Ted stopped, trying to decide if the boy was teasing or meant it.
“Who wants to go first?” the older boy called.
He sounded friendly. A ride on the swing would be fun. “Okay,” Ted said.
Terrance shook his head at Ted. “No, Teddy.”
But Ted wanted to swing. He wouldn’t even have to wait in line. One time. He just wanted to do it once. “It’s okay, Terry,” he said.
“It’s dangerous. Dad said about ropes and frays.”
“It’s okay, Terry. I’ll be okay,” Ted said. One time on the tire swing. That was it. One wild swing and splash. He was a little afraid, sure, but he wanted to. Needed to. He started to wade toward the other kids.
Then Terrance started to cry. He splashed toward Ted and grabbed his arm.
“Listen to the retard,” someone said, and some of the kids snickered.
A feeling welled up in Ted, one that had been inside him, but, for the most part, dormant till then. A kind of rage. It was rage. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t he just be like everyone else? Why did he have to take care of his brother? His stupid brother? “I’m going to,” he said, peeling Terrance’s fingers off, conscious that the other kids were watching him. “Go home, retard.”
Terrance’s face went slack, his expression that of someone who had been grievously betrayed. As indeed he had been. He ran up into the woods. And Ted took a joyless ride on the swing.
He’d searched the woods for Terrance for hours afterward, finally finding him in their bedroom, lining up dominoes. He’d set up a long row of them. Ted apologized, tears in his eyes, and Terrance, who usually said, “It’s okay, Teddy,” said nothing. He frowned, concentrating, and placed another domino in the row. Ted sat down beside him, tears running down his face. “I’m sorry, Terry. I’m so sorry.” Terrance put his hand on Ted’s. “It’s okay, Teddy. You didn’t mean to.” Then he asked Ted to tap the final domino and they watched them fall one by one, rippling around the room until they all lay down flat.
The thing was that he had meant to. He had known that his words would hurt his twin and he had said them anyway. It was something that Terrance, who had never had an unkind thought in his life, would not have been able to fathom. Ted had regretted those words for the better part of his life.
“Do you ever get scared in the woods?” Terrance said.
“Not when I’m with you,” Ted said.
“Should we sing a song?”
“You can sing. Go ahead.”
“‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic,’” he said. “Remember that? Mom used to sing that. Sometimes she would sing the Terrance Bears, but that’s just made up, right, Ted?”
“I guess it’s all made up,” Ted said.
“If you go out in the woods tonight,” Terrance sang. “Join in, Ted.”
“No, I’ll just listen.”
“Why? Sing, Ted.”
What the heck, Ted thought. So they sang as they walked, never minding if someone could hear them—if there was anyone, it was only Cox on a vandalizing spree. And if he was out there, let him hear them sing. Let him know what he was missing. Let him see what love looked like.
11
DECEMBER 5
Suzanne adjusted her legs to redistribute Adam’s weight. He sat on her lap at the kitchen table in his yellow-and-blue-striped pajamas and a red cap Grammy had knitted, his fingers like vines around Suzanne’s neck. She fought back tears of frustration. She was a failure. Adam was wilting away, and it was her fault.
She’d been fielding calls from the school regularly since the parent-teacher conference. Adam says he’s feeling poorly. Adam crumpled up his math test and threw it at another child. Adam refused to participate in recess. The final straw came a few days ago, when Adam unleashed a string of curse words so foul the teacher wouldn’t even repeat what he’d said. She told him he could come back when he could behave himself. He claimed he still couldn’t.
Maybe he was stressed out. Maybe the principal had been right. He wasn’t ready for first grade. Suzanne had been wrong to insist.
A good mother would have found a cure for Adam by now. A good mother wouldn’t want to leave him at school, headaches or no, and get back to her nascent squirt-gun business.
“You used to love school, Ad,” she said.
“The teacher gets mad at me.”
“Because you misbehave.”
“I suffer from debilitating headaches, Mommy.”
Debilitating? Where did he learn a word like that? Then again, where had he learned the curse words that had gotten him suspended?
Grant thought it might be Tourette’s. Blurting out swear words. Grant had had a case involving Tourette’s once. If it was Tourette’s, they could sue the county for discrimination, Grant said. Neither of them would ever have to work again. That was the way Grant looked at things.
Adam thumped his forehead against Suzanne’s chest. “My ankles hurt. I need more medicine.”
The joint pain was new. Ankles. Knees. Wrists. Suzanne swung from being afraid that the pediatrician was missing something serious, if not fatal, to believing her when she said that pediatric headaches were more common than people thought. When Suzanne took Adam back with the news that the sinus medication wasn’t working, the doctor gave her a scrip for a refill and said, “Hang in there, Mom.”
Something about the wording, something about the casualness, the near cavalierness of her remark, lit a flame inside Suzanne. She stood up from the molded orange plastic chair, bumping her head into the clown mobile that hung from the ceiling tiles, and slammed her palm against the desk. She demanded testing! Immediately! The doctor—rational, unruffled—assured her they would begin tests if the second round of antibiotics was unproductive.
For better or worse, the second round, too, was useless. Suzanne had since taken Adam to a phlebotomist who had had to stick him twice to find a good vein, trauma that even a dinosaur Band-Aid could not assuage. The good news was that the standard workup had not shown anything out of the ordinary. It didn’t mean they were out of the woods, but it seemed positive. The bad news was that he still had headaches. A visit to the neurologist was the next stop, but the doctor, a woman of national renown, was booked solid for the next several weeks.
The baby was coming at a terrible time, in the midst of what might be deemed a family collapse. Suzanne wasn’t working—how could she, with Adam on her lap? And Grant was vague these days. He was present physically during dinner, but he was like a Stepford Wife, smiling and nodding even when it wasn’t appropriate to smile or nod.
Adam had a full-on tantrum at the grocery store today.
I got a flat tire and had to wait an hour for AAA.
Smile, smile. Nod, nod.
After rehearsal, he went straight to the TV instead of coming to bed. She could hear him laughing through the floorboards as she tried to sleep. She’d thought it was hard to sleep when he was in the same too-small bed with her, but his not being in the bed was even worse. He would take a shower right before going to sleep—he knew she was especially sensitive to smells when she was pregnant—but the noise woke her when she finally had managed to drop off.
The house plans. The house plans were her only hope. Her life raft in her ocean of despair. She eyed the ideas for the addition, spread across the kitchen table, bleaching in the sunlight. Two bedrooms simply didn’t work for a family of four. She shifted in the kitchen chair, trying to lean closer to the plans without disturbing Adam, resting his cheek against her shoulder.
Initially, they’d planned merely to add a ground-floor master bedroom and bath, but Grant thought that as long as they were adding an extra room on the first floor they ought to add another room onto the second floor—an office slash guest bedroom. They’d add a walk-in closet. They could throw in another bathroom upstairs as well, thereupon turning a miniature house into a small one.
Glass bricks, Suzanne thought, inspired. Yes. They could build the exterior wall of the master bath with glass bricks, to
bring in light. She reached over Adam’s shoulder for the pencil to sketch in the idea.
“Mommy, don’t.”
Then, at the side door, a welcome sight: Allison with a paper cup in each hand and a white paper bag between her teeth. She looked like a dog with a bone in her mouth. She set everything on the counter. “You should have seen the look Lucy gave me, asking for paper cups. But how else was I going to bring them over?”
Suzanne, who was not a hugger, wanted to hug her.
“Oh my gosh, the bulletin board,” Allison said. “Did you know little Petey Smith isn’t toilet trained and that Phillis Ray is addicted to Ambien? And Jay Gatsby killed a man.”
“What?”
“It’s crazy. She’ll be lucky if she doesn’t get sued.” She lured Adam off Suzanne’s lap and sat him down at his little wooden table with the lemon bar she’d brought him.
“Can I watch a movie?” Adam said, testing the waters.
Suzanne set him up at the TV with a nature program. The camera panned a great forest. The trees were aflame with autumn colors, golden, brown, red.
“There were rumors she might take it down, but she just put it on the porch. It’s been great for business. She’s even changed up the menu. That’s Lucy for you! Started offering Deforestation Decaf, Leave ’Em Standing Lattes, and white-frosted gingerbread cookies shaped like houses. She added a drink size too: now you can get small, medium, large, and White Elephant.”
“Genius.”
“There was even a reporter there! No kidding! She was interviewing Nina. The woman kept trying to get her to talk about the trees, but Nina kept telling her how Willard Park is such a great place to live. I hope she finishes up in time for the shoot.”
“Shoot?”
“I’m doing her holiday card in a little while. Want to come?”
“No.”
“Promises to be entertaining.”
“I’ll pass. How was yoga?” Suzanne said.
“Great. You should come sometime. I keep telling you. It’s great for stress.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “It’s boring. Yoga’s boring.”
“May God smite you,” Allison said.
“I think he already has.”
“That bad? How are the house plans coming?” Allison opened one of the books she’d left Suzanne from the library, books with titles like The Not So Big House, and Creating the Not So Big House, and Inside the Not So Big House.
“Can I have some sparkling water, Mommy?”
“I’ll get it,” Allison said.
“I’d like a slice of lemon, too, please,” Adam said.
“Jillian can come babysit anytime, you know. She’s sweet with him,” Suzanne said.
“I haven’t seen a lot of her recently. She’s wall-to-wall after-school clubs these days.” Allison set Adam up with his water, broke an oatmeal cookie in two, kept half for herself and handed the other half to Suzanne.
“Clubs sound good,” Suzanne said, chewing.
“I guess. She’s been such a loner since her friend Sofia moved away. I guess they keep her busy though, right?”
“Gives you the whole day to yourself.”
“I have plenty to do. It’s not like I sit around and eat bonbons.”
“I know.”
“She’s cagey these days. Won’t talk about where she’s been. Her grades are down.”
“She’s nearly thirteen, right? Sounds pretty normal to me.”
Adam eyed them darkly. “I can’t hear about the conifers.”
Allison nodded at Adam, her finger to her lip. “Have you considered allergies?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Maybe his headaches are from allergies. Maybe you just need to get the dairy out of his diet or something. I know a good allergist.”
Suzanne brightened. She loved Allison: Allison, who brought lemon bars. Allison, who came up with ailments that had a cure. “You’re an angel. Give me that tea.” Suzanne cradled her cup in her hands, feeling warm, feeling safe, feeling cared for.
AGAINST ALL ODDS, ALLISON AND SUZANNE’S FRIENDSHIP WAS GOING just the way Allison had imagined it, with Allison the one Suzanne could rely on when things were bleak. Allison felt like a character in a fairy tale whose wish had been granted.
And, perhaps more amazingly, a second wish had been granted, something she’d just about given up on. Ted had surprised her the night before, presenting her with a small prescription bottle from the pharmacy while they were brushing their teeth. Toothpaste foam frothed from both of their mouths as she studied it, but it made no sense. A prescription for sildenafil? What was sildenafil? She looked at him, puzzled, and spat into the sink.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” he said, spitting in turn.
“What is it?”
He’d gotten a prescription for Viagra after Thanksgiving. Sildenafil was generic Viagra. Viagra was expensive, he explained, but the generic stuff was cheap. They could have sex every night if she wanted. It was that cheap.
Allison “whooped” her delight, which drew an “Are you all right?” from Jillian, across the hall, in the kitchen.
They had decided to wait till tonight to try it. Anticipation about the evening would make it all the more exciting, Allison suggested—she was now quite well versed in these things—and Ted had agreed to take it after dinner the next night. Tonight.
This was good news. This was awesome news. And didn’t wishes come in threes? Her career was the next area that needed sprinkling with fairy dust. She looked skyward, waiting for the silvery dust to fall, turning her into a photographic sensation.
In the meantime, she was back to doing Christmas cards. She’d done a photo shoot with Lucy and her staff for Lucy’s one-page eco calendar yesterday, and now it was time for Nina Strauss’s session. Suzanne had agreed to come after all, and, together, they got Adam into his coat with the promise that he could watch the nature program over there. Allison pointed out Valeria’s house as they passed it.
“The one who’s in Europe . . . ?”
“Betraying me by having a life. She’s cheating on me with the city of Paris.” She mimed putting a knife to her heart, and twisting.
“You hear about all these people having affairs, but who are they, really? Do you know any of them?” Suzanne said, out of the blue.
Allison was caught short. Had she betrayed herself in some way, giving room for Suzanne to intuit that she had a teeny-tiny, off-limits crush on Nick Cox? Or was it a more pointed question? In fact, Allison wondered about Grant sometimes. He texted a lot when they took breaks at rehearsal. She didn’t think it was with Suzanne. Whoever texted him made him laugh, sometimes made him helpless with laughter.
Allison hadn’t mentioned Grant’s texting to Suzanne. She’d considered it, but it seemed petty, gossipy. On the other hand, what if he and Suzanne were having marital problems? What if one day Suzanne said, I think he’s seeing someone, and Allison were to say, He sure does text a lot at rehearsal. Allison would come out looking like a bad friend. She would wonder what else Allison might be hiding. Then again, Allison might bring up the texting without prompting, and Suzanne would tell her to back off. If I’d wanted your advice, I would have asked for it. Maybe she should put a note on Lucy’s bulletin board. That would give Suzanne a heads-up at least.
“What?” Suzanne said, eyeing her strangely.
She had a bad habit of acting out imagined conversations on her face. “Nothing.”
They parked at Nina’s split-level, pulling out Adam, lights, and cameras. Nina opened the front door before Allison had the chance to ring the doorbell.
Tonight, she thought with an excited shiver.
“This will have to be quick,” Nina said, letting them in.
Nina was wearing black, the wrong color for a holiday card. The wrong color for her, period, since it gave her skin a greenish tint, but what was Allison, a color consultant? That sounded like something Kaye Cox might do. Invite people over for a party to tell them the
y should stick to fall colors, or spring, depending on their complexions. She would sell them the appropriate makeup to match.
Allison reprimanded herself. She’d promised not to pick on Kaye after the toy party last spring.
She’d been embarrassed for Kaye, who had sent out an invitation featuring a drawing of a red bucket, a poem inside with lines that ended in exclamation marks. Allison and Valeria had begged off, as must have every woman in town. Allison still had a painful image of seeing Kaye through the window, alone with the refreshments and the demonstration toys, an image so excruciating that she’d gone next door and bought a dump truck and a couple of board books, and ate a sickly sweet piece of fudge. Kaye had practically made out with her from gratitude.
“Can we get set up? I thought the couch might be good.” Nina ushered them into the living room. The couch was the green of money.
“Don’t you own a more cheerful suit?” Suzanne said.
“Like what? A Santa suit? Get real,” Nina said.
“I don’t know. Mauve. Blue. Anything but black,” Suzanne said. “Right, Allison? For a Christmas card?”
“She’s right.”
Nina flared her nostrils. “I guess I have blue.” She and her pumps clicked down the hallway.
Allison set up the lights, making use of the mirrors Nina had on the walls instead of art. Was it done with the intention of making the house look bigger, or out of sheer narcissism? She had a few low-nap area rugs. Her chairs were upright and she had roller blinds that snapped up tight, no curtains to soften things.
Adam whined for his nature program. “You said,” he said, which was true. They had said. Suzanne turned on the TV. She tried channel after channel, but they all seemed to be airing talk shows.
“Turn on a game. Mark has tons of them,” Nina said, reappearing in her blue suit, which was just a shade up from black.
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