Accelerated (21 page)

Toby looked at Sean like he’d asked him to eat a sharp piece of glass. “What is that?”

Then he realized. Toby had never taken a pill. All medicine—Tylenol, Motrin, even the antibiotics from the pharmacy—always came in liquid form. He explained how to put the pill on the back of his tongue and wash it down with water. Toby looked skeptical.

“Want to give it a try?”

Toby shrugged and took the pill between his fingers. He gagged a few times trying. Finally, he took a big swallow of water and smiled. “Hey, I’m pretty good at that.”

For the next four hours, Sean asked Toby if he was feeling racy, tired, more focused. No, was all he said.

“I wouldn’t expect half a pill to have any therapeutic effect at all,” Dr. Altherra said on the phone. The half pill was a test to make sure Toby didn’t have any bad reactions. She told Sean to give Toby a whole pill the next day, and to give him some reading or math problems to see if his focus was any sharper.

The next day Sean gave Toby a whole pill, which he swallowed on the first try. “Yes!” Toby said when it went down. Again, no bad reactions. No change at all. When Sean presented him with math problems, Toby flat-out refused. Asking a kid to do schoolwork on his last day of Christmas break amounted to cruel and inhuman punishment. To make matters worse, he couldn’t tell if Toby’s attention was any better, because at home, for the most part, Toby was fine focusing on his homework. He decided he was going to have to send another email to Jess, even though he was still waiting to hear back from the last one, to let her know what was going on. If Toby’s problems were happening at school, then the school was going to have to tell him if things were improving.

He composed an email to Jess that night.
Hi Jess—Could you give me a call when you get this? It’s about Toby. Look forward to seeing you at school, Sean
.

But she didn’t respond to that email either.

The next morning, the first day of the new semester, he handed Toby the lavender pill with a glass of water and watched him swallow it. “I’m going to bring some of these to the nurse. You need to go down after lunch and she’ll give you another one, okay?”

“Whatever,” he said, spooning more Cheerios into his mouth.

If Toby had a fever, Sean would give him Tylenol. For strep, he’d give him Zithromax. But this was different. He blamed the Ringling Brothers.

Back when Toby was five, he and Ellie had taken Toby to the circus. Outside Madison Square Garden, animal rights people had set up a massive campaign with poster-size photos of drugged elephants and doped-out tigers to show how barbaric the circus really was. The animals were kept nicely stoned at all times, the protestors said, robbing the fierce animals of their fierceness, making them docile, easier to train. Every time an elephant balanced on a ball or a tiger jumped through a flaming hoop, Sean had gotten a sick, sinking feeling. It was kind of like the feeling he had now as he drugged Toby for school so he could learn loftier circus tricks like advanced math and reading.

“What?” Toby was looking at him strangely.

“Nothing,” he said. “We don’t want to be late the first day back. Hey, how do you …”

“Dad, if you ask me how I feel one more time, I’m going to have to do something drastic.”

Sean pressed his lips together dramatically to show there would be no further questions. He opened the front door and gestured for Toby to walk through. Toby smiled, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and obliged.

T
HE
B
RADLEY LOBBY VIBRATED WITH POST-VACATION ENERGY OF
tanned people explaining how they got that way. But the knot in Sean’s stomach distracted him from the spectacle. He’d been up all night wondering how it would be to see Jess again and now, tunneling through the crowd, he tried to form an expression that didn’t reveal how devastated he’d been by the blowoff. He was just a father picking up his son. He needed to untense his shoulders and pretend he’d never ripped off her clothes. “I can do this,” he said to himself like a mantra. He wondered if any of the tanned parents could tell he was a nervous wreck.

From across the room, he watched Jess dismiss the kids one at a time. Walking toward them, he saw her pale skin glow next to the orange-brown skin of Kayla’s mom. Toby waved and Sean slipped into line next to him. “Hey Buddy. How was your first day back?”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

The cloud of vanilla and musk coming off Kayla’s mom caught in Sean’s throat and he coughed, causing Jess to look up and notice him. When her eyes met his, he could have sworn she blushed for a second. He smiled at her, which he hadn’t exactly planned. She looked away.

“How was your break?” Kayla’s mom was asking Jess, in a voice far too deep to be coming from her skeletal body.

“I was in Rhode Island with my dad and my fiancé,” Jess said. “We had a nice New England Christmas.” So the
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
guy was back in the picture. His eyes flashed to the ring on her finger. It was all making nauseating sense.

“St. Maarten’s was ninety degrees,” Kayla’s mom said. “Not Christmas-y at all. But we had a nice time.”

Not that he knew what he’d say when he and Toby reached Jess, but the waiting was killing him. Now Dylan was giving her a presidential handshake, looking her right in the eye. When Dylan’s Caribbean sitter whisked him away, it was Toby’s turn. They were last in line.

“Bye Jess,” Toby said, giving her a perfunctory handshake. Jess shook his hand then flashed Sean a fleeting smile that packed a lot in: regret, wistfulness, kindness, and even, he thought, a hint of longing. It was possible he was reading too much into it.

“How’ve you been?” He tried to sound like a regular parent. One who hadn’t explored every inch of her naked body.

“Fine,” she said. Her eyes darted away briefly. “How was your break?”

The chitchat was practically unbearable. “It started out well, but the rest of it was just so-so.”

She took a breath and held it before letting it out slowly.

“I sent you a couple of emails.”

“Sorry, I’m pretty backlogged.”

“It’s about Toby,” he said, enjoying the small pleasure of being able to play the parent card. “It’s kind of important.”

“Oh.” This had taken her off guard. It would derail her from whatever script she’d prepared. “Okay.” She looked at her watch. “I have about ten minutes.”

Toby waited in the library while Sean followed Jess to her classroom.

She pulled an adult-size chair next to her desk, and he sat on it. Her eyes looked everywhere but at him. Finally she focused on him, business-like. “We should probably deal with … what happened.”

“What happened was great,” he said. She was so close he could reach out and touch her. Except, of course, he couldn’t.

“This relationship,” she started, “our relationship—has to be strictly parent-teacher.”

He knew it had been coming, but it sucked hearing it, nonetheless. “Okay.” He nodded. “So … you two are back together?”

She fiddled with the ring. “I feel awful. This whole mess is completely my fault.”

Fault was a tough word. It implied a deep crack that couldn’t be mended. “I don’t know about that. I’d like to think we can both take credit for what happened. And for the record, I don’t see it as a mess.”

“Still …” she said.

“I do have a parent-teacher thing to discuss.”

“Oh.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “Okay.”

He told her about giving Toby the Metattent Junior. Her mouth gaped slightly. “The doctor suggested that?” Her tone was strange.

“Why?” he said. “You don’t think he needs it?”

“No.” She said it quickly. Emphatically. Then she backed off. “I mean, look. I’m not a doctor. I can’t make a diagnosis. But Toby’s … he’s not what I’d call ADD.”

“But …” It was what he’d wanted to hear all along. “They’re calling it inattentive-type ADD. Because he gets distracted in class.”

“Yeah, well I call that being a kid.” She sighed. “Sorry, this is just one of those things that drives me crazy.”

“No, I want to hear what you think. I need to hear it.”

“I can see medicating kids who need it—kids who jump off walls and kick and scream during class. I’ve seen drugs help kids like that. It’s amazing, actually. But in general …” She trailed off. “Look, a lot of boys can have trouble sitting and listening. They get there, though.”

Maybe Altherra had been wrong. Toby
would
get there.

“Do you think I should stop giving him the pills?”

“God, don’t ask me that.” She looked nervous. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a clue what the right thing to do is.”

He’d made this decision already. And it hadn’t been easy. “Will you keep an eye on him? Tell me if the medication is helping at all?”

“Of course.” She wrote her number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Let’s talk in the afternoons. I’m here until five.”

He folded the paper and put it in his wallet, then tried to see what was going on behind her eyes. “How are you doing?”

The smile looked more sad than happy. “I’m okay. I’m good.” She got up and held out her hand. “I’ll be in touch. About Toby.”

E
VERY DAY FOR THE NEXT FIVE DAYS
,
HE GAVE
T
OBY A PILL BEFORE
school. Every afternoon he called Jess at four forty-five to check in about Toby. Every afternoon Jess told him there was no change, nothing to report.

When he talked to Dr. Altherra, she upped him half a pill. “Relax,” she said on the phone. “This is how we get the dosage right. We’ll know when we’ve hit it.” The stab in the dark strategy seemed to lack scientific specificity.

On Monday he dialed Jess, but hung up before it rang. He wanted to hear her voice. But not at school, not in the middle of a workday. He wanted to hear her voice the way it had been the night of Art’s party. He decided to wait and call later—after Toby had gone to bed. He wondered if the fiancé would be there, if he’d answer her cell phone. The guy probably had one of those my-dick’s-bigger‐than-yours voices, too. If Sean could just talk to her, she’d have to remember why she attacked him in the taxi. At the very least she might remember she liked him.

That night, he stretched out on his bed. She’d been lying on this exact spot just a few weeks ago. He dialed the phone.

“Sean?” She sounded surprised and possibly annoyed.

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Is everything okay?” Her voice was full of concern. “Is Toby okay?”

“He’s fine. I just … I hope it’s not too late to call.” Obviously it was too late to call. “I had some meetings at work that went over and I wanted to make sure I talked to you today. About Toby.”

“Oh …” He heard a man’s voice in the background. He couldn’t make out the words, but the guy didn’t sound pleased. “Hold on,” she said into the receiver. Her voice was muffled as she said something about work.

So this had been a bad idea. But he couldn’t hang up now. What would she wear at home on a weeknight? He pictured her in her oversized sweatshirt and jeans from the Scotch and Oreo night. He remembered how her eyes had been pink from crying.

“Sorry,” she said. The business-like tone was back. It was the exact thing he’d been trying to avoid.

“So what’s the report from today?” He tried to sound parent-like.

“He was adorable, as always,” she said. “But no change. Mrs. Looning made him sit out again in music.”

He didn’t want anything to be wrong with Toby, but somewhere along the way he’d found himself hoping this would be the easy fix Shineman said it would be. Dr. Altherra would most likely tell him to up the dose again.

“Sean?” she said. There was just a hint of panic in her voice. “You there?”

“Yeah.” It was all so futile. Trying to make Toby fit Bradley’s expectations. Being stuck on a woman who was engaged to be married. “Thanks. Sorry to bother you at home like this. It won’t happen again.” He started to hang up.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know this is a hard time. How are you holding up?”

“Honestly,” he said, “it sucks.”

“Just trust your instincts.”

How could he trust his instincts? They were obviously untrustworthy because they were telling him to pursue Jess. “Can I ask you a kind of personal question?”

“I don’t know.” The wariness was creeping back into her voice. “Maybe.”

“Have you set a date?”

A pause. “For what?”

“The wedding.” He was officially pathetic.

“You know, I should go. Let’s be in touch tomorrow,” she said. “About Toby.”

He rested the phone on his chest after he’d hung up. He had to get a grip. He’d heard the muffled voice of Jess’s future through the phone. She was taken.

Toby knocked and pushed open the door to his bedroom.

“Hey Tobe. Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

“Can’t sleep.” Toby had a funny look on his face, somewhere between puzzled and sheepish.

“Hop up.”

Toby climbed onto the bed and faced him, seriously.

“What’s on your mind?”

“I heard a word today. Can you tell me what it means?”

So maybe Bradley was paying off after all. Toby was interested in expanding his vocabulary. “I’ll try. What’s the word?”

“Master … master bashun.”

Sean opened his mouth. Then closed it. Not what he’d expected. “Where’d you hear that word?”

“Kayla said her brothers do master bashun. But I’m not exactly sure …”

“Her teenage brothers,” he nodded, thoughtfully. Trust his instincts. Maybe the advice was the same as it had been in the death article: be honest. But where did you start with a kid this age?

“So do you know what it means?” Toby was getting impatient.

“Uh, yeah, I do. It’s just …”

“So what is it?”

Why had Sean been so keen on Toby learning vocabulary? “Okay. Uh, so you know what sex is, right?”

“Sure,” he said, way too quickly. “Yeah. Of course.”

Toby was eight. He didn’t know what sex was. At least they’d never had that conversation. It was idiotic to start the conversation that way. Whatever Toby knew, he’d probably learned from Kayla and Lord knows what she was telling them. “You know what, scratch that. Never mind. Okay. So masturbation …” It was like in a spelling bee—you had to say the word out loud before spelling it. “So … it’s when you, uh, touch your private parts. Do you understand?”