Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel saw Brendan approach their table. He was a tall, somewhat pudgy kid with a pimply round face, a shiny black ponytail, and intense black eyes.
“Hey, Brendan. How you doing?” Sheila chortled, trying to warm him up.
“F-fine,” he said curtly.
“Do you know Mrs. Whitman? She’s a recent member.”
He glanced at Rachel with those laser eyes. “I know who she is.”
Something about his wording sent an unpleasant ripple through Rachel.
“I’ll have the usual,” Sheila said.
“Whole wheat English m-muffin, split, toasted medium-well, a half-pad of margarine, fruit cup—no maraschino cherries—decaf hazelnut with skim milk, small glass of vanilla-flavored soy milk.” His slight stuttering disappeared as he rattled all that off, while the braces on his teeth flashed, adding to his robotic delivery.
Sheila smiled. “You got it.”
He turned to Rachel. “You?”
His manner was so blunt and his expression so intense that Rachel was momentarily thrown off. “I’ll have a cappuccino and a bagel, please.”
He made an impatient sigh. “We have p-plain, sesame, raisin, poppy seed, sunflower seed, salt, egg, sun-dried tomato, onion, garlic, four-grain, and everything which includes garlic, onion, poppy and sesame seeds, and salt but not the other ingredients.” It was like being addressed by a machine.
“Raisin.”
“Cream cheese?”
“Yes, please, on the side.”
“Regular or fat-free, which is thirty calories for two tablespoons versus a hundred for regular, and five milligrams of cholesterol, but of course you get the xanthan and carob-bean gums plus potassium sorbate and sodium tripolyphosphate and all the artificial flavors and colors. Suit yourself.”
Rachel began to smile, thinking that he was joking—that he was doing some kind of Jim-Carrey-waiter-from-hell routine the way he rattled that off with edgy rote. But nothing in his expression said he was playacting. His face remained impassive, the only thing moving was his mouth and that bizarre tic: While he spoke his left eyelid kept flickering as if trying to ward off a gnat. Rachel also noticed that he had no order pad or pen to record the orders.
She preferred the fat-free but didn’t want to set him off. “I’ll have the regular.”
“Toasted?”
“Yes.”
“Light, dark, or medium?”
She did not dare question the options. “Medium.”
“Orange juice?”
“Yes, please.”
“It’s fresh squeezed, not from concentrate, but it’s Stop and Shop not Tropicana premium. You still want it?”
“I guess. Yes.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, please, thank you,” Rachel gasped.
He then turned on his heel and slouched back into the kitchen.
Rachel saucered her eyes. “My God! I feel as if I’ve just been interrogated.”
Sheila chuckled. “He is a tad intense.”
“A tad? Someone get him a straitjacket.”
“It could be worse. He could be your caddy. Ask him for advice on a club and he’ll cite everything from barometric pressure and dew point to the latest comparative test data on shaft technology. He’s a walking encyclopedia. He also has a photographic memory.”
“I noticed he didn’t write down our orders.”
“He never does.”
A kid with a photographic memory who smashes himself in the face while ogling girls through field glasses.
“He can also recite Shakespeare by the pound. In summer stock last year they did Romeo and Juliet and he ended up memorizing every part. He’s amazing.”
“Where does he go to school?”
“He dropped out.”
“Lucky for his teachers,” Rachel said, and looked over Sheila’s shoulder through the one-way glass.
Her stomach knotted. Lucinda had wandered over to Dylan and Shannon’s computer and parked herself at their desk, explaining something that they apparently couldn’t get right. As she watched, Rachel felt a wave of sadness flush over her resentment. While she wanted to go in there and shake Lucinda, the girl’s confidence had clearly left poor Dylan in the shadows. While eager to be with it, his frustration had reduced him to making goofy faces and sounds to deflect attention—a measure that pained Rachel for its desperation. Some of the nearby kids laughed, but not Lucinda, who chided Dylan so that Miss Jean had to come over and ask him to settle down. She then took Dylan and Shannon to a free terminal and reexplained the procedure.
Rachel tried to hold tight, but she could feel the press of tears. Dylan was out of his league in there. He had a great singing voice, and she had thought someday to enroll him in a children’s choir, but he was not one of those “cyberbrats,” as Martin called them. Dylan was adorable and sociable and funny, but he lacked the focus of these other kids. Yes, she chided herself for making comparisons even though every other parent did the same thing—gauged their own against the competition: OPK, as Martin labeled them—“other people’s kids.” Yes, she reminded herself that what mattered was his happiness.
But in a flash-glimpse down the long corridor of time, she saw how hard life was going to be for him, especially being brought up in a community that thrived on merit.
“Was it something I said?” Sheila asked, noticing tears pool in Rachel’s eyes.
“No, of course not.” Rachel paused to compose herself as Brendan delivered the coffees then moved off to adjust the dinnerware at a nearby table.
She took a sip. “It’s Dylan. He’s fine … just fine … healthwise, thank God. It’s just that he’s got some learning disabilities.”
“He has?”
Rachel had known Sheila for only a few months, but she felt comfortable confiding in her. It was Sheila who had helped them get settled in town. Besides, all of Rachel’s old friends were fifty miles or more from here; and her mother lived in Phoenix, and her brother Jack, in San Diego. “He’s having difficulty reading,” she said. “He tries, but he has problems connecting written words to sounds.”
“Give him a break! He’s only six years old. Some kids start later than others.”
“I guess, but he’s a bit behind.” The reality was that the other kids in his class were miles beyond him. She and Martin had hoped to get him into Beaver Hill, a well-respected private elementary school where Lucinda was enrolled, but he didn’t pass the entrance tests. So they enrolled him at Marsden Public Elementary. Only a month into the school year, and his teacher had alerted Rachel to his language difficulties and problems following simple instructions.
“Have you tried those phonics books and tapes?” Sheila asked.
“We’ve got all of them—books, tapes, videos. You name it. We even have a language therapist. He’s got some kind of blockage or whatever. He doesn’t get it.”
“But he will. All kids do. He’s just a late bloomer. In ten years he’ll probably be a published author like Vanessa Watts’s son, Julian. Didn’t talk until he was four, and at age thirteen he wrote a book about mazes. I don’t know anything about them, but I guess there’s a whole bunch of maze freaks out there. Whatever, he got it published and had all this press.”
Rachel nodded but felt little consolation.
“You know, you could have him evaluated to see what his skills and problems are.”
“We did all that already.” She had even arranged an MRI scan the other day, although she did not mention that to Sheila. In fact, she hadn’t even told Martin.
“I see.”
Rachel could sense Sheila’s curiosity, wondering how he had tested. But Rachel would not betray him. Although Rachel questioned the validity of IQ tests, there was something terribly definitive about them—like fingerprints or Universal Product Codes. Once the number was out, a person was forever ranked. Hi, my name is Dylan Whitman and I’m an 83, seventeen points below the national average.