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But then Jayne gently pushed me away and simply said, “We’re having dinner at the Allens’ on Sunday. I couldn’t get out of it.”

“That sounds like . . .” I gulped. “Fun. Really fun.”Advertisement

After she left to get Robby my stomach erupted, and leaving my cocktail on the table I hurriedly ran into the closest bathroom and sat down on the toilet just as an explosive torrent of diarrhea hit the water. Gasping, I reached for the latest issue of Wallpaper and flipped through it while my stomach kept emptying itself. I stared at another sunken tub and then out the small bay window as Elsinore Lane began waking up, and I saw the boy who spent the night walk from our house—the pumpkins still dotting the path—to the house next to ours and realized it was Ashton Allen; he was momentarily so close to the window that I could read his T-shirt—KEEP STARING, I MIGHT DO A TRICK—and then a sparrow landed on the sill and I turned away. The bathroom was soon enveloped in an odor particular to the remnants of a drunken night—the smell of excrement and alcohol commingled in a rancid stench that forced me out of the room almost as quickly as I had rushed in.

When I hobbled back into the kitchen, Jayne was pouring hot water into ceramic bowls and Robby was standing at the table drinking from my glass, grimacing. “Mom, this orange juice tastes funny. Is there any Tropicana left?”

“Robby, hon, I don’t want you drinking Tropicana,” Jayne said. “Marta squeezed some fresh juice for you. It’s by the sink.”

“This is fresh juice,” he muttered.

I stood in the doorway until Robby put the glass down and moved over to the juicer. (Nonfresh juice was largely prohibited because it caused cavities and obesity.) As I made my way to the table Robby turned around and saw me and did the subtlest double take before casually moving over to his backpack, which he was in the process of rearranging. Robby still didn’t seem used to my presence, but I wasn’t used to his either. We were both scared and wary of each other, and I was the one who needed to make a connection, to mend us, but his reluctance—as loud and insistent as an anthem—seemed impossible to overcome. There was no way of winning him over. I had failed him utterly—his downward gaze whenever I entered a room reminded me of this. And yet I still resented the fact that he—not myself—lacked the courage to make that first move.

“Hey, kid,” I said, sitting down at the table and chugging the rest of the screwdriver. It went down sourly, and I shut my eyes until the alcohol’s warmth began coursing through my system, causing my eyelids to flutter open. Robby mumbled a response. It was enough. School lasted from 8:15 until 3:15, and various after-school programs often pushed their return to 5:15, so there was usually nine hours of peace. But then I realized tonight was trick-or-treating and that I had to be at the college by noon (a counseling day, but mostly an excuse to see Aimee Light) and then I had an appointment with my shrink, Dr. Kim, and somewhere during this ordeal a lot of Xanax was going to have to be ingested and a nap taken. The housekeeper walked in and said something to Jayne in Spanish. They had a little conversation I couldn’t possibly follow until Rosa nodded intensely and moved out of the kitchen.

Since it was Halloween and a free-dress day at school Robby was wearing a WHAT? ME WORRY? T-shirt and oversized cargo pants—his clothes were always too big, too baggy, and everything had a label on it. A pair of Rollerblades were slung over his shoulder, and he let Jayne know that he’d just downloaded something from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Web site and he was wondering how to fit a soccer ball into a new Targus RakGear Kickflip backpack, which weighed an “acceptable” twenty-five pounds (the Nike BioKNX had caused “spinal aching” according to his physician). He was holding a magazine, GamePro, to read on the car ride to school, and was anxious about an oral quiz on the formation of waterfalls. As I flipped through the papers Robby complained about noises last night, after the party was over. But he was unsure where they were coming from—the attic, or maybe on the roof, but also definitely on the sides of the house. There were scratching sounds at his door, he said, and when he woke up this morning, his furniture had been rearranged, and he found three or four deep grooves on the bottom of his door (which he insisted he didn’t make), and when he touched the doorknob it was wet. “Someone slimed it,” he said, shuddering.

I looked up from the paper and saw Jayne glaring at me while she asked, “What do you mean, hon?”

But, as usual when Robby was asked for specifics, he drooped and went silent.

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I reanimated myself and tried to think of a question to ask him that would not require any elaboration, but then Sarah and Marta wandered in. Sarah was wearing a frilly T-shirt with the word lingerie in spangly silver letters. And then Victor bounded up to her, relieved and wiggling with happiness, before moving to the glass wall and staring intently into the backyard while barking like mad, causing my head to explode. pqdm.com