The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (15 page)

And he did, at least the present part. Despite his Ativan increase, the escalation of the threshold issues and even an ever-so-slight increase in interior counting, Adam felt certain this would be the best Christmas ever. Maybe other “divorced” kids wrapped themselves in longing for Christmases when they were little and had an “intact” family. But Adam had had enough sessions with Chuck to be clear-eyed about how those
family
holidays actually went down. Year after year, Christmas was poisoned by arguments and long dirt-dry spells of his parents not talking to each other unless it was through him. There were entire holidays when the three of them were held hostage in the same house, wanting to be anywhere else. His mom would say things like, “Adam, tell your father that if he wants to have dinner waiting on Christmas Eve, he has to give me a clue as to when he might deign to come home.” And his dad would say, “Adam, you can tell your mother that my work doesn’t revolve around a punch clock. I come home when I’m done, get it?”

He didn’t. Adam never “got it.” To this day, despite all his sessions, he didn’t know what, if any of it, was his fault. Should he have “told,” gotten more traction in the middle? Should he have warned her about the “collecting”?
If he knew, why didn’t she? Brenda’s house was all gleaming surfaces, right angles, glass, steel and marble—a cup on a coaster looked wildly out of place—and his father loved that. Even as a little boy, Adam knew that his dad did not like counters cluttered with six kinds of cow-shaped butter dishes. Why didn’t his mom?

He should have warned her. Did he even try?

Chuck used to say that wasn’t his job, that he was just a child. And Adam believed him eventually, and most of the time. So he had no illusions about the magic of a childhood Christmas. But he
knew
that this would be the best Christmas ever. It would be the Christmas when he got superior, stellar Christmas gifts and gave everyone gifts that were even more amazing.

Yeah, it shouldn’t matter so much.

But it did.

This year’s circuit was Christmas Eve at his mom’s and Christmas Day at Dad’s. The first miracle was that there was no drama or bitching about why and with who and for how long. It just worked.

Both parents had long come to terms with the week-to-week custody stuff, but they usually reverted badly at Christmas—until this Christmas. On December 24 Adam and his mom exchanged gifts when they got back from midnight mass, their first in years. Still, giving his mom anything was always fraught for him. The thought of adding any item to her smothering swamp of stuff bathed him in anxiety. But he gave her a little lacquered black box with a red satin interior. He had unearthed two of them in the antiques shop on Greene Street.

As much as she cooed and oohed over her gift, it couldn’t match how blown away Adam was with his. The big-ticket item was his very own Kindle preloaded with a superior stock of graphic and dystopian novels. “I know the computer stuff is still verboten”—Carmella grabbed his face and kissed him—“but no one said anything about a Kindle, and soon, baby, soon, you’ll be back on smartphones and computers driving me crazy.”

The even
bigger
-ticket item was garbage bags.

“Wait here, Adam, this is the
real
present.” His mom disappeared into a section of the dining room that was long past habitable and, with some effort, lugged out two big bags full of garbage. “See, honey, I’m bringing them to the curb right now! And there’s two more. Merry Christmas!”

“Wow, Mom! Let me help.” Adam jumped to his feet.

“No, baby. I need to do this on my own.”

And out Carmella went into the bitter cold night with her shredded slippers. Then she scurried back in and hauled out two more green bags. When his mother returned she promised on her life that she would fill at least two bags a week until the clutter was all gone. “Merry Christmas, Adam Spencer Ross!”

Yet Carmella’s biggest gift was one she didn’t even know she gave. Adam knew his mother had received another letter and kept it from him. She didn’t let on, didn’t react, didn’t freak out. She held it together the whole day. It must have arrived on Christmas Eve with the afternoon mail. Adam only found out when he spotted the torn strips of paper in the garbage. For weeks now he had taken to carefully examining the kitchen trash on a daily basis.

His mom had wanted to give him a great Christmas. She did.

Adam did not fish out the scraps.

On Christmas Day, Adam’s dad presented his son with a very elaborate yet poorly wrapped big box that contained increasingly smaller awkwardly wrapped boxes until he got to a single envelope, which contained a $300 gift certificate for the BattleCraft store in the mall. His dad looked like he was going to burst when Adam immediately called Ben with the news.

Brenda bought him clothes, which sounds lame, except they were clothes that she’d picked up at the TNT store. Adam had grown out of just about every dork nonschool outfit he had, and the new Ts and jeans and hoodies were beyond superior. He knew this because his five-year-old, deeply unusual brother always looked way cooler than anyone else on the monkey bars.

Sweetie could not be contained. He flew at Adam with a perfectly wrapped box that he then helpfully proceeded to unwrap for him. It was a Batman Dark Knight beach towel.

“It said ‘Our price $14.99’ and Mrs. Brenda Ross said that I had that much, so she bought it for me online, but I picked it by myself. And I paid, because she took my money. When the doctor lets you, you can go to www.ultimateshirt.com, the Batman Collectibles section.” He galloped around the living room. “I love it. Do you love it? You
must
love it.”

“I love it to pieces!” Adam tackled him. “It’s totally badass!”

“And if you really want”—Sweetie sighed with all the gravitas of a tenured professor—“I mean, really,
really
want, you can even take it to your other house with Mrs. Carmella Ross.”

“That’s very generous of you,” said Adam.

“Yes,” he agreed.

Sweetie was pumped about the new dragon night-light that Adam had bought him from Pottery Barn. Sweetie
loved
Pottery Barn.

“It’s
our
Puff the Magic Dragon, right, Batman?”

“None other,” said Adam.

Adam’s dad had bought Brenda a double strand of pearls that even Adam recognized as beautiful. Usually, his father told Brenda her gift was from both of them, but this year Adam had bought her a present of his own for the first time. His gift was the twin of the black lacquered box that he’d bought for his mom. Brenda acted like he was the one who had given her pearls.

“Oh, Adam!”

“Batman,” corrected Sweetie.

He had done good.

“I’ll treasure it forever. It’s gorgeous and I’m so touched and … well, thank you. Thank you so much.”

On Friday afternoon, December 27, Adam’s dad drove him to Robyn’s house. It was hard to tell who was more wrecked.

“So you got her a gift?” asked his father.

“Yeah, of course I got her a gift.”

“You gift wrapped it? Girls like gift-wrapping.”

“Yeah, of course I gift wrapped it. See?” Adam retrieved the little red wrapped box with gold ribbon from his backpack.

“Hmm, good wrapping.” He nodded approvingly. “You know you can invite her to our house, right? Brenda would be cool, I promise. I mean, you know you can’t invite her to—”

“Chatsworth, yeah. Believe me, I know.” Adam winced. Aside from the condition of the house, there was a small issue of Robyn still thinking that he lived nearby.
Everybody lies
.

“And don’t babble. You tend to babble when you’re nervous.”

“
Dad!
I won’t babble. I know enough not to babble.
Geez
.”

“But don’t go mute either; it pisses them off. I should know.”

Adam groaned.

“And compliment her on her shoes.”

“Her
shoes
?”

“Yeah, it’s like a thing with girls that apparently everybody knows. If you notice their shoes, it shows, uh …” Adam started tapping the car armrest and his dad fiddled with the windshield wipers. “Shit, it shows artistic integrity, for all I know. I dunno. I
do
know that women like their goddamn shoes.”

“Okay.”

“And the most important thing, whatever you do, don’t stare at her breasts.”

“What? Dad! You are, like, so grossing me out!” Adam squirmed, thinking back to the coffee shop.

“Be that as it may, I was your age once, and I’m saying do as I say, not as I did. It’s like the opposite of the artistic thing. She’s ‘into you,’ Adam, or whatever the kids say these days—don’t screw it up with breast hypnotism.”

“Really,
really
grossing me out here!”

And then they arrived. The house was a big old Victorian. A home built for a family.

“Nice.” His father nodded. “Take a cab home, it’ll impress her. Remember, only eye-to-eye or eye-to-shoe contact, and I’m proud of you, big guy, ’kay? Now, go get her, tiger.”

Adam got out of the car. It felt like he was being frog-marched to a firing squad. This kind of thing was not for him. What was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking. His height had gone to his head.
This
was for other guys,
normal
guys, not freaks who obsessed about whether they were going to have some schizoid threshold issue in front of their beloved’s doorway.
Snap out of it!
He made the sign of the cross. Couldn’t hurt, right? He did not backtrack or tap. Instead, Adam kept putting one foot in front of the other on the never-ending path to her door, rehearsing his laid-back cool pose with every step.

When he finally knocked and realized that he had had no threshold vibrations whatsoever, Adam almost keeled over with relief.

Robyn opened the door, exuding peachiness and shiny lips and breasts, amazing perfect …

“Hi,” he said. “I like your shoes.”

“Hey! Oh! Yeah, uh.” Robyn looked a little confused but kept smiling. “They’re UGG slippers, got them for Christmas—but thanks!”

“No problemo!” Adam had never noticed Robyn’s teeth before. Given that he was so kiss-obsessed, this surprised him. Robyn had beautiful, pearly, almost-perfect teeth behind those peachy, pillowy lips. Almost perfect. She had this one rogue eyetooth on the left side. It turned outward and was slightly askew. It was adorable. He wanted to touch it.

“Let’s go into the kitchen. Maria’s prepared real hot chocolate—I mean, really real, with melted chocolate and milk.”

He’d been hoping for coffee but said “Cool” and followed her like a puppy. Adam wondered if all housekeepers
were named Maria. Brenda’s housekeeper was named Maria, as was his mom’s when she had one, all those years ago. He had adored his mom’s Maria, and his mom’s Maria had adored him.

Within seconds it was clear that Robyn’s Maria did not.

The introductions were excruciating. Maria seemed to know that he was from Robyn’s Group. She therefore knew that he was
not
normal.

Robyn took them both in and got it. She directed Adam toward a big old harvest table that was pushed against a wall in their big old kitchen. Maria did not take her eyes off Adam as she poured the chocolaty liquid into a mug that proudly declared he was
The Best Dad in the Universe
.

“Maria, Adam is the one who has been teaching me about becoming Catholic.”

Maria’s dark, coal eyes warmed, but only by half a degree. Clearly, Catholic did not trump crazy for her.

“He goes to St. Mary’s and he introduced me to Father Rick at Holy Rosary. But remember not to tell Daddy.”

Robyn beamed. Maria snorted.

Adam took a careful sip of the best thing he had ever tasted and said, “This is the best thing I have ever tasted!”

Maria snorted again, finished pouring and reluctantly left the room.

“She likes you,” said Robyn.

“Yeah, she has that Thor-like warmth.”

“Exactly!” Robyn laughed. “You’re the only one who registers with him. I swear he hates the rest of us. You, Adam Spencer Ross, are like the horse whisperer of Group.”

“It must be my trusty armor of honor.”

Robyn blushed. Why?

Still in midblush, she jumped up like a Pop-Tart. “Ooh! My friend Jody and I made triple-threat brownies this morning. Wanna try?”

Adam slurped his hot chocolate. “Hey, in for a penny …”

“In for a pound,” Robyn finished. “My mom used to say that.”

“My stepmom says that all the time.”

While she was cutting up the brownies, he had a perfectly reasonable reason to stare at her. “I love brownies. Cut lots!” Actually, Adam wasn’t all that fond of chocolate, but it was the first time he had seen Robyn out of her school uniform. His ears got hot—like,
who else
does that happen to? Robyn wore skinny jeans and a nice bluish top that hugged in a way that made him hurt.
Think of Sister Mary-Margaret! Whatever you do, don’t look at
 … but there they were, right there under that top, her amazing, brilliant brea—

Look at her eyes, look at her eyes, look at her eyes
. “That top makes your eyes look awesome, you know?”

Robyn stopped midstride with the plate of brownies in hand. It looked like she was struggling to say something. Instead she smiled.

“Why, thank you, Adam. I didn’t think you even knew what color they were.” She shut them tight.

“Gray,” he said. “Shades of gray most of the time, except days like today, when they’re blue.”

“Touché, Adam.” She placed the brownies on the table and immediately began rearranging them. “Did you have
any trouble with my door?” Robyn asked it casually, like she was asking whether it was still raining.

His heart whooshed. Casual or not, it was
so
not a normal thing to ask a normal boy. He had to count. He would
not
count. But now his skin felt too tight, like he should get up immediately and jump right out of it.

He shook his head. “No, not your door.”

“I’m glad.”

Twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-five
 …

But then it was good again. They gossiped a bit—well, quite a bit—about Group mainly. Robyn tried and failed to explain the premise of
Jersey Shore
to him. She also tried to look blasé when she revealed that her dad was taking them to Bermuda for the rest of the holidays. “It’s that ‘they try’ thing again.” But she was beaming, so he bit down on his disappointment and tried to beam right back at her. They also talked about the idiosyncrasies of their “normal” friends. Adam just had butterball Ben, but she looked genuinely interested as he laid out the intricacies and pure pleasure of marathon Warhammer games. Robyn, of course, had a pile of friends and went on to list the food disorders and pill-popping antics of three of them, including Jody of the brownie baking. “The girl is a walking bakery, but she does not touch anything she bakes,” said Robyn in wonder. “No licking of fingers, no crumb nibbling, nothing, nada.”