Gray Matter

Sheila was at their usual table beside the one-way windows through which they could watch their kids. The playroom was a large colorful open area with small tables and chairs scattered about, computer terminals, plants, books, posters, cages with turtles, and a huge brown rabbit. It had been carefully designed for a bright nurturing atmosphere. Miss Jean, like her assistant, was a former elementary-school teacher who had been hired full-time by the club. Together they made of DellKids an enlightened center for members’ children. And three years ago it was awarded full day-care licensing by the state.

Rachel watched through the window as Jean gathered the children around one of the several computers. While she explained the particular program, the kids listened. All but Dylan, that is. He was making faces at another boy to get him to laugh. A couple of times Miss Jean had to ask Dylan to stop his antics and listen up. After a few minutes, they broke up into groups of twos and, thankfully, he was teamed up with a sweet little girl named Shannon.

The boy from out back stepped through the kitchen door carrying a tray of food for people at another table. “I see we’ve got a new waiter,” Rachel said.

“Oh, that’s just Brendan LaMotte,” Sheila said. “His grandfather used to be the club plumber and got him a job as a caddy, but they moved him inside because they needed an extra body.”

Brendan was a large sullen-looking kid, probably from one of the local high schools. “Is he … okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he seems rather weird. As we were coming in, he was out back slapping himself in the face.”

“What?”

Rachel described the scene with the girl and field glasses.

“Hormones,” Sheila said with a dismissive gesture. “Actually he’s kind of a sad case. His parents were killed in a car accident a few years ago, and he’s living alone with his grandfather. He’s a little strange, but he’s perfectly harmless. So, how’s Martin’s new business venture doing?”

Rachel took the invitation to change the subject. “Fine, but I hardly ever see him.” Over the last two years, Martin’s recruitment business had expanded phenomenally, moving out of a cramped office in Hanover to a fancy suite just off Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel saw Brendan approach their table. He was a tall, somewhat pudgy kid with a pimply round face, a shiny black ponytail, and intense black eyes.

“Hey, Brendan. How you doing?” Sheila chortled, trying to warm him up.

“F-fine,” he said curtly.

“Do you know Mrs. Whitman? She’s a recent member.”

He glanced at Rachel with those laser eyes. “I know who she is.”

Something about his wording sent an unpleasant ripple through Rachel.

“I’ll have the usual,” Sheila said.

“Whole wheat English m-muffin, split, toasted medium-well, a half-pad of margarine, fruit cup—no maraschino cherries—decaf hazelnut with skim milk, small glass of vanilla-flavored soy milk.” His slight stuttering disappeared as he rattled all that off, while the braces on his teeth flashed, adding to his robotic delivery.

Sheila smiled. “You got it.”

He turned to Rachel. “You?”

His manner was so blunt and his expression so intense that Rachel was momentarily thrown off. “I’ll have a cappuccino and a bagel, please.”

He made an impatient sigh. “We have p-plain, sesame, raisin, poppy seed, sunflower seed, salt, egg, sun- dried tomato, onion, garlic, four-grain, and everything which includes garlic, onion, poppy and sesame seeds, and salt but not the other ingredients.” It was like being addressed by a machine.

“Raisin.”

“Cream cheese?”

“Yes, please, on the side.”

“Regular or fat-free, which is thirty calories for two tablespoons versus a hundred for regular, and five milligrams of cholesterol, but of course you get the xanthan and carob-bean gums plus potassium sorbate and sodium tripolyphosphate and all the artificial flavors and colors. Suit yourself.”

Rachel began to smile, thinking that he was joking—that he was doing some kind of Jim-Carrey-waiter-from- hell routine the way he rattled that off with edgy rote. But nothing in his expression said he was playacting. His face remained impassive, the only thing moving was his mouth and that bizarre tic: While he spoke his left eyelid kept flickering as if trying to ward off a gnat. Rachel also noticed that he had no order pad or pen to record the orders.

She preferred the fat-free but didn’t want to set him off. “I’ll have the regular.”

“Toasted?”

“Yes.”

“Light, dark, or medium?”

She did not dare question the options. “Medium.”

“Orange juice?”

“Yes, please.”

“It’s fresh squeezed, not from concentrate, but it’s Stop and Shop not Tropicana premium. You still want it?”

“I guess. Yes.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, please, thank you,” Rachel gasped.

He then turned on his heel and slouched back into the kitchen.

Rachel saucered her eyes. “My God! I feel as if I’ve just been interrogated.”

Sheila chuckled. “He is a tad intense.”

“A tad? Someone get him a straitjacket.”

“It could be worse. He could be your caddy. Ask him for advice on a club and he’ll cite everything from barometric pressure and dew point to the latest comparative test data on shaft technology. He’s a walking encyclopedia. He also has a photographic memory.”

“I noticed he didn’t write down our orders.”

“He never does.”

A kid with a photographic memory who smashes himself in the face while ogling girls through field glasses.

“He can also recite Shakespeare by the pound. In summer stock last year they did Romeo and Juliet and he ended up memorizing every part. He’s amazing.”

“Where does he go to school?”

“He dropped out.”

“Lucky for his teachers,” Rachel said, and looked over Sheila’s shoulder through the one-way glass.

Her stomach knotted. Lucinda had wandered over to Dylan and Shannon’s computer and parked herself at their desk, explaining something that they apparently couldn’t get right. As she watched, Rachel felt a wave of sadness flush over her resentment. While she wanted to go in there and shake Lucinda, the girl’s confidence had clearly left poor Dylan in the shadows. While eager to be with it, his frustration had reduced him to making goofy faces and sounds to deflect attention—a measure that pained Rachel for its desperation. Some of the nearby kids laughed, but not Lucinda, who chided Dylan so that Miss Jean had to come over and ask him to settle down. She then took Dylan and Shannon to a free terminal and reexplained the procedure.

Rachel tried to hold tight, but she could feel the press of tears. Dylan was out of his league in there. He had a great singing voice, and she had thought someday to enroll him in a children’s choir, but he was not one of those “cyberbrats,” as Martin called them. Dylan was adorable and sociable and funny, but he lacked the focus of these other kids. Yes, she chided herself for making comparisons even though every other parent did the same thing— gauged their own against the competition: OPK, as Martin labeled them—“other people’s kids.” Yes, she reminded herself that what mattered was his happiness.

But in a flash-glimpse down the long corridor of time, she saw how hard life was going to be for him,