Disclaimer : "More Phil is in your future. Keep it here on the Disney Channel."

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING. THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!

READ YOUR OWN BLURBS, WILLYA!

(Truth in advertising? "More Phil is in your future ... on the Disney Channel?" Hmm ... I think that we've just discovered the legal loophole pressuring Disney into Season 3!)

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The F-Word – Chapter One – "Truth"

"The library is closing in ten minutes. The library is closing in ten minutes. Please take all books to the check-out desk."

"Keely, you're still surfing the net? What are you so absorbed with?"

Without taking her eyes off the flat screen monitor, the stylin' blond whispered, "I'm deciding where I'm going to be married."

Her dark-haired cohort didn't see that one coming. "Splain, please."

"Didya' know that the divorce rate in the States is over 50-percent overall within 5 years? Sweden's the same, and Belarus, and Finland -- where's Belarus? Here, Vee, look at this. The U.K. and Canada are both around 40-percent. I could go to Italy; 90-percent of the marriages there last, or, OOH! Vatican City has zero divorces!" She peeled away a lavender sticky note to write that last one down.

"Keely, Keely, Kee--",

"Shh--this is a library. The library will be closing soon. Please log off, " ordered the librarian, whose human interaction skills predated the card catalog, as she continued her attempts to round up stragglers before the next announcement.

Via softened her tone, and made it rushed, "There's nothing special about the land you stand on when making marriage vows. Did your search include the culture, dominant religious beliefs, recent economic and political upheavals? Honey, I've been to Italy. Yes, there is a belief in the sanctity of marriage, but there's also a centuries-old tradition of machismo that encourages infidelity."

"But, couldn't it just ..."

"Dearie, you're looking at the concrete, the tangible. Where in your Boolean search are the esthetics: Love, Friendship, Devotion, Loyalty, Dependability, Honor, Self-Sacrifice, -- HAPPINESS?"

"Okay, but ..."

"But nothing. My mum has too many friends that have marriages existing only on paper and, Sweetie, they're not worth the paper in the girls' room after use. Think of being trapped with the worst imaginable cell phone plan for life, and resigning yourself to learning to live with terrible communication, lousy service, no respect, and ever-rising costs."

Via went on, "Even if you could play the international odds of happy marriages, you'd have to stay in that country, adapt to it's culture, and probably marry a local that had been brought up in that same environment -- and we both know that that's not an option, don't we?"

"I-I--I; what are you implying? I'm ju--"

"Five minutes. Thank you for coming to the Pickford Public Library. The library will be closing in five minutes. Please bring your selections to the check-out desk. Thank you."

"Truth time. We all do it, Keely. We dream of our family to-be, our marriage, our wedding, meeting the one, but you, ..."

Keely wasn't looking at the monitor. She wasn't looking anywhere. Her eyes couldn't meet Via's or she just knew that Via could look straight into her brain -- not that her galpal was having any trouble doing that right now.

" ... you quit playing Mystery Date about two years ago, didn't you? The fashion sense is a carry-over from your "Miss Popular" phase; look at you even now in just denim blue jeans and a sporty T-shirt. You don't have to compete with the rest of us to be noticed or be competed for. You're sixteen and you already have a pretty clear picture of what your children will look like. You've won the brass ring and are planning on doing whatever you can to keep it shiny. No wonder I hate you."

Keely checked her reflection in the flat screen. Had she become crystal? Via had looked right through her and not missed a thing. Slipping on Phil's blue jacket that she had yet to return (What had it been now, two or three months?), she made a pointless attempt to hide herself from Via's perceptual powers. Unlike Phil, the jacket made no effort to protect her. A wounded-puppy-face was all she could muster in her defense. Insufficient. The lights went out, then back on, again and again -- the librarian's two-minute warning.

"What am I doing that's so wrong?"

Via helped her friend up and slid a book of poetry to the table's edge to tuck it into her free hand. While they made their way to the exit, she confided, "One, you're talking to me about this and not him. This is something better shared between you both; shared dreams can become shared plans for the future. Same goes for fears and solutions. Two, you're trying to make decisions that you have no control over. You're sixteen, Girl, and you're trying to decide where you'll live when your daughter is in grade school. Live more in the 'now.' These teenage years will be up and gone before you realize and you can't travel back in time to relive them. Three, ..."

"Card please."

"Pardon? Oh, yes. Sorry, here you are."

"Thank you. It's due back in three weeks. Good night."

"A promise. Good evening."

"THREE?" prompted an intensely interested Keely. The librarian raised her eyebrows; hadn't she made it clear?

"Three. Show him how you feel and show him how to feel. Phil's a pretty intellectual guy, the kind that plans everything out, too. What he misses out on are the sensations of life."

Keely was shocked. "Are you talking about sex? Is that all your talk of love and commitment and devotion end up being about? If we wanted ..."

A wave of Vee's hand was enough to tell Keely that she had run down the wrong path; Via wasn't talking about that at all. Time to give her a chance to explain herself.

"Remember when we were young, I mean really little? Two, three, four years old? Every touch, every smell, every sound communicated information that we luxuriated in: a grassy lawn, warm towels, a cool tabletop, dust, the sound of wind in the branches, olives on your fingers -- FOOD! I think that Phil is clueless about that stuff. He's visual, probably why he's so good at mathematics, but even when he plans events for you, they're visual experiences. It's like he's watched reality on a video screen his whole entire life."

"You know Phil's family better than anyone and I know that you can talk to his parents. Although I don't know much about them, I get the feeling that they're not the hugging-kind; maybe almost 'English' in displaying how they feel."

With barely a thought, Keely dismissed this. Sure, Mr. Diffy hugged his wife and kids. Even Pim had hugged Phil during extremely emotional moments, and Barbara had embraced her son's girlfriend when she was only the friendgirl. Sorry Vee, but you're way off base on this one.

But ... but there was something ... unlike other boys, Phil hadn't put any moves on her. She was the one who controlled the pace of their relationship, physically and emotionally. Keely led and Phil followed. It was almost like Phil didn't know what to do or at least how to do it. For being from 2121, he did seem pretty lost in social situations, relationships, ... romance.

Phil had told her about life in his future, which was his past. From "popping" out of a neonatal pod, to the family's android nanny, to the Homework Helmet, and she'd even experienced the Virtu-Goggles; there was little warmth from human contact in the 22nd Century. Not Phil's fault that he was from an antiseptically backward culture; he'd just need someone with patience to tutor him in real life, and sensory education could be an ongoing theme throughout their lifetime together.

"Maybe you're right, Vee. About a lot of stuff. I'll think about it." THWAACK! A sharp finger-flick reflected off Keels' forehead. Via had not been amused with her slow student. "Ow! Ow! I mean, Phil and I will think about it." Vee's hand raised again. "Tonight! Tonight and we'll go on a picnic share our dreams and dreads and listen to the crickets and you're not going to flick me again, are you?

"Probably not. Thought this was going to become a career or at least cause the necessity for a manicure, but probably not. I think that you two just might make it without me inflicting bruises." Twin smiles erupted, laughter, and they were just sixteen again.

Twenty minutes later, Keely walked toward the steps of Number 182 ...