Bob Carey suddenly reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and began playing Pac-Man. Lisa, sure he was doing it only to avoid talking to Alex, glared at him, but he ignored her. Alex, however, didn’t seem to notice the slight. His eyes were fastened on the little yellow man that scooted through the maze under Bob’s control.
“What’s it do?” he asked, and Lisa immediately knew it was yet one more thing of which he had no memory. Patiently she began explaining the object of the game as Alex kept watching while Bob played. In less than two minutes, the game was over.
“Want me to show you how to do it?” Alex asked. Bob looked at him with skeptical curiosity.
“You? You’re even worse at this than me.”
Alex slipped a quarter in the slot, and began playing, maneuvering the little man around the maze, always just out of reach of the hungry goblins that chased him. But when the goblins suddenly turned blue, Alex turned on them, gobbling them up one after the other. He cleared board after board, never losing a man, racking up an array of fruit, and an enormous score.
After ten minutes, he took his hands off the controls. Instantly, Pac-Man was gobbled up, and a new one appeared. Alex ignored it, and in a few seconds it, too, was devoured. “It’s easy,” he said. “There’s a pattern, and all you have to do is remember the pattern. Then you know where all the goblins are going to go.”
Bob shifted in his chair. “How come you could never do that before?” he asked.
Alex frowned, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“And I don’t care,” Lisa declared. “What about going to the City? Do you want to go with us, or not?”
Alex considered it a moment, then nodded his head. “Okay. What time?”
“We’ll tell our folks we’re going to the beach in Santa Cruz,” Lisa said. “I’ll even pack us a lunch. That way we can leave early, and we won’t have to be back until dinnertime.”
“What if we get caught?” Kate asked.
“How can we get caught?” Bob countered. Then, his eyes fixed on Alex, he added, “Unless someone tells.”
“Don’t worry,” Lisa assured him. “Nobody’s going to tell.”
Kate drained the last of the warm Coke that had been sitting in front of her most of the afternoon, and stood up. “I’ve got to get home. Mom’ll kill me if I haven’t got dinner started when she gets home from work.”
“You want us to come along?” Lisa asked. Though none of the kids talked about it much, they all knew about Mr. Lewis’s drinking problem. Kate shook her head. “Dads still sort of okay, but I think he’ll have to go back to the hospital next week. Right now he’s at the stage where he just sits in front of the TV all the time, drinking beer. I wish Mom would just kick him out.”
“No, you don’t,” Bob Carey said.
“I do too!” Kate flared. “All he does is talk about what he’s going to do, but he never does anything except get drunk. If I could, I’d move out!”
“But he’s still your father—”
“So what? He’s a drunk, and everybody knows it!”
Her eyes brimming with sudden tears, Kate turned and hurried out of Jake’s Place, Bob right behind her. “Pay the check, will you, Alex?” Bob called back over his shoulder.
When they were alone, Lisa grinned at Alex. “Do you have any money?” she asked. “Or do I get stuck with the check again?”
“Why should I pay it?” Alex asked, bewildered. “I didn’t eat anything.”
“Alex! I was only kidding!”
“Well, why should I pay it?” Alex insisted.
Lisa tried to keep the exasperation she was feeling out of her voice. “Alex,” she said carefully, “nobody expects you to pay the check. But Bob was in a hurry, and he’ll pay you back tomorrow. You and Bob have always done that.”
Alex’s eyes fixed steadily on her. “I don’t remember that.”
“You don’t remember anything,” Lisa replied, her voice edged with anger. “So I’m telling you. Now, why don’t you just give Jake some money, and we’ll get out of here?” Then, when Alex still hesitated, she sighed. “Oh, never mind. I’ll do it myself.” She paid the check, and started toward the door. “You coming?”
Alex stood up and followed her out into the afternoon sunshine. They started walking toward the Cochrans’, and after a few minutes of silence, Lisa finally took Alex’s hand in her own. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad.”
“That’s okay.” Alex dropped her hand, and kept walking.
“You mad at me?” Lisa asked.
“No.”
“Is something else wrong?”
Alex shrugged, then shook his head.
“Then how come you don’t want to hold hands?” Lisa ventured.
Alex said nothing, but wondered silently why holding hands seemed so important to her.
Apparently it was yet something else he didn’t remember. Feeling nothing, he ignored her outstretched hand.
Carol Cochran climbed the stairs to Lisa’s room, and found her daughter stretched out on the bed staring at the ceiling as the thundering music of her favorite rock group seemed to make the walls shake. Carol went to the stereo and turned the volume down, then perched on the edge of the bed.
“Want to tell me what’s wrong, or is it too big a secret?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Lisa replied. “I was just listening to my records.”
“For three solid hours,” Carol told her. “And it’s been the same record, over and over, which is driving your father crazy.”
Lisa rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on one hand. “It’s Alex. He’s … well, he’s just so different. Sometimes he’s almost spooky. He takes everything so seriously, you can’t even joke with him anymore.”
Carol nodded. “I know. I guess you just have to be patient. He might get over it.”
Lisa sat up. “But what if he doesn’t? Mom, what’s happening is terrible.”
“Terrible?” Carol repeated.
“It’s the other kids,” Lisa told her. “They’re starting to talk about him. They say all he ever does is ask questions like a little kid.”
“We know what that’s all about,” Carol replied.
Lisa nodded. “I know. But it still doesn’t make it any easier.”
“For whom?”
Lisa seemed startled by the question, then flopped onto her back again. “For me,” she whispered. Then: “I just get so tired of trying to explain him to everyone all the time. And it’s not just that, anyway,” she added, her voice suddenly defiant.
“Then what is it?”
“I’m not sure he likes me anymore. He … he never seems to want to hold hands with me, or kiss me, or anything. He’s just … oh, Mom, he just seems so cold.”
“I know about that, too,” Carol sighed. “But it’s not just you, honey. He’s that way with everyone.”
“Well, that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Carol shook her head, considering what to tell her daughter. Lisa sat against the headboard, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, as her mother continued. “I’m going to go right on treating Alex the way I always have, and try not to let my feelings get hurt if he doesn’t respond the way he used to,” she said. “And he may never respond the way he used to. It’s a function of the accident. In a way, Alex is crippled now. But he’s still Alex, and he’s still my best friends’ son. If they can get through this, and Alex can get through this, so can I.”
“And so can I?” Lisa asked, but Carol shook her head.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if you should try. You’re only sixteen, and there’s no reason at all that you should have to spend your time explaining Alex to anyone or trying to deal with his new personality. There are lots of other boys in La Paloma, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t date them.”