"Too bad you don't."' I threw down at him.
He seemed to wince, and then he laughed. The sound of it must have been alien to Charlotte. She dropped her mouth in amazement, and then looked at Mommy as I pushed Evan toward the food.
"I do believe this was meant to be." she said.
I would soon learn that what she meant by this and what we would interpret it to mean were two entirely different things.
5 Evan
After lunch. Evan allowed me to push him down the paths that wove through the gardens, ponds, and grounds around and behind the grand house. He said he wanted to show me his favorite places. but I sensed he wanted to get away from his aunt and Mommy to talk to me. I soon learned that Charlotte wasn't exaggerating when she characterized Evan as an introverted fifteen-year-old boy who had chained himself to his computer and who had minimal contact with the physical world around him. He reminded me of the allegory of Plato's Cave, one of the dialogues in Plato's The Republic, which my English teacher, Mr. Madeo, had made me read as an extra assignment just a few weeks ago.
In the allegory, people were living in an underground cave and chained so they could only look at the wall ahead of them. Above and behind them a fire burned so that everything that moved between the fire and them was thrown on the wall in the form of shadows. All they knew as real were the shadows and the echoes of sounds they heard and thought came from those shadows,
As Evan talked and described some of the things he did on his computer, the people he met and had gotten to know only over the Internet. I thought to myself that he was living in a cave-- an electronic one, but still, a cave. His only friends were people he heard over his earphones and saw on his computer monitor. He traveled through the monitor and knew about exotic lands and people, but he had never really left the grounds of this estate. The only flowers he smelled or touched were the ones he could experience from his wheelchair trips down these paths. His world was populated solely by nurses, doctors, and other medical people, as well as a few servants and his tutor. Mrs. Skulnik, a fifty-eight-year-old retired math teacher who he said had a face like an old sock, so full of wrinkles it would take a tear two months to travel down to her chin.
"And she smells," he said. "like sour milk. I've told my aunt that I don't want her, but she says it's difficult to find someone else. I know she's not even trying.
"Maybe I don't need a tutor anyway," he suddenly thought aloud and looked up at me. "Maybe now that you're moving in, you can be my tutor and I'll j
ust take the high school equivalency exam." "It's not definite that we're moving in. Evan." "I meant, if you do."
"I don't know if I can do that, Evan. I don't
know if it's even legal," I said. "Doesn't the tutor have to be a licensed teacher?" "Right." he snapped, looking down quickly. "It was a stupid idea. Forget it."
"I didn't say it was stupid. Evan."
He stopped talking. I could see how quickly he could be discouraged. Fooling around with him at lunch, meeting his challenges and quips with my own, had, strangely enough, gotten him to relax enough with me so that he was willing to talk with me and be with me privately. From the way his eves traveled over my face, searching for sincerity. I could feel how difficult it was for him to place his trust in anyone. No wonder it was easier and far more comfortable for him to deal with people through a computer. There was so much less danger of being disappointed. If someone displeased you, you simply clicked the mouse and sent them into electronic oblivion.
"You wouldn't have the time for me, anyway," he finally said. "Once you started school here, you'd make lots of friends and wouldn't want to be tied down to some invalid, even the president of Invalids Anonymous."
"That's not true," I protested.
"Right. You just wouldn't be able to wait every day to rush home to help me with schoolwork. The truth is, you're probably the most popular girl in your school."
"The truth is. Evan. I don't have all that many friends at the school I'm at now," I revealed,
He looked up at me. "Sure."
I stopped pushing his chair and walked around to the front so he would have to face me.
"For your information. Evan. I can count on the fingers of one hand the girls I care to talk to at school. Mommy. Daddy. and I have moved so many times. I never had a chance to make meaningful relationships. I can't even remember most of the other kids I knew, Their faces are like one big blur to me.. It just so happens, our present address is the longest I can remember occupying, and it's not even a full two years!"
His self-pity dissolved as that look of interest and some trust seeped into his eyes again, warming them.
"I saw just how many places you've lived in. Why did you move so much?"
I looked off at the trees and folded my arms under my breasts.
"I used to think it was just because Daddy got bored easily or didn't care about important things as much as he should have, but after we learned about..."
"Me? The tragic accident of my birth?" he asked, the corners of his mouth turning down.
"I don't think of you as a tragic accident. Evan. Look. I expect to get to know you better, and maybe I won't like you. Maybe you're too bitter, so bitter that I won't be able to help," I said. "But from what I can see and what I've heard so far, you seem to be very intelligent. When I said I wasn't sure I could help you as your tutor. I was thinking to myself that you've already taught yourself so much, you probably know more than I do even though I'm two years older than you.
"Anyway," I continued. "yes, when we heard about you and your mother, both Mommy and I began to think that Daddy moved so much to avoid being pinned down by his added responsibilities. He was like that, I suppose," I said.
Evan's face softened further, making him look more like a little boy to me.