Second Nature (7 page)

They should have finished him off after he’d been caught; they should have left him where he’d fallen. Yellow leaves would have covered him, and frost, and the long, brown feathers of the hawks above him in the sky would have fallen across his back like a blanket. He put aside his beer and shook Connor’s hand when congratulated on his win. After the chessboard had been put away, he said good night and went upstairs. If he was downstairs when Robin came home, she would look at him and ask what was wrong, and he wouldn’t know if she really wanted an answer. He’d already realized he could not begin to understand the things men did; now he saw women were even harder to figure out. Sometimes it almost seemed as if they were thinking one thing and talking about something else completely, and you didn’t know what to believe: the thing they said or the thing they didn’t say.

A long time ago he had given up speech because it had ceased to matter. Year after year, he had named his brothers and sisters with words that had less and less meaning, until he had stopped naming things altogether. Things were, with or without names. The snow always fell and then melted. There was no point in questioning why, just as there was no reason to ask why the moon turned orange after the first frost or why white flowers appeared each time the earth grew muddy and warm. Ask one question, and a thousand would follow. Doubt, and who were you? Nothing but a creature who paced all night long, who watched the night from behind a screen window. Do what you must; he’d learned that at least. Hang clothes in the closet, unlace sneakers, don’t look in mirrors, try not to think.

Up in his room, Stephen rewound one of the story tapes Robin had given him and read along with a flashlight. It was a silly children’s tale in which rabbits and bears were not flesh and blood but partly human things who wore suits and could talk. As Stephen followed along, the sound of his own voice disturbed him, but he kept at it. He heard the truck in the driveway when Robin came home; he heard her footsteps on the stairs and, later, the sound of the shower running. Once, he had had the ability to hear a single drop of rain on a single green leaf. Now the sounds all ran together, and he had to force himself to concentrate in order to read.

And when, finally, his eyes grew weary, and the words on the page ran together in a jumble, he put his book away. He tried his best to ignore the moonlight. Instead, he concentrated on all the things he must learn, inconsequential things he could forget as soon as they allowed him to go home. How
i
came before
e,
except after
c;
how orange juice was poured into a cup, and bread must always be sliced with a knife. How a book began at the beginning, and ended at the last page; how to sit, motionless, in a chair by the window, while out in the driveway a deer that has wandered down the road chews the new shoots of hollyhocks. How to spend the night in a locked room, when what he wanted was right down the hall.

EVERY MEMORIAL DAY THE Dixons had their big party. They hung red, white, and blue streamers from the branches of their maple trees and started barbecuing chicken and ribs at noon. Their little poodle, Casper, was locked in the utility closet early in the day to make certain he wouldn’t bother the guests or steal chicken bones off the paper plates. Various neighbors were enlisted to prepare huge tubs of potato salad and cole slaw, and the first of the season’s lemonade was always served, made with real lemons and cold spring water.

This year the Dixons really had something to celebrate. Matthew, whom they’d always worried about—his lack of friends for one thing, his weight for another—was home from his first year at Cornell. Matthew was a sweet-faced, hulking boy who had spent his entire high school career locked in his bedroom with a computer. But now it seemed to have paid off. He’d made dean’s list at Cornell and had been allowed to register for graduate seminars; next fall he’d be teaching a section on computer languages to freshmen. As guests arrived, they fished beers out of a trash barrel filled with ice, then stopped by the barbecue, where Matthew was turning peppery ribs with metal tongs, and they patted him on the back, congratulating him and welcoming him home.

The young people congregated in the rear of the yard, sitting cross-legged on Indian bedspreads, drinking lemonade and beer. The sunlight was honey-colored and thick. Summer was close enough to make everything seem charged, the blades of grass, bare knees, the lazy sound of ice in a paper cup. Lydia Altero, who was seventeen and had brown hair to her waist, sat with her girlfriends and watched Connor duck under the branches of a maple on his way to get himself a drink. He was so tall and so uncomfortable with the neighbors who greeted him that all his movements looked tender and silly. Lydia felt herself grow angry when Josh Torenson bumped into Connor as he approached the rear of the yard and lemonade spilled onto Connor’s white shirt. Without bothering to think what her girlfriends would say, Lydia went over and handed him a paper napkin.

“Josh is an idiot,” she said. She judged people smartly and quickly, and often found herself in a huff. “Lemonade doesn’t stain,” she told Connor.

Connor stared at the napkin as if it were something delivered directly from the moon. Lydia Altero hated him, didn’t she? At least that was what he’d always been led to believe. Because their mothers had been best friends for so long, he and Lydia had always been thrown together, with unpleasant results. Lydia was only a few months older than Connor, but she had specialized in pinching when they were babies, and graduated to snubbing him completely by the time they’d entered junior high.

“Well?” she said to him now. She held one hand over her eyes to block out the sun. “Aren’t you going to clean your shirt?”

It seemed impossible that Connor had known her his whole life and had never once noticed how beautiful she was.

“What?” Lydia said when she saw the look on his face. “You,” Connor said, before he could stop himself, and then he got all flustered, and pretended to dab at his shirt, which had already dried in the sun.

Lydia chewed a piece of ice and acted as if she didn’t know what he meant, but there were goose bumps up and down her arms. She’d fallen in love with him so slowly she didn’t even know it herself, until it had all but smacked her in the face last week when she’d seen him talking to a red-haired girl before gym class. She’d actually taken sick with jealousy and had to be sent home by the school nurse.

“Who’s that with your mom?” she asked.

Connor whipped his head around as though he’d been shot. Over by the long picnic table, set out with pies and cakes, his mother was introducing Stephen to the Carsons and the Simons. Robin was wearing a blue dress and a strand of old pearls that had belonged to her grandmother. It was amazing to see how calm she looked; how young, really, as though she weren’t even Connor’s mother. Robin arched her neck when she laughed at one of Jeff Carson’s jokes, then poured two glasses of lemonade. When she saw Connor staring, she waved, then turned back to Miriam Carson. This was the date they’d been aiming for. They’d anxiously planned for Stephen’s introduction to their neighbors back when it seemed they had all the time in the world, and now it was here, and Connor wondered if he was the only one who was worried. Stephen’s bad haircut had grown out, and he was wearing the clothes they’d picked out for him at Macy’s. Standing beneath a mimosa tree on a beautiful hot day he looked like any handsome young man you might meet at a party. There was an official story they were supposed to tell, with facts Connor had helped them invent, but looking at Lydia he became undone. Could it be that he’d never noticed that her eyes were blue? Lydia turned for a moment, to wave away her little sister, Jenny, so she couldn’t eavesdrop, and when she turned back to Connor, he could feel his pulse quicken.

“He’s just some guy who’s living with us,” Connor told her. His face was burning hot, and he held his glass of lemonade up to his forehead.

“He’s gorgeous,” Lydia said, and when she saw Connor’s face fall, she almost laughed out loud. He felt the same way that she did, whether he knew it or not. “For someone his age,” she added tactfully.

Miriam Carson was pretty much saying the same thing to Robin as she sliced a pecan pie.

“His cheekbones,” Miriam whispered. “Those eyes.” She turned to Stephen and handed him a fork and a plateful of pie. “Slavic blood?” she guessed. “Ukrainian?”

Stephen balanced the plate in one hand and looked to Robin for help.

“The Midwest,” Robin said. “Napkin?” she asked Stephen, because the pie was still warm and the filling dripped over the edge of the plate.

Stephen had already begun to eat the pie, since it seemed that Miriam wanted him to. It was disgusting, pure sugar, but he had to chew what was already in his mouth and swallow it.

“I baked that,” Miriam told him.

“Ah,” Stephen said.

Robin forced herself to keep a straight face. As soon as Miriam went to look for more paper plates, she pulled Stephen aside, behind the mimosa.

“If you don’t like something you don’t have to eat it,” she said.

“No, thank you,” Stephen said, hesitant.

“Exactly,” Robin agreed.

Most of the neighbors were already there, including Stuart and Kay, who always surprised everyone with how good-natured they were toward each other since their divorce. George Tenney and Al Flynn were organizing a softball game, as they did every year, insisting the young people move their picnic blankets to give the ballplayers most of the yard, shouting at Matthew to fan the smoke from the grill in another direction.

Robin smoothed down the hem of her dress; she was actually a nervous wreck. In the past week, she and Connor had taken Stephen on several dry runs, to the bakery and the market and finally all the way to Westbury, where the fluorescent lights and the jostling crowds in Macy’s had driven Stephen into the try-on room in the men’s department. It had taken Connor twenty minutes to talk Stephen into coming out from behind the curtain to continue the search for a sports jacket. They all realized that it was Stuart who really mattered. If he didn’t recognize Stephen, if he accepted him as just another guest, then they had done their work well. Someday, long after Stephen disappeared, Robin planned to tell her brother the truth. The young man he’d met at the Dixons’ and the patient who’d been handcuffed and forgotten were one and the same. He had stood beside him in the sunlight, and Stuart hadn’t suspected a thing.

And now, just when it all seemed to be going so well they could almost relax, Robin saw her soon-to-be ex-husband’s shadow fall across the lawn. One thing she had never figured on was that Patty Dixon would invite Roy, but there he was, headed straight for the barrel of ice and beer, until he spotted Robin.

“Bad luck,” she said to Stephen. “Roy.”

He looked great, even Robin had to admit that. His dark hair was combed back; he had the same blue-green eyes as Connor and, to anyone who’d never been married to him, just about the best smile in the world. He joined them behind the mimosa tree and looked Stephen over carefully.

“Terrific party,” he said to Robin, and then, almost as an afterthought, “Who’s this?”

“Stephen.” The first introduction and it had to be with Roy. “He’s an exchange student.”

“Oh, yeah?” Roy said. “A little old for that, aren’t you?” Roy reached out to shake hands, and Stephen had to shift his plate of sticky pie. “Roy Moore,” he said.

His voice sounded friendly, but Stephen had the urge to back away from him. Stephen lowered his eyes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t ready if he had to be.

“He’s studying horticulture with me,” Robin said.

“With you?” Roy laughed. “That’s a good one. My father will get a kick out of that.”

“Why don’t you get yourself one of those hamburgers?” Robin suggested to Stephen, but he didn’t move. “Why don’t you get one for Roy, too,” she urged him, wanting to keep him as far away from Roy as possible.

“You’re sure?” Stephen asked her. “That’s what you want?”

Of course it wasn’t, but Robin nodded, and then she smiled when Stephen looked confused.

“With ketchup,” Roy called with a big grin as he watched Stephen walk away. “Lots.” He turned to Robin. “You wanted to talk to me alone,” he said. “Should I be flattered?”

“I need money,” Robin said. “You know I hate to ask you.”

Roy took out his wallet and made a show of giving her all the cash he had. “Life would be a lot simpler and cheaper if I moved back,” he said.

Stephen was waiting his turn at the barbecue; there was a mourning dove in the tree above him, a spoiled foolish bird, used to eating bread crumbs and crusts. If Stephen slowly moved one hand in front of the dove, he could snatch it up in a second, before it could hop to another branch or spread its wings.

“Chicken or burger?” Matthew Dixon said. He was wearing a white apron which didn’t quite fit across his wide body and there were smudgy charcoal streaks on his arms.

Stephen held his plate out, but he was staring past the barbecue. Robin was leaning up against the trunk of the tree now; she tied the strand of pearls she wore in a knot. Fat dripped into the flames, and when the smoke turned black Stephen couldn’t tell whether or not she was smiling.

Robin had turned to wave to Michelle, who was on her way over with Paul and their twelve-year-old, Jenny. Robin had been avoiding Michelle for weeks, and now Michelle raised her eyebrows and pointed at Roy, as if there was a chance in hell they’d gotten back together.

“No way,” Robin told her, and they both laughed while Paul and Roy exchanged a look.

“How do they know what they mean without talking?” Paul said.

“Well, you know women have ESP,” Roy said.

“Extra spending power?” Paul joked.

Roy laughed and took the bottle of beer Paul offered him. “Whatever they’ve got, it’s definitely extra.”

“Is that cute guy the one who’s living with you?” Jenny asked Robin.