Ruby lowers her head over her food—Dorothy’s leftover meatloaf and roast potatoes—and mouths something reverent with her hands clasped together before picking up her fork. Robin stares at her, half angry at her new piety, half hoping she’s praying enough to make up for all the bad stuff he’s been doing lately. He shovels a piece of meatloaf into his mouth and chews with difficulty: though it isn’t charred, it tastes burned, and though it’s dry inside his mouth (in fact it seems to be sucking moisture out of his mouth), he can’t get over the sensation that it tastes like sweat. He swallows the mouthful with difficulty and gulps down a glass of iced tea made from a powdered mix.
Ruby is watching him intently, chewing her own piece of meat with a similar unpleasant expression on her face.
“This tastes even worse reheated,” Robin says, pushing his plate away from him. “I forget what a bad cook Mom is until Nana’s around.”
Ruby swallows at last, with great effort, and grabs her own drink to wash it down. “I like everything better when Nana’s here.”
Robin shrugs. Nana gets bossier the longer she’s around, which makes his mother more irritated. No matter how much he likes Nana he’s usually happy to see her go. “Let’s eat the salad,” he says.
“I think I’m gonna eat some pudding instead.” Ruby gets up from the table and scrapes her food into the garbage.
The sound of their parents’ car coming up the driveway interrupts the moment. Ruby quickly crumples a few paper napkins on top of her food in the trash can and gives Robin a pleading glance. “Don’t tell,” she says and slips quietly out of the kitchen with a cup of pudding.
Clark moves fast and noisily into the house, letting the screen door slam behind him and dropping his heavy coat onto the chair. “What’s the story with this Cortez guy?” he demands.
“He’s my guidance counselor,” Robin says. “He teaches this thing called group guidance where we all sit around and talk about stuff.” He pushes his fork through a puddle of dressing separating on his plate. “Where’s Mom?”
“I’m coming,” Dorothy calls. She enters the house slightly out of breath, sliding a silk scarf off her head, her heels snapping on the tiled floor, her car keys jingling. “Clark, I cannot believe you’re this upset.”
Clark aims a chunk of meatloaf into his mouth and speaks between bites. “I just want to know since when this school district started hiring hippies! Bad enough they call them guidance counselors. Sounds like the kind of person who belongs in a home with a bunch of slow people.”
Robin looks to his mother, but she’s attending to a wine bottle and searching the cupboard for a clean glass. “What, didn’t you have a guidance counselor in high school?”
Clark gestures with his fork. “At St. Martin’s we had mentors. Usually a chaplain or a coach. You know, some guy old enough to be your father, who showed you how to make use of your potential and told you the kind of things you need to know about getting ready for college and—”
Dorothy reaches out and gently grabs Clark’s wrist, lowering his arm and the protruding fork to the table. “That’s what guidance counselors do, Clark. They just happen to be a little groovier these days.” She turns her face to Robin. “Did you make this salad? It’s lovely.”
Robin nods his head but says nothing. Even though his mother is smiling, she looks worn out; he wonders if this is because she’s spent the day at Jackson’s bedside or because the meeting with Cortez was grueling.
Clark says, “This guy Cortez, what is he, twenty-five, twenty-six years old? Did you see that poster on his wall? He’s practically the poster child for the Woodstock Nation.”
Dorothy sighs wearily. “Clark, you wouldn’t know a hippie if he handed you a flower. Hector Cortez is thirty-three years old, which is four years younger than you.” She turns her head to Robin and keeps her eyes focused on him as she sips from her wineglass. “Robin, this entire thing is sounding hysterical, I’m sure. Don’t pay any attention to your father. He’s just fit to be tied because Mr. Cortez suggested that we might consider putting you in a private high school.”
Robin swallows. So this is what’s coming, he thinks. Before he can explain that private school wasn’t his idea, Clark is raising his voice again.
“Not a just private high school—a high school for the arts! An art school! Whoever heard of anything except a bunch of screwed-up kids coming out of art school.”
“That’s ridiculous, Clark. That’s an incredibly philistine attitude to take.” Dorothy rises from the table and paces to the window. “I knew you were going to act like this.”
Art school—Robin isn’t sure what that even means. A school where you learn how to paint? He sees a room full of easels, of people in smocks painting straw-covered wine bottles and bowls of fruit and dead birds. The smell of turpentine.
“Dottie, don’t give me that. You know I love art as much as the next guy.”
“This is New Jersey, Clark. The next guy doesn’t love art. He watches television.”
Clark points a finger into his chest and leans forward. “Listen, lady. I could probably name more famous artists off the top of my head than Hector Cortez, so don’t make me out to be some dolt. I have no beef with anyone learning about art. I took art-appreciation classes at St. Martin’s. Classes.” He zooms his finger to the table for his final word.
“He’ll still get a by-the-book education,” Dorothy says. “Just without all that ridiculous metal shop and phys. ed. and typing.” She swats at the air for emphasis. “The stuff that bores him.”
“Maybe if he showed up for a few more classes he wouldn’t be so bored.”
Robin looks back and forth between them; they are not looking at each other. He clears his throat and says, “I swear, I didn’t ask to go to any private school. It was his idea. Mr. Cortez.”
Clark looks his way, presses his lips together in an attempted smile. “I believe you, Robin. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you’re the one coming up with crazy ideas.”
Dorothy’s voice is steely, her face pinkens as anger pushes the fatigue from her skin. “Clark, it’s just a sad statement when a man knows so little about his own son.”
“Jesus Christ. Don’t you ever let up on me about him?”
Robin feels himself emptying, disappearing from the scene, blood and oxygen being squeezed out of him.
“Don’t treat me like a nag,” Dorothy says angrily. “I am not nagging you. I am looking out for my son’s welfare.” She stands with her legs apart, her arm outstretched like a fashion model posed to appear more ferocious than beautiful. “I am trying to envision a future for him that would allow him to have a good life, a really good life, not just a predictable one. A life marked by exposure to ideas and worldly experience and, yes, art. These are things I value and that I’ve taught Robin to value.”
Her fury is almost frightening to Robin. He thinks he should be happy that she is fighting for this chance for him—he thinks he should telegraph some gratitude toward her. But mostly he wants to get away from this room; more than that, he wants to slip into the swarming darkness at the back of his skull and emerge as a different boy—unobtrusive, disinterested, normal. Someone not worth an argument.
Clark is saying, “Look, I let you take him to the city every month.”
“Hah! You let me? I didn’t need your permission.”
“I gave you my blessing. Give me some credit, for God’s sake.”
“I fought for even that much. You and I have never seen eye to eye on how best to raise Robin. And you have resisted me every step of the way.”
“That’s not true,” Clark says. “Don’t overexaggerate.”
Robin opens his mouth to correct his father’s diction—It’s exaggerate, not overexaggerate; the sentence forms reflexively but he stops himself from voicing it, and in the small act of not speaking, he feels his first sense of relief during this conversation, as if controlling the small impulses he takes for granted might be the key to becoming that unobtr
usive other. He turns his head to the kitchen window, which is casting back a portrait of the three of them in their triangular composition: Dorothy at the edge, gulping down her wine; Clark across the room, his arms crossed in frustration; and he in the middle, sinking down in his seat like something compressed in a vise.
“Can I be excused?” he asks.
Clark speaks first. “At this point, with your mother putting on airs and name calling, I think it’s best that you leave us alone.”
“Don’t leave the room, Robin,” Dorothy says. She walks behind him and rests her hands on his shoulders. “This concerns you.”
“I can’t take it,” Robin says quietly. “The two of you together.”
Clark rubs his hand across his face. “Fine, fine. Look, this is all blown out of proportion. OK? I don’t like the idea of art school. It has nothing to do with what I do or don’t want Robin to become when he grows up. He can become a friggin’ artist for all I care. But he’s going to get a proper high school education, something that prepares him for college. That’s what I have to say about it.” He stands, clears his plate into the garbage, bends backward to stretch. “You know, one of the reasons we picked this town was because everyone said it had a good school system. The reason we even live here is because we wanted him to go to the very school that he’s going to right now.”
At this, Robin sits up straight and leans forward. “What do you mean? Who told you Greenlawn was a good school?”
“The real estate agent.”
Dorothy sits down in her chair, without taking her hand off Robin’s shoulder. “A dozen years ago Greenlawn was considered the cream of the suburban crop,” she explains. “Not the ritziest, of course, but very solid and stable. It was a new town, with big houses that young couples could still afford. And Corinne and Stan had moved here, and they seemed happy.”
Clark jumps in. “And they heard the school system was good, too.”
“Well, it sure sucks shit now,” Robin says.
Dorothy squeezes his arm and admonishes, “There’s no reason to be so vulgar.”
“Watch your language,” Clark commands.
Robin shakes his mother’s arm off and pushes his chair back so that he’s out of her reach. “Well, excuse my French, but I’m in total shock over here. I mean, like, I just found out that the reason we even live in this town is because Greenlawn High School is being advertised as a good school to sell people houses. That’s just the biggest lie I ever heard.” His heart is racing now; his words are picking up speed. “You know, my German teacher falls asleep in class and my science teacher is this gross guy who makes jokes about flat-chested girls or girls with big boobs right in front of them, and my gym teacher is this—I don’t know—this ape, and everyone in gym except for me and Sco—everyone except me and this one other kid acts like a bully because Pintack sets an example.”
“Just because you don’t like physical education does not mean you shouldn’t go to that school,” Clark says in frustration.
“I really think we need to consider art school,” Dorothy counters.
Robin feels his mouth getting dry, his eyes getting hot and wet. His voice cracks as he continues. “It’s just a big jock school, and if you’re not a jock they just make fun of you.” He feels something more in his throat wanting to burst out—a cry that would explain to them what is really going on inside his mind—but he fights it back because he knows that they are not listening to him.
Dorothy says, “If I knew fourteen years ago what I know now.” She stands and moves to embrace Robin. He sidesteps her, nearly backing into the refrigerator.
Clark puts a finger in his mouth and bites a nail. “Yeah, well, you and me both, Dottie, you and me both.” He stands up suddenly. Robin steps aside, expecting to be grabbed or hit, but Clark moves out the kitchen door, waving his arms in a grand gesture of dismissal.
Dorothy wipes the back of her hand across her lips and exhales quietly. She drains the rest of her wine and brushes a lock of hair from her perspiring forehead. “He’ll come around,” she says with such cool certainty that Robin gets a chill along his spine.
Though he has wanted to flee the room since the start of the conversation, he now feels powerless to even move. He sits, numb, watching his mother get drunk. He is afraid to leave her alone, afraid of how unhinged she seems and how much her love for him seems to be a part of that instability. If he left the room it would be a sign of betrayal. He imagines her unleashing a tirade against him, or collapsing in a fit of wailing, or storming to the car and driving recklessly into an accident.
Finally, to break the silence and bring some animation back to his mother’s face, Robin asks, “What would I do in art school? I mean, what kind of art? Paintings?”
“Maybe, and probably some music lessons and literature. All the things you already enjoy.”
“But don’t you have to audition?”
“For the performing arts, but there are schools for fine arts as well. We’ll probably show them a portfolio.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I’ve seen you draw pictures, and you’re very good at making up stories. If you wrote some of them down, maybe ten or twenty pages.”
“Ten or twenty?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’ll help you with it. And then you could draw some illustrations for the story and you’d have a book. And that would be very impressive for an admissions board.”
“I guess so.” He thinks of writing assignments for English class, little stories he has written on sheets of paper tucked under his bed. They all seem embarrassing, childish. He asks her, “What would I write about?”
“You could write about one of our trips to New York, where we go and what we see. You’d have to fictionalize the names, of course, to make it literature. And change some of the facts.” Her face brightens.
“That seems weird,” he says, “to write about you and me.” He’s wishing that he hadn’t raised the subject. Her enthusiasm feels like pressure. “I know—I could take one of the stories that we made up about a stranger and turn it into a short story. I’ll think of a lady we saw, and then I’ll make up her biography for the book.”
She frowns disapprovingly. “You’d have to make it very interesting, make the person really memorable, not just any old ordinary plain Jane on the street.”
“I know it’s supposed to be interesting, Mom.”
“Well, sometimes you’re a little pedestrian in your ideas.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes, not by any means most of the time, but sometimes, you don’t think big enough, Robin.” She pauses, as if readying herself to say something difficult. “It’s the same part of you that wants to cut school or go to drinking parties.” He feels her notice his annoyance, and she quickly adds, “It’s just that, for every person you spot on the street whom you imagine to be a spy or a countess or something quite fascinating, there’s a person you see whom you decide is merely a housewife from Long Island.”
“Some of them are housewives from Long Island,” he hisses, standing up from the table, anger boiling in his throat. “Like you, Mom. You’re a housewife from New Jersey, and you’re a very interesting person.”
She stares at him, stunned. Finally she sputters out, almost plaintively, “I am not a housewife. I have a job. When you’re all old enough I’ll go full-time at the library.”
His words have stung; she clearly doesn’t understand why he snapped at her. It is terrible to see her reduced to this, defending herself from his sarcasm. He snatches her glass and the nearly empty wine bottle from the table and dumps them both in the sink. Without meeting her eyes, he mumbles, “I’ve had enough.”
Most days Scott is the only thing he looks forward to, which is ironic because it means looking forward to gym class. Sometimes they get to talk for most of the hour, at the top of the bleachers, above the sounds of bouncing basketballs and sneakers scuffling along the floorboards, ignoring Mr. Pintack’s commands to ge
t back in the game. Robin recounts whatever bewildering thing took center stage in his house the day before, like the fight after his parents visited Cortez, or the morning his father’s car broke down in the driveway and had to be towed away, or the time Ruby spent the whole day wearing a veil over her face. Always—when they aren’t stuck on opposite teams or put through separate drills—Robin talks and Scott listens.
Scott still tries to convince him to ditch, but Robin always refuses and then fills the frustrated silence that follows with updates on Jackson. He always feels better after giving his report. Scott is the only person whose face doesn’t scrunch up into pity when Jackson’s condition, and what it is doing to his family, is discussed. One day, they stay in the locker room until after everyone leaves and mash faces for about twenty greedy seconds, pulling apart nervously, backing away from each other without saying anything about it. Robin feels his blood thumping in his chest for the next hour.
His mother picks him up after school and drives him to the hospital. Some days she just decides he has to visit. He never asks to go anymore; it’s too depressing. Last week there was some talk about how Jackson should get his speech back soon, but as far as Robin can tell Jackson is just as out of it as ever. He’s beginning to believe that the doctors are purposefully lying to them, telling them that everything’s going to be OK when in fact it’s going in the opposite direction.
The World of Normal Boys Page 22