Best Boy (19 page)

“So what?” said the father. “He told the truth.”

“Repulsive,” the mother repeated, “like the rest of them.”

“Rest of who?” said the father.

“Did you know that Todd's parents never held his head underwater when he was a boy, not even once?” said Martine.

“Now?” said the mother. “Again?”

“Apparently,” said the father to his phone.

“Or pushed him out of a moving car either?”

The father continued to look at his phone and then squinted at it. “I do believe I know this song.”

“Or gave him brain damage?”

“Yes, that's the one,” the father said.

“Please don't wind her up,” said the mother.

“Or made him eat his own tampon?”

The father frowned at his phone while he pressed on it with a finger and said, “One bar. O Verizon, how you disappoint!”

“Or forced him to put his eye out with a rock,” Martine said.

There was complete silence.

“I think we're about here,” the driver said as the car pulled into a parking lot in front of a large white-painted building and stopped. He went around and opened our doors. No one said anything as we got out of the car except that Martine put her face really close to mine and whispered, “I won!”

The restaurant seemed like a very fancy house that people had wandered into by mistake and decided to have a meal there. It had glass chandeliers and mirrors on the wall. It had music playing softly and cold air filled with an orange spice. A woman brought us into a room in the back where there wasn't anybody else. Small metal dishes of oil and olives and bread sat on the table. Martine was smiling at me like I was supposed to understand something as we sat down.

“Todd?” said the mother.

“Yes?”

“I guess my question is, what is it mainly that you do? I mean, what are your main daily activities, you know? I'm interested in the vocational side of things at Payton. I know that Martine spends a lot of her time in the knitting studio, and she's made beautiful scarves for her father and myself, but she's also complained of boredom. Is that a problem for you? And I do appreciate you speaking candidly, Todd.”

I tried very hard to think of something to say but I didn't know how to answer what she was asking. I knew what tiredness was. I knew what upsetness or sadness was. I knew about hunger and missing things too but her question confused me.

“I don't know.”

“Mom,” said Martine. Then she said again, “
Mom?
”

The mother looked at her while I looked down at the table and I heard her whisper something to her mother. When I looked up the mother was looking at me with a smile.

“How are you today, Todd?” she said slowly.

“I'm fine,” I said.

“That's so very good. We're very happy that you could join us today.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Where are you from?” the father asked, also slowly.

“I am from Grable, New York,”

“Up by Westerville, isn't it?” said the father.

“I don't know.”

“And Martine tells us you're one of the, um, longest-serving, or I suppose one would say staying, residents.”

“What?” I said.

The waitress came and listed the specials. She said she'd be back to take our order and she winked at me as she left.

“You have impeccable manners,” the mother said.

“Thank you.”

They were speaking differently. They were talking to me in a different way now that I could feel and that was part of the way everyone had mostly talked to me. The way they'd been before was not.

“Tell us about your background, I mean your family,” said the mother in her new voice.

“My brother,” I said, “works in an office.”

“And what line of work is your brother in?” the father asked.

“He's an accountant.”

“An honorable profession,” said the father, nodding.

“That's the same thing my dad does,” said Martine.

“Not exactly,” said the mother, reaching for the bread.

“But didn't you always say you push money around for a living, Dad?” asked Martine.

“Stop it,” said the mother.

“Didn't you?” she said. “Like those guys at a casino with a rake who push chips around a table, but you do it with a computer?”

Her father put a piece of bread in his mouth and began chewing with clicking squeaks of the jaw.

“I said enough,” said the mother.

“Actually,” said the father, “she happens to be right, more or less.”

“Anyone can do it,” Martine said to me. “That's what he always says. He just happened to inherit a ton of it from his father. We're really rich.”

“You already told me that,” I said.

Both the parents looked at me.

“I already told him that,” Martine said.

The parents stopped looking at me and looked at each other.

“I also showed him how to not take his meds.”

“Of course you did,” the father said. He was reaching for another piece of bread when his wife's hand on his arm stopped him.

“Cor?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Did you hear what she just said?”

“What was that?”

“Your daughter just told you that she's sabotaging everything all over again, and at this point there are essentially no options left.”

“I'm aware of that, Annalise.”

“Well, is there anything you'd like to say?”

The father touched the arm of a passing waitress. “Miss? A Beefeater's on the rocks with a twist?”

“Yes sir.”

The wife folded her arms across her chest. “And now drinking at lunch.”

“Evidently.”

“Let me say it again. If she flunks out of here, there are no essentially no options left.”

“I love this part,” said Martine and put her hands between her legs just like I do and began to rock.

Before anyone else could say anything, another waitress returned to take our order. Her name tag read “Bunny.” This disturbed me because it made me think of the way animals like dogs and cats and rabbits are actually people crushed into four-legged bodies which is partly why they frighten me so much. I couldn't look in her direction for that reason and to my closed menu I said:

“Hamburger with fries, please.”

“We have a ten-ounce filet mignon done with a béarnaise sauce. Would that do?” said the waitress.

“Perfectly,” said the father.

After that Martine and her parents ordered. When they were done, the mother made a smiling face that showed us all the cords in her neck. She said, “Well, since everyone is apparently perfectly happy with the way things are and how they're going, I think I'll have a drink to celebrate, myself. Waiter!”

A man approached who had wet hair that gleamed in coils and a white jacket.

“Are you the wine captain or something?”

“I am the sommelier, madame.”

“Could you get me a glass of Pinot Grigio, please, very cold?”

“Normally this doesn't happen,” Martine whispered to me excitedly.

The sommelier was bowing in a way that showed us the curving part in his hair. “But of course,” he said.

The father's phone whistled at him like a person. He took it out and looked at it just as the waitress came back with his drink.

“Don't you love it,” he said, standing up and taking the drink from the waitress, “when things work out just like they're supposed to?” He winked at me and then walked quickly away from the table talking on the phone.

The mother's very cold Pinot Grigio arrived.

“Todd ran away from Payton,” Martine said.

“Really? How interesting,” she said, but she seemed sad as she said it.

“And soon I'm going home to visit my brother!” I said.

“Very nice,” she said, but she seemed like she wasn't even listening anymore.

The father came back and the meal went on for a while after that but I stopped paying much attention. That's because when the food came I began eating it and it was very good and could be almost all that was happening to me, as usual. The father's phone whistled several more times and he left the table each time to take the call. The mother kept getting sadder and sadder as the meal went on and she ordered several more glasses of very cold Pinot Grigio. Finally she stopped trying to talk to me and talked mainly to Martine and then she stopped talking to her too. I think she started crying at one point.

The long car brought us back home while no one said a word. The father looked at his phone the whole way. The mother looked at her lap. Martine was very happy and she smiled a lot and winked more than once during the drive. But I'm not sure the parents even said goodbye to me as I stepped out and went back into the cottage and lay down on my bed.

TWENTY-NINE

O
N THE DAY BEFORE
I
WENT HOME TO SEE MY
brother I decided to visit the spot where I'd hidden the stick. It had been many days since I'd seen the stick. I thought about the stick sometimes when I walked in the woods but no matter what I thought I was afraid to actually go see it again because ever since it had been broken it reminded me too much of Mike the Apron. But on the day before I left for my brother's I suddenly cared less about all the things that were bothering me. I decided to go find it and maybe try to fix it.

I left the cottage that morning and took the path into the woods. It was summer and there was more light everywhere than at any other time of the year. The light seemed to shine upwards from the ground while also coming down from the sky. After walking for a while I got to the right place in the woods and bent over and parted the grass. But then I stopped moving. I stopped because where the old stick had been was a brand-new stick that was shiny and had a point on it that was not a
nail but something solid and silver and tapered like a real spear. Very gently I lifted this stick off the flat rock it had been resting on. The stick felt smooth and powerful in my hand. But then I noticed that there were words on the rock, written in magic marker, and I bent over to look.

“I keep my promises, friend,” the words said. “Now you keep yours.”

The stick turned burning hot in my hand and I dropped it with a clatter on the rock. Then I turned and began running back along the path. I don't run easily because I'm heavy and “posturally challenged,” says Ferdy Dawkins, our physical therapist. But I ran now. My feet beat on the path and my arms swung and I sucked air into my lungs and I said, “Guh! Guh! guh!” as I went. I felt like Mike the Apron had reached all the way out from wherever he was and slapped my face hard with his hand.

The day was long and after what happened I became very anxious. Sherrod Twist still didn't know I was off my Risperdal and had scheduled a blood draw but it hadn't happened yet. I was anxious as I microwaved my lunch and anxious as I worked in the woodshop. I was anxious walking everywhere around campus and even more anxious as I lay in my bed at night. But I talked as little as possible that day and to feel better I pushed my thoughts at the future whenever I could. I did this by spending a long time studying the numbers and the writing on my plane ticket. Also I looked at a wall calendar and measured the time I'd be away with my hands and then held the hands in the air in the same position and looked at things through the gap. I'd be away at my brother's from the teapot to the stove. Or from the edge of the door to the part where there was a long crack in the plaster wall. In this way I forgot about my anxiety a little bit
while the future continued steadily coming towards me. Then it was finally the next morning and I was showered and the future was here and Raykene was knocking at my cottage door. She had come to take me to the airport in the van.

“Glory be but the day has arrived!” she said with a big smile.

Raykene was wearing something that had a lot of colors in it and sent the colors into the air. When we got into the van she put both her hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead as she drove. “Life is just a bunch of curveballs thrown by God, my friend,” she said to the windshield. “Sometimes you hit a home run, and sometimes the ball hits you.” She turned and looked at me. I looked away. “You're lucky to have a family like this to go back to, Todd, because not everyone here does. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” I said, but mainly what I was doing was staring out the window as a way of sending myself already home.

Then we got to the airport where planes strained into the air over our heads and I was about to get anxious again from the sound and light but we got out and Raykene held her arm tight around my shoulder as we walked through the giant echoing room called “concourse” and she said, “There's been some bumps in the road recently but everything's good and it's gonna get better. I love you. You know that, right?”

She went to the counter and got a special gate pass to accompany me through security and to the gate where she held my hand and gave me a strong hug goodbye. Then I walked on the line into the plane and buckled myself into my seat which felt very nice.

The very first time I'd ever flown on a plane had been when I was a little boy and I took Pan Am all the way to California with Momma to find a place that was just right for me. It was only the
two of us, which I loved. Momma's hair was shaped like a bell for the trip and she had on an orange dress and loose bracelets on her wrist. The plane went up while I watched the earth turning below through the little windows. Frost crept over them. The plane shook and shook. Momma laughed and I laughed too and the stewardess brought us food and a special ice-cream dessert for me. Then the plane landed and not long after we were standing by the ocean. The sun was very strong that day and the ocean threw snapping whips of waves at the beach. The name of the place we were visiting was the Alta Borda Living Center. A man named Dr. Harris was walking with us. Momma said to him, “This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Can I move here permanently?”