I'll Let You Go (9 page)

“Oh my God!” said Boulder as she bounded in, wide-eyed at the cornucopia. “Edward, you are amazing!”

“I was going to bring food from home but for some reason it didn't happen.”

“It happened for
you
,” said Tull, raising a gentle eyebrow at the cousin's non-communal meal—minimalist though it was.

“It's just soup.” He brought a spoonful to his tiny mouth then wiped a trickle from the titanium, patting down the protuberant chin with the bib. Tull thought the veil made him look like a deranged harem girl.

“And who's
that
for?” asked Lucy. She referred to a tray that sat by itself, with food maturely arranged.

“Mr. Hookstratten.”

“
He's
coming?” called Boulder with a full mouth, cross-legged on the Hokanson. “Doesn't he teach today?”

“He's tutoring Dad,” said Edward.

At the mention of Uncle Dodd, Tull's heart fluttered—this was the
Forbes
coverboy who not only knew unthinkable secrets about his father but had dared blurt them out to his gossipy girl-child. Of all the people he could have told! If
Lucy
knew, it was likely
everyone
did. The thought jolted him. She smugly watched him squirm; he could tell their tacit agreement not to discuss the recent revelation was near unraveling and that gave him another hideous frisson. Tull switched to conversational autopilot.

“What do you mean, tutoring?” he said blandly.

“The fact is,” said Lucy (and it seemed to Tull she was at this moment savoring life to the fullest), “that Father maintains a bit of an inferiority complex about his abysmal high school GPA. So Mr. Hookstratten comes over and they read the classics. I think it's sweet.”

Boulder dabbed at some barbecue sauce that had found its way to the woolen weave.

“Like which classics?” offered Tull. The tension surrounding Lucy and the potential public airing of his uncle's disclosure had the effect of both zombifying and nauseating him, at once.

“I'm sure they'll be taking a look at one of Lucy's faves,” laughed Edward. “
When a Grandparent Dies
!”

“Very funny,” she said.

Tull winced, remembering how he had upbraided Lucy for her journalistic methods. It was now his prime objective to keep her displeasure at a minimum; he didn't want her provoked by
anyone
, and present company was a volatile mix—Boulder liked to jump on Lucy with as much relish as did Edward. Tull's morbid fear was that if the redhead was teased too much, she might suddenly spill the beans about his father, merely to deflect negative attention—not that Tull could be sure it still
was
a secret. Lucy had always had a crush on him, and that was the only bit of leverage he had in terms of her doing the right and decent thing: keeping her trap shut.

“Seriously, Edward,” said Tull, rushing to Lucy's aid with delusional chivalry. “Who are they studying?”

“Oh, you know—Tolstoy, Chaucer … Steve Martin's
Shopgirl
 … all the heavy texts. Daddy pores over it, then Professor Hookstratten deconstructs. Hookstratten
gets busy
!”

Boulder asked if the teacher was going to Europe.

“Europe? For what?” wondered Tull, overeager.

Edward squinted at his friend, annoyed. “You're awfully inquisitive today.”

He would have to watch himself; the cousin was onto him. He could smell Tull's fear. “Dad's taking Third-Tier Honors on holiday,” sneered Lucy. “Well his plane is, anyway—the Boeing.” She gave Tull a contemptuous once-over. “Don't you know
anything
?”

Boulder flipped through a teen girl's fanzine called
All About You!—
ironically, she was on the cover. “I really want to go to that beach in Belgium,” she said, bored with the “Star Poll Picks.” Boulder said there was a beach in Belgium where if a person wanted to face the sun, they had to turn their back to the ocean; apparently, it was the only beach like that in the world. Lucy said that was weird and Pullman farted. Everyone
burst out laughing. At the end of the jag, something caught Tull's eye through the Mauck window.

“Hey,” he said. “It's the girl.”

“What girl?”

“From the set.”

Lucy joined to watch. At odds with herself, the urchin moved inexorably toward the specialty vehicle as if pulled by a great magnet. The reflective glass made it impossible to see her audience.

“Look! She can't help herself,” said Lucy. “We're the monolith from
2001
.”

“You're about as flat,” said Edward.

“What's a monolith?” asked Boulder, blasé.

“She's
sweet
,” said Lucy, earnest and patronizing.

Boulder glanced through the window, then flopped onto a $10,000 Costa del Sol Alcazar nightspread. “I hate it when crew bring their fucking kids to the set.”

“I don't think she—she looks kind of homeless.”

“Maybe she has AIDS.”

“Boulder,” said Lucy. “That is so mean!” She tended to be exclamatory around her famous friend.

“Or hep C—
everyone's
got hep C. Or scabies! Oh God, do you
remember
, Lucy?”

“I so hated having scabies.”

“Well,” said Tull, “I'm going to ask her in for lunch.”

“
Please
don't!”

“Boulder, we
have
to. I'll use it for my essay.”

“What essay?”

Lucy put on her girl-detective/bestselling-author face. “It's research. I'm getting credit for writing about visiting you.”

Boulder sighed. “I so hate the homeless.”

“Oh my God, Boulder, that is so vile!”

The movie star laughed devilishly and tickled Lucy until she begged for mercy.

“Edward,” said Tull. “
You
decide. It's your Mauck.”

“
It's my Mauck
,” sang Boulder, “
and I'll cry if I want to!
” She did a spastic dance and laughed another starry, bigger-than-life laugh.

“You're
stoned
,” said Lucy.

“Well what say, Eddikins?” ventured Tull, in a terrible rendition of some upper-crust character. “Shall we ask her in? Are you a man or are you a Mauck?”

“I say,” said the cousin, hand poised thoughtfully to chin brace, “that we haul her unwashed homeless butt aboard.”

Boulder beseeched the unsavory visitor be kept at the door with her back to them, like at the Belgian beach.

The sight of her crushed him. Why had he set all this in motion? Tull felt like one of those World War II GIs on the History Channel giving candy to children amid the rubble of cities—only he was about to lure the little one to a death by embarrassment at the hands of his rarefied friends. He hung back in the passenger seat, afraid she'd run.

“Hi,” he said. “I'm Toulouse.”

He
never
called himself that.

“Tull,” he corrected. “Tull Trotter.” He felt ridiculous. “What's your name?”

The girl said nothing.

“Do you want—would you like some lunch?”

He hated himself. She just kept staring. Then:

“Amaryllis.”

“What?”

An eternal pause, in which he thought she'd bolt.

“My name is Amaryllis.”

“Like the place in Texas?” Another massively dumb thing. Again her ancient stare, like the bas-relief of a child's tomb. “My friends—my friends want to meet you.” Epic dumbness. Silence. She twitched. He'd blown it. “We have tons of food. If—if you're hungry.”

Nothing to do now but retreat. She came closer, like Edith Stein to concentration camp gas. Lucy effusively threw an absurd, corn-fed “Howdy!” at the girl. Tull gave her a look and his cousin demurred. Then he went inside and strode to Mr. Hookstratten's pleated seat, tearing the cellophane off the absentee tutor's tray, wanting to feed her right away. After a minute or so, Amaryllis poked her head under the gull wing, trembling. Tull beckoned and she clambered in. She stood before them, a muted cable news anchor laughing beside her head.

“You must be
so hungry
,” said Lucy, coaxing. “What's your name?”

“It's Amaryllis,” said Tull.

“Can't she talk?” said Lucy.

Boulder rolled her eyes, shook her head and picked up
Teen People
.

“Your name is Amaryllis? That is
so
pretty!”

“Would you like some chocolates before lunch?”

The orphan turned to see where the voice had emanated from, then focused on the seated apparition ladling soup into its mouth behind a gossamer yellow hood. Astonished, she moved backward, falling. Tull rushed to her aid while the others tittered like munchkins.

“Don't mind Edward. He's, uh, disabled.”

The beautiful girl who had played for the camera had spoken. She was lying on a quilted bed, languidly flitting through an old
Weekly Variety
. Her beauty—her luminescence—had a strangely comforting, nearly soporific effect upon the visitor.

“Disabled but still able to
dis
,” said Edward.

“Oh, just come and sit,” said Boulder to the girl imperiously. “Don't make us beg. It's not attractive.”

Amaryllis obeyed. She moved toward her seat and promptly stepped on the dozing Pullman. She shrieked. Barely stirring, the animal broke wind. Amaryllis smiled as everyone laughed, then grew self-conscious and sat grimly, as if reprimanded. Tull was amazed by what that smile did to him.

He took her greasy backpack and hung it from a peg. With his artful encouragements, she began to eat while Lucy and Edward peppered her with questions. Where did she live? (Nearby.) Where did she go to school? (Not far.) Why wasn't she in school? (Getting medicine for her mother.) And what did her mother do? (Worked. Sick today.)

Amaryllis had hardly taken her eyes off Boulder; finally, the stare became fixed.

“Are you an actress?”

“Sometimes.”

“She doesn't know who you are!” said Lucy, delighted. Perversely, Boulder made as if she liked that. Lucy turned back to their guest. “She's a very
famous
actress.”

Edward watched Tull hover. “God, Tull, cut her food, why don't you.”

“When you work for Disney, you don't
act—
I mean, not really. You're sort of … animated. You need to look
cute
.”

“Which you always do,” said Lucy.

“When oh when,
please
can someone let me do an indie?”

“Do you go to school?” asked Amaryllis.

“Oh my God, I'm being interviewed! Mostly on the set. I have a teacher.”

“But when she doesn't,” said Lucy, “she deigns to attend Four Winds with the pleh-
bee
-enz.”

“Four Winds?”

“It's a school,” said Tull. “In Santa Monica.”

“We all go there.”

Amaryllis turned to Edward and asked, “What happened to you?”

The cousin chortled. “Oh, I
like
that! Let's put that on a T-shirt!
What happened to you?
We'd sell millions! I love it!”

“He's got Apert's,” said Lucy.

“Big Head Disease,” said Boulder. “That's all you need to know.”

“He's the smartest boy on earth,” said Tull.

“He's a saint,” said Lucy.

“They streamlined the process,” blurted Amaryllis with enthusiasm, immediately wishing she hadn't. She was rusty. She hadn't spoken with other children for so long—with anyone really, except for Topsy and the babies—and these were like no children she'd ever met … but now, she had better go on or they'd think her crazy. “They streamlined the process for becoming a saint. John Paul made it easier. Everyone's on a fast track.”

Lucy and Boulder exchanged secret looks and Tull winced, wishing to protect the girl from the half-assed cruelties of the world. He was having major feelings, all of which his braided tormentor noticed with customary alacrity.

“Amaryllis is such a
pretty
name,” offered Lucy again, somewhat poisonously.

Tull detected the hint of an English accent and hoped nothing lurid was coming.

“I hate it when you start doing Anna Paquin,” said Boulder.

“Does it mean anything?” posed the unflappable inquisitrix. “I mean, the name?”

“It's a flower,” said Amaryllis. “From South Africa.”

“Is that where you're from?” asked Lucy, brightening. “I mean—Africa?”

Tull bridled and Amaryllis meekly shook her head.

Edward stood from his chair. “Amaryllis, do you like orchids?”

“What are they?” she asked. Boulder rolled her eyes at Lucy again.

“This,” said Tull, plucking a flower from a slim celadon vase, “is an orchid.” She held the stem in her hand and stared.

“A
hybrid
,” said the cousin.

A large white petal stood up like a bishop's miter; beneath it, a pouch in the shape of the chin of a cartoon Mountie—or the chin of the boy called Edward.

Bisecting both was a leafy mustache, speckled with polka dots.

The invalid proffered a discrete flower, with movie-star-red lips. “This one
is
from South Africa—like your name,” he said. “It grows on waterfalls.”

“You know,” said Lucy, “you should really come to Four Winds and visit.” She turned to the others. “Don't you think?”

“It'd be great!” said Boulder, rather affectlessly.

“We're doing a homeless project,” she continued while Tull glared. “We're building sidewalk shelters—I mean, that's not
why
you should visit. It's just that if you've ever had that
experience
or know someone who
has
 … We're using really strong, light materials—space-age. And laptops to design them.”