Henry says, “That’s my new math tutor.”

  Harriet curtsies toward Henry and tells him she’ll see him next week, then walks over to the tube in the corner, opens the door, lets Henry’s math tutor out, and takes her place. She stares at me.

  Before she can close the door, I rush over to her.

  “Where does this take you?” I whisper.

  “Home,” she says.

  “What about the snow?” I ask.

  “Weather can’t stop the useful,” she says. It’s as creepy as it sounds, too, because right when she says it, she presses a button and disappears slowly into the floor.

  ACT III, SCENE 3

  INT. SITTING ROOM—MORNING

  Song: “Can’t Stop the Useful”

  Composer notes: See “Nervous Breakdown” by Black Flag.

  BAND all dressed in winter snow gear—ski goggles and knit hats. DAVID wears a snowflake costume made out of foam. JANE is in a pair of black ski bibs with a bra under it. She has paper snowflakes taped all over her body and face.

  JANE

  I WANNA BE SO USEFUL

  LIKE ALL THE REST OF THE GIRLS.

  I GOTTA FIND A WAY OUT,

  MY FATHER CLUTCHING HIS PEARLS.

  I’M ANGRY AND I’M DONE

  BEING THE LAST ONE TO KNOW.

  I CAN’T STAND BEING HERE.

  I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO.

  THEY’RE LUCKY I DON’T FREAK

  BECAUSE THEY WOULD IF THEY WERE ME.

  I GOTTA FIND A WAY AWAY FROM HERE

  I CAN’T WAIT TO BE TOTALLY FREE.

  I’M ANGRY AND I’M DONE

  BEING THE LAST ONE TO KNOW.

  I CAN’T STAND BEING HERE.

  I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO.

  I WANNA BE SO USEFUL

  LIKE ALL THE BOYS WHO DON’T DO SHIT

  I WANNA BE YOUR MAMA—

  GONNA BUY ME IN A KIT

  Jane jumps on the settee, while the band slam dances into each other, playing the same rhythm chords over and over.

  JANE

  AN APRON, A SLIP, A BRACELET,

  HIGH HEELS AND EARRINGS THAT WON’T QUIT.

  MY CALVES AND THIGHS AND BREASTS

  AND MOUTH AND MOUTH AND MOUTH.

  CAN’T STOP THE USEFUL.

  CAN’T STOP THE USEFUL.

  I’M ANGRY AND I’M DONE

  BEING THE LAST ONE TO KNOW.

  I CAN’T STAND BEING HERE.

  I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO.

  Band leaves the sitting room one by one; Jane is left sitting on the settee, pouting.

  END SCENE

  Snowball Fight

  The next day, way later than usual—around noon—I am woken up by how bright the light is streaming into my room. It’s blizzard light, I assume, as I lay under my duvet and stay warm. Then I hear car doors close and the doorbell rings. Twice. By the time I’m running down the steps, Vernon is already in the foyer.

  “Hi, Jane’s dad! We’re here for a snowball fight!”

  “Are you?” he asks.

  By this time, I am in the foyer and waving at the three of them. They are getting snowed on heavily, and Vernon doesn’t seem to know what to do.

  Henry arrives and his eyes are wide.

  “Are you Henry?” KZ asks.

  “Are you going to let them in?” I ask Vernon. I turn to them. “Gretchen, Porter, and KZ, this is my dad, Vernon.”

  “I’m Henry!” Henry says.

  “Vernon’s a cute name,” Gretchen says as she walks right into the foyer after shaking as much snow off her hair and shoulders as she can. KZ follows.

  Porter adds, “Don’t meet many Vernons these days.”

  “Rude,” Gretchen says.

  “What?”

  “You make him sound old!”

  Porter corrects. “I meant he’s unique. It’s a cool name.”

  Vernon, Henry, and I stand there watching them act like normal teenagers. I think Vernon might be paralyzed with a mix of fear and flattery. Henry is staring at Gretchen’s boobs.

  I gesture for them to follow me to the fireplace. “How did you even drive here?”

  “She’s fearless,” KZ says.

  “The big roads were cleared last night, so the new snow is melting on contact,” Porter adds.

  As the four of us weave through the dining room and toward the sitting room, Vernon and Henry talk quietly in the foyer. I hear Henry say, “But a snowball fight!” and I think Vernon has asked him to leave us alone. But then Vernon follows us into the sitting room.

  When he arrives, as my friends take off their snow gear and put it near the fire to dry, we’re all talking at the same time, and he stands holding his pocket watch and clears his throat for attention.

  “What’s the plan?” Vernon asks, acting casual even though he looks like a weird butler.

  “Snow?” Gretchen says.

  “Fun!” Porter says.

  “Cool, cool,” he says. I have never heard my father say cool, cool before. “Will you stay for dinner?”

  “Is that an invitation?” Gretchen asks.

  It doesn’t seem like one. He is pained and can’t hide it, no matter how hip he’s trying to present. Marta saves us all with a tray full of mugs of hot chocolate. She even saves Henry, who arrives without having to be fetched, because she made one for him, too. We sit around the fire, talking. Vernon sits in his chair, silent.

  They tell us about their adventures so far today—going to each house, collecting snow pants and mittens. KZ talks about their favorite scarf, which has gone missing. Porter says they filled her front yard with snow angels before they went to the McDonald’s Drive Thru and ordered sundaes. Porter says she wants to see her boyfriend tonight but he is stuck at his grandmother’s house, snowblowing. “She has an insane driveway—you know the places out by the airport?”

  KZ predicts that not only will Porter’s boyfriend never leave his grandma’s, but that “we probably won’t get out of here either.”

  “The roads are fine,” Gretchen says. “Stop making a big deal out of it.”

  “We’re due another foot before dark,” Marta says.

  Porter says, “I’m just saying that my dad predicted that we’d never get back up the hill tonight.”

  Gretchen says, “Jane has room here.”

  Vernon’s eyebrows go up.

  “Sure thing,” I say.

  Henry can’t stop staring at Gretchen’s boobs.

  When the room goes quiet and we sit with ourselves and sip our mugs of chocolate, I start to feel like I’m living a double life. They’re here; they can see the tubes in every room. They don’t ask. No wonder no one has ever come over to my house before. It’s awkward for all of us. I’m just grateful Mother is on tour. Imagine this scene with her in the tube—I don’t even know how I’d deal with that.

  “Are we picking teams or what?” KZ asks.

  “It’s gonna get dark eventually,” I say.

  “The lights in the rose garden would suffice for any good showdown,” Vernon says, turning the lights in the garden on from his phone app.

  I get up and look out the window. The others join me.

  “Holy shit,” Porter says. “Some place you have here.”

  “Thanks,” I answer, mortified.

  “You can’t see it now, but we have a pool,” Henry says. “Hope you come back in summer. We have an annual cannonball contest.”

  The back door to the kitchen is the only thing that’s been shoveled—between the door and the trash can—so I ask Vernon, “Can Milorad clear the snow from these doors? I’d love to be able to just come in to the fire whenever we get cold.”

  “Of course. I’ll tell him at once, Jane,” Vernon says, and leaves the room.

  “I know I’m going to have to pee the minute I put those ski pants back on,” Gretchen says.

  “The bathroom is in there,” I say, pointing. “I have to find my snow stuff. Henry, do you know where all that is?”

  “At your service,” he says, and he leaves the room, too.

  It’s KZ who says the obvious.

  “Those giant hamster tubes are fucked up.”

  Porter looks down.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Victorian people are weird.”

  I think KZ will leave it there. They don’t. “That shit was built later than that.” They walk over and touch it. “It’s plastic.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  Henry breaks the tension by arriving with our ski gear. Porter comments on my jacket. “Dope.”

  Milorad waves from waist-deep and shovels the area outside the door.

  The next three hours are the most fun I’ve had, maybe ever, but really since Gemma and I used to have sleepovers. We make up our own game. Henry calls it Monster Sneak. We form two teams (me and KZ versus Gretchen and Porter) and Henry is the Monster. Our goal is to hit as many people on the opposite team as we can with snowballs, while also avoiding the Monster, who sneaks up on both teams and pummels them with snowballs, reducing the number of hits they’ve gathered. Henry provides two five-gallon buckets for us to carry our snowballs in. None of us are sure of the rules, but once Henry says, “Go!” we start making snowballs. Two hours into the game, we lose count of how many hits we’ve made or lost, and KZ tackles Henry and we all pile on and scream, “Squash the monster!” and we roll around until we can’t feel our hands. By this time, it’s dark out and the sleet-snow has started falling.

  We go inside where Marta has hot chocolate waiting.

  Milorad is sitting by the fire, but gets up when we come in.

  “Sit!” I say. “You guys, this is Milorad. He’s my favorite.”

  The others say hi, and Porter says, “I see you pick Jane up every day. Did you know he shines the car while he waits? I watch from my chem class window.”

  “He’s cute,” Gretchen says.

  “Please stop it, ladies, unless I will overheat and faint,” Milorad says.

  “You won’t faint,” Henry answers.

  “That accent!” Porter says. “So cute!”

  “You will save me from these girls, yes?”

  KZ looks uncomfortable. I want to say something but I don’t. I feel like a bad friend.

  “You’re staying for dinner,” Marta says. “And maybe overnight. The township just warned that they can’t clear areas of Broad Street due to an accident and it’s piling up fast out there—icy, too.”

  Porter hits Gretchen on her arm with the back of her hand.

  “What?”

  “I told you I wanted to see Eric tonight.”

  “Jesus Christ, Porter, you can go one day without sex,” KZ says. “Plus, that was the most fun I’ve had in the snow since elementary school.”

  Marta says, “For now, I’ll mash potatoes.”

  Dinner is full of banter and laughter, and nothing like any other dinner I’ve ever witnessed in this house. No one is fake except for Vernon, who continues to play Mr. Cool by playing along with everything my friends and I say or do. Even Henry looks annoyed by it. Eventually, Vernon excuses himself and disappears for an hour while we all go back to the fire and talk about whatever comes up.

  If Ever

  “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time,” I say. “If ever.”

  We’ve set up our sleepover in the sitting room by the fireplace. Vernon disagreed at first, but Henry convinced him that it was smart and by that time he was fat from Marta’s potatoes and numb from after-dinner brandy.

 

  Let me add that he offered the after-dinner brandy to me and to my friends, which looked a lot like grooming when he did it—him smiling and wobbling his head a little as if he was being naughty. We all stared at him. Finally, Gretchen said, “We’re sixteen.”

 

  Henry and KZ are playing a game of Spit with a deck of cards Mother brought us from New Zealand. All the face cards are kiwi birds.

  Milorad is outside on the lawn tractor, blowing snow. Every few minutes, he rounds the pool house and lands right outside the double doors and we can’t hear anything until he rounds the rest of the walkway by the kitchen.

  Vernon says, “What time do girls at sleepovers go to sleep?”

  “Hey,” Henry says. “I’m not a girl.”

  “Me neither,” KZ says.

  Vernon stares. Blinks. “I’ll check in again in a bit.” He gets up and goes to the kitchen.

  Marta shows up two minutes later. Henry and KZ are still playing cards, and Gretchen, Porter, and I are talking about Marlon, who is, it seems, everyone’s crush. I don’t tell them about him asking me out. I want to change the subject because the mention of his name makes me feel like a bad friend.

  “Vernon has sent me to tell you that no boys are allowed to sleep over with the girls,” Marta says. She rolls her eyes while she says it.

  We all look at her and then die laughing. She laughs, too.

  “I’m just hanging out until I get tired,” Henry says.

  Marta looks at me and points to KZ.

  “I’m nonbinary, not a boy,” they say. “Also not a predator so I think we’re safe.”

  “He’s a bit frazzled,” Marta says. She makes a motion to all of—this.

  I tell her he’ll be fine and make her sit down with us. We talk about weird stuff like what it was like to go to our school in the nineties and Porter asks what it’s like to be Mother’s best friend.

  “Like sisters,” Marta says, “but closer.”

  Porter points to Gretchen with her thumb. “That’s how she is for me. Better than my real sisters, no question.”

  “But I’m not as cool as Mina Placenta,” Gretchen says.

  “Bullshit you aren’t,” KZ and Porter say in unison.

  “Must you curse every time you speak?” Vernon asks from the doorway.

  Marta looks up. “Everything’s fine. No need to worry,” she says.

  He looks at KZ, and KZ waves.

  “I think you should sleep in Henry’s room tonight.”

  “What? No,” I say. “Stop it. Just let me have one normal thing for once, will you? No one here is going to have sex with anyone else. Geez. Adults are so freaking gross. You think because you think about sex all the time that we do, too.”

  “I was a teenager once,” Vernon says.

  “Oh, please,” I say. “I wager you were born with that pocket watch and a snifter of bandy.” This makes Henry laugh. In a cute way. Like we’re some kind of normal family.

  “We’re best friends,” Gretchen says. “We’re not jumping on bones tonight. Or however you all said it back then.”

  He looks at his pocket watch. “I’m off to bed. I suppose I’ll see you at breakfast.” He stands there awkwardly, and if I’m right, he wants a hug. Henry and I let him stand there.

  Eventually, Henry gets tired enough to go to bed. We all snuggle up in sleeping bags and Marta puts two logs on the fire, secures the screen in front, and turns off the standing lamp next to Vernon’s chair.

  When it’s dark, and I’m sure we’re alone, I tell them to lean in and I whisper, so the camera can’t hear me. “I feel bad telling you guys this now. I meant to tell you while we were outside.” I suddenly lose air and it takes a moment to get it back. “I’m gay. So, we can stop trying to set me up with guys.”

  They react with fist bumps and congratulations.

  “Who else knows?” KZ whispers.

  “No one. But I have to tell Marlon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he won’t stop trying to get me to go out with him.”

  “Shit. You must really be gay.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Porter whispers.

  “Nah,” I say. “School seems devoid of lesbians.”

  KZ says, “Maybe start coming to GSA?”

  After a minute of quiet, I say, “Thanks for being so great. I was scared when I came back, you’d all be way cooler than me.”

  “We are. But we let you hang out with us anyway,” Porter jokes.

  “Seriously. It’s like you don’t even know who you are,” Gretchen says.

  Snow Days

  Six snow days—that’s how many we got. Sixty-seven inches—that’s how much snow, in eight days. Five—that’s how many days we played Monster Sneak. By the Tuesday school opened again, my never-worn ski bibs were worn out, Marta knew the favorite foods of every one of my friends, and Henry managed to actually Monster-Sneak up on us about three times.

  On snow day five, Henry showed us around his new greenhouse.

  “Didn’t you say this is a hothouse? Is it supposed to be this cold?” Gretchen asked.

  Something came over Henry, then. He looked up at her and said, “I miss having friends so much.” His eyes welled up and Gretchen couldn’t help but hug him. “I don’t even know if I ever really had friends. Not like you guys are friends.” Porter piled on, KZ, and then me. We just wrapped him up and told him that he’d have friends soon.

  “Until then, we’re your friends,” KZ said.

  He nodded and wiped his snot on the sleeve of his coat. Then he answered Gretchen’s question. “It’ll be a hothouse by spring. We need to install a heater and a mister and some other stuff. By summer, it’ll be full of tree frogs!”

  Postmarked February 10, 2025

  A Picture of the Thames with London Eye

  Dear Jane & Henry,

  London is just so great and I can’t wait to bring you here. I’m not sure if Marta has kept you informed, but Davy from Anvil is from London, so he’s showing us around for ten days while we do some gigs and go to schools around where he grew up and talk to the kids about what it’s like to have a career in music. I’m counting the days until I see you guys. Love, Mom