He took a seat, studied me. “You won’t convince me that you’re here to gloat.”
“No,” I said. “But as long as I have to be sitting next to him, I find I don’t mind saying terribly mean things to him.”
Parrish made a gurgling sound. Ben, hearing it, made a face.
“Awful,” I agreed.
“Why are you here?” Ben asked again.
“I’m waiting for somebody.”
“Who?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Irene—”
He was distracted by a slightly different sound from Parrish, a sort of a humming noise.
“What do you suppose he’s trying to say?” Ben asked, looking at him warily.
I set the book down, stood up, and looked into Parrish’s eyes. “What was it, Nicky?”
“Mmmaaah.”
“Maybe he’s calling for his mommy,” I said, and sat down again.
Ben stared at me, then said, “Have you thought of calling Jo Robinson?”
I laughed. “I’ll probably need a long session with her later. But don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt Nicky or anyone else.”
“Do you mind if I wait here with you?” he asked.
“No, at least — well, no, not at all. Mr. Nick’s conversational abilities are rather limited.”
Ben glanced at him, then said, “I wanted to have that conversation we keep putting off, but I don’t want to talk about it in front of him.”
“What’s he going to do about it?” I said wearily. “Fantasize? Let him. He’s finally in a condition where it’s safe for him to do so.”
“Irene—”
“Sorry, Ben,” I said. “I’m feeling a little cynical today. Let me ask you about something else entirely — if you don’t mind talking about this in front of Nick, here.”
“What?”
“You said that David sometimes talked about—” I glanced at Parrish, and amended what I was going to say. “You said that he rarely talked about certain aspects of his childhood.”
“That’s right,” he said, a little stiffly.
“Except to others who might have experienced the same thing.”
“Right.” He glanced toward Parrish.
“Did David ever tell you the names of people he talked to?”
“No. He would talk to me in general terms, or tell me about someone without mentioning a name. He felt that while . . . such a background should not be a source of shame, he worked hard to gain their trust, and so he would not betray their confidences. He had this ability to identify people who might have been through similar things, but David approached people gently, slowly. He didn’t push them to tell him things. He earned their trust first.”
He paused, then asked, “Why do you want to know about people he talked to?”
“I’m trying to understand someone I know,” I said. “But maybe I won’t ever be able to do that.”
“You
“Sorry, yes I am. Started when I woke up thinking of a song by the Boomtown Rats called, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’ Do you know it?”
“Yes.” He sang a little bit of the chorus.
“Exactly. It triggered a memory. The inspiration for that song was a shooting in San Carlos — that’s in the San Diego area. A sixteen-year-old girl named Brenda Spencer decided to point a rifle at a schoolyard and embark on a sniping marathon. This was in 1979, when it wasn’t so common for shots to be fired in elementary schoolyards.”
“Definitely cynical. I do remember this story, though. She fired from inside her house toward the school for several hours, right?”
“Yes. And during that time, she killed two people and wounded nine others. When they asked her why, she said, ‘I don’t like Mondays.’ ”
“Jesus.”
“She said, ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.’ ”
“And this song reminded you of something else?”
“Yes,” I said. “I like the song. Lots of people do. But it was written in the year of the shootings — a couple of decades ago, now. So until recently, it had been a long time since I had heard it.”
