With an effort, Michael steps back toward the party. As he joins the swarm, a woman brushes past him, a new brunette like a draft of cool air—loose hair, scant makeup—a natural beauty. Tight at her side is a ponytailed freak in some kind of pajama set. This man gives Michael a direct, penetrating look. The jealousy is unsurprising, given the disparity of the pair: the man has a narrow, miserly face, his hair pulled too tight in its choke hold. A cracked leather cord girdles his neck and disappears down the front of his tunic. This can only be Carol’s medicine man.
He tracks the strange couple as they navigate through the crowd until, at last, Carol Christensen falls upon them. After her effusions, she pulls away, keeping a hand upon the man’s narrow shoulder as if to hold him in place. Michael watches her survey the surrounding guests, alight with her new self-image, burning to display her guru to some benighted soul. Her eyes spark upon Michael, and as she raises a hand to wave him over, he swivels away.
He will be sorry not to meet the brunette, but has no need to engage with Carol’s god of lightning. He knows the type. Like all fanatics, they want only to sermonize. Trying to pin them down is like playing racquetball on a buttered court. There is no way to win, no arguing for the validity of medicine or the supremacy of biological systems. There is, for these people, no such thing as brain disease—least of all in themselves. The spirit world is something external, untouchable, a higher order of reality beyond the mundane perception of science. When their own brain scans show unusual electrical patterns, they consider their point proven: their spiritual experience made manifest. It’s not a biological flaw; it’s a gift.
Before Carol can seize him, Michael circles around to the far side of the pool. From there, he ambles over the grass, away from the party, willing invisibility upon himself. Finally, he takes refuge in a shadowy place near the privet hedges and stands alone with his Scotch glass. Too late, he notices the glass is empty. Still, he feels an intoxicating breeze here, away from the crowd. He breathes deeply of the rich, darkened air and instinctually scans his surroundings. As if in a dream, his eyes catch on a shadowy figure near a hedge several yards away. A dart of adrenaline pierces him, and hot blood slams out to his extremities. Just like that, he is fully, poundingly alive. His right hand goes across his chest, feeling for the pistol at his heart.
The figure turns slightly, and the pool glow illuminates the profile of a teenage boy. Stepping closer, Michael sees a polo shirt and khakis. Their eyes meet, and the boy glances away. Michael lets his right arm drop to his side, but the adrenaline is still circulating and needs a place to go. Without thinking, he walks toward the boy with a little jig in his step. He smiles sociably and nods. The boy hesitantly returns the nod. Michael can see the Adam’s apple burrowing in his throat. The boy has obviously come to this spot to be alone, and Michael feels suddenly sorry for having approached. Standing there, he rubs his hands together as if to warm them. He is bristling with the urge to run, to do a lap around the pool, to sprint all the way to the end of this feeble spit of land, to swan dive into the sound. Instead, he turns and adopts a relaxed pose alongside the boy.
“Which ones are yours?” he asks, nodding toward the crowd.
“Sorry?”
“Your parents.”
“Oh.” The boy points toward the pool house, where there is a unit of men. “That’s my dad, in the blue shirt.”
Michael points to Rosalie, who is laughing with Bill Gregory’s wife. “That one’s mine.”
“Your—?”
Michael laughs. “My wife.”
The boy has an easy, symmetrical face, eyes that are brown and lamblike.
“Are you at the high school?”
“Yeah. I’m a junior.”
“Ah, good year,” Michael says ludicrously. “What are your plans after school?”
The boy gives him an incisive look. The Adam’s apple goes up and down. “I don’t know.” There is a pause. “Maybe the army,” he mumbles.
“Did I hear you say army?”
The boy folds his arms over his chest and stares into the pool water.
“You know there’s a war, right?”
“Well, yeah,” the boy says without looking at Michael. “That’s what armies do.” His voice strums a low register of notes, like a saw blade going through wood.
“How about college?” Michael hears himself ask. “Have you thought about college?” It is insane, he knows, to be grilling the boy this way. It seems to arise from an instinct he cannot readily identify. Not fatherly, exactly, but something approximate.
“I’m afraid college isn’t right for me,” the boy answers. He looks at Michael with a shimmer in his eye. After a moment, he breaks his gaze. “You don’t know my father, do you?”
“I don’t recognize him, no.”
The boy nods. “Well, if you do meet him, please don’t say anything. I haven’t told him about it yet.”