Chapter 7 Philosophic Discussions

When Joan got to school the next Monday morning, she saw Grace standing with Adam, both of them looking at a poster in Adam's hands. Grace's new hairdo was still intact, so apparently nobody had told her to go soak her head yet. But Joan's main focus was, of course, on Adam. She sneaked up from behind and threw her arms around his neck.

"Who is it?" he asked blandly.

She withdrew her arms and gave him a thump on the head.

"Oh, it's you, Jane."

He dropped the act, turned around, and gave her a hug -- a one-handed hug, because he was still holding the poster in the other hand.

"So what's the poster about?" she asked.

"Maggie's going to give a party this Saturday," explained Grace, "and I got Rove to design a good ad. If Maggie likes it, Rove will take it to a printer he knows, and make several copies that we can hang around school. Have a look."

AUTUMN FESTIVAL

ALHAMBRA ESTATE

Saturday, Sept 24

HORSEBACK RIDING

FOR BOTH BEGINNERS AND EXPERTS

There was an impressive drawing of a rearing horse occupying much of the remaining space, and down at the bottom, less attention getting but plain:

FOR GIRLS ONLY

NO ALCOHOL ALLOWED ON PREMISES

"Autumn Festival?" echoed Joan.

"It's just a pretext," said Grace, "taking advantage of the fact that fall starts Wednesday. We can pretend that it's a Turkish custom. Most of the girls will accept any excuse for a party."

"For some girls," observed Joan, "those last two lines are going to be a double bummer. No guys, and no drinks."

"Well, we gotta be sensitive to the Professor's religious sensibilities," said Grace.

"I think that's the first time that I ever heard you say 'We gotta be sensitive'," teased Joan.

To Joan's surprise, Grace looked flustered at the remark. "Banning alcohol is not only Muslim, it makes sense from my point of view. As for keeping guys away, we don't want him to think his daughter's virginity is in danger -- after all, considering that we've got at least two pregnant seniors this year --"

"Bonnie, of course, but who's the other?" asked Adam.

"Top secret," Joan said hastily. "Known only to girls."

And at that point she saw the "other" walking down the hall toward them. Joan noticed how the other people tended to treat Glynis as invisible, and she seemed to like it that way. In the world but not of it, avoiding people that she probably classified as "stupid" (Come to think of it, would Glynis even have dealt with Joan in the past if she weren't Luke's sister?) . There had been a brief period a year-and-a-half ago when she discarded her glasses, put on make-up and reveled in attention, but that definitely had not lasted.

But once that slender form started to bulge out with a baby, she would definitely attract attention, and not the pleasant type.

Now she spotted Joan and waved her hand in an odd gesture. Joan left her friends and walked slowly toward her; she didn't want to attract attention either. As she approached Glynis suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty classroom.

"I decided against an abortion," she said, in a low voice very unlike her usual breathless delivery. "Thanks for urging me to wait."

"What made you change your mind?" inquired Joan. "If you don't mind my asking."

"I talked to my parents this weekend. They were very upset; all the grand future they had envisioned for me was threatened by the baby, and they wanted me to get rid of it. But my grandmother was there, too. She's nearly eighty, and as a teenager she had to flee Italy because the Fascists were rounding up the Jews and sending them to Germany to be exterminated. She said: 'What's in your womb is not just a thing, it's a potential person, and a member of the Chosen People. Millions of Jews killed by a madman, and you want to kill one more because it's in your way?' I finally promised that I wouldn't."

Joan nodded, as sobered as Glynis was at the intrusion of the Holocaust into their comfortable world. It was sometimes difficult to remember that they lived in a relatively happy corner of space and time. Tragedies occurred -- her mother's rape, Mrs. Rove's suicide, Kevin's crippling accident, the murder of Judith -- but they were exceptions. Why did God bother sending Joan and her friends on trivial errands here when Divine intervention was so needed elsewhere? Perhaps the errands were mere practice, and they were destined to go on world-changing missions when they grew up.

"What will you do now?"

"I don't know," said Glynis, "Tell Friedmann, I guess."

It was odd that even after sleeping with a guy, Glynis still used his last name. But that may have been symptomatic of what her relationship with Friedmann was like.

----

By Tuesday evening, Luke had come to the conclusion that he had used up all the legitimate techniques for finding out about Hunter's past from the Internet, and that he had to go further. There were two problems: moral qualms about hacking into private information, and the fact that he had been careful never to learn how to do so.

As for the first objection, Luke decided his directive from Cute Boy God over-rode it. It was sort of like receiving a dispensation from the super-Pope. As for the second, Luke thought he knew somebody who would know how to hack.

-----

Friedmann, when Luke dropped by his house, seemed glad to see him. "Hi. Haven't seen you in ages, outside of school. I guess you're still sore at me."

"Sore?" Luke was so focussed on the spying problem that he couldn't remember what Friedmann was supposed to have done.

"Yeah. Maybe Joan never told you. During the summer, while I was taking drugs, I made a pass at her. It's painful even to think about now. Could you apologize to her for me?

If you had guts, you'd apologize to her yourself, Luke thought silently. But he was scarcely in a situation for moralizing at the moment. "Uh, maybe it would be easier if you help us out with something."

"Sure. What's the problem?"

Luke had concocted the story on the way over. "I suppose you know that Joan and Adam broke up for a while and then got back together. Well, Joan saw another guy for a while. And now he keeps bugging her. We don't know if he's harmless or a dangerous threat, and I can't find anything about him on the Web." All that was half-true, except that the "bond" between Joan and Hunter was metaphysical, not romantic, and they already knew that he was dangerous. "Could you help me dig deeper?"

"Piece of cake. What's his name?"

"Uh, Joan doesn't want me to let it out. Just show me the techniques."

Techniques. Dig deeper. All euphemisms for what Luke knew were considered unethical acts. The morality of it was starting to bother him again, even with Cute Boy God's approval. He recalled a discussion that came up in philosophy class, over a problem proposed by Socrates two and a half millenia ago. You say that moral acts are consistent with the will of the gods. But is the act moral because they favor it, or do they favor it because it is moral? Luke was sure that his father, for example, would define morality as independent from God.

Anxious to get his mind off of that, Luke changed the subject. "You said 'when I was taking drugs'. So you've stopped?"

"Yeah, I'm clean now. And I didn't even have to go into rehab. Glynis straightened me out."

"Oh?"

"It was all wound up with my grief over losing Judith. Now, I'm not going to go into details, but let's just say that Glynis reminded me that there are things a live girlfriend can do that a dead girl can't." He winked.

Luke was repelled, knowing what he did about Glynis' condition. Friedmann may seem to be giving credit to Glynis, but he was really preening himself on having such a loving girlfriend. And while pretending to be reticent, he was encouraging Luke to use his imagination, and Luke didn't like where his imagination was taking him.

On all accounts, he was relieved when somebody knocked at the front door. He accompanied the other to answer it.

It was Glynis, looking very determined and a little frightened. She focused on her boyfriend, ignoring Luke entirely. "Friedmann, we need to talk."

"Er, I was just leaving," Luke said. The 'techniques' he had learned so far would have to do. He had just reached his car when he heard Friedmann's voice shouting inside the house.

"You're WHAT!"