Grand & Humble

  Ever since Harlan was nine years old, he’d been the one to draw the winning Ping-Pong ball. It had all been his mom’s idea, of course. People got such a kick out of seeing the senator’s little boy dressed up in his tuxedo. That idea hadn’t used to bother Harlan; maybe it had even made him a little proud, knowing that his mom was so pleased with him. And this year, now that he was seventeen, the coordinators had also made him one of the Eye Ball’s eight honorary “Cornea Corporals.” But they were just throwing him a bone. They really wanted the cute kid in the tux.

  He sighed. Yet another charity event. His mom hadn’t asked if he wanted to go—not this year, not any year. She’d just signed him up. And now he’d have to be there for hors d’oeuvres, and he’d have to stay for the raffle. It would all take four hours at least—four hours of his precious weekend.

  He tore open the envelope.

  There was a letter inside that began, “Dear Harlan: I wanted to thank you in advance for joining us yet again at our annual Eye Ball fund-raiser.”

  Harlan started to crumple up the letter. But then he stopped. He looked at the signature at the bottom. “Sharon L. Blakely,” it read, “Special Events Coordinator.”

  He stared at it for a second, thinking. What would happen if he told them he couldn’t do it this year? After all, he had surely already done his part for the charity itself, going to eight Eye Balls in a row. And they had seven other “Cornea Corporals.” It’s not like anyone would even notice his absence. They could get some other kid to dress up in a tux and draw the winning Ping-Pong ball, or maybe get a girl—strike a blow for equality while they were at it.

  Harlan turned toward his phone and punched in the number of Sharon Blakely. It was after hours, so he got her voice mail.

  “Mrs. Blakely?” he said when the time came to leave a message. “This is Harlan Chesterton. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. I’m not going to be able to make the Eye Ball this year. Sorry about the late notice.”

  He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he hung up the phone and sat there, staring at the receiver.

  Had he really just done that? Had he really withdrawn from a function that his mom had committed him to? And had the world really not come to a screeching halt?

  He crumpled up the letter and the glossy envelope with the picture of the eyeball on it. Then he tossed them both into the wastebasket, breathing easy again now that the eye of the world had moved off him at last.

  Harlan was on fire, which was quite an achievement given that he was underwater at the time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d swum so hard or with such focus. He felt like a dolphin on Ginkgo biloba.

  All through the first set, he and Ricky had been pushing each other, going back and forth for the lead. But now they were on the last 100 of the set—their last four lengths of the pool. And Harlan was determined to beat Ricky to the end.

  Kicking was the key to speed, Harlan knew: the harder you kicked, the faster your arms moved and the quicker you went through the water. So Harlan kicked furiously. But Ricky knew the key to speed too, and he was kicking just as hard. And by the end of the second length, Harlan wasn’t getting any edge.

  Suddenly Harlan imagined that the black tile stripe along the floor of the pool was alive, that it was some kind of giant leathery alligator gliding behind him in the water. It rose up underneath him, mouth opening, teeth gleaming in the crystal-clear liquid.

  Harlan panicked, but it was a good panic. He fought the creature with his stroke, kicking deep and hard, pulling fast and tight. His legs churned, and his arms plowed deep trenches in the pool.

  The creature chased him. It was a shadow underneath him, just out of reach, trying to snatch him with its teeth.

  Harlan made the next turn and kept kicking, but he wasn’t pulling ahead. In fact, inch by inch, Ricky was slowly pulling ahead of him! The black alligator was chasing Ricky too.

  Harlan hit his last turn right on the mark, then headed for home. It was all coming down to the last length of the pool, just as it so often did. Ricky was half a body-length ahead now, but Harlan was determined to catch him. He held his breath and kicked. He felt like Moses parting the waters of the Roosevelt High School pool. As for the black leathery alligator, he’d left it far behind in his wake.

  Ten yards from the end, Harlan passed Ricky. And he outtouched his friend by at least a yard.

  In a second, Ricky was up and gasping for air, but smiling too. “That was excellent, man! Excellent! I haven’t swum that hard in months! What the hell got into you?”

  Harlan was panting and grinning. “I don’t know, man! It was just there, somewhere inside me!” It wasn’t just a question of swimming well; Harlan hadn’t been this alive in months. It was one of those moments that you want to preserve and display under some kind of glass dome, there to examine whenever you want for the rest of your life. And for the record, Harlan knew exactly what had gotten into him: by pulling out of the Eye Ball, he’d stood up to his mom. And now he couldn’t remember ever feeling so free.

  He turned to the pool, looking out at the lane, ready to continue the workout.

  But a voice said, “Harlan? Can I see you a second?”

  Harlan looked up. The swim coach.

  “Sure,” Harlan said. “What’s up?”

  Coach Cleveland grew orchids. And there was something about the heat and humidity of the pool area that worked wonders for his flowers. As a result, whenever he had a problem plant, he brought it with him to work. His plants must have been doing really badly lately, because the pool office was full of potted orchids now.

  “What’s up, Coach?” Harlan asked.

  “Uh, Harlan,” the coach said. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  He wants me to swim the 500 in the meet with Lincoln, Harlan thought. Harlan hated the 500—five hundred yards was twenty lengths of the pool. But there were only so many guys on the team who could do it even halfway well. And if the team wasn’t at least competitive in the distance events, all the points would just go to the other team.

  “Coach?”

  Coach Cleveland picked up an orchid pot and fiddled with the pink blossom. Every year, some new swimmer teased him about his flowers and the whole team wound up having to listen to an impassioned lecture from the coach about just how fascinating orchids really are. It always shut everyone up, if only because no one wanted to hear the orchid lecture again.

  “You have to go,” Coach Cleveland said at last.

  “Go?” Harlan didn’t understand.

  “You have to leave the pool area. The locker room. You’re off the team.”

  Now Harlan really didn’t understand. “What?”

  “Look, it’s not me. It’s the principal.”

  “Wait a minute! What’d I do?” But even as he said this, he knew what this was all about: his mom. He had pulled out of the Eye Ball. And his mom had found out about it and called the school to have him thrown off the swim team. It was her way of getting back at him. He had expected her to be upset, but he at least thought she would talk to him first!

  “Harlan—”

  “Look,” Harlan said, “I know it’s my mom, okay? We’re just having an argument about something. This is her way of getting back at me. It doesn’t mean anything!”

  “Fine. But, Harlan, you’re still seventeen, and she is your mom. If you don’t have her permission to be here, you can’t be here. There are legal issues.”

  “But she’s not being fair!”

  “Then talk to her. The minute you get her permission again, of course you can come back.”

  “But—”

  Coach Cleveland slammed down the potted plant. “There is no ‘but,’ Harlan! For God’s sake, your dad’s the damn senator, okay?”

  Harlan found his mom in her “Activity Room”—a small sunroom off the back of the house. She had a whole staff of people to do absolutely everything that needed doing around the house—a maid, a gardener, a cook. Everything except the house
decor, which she handled herself. And it was here in the Activity Room that she did her work—her way to “unwind.” It was here that she created her elaborate flower arrangements, replaced throughout the house every five days like clockwork. And here, of course, was where she turned out the dozen or so tasteful holiday wreaths that festooned their house each Christmas: tightly wound wire rings of carefully positioned cookies or tiny gifts or shellacked sugarplums—anything but actual evergreen boughs, which she deemed too tacky. Today his mom was working on her “mosaic table”—a small end table that she was resurfacing with a pattern of broken porcelain and glass bits.

  Harlan stepped into the room. “What did you do?” he said. He wasn’t about to greet her, not now, maybe not ever again.

  She didn’t look up from her work, didn’t greet him either. “What do you mean?”

  “Mom, please don’t play dumb.”

  Carefully, she pressed a bit of orange glass into white plaster; the pattern reminded Harlan of a spiderweb.

  “You’re going to the Eye Ball,” she said.

  “Why?” he said. “Why is it so damn important that I go?”

  “It’s important because you made a commitment, and I expect you to honor it.” Her voice was as calm as an alpine lake, and just as cold.

  “No!” Harlan said. “You made a commitment!”

  “Harlan, being a member of this family means we all have certain responsibilities. We ask a lot of you, yes. But in return, we provide you with advantages that other children can only dream about.”

  “Oh, I’ve done plenty for this family! So I take one weekend off. What’s the big deal?”

  Suddenly she grabbed a plate off a nearby worktable and threw it down to the ground—hard. It shattered on the tiled floor. Harlan jumped in surprise.

  Then, without batting an eye, his mother reached down to the floor to retrieve a piece of the broken porcelain—for her mosaic table, of course. “This isn’t about the Eye Ball,” she said, just as calmly as before.

  Oh, very good, Harlan thought. She’d probably been planning that thing with the plate all afternoon—the perfect way to knock him off-balance. But he knew what his mom had said was absolutely right: this wasn’t about the Eye Ball. It wasn’t even about his dad’s election. It was about control. Her control of him.

  “Well,” Harlan said. “It’s too late now. I already told Mrs. Blakely.” He could hear the nervousness in his own voice, which meant his mom could certainly hear it too. As much as he hated to admit it, that thing with the plate had rattled him.

  “It’s not too late,” his mom said. “I called Sharon back and told her there was a misunderstanding, and that you will definitely be there.”

  “You what?”

  She looked up at him at last. “What part of that didn’t you understand?”

  “You didn’t even talk to me first?”

  “Why would I talk to you?”

  “That’s it, mom! Don’t you see? That’s it exactly! Why would you talk to me? Because it’s my life!”

  “Don’t raise your voice. Ludmilla might hear.” Ludmilla was their Russian maid.

  “I don’t care if Ludmilla hears! I’m not going.”

  “Fine.” She looked down again. “Then you won’t be swimming either.”

  She had him. He knew that immediately. He had no leverage to use against her whatsoever. Why hadn’t he seen this before? Of course she would win this argument, because she had a strategy. Why hadn’t he thought to have a strategy?

  “All right, I’ll go,” he whispered.

  “What?” she said. Of course she’d heard him. She just needed to humiliate him a little more.

  “I said I’ll go to the damn Eye Ball!” This time, even Ludmilla had to have heard him—which is what his mother had probably wanted, anyway. No better way to keep the maid in line than to prove you had your teenage son in line too.

  Harlan turned to go. He’d just come from the pool, but he’d only just started on his workout, and anyway, he desperately needed to connect with the water again. He couldn’t go back to the high school, not yet, not before his mom called the principal, who would, in turn, contact his coach. No, for today, he’d have to go to the pool at the community center.

  Behind him he could feel his mom’s eyes on him again, watching his every defeated step. But he wasn’t about to look back at her.

  Another plate crashed on the floor behind him.

  And Harlan jumped again in surprise, exactly like his mother knew he would.

  MANNY

  Manny couldn’t do it; it was impossible. He’d made it all the way to the bottom level of the Chasms of Chaos, and he’d assembled all the pieces of the Key of Life. But he couldn’t find Dragonio’s Gate anywhere. There was clearly something he was missing, another piece of the puzzle. Was there another, hidden level to the dungeon? A missing piece of key? That was the one thing Manny hated about computer games. For all their talk about “choices” and “interactivity,” there was really only one “right” way to win the game. You might have a little latitude about how you got there, but the final outcome was always the same.

  Playing this game is stupid, Manny thought. He knew he should be asking his dad about his being adopted. He’d tried to bring it up a couple of times now. But he’d never been able to get the words out. He wasn’t sure why. What was the worst thing that could happen? That he’d learn he was wrong and his dad would be offended by the question?

  No. The worst thing that could happen was something he couldn’t anticipate, something completely unexpected. If he was right about being adopted, there had to be a reason why his dad had kept the information from him all these years. His subconscious mind seemed to know the reason—and if his nightmares were any indication, it was something serious and scary. So what was the goddamn hurry? Why not wait until the time was exactly right?

  Manny saved his game and pushed away from the computer. Everything was all mixed up. He needed to get away, clear his mind, maybe even get some exercise.

  He turned to his dresser. The bottom drawer was open, and he spotted a pair of nylon running shorts lying right on top.

  “Where are you going?” his dad asked as Manny walked by the kitchen, backpack in tow. The third Tuesday of the month was the night of the partners’ dinner down at the law firm, so his dad always got home early. Now he was chopping vegetables on a plastic chopping block.

  “Huh?” Manny said. “Oh, the community center. I thought I’d go for a swim.”

  “What?” his dad asked.

  “A swim. Aren’t you always saying I need more exercise?”

  “But you don’t know how to swim.”

  “I do so know how to swim!” Manny said, offended somehow. “We had to take a week of swimming in P.E.”

  “You did?”

  Manny nodded. “And for the record, I was the only kid in my whole class who had never taken lessons.”

  “Manny, we couldn’t afford it.”

  “Uh-huh. Funny how we always had money for organic vegetables.”

  “No,” his dad said.

  “Huh?”

  “You can’t go swimming.”

  “It’s okay. I can fake it okay.”

  “I mean it,” his dad said. “You really can’t go.”

  For a second, Manny thought his dad was joking. Then he saw the look on his dad’s face. It wasn’t disapproval or annoyance. No, there was no expression at all—just as in that earlier dream of Manny’s.

  What was going on? Did it have something to do with the incident with the jack-in-the-box? But that had been over a week ago, and there hadn’t been any weirdness in the air since then.

  “Are you serious?” Manny asked.

  “There’s something I need you to do for me,” his dad said.

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Well, what is it?” Manny didn’t try to hide his annoyance.

  His dad didn’t answer, just started hacking at a head of
broccoli. Did he have a chore for Manny or not? It almost seemed like he was stalling for time. Finally, his dad glanced out the window, and Manny swore he saw relief flash across his face.

  “We have a clog in one of our gutters,” his dad said. “It’s not draining right. You need to clear it.”

  “Right this very minute?”

  “Manny, do you know how much damage a clogged gutter can do?”

  “But—”

  “Manny, please. Just do this for me, okay?”

  Manny got the ladder from the garage and climbed up to the offending gutter. It was cold outside, but not freezing. Even so, he could see his breath in the wet winter air.

  There was water standing in the gutter itself. It hadn’t rained in a couple of days, so his dad hadn’t been blowing smoke when he’d said the gutter was clogged. The water was brown and stagnant, full of dead leaves that had probably been festering there since fall. Manny hadn’t remembered to wear rubber gloves, but he didn’t want to climb all the way back down now, so he reached inside and just started rooting about in the mess. It was cold—even colder than he’d expected—and the icy chill actually stung his hand. Stirring up the water released a foul smell. Short of scooping dog poop off the lawn, this was about as unpleasant as yard work got.

  Why was Manny doing this? Yeah, sure, because his dad had asked him to. But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason he was on the roof was the same reason he’d been playing that computer game and then heading for the swimming pool. It was all a question of avoidance. And what was Manny avoiding? Saying out loud the words, “Dad, am I adopted?”

  Manny had pulled five or six handfuls of rotting leaves from the gutter, but it still wasn’t draining. Whatever was clogging it was wedged deep in the downspout itself. He would have to reach down and see what he could find. With a sigh, he pushed up his sleeve and stuck his arm inside. But the added volume caused the water in the gutter to overflow; it spilled onto him, soaking the front of his sweatshirt.