An Accidental Interception
of Fate:  Salt and Pepper
Minisinoo

"So ­-- what do we got?"  Scott plopped down on the floor of the music room in the basement of their Unit Three dining hall, and looked up at EJ, sitting on the piano bench.  The piano was the small room's only furniture, besides the carpet.

"Three drummers who don't know the meaning of 'dynamics,'" EJ said now, "two who can't hold a rhythm, one who was three hours late for the audition and, well, The Surfer Dude."

"Christ."  Scott dropped back, arms out to his side in a symbolic cruciform of musical suffering.  His amplifier hummed in his ear, ready, waiting.  "We've got no band if we've got no drummer.  Anybody else answer the ad?"

"Yeah, but that guy's not coming to audition until tomorrow."

"Damn."  Scott sat up and pushed his glasses firmly onto his nose.  "Then help me carry my equipment back over to our room and let's go eat."  EJ did as asked, picking up the bass and its stand while Scott hauled the amplifier.  

Scott's bass equipment had been shipped to him at Jean's insistence.  He hadn't wanted to put anyone out at the mansion by asking them to box it up and pay to have it shipped, but Jean, and Warren, had argued that there was no reason for him to wait until Thanksgiving, or even Christmas.  Both agreed that Scott worried too much about the cost of things ­-- shipping the equipment was negligible for Worthington ­-- but at least Jean understood that being beholden to people made Scott feel weak, and ashamed.  "It's nothing, Scott.  Really.  We boxed it up with Hank's help, then Warren called UPS to come and get it, and that was that."  

"It's over a hundred bucks to ship that stuff!  That amp's heavy!"

"Pocket change for him," she'd said.  Scott had snorted on the other end of the phone line, and she'd added, "Look, boy-o, Warren wanted to send it to you.  Let him and say thanks.  A hundred dollars is no more of an imposition for him than it would be for you to spend a dollar to buy a friend a cup of coffee."  

So Scott now had his gear, and he and EJ had begun serious work towards a band.  EJ had been writing music for years, and had a gift for both lyrics and composition, yet his compositions lacked a certain edge.  Scott himself had no talent for producing original work of his own, but he could listen to what EJ had produced and, when he added his own touch here and there, something happened ­-- some chemical reaction of melody and rhythm.  

Rather like their entire experience as roommates.  

"Yo!  Hot chick alert at five o'clock."  

Scott attempted to look without quite looking as he and EJ made their way through the dining hall service, but as was often the case, his lack of full peripheral vision hobbled him.  "Man, the only hot chick I see is the one in the dumplings."  

"Denim skirt, white shirt, on your right."  

"Oh.  Yeah.  I'd say she's, um . . . an eight, maybe?"

"Eight-point-five.  Dig those legs."  

"You're a certified leg man, Eeej."  

"We won't comment on what you are, Slim-boy."  

Scott just laughed and loaded on the macaroni and cheese.  EJ eyed his plate.  "You're gonna die from a heart attack before you're fifty, eating like that.  Besides, how do you stomach that stuff?  Takes like dead rubber coated in wax."  

Licking a stray bit of cheese off his finger, Scott shrugged.  "Food is food."  

EJ shook his head, wondering if his roommate's taste buds might have suffered from the same malady that had rendered him light-sensitive.  EJ himself had picked up a cup of fruit, a salad, some bread and baked fish, while Scott had death by cholesterol in macaroni and cheese, buttered mash potatoes, steak and gravy, and cornbread.  

At least living with Summers didn't mean he had to eat like him.  EJ was still trying to figure out how anyone who inhaled a high-carb diet like that could be as thin as Summers was.  For that matter, there were a lot of things about his roommate that baffled EJ.  

Food acquired, EJ led them out to the dining area and parked them at a table with some of their dorm neighbors of the opposite sex.  "Evenin', ladies."  He grinned and seated himself amid the five girls, who made quick room for him.  Then he kicked out a chair for Summers, who was hanging back.  "Siddown, slim-boy."  A month into the semester, EJ had simply stopped asking his roommate if he wanted to eat with this group or that ­-- Summers' inevitable reply was 'no' --­ and had begun joining whatever table looked likely to welcome them, or had space.  It was easier to get forgiveness than permission.  And when maneuvered into it, Summers usually acquiesced.  And enjoyed himself, too.  

It was those damn glasses, EJ was certain.  Summers hadn't had them that long, apparently.  EJ had seen a few pictures of him, from high school.  No glasses.  Yet now he had them, and he never, ever took them off unless it was to replace them with goggles, and even then, he'd hide his eyes with a hand as he did so.  "Extreme light sensitivity" he'd explained, their very first night.  Even a 10-watt nightlight on his unprotected eyes caused unbearable pain, and EJ wasn't sure what to make of that, but Summers had all the medical paperwork, and had filed with the Disabled Students Program, so what did EJ know?  Summers was a year older, going on nineteen instead of eighteen, and though he was from San Diego, he'd been out in New York for a year at what sounded like some kind of rehab institute.  He'd been blind for a while, too, he'd said once, and EJ wondered how well he saw even now, since he still had some blind-man habits.  He'd ordered his clothing precisely, and tended to keep shoes and other objects out of the walkway, even if the rest of his side of the dorm looked like a tornado had hit it.  Occasionally, he walked into the edges of things, as if he hadn't noticed where an object ended, but the side-blinders might account for that.  

All this, EJ had gathered from a combination of careful observation and well-placed, apparently innocent questions.  Growing up, he'd watched his father or mother casually interview church members at meetings or Bible studies or Wednesday Night Supper, and then later assemble the puzzle pieces one at a time to get the big picture.  It took patience.  Now, the more pieces that EJ acquired, the more curious he grew about Scott Summers.  He concluded that, light sensitivity aside, his roommate must have something seriously wrong with his eyes, serious enough that Scott wouldn't allow anyone else to see them, and EJ wondered what manner of disfigurement he'd suffered, and how bad it looked.  It had to be something like that, EJ decided, or why would a previously popular, good-looking guy now get as twitchy in crowds as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs?  

A girl at his father's church -- his sister's best friend -- had been severely burned a child.  Come summer, she'd always cease attending parties or youth group activities, lest she be forced into a situation that would require her to reveal the bright pink scar tissue on her back and bare legs.  Marred forever, and terrified of rejection, it had taken EJ two years of coaxing before Diane had let him see her in shorts.  

"So, how goes the drummer search?" asked one of the girls at their table, while picking all the raisins out of a muffin.  Her name was Phoebe.  Her mother was Japanese and her father American, and she'd come out on the best end of both bargains.  EJ could get lost in black eyes like that.  

Summers glanced at EJ, but pointed his fork at Phoebe.  "How does she know about our drummer search?"

"The whole dorm knows about your drummer search," one of the other girls said, wrinkling her nose at him like a flirting bunny.  

"I been advertising," EJ explained.  

"Great," Summers muttered, and EJ could almost see him roll his eyes behind the shades.  "Our proto-band is dorm gossip."  

"Not gossip, man.  Marketing."  

"It's more exciting than the non-existent Big-C UFO," said bunny-nose.  Her real name was Elizabeth 'Call me Liz' --­ but no one did.  

"Man, won't that die?"  Summers asked no one in particular.  

EJ just chuckled.  "Ain't no UFO, ladies.  Just some Stanford dumbass with a red light.  He figures he can tie Berkeley tail in a knot."  

"It was over two months ago," Summers said.  

"Yeah, but no one ever figured it out."   Phoebe spoke in a low, Nimoyesque tone and wove her head from side to side, like an asp before biting, "History's Mysteries, y'know?"  Then she wiggled her fingers and giggled.  "Or in this case, Berkeley's Mysteries."  She took a sip from her Sobe Green Tea.  "I wonder what it really was?"

"Who cares?" Summers said together with EJ's "Standford guys."  They looked at each other, and grinned.  Conversation branched from there, and now that he'd been drawn out of his shell, Scott participated readily enough.  Perhaps he'd simply surrendered to the inevitable, but after supper ­-- it being a Saturday --­ Phoebe suggested they go out to cruise Telegraph Avenue, and it didn't take much arm bending to convince Summers to tag along.  
 
 
 

"So, you're the guys looking for a drummer?"

"Uh ­-- yeah.  We are," said the white boy, who was wearing shades even indoors in the basement.  A Joe Cool Wannabe, and the bass player, to boot.  Figured.  

"You're Lee Forrester?" the black boy asked.  He was tall, well muscled, and sat at the piano.  "And how'd you get in here without a dorm key?"

"Some guys saw me walking up with the drum and opened the door.  And yeah, I'm Lee.  You got a problem with that?"

"Uh, no.  I just thought, from your e-mail ­-- "

"You saw 'Lee' at the bottom, knew I was a drummer, and assumed I was a guy.  Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and the last time I checked, I had tits underneath it."  

The black boy snorted, half in shock, half in laughter, and the white boy's eyebrows had shot up over the top of his glasses.  Lee Forrester deposited her bass drum on the carpet of the Unit Three music room.  "You guys wanna help me unload my van, or stand around gaping like idiots?"

Exchanging a glance, they followed her upstairs to unload the van.  

In truth, from the time she'd realized that her taste in pastimes ran to classically male pursuits ­-- from Hot Wheels at seven, to baseball at twelve, to joining the high school drum corps as a teen --­ Lee Forrester had made a fine art of shocking the male of the species.  She went out of her way sometimes to keep her gender ambiguous until she deemed it time for a revelation.  Hence, when she'd contacted this band's organizer ­-- apparently the black guy --­ she'd said nothing to dissuade him from thinking she was another guy.  She found it enlightening, to gauge reactions when she showed up in skimpy shorts and a crop top.  These two had been surprised, but they were recovering quickly.  That boded well.  

Auditions went both ways, after all.  
 
 
 

Later, EJ and Scott consulted over coffee.  "So," EJ began.  

"So."  

"Do we have a drummer?"

"Well, she can keep a rhythm, and she understands dynamics --­ "

" ­-- and she can play a double-bass trap set, man!"

"But can we live with the acid tongue?"

"Hey, I live with yours, slim-boy."   EJ laughed, but then grew serious.  "You mind having a chick in the band?"

"No.  Do you?"

"No."  

Their denial, of course, was more a matter of saying what they were supposed to say rather than what they actually felt.  Neither had ever been in a mixed-gender band before, and weren't too sure what to expect.  But this was Berkeley, and it was the '90s, and women in rock music had become blasé.  "Okay," EJ said finally, "We'll offer her the spot."  

"Assuming she'll take it.  I don't know if she liked us."  

"Oh, she liked you, slim-boy.  She was checking out your ass every time you turned your back."

Summers blushed, in part because he'd had to restrain himself from checking out the curve of her bust under her t-shirt, especially when she'd started to sweat from the exertion of drumming.  He wasn't sure what to make of being attracted to a fellow band member.  

"So what are we going to call it?" EJ asked.  

"Call what?"  Scott's mind had still been fixated on images of Lee Forrester's bustline.  

"The band, man."  

"Oh.  I dunno.  You're the ringleader, EJ.  What d'you want to call it?"

Silence again for a few minutes.  "I been thinking on that, actually.  How 'bout 'Soapbox.' I mean, a lot of what I write, the lyrics --­ "

"They're a soapbox, all right!" Summers laughed.  "But what kind of name is 'Soapbox'?"

"Easy to remember."  

"All right, all right.  I guess it'll do till we come up with something else."  

They never came up with anything else.  
 
 
 

Lee Forrester had been practicing with 'the boys' for exactly one month when Thanksgiving break rolled in along with the November fog and cool nights.  EJ departed for sunny LA, but neither Scott nor Lee had any place to go.  Lee wasn't a student at Berkeley, nor at their great rival, Stanford.  She did take occasional classes at Mills College in Oakland, but mostly worked for her father's boat rental service.  Warren had offered to fly out to pick up Scott, but Scott had declined.  It had seemed to him an unnecessary expense for a four-day holiday, and he didn't go down to San Diego for the same reasons he hadn't gone there for Christmas the year before.  

So Lee invited Scott out on the water with her.  "Salt-water turkey," she'd told him.  

"What about eating with your family?" he'd asked her.  

"Dad and I kinda avoid the whole 'family holiday thing.' My mom died four years ago."  

"Oh."  He had paused, unsure how to answer such a tragic statement delivered with such self-possessed equanimity.  "Well, um, okay.  Sure.  Thanks.  I like to sail."  

And so it was settled.  Scott would spend Thanksgiving with Lee.  He wondered if he should call this a date or simply mutual propitiation of the gods of boredom.  He was never sure with Lee Forrester.  One practice session, she might flirt with him shamelessly, then the next, put up a barrier bigger then the Hoover Dam.  She was a strange girl:  stubborn, hardheaded, and as bitter sweet as cider vinegar.  She wore independence like plate armor, and he wondered if anyone, ever, would be permitted a peek inside.  Maybe.  But it wouldn't be him.  

For her own part, Lee couldn't explain her fascination with a boy three years younger than her.  Her one, long-standing rule in bands had always been not to fuck over or fuck with fellow band members.  It made things messy.  She'd learned that from vicious experience.  A sharp tongue and good right hook was usually all it took to dissuade the persistent.  Yet here she was, inviting Scott to go sailing over Thanksgiving with every intention of getting his pants off.  Being naked physically was proxy for the emotional.  She wasn't foolish enough to believe in 'no strings' sex; in her experience, there were always strings, whether or not she wanted them.  But sometimes, if one got lucky, they weren't of the kind that trussed one up like a rodeo calf, flung down in the dirt and squirming helpless.  Even if she'd never seen his eyes, she could tell that when he looked at her, he saw more than tits and ass.  He saw that, too --­ he was young; he was male --­ but he asked her opinion on things, and actually listened to her replies.  It wasn't love, by any stretch, but it was respect, and in Lee's experience, that was rarer.  

"Did you bring a jacket?" she asked him when he showed up on the dock with his backpack, short sleeves, and a pumpkin pie in grocery-store plastic.  

He patted the backpack.  "In here.  I've been sailing before."  

Taking the pie, she eyed him.  "How much do you know about a boat?"

"Not a lot.  It wasn't mine.  Don't ask me to do anything with the sails.  But I know enough to've brought a jacket."  

"Mmm," she said, and walked off towards the Arcadia, her favorite of the family boats --­ big enough to move around on, but not big enough to be fat and awkward in the water.  He leapt aboard after her with obvious familiarity.  He hadn't been lying, about having been on boats.  

"How long has your family had this business?" he asked, finding a seat on a bench while she finished preparations to cast off.  

"Since before I was born.  Dad and Mom came out here in the '60s, along with half of California."  She uncovered and ran up the mainsail.  "But they came from Florida.  He'd owned a pair of shrimp boats there, but sold them when he got married.  He wanted to do something that didn't keep him out for weeks.  Boat rentals on the Bay were big business.  Still are, though there are a helluva lot more of them these days.  But we've been here for ages.  We survive."  

Scott nodded while staring out over the Bay.  Almost noon, the fog had disappeared by this hour and it looked to be a gorgeous day, warm for November.  "Well go up north towards the Bridge," she said.  "and you can see it from the underside."  

He grinned at that.  "Cool."  

They didn't need jackets after all, and late in the fall, on a family-holiday weekend, there weren't many boats out.  They talked about California compared to life in the Northeast.  Lee had never been to New York; she'd barely been outside the state, while Scott had lived in a variety of places, even Korea for a year, as a child.  The side benefits, he said, of being an air force brat: no place to call a hometown.  Sensitive to the sour irony in his voice, Lee carefully avoided asking him any questions about his family --­ such as why he hadn't gone to visit them for the holiday --­ and he returned the favor.  

As they approached from the east into the afternoon shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, Scott said, "I've never seen it this close."  

Her glance was sharp.  "You haven't been across it yet?"

"No."  

"You've been out here since August, and you haven't been across the Bridge?"

"Not yet."  

She didn't reply to that, just tacked the boat to bring it in closer to one of the pilings.  He stood up and stared hard overhead.  "What are you thinking?" she asked.  

"I always wanted to be an engineer."   She didn't reply to that, wasn't sure it needed a reply, and he went on after a minute.  "An aerospace engineer.  I wanted to design planes, or maybe even spacecraft for NASA, if I got lucky.  But seeing this . . . it's amazing, y'know?"

"One of the engineering marvels of the Twentieth Century."  She made it sound like a tour guide blurb.  

He glanced around.  "But it is.  I mean, that's said so often, it's a cliché, but" --­ he looked back up at the monstrosity looming ahead of them --­ "it really is."  

She moved to stand beside him and study his face.  Rapt was the best word she could think of.  "You really get off on concrete and steel, huh?"

That elicited a grin.  "Sometimes."  

"You said you wanted to be an engineer, but not like you were planning to be one."  

And looking down, he said, "I'm not.  I'm a math and education major."  

"As in becoming a math teacher?"

"Yeah, exactly."  

"Why'd you quit engineering?  You haven't been at college long enough to have flunked out of the classes."  

He shook his head and sat down again on a bench, opening the cooler to fetch a Coke.  Minutes stretched before he finally replied to her question.  She'd assumed he hadn't planned to reply at all.  "I changed my mind," he said.  "About engineering.  I want to teach high school."  

"It sounded to me like you wanted to be an engineer."  

His smile was wistful; it turned up just the corners of his full mouth.  "I did.  But things change."  

"Change how?"

Eyeing her, he sipped from the shiny red can.  She usually cat-footed around the territory of his personal life, so her question now caught him by surprise.  Maybe she hadn't meant to pry, or maybe she'd simply grown tired of peeking in the windows of his isolation.  He pondered how to answer and finally opted for honesty, up to a point.  He tapped the edge of his glasses.  "These."  

"What do they have to do with engineering?   I thought you said you were just light sensitive?"

"I am.  But, well . . . ."  he trailed off, then concluded simply, "My sight is different now.  There are some things I just can't do anymore.  And I do want to teach."  All of which statements were true, although only the last was a direct reason for his change of plans.  His full motivations weren't something he could share, and he took refuge in his handicap, trusting that natural embarrassment would prevent her from inquiring further.  With EJ, it wouldn't have worked.  But with Lee, fences were usually respected.  

And Jesus Christ, he wondered, when was he going to level with EJ?  Ever?  The longer it went, the harder it would be, but also, the less inclined he was to tell.  The risk of losing that friendship, his only real emotional tie at Berkeley, was simply too great for him to contemplate.  

For her own part, Lee pondered what he'd said, and also wondered ­-- not for the first time --­ how much his disability had altered his life.  At their very first band rehearsal, he'd explained --­ nonchalantly ­-- about the glasses, and it hadn't struck her as significant at the time.  Significance had emerged slowly, like the constant pound of the surf, eating away at stone.  She'd never seen his eyes, and maybe that was a good part of her fascination with him, that lure of the unknown.  But it was also the root of her diffidence.  Unlike his ebullient friend, she found him difficult to interpret and occasionally elusive, such as now.

She let the matter be, though, and returned to steering the boat, bringing them under the bridge close to the south spire.  He stood up again, Coke can forgotten in his hand, and just studied the elaborate red iron weave.  Tacking around in the water beyond, she headed back under again, this time, right down the middle, and then they headed back south towards Oakland.  She knew a few quiet places where boat traffic ran low, and she picked one to anchor, so they could eat:  turkey sandwiches, store-bought stuffing, cold rolls and the pumpkin pie.  She sat beside him on the deck bench, close enough that their thighs brushed, bare skin against bare skin.  He had fuzzy legs, and she could see the stubble of beard on his jaw, heavier than she might have expected with his fine skin.  Turning at one point, he caught her staring at him, but didn't object, just stared back through the glasses.  This was the corner.  Did she want to look around to the other side?  She thought that maybe she did.  And maybe he did, too.  Leaning in, she brushed her lips over his, and he didn't pull away.  He smelled like the onion in the dressing, and pumpkins, and salt water.  

"I'm not in love with you," she whispered, because she didn't want any misunderstandings.  

"I know," he replied, and as honesty required honesty, he added, "I'm not in love with you, either."  

"Good.  I won't get involved with a band member."  

She watched him consider that, and though his eyes were hidden, his mouth told a story as he chewed it over.  "This isn't getting involved?"

"No.  It's scratching an itch.  A one-time thing."  

"I thought that was usually the guy's line."  

She shrugged.  "So, I think like a guy."  

"No.  Not really."  But he was smiling, and he obviously didn't consider that an insult.  

"I'm not some sentimental Barbie!"

"I never said you were.  You still don't think like a guy."  He frowned.  "Why?  Do you want to?"

She didn't reply, didn't want to reply, so she kissed him again, and he let her, though his own mind was back on what she'd just told him.  Finally, he drew away to say, "Being a guy isn't all it's cracked up to be, Lee.  There's a lot of pressure on you."  

Her dark grey eyes hooded slightly and her chin went up.  "Did you ever want to be a woman?"

He blinked.  "No."  

"So you like being a guy?"

"I don't really have much choice.  But yeah, I guess so."  

Pulling all the way out of his grasp, she leaned up against the edge of the boat.  "Men never want to be women.  They shy from the whole idea of it, because --­ even if you won't admit it --­ the idea of being female is degrading, isn't it?  Who'd want to be a girl if he didn't have to?"

She rose abruptly then and went to mess with the sails and start hoisting the anchor.  Bewildered and a bit put off by her anger --­ and her claims --­ he stared hard at the leftover pie.  Finally, he said, "That's not entirely true, y'know.  For some guys, maybe it is, but that's not why I never thought about being a woman.  I just . . . never thought about it.  I like being a guy.  But that doesn't mean I think being a woman is degrading."  He grinned.  "I like girls quite a lot, actually."  

Her movements were almost violent as she wrapped the anchor rope.  "Sexually," she snapped.  "Sexually, you like girls.  But you wouldn't want to be one.  That's like saying, 'Some of my best friends are black, but I wouldn't want to marry one.'"

Emotionally slapped, he rose up to stalk over --­ or stalk as well as anyone could on a boat --­ and grabbed her wrist.  "My best friend is black, in case you didn't notice.  And my other best friend is a woman who happens to be a medical student and a Ph.D candidate.  She's one of the smartest people I know.  I like her, and I respect her, and that has nothing to do with the fact she's got two X chromosomes."  

That he was also sexually attracted to her wasn't something he wanted to admit.  It didn't, to his mind, have anything to do with his friendship with Jean Grey.  If anything, their friendship existed despite it.  

"Maybe you're just weird, Summers," Lee was saying.  "Most guys see a girl and think with their dick.  They come out to rent a boat, see me behind the counter, and assume I'm some brainless bimbo who doesn't know the tiller from the boom!"

Scott let her wrist go to cross his arms.  "Well, I don't know the tiller from the boom.  Or I guess I do, but you know what I mean.  I don't think you're brainless.  Or that being a woman means you can't sail a boat.  I don't make assumptions like that."  

Her expression was one part amused to one part skeptical.  "Oh, no?  You should've seen your face when I showed up to audition for your band."  

Annoyed, he threw up his hands.  "Jesus H. Christ!  Your name isn't exactly gender specific, Lee, and most drummers are guys.  A little assumption is to be expected.  Big whoop!  We did ask you to be in the band, not one of the other guys we auditioned, and before you say a word, we didn't ask because you were a girl, either.  You're not window-dressing.  We asked because you were the best, hands down.  So what if we were a little surprised when you walked in?  Your gender didn't have anything to do with our decision."  That wasn't entirely the truth, of course, as he and EJ had discussed the matter, but in the end, it hadn't factored much into their choice, and hadn't mattered at all, since.  

At least, not as far as music went.  He had to admit that he'd never before considered if he were interested in getting his drummer's clothes off.  

"Don't knock being a girl," he said finally.  "I'm glad you are one."  Then abruptly, and maybe a tad reluctantly, he reached his decision about the clothes.  "And it's not because I want in your pants.  In fact, I don't think sex'd be a good idea.  It'd make things really . . . weird.  At practice."  

And a bit startled, Lee blinked.  No one had ever turned her down before.  Not that she offered often, but she'd never been turned down, and she couldn't decide if she were more relieved, or more insulted.  To her horror, "You don't think I'm pretty?" slipped out of her mouth before she even thought about it.  "Never mind," she blurted.  "Stupid question.  Sorry."  Upset and off her stride, she tried to turn away.  

"Yes, I think you're pretty."  He put his body between her and the rope that would let out the mainsail, so she couldn't escape him.  "I'm flattered by the offer, too ­-- and I'm not just saying that to spare your feelings.  But I don't want to have sex with you.  I'd rather be friends.  And band members.  And a really good rhythm section.  Sex would just . . . make it complicated.  You said yourself that you didn't love me."  

"Since when did the guy want to wait until he's in love?"

"Why should that be so weird?  But that's not it.  I just . . .  Dammit!  It doesn't always have to be about sex, y'know."  

She glanced up at him and the sea wind blew her curly hair back away from her face.  She was a pretty girl, if not a striking one, like Jean, but Jean wasn't why he couldn't love her.  He couldn't love her because she didn't love herself.  But he could like her, and he offered her a hand to shake.  "Friends?"

She studied the hand a moment, then gripped it firmly and they shook once.  "Friends," she said.  "And a really good rhythm section."  Grinning, he leaned in to kiss her --­ on the cheek.  
 
 
 

The Sunday following, when EJ returned from LA, he asked ­-- deliberately casually ­-- "So how did the sea date go?"

"It wasn't a date, Eeej.  We just went sailing."  

EJ's eyebrows climbed.  "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, really.  Nothing happened."  

"You didn't sound so sure nothing was going to happen before I left."  

"Well, I didn't know, before you left.  But nothing happened.  And it's not going to."  

Raised eyebrows lowered into a frown.  "Nothing bad happened, I hope."  

"Nope.  Nothing bad happened, either.  We're just friends, Eeej.  And that's all it's going to be."  

And sure enough, at the next scheduled band practice, all the sexual tension had drained away.  Scott and Lee were easier with each other, affectionate, but sibling-like, and EJ was relieved ­-- not because he wished Summers ill in the romance department, but because he hadn't looked forward to being the odd-man-out in a band of three when two were sharing a bed.  

A few days later, after that very practice, Scott asked EJ, "Did you ever think about being a girl?"

Taken by surprise, EJ glanced around from where he was working at his desk in their room.  Summers was working at his desk, too, under the window, highlighting material in a textbook.  "Not really," EJ said.  "Why?  Have you?"

"I hadn't."  Summers' expression was distant, even without being able to see his eyes.  "But now, I don't know.  Isn't that a little odd, when you think about it?"

Spinning his desk chair around, EJ plopped his feet on the corner of his bed.  "What brought this up, anyway?"

"A conversation.  It made me think, so I asked Phoebe and Elizabeth the other day if they'd ever thought about being a guy, and they both said yeah, sure --­ like that was normal, to have thought about it.  But I hadn't thought about it, and you said you hadn't, either.  Why is that?  I mean, why do women think about it and men don't?"

Tipping his head back, EJ pondered the question.  "Well, I'm not sure a sample of four is a good statistic, man.  You're the math major; you should know that.  Anyway, our society don't exactly reward the fairer sex for being the fairer sex.  I grew up with three sisters, but I wouldn't want to be a woman.  Not because I think there's anything wrong with being one, but because I wouldn't want to put up with the shit that goes with it.  I think it's harder, to be a girl."  

"So you think it's unconscious sexism?"

"Sure, some.  There's a hell of a lot more sexism and racism still in the U.S. than people like to admit.  It's just gone under the porch to hide, y'know?  Let's put it this way.  You ever think about being black?"

"Occasionally, I guess."  

"Occasionally.  Well, I have to think about being white every day.  Being black is like living in a two-story house.  Upstairs is my world and downstairs is yours.  I have to go downstairs all the time, but you can't never come upstairs, not really.  I can tell you about it, what it's like up there, and you can get a sense of it, maybe even feel it a little, but you can't never come all the way up the steps.  Being a woman must be like that.  We don't have to think much about what it's like to be a girl, but they have to live in our world, y'know?  Growing up, when my sisters started talking 'bout girl stuff . . . man, I was out the door!  It was like I was afraid I was going to catch cooties, or be a sissy or something, if I hung around.  Kinda stupid, now, but that says a lot, don't it?"

Summers was nodding, and the strangest expression had come over his face.  "There are a lot of two-story houses like that," he said.  

"Yeah.  There are."  

"And you'd be willing to tell me what it's like to be upstairs in yours?"

"If you really want to hear.  It might not always be easy to hear.  You can't take it personal."  

"I won't.  And yes, I'd like to hear."  

"It's a deal then, slim-boy."  And EJ grinned at him.  Summers grinned back.  
 
 
 
 

"Scott!  Scott!  We're over here!"

Scott looked around, trying (somewhat vainly) to see over the heads of people exiting his gate at JFK International Airport.  It was a week before Christmas and crowds were predictably thick, people dressed in heavy coats against the New York weather and toting bags of presents that bumped along awkwardly in their wake.  Finally, he spotted Jean jumping up and down and waving frantically, Warren beside her.  Warren's gold hair shone under the lights, and he was wearing sunglasses in the crowd; Summers was unsure if that were an attempt to hide his identity, or to make Summers feel less the odd man out.  In any case, he pushed through towards them both, dragging his carry-on after him, and --­ to his astonishment --­ Jean engulfed him in a full-body hug as soon as he reached them.  Platonic though the hug might have been, he was delighted, and buried his face in her hair.  Then Warren moved in to hug him, too, and Scott was mindful of the honor.  There were few people alive whom Warren Worthinton III trusted enough to let them hug him, and that had nothing to do with the tell-tale bulge of a leather rack that pinned his wings beneath his jacket.  

"Your plane was so late," Jean was saying," we were starting to wonder if you'd get here at all today, or be stuck overnight in Chicago."  

"Sorry," Summers said, releasing Warren.  

"Don't apologize, silly."  Jean whacked him on the arm.  "It's not your fault!"

"Mr. Responsible always takes the blame," Warren said, knuckling him on the head.  "How was the flight?  You could've let me come get you, y'know."  

"I know.  But it was cheaper to take a regular flight, and I didn't want to put anybody out --­ "

"Would you quit with that already?"  Warren thwacked him hard, right in the chest.  "It's getting on my nerves.  I don't suppose it occurred to you that I might've liked to fly out there?"  And that only made Scott feel all the more guilty, as it was true; Warren did like to fly, either under his own power or in the pilot seat.  "Speaking of planes, though," Warren was saying, grabbing Scott's backpack without being asked ­-- for someone used to servants, Worthington had an uncanny sense of how and when to help ­-- "You won't believe the new baby the professor laid hands on for Hank to soup up."  

"What is it?"

"My lips are sealed.  I don't want to spoil the surprise, but you're gonna spaz, Gamma-gaze.  I know you."  And that made Scott laugh.  He'd pestered Warren for the last six months to teach him to fly, enough that Warren had finally given in and signed up for a Flight Instructor course.  

With the heavy traffic, it took them two and a half hours to get back to the mansion.  White lights sparkled on bushes, along the gables, and around the windows, and there was a small herd of white-light frame deer poised on the lawn.  One had a red nose.  That struck Scott as especially funny for no good reason, and he sank down giggling in the back seat.  Or maybe he was just that glad to be home.  Glancing around from the front passenger side, Jean grinned at him.  "You like my deer?  There are thirteen of them."  

"'You know Dasher and Dancer, and Prancer and Vixen,'" Scott sang in his best Sinatra imitation, "'Comet and Cupid, and Donner and Blitzen.  But do you recall, the most famous reindeer of all . . . ?'"  Jean was laughing.  "So where's Santa?" Scott asked then in a normal voice.  

"It's not Christmas yet.  Santa doesn't come until Christmas."  

Sitting up to lean over the seat between them, Scott spoke to Warren.  "The professor isn't really going to let her put a Santa Claus on the front lawn, is he?"

"The professor would probably let her put a nude Elvis on the front lawn if she asked him nicely."  

"I'd be careful, Warren," Jean said.  "Or you might find a nude Elvis in your bed some morning."  

"I'd rather have a nude Jean."  

She laughed and swatted him, but Scott didn't find it so funny.  Slumping back on Mercedes Benz leather, he crossed his arms and frowned out a back window, feeling possessive and absurd for it at the same time.  While he doubted he would ever have the good fortune to wake up to a nude Jean, he'd supposed --­ foolishly perhaps --­ that such fantasies belonged to him alone, and he resented the idea that any other man might dare to undress her in his mind's eye.  No other man would ever worship her the way Scott Summers did.  

By the time they'd parked the car and carried Scott's bags upstairs, it was approaching midnight.  Hank had fallen asleep on the den sofa under the blinking lights of a Christmas tree, a book spread spine-up over his belly and his mouth open.  Frank and Ororo were still awake, and bounded up to ambush Scott with a simultaneous hug right in the den doorway.  All the noise woke Hank, who struggled to sit and find his glasses.  Then all six of them went down the hall to the kitchen, circling about the little table, drinking hot chocolate or cider, and eating the Christmas cookies Frank's mother had made.  Everyone was talking at once, six mutant siblings, each trying to out-shout the other in their excitement to say everything at once.  There was a cinnamon candle burning warm on the green tablecloth, and someone --­ probably Jean --­ had strung white mini-lights above the pantry.  Ororo wore a halo of silver tinsel on her silver hair, and Hank helped Warren out of his wing rack, freeing white feathers to sweep up and out like the incarnation of a holiday card.  Charles Xavier entered in the midst of the commotion, but sat in his chair in the doorway for a long moment, watching.  They were all too busy catching up to notice him, and to the end of his days, he would count that evening as among his more precious memories.  His children were all home, and they were safe, and they were happy.  However many more might pass through his halls, these were the first, and dear to his heart.  They would embody his dream.  

"Are there any cookies left for me?" he asked finally, and wheeled into the room.  
 
 
 
 

"So, what do you think?"  Hank asked as the door to the hangar bay swished open to reveal the mansion's newest prize:  sleek, black, and capable of over mach three, when in condition -- which at the moment, it wasn't.  Warren was with them, leaning up against the opposite wall, wings flat behind him, arms crossed, grinning at Summers' slack-jawed shock.  

"Holy fuck!" Summers muttered, moving into the bay like a sleepwalker, eyes on the new jet.  "Where in hell did you get a Blackbird?"  If the USAF had any idea that one of their most prized planes was sitting in the basement of a mansion in Westchester, Summers didn't want to think about the pinecones the high brass would be shitting.  

"The professor has his connections," Hank replied.  

"In other words, you're not going to tell the air force brat."  

"Mmm" --­ Hank was frowning, hunch-shouldered and slightly uncomfortable ­-- "Charles thought it might be best if you didn't know."  

"Christ, Hank.  You think I'd tell my father what you've got here?"  He turned around to look at the other two.  "The professor might have connections, but this plane is freakin' illegal for a private citizen to possess."  He pointed back at the black silhouette.  "That cost thirty-four-million dollars of tax money!  It belongs to the US government!"

Hank and Warren exchanged a glance.  Neither of them had counted on an angry Scott.  An excited Scott, a delirious Scott, a nagging-for-the-next-three-weeks Scott . . . but not an angry Scott.  

But Summers had just begun.  "Where do you think you're going to get JP-7 fuel to fly her?  Or the highly specialized components to replace anything that breaks down?  The local Ace Hardware?   Or how about a flight suit!  You can't hit 80,000 feet in shorts and an Izod!  Good God!  That is the fastest plane the air force ever built.  Do either of you think you can actually fly it?  The men who fly that plane go through months and months of specialized training!  There are thirty-two of these in existence, or thirty-two that were built.  That's it.  The molds were broken.  Twelve are lost.  How dare you take one of the twenty left, to be some . . . toy!" Summers was literally shaking with fury.  

"Scott, calm down."  Henry approached to put big hands on Scott's shoulders, and Warren was inching back out the door, inclined to bolt for cover.  Scott's eyes were bright red behind his glasses.  "We don't consider it a toy," Hank went on.  "And trust me, the government has been compensated.  Plus, of those twenty left, how many are sitting in museums, or decommissioned in hangars?"

"Hank,­ it's not just the compensation!  That's a highly specialized aircraft of which there isn't an endless supply!  If the country has to go to war again, we might need it.  It belongs to the people of the United States.  It doesn't belong to us."  His shoulders sagged, and Henry could tell he was seriously distraught.  Whatever the tension between he and his father, scratch the boy and he was still air force.  Jean --­ who'd been working downstairs in the lab --­ had come running when she'd heard their raised voices.  Now, Henry glanced around at her, unsure what to do, and she approached carefully, as one might with a spooked horse.  

"Scott," she said, "would it help if you knew this isn't a plane that anyone thinks still exists?  Nobody on a base is going to wander into a hangar and find his plane missing."  

He stared at her.  She could feel the weight of it, even if she couldn't see his eyes.  And for the first time, she really, really regretted not being able to see his eyes.  They still glowed behind ruby quartz, but not so brightly.  "Where did you get it?  I have to know, Jean."  

"It came off the floor of the ocean.  Hank had to put one of the wings back on it."  

"All the instruments are new," Hank added, "or will be, when I finish with it.  The whole cockpit is being redesigned.  It wasn't usable, Scott.  It was a salt-water-logged shell."  

He looked back at it.  "You mean it's one of the lost ones."  It was a statement rather than a question.  

"Yes."  

And that was the moment of change.  Turning, he walked over to it, reaching up to run a hand over the black titanium hull like he might caress a cat, or a lover.  "So somebody found you, Pretty Girl?  Imagine that.  You're still in one piece."  Then, calling over his shoulder, "Getting our hands on JP-7 fuel isn't going to be easy, y'know!"

"The engines were --­ and still are --­ a mess.  We have to rebuild them entirely.  I'm going to see if we might be able to use a different fuel."  

"Not and hit much over mach two.  They had to design the Habu's fuel special so it could be hydraulic fluid, too."  

Hank rolled his eyes, but he also exchanged a glance with Jean, and blew out in relief.  It would be okay.  
 
 
 
 

Scott lay dozing on a bench in the arboretum, right in a shaft of sunlight.  If his body had needed to adjust to the different quantity of sunlight in California, coming back here felt a bit like withdrawal and Ororo had compared him to a cat, always looking for a few rays to sleep in.  Just now, though, he was here because Ro had asked him to keep her company while she worked in the garden.  She'd appropriated the abandoned arboretum within a month of her arrival last summer and Scott was amazed at the change in just that short time; some people were born with a green thumb.  Now, she made her way from bed to bed, babying her plants, while he dozed on a bench.  'Company' for Ro meant his presence, not necessarily endless chatter, and she came to him when she wanted relief from Frank's incessant need to impress her.  'I love him the way he is,' she'd told Scott just a few days before.  'I wish he would not try so hard.'

'He just wants to be the best he can for you,' Scott had explained.  He understood all too well Frank's behavior with Ororo; he felt the same around Jean.  

But Ororo had replied, matter-of-factly, 'He already is the best.  He does not need to prove himself to me,' and Scott had been touched at the same time he'd been deeply jealous, wondering if he ever would be lucky enough to hear a woman say that about him.  

Now, getting bored with his nap and thinking again about his conversation with Lee, and with EJ, he hauled himself up to wander over to where Ro was kneeling beside a bed of winter-dormant begonias, doing something incomprehensible with a long stretch of what looked like black tape.  At his approach, her head tilted sideways slightly, but she didn't look around at him.  "Did you ever think about being a guy?" he asked her.  

At that, she did look around at him, her brown eyes amused.  "Is that idle curiosity, or did you have a reason you wanted to know?"

Feeling funny looming over her, he squatted down and clasped his hands together in front, for balance.  "I have a reason.  But answer me first, before I tell you."

"Then you must clarify.  Have I wondered what men think --­ or if men think?"  She gave him a wicked smile.  "Or have I wondered what a male body would feel like from inside?  Or have I wanted to be a man?"

Pursing his lips, he frowned.  That was all a good deal more specific than he'd considered.  "I don't know.  All of the above."

"Then your answer is yes, yes, and no."  

"So you've never wanted to be a man?"

"No.  Why would I?"

He plopped back on the tile sidewalk, and told her about his conversation with Lee Forrester.  Ro listened patiently, and Scott wondered why he was telling her all this, instead of Jean, or Hank, or even Warren or Frank.  But Hank would try to analyze it, Frank would probably feel guilty about it, Warren would find it curious but not important, and Jean. . . .  He wasn't sure what Jean would think, or say.  But Ororo would give him a straight answer.  

"It is not a kind world for women, sometimes," she said now.  "Some think they must compete with other women for a man's attention, and are incomplete without it.  Others think they must become honorary men, to be worth anything."  She tilted her head and was silent for almost a full minute.  Finally, she said simply, "I think that is sad."  And she turned back to her garden.  He waited, but she didn't elaborate, and finally, he stood up to walk away.  
 
 
 
 

"Hey, I was looking for you."  

Glancing around, Scott watched Jean approach through blowing snow, picking her way amid the dead plants of the back garden plaza.  "I guess you found me," he said.  

"What are you doing out here?  It's snowing, Scott."  

"I noticed."  His voice was dry.  "And I'm thinking."  

"About?"  She stopped in front of him, her hands shoved in the pockets of her heavy jacket and white flakes starring her dark auburn hair.  

"You promise you won't laugh?" he asked.  

"I promise I'll try.  Now come on --­ spill, boy-o."  

"Did you ever think about being a guy?   I mean, did you ever want to be a guy?"

Eyebrows climbing at that, Jean turned and seated herself on the cold bench beside him, huddling down against his side.  "I don't have to think, Scott.  There was a time when I couldn't stay in my own head.  Or rather, I couldn't keep others out of it."  

That hadn't occurred to him.  "So you mean you know both sides?"

"More or less, yes."  

"Well, would you want to be a guy?"

Smiling, she shook her head.  "No.  I want to be Jean."  She eyed him sidewise, still smiling.  "It's not 'male' or 'female,' you know.  There are some differences, and they're real enough.  They shape us.  But in the end, we're all a bit more than an X or Y chromosome.  My name is Jean, and that's who I am, just as Scott is more than his gender.  People are too inclined to see the obvious differences and miss the important ones, I think."  She stood abruptly and snagged his hand.  "Come on, I want to show you something.  Let's get out of the snow."  

And with her holding his hand, he wasn't inclined to object to being led back inside, and up to her room.  Her bags were packed, he saw, and he realized that she must have come out to tell him goodbye before heading north to join her family for Christmas.  Hank had left for Illinois the day before, and Warren was leaving tomorrow, Christmas Eve.  

Jean had gone to her bookshelf to pull down a book, flipping through it to one of several dog-eared pages.  "The professor gave me this as a graduation present when I told him I wanted to study mutant genetics.  He said I might find inspiration in it, but he also told me never to forget that we're all human.  Here, read what I marked."   Scott accepted the book and checked the title ­-- a collection of works by MLK --­ and then looked down the page to the highlighted section.  

The system of slavery and segregation caused many Negros to feel that perhaps they were inferior.  This is the ultimate tragedy of segregation.  It not only harms one physically, but it injures one spiritually.  But through the forces of history, something happened to the Negro.  He came to feel that he was somebody.  He came to feel that the important thing about a man is not the color of his skin or the texture of his hair, but the texture and quality of his soul.

Scott thought about Lee, and EJ, and closed the book to look up at her.  "Can I borrow this?"

"Sure."  

He glanced at her packed luggage.  "You have to go home, don't you?"

"Yeah.  My family's expecting me.  You knew that."  

"I'll miss you.  I got you a Christmas present.  Do you want it before you go?"

She smiled; it was wistful, and sweet.  "I'm driving back down here on Christmas night; it's only a few hours.  I'll get it then."  And she stepped in, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close to kiss his cheek.  "I have a present for you, too.  But you'll have to wait."  

He didn't need a present, he thought as he helped her carry her bags down to her car.  If she came back on Christmas, he'd have everything he wanted.  

Go on to Chapter 5, "Living Upstairs"