Brain Child

“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 Maria 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 Maria 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 Maria was going to need the work: starting next month, Cynthia herself was going to have full-time, live-in help.

But right now, Maria 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 Maria didn’t arrive within the next five minutes, she was going to have to choose between waiting for Maria and going to lunch. Not that the interview would take long — Maria 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 Maria’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 Maria 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 Maria 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 Maria Torres, she decided to put Dan Eisenberg’s words,