Accelerated (15 page)

He called Dr. Jon’s office again. “No I do not want to leave a message.” His voice was loud, but none of the people around him seemed to notice. You had to blow a foghorn in Grand Central to get anyone’s attention. “I’ve left five. I need to speak to Jon today. Now.”

The sheepish girl at the desk told him Jon was with patients and that the office closed at six. He left another message.

He called twice more on his way to Madison Square Garden. He’d just keep calling until Jon was finished reattaching a severed digit or surgically removing an M&M from a four-year-old’s nostril or whatever pediatricians did.

When he got to the Garden, the place was eerily empty. He didn’t know it could get so empty. The last time he’d been here was over the summer. He and Ellie had fought their way through packs of aging Dylan fans. But the venue was so big, the real Dylan had looked like a tiny spec on the stage. They had to watch him on a screen mounted above his head.

Now, Sean had the run of the place. He stopped in front of a poster of Billy Horn from his glory days, charging the hoop, biceps bulging, a look of utter determination on his dripping face. He’d passed by it a million times, but he’d never stopped and just looked—there were always too many people rushing past. It had been five or six years since Billy Horn was winning games. Still, he was a fixture in New York. A decent guy—or at least that was his reputation. The Knicks would never trade him. But they weren’t going to start him anymore, either.

He wondered what it was like to have your ninth birthday party at Madison Square Garden. Toby must think this was how kids all over the country celebrated turning nine. Sean hated to admit that it was cool as hell, being here in the middle of the day, his name on the guest list.

The jowly guard directed him to center court.

Remnants of cake and pizza littered the bench as Zack and his friends dribbled and flailed under the house lights and the glow of the scoreboard. They were dressed in miniature Knicks uniforms that were, no doubt, party favors. Toby’s friends had taken home super balls and Mexican jumping beans from his party. He really should remember to buy a present for Zack.

Billy took the ball down the court with some between-the-leg dribbling designed to entertain the kids. He passed dramatically to Charlie Wilkins, the team’s power forward, who found Zack and passed to him. Zack went up for a long shot and nailed it. The boys on his team whooped and chest bumped. Zack could already shoot three pointers like clockwork.

Sean watched for a few minutes from the aisle. Billy passed to Toby. Somehow Toby caught it, dribbled twice and shot. Sean held his breath as he watched the ball arc up and swish cleanly through the hoop. Toby stared, slack-jawed at his basket. The megawatt sound system exploded with Knicks cheers. The LED screen flashed GO KNICKS! A huge grin spread over Toby’s face.

Right now, no one would know Toby was missing his mother or having trouble in school or suffering from some scary deficit. He was a basketball star, a hero.

Billy jogged over to Toby and gave him a high five. “We could’ve used that shot last night against the Mavs.”

When Billy saw Sean, he summoned him with big, overblown motions. “Come on down.” As in down to the Knicks’ court where every great basketball player had played.

The court was huge and hot from the lights. The floor had a bounce to it.

“Can we talk for a minute?” Billy asked.

He led Sean to a seat in the first row, away from the others. “I’ve got a situation.” It turned out that a
Buzz
photographer had snapped Billy at the Hustler Club on Twelfth Avenue. “It’s pretty tame,” Billy said. “But it doesn’t look good. Deanna’s going to be pissed.”

He knew exactly where this was going. “That sucks,” Sean said, shaking his head.

“Yeah. It does.” He looked at his size fifteen shoes. “I hate asking, but is there anything you can do about it?”

“Billy, I don’t know …”

“I hate asking for favors,” he said. “I don’t know what to say to Zack.”

Sean had never destroyed film. Not on purpose, anyway. There had to be a line. Then again,
Buzz
was a crappy publication. It existed to make the lives of celebrities miserable. This wasn’t Watergate or The Pentagon Papers. It was a once-great basketball player in a tittie bar. He might be able to misplace the file for a few weeks. Just until it was old news.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

“I owe you, man,” Billy said, slapping him on the back. “I owe you.”

B
Y THE TIME THEY LEFT THE
G
ARDEN, IT WAS FIVE THIRTY
. S
EAN
took out his phone to dial Dr. Jon one more time, then reconsidered. Instead of taking the train all the way to 110th, they got off at Eighty-sixth and walked the extra block to Jon’s office.

“I’m sorry, if you don’t have an appointment he can’t see you today,” the receptionist said when they got to the office. She looked like she’d had a long day dealing with screaming children and their screaming parents and was counting down the seconds until she could get out of there.

“I’m not leaving until I see him.” He crossed his arms over his chest and settled in.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “The office is closing in a few minutes.”

“You’re not going to tell him I’m here?”

“Without an appointment, I really can’t.”

“Wait here a minute,” he told Toby. “I’ll be right back.” He stepped over a plastic bead-counting toy in the middle of the floor that could have been used to culture every strain of strep and flu on the west side of Manhattan. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Where are you going?” The receptionist stood up. “Get back here!”

He walked to the back of the office past the empty examining rooms. He hung a right into the cramped room where Dr. Jon was filling out paperwork.

Jon looked up blearily. “Do we have an appointment?” His long face sagged at the jawline and his hair had thinned significantly since Toby’s physical five months before.

“I’ve left ten messages. I have an emergency.”

Jon sighed, pushed his chair back, and clasped his hands over his stomach.

“So,” Sean asked, “do you have a few minutes?”

“I’m waiting. What’s the emergency?”

“Oh, okay. Well, Toby has been …” He lowered his voice, even though the place was empty. “He’s been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Inattentive type. We went to a psychiatrist. And … she prescribed something called Metattent Junior. I was wondering what you thought about that. I mean, I’ve been online and it seems extremely dangerous to give children this kind of …”

“Don’t research this online.”

“In 2005, the Canadians recalled ADD medication because studies showed that children were dying from it.”

“Look, if he has ADD, there’s no other way to treat it. You can do behavioral modifications, which is a good idea anyway. But if you want to give him any real relief, medication is the way to go.”

“But the studies I found online …”

Dr. Jon let out a weary sigh. “The Canadians put Adderall back on the market within two months. They were using American studies they hadn’t analyzed properly.” He paused. “Whatever negative information you’re finding online is garbage.”

Garbage
was not what Sean had expected to hear from Jon. “So you think I should give him the drugs?”

“Who did the testing?”

When he mentioned Dr. Altherra’s name, John looked impressed. “She’s good.” He considered it for a moment. “She had the school fill out Conners scales?”

Sean nodded.

“If Angela thinks he needs it, I would try it.”

“But …”

“There are only a few things to monitor. We’ll make sure it’s not affecting his blood pressure, and we’ll weigh and measure him twice a year to make sure he’s gaining at a reasonable rate.”

“Gaining?”

“Yeah, these drugs can suppress the appetite. We want to make sure he’s eating enough so his development isn’t impacted.”

“So there are risks.”

“It’s just my opinion, but I’d say the risk of failure and low self-esteem from poor school performance is a lot greater. He’s in third grade, right? It starts in third, but fourth is even worse.” He shook his head. “Especially at private school. The work is harder, plus kids are extremely aware of how they’re doing compared to their peers. It’s not pretty.”

Jon talked to him for a full twenty minutes. He was impossible to pin down, but once you got him, he was full of information.

“I’ve got to go,” Jon said. “My wife is dragging me to a benefit for kidney disease.” He switched off his desk lamp and put a fat folder into his bag. “Get the prescription filled, give him half a pill on a day he’ll be home to see how he reacts to it. If all goes well, see for yourself if it makes a difference at school. Then go from there. And call me.”

H
E PULLED THE ZIPPER AROUND THE CORNERS OF
T
OBY
’
S
S
PIDERMAN
suitcase, cataloguing the myriad reasons why this visit was a huge mistake. What if Ellie sunk into another depression and freaked Toby out? How would Toby fend for himself? Or worse, maybe she was fine. Maybe Toby would realize how much he’d missed her and decide to live with her full-time. Why hadn’t he considered this until now?

“If Mom seems tired, or if she’s acting, you know, not like herself,” he said, “just call me, okay?” Could he reneg at the eleventh hour? Probably not without major damage to his credibility.

“She’s better, Dad. I can tell when I talk to her on the phone.” Toby knew more than Sean gave him credit for. “But if she starts acting like an alien clone again I’ll call,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Sean remembered Toby’s running away note. It had also told him not to worry. Didn’t Toby realize that was 99 percent of what parents did all the time? He couldn’t imagine the world without worrying about Toby. Why the hell had he agreed to this?

“Can you pack me snacks and stuff to draw with?”

Snacks. Right. There must be something in the kitchen. Ellie had been good with snacks. He was not. He rifled through the cabinets and found some crackers. They were old, but they hadn’t been opened. They were probably fine. Buried behind a can of chicken noodle soup, he found a flattened fruit roll-up.

He offered up the scavenged treats. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Toby wasn’t thrilled, but he seemed to appreciate the effort.

It was still dark when he and Toby arrived at the Jitney. In summertime, the Jitney was a mob scene. December was a different story. Now, a few die-hard Hamptonites shivered at the bus stop.

He handed Toby a present he’d wrapped in a
Buzz
story on celebrity pugs.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “I thought you might be able to use these on the trip.”

“Can I open it?” Toby was already tearing at the paper.

“Go ahead.”

“Wow,” he said, with just the right level of awe. When Sean had seen the old X-Men comics in a store in the Village, he’d hoped for a reaction just like this.

“These are so cool,” Toby said, flipping through the stack. “I hope Calvin comes back after break so he can see these.”

“Me too.”

“Your present is at school,” Toby said. “I made you a lamp in woodworking. It looks like a dice. It had to dry, so I couldn’t bring it home.”

“I can’t wait to see it.” Woodworking had sounded like such a good idea when he’d seen it listed in the afterschool catalog. He’d had no idea Toby would be so prolific. No surface in the apartment had been spared. “I can really use a lamp.”

When the bus pulled up, he got Toby settled in a seat next to the driver. The seat looked so big, and Toby looked small. He’d expected saying goodbye to be hard, but not quite this hard.

Toby had pushed to do the trip alone. “Zack did it over the summer,” he’d argued. “Please dad? It’s totally safe. You can ask his mom.” Maybe Sean would have fought it more if he’d been able to stomach the idea of a face-to-face with Ellie. He wasn’t ready for that yet. Not on her turf in her new life. So he’d filled out forms and signed the waivers and now it was really happening.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You don’t have to.”

“I’m fine, Dad. Really.” He worked his grownup look. “Thanks for letting me go.”

“I’m gonna miss you, Tobe. Call when you get there, okay?”

“I will.” Toby smiled. “I’ll be home in two weeks. It’ll go by fast. I promise.”

He waved as the bus pulled away, then dialed Ellie’s number. “He’s on the way,” he said, when she picked up.

“Great,” she said. “Okay.”

“Okay.” It turned out that this was all they had to say to each other. He hung up, clutching the closed cell phone in his fist as he made his way uptown.

Back home, he had nothing but time to work. The house was too quiet. The kitchen was a mess, which he usually couldn’t care less about. Today he decided to clean. He washed the dirty plates and scoured the pots. He took out the trash and scrubbed the inside of the garbage cans with Clorox.

He lay down on the couch to close his eyes for five minutes. By noon, he’d wasted exactly four hours of the work time he’d been counting on. Maybe a quick run to the deli to stock up on supplies, then he could come back and start fresh.

He took the elevator to the lobby. In 1906 when it had been built, this had been billed as a “luxury building.” If you looked closely, you could tell the detail work on the moldings must have been pretty amazing at one time, before fuzzy dirt had taken up residence in the grooves and contours.

“Hey Sean, how’s it going?” Manny was a slight guy. He always had way too much energy. “Great day today. Great day,” Manny said, as if he were responsible for creating the weather instead of just reporting it. “Mail’s here,” Manny said, and went back to his Sudoku book.

Sean plucked his mail from the box that still had Ellie’s name on it and flipped through the letters as he walked around the corner to the deli. Mixed in with a fistful of bills was a small envelope from Dr. Altherra that held Toby’s prescription.
Benning, Tobias. Take 1 tablet every four hours as needed. Metattent, Junior. 10 mg. Tab 100s
.