A Shiver of Wonder (16 page)

David was strange because he was smart.
Really smart. He picked up math so easily that by the time he
entered ninth grade, he was already far beyond Calculus and
Trigonometry. Sciences were a breeze. Computers were mere toys,
begging to be taken apart and put back together again in newer,
better ways.

It was no wonder that the other boys enjoyed
giving him a good licking every so often.

Confidence. Confidence was one attribute of
which David was in seriously short supply. Nobody seemed to truly
like him. Not his family, not his peers, not even the occasional
girls who would go out with him, usually around the time they had
some project due that required more knowledge and skill than they
possessed. Even his teachers hadn’t found themselves overly
enamored of this nerdy boy genius who without any effort at all
could upstage them, or shred their authority with another perfectly
timed zinger.

It was when he went to college that David
finally began to come into his own. Surrounded by fellow geeks,
inspired by the explosion of online companies that every day seemed
to be taking the world by storm, he became an entrepreneur. At
first, he was simply a go-to guy for quiet questions about
shortcuts, or about access to servers not meant to be accessed. By
his sophomore year, he was involved in three different undertakings
designed to separate people from their wallets while purportedly
bettering their lives. By the end of his senior year, his grades
had tanked due to truancy, but David was receiving a cut of the
action from some nineteen different websites, all of which he had
had some part in creating.

He’d become popular. Really popular. Having
money can do that for people.

Along with the popularity had come
confidence. Confidence in himself, confidence in his abilities,
confidence in his abilities with other people. The best part of
this for David was that he found that other people liked him. A
lot. He was helping to make them popular and confident, too.

He had a girlfriend for a while. Her name
was Stephanie. After Stephanie came Julie. After Julie came Rosa.
It was still a long, slippery slope upwards until Camber, but
David’s fears regarding what the opposite sex thought of him had
begun to dissipate.

After college, he had set up shop. A
three-story townhouse only steps from a bustling nightclub district
became the center of his world. He was available for hire, and,
because of his willingness to look the other way on occasion,
always busy. He covered his tracks, covered his clients’ tracks,
and nobody appeared to be the wiser.

No matter what David did – or didn’t do, to
be more accurate – he always tried to be a nice guy. He remembered
all too well the thrashings he had suffered, the loneliness at
school, the coldness of being shut out at home by his family. He
tipped generously. He made friends with doormen, janitors, and
cleaning ladies. He made sure that he knew the names of all the
kids in his neighborhood, as well as those of their parents and
grandparents, too.

But he pined for more. He had done well, he
could do better. When he turned 26, and was asked to be a principal
in a new venture, an idea an acquaintance had had to combine social
media and dog owners, just
thinking
about the potential for
advertising dollars had made David’s head spin. He’d signed on
within minutes. He ceased all work on other projects to begin
building one of the most comprehensive websites ever, capable of
efficiently handling the enormous volume of traffic that he knew
this golden opportunity would generate.

It had been a fantastic idea. But the line
between an undeniable success and becoming an easy punch line for
comics mining other people’s failures for material is sometimes a
thin one. And David had found himself on the wrong side of that
line, even before the heightened scrutiny of the enterprise brought
his prior, less-than-blameless, dealings to light. The pressures of
work, combined with the promise of unimaginable wealth, had
delivered to him new friends, new pleasures, and new stresses.

David had lost himself. And then he had lost
everything.

Other than Grandpa Wilcott and a single
phone call from his sister Nancy asking for a loan, he had had no
contact with his family in years. When the bottom fell out of his
life, he had no one to turn to, nowhere to go. Messages weren’t
acknowledged, his former clients were understandably loathe to
renew any association with him, his ‘friends’ couldn’t remember
ever having been friends with him.

Even Nancy hadn’t called him back. He hadn’t
wanted her to return the money he’d given her, he had only wanted
to talk.

David had wanted to disappear off the map.
And so he had.

He had moved to Shady Grove.

“I’m sorry about Harvey.”

“Harvey?”

Genevieve’s eyebrows rose. “Your favorite
detective.”

“Oh. Oh! How did you…”

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “He
stopped by the house this afternoon. I was a little surprised to
see him, it’s been so long. I actually thought it might be you, but
when I answered the door, it was him.”

David couldn’t help but grin. “Harvey
Ormsby. If he hadn’t been such a complete jerk, I’d almost feel
sorry for him with a name like that.”

“He said he might have come down a little
hard on you. Earlier, I guess, earlier today. At first I thought he
meant on Thursday, or whenever it was you’d said he wasn’t very
nice to you.”

“That would be every time I’ve seen him,”
David replied dryly. “I don’t think he has any nice in him,
anywhere. Ever.”

She reached forward to take his hand. “He
can be all right at times. He’s just not very… sensitive, like you.
He’s less complicated, more…”

“Manly?” But David wasn’t trying to make
himself feel bad. The adjective seemed an appropriate descriptor
for the obvious hunk of beef that was Detective Ormsby.

“Yes,” Genevieve agreed. “But in the least
complimentary terms that word can imply.” She pulled his hand
toward her. “Thank you for making a reservation here. Thank you for
forgiving me for being snippy yesterday.”

David wasn’t sure if ‘snippy’ quite covered
the way Genevieve had acted when she’d spotted him with Janice the
day before, but it didn’t matter. She was here with him, smiling at
him, and, for once, pulling him closer to her.

“We’ve only come here twice,” he said. “On
our year anniversary, and with Abby that time. I was happy to
manufacture an excuse for another visit.”

She released him. “Well, if my behavior
gives you a good excuse for this, we should be coming here weekly,
right?”

“I could never afford it!”

“But aren’t I worth it?”

She beamed at him, and David felt a flush of
warmth infuse the whole of his being. In an elegant forest green
dress with gold accents and radiant jewelry to match, with her hair
done up in a fetching swoop and a lively pair of eyes that were
right now focused wholly on him, Genevieve was that most beautiful
of creatures on Earth, a woman in love.

He was glad that he’d chosen Longworth House
for their dinner tonight. Situated in the hills above town, it was
the former residence of the Dr. Longworth after whom the Avenue was
named. Overlooking the eastern end of the Shady Grove business
district as well as a good part of the town, the restaurant was
luxurious, private, and renowned for its desserts, nearly all of
which were quietly created by Gâteaupia.

David had walked to Genevieve’s house, and
then she had driven the two of them to dinner.

“You never really told me what you and Jess
talked about,” she said as their salad plates were cleared in
preparation for the main course.

“She didn’t spill all to you?” he asked,
testing the wine that their server had just poured.

“Uh, uh! She told me that it was up to you
to share. Is it good?”

He nodded. “Perfect for lamb. So am I
supposed to detail all of my sinful questions to you now?”

She winked. “I already knew what they were.
But in all seriousness, David, was it helpful to talk to her? I’d
thought about it before, but never followed through, with either of
you.”

Again, he nodded. “I liked her. I think it
was brilliant to have her just call me; I would have been totally
scared out of my wits if I’d known about it beforehand.”

“Should the fact that you answered her call
without even knowing who it was worry me? When I can’t ever seem to
catch you myself?”

He laughed. “It was a fluke. I literally had
just gone hunting for my phone, and as I picked it up, bingo!”

“A cute girl on the other end of the
line.”

“Exactly! Though I have no idea if she’s
cute or not. If she looks anything like you, you’re in trouble when
I meet her.”

“Did you like her voice?” Genevieve asked.
“I just complimented you by saying you’re sensitive. I’d hate for
that to be disproved so rapidly by your judging Jess solely on her
looks.”

“Hey! I said I liked her! Though at first I
thought she was cold calling me, and I was prepared to chew her out
for bothering me so late at night. But she’s… she’s warm. And
funny. And she certainly knows you.”

“Oh, that she does, poor girl,” Genevieve
snickered. “All about everything. I almost feel sorry for her!” She
reached for her wineglass and took a leisurely sip. “Was she able
to answer your questions about Todd?”

David looked down, fussed with his napkin,
straightened the edges of the tablecloth. While stalling, he
marveled yet again at Genevieve’s seemingly endless capacity for
bringing up Todd, discussing the subject with an almost clinical
detachment, and then chastising him for obsessing over her former
fiancé into the wee hours of the night.

Todd was a paragon. Todd was a selfish tool.
Todd had managed to last seven years with the high-strung,
controlling Genevieve.

David didn’t know what Todd looked like
either, but he was probably better off in the dark.

“She said he wasn’t honest,” David said
aloud. “With you. For a lot of the time you were together.”

“Mmm. An entirely accurate statement.” Her
hand moved toward her wine again.

“It’s funny. After I got off the phone with
Jess, it occurred to me that in all the times we’ve… talked about
him, you’ve mentioned anger, heartbreak, desolation, occasional
disgust, and drunkenness. But you’ve never once said the word
‘untruthful.’ Ever.”

She had grasped her wineglass but not lifted
it. “Shouldn’t that have been obvious?”

“No.” David shook his head. “No, it wasn’t
obvious. A lot of other things were, but that untruthfulness thing…
it’s kind of its own little island. I should know, Genevieve. I was
untruthful with myself all those years. It’s nothing like anger, or
loneliness, or… well, any of them. I can’t speak for you regarding
what Todd may have done, but it was the worst part of what I went
through, waking up one day and realizing that I’d been lying to
myself, let alone everyone around me.”

Genevieve was watching him, carefully, her
gaze soft and thoughtful. Her hand retreated from the wineglass,
and she began to rub a knife with her thumb. “It wasn’t you Harvey
wanted to punish,” she said. “It’s who you represent. He’s hurt
because Todd left Shady Grove, and he’s only bothered to get in
touch with him a few times since. He admired Todd, a lot. He was
two years behind him in school, so Todd was the quarterback on the
football team for two seasons running while Harvey played defensive
end.

“No. Wait!” Genevieve’s hand had come up as
David began to open his mouth. “I know what he said to you. I know
how completely and utterly terrible he must have made you feel
today. It’s all related. Let me just finish, please.”

His mouth had already snapped shut. He
nodded to her as her fingers returned to the knife.

“When Todd moved back to Shady Grove after
college, Harvey was in heaven. He’d just joined the police
department, and here came his idol, the former hero come back home
to teach science at the high school and coach the football team.
Harvey immediately signed up to assistant coach, and then persuaded
Todd to become a volunteer on the force. They were best buds, pals
through thick and thin, real men who knew without a doubt that they
were superior to any ordinary sort of man.”

Her head was shaking as she once again
rolled her eyes. The knife was being lifted, dropped, lifted.

“So after almost a dozen years of this, this
incredible,
manly
friendship – with Harvey married to his
job, and Todd finally engaged to his long-term girlfriend – Todd
takes off. No warning, no warning signs. He at least waited until
the end of the school year in June. But while
I
certainly
had an inkling that it was coming, that our engagement would never
transition into marriage, Harvey was knocked cold with it when he
stopped by the store one morning to ask why Todd hadn’t come over
the night before for brewskis and some b-ball.”

Her eyes closed as she began replaying the
scene in her head. “ ‘He didn’t tell you?’ I asked him. ‘Tell me
what?’ he said back, looking upset because he probably thought that
Todd had found another friend to hang out with. ‘He left,’ I told
him. ‘When’s he coming back?’ he asked. And then I made the mistake
of saying, ‘Probably never, if I had to guess.’ And that was when
Harvey lost it. He began to shout at me: ‘What do you mean? What do
you mean?’ He was so furious, with Todd, with me. He had no idea
what had just happened to him, and the few customers we had in the
store right then could only stare at him as he railed and railed,
smashing his fist down into his palm over and over. Lydia came over
and, as always, saved the day, moving us outside in the most
diplomatic way, walking us halfway down the block so we could ‘talk
more privately.’ ”