“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 $10,00 °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?”