by Lisa Tucker
The phone wasn’t ringing anymore, he just realized that. He wondered if Matthew had finally turned off his cell when he heard that Amelia was coming over. All day, that stupid cell phone had been ringing at least ten times more often than the other phone. Maybe Matthew was afraid she’d answer and say she was his housekeeper, like she’d done on Friday. Which was so strange Danny couldn’t understand it, though listening to her had given him the idea to pretend he couldn’t remember the name of a babysitter. It was part of his con, as Matthew called it, and it had worked, though now there was this new big problem. He would be glad when his mom was home.
He was a little bored just sitting there, but it was probably good that he could hear everything Matthew and Amelia were saying. He could never tell what it would help him to know.
“I can’t leave until I’m sure you’re all right. Maybe I should call Ben. He can at least check you out and make sure you haven’t had—”
“It’s not a heart attack.” After a while, he said, “So you can leave.”
She waited a minute, maybe more. “Danny told me you saw your boss on Saturday. And you didn’t make it to work today.” Another very long pause, and then she said in a completely different voice, “Did you get fired?”
She sounded lighter, happy even, and Danny was completely confused. He knew getting fired was bad. It was worse if you were poor, but it was still bad if you were rich, because then you would be poor unless you got another job before you ran out of money. And even if Dr. Connelly got another job right away, he would still be upset because he loved Astor-Denning. He’d never told Danny that, but he didn’t have to; it was like the most obvious thing about the guy. Even when he talked about their commercial his face lit up. When Danny asked if he minded having to see his boss on a Saturday, he said, “No, I always work weekends. I really enjoy my work, as un-American as that sounds.” He grinned. “Don’t tell the Democrats or they’ll have to hold hearings about that, too.”
“Yes,” Matthew said now. “I got fired.”
His voice had changed. He wasn’t a zombie, but he wasn’t upset, either. He wasn’t grumpy like usual or angry like he was when Danny’s mom stole his wallet or happy like he was with Isabelle. It was so hard to tell what he was feeling that Danny wondered if he was trying to hide something. Maybe he was lying? It would make sense since he got an awful lot of phone calls for someone who didn’t have a job. On the other hand, if he had gotten fired, that would explain why he’d been so weird since Saturday.
“I’m sorry if I can’t see this as a bad thing,” Amelia said. “You know what I think of that place.”
“I do.”
She acted like she hadn’t heard him. “It’s a corrupt company and you’ll be better off without any of those people in your life.”
“Any of them?” he said quietly. “Are you saying that the forty-one thousand plus people who work for AD around the world are all corrupt?”
“No, I’m sure some of them are fine. It’s not the lower-level employees that I have a problem with at any of the Big Pharma companies. The executives are the ones who put profit above the public good. They’re the ones I consider evil.”
He didn’t say anything.
“They have to be evil to do what they do. Don’t you think so now that you’re out of there and you can see it more clearly?”
He still didn’t say anything.
“Well, it just happened. Give yourself some time to adjust. I really think you’re going to see that this firing is the best thing that ever happened to you.” She paused. “Why did they fire you, anyway? I thought you told me once that Walter Healy would always protect you. Did they get rid of him, too?” She snorted. “It’s hard to imagine after what he pulled off in Paris.”
“I don’t think I told you that. If so, I wish I hadn’t.”
Right then, Danny knew that Matthew was really mad. His voice when he said “I wish I hadn’t” was quiet but incredibly tense, like it was taking everything he had not to scream the words. No wonder he was mad. Amelia didn’t understand how he felt about Astor-Denning at all. Even Danny could tell that Matthew didn’t mean that question about the forty-one thousand people who worked there. And the way she said the word evil about some of the workers, which his mom had told him never to use about anybody, because only God knows who is truly evil. “You can call rich people bastards, but don’t call them evil. It’s bad karma.”
Amelia was bringing a lot of bad karma on herself right now; Danny could feel it. He felt guilty, too, because he’d called her over here to help.
He decided to interrupt them. He stepped over his sister and went into the room. Amelia was sitting on the bed, and Matthew was sitting up now, too, which was good. But he’d moved over to the other corner, where Isabelle had her dolls, like he wanted to be as far away as possible from Amelia. She looked pretty with her pink cheeks and red hair curling down her back, jeans and a white sweater. Matthew still had on the tan pants and blue shirt from Saturday, and they were a wrinkled mess. His knees were pressed against his chest and one arm was resting on his knees, with his face pressed into that elbow. All Danny could see were his eyes, and even they were hard to see because his hair was all bent up from lying down so much, and the front part was hanging down on his forehead.
“I overheard a little,” Danny said. “I’m really sorry you got fired.” Then he looked at Amelia, hoping she’d take the hint and say something sympathetic, even if she didn’t mean it.
“Thanks,” Matthew said.
“I’m really sorry,” Danny kept trying, “because I know how much you liked working at Astor-Denning. It must be sad not to be able to go there anymore.”
Isabelle threw off the iPod and came in, too. She stood near Matthew and said his name, but much more softly than usual, like even she knew that he needed kindness. He picked her up and sat her next to him, but he was still looking at Danny. Finally, he said, “It is sad. You’re right. I appreciate that.”
Amelia stood up and said she had to go. Danny was desperate for Amelia to say one nice thing to Matthew so she could make up for the bad karma. He walked over to her. “Don’t you think it’s sad, too?”
“You’re such a kind boy,” she said, touching Danny’s cheek.
“You are,” Matthew said. Danny was very surprised. Matthew had never said anything like that to him. After another pause, Matthew said, “But even you can’t change everything.”
It was like somehow he knew what Danny was trying to do with Amelia. He knew, and he was saying it was hopeless. Which made Danny feel even worse. When Amelia was sick last week, Matthew had carried her to the car and been so nice. Why couldn’t she see that he’d been sick for the last two days, even if it wasn’t throwing-up-type sick?
Amelia said, “And some things you don’t want to change. You’re too young to understand, but sometimes it’s better to be fired than stay somewhere that’s evil.”
She said it again! Danny was frantic. He had to get her to stop doing this. “My mom said it’s wrong to use the word evil .”
“Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s so obviously true that you have to say it.”
He looked at her. “But you don’t know all the people at Astor-Denning. Maybe they’re okay.” He thought about the equation. “They find cures for people, and that’s a good thing.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that. Believe me, they’ve done some very bad things.” She patted Danny’s hair. “But you shouldn’t be thinking about any of this. You’re a little boy. You have plenty of time to decide what’s right and wrong when you grow up.”
Matthew gave him a look and he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be innocent. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t really understand what you were talking about anyway.”
Amelia hugged him. “I’m going to take off now. Ben is probably home from the lab.”
“Thank you for coming over,” Matthew said. “You’ve helped me more than you know.”
“Gl
ad I could do it,” she said. Danny was relieved. Finally, one nice thing, but then she ruined it. “But I only came here to check on Danny and Isabelle.”
“I assumed as much,” Matthew said. And smiled.
If only Amelia had noticed that smile, she would have known how Matthew really felt about what she’d said. If only she’d listened to Danny when he tried to help her get rid of all that bad karma.
After she left, Matthew reached under the bed and pulled out his cell phone. He turned it on and punched some buttons. While he was listening, he said, “Two hundred and eighty-two messages. Christ, how is that possible?”
Danny said, “I don’t know. It rang a lot, but not that many times.”
“I had it off all day Sunday and the first few hours today.” He shut the phone. “I don’t know why I turned it on when I did. Must have been suffering from a bizarre impulse to punish myself.”
Isabelle was pushing a Barbie into his hand. He took it. “Want me to rip her head off?” he said, looking at her.
“No!” she said, but she laughed.
Danny sat down on the floor. “Did you really get fired?”
Matthew shook his head. “I only told Amelia that because I couldn’t trust her with what really happened.” He paused. “But I will tell you. A good friend of mine is dying.”
“That sucks,” Danny said.
“It does.” He looked at Danny. “I don’t think I’ve heard you say sucks before. Fine by me, but don’t do it around Amelia. She’ll think I’m a bad influence, even recruiting you into my spooky cult of evil.”
“I know you’re not really evil.” Even though his friend was dying, Matthew was tickling Isabelle’s foot. No one who treated his sister this good could be that bad.
“Thank you. I consider myself a decent enough guy; not perfect, but hardly the reincarnation of Satan.” He asked Isabelle if she was hungry and she said yes even though Danny had fed her dinner. “I’m starving,” he said to her. “Let’s go in the kitchen and see what’s available.”
Danny followed them to ask if Matthew was planning to do something to get back at Amelia.
“You are quick,” Matthew said. He and Isabelle were looking in the refrigerator; his sister was pointing at her favorite cheese. “I wouldn’t say I’m doing it to get back at her, but I admit, she won’t be happy about it.” He handed Isabelle a slice of cheese and glanced at Danny. “Since I know you have tender feelings for the Pain in the Ass, let me assure you that she brought this on herself when she tried to blackmail me.”
He wasn’t sure what blackmail meant, but he knew Amelia had brought it on herself. Still, he thought about sneaking the phone into the bathroom and calling her again, to warn her. In the end, he decided not to because though he liked Amelia, Matthew was here and she wasn’t. It was as simple as that.
After Matthew and Isabelle had eaten cheese and two bananas and several cookies, he sat down at his computer, just like the last two days hadn’t happened. “Banging out email,” he said. He had the cell phone hooked up to headphones so he could listen to all the voice messages, too. Isabelle was watching cartoons. Danny was keeping an eye on her while trying to figure out the Game Boy.
“What do you think?” Matthew said, pushing down the headphones. “Should I call today my personal multidimensional agile enterprise summit?”
“I don’t know what it means.”
“Neither do I, but hopefully they’ll think it’s a cutting-edge leadership approach.” He shook his head. “Knowing Knolton, he’ll claim he invented the idea. He always says he knew the world was flat before Thomas Friedman.”
“That’s a really weird thing to say.” Danny knew for sure that the world wasn’t flat. He’d learned that in kindergarten.
“He’s an asshole.” Matthew shrugged. “But I’m going to have to learn to tolerate him. Until I can get rid of him, which won’t be long. Want to bet I can get rid of him in a year?”
“No.”
Matthew accused him of being scared to lose, but that wasn’t why. Danny was thinking he wouldn’t be here in a year, so he couldn’t know if he won.
He figured out the Game Boy controls, but he kept dying because he couldn’t get Mega Man to kill the first robot. It was frustrating and not very much fun. He wondered how the thief kid in their house could sit and play his Game Boy Advance for hours.
“I’m going to watch cartoons with Isabelle,” he said.
Matthew didn’t hear him; he had the headphones on again. Danny couldn’t see a reason to repeat himself. He wasn’t sure why he’d told Matthew where he was going in the first place.
He went to his sister and she sat in his lap while they watched Fairly OddParents . She watched the show, but he was busy thinking about everything that had happened. He’d been at Matthew’s house almost two weeks now. Isabelle had changed completely, but he didn’t feel that different. Maybe it was harder to change when you were older. He dreamed about his mom almost every night. He kept wondering how she was doing, wishing he could call her, wishing she would call them, though he knew she didn’t have the number. After Matthew was back to normal for a few days, Danny was going to ask him if they were allowed to call Changes to check on his mom. He’d made a calendar, and he was marking off the days. Six down, twenty-four to go. For the next twenty-four days, if he kept being super nice to Matthew, maybe the guy would help his mom get an apartment and even a job. If only she could work at Astor-Denning—answering phones, filing, something. She had a lot of skills, or she used to have them, before her habit got so bad that she stopped working. She’d never liked any of the jobs she had back then, but maybe she’d like it if she could work there. Maybe she’d stay away from her drug addict friends and hang out with people like Matthew and Ben and Amelia, who were sort of weird, but so lucky. They all had nice clothes and great coats and thick gloves and money and credit cards and houses and food. Amelia could go to the hospital and get right in, rather than waiting on a bench moaning like so many other people in the ER. Matthew could spend a workday in bed and not be fired. Ben could even get a job on Thanksgiving, when hardly any jobs were open.
They had no idea how incredibly easy they had it. No wonder it was so tough to beg from normal people. They were so caught up in their own problems. He’d always thought they couldn’t see him and his mom and Isabelle, but now he knew it was worse. They couldn’t see themselves, either. They never got to sit back and think everything is fine now. Life is good.
At the moment, Danny was feeling pretty much like that. Isabelle was in his lap; he could smell her hair. It always smelled good now that she took a daily bath. He put his arms around her and she leaned against him, like the old days. She let him kiss her and she said, “Danny.” Then she pointed at the little fairies on the show. And he said, “I see them.”
“Poof!” Isabelle said, when the woman fairy used her wand to change a boy into an older kid who could drive a motorcycle.
He could hear Matthew typing away and talking on the phone now. He heard him say “Cassie.” He heard him laugh.
“Life is good,” he tried. If only his mom were there, it would be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Heroes of the Twenty-first Century
Though Amelia had never heard of Danny’s bad karma theory, she still knew something bad had happened to her that night. She worked so hard to keep it from meaning anything, but her life kept conspiring against her.
When Matthew was locked in his room and she thought he’d had a heart attack or a stroke, her fear was all too real, though she knew she’d feel this way about anybody: a neighbor, a friend, and, yes, someone from her past like Matthew. She didn’t get worried about her own response until it struck her that he’d been fired, and then her anger was so sudden and intense it was like she’d been transported back to when they’d lived together. She took it personally, that he was finally doing the one thing she’d wanted all along; he was leaving that stupid company. Now, when it was years too late.
&n
bsp; She was sitting on the bed with him. He looked dejected, but also vulnerable and strangely younger, like the guy in Baltimore who’d called her “little red-haired girl.” She didn’t decide to hurt him, but she had to distance herself from the sudden overwhelming sense that she didn’t understand her own emotions. She couldn’t show how she really felt about him being fired, so she chose a reaction that would make sense. She acted happy about it. She acted like it was a purely good thing, because, after all, it was. Her personal reaction was irrelevant. A smart man was leaving an evil corporation. That was obviously a reason to celebrate.
She knew Matthew was depressed about leaving AD, but unfortunately, his feelings didn’t make her think he was a die-hard pharma sleazebag, still wishing he could spin lies to market his overpriced products to the unsuspecting public. His sadness made her feel sorry for him—and that infuriated her. Why should she feel bad for him? He had so much money now and the rest of his life to do exactly as he pleased. If he wanted to get married, he could; if he wanted children, he could have a dozen of them. Waiting all these years to leave that company hadn’t hurt him in the slightest. And it hadn’t hurt her, it couldn’t have, unless she had some kind of unresolved feelings, which would mean she was losing her mind.
After she left, she thought she’d handled it as well as she could have under the circumstances. She didn’t regret saying she’d come over only to check on Danny and Isabelle; why should she? It was just like Matthew saying he was only taking care of her for Ben. They were nothing to each other anymore, and that was the truth. Everything else was confusion, probably caused by the hormones that were making her breasts ache and her stomach churn and her mind an emotional wreck.
Since she and Ben had checked into the Philly hotel on Saturday, she’d been crying off and on for all kinds of reasons: because she missed her tiny staff, her friends, even her apartment in Brooklyn. Of course she’d been traveling for months with Ben, but this was different. The man she’d fallen in love with had been busy raising money to vaccinate children against malaria, but between the speeches and dealing with the media, he’d still had time to talk to her. Now he was back in the lab again, doing work he loved. He was happier than she’d ever seen him, which would have been great if he was ever home. On Sunday, he went in at six-thirty in the morning and came back after nine, when she was already asleep. He woke her up to tell her how well it was going. Richard was giving him everything he needed to get started. Monday, the day Danny called, she hadn’t heard from Ben all day. She forced herself to wait up for him until ten-thirty, even though she had to splash water on her face to stay awake. (Her constant exhaustion was normal, according to her gynecologist, and caused by the surge in progesterone, according to Ben.) When he finally came home at a few minutes after eleven, she couldn’t even rouse herself to tell him that Matthew had been fired. As the days went by and she didn’t say anything about it, she might have worried what her silence meant, if she and Ben had ever had time to really talk.
