The Egg Code (35 page)

WELCOME TO THE HOME PAGE
FOR THE GLORIA CORPORATION
OF ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
SERVING THE NETWORKING COMMUNITY SINCE 1966

They hacked him, the bastards.

Back outside, he lingers in front of his house and considers where to go next. A crisp leaf blows against his cheek and he takes it by the stem.

—Reduce the leaf to its veiny skeleton? Don’t reduce the leaf to its veiny skeleton?

—Reduce the leaf to its veiny skeleton.

Olden picks at the leaf until all that remains is a flimsy network of connecting tendons. Dry shards the color of mulled cider stick to his thumb and forefinger.

—Make the leaf go flap-flap like a miniature hang glider? Don’t make the leaf go flap-flap like a miniature hang glider?

—Do not make the leaf go flap-flap like a miniature hang glider.

Discarding the leaf, he climbs the hill and waits by the side of the road. The men from the Gloria Corporation are long gone. Over the hush of the countryside, an engine changes gears—a rush, then a crescendo as a car rounds the corner, fanning debris across the double yellow line. The driver of the vehicle is a woman with short, stiff hair, and she drives with her hands high on the wheel. The car shoots around a curve, taking all sound with it.

Olden crosses the street and follows his enemy into the forest.

Get Down! Get Down!

Simon rose out of his seat and stared over the headrest. He saw a man in the road, and then the car went around a curve and the man was gone. He tried to remember the man’s face as he sank back into his seat, but all he could recall was a mane of long hair, and how it looked like dancing black snakes from a distance.

“Simon, I’m going to ask you to sit properly in your seat.”

“Okay.”

“I would very much prefer it if you did not sit like that.”

“Mmm.”

“As long as you know what you’re doing. As long as you understand the consequences. Of sitting like that.”

“Okay.”

“All right. Then I won’t worry about it.”

They continued like this for some time, speeding past long stretches of woods and mailboxes that leaned on splintered posts where gravel driveways split and forked into darkness. As she drove, Lydia considered the wisdom of her decision—a decision that seemed brilliant three days ago, less so at four this morning. Simon really deserved the kind of attention only a private school could provide. Besides, both she and the boy had made too many promises to too many people, empty promises to the school board, to the head of the PTA.
Watch out for my son. He’s going to
be a star someday.
At a new place, at a quiet, caring institution, Simon would get another chance, a crack at normalcy. She would see to it. No more high-flown ambitions. From now on, Simon would be just another average boy. But he would be the best goddamn average boy that ever set foot in Crane City. He would study every night. This was part of the new resolution. They would study together, in the kitchen. She would buy expensive cookies and bottled milk from an actual dairy, and they would sit at the table and eat the cookies and drink the milk, and they would study, whatever,
algebra
, or the one where you draw the squares. He would excel at his schoolwork. His teachers would reward him with gold stars and lapel pins in the shapes of diplomas and graduation caps, and if they didn’t, she would threaten them with legal action until they finally gave in. This was the new way. It was not too late for Simon to start behaving like an intellectual.

“Mom? What would you do if I farted right now?”

“Simon!”

“What? Fart’s not a swear!”

“Don’t use that language!”

“But what would you do?”

“I would be . . . very angry. And disgusted.”

“Okay! I just asked!”

The car crossed the expressway and continued past a row of farm-houses with dilapidated barns the color of old skin. At the foot of one driveway, an elderly man dressed in tan slacks and a golf shirt hurled a steel rake at a small boy, forcing him to catch it. Down the road, someone’s trash bag had blown open, and a stomped-flat carton of Nestlé’s Quik chocolate milk struck the car’s windshield, the frayed corner getting stuck on a wiper blade. The carton fluttered against the glass; the tiny image of the cartoon rabbit was folded so that the ears seemed to be growing directly out of its neck.

“Mom?”

“Simon,
what?
”

“Can I say just one swear word?”

“Simon.”

“Not even a bad one.”

“Why are you being so silly?”

“And then I’ll never say it again.”

“If you
promise
to wear your hair the way I said.”

“And you won’t get mad?”

“Simon, please.”

“Okay, okay . . . Damn.”

“Good. Very nice. Now help me look.”

Lydia made a right onto a dirt road, where a wood-burnt sign welcomed all visitors to the school’s main campus. Broome Town—that was the name of the place, but there was no slogan, no clever quotations from Dr. Spock or the Beatles. Lydia was disappointed. She wanted a slogan, something like
Where Children Go to Grow
. Through the windows, she could see students hunched over their various activities. Trim little trees guarded the front door; thin cords forced the branches to bend into weird shapes.

Lydia parked the car and dug her purse out of the backseat. They’d probably ask for a personal check, maybe even some proof of identification. This was not a place where one minded the extra scrutiny. It added to the appeal, somehow. Not just
anyone
could get in.

“Now, Simon, you’re going to have to take a test.” She reached over the passenger seat and pushed open the door. “They’re going to ask you some questions.”

“What kind of questions?” asked Simon, not moving.

“What do you mean, what kind of questions?
Test
kind of questions, now come on. You’ve taken tests before.”

“Yeah, but only where they let you do-over.” The boy lifted the door handle, let it go, lifted it again, let it go. The mechanisms inside the door sheared and groaned. He smiled. “Look, I can make a song.”

“Simon will you leave that alone!” She yanked on his sleeve. “Now listen. They’re not going to let you do-over. You’re going to have to think. You’re going to have to guess the right answer.” She held him in an awkward embrace, lugging him halfway out of his seat. “Now do this for Momma, baby. Do this for Momma and I’ll never ask you for anything else. I’ll never be unhappy with you again.”

“I gotta do math?”

“Yes, you gotta do math. And history. They’re gonna ask you all about history.”

“Like what?”

Lydia sighed, releasing him. “Like what, like . . . who was Susan B. Anthony?”

“Who was Susan B. Anthony.” The boy stared through the windshield, letting the question revolve inside his brain. “Who?”

Pissed, she stepped out of the car. “What do you
mean
, who? I have no idea.
Pick
something!”

She stood near the building, waiting for Simon to catch up. Once inside, they crossed a winding corridor with split levels that went up two steps and then down four, odd enclaves filled with comfy furniture, fabric sofas and ottomans shaped like giant aspirin, vending machines that dispensed only bottled water, only fresh sandwiches, only all-natural fruit pies. She stopped and pointed at the ceiling. “Listen!” she said. “Music!” Classical music played at just the right volume, something serious by Schoenberg, a string quartet, wild and dissonant. Sprawled across one of the ottomans, a young girl fingered violin hand positions in the air, each finger making its own precise movement. Another girl stood against the back wall, practicing a yoga stance. Both girls seemed to be listening to the music, focusing on every last difficult stretch of melody. This, without parental supervision! Lydia looked down at her son and smiled. She herself had enjoyed a fine education when she was his age. The private schools in the District of Columbia were lavish affairs. Children traveled with armed escorts, silent guys named Rich who sipped coffee all day and stood in the back of the room, pretending to read the show-and-tell board. The meals were all catered by fancy Washington supper clubs, and the silverware wasn’t silver but at least it was stainless steel; she could still remember the clink-clink of fifty-odd sixth graders sawing through steak tartare in the school gymnasium. Most of Lydia’s teachers were not American, and they spoke with thick accents, German, sometimes Hungarian. In every classroom, the sons and daughters of the world elite marked time; vaguely familiar, they resembled small, shredded versions of their famous parents.

Slightly dazed, Lydia and Simon found the main office and entered a tiny room with one desk in the center and a chair on either side. Half-drawn vertical blinds made a shadow like prison bars across the carpet. A woman sat in one of the chairs, eating a salad from a fast-food restaurant. The salad was thick with dressing; the smell of garlic stunk up the whole room. Lydia and Simon stood in the doorway while she finished her meal. Patting her lips with a napkin, she opened her purse and brought out a small compact that looked like a white seashell with a steel hinge at one end. The woman calmly reapplied her makeup, making an mmm-mmm noise as she smushed her lips together. Closing the case with a snap, she motioned for Simon to sit, then slid a booklet across the desk, along with a half-dozen pencils and a sharpener. “I’m Mrs. Olivet,” she said.

“Mrs. Olivet, hi.” The two women shook hands. The proctor’s skin was warm and soft, and she wore thick wooden bangles around her wrist. Red letters circled one of the bangles, forming a chain.

“You’ve noticed my bracelet, I see.” She spun the bangle, reading the message as it streamed by. “. . .
learn more so that I may grow into a person who can learn more so that I may grow into a person who can
. . . It goes on.”

“Yes, that’s very clever.”

“Isn’t it?” The woman’s voice sounded dubbed, the words taken from a documentary about apples. “This examination will last approximately forty-five minutes. Would you care to wait in the outer office?”

“Oh.” Lydia glanced over her shoulder, feeling rejected. “Okay! There’s not a . . .” Mrs. Olivet nodded, her lips parted, wanting very much to understand, to supply the next word herself. “There’s no place I can go to watch?”

“To watch?”

“A secret room somewhere. A secret room with a one-way glass.”

The woman smiled, then stood and took hold of Lydia’s hands. “You’re nervous.”

“No, I’m not nervous.” Lydia balled her hands into fists and twisted away. “It’s Simon. He’s more comfortable when I’m around.”

Mrs. Olivet, no longer smiling, looked at the boy and spoke in a soft voice. “Well, that’s something we’re going to have to work on. Simon is almost a young man. Young men do not need their mothers. Young men are independent, dashing and reckless. They drive their convertibles with the top down. This is what young men do. Loud music on the radio: ‘We’re gonna rock, rock, scream ’n’ shout ...’ ” She half-sung her words, snapping her fingers to some silent fifties jam. “Young men take vigorous showers. Huge handfuls of water splashing against their chests. Droplets exploding in slow motion, each drop proclaiming,
I am a man!
Young men gnaw on their food, tearing at it with their teeth like vicious beasts, vicious beasts guarding a fresh carcass. This is
my
food. Don’t touch
my
food. Young men read adventure novels, grand tales from the American frontier. When they read, they bend the cover all the way back, holding it with one hand. See him now, the sexy brute. Hey, Rico! Yo, you got a problem wi’dat?” Something seemed to run out of the woman, and she herded Lydia into a reception area, where a maze of drywall divided the room into quads. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

Walking backwards, Lydia tripped and fell into a partition. “S-sure.”

“There’s coffee. The reason I ask is, not everyone likes coffee. Some people hate it. Absolutely abhor it.”

“I’ve never noticed—”

“To the point of vomiting. If they smell it. If they even see it.”

“That’s—”

“Oh, yes!” Her eyes flashed mysteriously. “The fear is: I can’t see what I’m drinking. You know? I can’t see all the way down to the bottom of the cup. I’m just telling you what the fear is. I personally think it’s absurd.”

With a giggle, Mrs. Olivet closed the door and Lydia was alone. A tray of cookies looked unappetizing next to an old-fashioned coffee percolator. The coffee was strong and hot, so hot that it didn’t taste like much of anything, just generically hot liquid. Lydia poured herself a cup and grabbed some cookies, holding them in her lap as she squinted at a pile of magazines.
Cosmo. Business Week.
Something with Katie Couric on the cover. She knew it at once—a
sense
of Katie Couric preceded the face itself. This was Lydia’s ambition for her son—to make him a presence, a kind of psychological screen saver. What you saw when there was nothing else to see. Why him? Why
not
him? The reasons seemed arbitrary. Defeated, she now wanted an explanation, only that. Old desires turned hard inside her body. An undigested weight refused to go down.

An hour went by before the proctor finally returned, holding a scorecard in her hand. Her lips were straight and serious. She took a seat next to the coffeemaker, then hesitated, letting a difficult moment pass. “Your son is a very special boy,” she began.

“Yes he is.” They nodded sadly at each other, then at the floor.

“And special boys sometimes . . . have special problems.”

“Okay.”

“They just do. And it’s up to us . . . to understand it.” Wrapping her fingers around the scorecard, she formed the sheet of paper into a slender tube. “And sometimes, certain children are unable to perform . . . certain functions.”

“That’s true.”

“It just happens. It just does, and I don’t think the good Lord above knows why. And that doesn’t make someone a bad person. You can be a very good person, and still not be able to perform . . . certain functions.”

“Functions.”

“Functions such as . . . multiplication.”

“I gotcha.”

“You don’t have to know how to do that. And that doesn’t make you a bad person.” The woman reached into her blazer pocket and pulled out a roll of breath mints. One mint spilled out into her hand—white with flecks of green, like linoleum tile. “Some people can do some things. And other people can do other things. And that’s what makes this world a wonderful place. We need good, strong people, who don’t necessarily know how to . . . spell. We
need
them.”

“We do.”

“Fishermen, for example.” She popped the mint into her mouth, then bit down, holding it between her teeth. “They’re good people! Good, solid people. And they perform for society . . . a function . . . that some people wouldn’t necessarily want to do themselves.”

“Air-traffic controller.”

Mrs. Olivet frowned queerly. “Air-traffic controller?”

“As another thing to do.”

“No, air-traffic controllers have to know . . . trigonometry, for one thing.”

“Oh.”

“
Advanced
computer programming. So. Air-traffic controller would be out, unless something changed . . . pretty damn quick.”

“Right.”

“But what I’m saying is, there’s a whole lotta things—I mean, look at Harry Truman! Harry Truman couldn’t do . . . some basic thing. And next thing you know—”