Accelerated (35 page)

“Sean, hi,” she said. She either sounded flustered or out of breath. Or both.

“Is this a bad time?”

“No … well, sort of. I’m in D.C., chaperoning Susannah’s field trip to the National Archives.”

“When do you get back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. What’s up?”

“I know it’s hard to talk about, but I know Bev Shineman pressured you to put Calvin on Metattent—or Ritalin—or something.”

“I really don’t know what you’re—”

“You need to say something. I just met with a lawyer who wants to help. But she needs—”

“Did you give her my name?” Melanie sounded panicked. “You had no right to mention Calvin or—”

“I didn’t. But—”

“Good. Okay.” Teenagers were screeching and sirens howled in the background. “Look, I have to go. Don’t ask me again, okay?”

“S
HE
’
S TERRIFIED
,” J
ESS SAID AS SHE TUGGED
T
OBY
’
S HAT OVER
his ears and then pulled her own jacket tight.

“She should be terrified,” Sean said. “She should still talk to Nina Goldsmith.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Toby asked from under many layers as they walked west along Twenty-third Street.

“Nothing Tobe,” he said. “You warm enough?”

“When are we going to be there?”

“A few more blocks,” he said. “Hang in there.”

“I love when it snows,” Toby said, running his hand over the hood of a parked car and packing another snowball. “There’s ammo everywhere.” He hurled it against the façade of a brownstone and smiled.

“I’ll talk to the lawyer,” Jess said. “I want to.”

They’d had this conversation already. A few times. “Wait until we get more parents. Be patient.”

“It’s not my best thing.”

He watched her trying to be patient.

“There must be someone else who’ll talk.”

“But why would they? I mean, if their kid is okay.”

“Ethics? The desire to do the right thing?” She slumped her shoulders. “You’re right. No one’s going to do it.”

Then he remembered there was someone who owed him a favor. He didn’t know if Shineman had pushed Billy Horn to dope up his son, but if she had … “I have an idea,” he said, and put his arms around Jess and Toby. “It’s the only one I have, so it better work.”

Toby pointed at the Burdot sign. “Is that it, Dad?”

“That’s it. Let’s go up.”

Toby took the steps two at a time, and when he got into the space he froze. “It’s so empty,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”

“On the walls,” Sean said. “Look at the art.”

“Oh,” he said, realizing what was surrounding him. “Cool.”

“Sean!” Camille appeared as if out of nowhere and kissed him on both cheeks. “Parfait!” She took in Jess and Toby with a glance. “And who do we have here?”

“This is my friend Jess Harper and my son Toby.” He patted Toby on the back. “Say hi.”

“Hi,” he said, shyly.

“You have a beautiful gallery,” Jess said, even though Camille was still staring at Toby. She looked vaguely repelled, or at least worried he might touch something.

“Thank you,” she said with a practiced smile, then turned her attention back on him. “Did you bring the headshots?”

Zee ed-shots
.

He handed her the envelope, which she opened eagerly. She studied all three, settling on his favorite, a full-on shot that captured something he’d never seen before in his own eyes. “Very handsome. Excellent. We’ll need a photo credit for these. You can send it over tomorrow.”

“The photographer is right here.”

Jess smiled uncomfortably. “I can write my name on the envelope.”

“Oh.” Camille seemed flustered, but handed her a pen. “Yes, good. Wonderful.”

“Where’s your artwork going to be, Dad?” Toby was asking from across the room.

“They will be the first pieces you see upon entering. They will set the tone for the entire show.” Camille winked at him. “I’m already getting calls from my regulars about you. I think you’re going to be very happy …”

“I’m starving, Dad.”

Camille eyed Toby suspiciously, apparently unused to children’s needs or filling them.

“I’m already happy,” he said, shaking Camille’s hand. “Thanks again … for everything.”

“See you next week,” she called after them as they descended the stairs.

H
E DECIDED NOT TO LEAVE THE REASON FOR HIS CALL ON
B
ILLY’S
voice mail, only that he needed to talk to him as soon as possible. The return message from the Knicks’ publicist said there would be two tickets waiting at the Garden box office that night and that he should stop by the team locker room at halftime.

T
HAT NIGHT, WALKING THROUGH THE CROWDS AT THE
G
ARDEN
, he reveled in the feeling of taking his son to a game. “This is great. You having fun?”

Toby nodded and eyed stand after stand. “Can we get a hot dog?”

He looked at the prices and tried to think of all the cash he’d have after his show. “Why not?” He shelled out twenty bucks for two hotdogs and a soda.

Toby followed him into prime third-row seats. “We should do this all the time,” Toby said.

“Deal.” He wondered how people could afford tickets like this
all the time
. “Hey, how are you feeling? Are you tired? Because if you get tired, we can go.”

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“Because you didn’t take a nap today.”

He rolled his eyes. “Only little kids take naps.”

“Okay. But let me know if you get tired.”

The game started and they watched for a while in silence.

“Why doesn’t Zack’s dad start?”

“He used to. The younger guys start now.”

He watched for a while. “You and Mommy were mad at each other about my school. Is that why she left?”

The question came out of nowhere, but that’s how it always was. When you least expect it … “No,” he assured Toby. “It had nothing to do with that.” He imagined Toby listening to him and Ellie fighting and his heart broke.

“So are you mad at my school?”

“I’m trying to make sure your school is going to be safe for all your friends, for everyone who goes there.”

Toby nodded. “Okay.”

“Mommy loves you. The reason she left had nothing to do with you.”

“I know,” he said, and went back to watching the game.

He wondered if Toby really knew it or if he was just saying it.

At halftime, the Knicks were miraculously up 50-46. He and Toby made their way to the team locker room. “Not a lot of people get to do this, you know,” he said. “Isn’t it cool?”

“I guess,” Toby said, twisting back to watch the girls in midriff-baring outfits prance and thrust around the court. “But I kind of wanted to watch the show.”

The locker room was damp and stunk like a dozen sweating men.

“Come in!” Horn extended his extra-long arm in greeting. “Toby, my man,” he said, giving him a high-five. “Good to see you. Zack’s been missing you.”

Toby looked around hopefully. “Is he here?” Toby was stronger now, of course he was missing his friends.

“Not tonight, sport. But let’s get you two together.” Billy grabbed a ball, signed it and handed it to Toby. “You can go around and ask all the players to write their names on it, if you want.”

Toby’s eyes lit up. “Cool. Thanks.” He took the ball and started around the room.

“So what’s up?” Billy wiped a towel across his forehead. The sweat resurfaced instantly but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve only got a few minutes.”

Sean gave him a fast but uncut version of what had happened to Toby, what he knew about the school and the drugs. He told him about Calvin.

Billy shook his head and watched Toby across the room. “You are one lucky son of a bitch,” he said. “The school shrink pushed me, too. Pushed and pushed.” He wiped his forehead with his bicep. “She threatened to kick out Zack if he couldn’t ‘keep up,’ like he’s slow or something. Like he isn’t up to the schoolwork. And that’s bullshit. Zack is fine. He’s
fine
. I told them no way in hell was I putting Zack on that shit. Bottom line, they could show me a million tests that proved it was
safe.”
He mimicked Shineman when he said the word
safe
. “That stuff stunts kids’ growth, man. I told her I wasn’t risking a millimeter. Zack goes pro, he’s gonna need all the height he can get.” He grimaced. “If I wasn’t who I am, I don’t know if I could’ve gotten away with it. She finally left me alone, but that woman’s a pain in the ass.”

He knew he’d always liked Billy Horn. “There’s a lawyer who’s trying to open an investigation, but she needs parents to come forward.”

Billy nodded at whatever internal dialogue he was having. “Have her call me tomorrow. And anyway,” he winked, “I owe you one.”

He suppressed the urge to reach out and hug the basketball legend. “Thanks man,” he said.

Toby ran back with the ball, which was covered in signatures. “Look dad!”

He tried to calculate how much Toby could get for it on eBay. “Nice, Tobe. That’s going to be worth a lot someday.”

Toby smiled and shrugged like it was just a ball his friend’s dad had signed. “Can I dribble it?”

“Go for it.” Billy winked at Toby and slapped Sean on the back. “Tell her to call me … about that
thing.”

Toby dribbled out of the locker room. By the time they’d gotten back to their seats, he was exhausted. He rested his head on Sean’s arm. “Dad,” he said, yawning, “can we go home?”

S
EAN CLAMPED THE PHONE BETWEEN HIS SHOULDER AND HIS EAR
listening to Nina Goldsmtih as he poured a bowl of Cheerios for Toby. “It’s no good,” she was saying.

“He’s as high-profile as they come.”

“But he said no to them. The school pressured him, he said no and nothing came of it. They didn’t kick out his kid. This disproves your theory.”

Why was she convoluting everything? “It shows the school psychologist tried to get Billy Horn to put his child on ADD medication. Like she does with most of the kids.”

“No, it shows that she’s doing her job and accepting that he has a right
as a parent
to make his own decisions. Sorry, you’re going to have to do better than this if you want me to get any leverage. Keep working on it.” He recalled what Shineman slurred that night with Jess—she’d put on the pressure, but it had been
his
call to put Toby on medication. That’s what they would fling at him each and every time. He could have said no.

He slammed the phone. “Fuck!”

“Dad!” Toby walked into the kitchen pulling on his T-shirt. “That’s the really bad word.”

“Yeah.” He tousled Toby’s hair. “Never say that.” The feel of Toby’s head under his hand drained away some of the frustration. He wasn’t going to let Nina Goldsmith wreck his weekend. “Want to come to the studio with me today?”

“I want to go sledding.”

“I have an extra canvas. You can paint.”

“Actually, I kind of want Jess to take me sledding.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “She said she’d teach me her special ramp tricks.”

S
EAN WAS ALMOST JEALOUS AS HE WATCHED THEM PULL THEIR
sleds down Riverside toward the park, deep in conversation.

Back in the apartment that afternoon, Toby and Jess had matching red faces.

“Remember that time I was going so fast over the ramp I almost flipped over?” Toby jumped a little, reliving the moment.

“You were in the air for almost five seconds. But you landed it perfectly.”

“Thanks to the crouch technique.”

“Crouch technique?” Sean stirred a pot of hot chocolate, breathing in the vapors.

“My dad’s crouch technique.” Jess ripped open the bag of mini marshmallows and popped one in her mouth. “You have to pull yourself into an egg shape, get as small as possible. You’ll never flip.”

“It works, Dad. Really.”

Jess lined up three mugs and they drank the first round quickly.

“Can we have seconds?” Toby licked his chocolate mustache.

“I got extra milk at the store,” Sean announced proudly. Soon, they were lounging comfortably around the living room, Toby looking at comics, he and Jess reading the papers.

“Let’s play Clue,” Toby said.

“No Clue,” Sean whined. “Please?”

“Stratego.”

“How about Scrabble?” Jess looked at Toby. “You’re a good speller. And it’s my favorite.”

It was Jess’s favorite because she had a knack for getting triple word scores on every word. And she knew a lot of words that included
x
and
z
.

“Are you hustling us?” Sean asked, when she spelled zephyr for a triple letter score over the
z
.

“I played a lot with my grandmother the summer I lived with her. She never let me win.” It was Toby’s turn. “Do you have an s? You could turn
weeps
into
sweeps.”

Toby slid his S onto the word and smiled proudly. “Thanks.”

“My grandmother used to cheat, though. She used to spell all kinds of curse words and insist they were allowed.”

“No way,” Toby said. “My grandma doesn’t do that.”

“How old were you?”

“About Toby’s age. I went back to school loaded with new vocabulary. Only I wasn’t allowed to use any of it.”

When Toby started yawning, Sean called the game. “It’s been a long day.”

“Jess,” Toby said, pouring his tiles into the drawstring bag. “What’s your emergency?”

“What emergency?”

“I talked to Zack last night on the phone. He said you have a family emergency.”

“Oh,” she said. “I … my dad … he needs me to come home.”

“Because Zack really doesn’t want you to go. Neither do I.”

“I know.” She smiled sadly. “But I have to.”

“What are you going to do?” Toby asked. “For a job?”

“I got a job teaching. At my old school.”

“You did?” The news hit Sean hard and low. “Really?”

She nodded and looked him in the eye. “I was going to tell you. I start next month.”

“But …” He imagined her moving away and a queasy panic washed over him. “You can’t go.”

“Dad, she has a family emergency,” Toby said.