Are You Alone on Purpose?

  “Maybe,” said Harry. “Go on.”

  “Another key thing is that autistics seem to be in their own world. They don’t interact normally with other people, dislike being touched, behave oddly in social situations. And some autistic people may also be retarded.” Dr. Jefferies paused. She gave Harry a straight look. “Harry, this is a big subject. Help me out. I can concentrate on what you want to know if you’ll tell me what that is.”

  He didn’t really have a choice. “I know this boy,” he said carefully, after a minute. “His sister says he’s autistic.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He does act strange. I always thought he was retarded, but he’s not stupid, you know? He’s going to have a bar mitzvah, and my father says...”

  “What does your father say?”

  “That he’s really bright. Adam—that’s his name—picked up Hebrew like it was nothing, and he’s already mostly memorized his Haftorah portion. He came over to our house for a lesson last Sunday, and I heard him singing it.”

  Dr. Jefferies nodded. “Sometimes autistics have special skills. A fantastic memory or the ability to play music by ear. Or great mathematical talent. It’s almost as though it’s to make up for the other losses. It sounds like this boy, Adam, may have some of these abilities.”

  Harry nodded, thinking. They sat in silence for a few moments.

  “Harry?” said Dr. Jefferies gently. “Why are you so interested in this boy?”

  Harry sat up, startled. “I’m not!” he snapped. “His sister—” He broke off. Shit, he thought.

  “His sister?” said Dr. Jefferies. “You mentioned her before. What’s her name?”

  “Forget it,” said Harry. “It’s not important.”

  “Does she go to your school?” Dr. Jefferies persisted.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is she a friend of yours?”

  No, thought Harry. I don’t know. Maybe. “She cares about her brother,” he said. It just came out, the way his question about autism had. He stared at Dr. Jefferies defiantly.

  “She sounds very nice,” Dr. Jefferies said quietly. “This girl. Adam’s sister.”

  Harry stared at Dr. Jefferies. Then he looked away.

  There was another silence. Harry could feel Dr. Jefferies looking at him, could feel her trying to work her way into his head. Finally she spoke. “Harry? You said your father is getting Adam ready for a bar mitzvah?”

  Harry looked up. “Yes.”

  “I’m a little puzzled. Is that part of his job, training kids for bar mitzvahs?”

  Harry shook his head. “Not usually. There are tutors who do it for most kids.”

  “Then why—”

  “I don’t know,” Harry interrupted. He didn’t say that he’d been wondering himself. “Maybe nobody else would do it. I don’t know. Okay?”

  “You sound a little tense.”

  “Why don’t you just—” Harry swallowed what he’d been about to say. “I don’t know why he’s tutoring Adam himself,” he repeated, slowly, word by word.

  Dr. Jefferies considered that. Then she asked, “Do you have any theories?”

  “No,” Harry said. Who did she think he was, Sigmund Freud? Theories. Yeah, he had a theory. His father liked Adam because the kid did just what he was told. Parroted Hebrew right back. No attitude. And when the lesson was over, he went home and left the rabbi alone.

  After the session, Harry called The Ride. For once, they had a van near the hospital, and it arrived fairly quickly. But there were two other passengers to be dropped off first, so it would be a long drive. Harry didn’t care. He settled his chair far back in the van, so the others wouldn’t talk to him, and stared out the window as the van left the hospital and headed over the Charles River. He wanted to think.

  Dr. Jefferies’s definition of autism sounded like Adam, all right, but knowing more about autism hadn’t helped Harry. He still didn’t understand what Alison had meant the other day in the cemetery. Why was she hanging around him after the way he’d treated her? She’d talked about her brother, but what did Adam and his autism have to do with Harry?

  Dr. Jefferies had a good point: What was Adam doing at Harry’s house, learning Hebrew from his father and getting trained for a bar mitzvah? His father had never before tutored one on one—not even Harry. What were his reasons?

  Of course, his father had mooned over Adam right from the first time he’d seen him at the synagogue. Harry closed his eyes briefly. Then, determinedly, he turned his thoughts back to Alison.

  At the cemetery, after she’d talked about her brother, she’d said she’d made Harry her business. But she hadn’t said why, and Harry hadn’t asked.

  Is she a friend of yours? Dr. Jefferies had asked.

  Once Harry would have said that someone like Alison Shandling could never be his friend. But he was starting to understand her. Even the really weird stuff about her, like being a math brain.

  She had spoken about that only yesterday, during lunch in the cafeteria. He’d been looking at her math book. Indecipherable stuff with strange-looking equations.

  “It’s interesting to me,” Alison had said, watching.

  Harry had rolled his eyes. “I just don’t get it.”

  She’d wrinkled her brow, and then, to Harry’s astonishment, tried to explain. “I guess . . . this’ll sound weird, but math is almost a place to me . . . a place—a universe, really—where everything makes sense. Or would if we knew more. You can’t see this universe with your eyes, but the more you learn, the more clearly you can see it without your eyes. It’s real. And it’s so beautiful.” She’d paused, and then, unexpectedly, smiled. He’d been staring at her. “I know you think I’m nuts,” she’d said. “But that’s okay.”

  But he had not been thinking that. He had been feeling—almost jealous. “I don’t think you’re nuts,” he had said, slowly. “Just—you’re really on your own planet.”

  Alison had looked surprised. “Isn’t everyone?” she had said. “When you think about it?”

  It was a new idea for Harry. He had had a sudden vision of his father, alone on a planet, spinning in space with the ghost of his wife, trapped there.

  In that moment, staring at Alison, Harry had had the odd sense that a puzzle piece had slipped, finally, into place.

  Not that it helped.

  ALISON

  May

  With half an ear, Alison listened while Adam sang. His voice traveled clearly through the open door of his bedroom, down the hall, and into the study where her mother was finishing a term paper and Alison was checking through the bar mitzvah invitation list one last time. Adam practiced chanting his Haftorah portion every day at four o’clock for exactly half an hour, and Alison could almost have sung along with him by now. With his bar mitzvah still two weeks away, Adam was word, if not note, perfect.

  The invitations had gone out nearly two weeks ago, and responses were pouring in. Her father had put Alison in charge of tabulating them so that they could give a final count to the caterer. He had taken over the whole process—guest list, invitation selection and ordering, mailing, responses, hotel arrangements for out-of-towners, everything.

  Alison hadn’t realized that Adam’s bar mitzvah was going to be such a big deal. At first, her mother had spoken of a small affair, maybe fifty close relatives and friends, with a buffet luncheon at the house after the service. “My mother and Rosalie will help,” Mrs. Shandling had said. “Crudités and dip, pasta salad, cold chicken, French bread. Maybe gazpacho...”

  But this was before Alison’s father had taken a turn with the invitation list. He had added nearly a hundred names. His entire department at Harvard. Relatives Alison barely knew existed, like Great-Aunt Muriel and several cousins called Eckenwiler. Their autism family support group, and the neighbors from whom the Shandlings occasionally borrowed folding chairs. The principal and vice principal of Adam’s school.

  “Wow,” Alison had said, reading the new list over her mother’s
shoulder. Her mother had simply shaken her head as her husband began talking about caterers and a sit-down lunch at the synagogue.

  “Caterers cost forty or fifty dollars a plate, Jake,” her mother had said.

  “So what?” Alison’s father had replied. “We’re rich.”

  Alison had been a little shocked. It was true, she supposed, but it wasn’t something her parents usually mentioned. And, except for buying their house and talking more about mutual funds and stuff, her parents didn’t act any differently now than before the Sphere. Her mother still shopped the sales.

  She’d watched her mother stare at her father, and then smile. “Okay, honey,” Mrs. Shandling had said. “Go ahead. Invite the president. The Kennedys. Call the Boston Globe.”

  “I just might,” Professor Shandling had said seriously. “I never dreamed Adam would have a bar mitzvah.”

  Watching her father’s face, for a tiny moment Alison had felt like crying.

  Just the other night at dinner, Alison had noticed that Adam’s wrists were sticking too far out of his long-sleeved rugby shirt. Suddenly he had started growing, and you could already see that he was going to be lanky like their father. It was difficult to think about Adam growing up. That was what a bar mitzvah was about, really. And if it was a scary thought for Alison, it must be even scarier for her parents. Because Adam was never going to be normal, no matter how many bar mitzvahs he had. Alison was in charge of doing all the normal things for both of them.

  In a few years, Adam was going to be an autistic man, not an autistic child. Alison wondered what that would mean. Would he be interested in girls? One day, would he be able to get some kind of job, have an apartment, the way her parents hoped?

  It was no wonder that her father wanted the bar mitzvah to be such a big deal. You had to celebrate what you could.

  Even Harry had been invited. “We have to,” Mrs. Shandling had said apologetically to Alison. “Because of his father. Honey, I’m sorry. But he’s not bothering you these days, is he?”

  “No,” Alison had said, feeling guilty.

  “Good.” Mrs. Shandling had grimaced and turned away. “Nasty young man. Anyway, Paulina will be there for you.”

  Remembering, Alison felt another twinge of guilt. It wasn’t only about Harry. She and Paulina now hadn’t spoken in nearly three weeks. She checked the last name off on the invitation list. She glanced at her mother, still deeply immersed in her work. Down the hall, Adam was winding down, moving from the Haftorah section to the blessings that followed.

  What was she supposed to say to her mother, anyway? Paulina’s got a new best friend, Mom. She likes Felicia better than me because Felicia’s popular. But I’ve been hanging out with Harry, and he’s not so bad. I think I’m starting to understand why he acts the way he does. He’s sort of like me. He keeps a lot of stuff to himself. . . .

  No. She wouldn’t say anything. They were occupied with Adam, anyway. They wouldn’t notice Alison.

  That had always been how it was, and it was best.

  Wasn’t it?

  After school on the day before Adam’s bar mitzvah, Alison rode home with Harry in the van. Adam was due at the Roths’ for one last rehearsal with the rabbi. “I’ll just meet Adam there after school,” Alison had told her mother. “You can pick us both up there after Adam’s lesson.” Her mother had agreed. It didn’t seem to have occurred to her that Adam now knew Rabbi Roth well; he no longer needed Alison there too.

  “Hello,” Rabbi Roth called, as they came in the door. Harry didn’t reply. He gestured Alison toward the kitchen. Alison hesitated, calling out “Hello, Rabbi Roth” before following Harry.

  “Chocolate pudding?” asked Harry, investigating the contents of the refrigerator. “There are a couple left.”

  “Sure,” said Alison. She took two spoons out of the dish drainer and handed one to Harry before sitting down. The pudding was instant, and it hadn’t been mixed too well; there was still powder around the edges. But it was edible.

  She felt a little awkward here at the house with Harry. Coming home with him felt different from the times when she’d come over with Adam. Different, too, from seeing Harry at school, even though they’d been spending a lot of time together there. She looked at Harry. He had already finished his pudding and had pushed the empty dish away. He was drumming his fingers on the table, not looking at Alison. She wondered if he felt strange too, with her there.

  Rabbi Roth came into the kitchen just as Alison was swallowing the last of her pudding. “Nice to see you, Alison,” he said to her. “I guess your brother is due here in a few minutes.” Alison nodded. She noticed Rabbi Roth was frowning at the two empty dishes on the table.

  “Is there any pudding left?” he asked Harry.

  “Nope,” said Harry.

  Rabbi Roth went and looked in the refrigerator himself, as if he didn’t believe Harry. “Adam likes chocolate pudding,” he said. He lifted out the milk carton and shook it accusingly. “There isn’t enough milk to make more.”

  “Well,” Harry said, “that’s too bad. Will he starve, do you think?” He and his father glared at each other.

  Alison squirmed.

  There was a short silence. Then Rabbi Roth closed the refrigerator door and took a deep breath. After a moment, he moved his lips in the facsimile of a smile. “Well,” he said. “How was school today, Harry? Alison? You helping him catch up?”

  Alison looked at Harry. He looked back at her, his face expressionless. It was true that she was helping Harry a little. But she knew better than to say anything. She shrugged. “School’s fine,” she said. “You know.”

  “No,” said Rabbi Roth pleasantly. He leaned forward and spoke directly to Alison, ignoring Harry. “I really don’t. My son doesn’t talk to me about school. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t make A’s like you.”

  Alison wanted to die.

  The doorbell rang. “That must be my brother,” said Alison.

  “Excuse me,” said Rabbi Roth.

  Alison listened as Rabbi Roth opened the front door and welcomed Adam. She didn’t look at Harry. “Hi, Adam,” she called instead, after a moment.

  Adam appeared in the kitchen doorway with Rabbi Roth. “Hello, Alison Shandling,” said Adam. “Hello, Harold Roth. Hello, hello, hello. I want orange juice. One half.”

  Alison felt like laughing. Thank God, she thought, he doesn’t want pudding. She sneaked a glance at Harry.

  “Hello, Adam Shandling,” Harry was saying. “There’s orange juice. One half.”

  “I’ll pour,” said Rabbi Roth, beginning to bustle around the kitchen. Finally he and Adam took the orange juice and headed down the hall to the den. A minute later Alison heard the beginning strains of Adam’s bar mitzvah portion.

  “Let’s go to my room,” said Harry.

  From behind the closed door of Harry’s bedroom, the sounds of Adam’s and Rabbi Roth’s voices were still audible, but easy to ignore. Alison felt a renewed surge of awkwardness. That scene with Harry’s father. Should she say something?

  Harry had rolled his chair over near his bed and was pulling books out of his backpack, throwing them onto the bed. “Let’s look at the math,” he said. He swiveled a little and glanced at Alison, standing near the door. “Okay with you?”

  He didn’t want to talk about it. Alison went and sat on the bed, opening the math book at an angle in front of her so that both she and Harry could see it. “Okay,” she said. “The simultaneous equations?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re a rote thing,” said Alison. “You do the same things in the same order, and they come out every time. Watch.” She did the first homework problem. “See? Try the next one. All you have to do is follow the rules.” In the background, she heard Rabbi Roth say something. Then Adam started reciting in Hebrew.

  “I hate rules,” said Harry. He made no move to take the pencil Alison was holding out to him. After a minute, she put it down.

  “Sports have rules,” she said
reasonably.

  Harry gave her a look. He reached out with one hand and slammed the math book shut.

  Adam began singing his Haftorah portion again.

  “I can’t stand it,” said Harry abruptly. “No offense, Shandling, but I’ve heard that goddamned Haftorah so many times in the last three weeks, I’ve got it memorized. I’m starting to dream it.”

  “Me too,” said Alison.

  Suddenly Harry looked directly at her. “My father is fixated on your brother.”

  Alison shrugged helplessly. “Yeah,” she said. “Pretty strange, huh?” She watched Harry carefully.

  “Do you think so?” Harry said. He moved his chair a little closer to the bed. Closer to Alison.

  Alison didn’t back off. She wondered again if he knew his father thought God had caused Harry’s accident because of Adam. “Yes,” she said honestly. “I do think it’s a little strange.”

  “I do too,” said Harry. “But I don’t understand why you think it’s strange.”

  “Why not?” said Alison. Somehow, Harry seemed even closer now.

  “Because you’ve been acting a lot like my father.” He paused. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “No,” said Alison. It came out a squeak.

  “He’s fixated on your brother,” said Harry. “And you’re fixated on me.” Alison couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She knew he was right.

  “Isn’t that true?” said Harry. His face was very close, very still.

  Slowly, Alison shook her head. “It’s not the same,” she whispered. “You don’t understand.”

  Harry’s voice was as low as Alison’s. But it held a mean edge. “Explain it to me. Use one-syllable words so you can be sure I get it.”

  Alison opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Well?” he said. “Were you being nice to the cripple because you felt sorry for him? Or what?”

  “Shut up,” hissed Alison. “I was starting to like you, but I—”