my mother calling a doctor, who would quiz me on my frequent urination habits. I felt at once empowered by and guilty about the perception my teachers and parents had of me, that of a child whose devious acts were not the stuff of white lies but the stuff of white coats. Surely there must be some terrible force beyond my control causing me to skip cla.s.s. Testing negative for everything, the doctor left me with the suggestion that I "wipe more thoroughly," a piece of advice that has stayed with me to this day, despite the fact that I was being misdiagnosed at the time it was given.