Amanda Bright @ Home (8 page)

“That’s not what I think,” the teacher replied sternly. “I think what we have here is a troubled boy showing early signs of an obsession with violence.”

Amanda frowned. “I—I don’t think that’s right. I wouldn’t say that Ben is ‘obsessed’ with violence—”

“Then how do you explain these drawings? And it’s not just the drawings.” Ms. Burley waved her hand in exasperation. “There is not an object in this room that Ben has not at some point turned into a weapon. Last week it was the blackboard eraser.”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.” Amanda picked up one of the drawings to study it again. “We certainly don’t encourage violence at home.”

And this was true. She and Bob did not allow what they called “war toys” in the house. The only exception to this rule was a plastic figure of General George Patton in his cavalry uniform, equipped with two miniature pearl-handled revolvers, a gift from Bob’s father last Christmas. Amanda had immediately reproached her father-in-law for the present. “You know how we feel about guns,” she had said. “We don’t want Ben growing up to be a criminal.” “Or a war hero,” the old man had muttered under his breath. Ben, who understood at once that this was exactly the kind of toy his parents would never permit him to own, ripped it from its cardboard wrapping and kept constant watch over it, lest it “vanish” like the last Christmas present his grandparents had bought for him: a commando costume complete with a machine gun that lit up and made electronic zapping noises when fired.

“I’m not suggesting you encourage violence,” Ms. Burley was saying. “What I’m wondering is, are there problems at home?”

“No—”

“Any changes recently? Upheavals?”

“Look, I really don’t think Ben’s behavior is that unusual—for a boy, I mean. Perhaps it’s because his grandfather is a veteran; Ben likes to hear him tell stories, and maybe these pictures just reflect a—a
historical interest
in war, like a lot of boys have …”

“We needn’t revert to sexist stereotypes to see that Ben has a problem. The other boys don’t engage in this obsession.”

“Ben’s best friend—Austen Saunders—likes that sort of play. They’re always shooting at each other! I put a stop to it, of course—”

“It would be improper for me to comment on other children in the class,” the teacher replied stiffly. “But let me put it this way: I haven’t had to call in any other mother to discuss a similar problem. Other mothers, however, have called in to complain about Ben.”

Amanda suddenly felt her gut shrivel up. Oh, why had Bob not been able to join her at this meeting?

“I want this addressed before we promote Ben to kindergarten,” Ms. Burley continued ominously. “It would be very tough on him if he couldn’t be promoted with his friends.”

“I see.” Amanda searched her brain for another line of defense but couldn’t find one. “What do you suggest?”

“Well, before school ends for the summer, I’d like him to attend a few sessions with our guidance counselor. With your permission, of course. Dr. Koenig is excellent at dealing with these kinds of problems.”

“I think—”

They were interrupted by the yells and laughter of the class returning from recess. Ben saw his mother from the hall. With a whoop of excitement, he yelled, “Attack!” dived into the room, and rolled across the floor to her feet.

“—that would be fine,” Amanda finished.

Ms. Burley pursed her lips. “Good. I’ll tell Dr. Koenig. She will call you.”

Amanda extricated herself from Ben’s grasp and led him to his desk.

“I’ll see you later,” she whispered, ruffling his hair.

There was no time to get home before Sophie’s dismissal so Amanda lingered in the lobby, brooding over this latest condemnation of Ben.

The front doors squeaked open and slammed. Their echo carried down the empty corridor. Only gradually did Amanda become aware of another presence. The “at-home dad” was hovering near her. His usually squalling toddler was fast asleep in his stroller.

“Hey, Amanda.”

“Hey, Alan.”

“What’s up? You seem—kind of upset.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You look as if the Republicans have started drilling for oil in Rock Creek Park.”

He sat down in his usual place on the floor, shifting to give her room beside him.

“I’ve just come from speaking to Ben’s teacher.”

“Oh. That’s always fun.”

“Yeah, like dental surgery, right? Especially with Burley. Wait till
you
get her. She thinks Ben is too—” Amanda couldn’t bear to use the word
violent
so instead she said, “robust.”

“Huh.” The father’s
huh
was not uttered with the astonishment Amanda expected; Ben’s reputation had apparently extended into the lower reaches of the nursery school as well.

“I just don’t understand it,” Amanda went on. “At home Ben is so sweet. He plays for hours with his sister. They barely ever fight.”

The father stretched out his legs and idly rocked the stroller with one foot. “That’s one of the problems with this school,” he said slowly. “They’re always trying to put your kid into some sort of box. But I tell myself, that’s the world, right? The world is always trying to put you into some sort of box, and you may as well learn early on how to fight your way out of it.”

His burst of bitter profundity surprised Amanda, and she glanced at him sideways, uncertain how seriously he meant to be taken. He was still staring straight ahead, but his expression was not angry; it was bemused—as if life were always dealing him predictable blows. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment more—she hadn’t ever really taken him in like this; they had always conversed hurriedly, among the other waiting mothers, their attention half focused on the stairwell—

“I suppose you must encounter that mentality all the time—being an ‘at-home dad,’” Amanda suggested.

“Yeah. Actually, I’m a playwright, not that anyone ever bothers to find out. I work at home because it’s more convenient and economical, and sure, I can watch Dylan while Lisa’s at the office. But it’s difficult—Nabokov warned of the perils of the pram in the hallway …”

“Are you able to get much writing done?”

“I work during Dylan’s nap and again late at night. Right now I have a play being workshopped in Maryland. Fortunately they rehearse on weekends.”

“That’s great.” It didn’t sound promising, but still, it was something creative, something Amanda couldn’t even imagine accomplishing herself. Guiltily, she recognized that she, too, had succumbed to boxlike thinking in regard to Alan. No matter how much she endorsed the idea of a father at home, when confronted with a fortyish unshaven man in tennis shoes and jeans pushing a stroller, Amanda could not help but think:
Loser.
She corrected her opinion now. Alan’s scruffiness was his defiance of convention, his way of expressing his artistic integrity. For the first time she appreciated, in the sinews of his arms, in the sweat faintly spotting his T-shirt, that as well as being an attentive father, he was also very much a man.

“What’s your play about?”

“You know, you’re the first person here to ever ask me that?” Alan said, impressed. “I’ve sat here and chatted with dozens of mothers and we’ve never gotten beyond school stuff.” He lowered his voice, for the mothers he referred to were beginning to arrive and collect around them.

“My play,” he went on, almost whispering and causing Amanda to lean closer, “challenges exactly these kinds of stereotypes. My protagonist is a homeless man who is not really homeless. He’s a young man who comes from inherited wealth and contracts AIDS. His family rejects him. He rejects them in return and everything they represent. He spends the last months of his life on a journey through the streets, defying the preconceived ideas we have about the homeless and people with AIDS.”

“That sounds—really good.”

“It’s coming together okay,” Alan replied modestly. “My last play was put on by the downtown Y. It was about—well, it’s hard to sum it up in a nutshell, but basically it addressed gender issues through the eyes of a transsexual prostitute. The Warner was thinking about producing it for its ‘New Playwrights’ series but I think they found it too challenging.”

“I’d love to see your play.”

“I’ll invite you to the opening.”

The bell rang and they stood, smiling at each other.

“Sometime we should have a coffee together. It’s good to get out and, you know, talk to other adults,” Alan said, giving his sleeping baby an accusing look. “And you tell Ben to keep being—what was it?—robust. All he’s doing is breaking out of the box.”

Amanda touched his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Are you feeling okay now?”

“Yes—way better.”

“That’s good—although I like seeing you angry. There’s fire in you, too.”

Chapter Seven

THE HOUSE EVEN had a name: “Merrymount.”

The car wheels crunched to a stop in the raked gravel. They were greeted by three valets in tuxedos.

“Good evening, sir,” said the first, accepting Bob’s keys. The second waited patiently for Amanda to unlock her door so he could open it, and bowed slightly as she emerged. The third handed Bob a claim ticket. None registered the slightest reaction to their car. It was driven a few feet away to join a line of BMWs, Porsches, and Mercedes parked in front of a six-door garage.

Bob and Amanda gazed up at the house. Its imposing facade of new orange brick was an opulent jumble of architectural styles, as if the owner had decided he could afford everything: Georgian roof, neoclassical pillars, Palladian windows. A row of perfectly symmetrical boxwoods stood sentry by the porch. All natural foliage seemed to have been banished to the rear of the house.

“Am I dressed okay?”

“You look
great.
”

A butler opened the door before they could ring the bell, and they entered a front hall crowded with guests. The house seemed to unfold in every direction. To the left of the stark white foyer was a curved staircase leading up to a similarly cavernous second-floor landing. To the right, a pair of lacquered doors had been thrown open to expose a suite of rooms that stretched farther than Amanda’s eyes could see. Straight ahead a pair of tall, skinny columns framed a two-story window, showcasing a wooded view of the Potomac River.

A waiter stepped in front of them bearing a tray of white wine. Amanda and Bob each took a glass.

“Please, stay with me,” Amanda whispered, grasping Bob’s hand. “I don’t know anyone at all.”

They stood rigidly for a few seconds, uncertain how to proceed.

“Look, there’s Sussman with Chasen,” said Bob, pointing to the big window. Bob’s boss was huddled in animated conversation with their host, Jack Chasen, founder, largest shareholder, and chief executive officer of TalkNet, the biggest Internet service provider in the world. “Do you want to say hi?”

“Oh God, no. We can’t just go barge in on them.”

“C’mon, don’t be so frightened.”

Bob gripped Amanda’s arm and steered her through the crowd toward the two men. Sussman smiled when he saw them and waved them closer.

Amanda had met Frank Sussman a couple of times at Bob’s office. He was a short, thin man with the waxy complexion and sunken cheeks of a cadaver. Chasen, by contrast, was tall and handsomely tanned, as if he spent most of his waking hours yachting or playing tennis rather than sitting in front of a computer screen plotting the downfall of his archrival, Mike Frith.

Sussman greeted Bob enthusiastically. “Do you know Bob Clarke?” he asked Chasen. “He’s my most valuable soldier. He was on to Megabyte from the beginning.”

Chasen circled an arm around Bob’s shoulders. “Of course I know Bob. I’ve been working with him a lot these days. So glad you could come tonight.”

Amanda stood behind Bob waiting to be introduced. Bob, flushed from Sussman’s compliment, seemed momentarily to have forgotten her.

“You know, Frank,” Chasen continued, turning back to Sussman. “If I had one guy as smart as Bob working for me, we’d have put Megabyte out of business a long time ago.”

“Sorry, Jack, you can’t have him.”

The three men launched into a discussion of the looming Senate hearings on the Megabyte case. That very afternoon, apparently, the Judiciary committee had nerved itself to summon Mike Frith to testify in person.

Amanda sipped her wine and swiveled her head back and forth as if she were part of the conversation, her irritation gathering with each turn of her neck. Neither Sussman nor Chasen acknowledged her with so much as a glance.

Chasen appeared unusually interested in what Bob and Sussman had to say. He asked them questions solicitously, even humbly. And while Sussman answered with lawyerly evasiveness, Bob was soon expounding his views at length. He spoke in a manner entirely unfamiliar to Amanda, with the solemn, lowered voice of a panelist on one of the Sunday-morning political shows.

“See, Frith’s so arrogant,” Bob was saying, “I think he’s going to come off badly no matter what the committee asks him. I think the best thing these hearings could do for us at this point is show the public what a vain jerk Mike Frith is. Right now the polls aren’t great: people don’t like Megabyte very much, but they like the idea of the government going after it even less. It’s really critical we get popular support on our side—and Frith can help us do that.”

“That’s an excellent point, Bob,” Chasen said.

Amanda discreetly prodded her husband in the back.

“Oh, excuse me, this is my wife, Amanda,” Bob said.

“Amanda
Bright,
” she added, extending her hand toward Chasen.

“Do you work at Justice as well?” Chasen asked.

The firmness drained from her grip.

“Um, no …” she stammered. “I used to be at the National Endowment for the Arts—but now I’m at home with my kids.”

“Ah.” Chasen dropped her hand. “Well, that’s a very noble calling.”

Sussman nodded perfunctorily, mumbled how nice it was to see her again, and turned back to Chasen. After several minutes of maintaining a frozen expression of interest, Amanda excused herself to find a bathroom.

Amanda supposed she should not feel so angry or hurt. She had grown accustomed to being treated at certain kinds of Washington parties as if she were invisible. But never before had she been invisible to her own husband. She edged her way back to the front hall, where she figured there would be a bathroom if she really needed one. She didn’t, but it gave her a purpose: so long as she kept moving, she wouldn’t appear stranded and alone.