But telling my sister was one thing. Telling my fellow Potomac Video employees was something else entirely. I mean, in spite of my affection for Conspiracy Theory, I don’t actually believe in conspiracies…like that Dauntra is really a spy for Us Weekly or whatever, and the minute I let some intimate detail of my relationship with the first son slip, she’s going to report it.

But still. Maybe Dauntra was right about one thing: It’s better not to let the government—or your fellow employees at Potomac Video—put their noses in your business. Some things really are better left private.

At least, that’s what I thought then. Funny how quickly your opinion on that kind of thing can change.


 

Top ten Potomac Video employee picks:

10. Fight Club: A disillusioned man meets a stranger who introduces him to a new way of life. Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, 1999. Shirtless Brad, disillusionment, and big explosions. What could be bad about it?

9. To Kill a Mockingbird: A lawyer in the Depression-era South defends a black man falsely accused of rape and teaches his son and daughter not to be prejudiced. Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, 1962. Two words: Boo Radley. Need I say more? I didn’t think so.

8. Heathers: Popular girl meets a rebel who shows her how to teach the snobby girls at her school a lesson. Christian Slater, Winona Ryder, 1989. Anyone who tries to say this isn’t how high school really is, is a liar. Also contains the immortal line: “I love my dead gay son.”

7. Donnie Darko: High school boy is haunted by visions of a giant rabbit. Jake Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, 2001. Okay, I don’t understand it. But I love it.

6. Napoleon Dynamite: A high school outcast helps a new boy run for student body president, while wooing the girl of his dreams. Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, 2004. Best dance scene of any movie, ever.

5. Saved!: Girl at religious school is ostracized by peers. Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, 2004. This movie closely tied with Camp for pure hilarity.

4. Dogma: Two renegade angels try to get back into heaven. Linda Fiorentino, Matt Damon, 1999. Alanis Morissette plays God. Never has any role been cast so aptly.

3. Secretary: A secretary begins an unorthodox romance with her employer. Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, 2002. Disturbing in a way that makes you go Hmmm.

2. I’m the One That I Want: Margaret Cho’s 1999 stand-up comedy routine. Margaret Cho, 2000. Should probably be required viewing for all humans.

And my number-one top ten Potomac Video employee pick:

1. Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2: A hired assassin seeks vengeance when she, in turn, is attacked and left for dead. Uma Thurman, David Carradine, 2003/2004. Why do people even bother to keep making movies when Kill Bill exists? Kill Bill has it all. You don’t have to watch anything else, really.


5

When I got home from work that night, it was to find a sight so confusing that for a minute, I thought I had entered the wrong house. I almost turned around and went back out again. That’s how bizarre I found what I was seeing.

Lucy was sitting at the dining room table with a bunch of books spread out in front of her.

On a Friday night. A Friday night. Lucy is never home on Friday night. Up until recently, she’s always either been at a game or out with Jack, who travels down almost every weekend to see her. Lately, of course, she’s been working the Friday night shift at Bare Essentials, over in the mall.

But not this Friday night. This Friday night, she was going over SAT vocabulary words with—and this was the part that had me convinced I had the wrong house, the wrong sister, the wrong everything—Harold Minsky.

There are a lot of places I might have expected to see Harold Minsky. Potomac Video, for one, in the very anime section I’d just spent an hour organizing. Or possibly the sci-fi shelves. I would definitely have expected to see him in the computer lab at school, where he practically lives, in his capacity as teacher’s assistant to Mr. Andrews, the computer lab supervisor.

I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see Harold in the manga aisle at our local Barnes and Noble, or standing in front of Beltway Billiards, where he and his friends spend hours attaining high scores on Arcade Legends.

But I can’t say I expected, in a million years, ever to find Harold Minsky in my house…much less sitting across the dining room table from my sister Lucy.

“Waggish,” Lucy was saying thoughtfully as I walked in. “You mean, like a dog?”

Harold said, in a bored voice, “No.” Then, when there was no reply from my sister, he prompted, “It’s an adjective.”

“Waggish.” Lucy looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting the vocab fairy to tumble down from the chandelier and help her out. Instead, she noticed me standing in the doorway with my mouth sagging open.

“Oh, hi, Sam,” she said brightly. “Do you know Harold? Harold, this is my sister Samantha. Samantha, this is Harold. You know. From school.”

I did know. Harold was my computer lab TA. I said, “Uh, hi, Harold.”

Harold nodded at me, then turned his bespectacled head (how could it not be, when his parents had named him Harold?) back toward Lucy. What could they have been thinking, by the way? Didn’t they know that naming a kid Harold was a self-fulfilling prophecy, guaranteed to turn him into all that the name stood for: glasses, a crop of weedish brown hair that was badly in need of cutting, an unsteady gait stemming from a frame that had shot up six inches over the previous summer, making him one of the tallest guys in school not actually on the basketball team, and an orange Hawaiian shirt, the tail of which flopped out from the waistband of his too-short Levi’s?

“Come on,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that I’m sure no male member of the species had ever used on my sister before in her life. “You know this one. We just went over it.”

“Waggish,” Lucy said obediently. Then, to me, added, “Oh, I got that thing for you, Sam. That thing we talked about the other night? It’s on your bed.”

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then, when she winked slowly, it hit me—and I blushed. Deeply.

Fortunately, Harold was too caught up in getting my sister to come up with a definition for waggish (SAT word meaning “mischievous in sport; roguish in merriment or good humor; frolicsome”) to notice me.

“Lucy,” he said severely, “if you aren’t even going to try, I see no point in wasting my time and your parents’ money—”

“No, no, wait,” Lucy said. “I know this one. Really, I do. Waggish. Doesn’t it mean ‘happy’? Like, the football victory left him feeling waggish?”

I had to pass by the living room to get upstairs. My parents were both sitting in there, pretending to read. But I knew they were listening to Lucy and her new tutor.

“Hi, honey,” my mom said, when she saw me. “How was work?”

“Workish,” I said, keeping my head ducked in the hope that she wouldn’t notice my still-bright-red cheeks. “How long’s that been going on?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, toward the dining room.

“Tonight’s their first session,” Mom said. “I called the school, and they told me this Harold is the best SAT prep tutor they’ve got. Do you know him? Do you think he’ll be able to help her?”

“Well,” I said slowly. “If anyone can, I’d guess it would be Harold.”

“They tell me he’s a shoo-in for Harvard,” my mom said. “All the Ivies, actually.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like Harold, all right.”

“I asked for a female tutor,” my mom said, making sure to lower her voice so that Lucy and Harold couldn’t overhear her, “because I didn’t want there to be any…romantic complications. You know how boys can be about your sister. But when I saw Harold in action with her, I knew he’d be perfect. It’s almost as if he doesn’t even realize she’s…well, the way she is.”

It was nice of my mom not to come right out and say what we were all thinking: That Lucy is so gorgeous, guys on the street routinely fall in love with her on sight, and often trail after her, holding out scraps of paper with their cell phone numbers scrawled on them, which Lucy always politely takes, then deposits without a second thought in her bedroom trash can when she cleans out her purse every evening.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. That’d be Harold, all right. He doesn’t go in for that popularity stuff.” Or girls much, really. Unless they’re named Lara Croft and live inside a Playstation.

“I don’t care if he falls in love with her,” my dad said, roughly turning a page of the newspaper he was holding. “So long as he gets her score up, I’ll be happy.”

“Oh, Richard,” my mom said. “Not so loud. David called while you were at work, Sam. He said to call him back when you get a chance.”

“Huh,” I said. “Great.”

Only I didn’t mean great. I actually meant the opposite of great. Because I knew why he was calling. To find out what Mom and Dad had said. To find out whether or not we were going to get together over Thanksgiving to play Parcheesi.

And the truth is, I’ve never actually been the hugest fan of board games.

What would he do, I wondered, if I said no? No, I don’t want to go to Camp David with you for Thanksgiving, David. Would he dump me? I mean, if I just came out and told him that while he might think we’re ready for sex, I’m not so sure?

No. No way. David’s not that kind of guy. For one thing, he’s a total nerd—I mean, card carrying, with his vintage Boomtown Rats T-shirts, Converse high-tops, and long, strictly sci-fi related TiVo To Do list. And let’s face it, nerds simply don’t dump their girlfriends for not putting out, the way jocks seem to. Or so I’ve heard, not actually being acquainted with any jocks.