 she says.
"That's a relief," I tell her. "I've lost the receipt." Laura, Ruth, and Nancy
converge on us, looking determined, and interrogate us: how did we meet, what
does Henry do for a living, where did he go to college, blah, blah, blah. I never
expected that when Henry and I finally appeared in public together it would be
simultaneously so nerve-racking and so boring. I tune in again just as Nancy
says, "It's so weird that your name is Henry."
"Oh?" says Henry, "Why's that?"
Nancy tells him about the slumber party at Mary Christina's, the one where
the Ouija board said that I was going to marry someone named Henry. Henry
looks impressed. "Really?" he asks me.
"Um, yeah." I suddenly have an urgent need to pee. "Excuse me," I say,
detaching myself from the group and ignoring Henry's pleading expression.
Helen is hot on my heels as I run upstairs. I have to shut the bathroom door in
her face to stop her from following me in.
"Open up, Clare," she says, jiggling the door knob. I take my time, pee, wash
my hands, put on fresh lipstick. "Clare," Helen grumbles, "I'm gonna go
downstairs and tell your boyfriend every single hideous thing you've ever done
in your life if you don't open this door immed-" I swing the door open and
Helen almost falls into the room.
"All right, Clare Abshire," Helen says menacingly. She closes the door. I sit
down on the side of the bathtub and she leans against the sink, looming over me
in her pumps. "Fess up. What is really going on with you and this Henry person?
I mean, you just stood there and told a big fat stack of lies. You didn't meet this
guy three months ago, you've known him for years! What's the big secret?"
I don't really know how to begin. Should I tell Helen the truth? No.
Why not? As far as I know, Helen has only seen Henry once, and he didn't
look that different from how he looks right now. I love Helen. She's strong, she's
crazy, she's hard to fool. But I know she wouldn't believe me if I said, time travel,
Helen. You have to see it to believe it.
"Okay," I say, gathering my wits. "Yeah, IVe known him for a long time."
"How long?"
"Since I was six."
Helen's eyes bug out like a cartoon character's. I laugh.
"Why.. .how come.. .well, how long have you been dating him?"
"I dunno. I mean, there was a period of time when things were sort of on the
verge, but nothing was exactly going on, you know; that is, Henry was pretty
adamant that he wasn't going to mess around with a little kid, so I was just kind
of hopelessly nuts about him..."
"But-how come we never knew about him? I don't see why it all had to be
such a hush hush. You could have told me."
"Well, you kind of knew." This is lame, and I know it.
Helen looks hurt. "That's not the same thing as you telling me."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Hmpf. So what was the deal?"
"Well, he's eight years older than me."
"So what?"
"So when I was twelve and he was twenty, that was a problem." Not to
mention when I was six and he was forty.
"I still don't get it. I mean, I can see you not wanting your parents to know you
were playing Lolita to his Humbert Humbert, but I don't get why you couldn't
tell us. We would have been totally into it. I mean, we spent all this time feeling
sorry for you, and worrying about you, and wondering why you were such a
nun-" Helen shakes her head. "And there you were, screwing Mario the
Librarian the whole time-"
I can't help it, I'm blushing. "I was not screwing him the whole time."
"Oh, come, on."
"Really! We waited till I was eighteen. We did it on my birthday."
"Even so, Clare," Helen begins, but there's a heavy knock on the bathroom
door, and a deep male voice asks, "Are you girls about done in there?"
"To be continued," Helen hisses at me as we exit the bathroom to the
applause of the five guys standing in line in the hallway.
I find Henry in the kitchen, listening patiently as one of Laura's inexplicable
jock friends babbles on about football. I catch the eye of his blond, button-nosed
girlfriend, and she hauls him off to get another drink.
Henry says, "Look, Clare-Baby Punks!" I look and he's pointing at Jodie,
Laura's fourteen-year-old sister, and her boyfriend, Bobby Hardgrove. Bobby has
a green Mohawk and the full ripped T-shirt/safety pin getup, and Jodie is trying
to look like Lydia Lunch but instead just looks like a raccoon having a bad hair
day. Somehow they seem like they're at a Halloween party instead of a Christmas
party. They look stranded and defensive. But Henry is enthusiastic. "Wow. How
old are they, about twelve?"
"Fourteen."
"Let's see, fourteen, from ninety-one, that makes them...oh my god, they were
born in 1977. I feel old. I need another drink." Laura passes through the kitchen
holding a tray of Jell-O shots. Henry takes two and downs them both in rapid
succession, then makes a face. "Ugh. How revolting." I laugh. "What do you
think they listen to?" Henry says.
"Dunno. Why don't you go over and ask them?"
Henry looks alarmed. "Oh, I couldn't. I'd scare them."
"I think you're scared of them."
"Well, you may be right. They look so tender and young and green, like baby
peas or something."
"Did you ever dress like that?"
Henry snorts derisively. "What do you think? Of course not. Those children
are emulating British punk. I am an American punk. No, I used to be into more of
a Richard Hell kind of look."
"Why don't you go talk to them? They seem lonely"
"You have to come and introduce us and hold my hand." We venture across
the kitchen with caution, like Levi-Strauss approaching a pair of cannibals. Jodie
and Bobby have that fight or flight look you see on deer on the Nature Channel.
"Um, hi, Jodie, Bobby."
"Hi, Clare," says Jodie. I've known Jodie her whole life, but she seems shy all
of a sudden, and I decide that the neo-punk apparel must be Bobby's idea.
"You guys looked kind of, um, bored, so I brought Henry over to meet you.
He likes your, um, outfits."
"Hi," says Henry, acutely embarrassed. "I was just curious-that is, I was
wondering, what do you listen to?"
"Listen to?" Bobby repeats.
"You know-music. What music are you into?"
Bobby lights up. "Well, the Sex Pistols," he says, and pauses.
"Of course," says Henry, nodding. "And the Clash?"
"Yeah. And, um, Nirvana..."
"Nirvana's good," says Henry.
"Blondie?" says Jodie, as though her answer might be wrong.
"I like Blondie," I say. "And Henry likes Deborah Harry."
"Ramones?" says Henry. They nod in unison. "How about Patti Smith?"
Jodie and Bobby look blank.
"Iggy Pop?"
Bobby shakes his head. "Pearl Jam," he offers.
I intercede. "We don't have much of a radio station up here," I tell Henry.
"There's no way for them to find out about this stuff."
"Oh," Henry says. He pauses. "Look, do you want me to write some things
down for you? To listen to?" Jodie shrugs. Bobby nods, looking serious, and
excited. I forage for paper and pen in my purse. Henry sits down at the kitchen
table, and Bobby sits across from him. "Okay," says Henry. "You have to go back
to the sixties, right? You start with the Velvet Underground, in New York. And
then, right over here in Detroit, you've got the MC5, and Iggy Pop and the
Stooges. And then back in New York, there were The New York Dolls, and The
Heartbreakers-"
"Tom Petty?" says Jodie. "We've heard of him."
"Um, no, this was a totally different band," says Henry. "Most of them died in
the eighties."
"Plane crash?" asks Bobby.
"Heroin," Henry corrects. "Anyway, there was Television, and Richard Hell
and the Voidoids, and Patti Smith."
"Talking Heads," I add.
"Huh. I dunno. Would you really consider them punk?"
"They were there."
"Okay," Henry adds them to his list, "Talking Heads. So then, things move
over to England-"
"I thought punk started in London," says Bobby.
"No. Of course," says Henry, pushing back his chair, "some people, me
included, believe that punk is just the most recent manifestation of this, this
spirit, this feeling, you know, that things aren't right and that in fact things are so
wrong that the only thing we can do is to say Fuck It, over and over again, really
loud, until someone stops us."
" Yes," Bobby says quietly, his face glowing with an almost religious fervor
under his spiked hair. "Yes."
"You're corrupting a minor," I tell Henry.
"Oh, he would get there anyway, without me. Wouldn't you?"
"I've been trying, but it ain't easy, here."
"I can appreciate that" says Henry. He's adding to the list. I look over his
shoulder. Sex Pistols, The Clash, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys, X,
The Mekons, The Raincoats, The Dead Boys, New Order, The Smiths, Lora Logic,
The Au Pairs, Big Black, PiL, The Pixies, The Breeders, Sonic Youth...
"Henry, they're not going to be able to get any of that up here." He nods, and
jots the phone number and address for Vintage Vinyl at the bottom of the sheet.
"You do have a record player, right?"
"My parents have one," Bobby says. Henry winces.
"What do you really like?" I ask Jodie. I feel as though she's fallen out of the
conversation during the male bonding ritual Henry and Bobby are conducting.
"Prince," she admits. Henry and I let out a big Whoo! and I start singing 1999
as loud as I can, and Henry jumps up and we're doing a bump and grind across
the kitchen. Laura hears us and runs off to put the actual record on and just like
that, it's a dance party.
Henry: We're driving back to Clare's parents' house from Laura's party. Clare
says, "You're awfully quiet."
"I was thinking about those kids. The Baby Punks."
"Oh, yeah. What about them?"
"I was trying to figure out what would cause that kid-"
"Bobby."
"-Bobby, to revert, to latch on to music that was made the year he was born..."
"Well, I was really into the Beatles," Clare points out. "They broke up the year
before I was born."
"Yeah, well, what is that about? I mean, you should have been swooning over
Depeche Mode, or Sting o