The Perpetual Motion Club (13 page)

James opened his mouth to respond, but then thought better of it and closed it.

“I don’t want to join. I like math and stuff, but I don’t like computer programming. It’s so ugh!”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

Elsa’s eyes shot up from the floor, angry at the sarcasm, but she continued without arguing that little point. “So I said I wasn’t going to join and now Mom isn’t speaking to me, May is mad because she didn’t get invited, and Mr. Brown said he’s banned me from the society even if I change my mind. I can’t join next year. And maybe I’m throwing my life away because Mom’s a left-wing liberal.”

Confused by the logic, James sat and studied his daughter. Elsa continued. “So instead of joining the Science Society, I started my own club: the Perpetual Motion Club. We’re going to build a perpetual motion machine for the FutureWorld competition. It’ll be better than any stupid thing the Science Society does.

“But I might want to join the Science Society because I don’t want to end up a drug addict. And now Mr. Brown says I can’t. Ever.” A tear of immense proportion rolled down her cheek and fell on her hand in her lap.

Her father’s face contorted as he tried to keep his patronizing smile while holding back a laugh.

“Honey, first off, you need to get the idea that your mother is not a real lawyer out of your head. Yes, she’s a left-wing fruitcake who became a public advocate because she believed she can make a difference. And you know what?”

“What?” Elsa pouted.

“She does.”

“Yeah, sure,” Elsa said. “But what about all that crap about me going to college? She just wants me to become part of the oppressor.”

“Oh, brother, she’s created a monster.” James leaned forward onto the desk. “Your mother sees poverty and depravity every day. She works with it, defends it, helps to alleviate it. She sees the bottom of it, the constant fight against uphill battles, and worst of all, the waste. The last thing she wants is another human being cast into that pit. Least of all someone she loves. She sees what happens to those without opportunity. For her to see someone privileged ignore that privilege and opportunity, why, she can’t have that. Also, a perpetual motion machine is physically impossible. You should know that.”

Elsa jumped to intercept, but her father held her back with the just-a-moment finger.

“It’s been proven over and over. Ever since before Da Vinci they’ve been trying to come up with one and they still haven’t. Even if the laws of thermodynamics didn’t prove the impossibility, common sense should prevail and you shouldn’t waste your time on such things. But you know what?”

Elsa was all out bawling now. She didn’t bother answering.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Elsa’s body shook with silent crying.

”First off, not joining the Science Society is, contrary to what such experts as May and your mother say, not the end of the world. Membership in that Society won’t guarantee you’ll be happy. Look around you. Do I look happy?”

Elsa wiped her eyes and looked around until it dawned on her what he was saying. Her breath caught before she answered. “You were invited to the Science Society but you didn’t . . . ?”

“I was and I did join.”

Elsa’s face scrunched up for another crying jag, “so what’s the point?”

“The point is, I’m miserable.”

Elsa stopped mid-jag and looked up. “What?”

“That’s right, Elsa,” he said.

“You are not,” she cried.

“Okay, maybe not miserable, but I’m not totally happy either. The work here is beastly. I work like a dog. When was the last time I was home for supper? Sure this office is nice with its faux-natural setting of potted plants and sunny windows. But how much better to be able to go walk in the park for lunch or take the afternoon off with my daughter when she comes for a surprise visit? Sad thing is, I can’t do all that, and in fact I have to send you off now, because the client is coming in.”

Elsa placed her hands on the arms of the chair. “Okay, I’m going.”

“Not just yet. I want to make sure you understand. Colleges like to see the Science Society on an applicant’s resume, yes. But the idea is to learn. You don’t need the “best” school to learn. You need the “best” school to wind up like me—an overly competitive, dull, bored, miserable rat in a corner.” He gestured towards the windows behind him. “Constantly looking out at life, but never living it. Constantly looking over its shoulder to see if the competition is getting closer and making ruthless decisions to cut that competition down if necessary.”

“Are you having an affair?”

The question took the steam out of his tirade. He closed his mouth without finishing and then, “What?”

“When somebody’s miserable and bored, they always have an affair. Do you have a girlfriend?”

He thought a moment and looked down at the clutter of papers on his desktop, the overflowing inbox, the coffee stained piping diagrams. “Yes, Elsa, I do. I see her late, very late, every night. I slip into a pair of pjs, kiss her on the forehead, and then jump into bed.”

Elsa’s face threatened to break into tears again.

“Her name is Lainie Webb and she lives at 1272 Beat Lane. Ever heard of her?”

Now Elsa’s face didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

James stood up and walked around his desk to Elsa. “And this perpetual motion thing. Crazy to get involved in it, but you’ll learn an awful lot if you try your damndest.”

Elsa’s face smiled. She jumped up and hugged her father tightly.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Christmas brought a light and bright heart and expectations for a glorious vacation. With Dad solidly behind her, Elsa’s previous problems seemed to disappear. She’d get her club sanctioned and Lainie would come around. She wouldn’t need the Science Society, she’d have her own club. And May would too. Elsa spent the holidays in an energetic mood laced with optimism.

Not a particularly difficult process, sanctioning a new organization required a mission statement, a set of bylaws, and a policy of zero tolerance for discrimination based on the usual things: race, creed, gender, or police record.

The one sticky point turned out to be the requirement for a membership of at least five members. Elsa racked her brain to come up with three people who wouldn’t outright laugh in her face if she approached them. One name came to mind: Jimmy Bacomb.

She nodded to herself. He might be a twerp, but he was a nice one, and he’d join.

If there's one thing living through the previous painful weeks taught Elsa, it was that some people existed on a plane other than the one on which she and others of her ilk—the plain, unhip, or otherwise lacking in cash—lived. The lucky few, she saw, those who lived on that higher plane, sailed through life with ease. They were born entertaining, good-looking, or politically connected. The world worshipped them without them even having to put forth an ounce of effort.

Take Jason Bridges. One day he’d be king of the sports channel. School for him now was a mere formality, a resting place before he grew into his millions. One day his basketball trust, as valuable as any inherited fund, would mature, he’d graduate college and all around him would glitter with gold.

Pity
, she thought to herself.
Such a lonely existence without true friends
.

Thus Elsa combined her personal theory of human happiness with the clichéd Hollywood plots she’d been watching since she was a toddler. Somehow she believed that despite the ever-present crowd of sycophants surrounding him, the tall, new boy was lonely.

At any rate, there was no way in hell she would approach him to join the Perpetual Motion Club. She’d learned her lesson. Her only consolation was that she knew in five months she’d win FutureWorld and then he’d notice her. He’d see her picture in the papers. He’d watch his flock gravitating toward her. He too would have to pay his respects. She’d be mean. When he knelt on his knee to bashfully ask for a date, she would cruelly answer, “Sure,” not meaning it for a second. She would descend from her throne and gently gaze in his direction, bestowing a rare smile upon his countenance. His head would remain bowed as he whispered an invitation to sit in the special box at the Game. The one reserved for parents, special guests, and the occasional touring royalty. With contempt she would consider the inv . . .

“Mojo Jumbo! Mojo Jumbo! Mojo Jumbo!”

The alarm clock blared out the tune of the day. A heavy synthesized tuba baseline married to a castaneted rhythm with every one and three backtalked by the Roland horn section and heightened on the chorus. It was loud, and somehow both tinny and thumpy. Elsa jerked out of her dream like she’d been hit with a two-by-four upside her head, and immediately panicked.

“Off!” she ordered the alarm.

“Have a wonderful day,” it answered.

She sat on the edge of the bed considering the state of her world. Winter break was now past and school was beginning again. During the short two weeks between her last horrible interview with Mr. Brown and this morning of new beginnings, a lot had happened. For one thing her mother had stopped speaking to her. But the pain of that was offset by Dad and his reassurances she was on the right path, doing the right thing. May had come around to the idea of the Club and they’d held a few meetings during which Elsa finally explained what perpetual motion was.

The Club obviously had a long way to go, but all in all, Elsa continued her sophomore year in a fairly light frame of mind. Thoughts of revenge on Jason Bridges were shoved into the back hope chest of her mind, lest they blacken her resolve to fill out the membership requirements for the Perpetual Motion Club.

***

Lunchtime the first day back after the break, Elsa searched for Jimmy and found him in a little room off the guitar lab in the North Wing. It was a tiny cubby hole full of stretched canvases and broken down Fender signs on the walls. Having formerly served as a closet for instruments, strings, tuners, electronic metronomes, and flame throwers, it had no ventilation. The noxious paint fumes from the art students hung in the air for years and so the room was known as a good place to go and get high. Especially since there were no vid cameras, InterConnect boxes, or robot monitors in the room.

Jimmy was sitting behind a drawing board, staring at a stool about five feet in front of him that held a human skull. The room’s only light bulb was pulled down to just above his head. He’d spent half an hour setting the skull into position so it would catch the meager light perfectly. On the board before him was a large piece of newsprint upon which he was drawing the skull in charcoal.

Elsa entered the room, grabbed the skull from the stool and tossed it over to a shelf full of sketch books and pastel sets, before sitting down.

“This room is a mess,” she said in way of greeting. “It stinks in here, too. You’re probably getting brain damage from the fumes. That’s why you had to take Algebra over.”

“Sorry about that,” Jimmy said, looking to where she had tossed the skull but not commenting on it.

“So what do you do in here?” Elsa asked.

“The usual, basketball, track and field. You know.”

“Very funny, really, though.”

“Art.”

“Oh, yeah. Listen, I’m starting a club and uh . . . ” Elsa scratched at her forehead. “I thought you might like to join. “It’s a perpetual motion c—“

“Sure.” Jimmy’s eyebrows were raised in open minded interest.

“Don’t you wanna know what it’s about?”

“Okay.”

“It’s going to be called the Perpetual Motion Club and it’s going to be really slice.”

“Great. I’ll be there.”

Without having to convince Jimmy, Elsa was left with not much to conversate about. She had nothing scheduled for the club at this point. The only plan for it was to get three more members, so it was little more than an abstract idea festering in her mind and there was nothing more to discuss about it.

She shifted on the stool, bringing her legs up to the top rung, trying to think up some gossip.

“Me and May had a macabre experience a few weeks ago.”

“Macabre as in bloody body parts or macabre as in slang for bad?”

“You know what I mean. We were accosted by some of the, you know, anti-Rifs. It was that night we went to the Science Society meeting. You probably don’t remember. You had to go to the cemetery or something.”

Jimmy stood up. The light bulb banged into his head on the way up. Its light cast his face in shadows as he stood above it. “Who was bothering you?” he said.

“I don’t know, some guy said his name was Ralph. Wears nanofiber. Drop out I think. Or maybe a drug addict. Or both, probably.”

“Oh yeah, Ralph. He’s usually okay. Was he bothering you? I can talk to him.”

“Kind of, but no, not really. He’s got his eye on May, actually.”

“I can talk to him if he’s bothering May. I’m telling you he’s pretty nice, just kind of rough.”

“Well, I think he likes May. I guess that’s all it was. Just, you know, flirting or something.”

Jimmy came from around to the front of his table and leaned against it.

“She could do worse,” he said. “But . . . ” he faltered then. He didn’t know how to tell Elsa that if something frightened her, she should tell him. He didn’t want to say it because Elsa would just laugh. She’d say how she could take care of herself and didn’t need help from him. He was a twerp after all and what can a twerp do?