I put the Schwa out of my mind, which is not hard to do, as you already know. Even with his meltdown, even with the broken game disc, I woke up in the morning without him crossing my mind once. My thoughts were occupied with the mystery of Lexie Crawley. She was fourteen, not four. I wish Crawley would have told me that up front. It put a whole new spin on the situation.
"What are you all dressed up for?" my mother asked as she peered into my bedroom that morning.
"Funeral," I told her.
She studied me, trying to decide if I was telling the truth or just being my normal nuisance. "Who died?" she asked.
"Your sense of humor," I told her.
She frowned at me, and made like she was going to match wisecracks, but instead she just came into my room and straightened the knot on my tie. "You got someone to impress at nine in the morning?" she asked.
"Ten," I told her. I lifted my neck so she could get the tie just right.
"Is she pretty?"
I just hope she's human, I wanted to say, but instead I just shrugged.
Mom stepped back to admire me. "You look handsome," she said. "Just don't make an idiot of yourself."
Unless I wanted to climb on the roof again, the only way into Crawley's apartment was through the restaurant, which was closed this time of the morning. After knocking a few times on the front entrance, I went around back, where a custodian let me in. The restaurant was creepy in the off-hours. Chairs were stacked on top of tables, the floor was still wet from the custodian's mop.
I climbed the stairs to the old, unused part of the restaurant and the big wooden door of the apartment toward the back. Even before I got to the door, the dogs began to bark.
"Get out of the way, you mutts," I could hear Crawley gripe on the other side of the door. "Get back, or I swear I'll put you in the gumbo!" Then I heard all the dead bolts snap open and he pulled the door just wide enough for me to squeeze in without letting the dogs out. I was attacked by fourteen tongues before Crawley grabbed a handful of treats from his vest pocket and hurled them back toward the living room. The dogs, who knew the drill well, took off.
"Who's there, Grandpa?" I heard a girl's voice call from deeper in the apartment.
"Just the dog walker," Crawley said.
"Dog walker?" I said. "But I thought—" Crawley rapped me hard in the arm to shut me up. "Owl"
"It's the dog walker," Crawley said again. "He's here to walk the dogs." Then he turned to me. "Where's your friend?"
Usually I was pretty quick to catch on to things, but today I was a bit behin d the curve. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say. "Uh ... he had to go to a funeral."
"Oh, that's so sad," I heard Lexie say. At least her voice sounded nice. I could see her stepping out of the kitchen now, but Crawley kept the place so dark I couldn't see her face.
Crawley looked at me. "I guess you'll have to walk the dogs all by yourself, then," he said. And repeated, "All by yourself."
"Uh ... sure, I guess," I said.
And then Lexie said, "I could help."
Finally I figured out what was going on here, and I felt like a moron for not catching on sooner. As soon as Lexie offered to help, Crawley smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. This was a setup. "I don't know, Lexie . . . these dogs might be too strong for you."
"Don't be ridiculous—they're no stronger than Moxie, and if I go with your dog walker, I won't even have to take Moxie along."
Lexie finally stepped out of the shadows. I didn't see anything wrong with her at all. Tourette's syndrome, I thought. Any second she's gonna start cursing me out.
Actually, she was kind of pretty. Not perfect, of course, but then I wasn't one to judge. There was something strange about her eyes. They were half closed, like she just spent an hour in Mr. Gandler's social studies class, which, by the way, is a torture I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy.
Lexie stuck out her hand for me to shake. I had to move a few steps forward to grab her hand, and the moment I did, I figured the whole thing out.
"You're blindl" I hadn't meant to blurt it out like that, but well, there it was.
Crawley gave me a look of disgust that could spoil milk. "How very observant of you."
"Sorry," I said to Lexie, "but your grandfather had me thinking you were a mutant or something."
"Grandpa thinks everyone's a mutant." She kissed him on top of the head.
"Everyone is," he grumbled.
A golden retriever much calmer than the other dogs paced out from the kitchen, wearing a harness and a rigid halter. A Seeing Eye dog. "This is Moxie," she said, and I knelt down to pet him as he came to me. "He'll be jealous when we walk the other dogs," Lexie said, "but he'll get over it."
We put two dogs on leashes. Moxie whined a bit, as Lexie predicted, and I led her out.
"Shouldn't I help you down the stairs or something?" I asked.
"Why?" she answered. "Five paces, turn right, twelve paces, turn left, twenty-two steps down, then nine paces to the door."
She navigated the stairs with confidence.
We crossed the street and walked the sidewalk that lined the bay so we wouldn't have to cross any more streets. Lexie held my arm as we walked a slow measured pace, with Prudence and Envy tugging on their leashes, and I silently wished I had lifted weights more, because she was holding on to my nearly nonexistent left bicep. I kept waiting for her to make a crack about it.
"So, how much is my grandfather paying you to entertain me?" she asked.
"Paying me? Why would he be paying me? I'm the dog walker. I walk the dogs."
"Nice try, but I know my grandfather. How much is he paying you to spend time with me?"
I was going to continue denying it, but I figured this blind girl could see through anything.
"Enough," I said.
"Whatever it is, he's ripping you off," she said. "Ask for more."
"I can't do thatl"
"Why not? Your time is worth at least minimum wage, isn't it? And what about an expense account? Make sure he pays when you take me out to lunch, and when you take me dancing."
"Dancing? I'm taking you dancing?"
Lexie laughed. "Well, not if you don't want to. The boy last year couldn't dance at all."
So now I was really beginning to stutter and sputter and make all those stupid noises a guy makes when his brain slips out of gear. "He's done this before?"
"I spent the summer with Grandpa. He figures if he owns all my dates, he can keep me safe from the big bad world."
It was news to me that Crawley considered me safe. In fact, it annoyed me. What had I gotten myself into here? I had never spent quality time with a blind girl before. I had never spent quality time with any girl. My experiences had been mostly Kmart quality, if you know what I mean. Parties were usually just Ira, Howie, and me standing on the sidelines, drinking punch and cracking jokes about the guys who actually had dates. As for the girls I had gone out with, well, it usually felt more like the hot seat on a game show. One bad answer sends you out on your butt, and the whole world's laughing at you by eight o'clock, seven o'clock Central Time.
Lexie turned toward the bay the way most people would when they wanted to take in the view, but she was taking in the salty breeze against her face. Then she said something freaky.
"Can I see what you look like?"
I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not. "How would you do that?"
"Like this." She handed me Prudence's leash, then reached up suddenly and pressed her hand to my face. I pulled back just as suddenly. Girls generally didn't touch my face, unless slapping counts.
"Sorry," she said. "If you don't want me to ..."
"No, it's okay. I just wasn't expecting it. Go ahead. Try again." She brought her right hand to my face again—this time more slowly. Then her left hand came up. She began rubbing both of my cheeks in little circles.
"Are my zits giving you messages in Braille?"
She giggled at that, and I prayed to God that the whitehead I'd been nursing with Clearasil didn't decide it was time to blow.
Now she moved her fingers up to my eye sockets, brushing both of my brows with her thumb before checking out the bridge of my nose. "You have good bone structure," she said, which is fine for dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History, but not exactly the compliment you want to hear.
"That's the best you can say, huh?"
"Good bone structure is important," she said. "No matter how handsome or pretty you think you are, without bone structure to back it up, it doesn't mean a thing."
I let her continue, closing my eyes as she gently pressed her thumbs against my sockets, perhaps testing to see whether or not there was a brain behind my eyeballs.
"You have very nice eyes," she said.
Her fingers slipped down the side of my nose and began to travel the rim of my nostrils, which, I have to tell you, felt just a little too familiar. Then, before I could say anything about it, her fingers were brushing gently across my lips. It tickled. I was glad she couldn't see how much I was blushing, but I wondered if she could feel the heat rising to my face.
"Seen enough?"
"Almost." And then—God's honest truth—she pushed her fingers just the slightest bit between my lips, and started to move them back and forth across my teeth.
"I fink oo sood shtop now," I said.
"Hmm," she said, ignoring me. "You've got braces."
This was not going well. I wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. Then she said, "I like braces. It gives a person texture."
Having a girl's fingers explore the texture of my dental work was uncharted territory for me. What did this mean? Did it mean we were going out? Was this like the blind version of "first base"? Or was this some other sport altogether—a sport I didn't know how to play? What if this was like cricket, which I watched once and it made no sense to me. So here's this girl with her fingertips on my teeth, which I guess is first base in a cricket match, and I'm wondering what happens if she wants to find other textures in there.
Then she took her hands away. I took a deep breath of relief. "So," I said, "do you like what you see?"
She smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
I wondered if I would get a turn now, but I was afraid to ask.
"Hi, Antsyl"
The Schwa caught me totally by surprise and I jumped. I had no idea how long he had been standing there watching. "Jeez— do you have to do that?"
"I was wondering when you'd say something," Lexie said.
I turned to Lexie. "You knew he was there?"
"Of course. I could hear him breathing. What did he call you?"
"Nothing," I said. "Just a nickname."
"She saw mel" said the Schwa. "She actually saw mel"
"She didn't see you, she's blind."
"But she knew I was herel" The Schwa was getting all excited now. "Hey, Antsy, maybe we can do another set of experiments with Lexis. See if she's immune to the Schwa Effect. Maybe it's genetic—her grandfather usually notices me, too."
Lexie smiled. "Antsy? He called you Antsy?"
I threw up my hands. This was the classic three's-a-crowd scenario, and right now three felt more like Times Square on New Year's Eve. "Schwa, could you just go and walk some dogs?"
"I got all day."
"Aren't you going to introduce us?" asked Lexie.
I sighed. "Lexie, meet the Schwa. Schwa, meet Lexie."
"Calvin," he said. "Pleased to meet you."
By now Prudence and Envy were both getting restless. We walked them back home, and I took them upstairs alone. When I came back outside, Lexie was touching the Schwa's face.
"Heyl" I shouted, running back to them.
"I wanted Lexie to see me," the Schwa said, "like she saw you."
"What if she doesn't want to see you?"
Lexie's eyebrows furrowed as she keyboarded across the Schwa's face. "Hmm ... that's interesting."
"What?" the Schwa asked. "What is it?"
"I don't know. It's like . . . It's like I can't get a clear impression. Your face feels..."
"Invisible," I suggested.
"No," said Lexie, searching for the right word. Now she moved her fingers across his face more intently than she had searched mine. And although she touched his lips, she didn't check out his teeth. If she did, I would have thrown a hemorrhage, although I can't really say why.
"His face is ... pure," she said. "Flavorless—like sweet-cream ice cream."
The Schwa smiled. "Yeah? My face is like ice cream?"
"Sweet cream," I reminded him. "It has no taste."
"Yes, it does," said Lexie. "It's just very subtle."
"Nobody likes it," I said.
"It's my favorite," Lexie answered.
The Schwa only grinned, and threw a disgustingly happy glance in my direction.
Now let's be clear on something here. I had only just met Lexie, and she wasn't really my type. I mean, I'm Italian, she's blind. It was a mixed relationship. But seeing her fingers on Schwa's face ... I don't know, it did something to me.
The two of us had lunch down in Crawley's restaurant. Lobster on the house. Schwa, in his slippery way, appeared at the table and tried to squeeze in, but I was ready for him. I quickly brought down two dogs for him to walk, and no sooner had I put the leashes in his hands than the maltre d' threw a conniption fit about health codes, and quickly shooed Schwa and the dogs out the back way.
"Your friend's funny," Lexie said after he was gone.
"Yeah," I said, "Funny in the head." Right away I felt this unpleasant stab of guilt for turning on the Schwa like that.
Lexie smirked, and for a moment, I forgot she was blind, because I knew she was seeing everything.