Brain Child (16 page)

“How do you like the new office?” he asked.

The smile faded from the secretary’s face. “New office?” she asked. “What are you talking about, Alex?”

Alex swallowed. “Wasn’t Mr. Eisenberg’s office where the nurse is this year?”

The secretary hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s been right here for as long as I’ve been here,” she said. Then she smiled again. “You can go right in, and don’t worry. You’re not in any trouble.”

He passed the desk and knocked at the inner door, as he had always knocked at Dr. Torres’s door before going inside.

“Come in,” a voice called from within. He opened the door and stepped through. As with everyone else who had been pictured in the yearbook in his bedroom, he recognized the face and knew the man’s name, but had no memory of ever having met him before. Whatever his flash of remembrance had been about, it was over now.

Dan Eisenberg unfolded his large frame from the chair behind his desk to offer Alex his hand. “Alex! It’s great to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you, too, sir,” Alex replied, hesitating only a second before grasping Eisenberg’s hand in a firm shake. A moment later, the dean indicated the chair next to his desk.

“Sorry to have to call you in on the first day of school,” he said, “but I’m afraid a little problem has come up.”

Alex’s face remained impassive. “Miss Jennings said I wasn’t in trouble—”

“And you aren’t,” Eisenberg reassured him. “But I did take the liberty of talking to Dr. Torres last week, and he suggested that perhaps we might want to give you a couple of tests.” He looked for a reaction from Alex, but saw none. “Do you have any idea what the tests might be for?”

“To see how much I’ve forgotten,” Alex said, and Eisenberg had the distinct feeling that Alex wasn’t making a guess, but already knew about the tests.

“Right. I take it Dr. Torres told you about them.”

“No. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, you don’t know which class I should be in if you don’t know how much I remember.”

“Exactly.” Eisenberg picked up a packet of standard form tests. “Do you remember these?” Alex shook his head. “They’re the same tests you took at the beginning of last year, and would have taken again in the spring, except …” His voice trailed off, and he looked uncomfortable.

“Except for the accident,” Alex finished for him. “I don’t mind talking about it, but I don’t remember it too well, either. Just that it happened.”

Eisenberg nodded. “Dr. Torres tells us there are still a lot of gaps in your memory—”

“I’ve been studying all summer,” Alex broke in. “My dad wants me to be in the accelerated class this year.”

Which is certainly not going to happen, Eisenberg thought. From what Torres had told him of Alex’s case, he knew it was far more likely that Alex would have to start all over again with the school’s most basic courses. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” he asked, trying to keep his pessimism out of his voice. “Anyway, if you feel up to it, I’d like you to take the tests today.”

“All right.”

Ten minutes later Alex sat in an empty classroom while Eisenberg’s secretary explained the testing system and the time limits. “And don’t worry if you don’t finish them,” she said as she set the time clock for the first of the battery of eight tests. “You’re not expected to finish all of them. Ready?” Alex nodded. “Begin.”

Alex opened the first of the booklets and began marking down his answers.

Dan Eisenberg looked up from the report he was working on, his smile fading when he saw the look of disappointment in his secretary’s eyes. A glance at his watch told him Alex had begun the tests only an hour and a half ago. “What’s happened, Marge? Couldn’t he do it?”

The young woman shook her head sorrowfully. “I don’t think he even tried,” she said. “He just … well, he just started marking answers randomly.”

“But you told him how they’re scored, didn’t you? Right minus wrong?”

Marge nodded. “And I asked him again each time he handed me one of his answer sheets. He said he understood how it was scored, and that he was finished.”

“How many did he do?”

Marge hesitated; then: “All of them.”

The dean’s brows arched skeptically. “All of them?” he repeated. Then, after Marge had nodded once more: “But that’s impossible. Those tests are supposed to take all day, and even then, no one’s supposed to finish them.”

“I know. So he must have simply gone down the sheets, marking in his answers. I’m not really sure there’s any point in scoring it.” Still, she handed the stack of answer sheets to Dan, and he slid the first one under the template.

Behind each tiny slot in the template, there was a neat black mark. Dan frowned, then shook his head. Wordlessly he matched the rest of the answer sheets to their templates. Finally he leaned back, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

“Cute,” he said. “Real cute.” The smile spread into a grin. “He’s still working on them, isn’t he?”

Now it was Marge Jennings who frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you,” Dan said, chuckling. “You came in early and dummied up this set of answer sheets, didn’t you? Well, you went too far. Did you really expect me to buy this?”

“Buy what?” Marge asked. She stepped around the desk and repeated the process of checking the answer sheets. “My God,” she breathed.

Dan looked up at her, fully expecting to see her eyes twinkling as she still tried to get him to fall for her joke.
And then, slowly, he began to realize it was not a joke at all.

Alex Lonsdale had completed the tests, and his scores were perfect.

“Get Torres on the phone,” Dan told his secretary.

Marge Jennings returned to her office, where Alex sat quietly on a sofa, leafing through a magazine. He looked up at her for a moment, then returned to his reading.

“Alex?”

“Yes?” Alex laid the magazine aside.

“Did you … well, did anyone show you a copy of those tests? I mean, since you took them last year?”

Alex thought a moment, then shook his head. “No. At least not since the accident.”

“I see,” Marge said softly.

But, of course, she didn’t see at all.

Ellen glanced nervously at the clock, and once more regretted having allowed Cynthia Evans to set up an appointment for her to interview María Torres. Not, of course, that she didn’t need a housekeeper; she did. A few months ago, before the accident, she would have felt no hesitation about hiring María Torres. But now things were different, and despite all of Cynthia’s arguments, she still felt strange about asking the mother of Alex’s doctor to vacuum her floors and do her laundry. Still, it would only be two days a week, and she knew María was going to need the work: starting next month, Cynthia herself was going to have full-time, live-in help.

But right now, María was late, and Ellen herself was due for what Marsh always referred to, with a hint of what Ellen considered to be slightly sexist overtones, as “lunch with the girls.” Of course, part of it was her own fault, for try as she would, she still hadn’t been able to train herself to think of her friends as “women”: they had known each other since childhood, and they would be, forever, “girls,” at least in Ellen’s mind.

Except Marty Lewis, who had long since stopped being a girl in any sense of the word. Ellen often wondered if Alan Lewis’s alcoholism had anything to do with the changes that had come over Marty in the last few years.

Of course it had. If Alan hadn’t turned into a drunk, Marty would have been just like the rest of them—staying home, raising her kids, and taking care of her husband. But for Marty, things had been different. Alan couldn’t hold a job, so Marty had taken over the support of the family, and made a success of it, too, while Alan drifted from treatment program to treatment program, sobering up and working for a while, but only a while. Sooner or later, he would begin drinking again, and the spiral would start over again. And Marty, finally, had accepted it. She’d talked of divorce a few years ago, but in the end had simply taken over the burdens of the family. At the fairly regular lunches the four of them—Carol Cochran and Valerie Benson were the other two—enjoyed, Marty’s main conversation was about her job, and how much she liked it.

“Working’s
fun!”
she would insist. “In fact, it’s a lot better this way. I never was much good at the domestic scene, and now that Kate’s growing up, I don’t even feel I’m robbing her of anything. And I don’t have to get terrified every time Alan starts drinking anymore. Do you know what it was like? He’d start drinking, and I’d start saving, because I always knew that it would only be a matter of months before he was going to be out of a job again.” Then she’d smile ruefully. “I suppose I should have left him years ago, but I still love him. So I put up with him, and hope that every binge will be the last one.”

And, of course, there was Valerie Benson, who, three years ago, actually
had
divorced her husband. “Dumbest thing I ever did,” was now Val’s characteristically blunt summation of the divorce. “I can’t even remember what he used to do that made me think I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had this idea that if I only got rid of
George, life would be wonderful. So I got rid of him, and you know what? Nothing changed. Not one damn thing. Except now I don’t have George to blame things on, so, in a way, I suppose I’m a better person.” Then she’d roll her eyes: “Lord, how I loathe those words. I’m sick of being a better person. I’d rather be married and miserable.”

Ellen glanced at the clock once more, and realized that if María didn’t arrive within the next five minutes, she was going to have to choose between waiting for María and going to lunch. Not that the interview would take long—María had been a fixture in La Paloma all of Ellen’s life, and all Ellen really had to do was explain to the old woman what she wanted done, then leave the house in María’s hands.

Lunch, however, was something else. This would be the group’s first lunch since Alex’s accident, and she was sure that Alex would be the main topic of conversation.

Alex, and Raymond Torres.

And, she readily admitted to herself, she was looking forward to the lunch, looking forward to spending even a few hours relaxing with her friends.

It had been a long summer. Once the decision had finally been made that Alex could go back to school, Ellen had begun looking forward to this day. This morning, after Alex and Marsh had left, she had treated herself to a leisurely hour of pure relaxation, and then spent two full hours getting herself ready for today’s lunch. She was determined that Alex wasn’t going to be the only topic of conversation that day, nor was Raymond Torres. Instead, she was going to encourage the others to talk about themselves rather than the Lonsdales’ problems. It would be wonderful to laugh and chat with old friends as if nothing had changed.

The doorbell and the telephone rang simultaneously, and Ellen called out to María to let herself in as she picked up the receiver. Then, when the voice at the other end of the wire identified itself as Dan Eisenberg,
her heart sank, and she waved María Torres into the living room as she focused her attention on the telephone.

“What’s happened?” she asked, wearily setting her purse back on the table.

“I’m not sure,” Eisenberg replied. “But I’d like you to come down to the school this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?” Ellen asked, relief flooding through her. “Then it isn’t an emergency?”

There was a momentary silence. When Eisenberg spoke again, his voice was apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you right away that Alex is all right. It’s just that we gave him some tests this morning, and I’d like to go over the results with you. Both you and Dr. Lonsdale, actually. Would two o’clock be all right?”

“Fine with me,” Ellen told him. “I’ll have to call my husband, but I imagine it will be fine with him too.” She paused; then: “Where Alex is concerned, he tends to make time, even if he hasn’t got it.”

“Then I’ll see you both at two,” Eisenberg replied. He was about to hang up when Ellen stopped him.

“Mr. Eisenberg? The tests. Did Alex do all right on them?”

There was a slight hesitation before Eisenberg spoke. “He did very well, Mrs. Lonsdale,” he said. “Very well indeed.”

A moment later, as Ellen turned her attention to María Torres, she decided to put Dan Eisenberg’s words, and the tone in which he’d spoken them, out of her mind. If she didn’t, the feeling she had of something amiss would ruin the lunch for her, and she was determined that that wouldn’t happen.

María, dressed as always in black, her skirt reaching almost to the floor, still hovered near the door, a worn shawl wrapped around her stooped shoulders, despite the heat of the summerlike day. Her eyes were fixed on the floor. “I am sorry,
señora,”
she said softly. “I am very late.”

The abject sorrow evident in the old woman’s entire
being dissolved Ellen’s impatience. “It’s all right,” she said gently. “I don’t really need to interview you anyway, do I?” Without waiting for a reply, she began giving María hurried instructions. “All the cleaning things are in the laundry room behind the kitchen, but if you’ll just try to get some vacuuming done today, that’s all I really need. Then we can go over the rest of it on Saturday. All right?”

“Sí, señora,”
María muttered, and as she started toward the kitchen, Ellen hurriedly threw on a coat, picked up her purse, and left the house.

The moment she was gone, María’s back straightened and her glittering old eyes began taking in every detail of the Lonsdales’ house. She prowled the rooms slowly, examining every possession of the
gringo
family whose son had been saved by Ramón.

Better if Ramón had let him die, as all the
gringos
should die. And it would happen someday, María was sure. It was all she thought about now, as she spent her days wandering through La Paloma, cleaning the old houses for the
ladrones
.

The thieves.

That’s what they all were, and even if Ramón didn’t understand it, she did.

But she would go on cleaning for them, go on looking after the houses that rightfully belonged to her people, until Alejandro returned to avenge the death of his parents and sisters, and all his descendants could finally return to their rightful homes.