Read Online One Good Turn by Judith Arnold - Free Book Online Page A

individual effort.”
    Look at me,
Luke silently pleaded.
Look at me, Dad!
    His father never attended the soccer games Luke played. No matter how high Luke’s grades were, his father never commented on them, except to say, “That’s nice. Now Elliott, what can we do about this B in trigonometry? Should I hire a tutor for you? We’ve got to raise it to an A if you expect to get into Yale.” So many years later, Luke still felt the sting.
    “And I can put in a word for you with Henry Carlisle in New Haven,” his father was now saying. “If only you’d gone to Yale for your undergraduate schooling, you’d be a shoo-in for the law school.”
    Look at me, Dad!
He was twenty-one years old, and he was still aching to be noticed. It was beginning to dawn on him that being the focus of his father’s dreams didn’t guarantee that his father would actually notice him. Being the number one son didn’t entitle him to enter the discussion. It wasn’t a discussion, anyway. It was a lecture.
    If his father was looking at Luke, the old man certainly wasn’t
seeing
him.
    James helped himself to a fresh piece of bread. Luke poked his chicken with the tines of his fork, trying to muster an appetite. The City Tavern served hearty fare, but he wasn’t hungry.
    He wanted astronaut ice-cream.
    He and Jenny had gone to the Air and Space Museum on Saturday. The place was jammed—it always was jammed—but they’d fought their way through the mobs. Everything seemed to thrill Jenny, from Lucky Lindy’s Spirit of St. Louis to the models of the space shuttle. She’d squealed with delight at the astronaut uniforms and gasped in astonishment at the realization that people had actually flown in the rickety old biplanes on display. Luke had been to the museum countless times before, but he’d never enjoyed it as much as he had viewing the exhibits through Jenny’s eyes.
    It was in the museum’s cafeteria, where they’d gone to have a snack, that they’d discovered astronaut ice-cream. He’d tried to convince Jenny that, whatever the stuff was, it was bound to be vile, but she had insisted on buying a a package for them to share.
    He’d been right. It was vile. “This is what I’d imagine styrofoam tastes like,” he’d said.
    “Only sweeter,” she’d added. “It has a styrofoam texture, but the flavor is kind of like sugary children’s cereal.”
    Vile though it was, they’d devoured the entire contents of the package, grimacing and laughing through their self-inflicted torture. And two days later, seated across a linen-draped table from his father in the dining room of an exclusive private club on the southern edge of Georgetown, all Luke could imagine eating right now was astronaut ice-cream.
    “You aren’t paying attention,” his father chided. “This is important, Luke. We’re talking about your future.”
    My future,
Luke thought glumly. It didn’t sound much like his, though.
    “Have you called your mother lately?” his father asked.
    Luke eyed his wine glass, then reached for his ice water instead. “Yes, Dad,” he said. “I talk to her twice a week.”
    “She’s not in good shape,” his father said blandly. “She’s still eating too little and drinking too much. She misses Elliott.”
    Luke nodded. As passive as his mother had always been, she’d become even more withdrawn after Elliott had done his vanishing act a year ago. He had sent his parents a Christmas card postmarked Helena, Montana, but other than that they heard nothing from him. He emailed Luke at Princeton pretty often, but he insisted that Luke keep his whereabouts a secret from their parents, and Luke complied. “If Dad knows where I am,” Elliott wrote, “he’ll charter a jet and come after me. You know he will.”
    Luke knew he would. There were times when their father’s pressure tactics became so overwhelming, Luke was tempted to pass along Elliott’s address in Sitka, just so his father would let up on him and redirect his