Two faces. Two sides to the same person. That’s what Harlan’s English teacher was getting at. It was so obvious he couldn’t believe everyone else hadn’t seen it right from the start. How could they be so blind?

"Harlan?" Mrs. Woodburn said to him from up near the blackboard. "Perhaps you’d like to enlighten the class with your opinion on the subject at hand."

"My opinion?" Harlan said, the perfect drawl.

"Yes, your opinion."

He grinned. "My opinion is that blue is a really good color on you. It goes with your eyes."

There was a moment’s silence, like the instant after you slam the gas pedal, but before the spark plugs fire and the tires squeal out.

Then they squealed. All at once, the class started laughing, just like Harlan had known they would. And Mrs. Woodburn blushed. Harlan had known she‘d do that too.

But Mrs. Woodburn was more self-possessed than he‘d thought. "Thank you so very much, Harlan," the teacher said, almost evenly. "I’ll keep your opinion in mind when I’m dressing each morning. But I’m wondering if you have an opinion on the subject of The Scarlet Letter."

"Oh," Harlan said. "That subject at hand." The class snickered again, if only at the boldness of his banter.

"Harlan, just answer the question!" Mrs. Woodburn was getting impatient. It was, therefore, time to get serious. The difference between Harlan and the idiots who spent their afternoons in after-school detention was that he always knew not to push things too far.

"Split personality," he said without missing a beat.

Mrs. Woodburn hesitated. "What about it?"

"That’s my opinion. That’s what you’re getting at. It’s like the characters have two different sides to themselves. Opposite faces."

"Which characters?"

"Hester, Chillingworth, Dimmesdale," Harlan said. "Pearl too, in a way. They all have public personas that are at odds with their private ones. And the challenge they have in The Scarlet Letter is whether or not they can reconcile the two conflicting natures in their souls. The characters who do--Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl--find peace. The character who can‘t--Chillingworth--doesn’t. According to the author, he shrivels away ‘like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun‘."

Mrs. Woodburn stared at him. He’d struck her speechless, and he‘d intended that too. Just because he was popular and athletic and good-looking, that didn’t mean he wasn’t smart. Why was that always so hard for people to remember?

"Thank you, Harlan," Mrs. Woodburn said simply.

Harlan leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out under his desk. Mrs. Woodburn wouldn’t be calling on him again any time soon.


"Helloooo?" Harlan’s girlfriend, Amber, said, as they stood together in the crowded school hallway. "Earth to Harlan."

"What?" he said, eyes suddenly focused on her.

"You’re not listening to me, that’s what."

"Am so."

"Then what did I just say?"

"You were talking about how you went shopping. At the mall."

Amber glared back at him. "I don’t know how you do it."

It‘s not that hard, Harlan thought. She was always talking about shopping at the mall. Either that or her role as Guinevere in the school production of Camelot.

"You are so slick," Amber went on. "You’re a--what’s the word? Rube?"

"Rake," Harlan said. "A rube is a hick. Or maybe you mean rogue?"

"No, I‘ll go with rake. That sounds right. Rhymes with snake."

Harlan met her grin for grin. Amber was blond and beautiful, but he was no mere planet swinging blindly around her orbit. No, he was the center of this solar system, not her.

"It’s like what you said to Mrs. Woodburn in English today," Amber went on. "How do you get away with stuff like that? That’s sexual harassment, you know that?"

"No," Harlan said. "It’s only sexual harassment if you’re old and fat and bald. I’m seventeen and hunky, so it‘s just me being charming."

Amber rolled her eyes. "Where do you wanna go for lunch today?"

"What?" Harlan said, suddenly uneasy.

"Lunch?" Amber said. "Off-campus? What we do every single day at noon?"

But Harlan barely heard her. In his mind, he had been transported to a different place and time. The surroundings there were shadowy and indistinct, but one thing was very clear: in that place, Harlan was choking. In his mind’s eye, he struggled, gagging, trying to cough up whatever was in his throat. It wasn’t working; he was suffocating, and no one was helping him. Harlan was experiencing all this, feeling the fear and anxiety of choking, even the bodily sensations--a sharp, throbbing ache in his throat. But at the same time, he was outside the vision, watching it all from one side, engulfed by the images, as if in an Imax Theatre of the mind, but unable to affect the outcome.

The vision was also silent--completely, eerily silent. Was it Harlan at lunch that afternoon? That part still wasn’t clear, but it sure felt like the future he was seeing.

"Harlan?" Amber said.

"What!" he said, jumping. Harlan was a lot of things, but he’d never been jumpy, at least not until these past few weeks.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Harlan said, his mouth dry as toast. "I’m fine."

The vision had gone as quickly as it had come. But the effects lingered. Harlan was flushed, his pulse pounding.

The fact is, it wasn’t just the characters in The Scarlet Letter who had two faces. Lately, Harlan did too. One face was calm, cool, and collected, always steady, always in control--one of the load-bearing social supports that kept Roosevelt High School from collapsing. That face had been elected Student Body President by the largest margin in school history.

But the other face to Harlan Chesterton? Not so confident--in fact, downright fearful. And moody. And easily distracted.

There was a reason, of course. For the past few weeks, Harlan had been having these occasional premonitions of disaster--visions of what seemed to be the future, usually of death. At least, they’d started out as occasional. Now he was having them at least twice a day.

Were they really foretelling the future? Harlan had never had the nerve to find out. Once he had "foreseen" something, he did everything he could to avoid the place and time where it seemed likely to occur.

"Are you sure you‘re okay?" Amber asked.

"What do you mean?" Harlan said, forcing himself to keep from shaking.

"You look funny."

"I’m fine."

"Okay, okay." Amber sighed. "So what do you say?"

"About what?"

"About what I was saying!"

But this time, when Harlan tried to guess what Amber was referring to, nothing came up. What was it that she had been talking about? Suddenly, he couldn’t remember.

"Lunch!" Amber said. "Where do you want to go?"

But right then, an image of him choking once again torpedoed through his mind. It was just as all-consuming, just as silent. And once again, Harlan was forced to watch, and to feel the experience, but was unable to control or impact the outcome.

"Harlan?" Amber said.

"What!" he said, jumping again. "I‘m skipping lunch today!" he said, almost a shout. "I have to study."

"Are you serious?"

"I’ve got to go talk to someone," Harlan said. "I’ll see you later, okay?"

And without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked away. It felt more like running, though, and in a way, that’s exactly what it was.

If there really were two Harlan Chestertons these days, there was still one place where they came together. The swimming pool after school during his swim team workout. And why not? Mind and body joined together while he was swimming; it seemed only right that the two Harlans should come together there too.

Harlan lived to swim. He thought of it like flying--defying gravity, breaking the bounds of Earth-bound existence.

He’d heard people complain before about the heaviness of water, about how it could swallow you up, or about its darkness. But for Harlan, water was liquid light, and swimming was freedom itself.

He hadn’t always felt this way. He remembered the first time he’d been to a pool, when he was three years old and his mom had taken him to the golf club for his first swimming lesson. Harlan had had a fit, had refused to even put to his foot in the water. But his mom hadn’t pressured him, like most of the other moms. No, she had simply brought him back to the pool, day after day, sitting with him by the pool’s edge while the other kids had their lesson. Halfway through the summer, Harlan finally decided to join them in the water. He’d loved it, of course. And by the time he was seven, he was ready for the swim team.

So he had his mother to thank for his love of swimming? That was ironic, Harlan thought, especially given his feelings for her lately.

He was halfway through his warm-up before his buddy Ricky showed up. They’d been working out together since they were nine. Ricky knew him better than anyone else in the world.

"S‘up?" Ricky asked, long and lean in his black speedo. He was Guamanian--his birth-parents were born in Guam--which basically gave him the street cred of being black, but without so much of the racism.

"Hey!" Harlan said, grinning.

"Let’s do it," Ricky said, hopping into the pool alongside Harlan. But right before they pushed off, Ricky asked, "Hey, you drive to school today?"

"Yeah," Harlan said.

"Cool," Ricky said. "I have to leave early." On days that Harlan rode in with Amber, Ricky usually drove him home.

"It’s cool," Harlan said.

And then they were swimming, side-by-side in a lane all their own. As he finished his warm-up, Harlan immediately felt a connection with Ricky. People sometimes asked him if it got lonely, spending all that time underwater, alone with your thoughts. But for Harlan, swimming was the opposite of lonely. No, swimming was all about connection. It was about being totally attuned to the swimmers around you, feeling their wake, drawing on their energy. When Harlan swam a set side-by-side with Ricky, they supported one other, pushing each other to swim faster, pulling each other when one fell behind. He may have been "alone" underwater, but he wasn’t really.

Hey, you drive to school today? Suddenly, Ricky’s totally innocuous question replayed in Harlan’s brain. What did it have to do with anything? But because he was thinking about driving, not focused on swimming, the connection with Ricky suddenly broke. He was still swimming side-by-side with him, but now Harlan was alone.

And inside his head, he was suddenly in a different place and time. A city street at night? A truck--or what it a van?--was bearing down on Harlan. He could see the expanding headlights, watched the car veering to one side as the driver tried to swerve away at the last second.

It was too late. The van caught Harlan head-on. (Was Harlan in a car too? That part wasn’t clear.) Everything that followed seemed to happen simultaneously: the fan of flashing sparks, the shattering glass, the wrenching metal, and--overwhelming everything else--the searing, straight-to-the-core-of-his-being pain. And it was all happening in perfect silence.

Harlan was having another premonition. But in the swimming pool? That was the one place where he felt most at home in the whole world.

But not today. The same vision swept back through his mind, like the backwash from a crashing wave. The van careened, then smashed into him once again. Harlan’s heart pounded--wild, exploding pulsings that replaced the quick even beats from the workout itself. This car crash was going to happen--Harlan knew it!

Harlan was coughing. Like he’d swallowed water. He wasn’t swimming forward any more. Now he was upright in the water, paddling, but gasping for air.
A wave splashed in his face, causing him to swallow more water. Harlan began to struggle--flailing almost.

Like he was drowning.

Which was impossible. Harlan could never drown--he loved the water! So why was he struggling now?

In an instant, Ricky was at his side, treading water, holding him up. The connection was back--in a way. Now they weren’t supporting each other; now it was just Ricky supporting him.

"Har? You okay?" The concern in Ricky’s eyes was obvious, even through swim goggles.

Harlan coughed. "I’m fine," he said. "I just swallowed some water."

Ricky stared at him. He knew that swimmers like the two of them never "swallowed water," at least not like Harlan had. It would be like a star baseball pitcher suddenly falling off the mound. It just didn’t happen.

Harlan pushed away, treaded water on his own. He hesitated, waiting for the premonition to come crashing back yet again. But it didn’t.

"It’s okay," Harlan said at last. "I‘m fine. Let’s just keep going, okay?"

Ricky finally nodded, and they pushed off, swimming side-by-side again. But for
Harlan, the memory of his latest premonition trailed behind him like an anchor.




Everything was out-of-focus. Manny had to squint to see what was going on in the theater in front of him. Problem was, he wasn’t in a movie theater. He was in a stage theater--or "thea-tuh", as the actors liked to quip--with rehearsals of the school play taking place before him. So the problem wasn’t an out-of-focus movie projector. No, the problem was him--a pounding headache that was affecting his eyesight. He squeezed his temples, and it helped with his headache, but it didn‘t put anything back into focus.

"You okay?" said Keith, his assistant in the lighting booth.

"Huh?" Manny said. "Oh, yeah. Just tired." He was quick to change the subject. "We‘re still going to need those forest gobos for the fairy scenes. Did you ever track them down?"

"Backstage, I think."

Manny stared at Keith, oily-faced and gangly, too tall for his folding chair.

"Maybe I should go get ‘em, huh?" Keith said.

"Thanks," Manny said, and in a second, he was thankfully, blissfully, alone again. He looked down at the control panel in front of him. He loved the thought that from this seat he could control every single one of the sixty-two lights suspended from the ceiling of the theatre in front of him--each lantern painstakingly plotted, gelled (or not), hung, and focused by Manny and Manny alone. As a result, he controlled the look and feel of everything that happened down on that stage. Did that make him a control freak? Maybe not, but it definitely made him a geek. Let’s face it, to the rest of the school, lighting design was just a notch above chess club--and even that was probably an overly optimistic assessment.

Okay, so Manny Tucker was a geek. He knew it, and he was okay with it. No, really. It didn’t bother him. Not at all. Yes, he did lighting design, but he was damn good at it--a Barbizon Award regional finalist two years running (with an excellent shot at being named national winner this year!). What was the deal with being popular anyway? Why would anyone want to have to spend two hundred dollars for the "right" pair of pants? It was just so much easier to wear black all the time like the other backstage geeks.

He looked up at the stage where Amber Hodges--Guinevere in the school‘s production of Camelot--was running through the dance steps to the "The Lovely Month of May" number. She was the perfect example of how crazy it was to be popular. Why would anyone want to be in the spotlight like that? Why would she want the pressure of all those eyes on her? Though, Manny had to admit, she was kind of hot.

Okay, more than kind of hot. Gorgeous. She almost sparkled, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with Selma’s costumes or Manny’s lighting. The rest of the stage might be out-of-focus, but Amber couldn’t ever be.

"Hey, Moonbeam," said a voice from behind. "Better get a Kleenex for that drool."

"Huh?" Manny jumped; he’d always been jumpy, and he hated himself for it. Jerry Blain was suddenly alongside him in the lighting booth. Amber’s boyfriend? No, she hung with a different jock--same model, slightly different exterior. But what was Jerry Blain doing in the school theater--much less in Manny’s lighting booth?

"Sorry?" Manny said to him.

Jerry laughed. "I see you starin‘! Too bad you don‘t got a pair of x-ray specs, huh?"

"I’m the lighting designer. It’s my job to stare at Amber Hodges."

"Not like that, it isn‘t!"

"What’s it to you anyway?" Manny said.

"Just don‘t get any ideas, Moonbeam. She‘s way out of your league."

Wait a minute, Manny thought. The lighting booth was his territory! Jerry wasn’t even supposed to be in here! So why didn’t Manny say something?

Because he was a geek, that‘s why. And while that meant he didn’t have to worry about spending two hundred dollars on a pair of pants, it also meant he had no power whatsoever. It also meant he wasn’t allowed to talk to--or, apparently, even look at--Amber Hodges.

"What do you want anyway?" Manny asked him.

"Just out in the hallway waiting for my buds," Jerry said. "Thought I’d come and see what‘s happening back in loserville."

"Well, I’m busy, okay?"

"O-kay!" Jerry said, enunciating like a kindergarten teacher. "But keep your eyes on the control board, Moonbeam, otherwise you‘ll need a Kleenex for more than just drool."
And with that, he turned to go, laughing as he went.


Manny still had a headache, and the caffeine in his double-shot espresso was only making things worse. He’d come to this coffee shop to talk about the video he was making with his friend, Elsa. The movie was called Momster, and it was about how terrifying a mother could look from the point-of-view of a small child. But right now their video was the last thing on his mind.

Elsa had a face like the moon--soft and pleasing, with an actual glow (and an admittedly pock-marked surface). She was also deaf, which meant that she talked in ASL--American Sign Language.

It‘s all about perspective, she said, motioning with her hands. We need to force the perspective to make the mother look really, really scary.

That shouldn‘t be too hard. Manny answered in ASL too. His signing was more than decent, given all the time they'd spent together.

Part of me wishes we could cast a real child, Elsa went on. But it‘d be such a hassle to work with him. Besides, I think it’s funnier if we just dress an older actor in baby clothes.

Manny nodded. An adult actor playing the child. It was a good idea--like most of Elsa’s ideas. She had this great sense of the visual, of pattern and design. Was it because she was deaf, or was that a stereotype? All Manny knew was that he loved doing creative projects with her. It had been strange when they'd first met back in the fourth grade, her deafness. But it was immediately clear that they were kindred spirits; he'd never met anyone else so into the arts. So they hadn't let the language barreir come in the way of their becoming best friends. (It helped that Manny hadn't had any other friends!) Soon they'd collaborated on a whole string of creative projects: movies, web-sites, even an annual haunted house in her garage. Manny had never felt more alive than on the warm summer nights he spent over at Elsa’s house planning their latest project. Or waking up on a Saturday morning, knowing he had a full day to spend with his friend--and at least two days before he had to drag himself back to the dreariness of school again.

Which was why it was so frustrating that he hadn’t been able to concentrate on any of their projects lately. He couldn’t go on like this. Somehow he needed to get back in control. And maybe he could start by laying off the double-shot espressos and finding some aspirin for his headache.

Out of the corner of his eye, Manny saw Elsa making waving motions at him. He looked up at her.

What‘s wrong? she signed.

So she'd noticed he’d zoned out on her. It’s rude to look away from anyone while she’s talking, but it was doubly rude to do it to Elsa; looking away from a deaf person who signed made it impossible for her to talk.

Nothing, Manny signed. I’m just tired. I’m sorry.

Another nightmare?

He wished he’d never told Elsa about the nightmares. He’d been having them for weeks now. It wasn’t every night at first, but it was now. It was bad enough that he had to dream them; he didn‘t want to also have to talk about them.

Manny nodded glumly.

The same thing happen? Elsa signed.

He stood up from his chair. Do you want a biscotti? I want a biscotti.

You hate biscotti, Elsa said. Everyone hates biscotti. Don’t change the subject.

He sank back down into his chair. The dreams are nothing. It’s no big deal.

Elsa just stared at him. She didn’t need to make motions with her hands for him to know what she was thinking; it was all written right there on her face. If they’re nothing, she signed at last, why do you keep having them?

"They’ll go away," he said.

Eventually. But what are you going to do in the meantime?

Elsa was right. It wasn’t just his eyes that were out-of-focus; it was his whole life. And he just knew that he would keep having these nightmares until he somehow got his life back into focus. The nightmares were about the fact that his life was out-of-focus. But how did a person go about putting his life back into focus?

We can make an oversized papier-mâché baby rattle! Manny suddenly signed, changing the subject again. So it’ll make our actor look like a real baby? And maybe a great big rocking chair?

This time, Elsa took the bait. Her face broke into a smile, and she was off and running, building on his idea with another one of her own.


It was after eleven o‘clock, and Manny was exhausted.

Exhausted, yes, but also frightened--by his bed, of all things. Who ever heard of a person being afraid of his bed?

It looked perfectly comfortable--was perfectly comfortable. His dad was embarrassed that he wasn’t able to afford new sheets for Manny to replace his Lord of the Rings ones from a few years back. But Manny loved those sheets, even at age seventeen. And there was a thick layer of blankets, just the way he liked it. He loved the cozy feel of all that material pressing down against his body.

Of course, Manny’s fear wasn’t really about the bed itself; it was about his dreams. He couldn’t bear the thought of another nightmare.

He looked over at his computer. As much as the bed repelled him, the computer seemed to be enticing him, calling to him, drawing him close. He’d already updated his blog for the day--twice--but he couldn’t go to bed without checking his email one more time.

He did, and found nothing. Not even any spam.

As long as he was on-line, he decided to surf over to a couple of his "favorites." But there weren’t any new postings on any of his online-friends‘ blogs, and there wasn’t anything going on in any of his usual chat rooms.

He glanced at his backpack, lying next to his desk.

Homework! He still had homework to do!

Okay, so maybe he didn’t have any homework per se. But he could always review his notes.

Review his notes? Manny had never "reviewed his notes" in his entire life. What was he thinking?

He looked back at the computer screen, but now it was blurry too. He rubbed his eyes, but that just made his headache worse.

Manny needed to go to sleep.

He turned to the bed again. The way the blankets were askew, it looked like the bed was grinning at him. Ironically, he couldn’t even count on lying awake tossing and turning. He knew he’d fall asleep just moments after his head hit the pillow. It wasn’t until he woke up in the middle of the night, pulse pounding and sheets drenched in sweat, that he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep again.

He sighed. There was no point in trying to delay the inevitable. He stood up, stripped down to his Jockey shorts, and climbed into bed. With that, he braced himself for the worst, and closed his eyes.