“Yeah, okay. Enjoy your evening.”
“And you yours, good sir!”
Charlie put the car in gear and headed toward Mary and the Grove beyond.
8 THE UNCANNY VALLEY
Inside the ring of trees, the lights of parked cars sliced this way and that through the night, lighting the woods in spears of fluorescence.
Mary led Charlie through the woods, giving no clue of her intentions.
She had been silent most of the ride over, moving gracefully from her front porch into Charlie’s beat-up old family car, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if this weren’t unprecedented and inexplicable by any known rules of high school logic or primate mating rituals. We’re way past anthropology, Charlie thought. This is The Twilight Zone with hormones.
At one point, she took his hand. It wasn’t flirtatious and it only lasted a moment, as she led him down a short drop, as if she could navigate the Grove in her sleep. She was just keeping him from tripping as they both ducked under a gnarled, low-hanging branch and down the rocky clumped-earth stairsteps, one two. Then she let go and all that was left was the tingling on his palm and fingers, like an amputee mourning the loss of his hand.
How did he suddenly find himself with the girl he’d loved since seventh grade? One who was never in his league, yet for whom he’d always harbored the illusion that deep down she had every reason to cross social barriers and know the real him? Did he dare allow himself to dream that after five years, countless student council meetings, even late nights working on class projects (sitting on her bed, door cracked per parental rules), suddenly now it was going to happen? In senior year, just as all were preparing to go their separate ways? And why not? Wouldn’t this be the time when things did go off the rails a little, loosen up, the freedom of never seeing half these people again just on the horizon? Wasn’t this the uncanny valley—a moment where things could suddenly follow new rules or no rules at all? Charlie had been in free fall for two years. Maybe he was about to fall into something.
Mary was about to answer the question.
They were steps from coming out into the clearing, where everyone was gathered, drinking and hanging out, some around a bonfire, others reclining on the hoods of cars, their engines running and music drifting out. But they were still shielded from sight by the last thick rows of trees around the clearing.
Mary put a hand on Charlie’s chest to stop him from walking. She looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Oh.” It was the last thing he wanted to hear. I love you would have been nice. Take me now, heart slayer would have been fine, if a little medieval. But back to his mom, no. That was about the last thing he wanted to think about. He thought about it pretty much all the time. But here, in this clearing, the way the moon cast blue light down through the trees, for just a moment that lingering, needling pain in the pit of his stomach had gone away.
Now it was back.
“Thanks,” he said, thinking of some way to change the subject.
“I told you that a year ago. Do you remember?”
Of course I remember, Charlie wanted to say. It had been the most humiliating moment of his life. Here he was, a grieving junior at his mother’s funeral, after a year of hell. Suddenly, the most beautiful girl in school shows up at the funeral, standing in the back. Why? Charlie found her after the funeral, in a quiet long hallway of the church, tried to thank her, but couldn’t get the words out. She’d said she was sorry, and Charlie misunderstood the situation—what the hell was she doing there anyway, didn’t it have to be a sign she’d felt the same all along?—and kissed her. It was clumsy, gentle. She went in to hug him, and he misunderstood and placed his lips gently on hers. The electricity was unbearable. Her lips were softer than he could ever imagine. She lingered for a second, then pulled back and said, also gently, which was worse, “No, no”—not a command, but surprised. Like Oh, no, you poor sweet puppy. He’d been delirious with grief and now shame. “I’m sorry,” he’d mumbled, and she’d said, “That’s okay,” and that was the last they spoke for a year, while she’d gone on to live her life and Charlie had circled the drain.
And now she was bringing it up. Charlie noticed her fumbling with a new bracelet on her wrist. It looked expensive. Like more than he could ever afford.
“That’s nice,” he said, looking at it, and she winced, as if he’d poked her in the gut with a sharp finger.
“Do you remember my brother?”
“I knew who he was,” Charlie said. “I didn’t really know him.”
“He was amazing.”
That was one word for Brian Clark. He was an older, male version of Mary. Perfect. Legendary.
Brian’s car had been smashed head-on by a drunk driver his senior year, the year before he would’ve left on a full ride to A&M. Now Mary was president of her school’s chapter of SADD. She had founded the club in Brian’s honor.
“The first year was the worst. It gets easier.”
“I know,” Charlie said, because he was supposed to say that.
She fingered the bracelet again. “Do you ever feel like your whole life is a lie?”
“Not a lie. Just a mess. Do you?”
She turned the bracelet absently, then let her arms drop. “Something about senior year. You feel like everything could change. It will change. There’s a possibility for a new life. Do you feel that way?”
“I used to. I used to want to go to Harvard. My friend Vanhi and I had a pact that we’d both apply and go there together. I know it’s crazy. You can’t just want one school, especially a school like that. I kept telling Vanhi that. But now it doesn’t matter. I doubt I could get in if I wanted to. I let everything go.”
The sky was a deep purple, the color of clouds reflecting light pollution. But the woods themselves were dark and shrouded.
In elementary school, Mary was precocious, popular, spunky. In middle school, she was tall, athletic, quiet. In high school, she was dazzling, better than the people she surrounded herself with. Charlie had run for student council just to be near her. He’d loved her for most of his life.
“You’re going to be okay,” Mary said, taking his hand.
Was he supposed to kiss her? Good God, the image of the fumbled kiss from the funeral came back. No fucking way would he make that mistake twice. The shame would literally crack him.
“Why do you care?” he asked instead.
There it was. It just popped out. The emotion just bubbled up and slipped past him.
She looked taken aback. “We’re friends.”
“Are we?”
“You don’t want to be my friend?”
“No,” Charlie said, not in a mean way, but in a way that was clear.
She looked at him with wide eyes. “I have to go.”
He realized she was still holding his hand. He closed his fingers, gently tighter. “Don’t.”
“If Tim sees you…”
“Sees me what?”
“Charlie, you don’t know him like I do.”
“I thought he wasn’t here.”
“He’s not. But his friends…”