Connect the Dots

by Keith Calabrese

  “Oh, don’t begrudge a good lie, Oliver. Most people can’t get through the day without one.”

  Oliver clenched his teeth and did something totally out of character. He got right in Kaplan’s face. “You’re not taking him.”

  “Oliver, don’t you see?” George Kaplan said patiently. “I’m doing this for him. Preston needs the world bottled for him. When it springs straight from the tap, it’s just too much.”

  Oliver looked over at Preston, who couldn’t meet the boy’s eyes.

  “Even Preston knows it now,” Kaplan continued. “Honestly, son. He’s been in love with your mother since they were kids. She was his muse. His life’s work was built on a little boy’s dream to give that girl the perfect day.” He gestured to Oliver’s mom. “It’s staggering, really. All that genius, but even now he can barely look at her.” George Kaplan lifted Preston’s chin with his finger. “Go on, now, Preston. Look at her.”

  Preston did, and just like that fateful evening on Floss’s front porch, his mind froze. Once again he became that confused, strange little boy standing dumbly with an immobile, catatonic look on his face as a random accident and an angry clown ruined his big shot at love.

  “See?” George Kaplan sneered. “He can’t go after what he wants. He simply can’t.”

  “Stop it!” Oliver cried.

  “And the cruelest irony of all is that this entire time, Preston, I think she may have loved you back.”

  “I said leave him alone!”

  “A few weeks, Preston. That’s all the time I needed to make your dreams my reality. You’ve had a lifetime to make her feel that way, and you failed. Because you just don’t understand what people want. What they need. And you never will. This isn’t the life for you. Your life is the mind.”

  Kaplan patted Preston on the shoulder again, this time leaving his hand there as a comforting but, more importantly, controlling gesture.

  Floss jumped from her seat and charged at Kaplan, but Sullivan held her back. And even though Preston could hear her calling his name, trying to get his attention, it all sounded so very far away. Everyone sounded so very far away.

  Until Oliver’s voice cut through the din with the last three words Preston ever expected.

  “Farouk’s Famous Fudgsicles.”

  “Come again?” Kaplan snickered.

  “I said,” Oliver repeated, “Farouk’s Famous Fudgsicles.”

  Preston stared at Oliver in gobsmacked wonder. “How do you even know what those are? They stopped making them almost twenty years ago.”

  “Because my mom saved an old Fudgsicle stick with that printed on one side. Kept it taped to the back of an old yearbook. You know what it said on the other side?”

  Preston shook his head; it was a not a gesture his neck muscles were used to making.

  “On the other side,” Oliver continued, “it said: ‘my perfect day.’ Now, I may not be some super genius or a criminal mastermind, but I can connect a dot or two. So while I don’t know what made that day so perfect, I’m pretty sure you had something to do with it. And not because of math or physics or formulas, but because of you. Because you were her friend. That’s all. Don’t you see, Preston? It’s not about numbers or variables or solutions, and it’s sure not about perfection. Sometimes it’s just about a Fudgsicle.”

  For a moment, there was nothing. Not a sound. Then George Kaplan started slowly clapping. “Bravo, Oliver!” Kaplan said. “That was truly moving. Inspiring, even. But I’m afraid, in the final tally, that it’s just not enough.” He turned to face Preston, looking him squarely, commandingly, in the eye. “Am I right, Preston?”

  It was then that Preston Oglethorpe, for perhaps the first time in his life, did something completely spontaneous. Completely impulsive and uncalculated. No equations, no boxes, no math. In fact, Preston Oglethorpe didn’t think at all.

  He just wheeled back and punched George Kaplan square in the nose.

  What came next seemed to happen in slow motion.

  Sullivan drew his gun as Kaplan staggered back, catching himself on the table … where Gilbert had left his tension ball.

  The jostled ball began to slowly roll across the table, until it bumped into a large takeout box of shrimp lo mein that was balanced precariously on the table’s edge, knocking it over.

  The takeout box fell into the trash can below, which tipped over, spilling a half-full Big Gulp across the floor.

  “And just what are you smiling about?!” Kaplan yelled at Preston, who, despite cradling his throbbing punching hand, did indeed have a rather goofy smile on his face.

  By this time the spilled soda had reached a nearby tangle of loose electrical cords, causing them to spark and smoke.

  Sullivan clumsily sprang to action, dropping his gun and nudging the nearby desk’s rolling swivel chair into his boss on the way to the fire extinguisher.

  Kaplan snatched up the gun. “Watch it, you buffoon!” he screamed at Sullivan as he kicked the rolling chair back across the room.

  The chair spun like a top through a half-open bedroom door, pushing it open to reveal the sliding closet mirrors along the back wall.

  And that enabled Kaplan to spot Jimmy Sandoval’s reflection as he slipped inside the front door. But Kaplan, more accustomed to giving orders than taking action himself, panicked and shot at the reflection in the mirror and not at the federal agent currently behind him.

  The bullet missed the mirror and hit the doorframe, ricocheting back toward Jimmy just as Preston ever so gently pushed him to the side …

  … taking the bullet himself.

  Okay, so maybe Preston Oglethorpe had thought a little.

  “Drop the gun!” Jimmy yelled, pointing his weapon at Kaplan and Sullivan. “Both of you, on the ground, now!”

  Jimmy handcuffed the would-be supervillain and his buffoonish henchman. He looked up at Matilda, registering the shock and fear on her face.

  “Sandoval!” Jimmy said, getting her attention. “Status.”

  Matilda snapped to. “Clear!” she said. “Two hostiles on premises secured. One off-site, whereabouts unknown.”

  Relieved, Jimmy said, more softly this time: “Civilians?”

  “We’re fine, Daddy,” Matilda said. “But …”

  Jimmy followed her gaze to Preston, who was propped up against the wall with a fresh bullet wound in his shoulder.

  Jimmy and Floss rushed to Preston’s side. Preston’s eyes darted between his two friends and finally came to rest on Oliver, a boy who had, if maybe only for a moment, made him believe that he was more than the numbers in his head. A look that could best be described as contented—bemused, even—settled on Preston’s face.

  “Thank you,” he said … and then passed out.

  Matilda Sandoval Explains All * Preston Oglethorpe Comes Clean * No More Lies * What a Day That Was * Floss Chooses the World * Best Pizza Ever * Crud * Some Good News, Mostly * Mellow Matilda * A Gift * Virtually Alone * Barbecue

  Oliver and Floss hopped into the ambulance so they could ride to the hospital with Preston just as George Kaplan, Gilbert, and Sullivan were dragged away by men in dark suits and dark sunglasses. Shortly after that, Frankie’s parents arrived on the scene.

  As stressful and taxing as the day had been, it was the following twenty minutes that drained Matilda the most. Everyone, from her dad to Frankie’s parents to Billy Fargus and a geriatric motorcycle gang, not to mention a dozen paramedics and federal agents, crowded around Matilda looking for answers.

  She seemed to be the only one who could explain what she, Oliver, and Frankie had done the last few weeks, how she came to suspect George Kaplan was not who he’d said he was, and how that led them to discover that their janitor was, in fact, the smartest person in the world, and how that led them to being kidnapped and held hostage in a lovely little bungalow in the garden district. When she said it all out loud, it didn’t sound like a huge deal.

  But Matilda doubted her dad would see it the same way.

>   “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he asked, once they were in the car and alone. “You’ve hacked into several government databases and electronically impersonated a federal agent to look at highly classified files while at the same time withholding critical information in an ongoing FBI investigation with national security implications.” Jimmy Sandoval fixed his daughter with a serious look. The kind that meant she was, at the very least, indefinitely grounded.

  “You lied to me,” Matilda said simply.

  Jimmy opened his mouth to respond. Then he closed it and considered for a moment.

  “Call it even?”

  “Deal.”

  “Good,” Jimmy said, starting the car. “Now, what in the world are we going to tell your mother?”

  Oliver sat in the back of the ambulance as it raced across town, sirens blaring. He knew there were a lot of things he should be feeling right now, but the truth of it was that Oliver felt surprisingly numb. Like he wasn’t even there, really. At the same time, he had a nagging sense that this feeling would soon wear off in a sudden and unwelcome way. Like when you know your leg has fallen asleep and when you finally try to move it’s going to feel like a million tiny needles stabbing all at once.

  His mom sat up near the front with Preston, who was awake now and laid out on a stretcher.

  “So,” she began, “your brain is a national security asset, and you’ve been hiding out as a middle school janitor and spying on my son for the last two and a half months?”

  “Yes,” Preston said.

  “And is it true what Kaplan said about how you feel about me?”

  “Yes,” Preston said.

  Oliver’s mom didn’t smile or gush, but she didn’t look angry, either. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  Preston swallowed and bit his lip a little before answering.

  “I couldn’t get the numbers to work.”

  “I may not be the smartest man in the world,” Matilda’s dad said with a self-effacing shrug, “but when Preston disappeared so soon after the botched raid in Dayton, well, let’s just say I had a hunch.”

  Matilda smiled. Despite all the danger, the fear, the moments when it looked like all hope was lost, it had turned out to be a pretty good day. Preston was out of surgery and in stable condition, George Kaplan and his goons were in federal custody, and, to Matilda’s considerable relief, she was not.

  Instead, she sat in a hospital waiting room, talking with her dad.

  Jimmy went on to explain how Preston’s disappearance caused a full-blown panic attack in the scientific and intelligence communities. As Preston’s oldest and dearest friend, he’d been put in charge of trying to find him. Hence the family’s sudden move to Lake Grove Glen, Jimmy and Preston’s hometown.

  “Where you could keep an eye on Oliver’s mom,” Matilda reasoned.

  “Well, that was the plan,” Jimmy said. “In fact, I was putting together a massive surveillance and protection detail for Oliver and his mom. A round-the-clock team of agents, all the best spy tech—they were even giving me a dedicated satellite. We were all set to go.” Matilda’s dad scratched the back of his head and sighed. “We were supposed to start first thing tomorrow.”

  “No way!” Matilda laughed.

  “Right? Talk about rotten timing. But the thing was, ever since we got into town, I kept getting sidetracked.” Matilda’s dad shook his head ruefully. “Every week or so, I’d get a new tip that one of Kaplan’s men had been spotted in Toledo or used a credit card in Indianapolis. Or Detroit. Or Milwaukee.”

  “So all those trips you were taking, that was really just Kaplan leading you on a wild-goose chase?” Matilda asked. “He knew you were still flying solo, so he kept luring you out of town to distract you and slow you down.”

  “Well, I hate to say it, but it worked. I didn’t even know you and Oliver had become friends.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make me look too good as an agent or a parent, does it?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Matilda said. “It’s a pretty big school, and I’m not the most socially gifted twelve-year-old. There’s no way you could have guessed Oliver and I would even meet.”

  Imagine the odds, she thought with a smile.

  That night, Oliver sat in his room, video chatting with Matilda and Frankie.

  “It’s an alphabet soup of dark suits downstairs in my living room,” Matilda quipped from her bedroom. “FBI, NSA, CIA, DOD. I think there’s even a FEMA guy here for some reason. Total chaos.”

  “Yeah, my mom’s downstairs giving her statement to a couple of your dad’s guys,” Oliver said.

  “It’s crazy here, too,” Frankie said. “But that’s mostly just the twins.”

  “You guys okay, though?” Oliver said. “I mean, really?”

  “We’re fine, Oliver,” Matilda said.

  “Thanks to you, buddy,” Frankie chimed in.

  “No doubt,” Matilda said. “You were very brave.”

  “I wasn’t the one who got kidnapped,” Oliver said. “That must have been scary.”

  “I may have peed a little,” Frankie said. “Couple of drops. Once or twice.”

  “Gross, Frankie!” Matilda scolded.

  Oliver laughed. And that’s when all the things he’d been holding inside finally hit him. Not just the events of the day, but everything from the last few weeks. And the months before that. His parents splitting up, his dad leaving, his mom struggling to make it all work by herself.

  All of it.

  But mostly, it was the pretending. Pretending he didn’t know that Kaplan was evil. Pretending that he didn’t see how sad his mom had been since his dad left. Pretending he didn’t know about Belchertown. Pretending that he didn’t miss his dad. Pretending that his dad missed him.

  “Guys,” he said. “I gotta go.”

  Oliver closed his computer, curled up on his bed, and let it all out. The expression “a good cry” never made much sense to him before. But it kinda did now.

  Half an hour later, he heard the agents who had been interviewing his mom leave, and he went downstairs.

  “Hey, sport,” his mom said softly. “I didn’t know you were still up.”

  Oliver shrugged. His mother took in his blotchy face and came to him, wrapping him up in her arms.

  Oliver had thought he was done crying. He was mistaken.

  “I’m so sorry, Oliver,” his mom said tearily. “I let that man in our house, I—”

  “No, Mom,” Oliver said, pulling away just enough to look at her. “It’s not your fault. I let him in, too.”

  “It’s my job to protect you,” his mom said.

  “It’s my job to protect you,” Oliver responded.

  Oliver’s mom looked at him, and for the first time in a long while, really saw him.

  “So it is,” she said.

  A week later, Floss sat at a table in the hospital cafeteria, drinking coffee. She’d been coming to see Preston every day, an hour here, an hour there. It surprised her how quickly, once she got her head around what Preston’s life had been these last years, they’d fallen back into their old ways. How all the genius stuff just went away and he was her oldest and best friend again.

  Across the room, Floss saw an older man in a hospital gown steeping his tea at the condiments counter. He struggled when it came time to put the lid on the cup, unable to find the sweet spot.

  Floss considered going to help him. He seemed like a nice man. But then, so had George Kaplan. So had her ex-husband. Everyone seemed nice, but how could you know? After everything that she and Oliver had been through, wasn’t it easier, and safer, to just put up walls?

  But she didn’t want to become that person. More importantly, she didn’t want Oliver to become that person. Even before this nightmare with Kaplan, or whoever he really was, she could see in her son’s eyes that he was starting to view the world around him with suspicion and distrust. And even though those eyes couldn’t see her now, Floss wanted to show him that who we are is the
sum of the tiny, random choices we make every day. It all adds up.

  “Can I help with you that?” she asked the man.

  “Guys, I’m home!”

  Matilda ran down the stairs to find her dad standing in the doorway with pizza and soda. Her heart sank in her chest.

  They were moving again. After all they’d been through, and just when things were getting good.

  Matilda wasn’t a crier, but this time she couldn’t help it.

  Her mom came in from the kitchen and looked at Jimmy, who shrugged helplessly.

  “What? Matilda, honey. What’s wrong?”

  “We’re moving again.”

  “What?” her dad said. “No, we’re not.”

  “Yes, we are. Whenever you come home with surprise pizza, it’s always because you got a new assignment, and then we move to a new city.”

  Her dad looked to her mom, who shrugged as if to say, “She’s not wrong.” He put the food on the table and went to Matilda.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “I didn’t—” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Matilda nodded.

  “But,” he said. “We’re really not moving this time.”

  Matilda looked up. “We’re not?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I did get a new assignment. Well, sort of. Now instead of trying to find Preston Oglethorpe, I’m in charge of protecting him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, George Kaplan won’t be the last person who’ll want to poach Preston. Someone’s got to keep an eye on him.”

  “We get to stay?”

  “We get to stay.”

  Matilda started crying again, but this time they were tears of relief. And for the first time in a long time, Matilda felt hungry for pizza.

  Later that night, when she was getting ready for bed, her mom knocked on the door.

  “Honey,” her mom said. “You got a minute?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Her mother came in holding a thin box roughly two feet by three feet. “Here. I got you a little something.”

  Matilda opened the gift and pulled out a framed print. It was a portrait of a beautiful woman with long black hair and piercing eyes against a background of blueprint schematics, her head surrounded by various equations, graphing functions, and equipment designs.