This one goes out to Tahti for leaving review #500!


"Skeletons are fine. Your closet, or mine?"

- Ani DiFranco, "Small World"


Los Angeles, May & June 1992

They might as well be living inside an electric fence right now.

It's not so dangerous anymore that she or Jack won't go outside (burned-out hulls of charcoal-black cars notwithstanding), but neither of them is all that comfortable with bringing the baby out yet. The National Guard is still patrolling the streets, and they did just shoot someone this morning.

For god's sake, she never thought she'd live somewhere people could just randomly get shot on any given day.

Over the phone, the UCLA Admissions Office tells her they're willing to wait for her med school deposit, considering the extenuating circumstances. Her calls to the bank on Tuesday and Wednesday go unanswered. She tries the two other branches listed in the phone book; nothing.

Rachel calls on Wednesday to make plans to visit for graduation. Graduation? That's still happening?

"Well, we thought we'd come up that Thursday and stay 'til - "

"We?" Juliet can't help herself. It's been months now since she'd walked in on Rachel and Niall sleeping together twined up on the couch, and assuming they're still together, Rachel still hasn't given her the tiniest hint.

"Well, yeah, I mean, you know... Niall wants to see you walk across that stage, too."

"Mm-hm." She can't keep the skepticism out of her voice, even though Rachel's statement probably is true enough. But Juliet doesn't say anything else, waiting. This has gone on for long enough, whatever it is. Seconds tick by.

Rachel can't handle silence as well as Juliet, though, and eventually she heaves a gigantic sigh. "I guess... uh... I should probably tell you that we're living together."

Nice try. Juliet keeps her voice as light and over-the-top innocent as possible. "Well, yeah. You two have been roommates for, what? Three years?"

"Like... not as roommates."

Juliet hides her sudden, unbidden smile against her hand even though it's not like Rachel can see her. "Was it really that hard to tell me?"

"Sort of?"

She looks over at David, pulling dirty clothes out of the laundry basket waiting near the front door. Hauling the dirty clothes down the hall while corralling him isn't so easy these days now that he's getting faster on his feet. "I'm happy for you, you know."

"It's not... weird?"

Why would it be weird, she doesn't ask. She knows what Rachel means. Should she tell her sister about Jack? In what way can Juliet not come out looking immature? It's OK now that I have someone too? Ugh.

"I'm really, really happy for you," and she means it, this time, finally.


May 5, 1992

Dear Ms. Carlson,

Greetings from the University of Michigan Medical School! We have not yet received your acceptance or regrets regarding our offer of admission. As noted previously, your response was requested no later than April 30, 1992.

If our correspondence has crossed in the mail, please excuse this letter.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind you about our offer of a full merit scholarship in honor of your outstanding academic achievement. This scholarship offer includes four years of tuition, laboratory and administrative fees, and an annual allowance for textbooks. We are also delighted to offer you a stipend of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) per annum for living expenses, in exchange for a work-study fellowship to be determined by the university.

We hope this offer will convince you to join us this fall semester as a member of the Class of 1996.

At the University of Michigan Medical School we educate individuals to provide exemplary patient care and graduate physicians who assume leadership roles in the areas of medical practice, research and teaching, blah blah blah blah...


Juliet locates the letter that she was supposed to send to Michigan underneath her stack of last semester's text books. Thanking them, turning them down.

The envelope looks a little yellowed, even, or maybe that's just the light this time of day. David's tugging at her jeans, saying something that sounds like "boggy" over and over, and she has no clue what the hell he wants, and in the old days, before David, there's no way in hell she would have neglected to mail something like this.

But his tiny face crumples up more the longer he repeats himself, until, near tears now, he stomps over to her stereo and starts smacking his hand against it, squawking and whining, and she finally figures it out.

"You want the doggy song?"

"Boggeeee!" He's half-bouncing now, still smacking on the side of the stereo and pretty much ignoring her requests to, well, not hit the stereo while she abandons her correspondence on the table and goes digging through her cassettes for Jane's Addiction. He squirms against her leg, whining, his little hands hot against her skin.

The tape takes forever to fast-forward to the right part, but David brightens up once the dogs start barking on the tape.

It's just as simple as that.
Well, it's just a simple fact.
When I want something,
I don't wanna pay for it.

She's dancing with him up in the air, blowing raspberries on his belly - David giggling so hard he can barely breathe - when Jack lets himself in with the key she finally returned to him the other day. At first she's embarrassed, wanting almost to hide and slowing for a few of beats, but David yelps in protest, grabbing a handful of her hair.

Jack just grins, folding his arms and leaning against the door. Go on, he seems to imply.

Jerk, she thinks, but she does.

And she did it - just like that!
When she wants something,
She don't wanna pay for it!

David claps and claps.

When the song's over, she puts him down and he goes running over to Jack, but Jack's looking at her strangely right now. What, was her babydancing just too ridiculous to comprehend? "Are you hungry?" he finally asks, and she's not, but she nods anyway.

They make dinner, David grabbing at their legs the entire time, but all through dinner, when David's distracted enough with the Mashing of Pasta Against Defenseless Highchair Tray, something is weird. Off, or... Jack's just quiet. And somewhere inside Juliet, a strange fear is starting to build, that Jack's changed his mind about all of this.

She hadn't thought she was this insecure anymore, but... why should he want to be here in this chaos? He obviously loves David, but this life of nonstop domesticity while racing the clock against finals and what'll obviously be a crippling work schedule one day, and - it's just going to be all too much, isn't it?

Later, while listening to Jack bathing David, reading to him, soothing him, Juliet only manages to half-concentrate on her text book. No. No, no, no, everything is fine, she tells herself uneasily.

Finally he comes out of the bedroom, settles on the couch next to her, clears his throat like he's ready to make a speech. Her heart flips over like a sputtering goldfish.

"I got a phone call today," he begins.

She tilts her head silently, waiting for him to continue. Her hands go clammy.

Jack takes a breath, then seemingly switches tactics. "That - that song you we dancing to, with David? The Jane's Addiction one?"

"What about it?

"Just..." He shakes his head a couple of times. "I got a call from an adviser at the U-M Health System. In Ann Arbor. About - about their residency program."

Well, that wasn't at all where he thought he was going. "Huh?" she manages intelligently.

He gives her a crazy look now. "Apparently I was referred to them because they had a few people drop out of the new intern cohort that's starting up, and the medical school had all this information on me, and... I thought you told them you weren't going? What did you tell them, anyway? They seemed to know all about us."

Ann Arbor should change its motto to something about stalking. Stalkus Est Lux Lucis. Juliet explains everything: about realizing recently she'd never given them an answer either way. About the reminder the school had sent her the other day. About the weirdly invasive second phone interview. "He asked me all about you. It was an interview, Jack. I couldn't exactly decline to answer his questions."

"Well, they said if you ended up going to med school there, and I wanted to consider an internship with them... all I had to do was fax them my transcripts and have my adviser call them." His face is twisted; there's a struggle, she can see it. "The salary - it's not as good as St. Sebastian's, but it blows UCLA out of the water."

"And you wouldn't be working with your father."

Jack exhales heavily, slowly. "And I wouldn't be working with my father."

They sit in silence for a minute, Juliet pulling on the edges of her sleeves. She's wonders how furious Christian would be. She wonders if Jack thinks she put the school up to this somehow, asked them a favor when, in reality, she could possibly have any pull over there. That scholarship offer. Jesus. She don't wanna pay for it, the song goes.

Jack finally inhales to speak again; she can see the wheels turning now. "I don't have to get another car. Not in Ann Arbor. It's walkable, not like here. The insurance company's giving me somewhere between three and four thousand dollars. That would be enough for a down payment and first month's rent. It would cover gas, tolls, motels to get there. Think your car could handle one of those little Uhaul trailers on the back? Or I could rent a bigger one and we could drive separately. Then I'll start getting a paycheck and you'll get your grant money. We wouldn't have to ask my parents for a thing, not ever again. We could find a two-bedroom. David could have his own room. Maybe the landlord would just us paint stars on the ceiling for him like you wanted."

Her head is spinning; none of this seems real, and he's talking about painting stars on the ceiling of an apartment two thousand miles away that they don't have yet. And they would live together? Like a family? Like not as roommates? "Seriously?" she finally asks, instantly feeling embarrassed by how skeptical she sounds.

But there's a feeling growing inside her, a thin wisp of hope, a tiny flicker of amazement that he really does want this, wants them, wants her to get her scholarship, not end up suffocated by student loans and they would be together, a family, every day...?

He looks at her incredulously. "You think it's a bad idea?"

It's impossible to hide her spreading smile. "I love that idea."


On the second Saturday in May, she stands in her long black graduation gown in her living room while Rachel bobby-pins the mortarboard to her head. David is standing on the couch, clinging to the back of it with one hand, and with the other he points at her, giggling.

"Even a baby thinks this looks silly."

"Just shut up," Rachel admonishes, getting the last pin in place. "There, you think that will hold?"

"It's pulling a little." Juliet reaches up anxiously, adjusting it slightly. Rachel is taking David to the ceremony with Dad and Stephanie, who are in their hotel right now. Last night they'd all gone out to dinner with Jack, and Dad had actually raised a toast and gotten all wistful about how he didn't think Juliet would make it, at least not in only four years, but she had and he was so proud and so forth. Juliet wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or angry or proud, but Rachel had pointed out on the way back to Juliet's apartment that hell, Rachel still hadn't finished school and Juliet should be fucking proud.

(Looking at herself in the mirror now though, Juliet casts a glance back toward her sister, toward David. She is fucking proud, she decides.)

"What time are you supposed to be there?" Rachel asks, reaching down to the coffee table for her camera and snapping a picture of Juliet at the mirror.

"Ten," she answers, rolling her eyes at her sister's need to document everything. Then again, it's probably a good idea. Something to show David someday. And Jack can't watch her walk across the stage, or vice versa; the undergrad and med school ceremonies are being held concurrently at different venues. They're all supposed to meet up at 12:30, after it's all over, for a lunch with everyone's parents.

They still haven't said a word about being together. About Michigan.

Then again, she hadn't even her father she was pregnant. Rachel did it for her, five months on.

Juliet's always tried to wait until the last possible second to drop a bomb.


In mid-June, Juliet comes home from her summer grocery store job (they don't care how educated - or not - you are over there; what's important is that you know to put the croissants on top) to an answering machine message from Ann Arbor.

More specifically, from Gerald DeGroot.

Heart pounding, she dials the number he'd left, even though it's after five, Eastern time, and...

"This is DeGroot."

"This is - this is - " She swallows. "This is Juliet Carlson, you left me a - "

"Juliet," he booms. "Thank you for calling me back so quickly."

"Sure? I mean, of course."

"I wanted to speak to you about your work-study program. The university has, ah, determined that you'll be joining me in the physics department."

"The...?" What? Shouldn't she be disposing of medical waste or counting test tubes or draining corpses?

"Mostly light clerical work," he says like he's reading her mind (he can't, though, right?). "Assorted errands. We'll see what comes up. You'll be contributing to a very important project, though." DeGroot clears his throat, emphasizing True Importance. "The... LaFleur project," he says grandly, and it's true, her surroundings almost do seem to blur and shimmer a little just then.

Actually, maybe more than a little. Juliet grips the desk. It's really hot out today, and she must not have drunk enough water, and she's... dizzy. Really dizzy. The floor seems to roll under her feet. She squeezes her eyes shut.

"Are you still there?" DeGroot asks now, almost anxiously. Eagerly.

She opens her eyes. Her vision is still black at the edges. "I - yes, I - what's the... the La...?" Her heart is pounding.

"The LaFleur Project? Well, it's mostly top secret, I'm sure you understand, but we're doing some testing on the effects of electromagnetism, especially as it relates to repressed memories."

"And - and you think I - " Juliet trails off, sits down on the floor next to her desk. Get it together. You're not a mess anymore "If you don't mind, Dr. DeGroot, I'm just... wondering... why the... university chose me for the job?" For some reason she swipes at the skin under her nose.

DeGroot starts blabbering on about how she's a well-rounded student, with all that background work in physics, and the medical school agreed to loan her out, so to speak, because even though it'll be mostly clerical work, he's sure she could be an asset to their group and the schedule is flexible so she would still have plenty of time for her son. "You have a gift, Juliet," he tells her. "And no, it's not going to be typing or filing, but... don't you feel you're meant to do something significant with your life? I think if you work in this program, you can do just that."

Fine, let's just take a trip to Crazytown, population: two. "What exactly is this program?" she asks again.

DeGroot sighs, but patiently. Reluctantly. "I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is that, if this goes well, you'll see things there that you've never imagined. Now, no one's forcing you to do anything. So if you change your mind about the grant, I'm very happy to tell the university - "

The words fly out of her mouth like she's possessed by someone who knows exactly what she's doing. "No. No, I'll take it."


Other World Books is a narrow storefront of a used bookstore, dark and clammy, floors covered throughout with old, '70s-style yellow wall-to-wall carpeting curling and rippling with age and heat. Juliet hefts her first box of books out of the truck of her Volvo, shoulders her way through the tinted door dotted with stickers in various stages of fading from the sun.

The girl at the counter pushes back a lock of dyed-black hair. "Selling, you can go straight back."

"I've got another box still."

The girl shrugs. "It's OK, you can leave your first one here. I gotta track down the manager still. He does all the buybacks, I'm just counter."

Juliet goes back out to her car, blinking in the bright sunlight, the bleached freeway on the other side of the narrow strip of grass and palm trees. She's been packing up for Michigan lately, has plenty of books she can sell for a little extra cash considering she can't bring everything, but - something in her chest tightens all of a sudden, like she's leaving something behind and she's not sure what.

No, no, it's all going to be OK.

Back inside it takes a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. Her first box is missing from the front, but she lugs the second one to the back like the employee had told her to. Sure enough, in the back of the store, Juliet spots the black-haired girl dumping the first box onto the floor.

"He should be up in just a sec, he's down in the stock room. You can just..." The girl gestures toward a seafoam-green plastic chair next to the long, dark wood-laminate table bowed in the middle, before heading back to the front.

Juliet ends up rereading one of her old paperbacks in the Chair of Dubious Comfort for a good fifteen minutes when she hears clomping bootsteps behind her. God, finally. It's not like she has all day to -

"All right, blondie, let's see what ya got."

And then her chest tightens again and she almost can't breathe, like it was on the phone with DeGroot, her vision darkening at the edges, and she practically leaps off the chair, spinning around. The manager is standing there, shaggy dark blond hair almost to his chin, and when their eyes meet, he looks... dumbfounded, almost, his jaw dropping a little, his brow creasing. There's a still-healing scar on his lip, red and vertical, and he blinks his green eyes once, twice, slowly.

She grabs onto the back of the chair like they're having an earthquake. He's still staring at her and it's just - have they met before? Did they know each other, did they somehow - ? No, no, she's never seen him before, she's sure of it, but maybe they could get coffee sometime or, no, no, she's with Jack, they have a child together, and what is she even doing, she's seen good-looking guys before, that doesn't mean she needs to practically pass out in front of them.

"I, uh, you just, this is your stuff here?" he sort of stammers, and he nods.

"I, I, I, can you just, um, I have to go do something, do you mind if I come back?" she chokes out.

His jaw is still hanging down a little. He blinks harder. "Yeah," he finally says, and his voice seems slower and thicker than it had a second ago. "Fif- uh, fifteen minutes should do it."

Juliet goes out to her car and cries until her ribs ache, and she doesn't even know why. The kind of scary, angry barking sobs that fill up the car and hurt her eyes. Sounds that terrify her, because suddenly she is so, so afraid of the rest of her life and why, why, what happened, this morning everything was fine and now she feels like she's plunged into darkness, a long fall into something she can't define.


She's afraid to see that manager again, considering the way she'd run out earlier. Considering her red, puffy face.

He barely seems to notice though, hardly looking up at her when she returns. He gestures, instead, to the boxes at their feet. "OK, uh, that... that one's got the ones we're gonna take. One on the right, you can take back with ya." He holds up a buyback form in his left hand. "Sign this and then ya can give this to the girl up at the register an' she'll give ya your money." He squeezes his eyes closed for a second and takes a ragged breath. Why won't he look at her?

"Are you OK?" Juliet asks in spite of herself, and she almost wants to lay a hand on his arm, except that would be too forward.

"Yeah, just, uh..." His jaw is clenched, working furiously. "Dunno." Keeping his gaze down, he nudges the box of her rejected books with his foot. "You didn't like Carrie?"

"Just couldn't get into it," she manages, staring at the almost-new cover. She'd meant to leave it in the laundry room for someone to take, and then she'd kept forgetting.

"Yeah, why not?"

"It was just... unrealistic."

He barks a laugh at that. "Sci-fi horror, whaddya expect?"

She can't help but roll her eyes at that. She's feeling less dizzy now, and that helps. "Not that. I just meant - this girl, she was ostracized by everyone she knew. No one was ever there for her, not once. It just... didn't seem realistic."

Something flickers in his eyes then. "Well, then I guess ya couldn't relate," he says sharply.

"I guess not." She's uncomfortable now. Is he judging her for something? She digs her sandals into the carpet. She should leave, but for some reason she's rooted where she stands.

He hesitates, then indicates a pen on the table. "Can you just - "

Sign. Right. This is weird. It feels like his eyes are boring into the back of her neck now as she bends down, and impulse takes over. It's not like they need to see ID. Juliet LaFleur, she signs, and straightens up, leaving the pen on the table.

"You know, if... I'm moving soon, and I can't take these with me. If you just want them for yourself, or anything."

He smiles a little then, looking up at her sadly, raising both his hands in an almost theatrical gesture at their surroundings. "Got all the books I could ever hope for, right here."

Right. Of course he does. "You don't... you don't wear glasses to read, do you?"

His face furrows up again. He looks so... familiar when he does that. Her knees tense like she's about to walk away, even though she isn't. Not yet. "What - how - did we... Did we ever meet, or anythin'?"

"No, I... I don't - stupid joke, just - that Twilight Zone episode, where he breaks his glasses, I - "

Neither one of them can speak full sentences for a few sentences. "I should probably - "

"Yeah," he says.

"OK, then." She doesn't move, still.

"Yeah. OK."

Up at the front, she collects her money and pauses to buy a couple of cookbooks in an impetuous attempt to become a better grownup. He - Juliet realizes she doesn't even know his name - carries the remaining box to her car for her.

(She's almost stopped crying by the time she gets home.)

(That was weird.)


University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Fall 1992

Someone is sliding a textbook off of her chest. That part she's sure of. Other than that, she's not sure of anything except that she's wearing very warm socks, which means -

She opens her eyes. She's in Michigan. The living room is half-dark, and Jack is kneeling in front of her. "Sorry if I scared you," he whispers.

"You didn't. I was just confused."

He presses a kiss to her forehead. "You always fall asleep when you study on the couch."

"I know. I need to stop," she murmurs.

"I think it's cute." He leans forward, scoops her up off the couch. "Time for bed."

"How was work?" she mumbles into his neck as Jack carries her down the hall, pausing at David's door to listen to him breathe for a few seconds. She hates when he works these 18-hour shifts.

Jack nudges their bedroom door open with his foot. "Long. But good." He deposits her on the bed, undresses her, finds her T-shirt and pajama pants from their stack of clean laundry on the dresser. "I stink. I need to take a shower."

"There are leftovers in the fridge," she mumbles into her pillow. "And I taped the Red Sox game."

"You did?" He sounds thrilled. "We didn't have a tape."

"I got one."

He leans back down to her, kisses her lips this time, his hand on her neck, underneath her hair. "I love you."

"I love you too," she answers, and drifts back to sleep.


Can you believe that this story turned one year old in my absence? I'm hoping that I'll be able to update more frequently from here on out. If you're still enjoying this story, please let me know! It would make me really, really, really happy! Times have been very up-and-down for me lately, and reviews would totally cheer me up.