Mrs. Fletcher(42)

The redhead’s smile wilted a little.

“It was hard,” she said. “For a long time I didn’t understand that everybody’s big sister wasn’t like mine. But then I started to realize something was wrong. When I was in first grade this girl named Tierney came to my house to play Barbies. It was her first visit. Ellen barged into my room and asked Tierney what her birthday was, and then she asked about Tierney’s mother’s birthday, and her father’s birthday, and the birthdays of her siblings. And then she said, What about your dog? What’s your dog’s birthday? And Tierney—I’ll never forget it—she just looked at me, totally matter-of-fact, and said, Why’s she so stupid? I didn’t know how to answer that, so I threw my Barbie at Ellen and screamed, Leave us alone, stupid!”

The redhead took a moment to collect herself.

“This is a safe space,” Amber said. “No one’s judging you. It’s a challenge to have a sibling on the spectrum. That’s why we’re here. To listen and support each other.”

The redhead looked relieved. “The weird thing was, Ellen didn’t even care that I called her stupid. I’m not sure she even heard it. She just kept talking in this robot voice she uses sometimes: I know three people who were born on March 10th who aren’t triplets and two people who were born on March 2nd who aren’t twins. I’ve never met anyone who was born on November 8th, not even a dog or a cat. I was just sitting there, dying inside. I looked at Tierney and I said, She can’t help it, she was born that way, and Tierney said, I feel sorry for you.”

“That Tierney sounds like an ice-cold bitch,” said the veep, going to town with the Purell.

“She’s actually my best friend,” said the redhead. “She’s really nice to Ellen now. She just didn’t know any better.”

By that point the phone had made its way to me. The photo on the screen had been taken at the redhead’s high school graduation. She was wearing a cap and gown, and Ellen was standing next to her in a shiny green dress, holding her arms way out from her body, like maybe the material bothered her skin.

“That’s great to hear,” Amber said, and for some reason she was staring straight at me. “That’s how we change the world. One person at a time.”

*

We were about an hour into the meeting at that point, and already I was itching for it to be over. There are only so many stories you can listen to about somebody’s autistic brother or sister.

I was only there for Amber, who I hadn’t seen since the night we protested in the library. I’d texted her a bunch of times in the past week, trying to get her to meet me for coffee or pizza or whatever, but she kept putting me off, saying that she’d see me at the October meeting of the Autism Awareness Network and we could make a plan then. She was so insistent about the meeting that I started to wonder if she saw me more as a new recruit than as a guy she might want to hook up with, but I liked her enough that it was worth a couple hours of my time to figure out which it was.

So far things were looking pretty good on the hookup side of the equation. She had let out a happy little squeal when I walked through the door, and then led me around the room, introducing me to her friends like I was some kind of VIP.

“This is Brendan,” she told the veep. “He’s the first year I was telling you about. Brendan, this is Cat.”

“Hey, Brendan.” Cat looked me up and down, like she was thinking about buying me. “Amber was hoping you’d come.”

“Shut up!” Amber told her, her cheeks a shade pinker than normal. Instead of her usual sweats and hoodie, she was wearing skinny jeans and a tight top and sexy platform sandals, the kind of clothes you’d wear to a party, or on a date. She had nice small boobs—I hadn’t really gotten a good look at them before—that went really well with her athletic build.

“All I meant is that we need more men in the group,” Cat said with a smirk, reaching into her purse for the Purell. “I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything.”

“It’s true.” Amber glanced at the Asian hipster, who was standing in a circle of girls, basking in the attention. “Usually it’s just Kwan. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have a bro.”

“I don’t know,” I said, because Kwan was giving me the stink eye, like I’d crashed his party. “Looks like he’s doing fine without me.”

Cat headed over to the refreshment table, leaving me alone with Amber.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said, placing her hand on my forearm, super-casual, like she didn’t even know she was doing it. But I knew. I felt it way down in my balls, a warm surge of power, like someone had just turned a key and started the engine.

*

After the break, a girl named Nellie told us about her brother, who was really smart but flapped his hands and grunted a lot, which made it hard to take him anywhere. Three girls in a row said they had siblings with Asperger’s. This other girl, Dora, said she was the only normal kid out of four siblings. The other three were all diagnosed PDD-NOS, and one of them was totally nonverbal. Amber suggested that Dora stop using the word normal and substitute neurotypical instead.

“It’s less hurtful that way,” she explained. “And besides—in your family, it actually seems like autism is the norm, right?”