Take a Lemon

Thanks to Phil, I arrived at the Messenger’s offices around 1:30 and immediately asked the receptionist if I could see “Mr. Cracraft.” Told by her that “an attractive young lady” was calling on him, my target came to the receptionist’s desk fairly quickly. He was a bit older than my father, and his carefully trimmed and elaborate gray moustache added a slightly debonair touch to an otherwise plain appearance. When he learned my name, however, he was somewhat less eager.

“Miss Steen,” he said severely, “I told you via email that I couldn’t help you.”

“I was hoping that I could at least speak to you about the article,” I said, whimpering slightly.

He rolled his eyes and nodded. “Fine. Why don’t you come back to my desk? I’ll give you ten minutes.”

Seated demurely in his extra chair, I told him how distraught I had been at finding my life turned upside down, and how I had been forced to get used to a completely new group of friends, none of whom had known the old me. It wasn’t completely true, as both Lee Ann and Sheila had known me as Marshall, although of course now they didn’t. I shed a tear as I explained how the one friend in whom I had confided had suggested that it all a delusion, and that the old self I remembered was a complete fabrication.

“And I just hoped,” I said, starting to break down into tears, “that if one of my old friends had also been subject to this… this horrible experience, that she might remember me and we could comfort one another.” I was effective, and I knew it, and he was clearly affected, although trying to maintain professional detachment.

“Miss Steen,” he reminded me, “a reporter owes a bond of confidentiality to his sources. If we gave out their names, we would soon lose their trust, and we would not have important information available to print, and our readers would lose out.”

“But–” I protested.

“The students who came to me relied on my journalistic integrity not to give out their names. In this case, they could well be in a lot of trouble with the school administration, which has tried to pester me to find out who they were. I don’t know if there was any real experiment, or if the whole thing was a hoax; that’s for my readers to decide. What I do know is that the school administration clearly wanted it silenced.

“Now, if it was real, you may well be the damsel in distress that you appear to be. If not, you could be an administration spy, trying to get around me. In either case, I cannot tell you how to contact my sources. It is not my place to make that choice and possibly put them at risk.”

“So you can’t help me at all?” This time, I didn’t need to act to sound upset. I had been so certain that he would fold; this was my last chance to prove my identity, if only to myself. “I… I really need this. I know I’m who I think I am, but I can’t prove it, and I’m starting to doubt myself. I’m… kind of going crazy. Isn’t there any way you can put me in touch with them?”

“As I was saying, I cannot place them at risk; however, there is one thing I can do for you. I know how to reach some of those who came to me. If you will give me your phone number, I can pass it along. If they choose not to contact you, that’s the end of it. I can do no more. If they do contact you…”

Feeling utterly defeated, I gave him my cell number and returned to school. Either somebody would contact me or they wouldn’t. I didn’t know what I would do if they just ignored me. There had to be some other way; I just couldn’t think of one.

In the past, when I’d felt this much at a loss, I’d generally sat and played my guitar. The best I could do now was to practice my chord progression: D7 – G – A7. I played it over and over again until my fingers ached and I had to stop. This was going to take forever, but it was all I had. I needed to find that lab. I spent another fruitless hour searching for it, and dragged myself back to my room for more studies.

Yeah, I was feeling sorry for myself; I knew that. I just didn’t have a great solution. And to think that just two days ago, I had been elated at being able to kiss a boy convincingly.

So it was actually a bit of an up for me when several of “us” girls went out that evening. It turned out that our destination was a sort of concert a few of the student rock bands were giving on the basketball court. At the very least, I’d get a chance to see how some of the other guitarists on campus were doing. I remembered some of them, although of course they wouldn’t remember me as a fellow musician.

Sheila and Lisa met us at our room after dinner, and Terry was with us as well, making five. There was a fairly decent turnout, probably close to two hundred students, and we found seats about halfway up the bleachers where we had a good view, but wouldn’t be blasted if the bands didn’t know how to work the volume control of their amplifiers.

The first band called itself Wet Smoke and played an odd mix of punk and metal. It seemed that they were still experimenting with their sound, and not really impressing anyone, although their bassist had a very good command of his instrument and a decent voice, which I felt was showcased too little. The girl who was their lead vocalist didn’t do justice to the few original songs they played, although she was competent on the covers. If they had asked me, I would have dumped her, had the bassist do the singing, and added another instrument. There were a number of boys sitting in the two rows behind us, and they seemed a lot more interested in trying to pick up Lisa and Sheila than listening to the music. One of them made a play for Terry, which she deftly rebuffed.

Mercifully, the set was over after about forty-five minutes, and we got up to stretch while the second band set up. The boys behind us introduced themselves as Carl, Umberto, Scott, and a couple of others, whose names I didn’t actually catch; I didn’t really want to get into conversations with them, lest they think I was flirting with them. It was just so much easier for me to talk with guys who already knew Marsha either as a friend or fellow actor.

The second band was much better. They had dubbed themselves Debt and the Midterms, and played a classic rock style, mostly covers. Both their bassist and their guitarist were quite competent, although not quite up to my standard. Their music was very danceable, and Lisa, Terry, and Sheila were on their feet fairly quickly, swinging their hips and generally rocking out to the vocal appreciation of the boys behind us. They were clearly having a blast, and Lee Ann joined them, leaving only me of our group sitting. Of course, my friends weren’t going to permit that, and Terry and Lisa each grabbed one of my arms and pulled me to my feet.

I started to sway very tentatively, aware that there were guys staring at my body, but then I remembered something that Mr. Condrin had said: if you are timid, you will look foolish and your audience will know that something is wrong, but if you act as though you know what you are doing, any laughter will be with you, not at you. So I took a deep breath and started to imitate my friends. It was kind of fun, actually. I felt the rhythm and just let it took hold; my hips seemed to be made for this kind of movement. It felt feminine, to be sure, but I was playing a role, so it was really OK, and as a performer, I reveled in the reaction that we were getting from our private audience. The adrenaline rush wasn’t too bad, either.

We wound up not staying for the third band; the boys talked my friends into coming back to their dorm to party. I objected, but was easily outvoted. It was not until we got to our destination that it occurred to me that there were five of them and five of us, meaning that we were probably going to be expected to pair off – something I had absolutely not bargained for. Fortunately, Lee Ann wasn’t particularly interested in the idea, either, so we wound up sitting together on a couch, with Scott and Carl seated separately on either side of us, and just talked.

The music the boys were playing was fairly soft, so that we didn’t have to raise our voices, and Terry and Sheila were slow dancing with two of them. I didn’t see Lisa, and didn’t particularly care to know where she and the other boy had gotten to. Carl was interested – or at least pretended to be interested – in the play, and promised to attend. I’m sure he thought that he would get a more hospitable welcome if he did. The thing is, I was quite familiar with what the boys were doing – I had done it myself many times, and with no little success. It would not have surprised me if at least one couple formed as a result. Of course, they didn’t know that three of us were effectively off limits; Lee Ann and Terry seemed to be enjoying some harmless male attention, while I just tried to keep my own situation under control.

I can’t really say that Carl did or said anything inappropriate. It’s just that, as a guy, I knew what he was thinking, in a way that girls almost certainly didn’t. Vicky and Jackie and… I guess I’d have to include Maddy as well, had all seemed so innocent about male motivations. It was as if they had expected all guys to be like me – primarily interested in a relationship, and seeing sex as something that made sense as part of it. I knew from conversations with my buddies, though, that most of them would have been quite happy to jump right to the sex part, relationship be damned. Lisa had apparently already succumbed to this.

I was quite relieved when Terry decided it call it a night after about an hour and a half, and collected our crew – all except for Lisa, that is. It was my first real experience at fending off male advances (I didn’t count Jared’s inept proposition), and I was quite relieved to have managed without any hurt feelings or harm. It made me wonder – had I always been as considerate of girls I had chatted up at parties? I would really hate to have thought that I’d made them as nervous as I myself had felt. Of course, in most cases, the girls I’d been speaking with had been interested in boys and presumably wouldn’t have minded having advances made, right? Surely I had never been so insensitive as to force myself conversationally on a girl who simply wasn’t interested?

It was a vexing question – how would I have known? What should I have done to make sure? And what should I have done tonight to make sure that Carl knew I wasn’t really interested in anything beyond conversation? I’d always thought myself something of an expert at all of this courtship stuff – yet I seemed to have found some blind spots. Suddenly, I didn’t feel as confident as before. It was one more thing to worry about when all of this was finally sorted out.