Gray Matter

black baby grand in one corner. On the key guard of the piano was a Franz Liszt music sheet.

“Who plays?” Rachel asked, trying to make conversation.

“Right now only Julian. Lisa, my daughter, is a violinist, Brad doesn’t play, and what I do doesn’t sound like music.”

“He must be very talented,” Rachel said. “Liszt is very difficult.”

“He’s getting better,” Vanessa said.

Rachel sensed a note of studied coyness in her response. The kid was probably a musical prodigy. Because Dylan loved to sing and was good at it, Rachel had arranged for him to take piano lessons last year. Unfortunately, he lasted only four sessions. His music teacher called in desperation one day for Rachel to pick him up. It just wasn’t working—Dylan was out of control. As much as she had worked to get him to focus on finger exercises, he would not cooperate. And the more she tried, the more frustrated he became. When he finally went into a full- fledged temper tantrum pounding the keys with his fist, Mrs. Crawford called Rachel, and that was it for piano. “Some younger children have problems with drills. But they grow out of it. Maybe next year.” Then as an afterthought she added, “But he’s an adorable little guy, though. Sings beautifully.”

“An adorable little guy, though”: slow, but adorable.

“Here he is,” Sheila said, sounding like a proud aunt. She handed Rachel a framed photograph of Julian.

Wearing scholarly looking rimless glasses and dressed in a blue and white school baseball uniform, a bright gold B on his hat, the thin-faced boy was smiling widely and holding up his index finger. Probably, Rachel thought, to let the world know he was an alpha child—one of the chosen elite who would become a permanent resident on honor rolls, who would score 1600 on his SATs, who would get early admission to Princeton, who would grow up to be Zeus.

“Would you like some coffee or tea?” Vanessa asked.

Rachel could feel her face flush for entertaining such petty jealousy. She hadn’t even met Julian and already she resented the kid. “Coffee would be fine, thank you.”

“Me, too,” Sheila said.

Over the fireplace hung a large photograph of the family—Vanessa and Brad in the background, Julian and his sister, Lisa, a high school junior. They were a handsome family poised on the bow of a windjammer pulling into some tropical harbor. Another photograph showed Julian with his Bloomfield Prep soccer team.

Sheila moved to the corner and punched her cell phone to call her office. “Shoot! The battery’s dead.”

Vanessa nodded to the other side of the house. “You can use the one in Brad’s studio. He’s at the office, of course. You know where it is.”

“Thanks,” Sheila said, and left the room.

When they were alone, Rachel asked Vanessa, “What does your husband do?”

“He’s a commercial architect.”

“Very nice.”

“Except I see him once a month. He works long hours and travels a lot. What about you and your husband?”

“At the moment, I’m just bringing up my son. I used to be a college textbook editor. But I gave that up when Dylan was born,” Rachel said. “My husband has a small recruitment company.”

Vanessa nodded. “How do you like Hawthorne?”

“So far we’re enjoying it.” Rachel tried to force an expression to fit her words.

“Yeah, it has a lot going for it, if you’re the right kind of people.” She kept her voice low so Sheila wouldn’t hear. “I know you’re supposed to be true to your town and all, but it’s become claustrophobic—which, I guess, is the nature of small towns: Everybody knows everybody else’s business.” Vanessa looked as if she didn’t want to elaborate for the newcomer. “Let’s just say the place has its pressure points. We’re thinking of moving.”

“You are?”

“Mmmm, to a place where we won’t have—” She cut off and put her finger to her mouth as Sheila returned. “Get through okay?”

“Yeah, and I wish I hadn’t. The P and S fell through on the Rotella place. We were supposed to have an exclusive, and some unnamed party bid eighty thousand over the asking price.” Sheila shrugged. “That’s the name of the game in this business.” She flopped into her chair. “You win some, you lose some. But it’s one hell of a way to end the week.”

Sheila’s expression said that the commission loss was going to hurt. Vanessa went to the kitchen and returned with a tray of coffee and cookies. “So, you’re interested in the enhancement procedure for your son.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Vanessa nodded and straightened out a picture on the wall. “What’s his name—your son?”

“Dylan.”

“Well, it worked wonders with ours, the way it has for Lucinda.” She said that as if she were talking about a new acne cream.

“Absolutely,” Sheila added.

“How exactly?”

“Well … I guess for the lack of a better expression, he’s a hell of a lot smarter. He picks things up much faster. He’s quicker in his response to ideas. His memory is greater. And he’s focussed. Oh, boy! Is he ever! When he sets his mind to doing something, he’s … well, like a magnifying glass.” She appeared to catch herself.

“And how was he before the procedure?”

“It’s been some years, of course, but, frankly, Julian could best be described by what he couldn’t do. It’s like night and day. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, he was a happy little boy, but he was miles behind the other kids. I could show you some of his early testing and teachers’ reports. They were pitiful. I mean, he couldn’t read, he couldn’t add, he got totally confused by the simplest directions. His teachers said that he was not working to his capacity. But the sad thing is that he was.”

As Rachel listened, she thought she heard something forced in the woman’s explanation—as if she were trying to convince herself instead of Rachel.

Vanessa fell silent for a moment. Suddenly she flicked her head, and made a bright smile. “Last term he got all As. What can I say? What they did was nothing short of a miracle. Really!” Again she shifted. “So, what’s he like, your son … Darren?”

“Dylan.” Rachel didn’t like making public statements about his problems. “He’s a sweet little boy—active, friendly, considerate.”

As she spoke, Vanessa looked at her with a flat expression as if to say: “They all are, so get to the important stuff.”

“He has some language-processing problems.” And she elaborated a bit.

“Sounds familiar,” Vanessa said when Rachel was finished. “We tried everything: one-on-one tutoring, special classes, and, of course, all the hot meds. But you can’t blame their brains, nor can you fill them up with Ritalin. Yes, they can get special support, blah blah blah, but the bottom line is that they’re handicapped, and will always be. Sure, some of them can be happy and have quote-unquote productive lives. But let’s face it, just how productive can you be if your IQ is seventy-five? What I’m saying is, if it’s important to you to have a smart kid, then this might be for you.”

“Looking back, are you happy you had it done?” Rachel asked. “Any regrets?”

Vanessa made a fast glance at Sheila who took the cue. “The alternative was bringing up a backward child. What can I say?”

“I know I sound rather hardheaded,” Vanessa continued, “but before the procedure—when he was six—he still could barely recognize letters or numbers. And his memory was hopeless: He couldn’t remember basic family facts, like our street address, his own birthday, or his father’s first name. It was very distressing.”

Rachel nodded as her mind slipped into a disturbing recollection from last week. Dylan had just finished watching a video of Pinocchio—a movie he had seen half a dozen times. When she asked him to retell the story for her, he could barely recall the names of the characters—Jiminy Cricket was “the green boy,” and Figaro was “the cat”—or simple words like whale. Nor could he put key plot events in proper sequence. After a few moments, he simply gave up in frustration.