Adam and Evil - Gillian Roberts Page 0,2

harmonize with the song of my follicles.’ End quote.”

“You’ll do what?” Mackenzie swiveled and endangered his perch. Sam dropped the J. Crew catalogue and rushed to the rescue, grabbing the sides of the ladder, steadying it. The women made sounds of alarm, the men made sounds indicating they could take care of anything.

“Not me. Adam.” I repeated the sentence. Mackenzie shook his head, as well he might. “I’ve asked for a conference with his parents,” I said. “There are too many strange things like this about him lately. He should be evaluated, get some help before… I don’t know what. He’s off somewhere, can’t concentrate, reacts bizarrely with inappropriate laughs or no emotion at all…” My words dribbled off because I had so little confidence in my own opinion. I had a strong sense that Adam was having mental and emotional problems, but he’d done reasonably well on his SAT exams, and that piece was such a bad fit with the rest of the puzzle, it worried me, made me think perhaps I was being too harsh on the boy.

“It must be difficult trying to teach writing,” Sam said in his calm, ultrasane manner.

“It’s impossible.” Writing logically requires thinking logically—and how can you teach that? But—speaking of logical thinking—how can you not try to? “So what’s your take? Is that follicle thing as weird a concluding thought as I think it is?”

“It’s, um, interesting. Really. I don’t know about poetry, but I kind of liked it,” Beth said.

“Imaginative,” Sam said.

“Vivid,” Mackenzie said. “Singing follicles would sound way better than a Walkman.”

The children, in bright plastic smocks I’d surprised them with, continued playing with modeling clay, also an Aunt Mandy treat. They did not participate in the Adam Evans follicle debate.

Another reason to love being an aunt. I can be generous for very little outlay, endearing in short spurts, and incommunicado the rest of the time. And they don’t leave me with papers to grade.

“Really?” I asked. “Interesting? Imaginative? Vivid? That’s what comes to mind?” Maybe Adam was taking a creative leap, in which case, even if I personally felt he fell flat, I should encourage him.

My sister glanced at her watch. “Let’s clean up,” she said. “The party’s already begun.”

“Why don’t you go ahead?” Sam suggested. “The kids and I will pick you up in an hour or so. I’ll stay and help…”

Neither he nor Beth knows what to call my significant other. I call him C.K., but they’re taken aback by his remaining a set of initials. “Call him Chico,” I said.

“Wrong,” Mackenzie said.

“I meant Czeslaw. I always mix those two up.”

Beth meanwhile aimed peevish looks at her husband, who ignored them. She switched her attention to me. Earlier she’d tried to sell me on this party giver, one Emily Buttonwood, a soon-to-be-divorced, newly relocated-to-center-city friend of hers. She’d been adamant about how we just had to meet and become new best friends. I’d redirected the conversation to Adam, hoping it would convey an inkling of why my life was sufficiently congested and chaotic without becoming a city guide to one more bewildered former suburbanite. I’d done it twice so far for Beth, with time-consuming, dismal results.

“Reconsider, Mandy, and come with me,” Beth said. “You’d just love each other. You have so much in common—she’s a book lover, like you. In fact, she’s so down on people, books are about all she loves these days—with a few exceptions. She needs people like you. Single, interesting people.”

Flattering, but no cigar. A depressed, bitter, people-hating new friend. Precisely what I needed to round out my life. “I’d love to, of course,” I lied. “But I have these papers to finish, a lesson to prepare, and…”

Beth looked downcast. Then she brightened. “I nearly forgot. Emmy would be perfect for your women’s book group. I told her about it, and she’s really looking forward to it. Will you give her a call? Or should I give her your number?”

“They just voted to close membership. It was getting too large and unwieldy. No time for everybody to speak up.” All true, but it nonetheless left me with the sense I’d failed Emmy Buttonwood in her hour of need, without ever having met her. Somehow I now owed her. I wasn’t sure how my sister had so effortlessly instilled guilt about negligence to a stranger, but she had the gift. She has inherited my mother’s tenacious nagging skills. Both of them should have been CEOs of major corporations. Instead they apply their formidable powers to