• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

In the hallway, outside the open door of the conference room, there periodically came the deep buzzing sound of somebody pressing a button on the soda machine and the clunk, clunk, clunk of a can of soda falling down the chute and then the trickling clink, clink, clink of coins in the change slot. It was pathetic how much Vic loved hearing those sounds when that machine was buzzing and clunking and clicking for him and now, for Gigi, too.

Gigi sipped her fresh Diet Coke and Vic cracked open his Mountain Dew, and the dreary green walls of the windowless conference room and the fake wood tables and the chemical smell of industrial carpet and the frigid recycled air—everything was transformed into something magical by the presence of Gigi, with her wild mane of hair and dark blue eyes and lively personality. Vic’s life had gone from shades of gray to Technicolor. He felt like he was back in graduate school, when he and his fellow strivers used to go out for beer and gossip and to flirt and argue and dance. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

Sitting across from each other at the end of a long table, surrounded by the manila folders that Vic saw in his sleep, they talked about the American Lit. professor they’d had who thought every short story had a hidden key planted by the author that unlocked all the meaning, and the Modern American Poetry professor who only wanted to discuss the boring dreams she’d had the previous night, and the grad student who wrote stories about a young man (much like himself) who hitchhiked around America, sleeping with women and causing their long-awaited menstruation cycles to magically resume.

Gigi updated Vic on her love life. She’d been married and divorced—her second marriage—since graduate school. She wasn’t seeing anyone at present, because she’d gotten very choosy. She was over forty and she didn’t want to waste any more time on losers. Both her husbands had been alcoholics, and she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“Travis has problems,” Gigi said. “He gave me so much grief in high school. Talking ugly, punching holes in walls. Refusing to get out of bed. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with him. Oh, they said they knew. Slapped disorders on him left and right. ADD, ODD, OCD, bipolar. You ever wonder if we’re doing the right thing, getting our children saddled with all these labels? Seems like every other person has Asperger’s these days. Hell, Travis might even have it. I sent him to one of those support groups just to see if he felt comfortable with those people.”

Vic suggested she call Caroline for advice. He didn’t really feel competent giving advice about Asperger’s, and he didn’t want to waste precious time with Gigi, talking about Asperger’s. He was sick to death of Asperger’s. Sometimes he wished old Hans Asperger had never been born. Vic didn’t even like to speak the A-word aloud to people not in the know. It usually elicited either chuckles (“Did you say ass something?”) or blank stares. And the word autistic was even worse, as it conjured up head-banging devil children. But Caroline never hesitated to throw those A-words out like firecrackers. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she enjoyed the disturbance those words caused. If asked why she brought it up with people, she would say that she was only making people aware so that they’d be more sympathetic to Ava and Otis, cut them some slack, realize that they weren’t just weird but weird for a reason.

But Vic would argue with her. We’re all on the spectrum somewhere. Why label people? We’re all weird. And aren’t people with obsessions more interesting than those who have no idea what they like? Some people turn their obsessions into great careers. About the social problems. Who doesn’t just not “get it” sometimes? Some of us are more “typical” than others, that’s all.

So Vic, sitting in the suddenly cozy conference room with Gigi, finding himself unwilling to waste time deconstructing Asperger’s with Gigi, segued into Ava’s obsession with Elvis, thinking Gigi