Accelerated (13 page)

“No way.” Sean poured a shot even though he’d decided he was done a few shots ago. From what he’d seen, Kat didn’t bat an eyelash without Nicole’s approval. She’d always been a pleaser.

“It took me a while to figure it out,” Nicole said. “Bored. She’s bored. She’s trying to keep herself entertained.”

“I thought the curriculum was enriched,” he said. He was unraveling the arguments Nicole had masterfully made in favor of public school. “Gifted. And talented.”

“They’ve been doing multiplication tables in her class all year. Kat knew those going into third grade. They’re reading
Junie B. Jones
, for Christ sake. She’s reading
Trumpet of the Swans
at home.” Nicole snorted. “They have gym once a week. Once. And they only have art if a parent volunteers to teach it.” She looked at him with a
so there
expression. “At this point, she’s just showing up. She’s getting in trouble.” Nicole hesitated before dropping the bombshell. “Sometimes she pees in her pants.”

Sean’s jaw went slack.

“Don’t fucking tell anyone. Or I’ll kill you.”

Sean crossed his heart, like he’d done when he promised not to tell that Nicole had taken twenty dollars from their dad’s wallet to buy weed for the high school prom.

“Can you get her out of there?” He thought Toby had it bad. Kat must be miserable.

“I’ve applied to private schools for the last three years.”

She was a master at conversation-stopping bits of information.

“The worst part is she’s gotten in every year and the fuckers won’t give me financial aid.”

“Shit, Nicole.” Now he felt like an ass. “You make a crappy salary. All these schools have money for financial aid.”

“Oh, I make the cut for need. But just my luck I’m a white lawyer with a white child. Now, if I were a struggling performance artist living in the far Bronx with a half-Puerto-Rican child, they’d be all over me. Apparently I’m not diverse enough.” She shook it off with a wave of a salty hand. “Toby’s going to get through this,” Nicole said. “This is a glitch. He’s going to shine, that kid.”

He wanted that to be true. And having Nicole say it made him believe it might be. “Kat, too,” he said.

Nicole smiled weakly. “Get him tested. Maybe if a professional tells the school he’s suffering from Mother Deficit Disorder—not some neurological disaster—that will calm them down. Rule it out.”

“I’m not telling Ellie.”
Tellingellie
slurred into one word.

“Screw her.” Nicole lay back on the couch and closed her eyes. “You don’t need to tell her shit.” Within seconds she was snoring.

“S
O IS HE GOING TO GIVE ME SHOTS
?” Toby couldn’t seem to get his mind around the concept of a shrink. Granted, Sean wasn’t explaining it well. He was trying not to lie, only to remain suitably opaque. Kind of like whenever Toby asked about sex.

“No shots. And um, it’s a her.” A co-worker of Nicole’s had gone through the same ordeal earlier in the year with his kid and recommended a psychiatrist named Angela Altherra. He liked the idea that Bradley hadn’t referred her. And he liked the idea that someone from the D.A.’s office thought she was all right. “She’s just going to ask you some questions. About school, I think. All you have to do is sit there and answer.”

“And then what does she do?”

“I don’t know, I guess you leave.”

“I don’t have to take off my clothes?”

“No. Tobe, it’s not that kind of … she’s a psychiatrist. Remember? She takes care of people’s brains and, you know, emotions.”

Toby scrunched up his face into what was clearly a comment on how his father had lost
his
mind and was the one who needed the shrink. “Why do I have to go to her? My brain isn’t sick. Is it?”

“No. I mean … look don’t worry about it. Just talk to her. Ask her anything you want about it. She can probably answer better than me.”

This was a scene he’d never imagined. Him, Sean Benning from Troy, New York, walking along Park Avenue on the way to his son’s psychiatric appointment. He knew this wasn’t unusual in Manhattan, where everyone seemed to have a shrink. Last year at a dinner party he’d gone to with Ellie, everyone was telling therapy stories. He realized he was the only one who had nothing to contribute and decided to make up something. Luckily, before he’d gotten a chance, the bipolar woman to his right started to choke on a wild mushroom canapé. After the manic landscape architect performed the Heimlich, the conversation turned to life-saving techniques and Sean was able to riff about a CPR class he’d taken in college.

“Okay,” Toby said. “I’ll do it. But afterwards we go to Cyber Zone so I can kill you in Ghost Recon.”

“We’ll see who kills who,” he said. “I think today’s my day.”

Toby shook his head wearily. “If you don’t practice, Dad, you’re never going to beat me. You’ve got to put in the time.”

An Irish doorman with ruddy cheeks and salt and pepper hair stood bolt upright at the front door of the Park Avenue apartment building. He wore his gray cap and uniform with brass buttons as if it were a general’s. East side doormen called you Sir, and if it rained they held a golf umbrella over you while you climbed into your taxi. West side doormen wore their uniforms if they felt like it, called you by your first name, and had no problem whatsoever getting up into your business. Manny had been the first one to notice—or dare to mention—Ellie’s pregnant belly. “Ay, congratulations!” he’d said, patting his own belly, and the cat was out of the bag.

The General would never risk that kind of intimacy. There was something to that.

“May I help you?” he asked, sizing them up. This guy opened doors for a living but he probably earned more than Sean did. Plus he had a killer union and a nice fat 401 K, too. His kid was probably doing fine at a good public school in Jersey.

Sean muttered Dr. Altherra’s name.

“One B. On the right,” the doorman said. Sean was sure he saw a smirk on the guy’s face as he pointed to a glossy door past a mammoth flower arrangement that glowed under a spotlight.

The door opened into a closet-like waiting room, and they sat in uncomfortable straight-backed chairs. At exactly three thirty, an attractive woman in her early forties emerged from an office.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Altherra,” she said. “Come in.”

Dr. Altherra’s office, as if compensating for the waiting room, was spacious, with warm tapestries on the walls and an oriental carpet on the floor. Sean and Toby sunk into the velvet couch.

He’d expected another Shineman, but this woman was in another league. She was slim, fashionable, and wore her dark hair pulled loosely back. A few wavy strands crept out around her face, giving her a soft, Renaissance look. She was much more attractive than she’d sounded on the phone. Nicole’s friend from the D.A.’s office might have mentioned it.

“So Toby, your dad’s told me a lot about you,” Dr. Altherra said. Toby didn’t respond. He stared at a patch of carpet a few feet in front of him. “I’m looking forward to talking to you about school and home and whatever else you want to talk about.” She smiled kindly even though Toby had given her nothing to smile about. “First, though, I’d like to talk to your dad alone. Just for a little while, then I’ll bring you in. How does that sound?”

Toby looked at Sean nervously.

“It’s okay.”

“Should I just sit out there?” Toby had never waited alone in a waiting room before. Sean or Ellie had always stayed with him. It was a strangely poignant milestone you don’t log in your baby book.

“That would be great, Toby,” Dr. Altherra said. “It won’t be too long.”

Toby remained on the couch like a deer in the headlights.

“I’ll get you settled,” Sean said. He led Toby to a seat in the waiting room and handed him a
National Geographic
. He pointed at the wall. “I’m just through there.”

Back in Dr. Altherra’s office, Sean tried not to worry about Toby sitting out there alone. He’d be fine, obviously. But if Sean had prepped him beforehand—if he’d stopped to think this could even come up—Toby might feel less betrayed at the moment.

“I asked you some questions on the phone the other night,” Dr. Altherra said. “But there are quite a few more on the Conners scale. We should get through them all today. Will your wife be joining us?”

“No.” He hesitated, not sure how to explain the status of him and Ellie. “She’s been … she’s been out of the picture since September. She’s living on Long Island.”

Dr. Altherra nodded in a professionally interested way. Was she wondering what hellish thing he’d done to make her go? “I think it’s having an effect on his schoolwork and his behavior.”

“Does he seem withdrawn?”

“No, not really. Not usually.”

“Is he more irritable than usual? Is he eating more or less than he usually does?”

“I don’t know. He’s just himself. But a little sadder. And the school keeps telling me he’s disrupting music class.”

“Encourage him to talk about her,” she suggested. “He might be waiting for a signal from you that it’s okay to do that.” She paused. “Are you seeing someone else?”

He shook his head.

She gave him a sad sort of smile he didn’t appreciate. “Well, let’s finish these,” she said, gesturing to the questionnaire that would determine whether Toby had ADD—or ADHD, as she kept calling it. “It’s important to get a full history from the parents—or parent—when it comes to this type of neurological disorder.”

Disorder
. It was a word he’d use to describe a piece of defective equipment you bring back to the store for a refund. “My answers tell you whether he has ADD?”

“I also talk to Toby,” she explained. “And I’ll send a shorter version of the Conners scale over to school.” She handed him a sheet of paper. On the left was a list of behaviors: Restless in the “squirmy” sense, Demands must be met immediately, Distractibility or poor attention span, Disturbs other children, Restless, always up and on the go, Excitable and impulsive, Fails to finish things started, Childish and immature, Easily frustrated in efforts, Difficulty in learning. To the right were four choices for each: Not at all, Very Little, Pretty much, Very much.

“That’s it?”

“That usually tells us everything we need to know.”

“And then you prescribe drugs?”

“If I’ve made a diagnosis of ADHD,” she said, as if clarifying a rule for a three-year-old. “Otherwise, no.”

He chose to ignore the condescending tone. She was
that
good looking. “So you’d prescribe Ritalin?”

“I like to start with short-acting methylphenidate—that’s the generic name for Ritalin. There are several options we can talk about if we get to that point.”

The research he’d done online had only confused him. He’d read as many impassioned rants, both pro and con, conflicting studies and medical horror stories as he could stand before signing off at two a.m.

“But isn’t that pretty risky?”

“Five decades’ worth of research have proven it’s safe.”

“But it’s speed, right? That can’t be good for a child.”

“Speed is a street drug. Ritalin is a pharmaceutical,” she said. “In children with Attention Deficit Disorder, the stimulant in the drug usually has a reverse effect, calming them down. Nobody knows why exactly. It’s absolutely counterintuitive.”

“So how often would he have to take it?”

“We’re jumping ahead of ourselves. Why don’t we get a diagnosis first, then we can discuss what to do about it.”

“I’m just curious.” He knew not to believe half the stuff on the Internet. He just didn’t know which half. He was sitting across from a qualified professional and he was going to get his money’s worth. “I know there are extended-release pills, right?”

She uncrossed her legs, then recrossed them. “Okay, let’s talk about it now.” At whatever she was charging an hour, she should really lose the annoyed tone. “I never give extended-release in the beginning. I start with half a pill to make sure there’s no negative reaction. Then I raise the dose slowly until it gets to a therapeutic level. And even then, if there’s any problem, methylphenidate is metabolized completely after four hours.”

“So after four hours what happens?”

“He’d have to take another dose.” She sat back.

He digested the information. “That means he’d have to take the medication during the school day. Everyone will know.”

“Not necessarily. But I understand your concern. Does Toby have a problem sitting down at home and focusing on homework?”

“Not usually,” he said.

“If he’s not hyperactive …” she started.

“He’s not hyperactive.” He sounded defensive.

“So then he might have inattentive-type ADHD.”

As if he was supposed to know what she was talking about.

“It means that he’s unable to focus in distracting situations, like school. But at home, without his friends and all the visual stimuli of the classroom, he wouldn’t need the medication. I wouldn’t want to have him on medication more than he needed to be.”

“Even though it’s safe.” Sean was being bratty, but she deserved it.

“I’m quite conservative when it comes to medicating children,” she said, unfazed by the brattiness. “So yes, that’s right.”

He liked that she’d called herself conservative.

“Why don’t we finish the questionnaire so I can get Toby in here.”

“Right. Sure.” He’d almost forgotten about Toby sitting out there alone.

She wanted to know if Toby tended to misplace his shoes or his jacket and if his room was messy. He chuckled, assuming it was a joke.

It turned out she wasn’t the joking type. She simply stared at him with an impenetrable expression until he stopped laughing.

Despite the unsettling combination of attraction to the doctor and a generalized queasiness about what he was doing in her office, he did his best over the next fifteen minutes to answer her questions. Did Toby forget his backpack at home, did he hand his schoolwork in on time, was he squirmy or restless, was he impulsive, did he fail to finish what he started, was he easily frustrated? The hardest questions were about the tantrums. Yes, he had them, he said. No, it wasn’t typical. He mentioned the math packet and Jane’s pennies.