“I don’t know what to say,” he said, and hung up.
Joan did not know what to say either, and Martin was encouraging the Pied Piper’s people to stay, making trips to the supermarket to keep the fridge stocked, to keep them fed while they worked, but Joan refused to give up on reversing this course, she had not yet conceded defeat in this war she and Martin were having. They debated on long-distance phone calls when he was away on his surgical trips, Joan far out on their land, cell phone hard to her head. When Martin was home, they could not have such strident conversations anywhere in the house. Despite the frenetic activity, Eric’s immersion in his plans and his deadlines, he was alert to danger, to any discussion that might forcibly stop him in his tracks. When they returned from a dinner out, he could read on their faces what they had talked about. He knew Martin was his champion, and that Joan was not.
For a while, she wondered if she would champion Daniel, if he were the head of this enterprise taking shape. But what did the answer matter, he wasn’t.
An incontrovertible fact was the relentless work ethic Eric was demonstrating, never before given to anything other than building forts in the sandbox, or LEGO structures in his room, or playing on Martin’s office computer, and then the one they had given him. An asinine present for being declared gifted. They had been idiots caving into that early desire. That computer turning Eric’s head so completely, resulting in computer camp, giving rise to this program of his that seemed like the Second Coming. When Joan asked Eric to explain it, he said, “With this program, I’m going to solve the problems hotels have, Mom,” and let fly a complicated explication of logarithms and so many other things Joan did not understand at all, including his interest in hotel administration. What she did understand was that the computer, the computer camp, and Eric’s incomprehensible program were responsible for the dormitory they were now running, for the fear she knew she was right to feel, and that what she had planned for herself would be delayed.
Was she being selfish, self-centered, as that fortune-teller had said when reading one line of Joan’s palm? Well, she had never denied that fault in herself, the selfishness writers required, the reason behind her desire never to marry, to never bear children. Now she was the chaperone for Eric and his cronies pursuing something she could not fathom.
She tried sticking to her schedule for Words, a simple read-through of her work, hewing to it as tightly as she could, images of being ensconced in her prior, original life so vibrant and bright, then dimming, the colors blending together into the color of dirt. But accomplishing anything was nearly impossible when she was forced into the role of den mother watching over this funky group, thinking of the lawsuits and liability if any of these kids on their property tripped and broke a leg, an arm, a back, drank themselves blind or into oblivion, popped pills, snorted drugs, smoked pot. She had found a coffee can filled with the butts of joints hidden in the lilac bushes, and then another, and another, and emptied orange pill containers, the labels pulled off, and emptied bottles of vodka, gin, and brandy in the outside trash cans, trying to figure out whether she and Martin were drinking more than they usually did—it was possible, she was distraught every night—or whether those bottles were being filched from the pantry by pale, soft hands. She had no problem picturing all of their bodies reduced to simmering, stinking liquids.
She stood once, twice, ten times, in the circular entry and admonished them all, at the top of her lungs, to absolutely no effect. Blank faces turned toward her, as if her words made no sense. The coffee cans filled up, the empty orange prescription bottles appeared, the bottles of alcohol disappeared, even when she hid them away in places she considered cunning. She couldn’t control what this new team of ghostly young people popped or drank or inhaled, but she could try to control what went into Eric’s mouth, that mouth that had given her so much trouble since it first left her womb. She saw how Eric did not eat, his eyes often glassy, manic energy wiring him up. He and his team were working eighteen, twenty hours a day, flopping on the floors from exhaustion, sweatshirts under their heads, waking early to do it all again, but it didn’t account for what she was seeing in him.
“He’s doing drugs, or smoking pot, or drinking, I’m sure of it,” Joan said to Martin. It was ten at night, the group was meeting in the living room, still empty of furniture, discussing the company shortly to be formed, and she and Martin were on the grass on top of the knoll. Joan looked toward the lit house, then down into the glen, to the lap pool black in the moonless night.
“I think it’s just adrenaline,” Martin said.
“Then you’re not seeing things clearly. I’m the one here all of the time, watching over them, watching Eric marching around like the king of a fiefdom. He’s a child, a boy, with so much, too much, riding on his thin shoulders, and I’m telling you he’s on drugs.”
“If he is, and I’m not agreeing that he is, he’ll outgrow it. He’s testing the boundaries. If I could have gotten away with it in the vice admiral’s house, I would have spread my wings too. What’s a little pot smoking when measured against his achievements so far? And, you’ve got to admit, nothing seems to be hindering him. He’s sure the newest version of the program will be ready to submit to the incubator contest by the deadline. If they win, we’re talking millions, Joan.”
“Martin, who cares about the money?”
“I do,” Martin said. “And Eric sure as hell does. He talks of nothing else but winning, about all the great things that will happen as a result. It’s what he wants, Joan.”
*
On a chilly October afternoon, there were two lawyers and an accountant in the living room who specialized in guiding start-up technology companies. Eric’s team on the floor at their feet, eleven pairs of legs crossed, twenty-two sets of eyes, half behind black-rimmed glasses, staring up at the men from Washington, DC, dressed in expensive suits. Eric was naming his company Solve=MC2. The lawyers were discussing its incorporation, the apportionment of stock options, how salaries would be set if they won the incubator funding. At the moment, everyone was working for free.
Joan listened for a while and then took herself to the master bedroom, sat cross-legged on the bed, closed her eyes, and sent up pleas that Eric not win that prize. She wanted him to fail, for the house to empty out, his team to hitch themselves to someone else destined for greatness. She would handle his upset, his rejection, the depression sure to smack him down for a while. But he was young, he would rally, he would return to school, remember these months as a fugue state. He would do what teenagers did, finish middle school and high school, go to college, date, laugh, move at a more natural pace, find himself before he took on the world.