Lunar Park

wheezing and dairy products. After that: a bogus debate about echinacea. The concussions, the snakebite, the neck brace, the need for bulletproof classroom windows—it all kept coming, things that to me seemed futuristic and pointless and hollow. But Jayne was nodding in agreement and listening thoughtfully and making helpful comments and I suddenly realized that the more famous Jayne became—and the more people expected from her—the more she seemed like a politician. When Nadine gripped my arm and asked me what my feelings were about a topic I hadn’t been following I offered vague generalities about the despair in book publishing. When this didn’t get any kind of reaction from the table, I understood then that what I wanted was to be accepted. So why wasn’t I volunteering at computer classes? Why wasn’t I coaching the tennis team? Nadine saved me by mentioning the hopeful rumor that one of the missing boys had been spotted on Cape Cod, before excusing herself from the table to check on Ashton again—which she did, by my count, seven times during that dinner. I started reaching for the sangria with a frequency that caused Jayne to move the pitcher away from me after I had filled my glass to its rim. “But what will happen when my drink needs replenishing?” I asked in a robot’s voice and everyone laughed, though I wasn’t aware I had made a joke. I kept glancing over at Mitchell, who was staring at Jayne with his dull carnal gaze while she uselessly explained something to him, his only response a constant panting. It took three hours for dinner to complete itself.

The women cleared the table and went into the kitchen to prepare dessert while the men sauntered outside to the pool area to smoke cigars, but Mark Huntington had brought four prerolled joints, and before I realized what was happening we started lighting up. I wasn’t a pot fan but I was surprised at and grateful for its arrival: it was going to take forever to get through the rest of the evening—the sorbet with fresh fruit and the lingering goodbyes and the dreary promises of another dinner—and without getting stoned, falling into bed seemed impossibly distant. After the first toke I collapsed onto one of the chaise longues that were set in some particular and artful arrangement around the large yard, which unlike ours sat off to the side of the house instead of the back, and the night was dark and warm and the light from the pool shadowed the men’s features in a ghostly phosphorous blue. From where I was slumped on the chaise I was facing the side of our house, and while taking deep drags off the joint I squinted my eyes and studied it. I could see through the French doors into the media room, where Robby was still lying on the floor in front of the TV and Sarah was still sitting on Wendy’s lap as the babysitter read her the story about those stranded boys on that lost island, and above them was the darkened master bedroom. And surrounding everything was the great peeling wall. Yesterday morning, up close, the patches on the wall hadn’t seemed as large as they looked from this angle. The entire wall was now almost entirely covered with pink stucco, with only small patches of the original lily white paint remaining. A new wall had been uncovered—it had taken over—and this was alarming enough to spread a chill through me (because it was a warning of some kind, right?) and after I was handed another joint and took a heavy toke, I hazily thought, How . . . strange . . . and then my thoughts drifted away to Aimee Light and I felt a faint pang of lust followed by disappointment, the usual combo. The silhouettes of the women could be seen in the kitchen and their voices, distant and muffled, were a gentle backdrop to the men’s conversation. The men were trim with flat stomachs, their hair expensively colored, their faces smooth and unlined, so none of us looked our age, which I supposed, while yawning on the chaise, was a good thing. We were all a little detached and had a tendency to snicker, and I really didn’t know any of them—everyone was still a brief first impression. I was looking at a weather vane on the Allens’ roof when Mitchell asked me with an actual aura of concern and not the overlay of malice I had braced myself for, “So what brought you out to this part of the world, Bret?” I was drowsy and scanning the dark field behind our neighbors’ house.

I aimed for the right note of detachment, and snickered. “Well, she read too many magazine articles about how children raised in fatherless homes are more likely to become adolescent delinquents. And voila. Here I am.” I sighed and had another toke. An enormous cloud was billowing across the moon. There were no stars.

A chorus of grim chuckles were followed by even more snickering. And then it was back to the children.

“So he’s taking methylphenidate”—Adam pronounced it effortlessly—“even though it really hasn’t been approved for kids under six,” and then he went on about Hanson’s and Kane’s attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which naturally led the conversation to the 7.5 milligrams of Ritalin administered three times a day, and the pediatrician who discouraged having a television set in the kid’s bedroom, and Monsters, Inc.—so old school—and Mark Huntington had hired an essay writer for his son, who’d pleaded with him that he didn’t need one. And then the talk turned to the missing boys, a lunatic, a recent bombing in New Orleans, another pile of corpses, a group of tourists machine-gunned outside the Bellagio in Vegas. The marijuana —which was pretty strong—had turned our speech into thick parodies of drug talk.

“Have you ever tried the deaf-daddy routine?”

I wasn’t asked this, but I sat up, intrigued, and said, “No, what is it?”

“When he starts whining just pretend you don’t understand what he’s saying.” This was Mitchell.

“What happens?”

“He gets so annoyed he simply gives up.”

“How many hours did you spend on Google to get that info, Mitch?”

“It sounds excruciating,” Adam sighed. “Why not just give him what he wants?”

“I’ve tried that. It does not work, my friend.”

“Why not?” someone asked, even though we all knew the answer.

“Because they always want more” was Mark Huntington’s response.

“Hell,” Mitchell said with a shrug, inhaling, “they’re my kids.”

“We play hide-and-get-lost,” Adam Gardner said after a long silence. He was also sprawled on a chaise, his arms crossed, staring up at the starless sky.

“How do you play that?”

“Kane is ‘it’ and has to count to a hundred and seventy.”

“And then?”

“I drive over to the Loew’s Multiplex and catch a matinee.”

“Does he care?” Adam was asked. “I mean—that he can’t find you?”

Gardner shrugged. “Probably not. Just goes and sits in front of the computer. Stares into that damn thing all day long.” Gardner pondered something. “Eventually he finds me.”

“It’s a whole different world,” Huntington murmured. “They’ve developed an entirely new set of skills that sets us way apart.”

“They know how to handle visual information.” Gardner shrugged. “Big fucking deal. I, for one, am not impressed.”

“They have no idea how to put things in context,” Huntington again murmured, spacing out as he took another hit off a fresh joint. We still had two going now and everyone was toasted.

“They’re fragment junkies.”

“But they’re more technologically advanced than us.” Mitchell said this, but I couldn’t tell from his flat and detached tone if he was arguing with Mark.

“It’s called disruptive technology.”

I could suddenly hear Victor barking from our yard.

“Mimi doesn’t want Hanson playing Doom anymore.”

“Why not?” someone asked.

“She says it’s a game the U.S. military uses to train soldiers.” A deep sigh.

The only thing separating our property from the Allens’ was a low row of hedges, yet the houses were spaced so widely apart that any complaints about a lack of privacy were irrelevant. I could still see the children in the media room but my gaze traveled upward, and the lights in the master bedroom were now on. I double-checked, but Wendy was still sitting in the chair, holding Sarah.

Again I thought, How . . . strange . . . but this time the thought was laced with a low-level panic.

I was sure the lights in the master bedroom hadn’t been on before. Or had I just noticed this? I couldn’t remember.

I refocused on the house, glancing first at the media room, but then a shadow behind the window in the master bedroom caught my attention.

Just as suddenly, it was gone.

“Look, I’m not exactly a strict disciplinarian,” one of the fathers intoned, “but I make sure he takes