Read Online Life Among Giants by Bill Roorbach - Free Book Online Page A

lush piano music, and someone counting over it.
    I said, “My mom says I have to return this picture.”
    He gazed into my eyes dreamily. “Your mom,” he said.
    â€œSays I have to return this picture?”
    He accepted the package, bid me wait, padded with it off across the great foyer, disappeared down a hallway.
    Th e piano music abruptly stopped.
    Th en he was back. “Madame says she has not missed that photo, and will not, but would like in any case to replace it with something more to your liking.” And he presented me with a teak case all fitted in brass, Dabney’s initials inlaid delicately on the lid, opened it ceremoniously to reveal a pair of gorgeous old binoculars, polished, shining, clearly beloved.
    â€œSwarovski,” said the butler, “Crystal lenses, clear as night. Mr. Stryker-Stewart was a birdwatcher there for a week or two, one of his finer enthusiasms. We purchased these in Austria, as I recall. Th ousands of dollars, you’ll be happy to know. Th ey’ve not been used.” He shut the fine case and handed it over, peering into the open neck of my shirt, a blush coming to his cheeks. Soulfully, the piano music resumed, then the counting.
    â€œWhoa,” I said, weighing the wooden case in my hands.
    Desmond nodded, let his gaze aspire to mine. Why couldn’t Emily look at me like that? “Madame invites you to tea next Wednesday, guest of your choosing. You’ll attend?”
    â€œOh, I couldn’t,” I said.
    â€œ Th en the answer is yes,” he replied, finding my collarbone again. His voice went timid: “Sir, if you don’t mind. Could you. Strictly as a matter of scientific interest. Would you. Make a muscle for me?”
    Jinnie had forever been asking me to make muscles for her. And I’d made a few for the mirror, truth be told. I was a kid who’d worked out for years, did my pushups a hundred at a time several times a day at any odd moment the spirit moved me, one arm, fingertips, handstand, you name it: pushups. I didn’t want to encourage Desmond, but seeing an advantage, said, “Tell me first why Freddy took my father’s work boots.”
    His eyes drifted to my hair, traced its new length. Absently, he said, “Work boots? I know nothing about Freddy’s activities. And nothing about Nicholas.”
    â€œHow do you know his name, then?”
    â€œ Th rough Katy of course. Now, a muscle?”
    I rolled my T-shirt sleeve up over my shoulder, made a show of flexing, pumped the heavy binocular box like it was a dumbbell, turned my arm this way and that.
    â€œMay I?” he said.
    â€œMy dad,” I said.
    â€œHe is not welcome here,” Desmond said quickly, “neither in person nor in conversation,” and reached up sighing to take his prize.
    But I withheld it, evaded his pinching fingers, pushed my way out through the heavy doors, vaulted down the steps to my mother, realizing too late that I should’ve hidden the binoculars.
    â€œSomething a boy likes,” I said, opening the case at her command.
    She just shrugged. Binoculars were not President Kennedy; binoculars were fine.
    I WAITED FOR an opening to ask Emily to tea at the High Side, blurted it at lunch, stupidly in front of Mark Nussbaum. He said no for her, proprietary, the three of us sitting all awkward at their lunch table. Emily didn’t protest, let him speak for her as if she weren’t one of the most forceful, independent girls in school. From her brightening I could tell she wanted to go—dearly wanted to meet Sylphide. But she and Mark must have had some kind of plan: neither of them was in school on the big day, no explanation.
    So much for my fantasy date.
    My actual date was lurking in the driveway when I moped my way off the school bus and down our little absurd cul-de-sac. Mom had gotten her hair done—horrors—it stood up on her head spiraled and shining like some kind of