He would not have moved for me alone. I was his friend, sure, but I was also the yardstick by which he measured his invisibility. I was “the control”—that’s what Mr. Werthog would call me. That’s the part of an experiment that’s not supposed to change. It’s like when you plant seeds for a science project, giving one batch plant food and a second batch Pepsi—or something bogus like that—to see if one grows better than the other. There’s always a third batch you just give water so you have something to measure the other two against. The control.

No wonder the Schwa was going off the deep end—he was looking to me as the stable one.

Anyway, like I said, it would take more than me to move the Schwa from the road . . . So as soon as I left, I hunted down the closest working pay phone, dropped in some change and dialed.

“Hello, Mr. Crawley. Could you please put Lexie on?”

“If you want to talk to her, you get your irresponsible self down here and walk my dogs.”

“Please. It’s important.”

Maybe he heard in my voice how important it was, or maybe he was just too disgusted with me to argue, but he gave Lexie the phone.

“Lexie, I need you to get your driver and meet me at the Gowanus Expressway, near the Twenty-ninth Street entrance.”

“But the Gowanus Expressway is closed.”

Great, I thought. She’s blind, and even she knows it’s closed. How could the Schwa have missed it? “I know. I’ll be waiting by the ramp. And dress warm, it’s a long walk.”

“To where?”

“To Calvin,” I said. I guess that was the magic word.

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

As I hung up, I realized that this was the first time I had ever called him Calvin.

19. The Schwa Gets Radiation Therapy in a Room That Doesn’t Smell Too Good No Matter How Much It’s Disinfected

When he saw me approaching with Lexie, half an hour after I had left him in the road, I saw his shoulders sag.

“Why did you have to bring her here?” he said with nasty accusation in his eyes. “I don’t feel bad enough about this already? You had to tell her, too?”

“All I told her is that you’re sitting here like an idiot in the middle of road construction.”

“I don’t like being talked about in the third person,” said Lexie.

“You chose him,” he grumbled at her, “so why don’t you both just go.”

“Calvin Schwa, I am so sick of you feeling sorry for yourself,” Lexie said. “Stand up.”

“I’m comfortable where I am.”

“I said, ‘STAND UP!’”

Lexie had a pretty commanding voice. It made him leap to his feet. I jumped, too.