Mom had been on a kick for family time lately, but she was fighting an uphill battle. Dad had once again brought his tablet to the table, just to reply to one quick emergency e-mail, he said, and so everyone was engaged in the conversation while he claimed to listen: Alix, Jonah, their mother, and half of Mr. Banks, workaholic extraordinaire.
For Mom, it counted as a win; Alix’s mother took what she could get, when she could get it.
Alix’s friend Cynthia was always asking what made the relationship work considering that Alix’s father was never paying attention and her mother always seemed a little isolated in the project of raising her family. Alix had never really thought about it until that moment. It was just the way things were. Dad worked in public relations and made the money for the family. Mom did Pilates and book clubs and fund-raisers, and tried to gather everyone together for meals. They mostly seemed to get along. It wasn’t like in Sophie’s house, where you could practically hear her mom and dad chewing glass every time they said anything to each other.
“Nobody caught the guy,” Alix said. “He just walked away. They called security, and the police and Mr. Mulroy went out looking for him.” She took a bite of Caesar salad. “Nothing.”
“I don’t like the town around there,” her mother said. “They should have security at the gates.”
“The town around there?” Alix rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you just say you don’t trust those people, Mom?”
“That’s not what I said,” Mom said. “Strangers shouldn’t just be able to wander onto campus. They should have a guard at the gate, at least.”
“Fortress Seitz,” Jonah said, pushing a crouton onto his fork with a finger. “Maybe we can put in gun turrets, too. Then we can feel really secure. Put up some barbwire, right? Fifty cals and barbwire. Oh wait, don’t we call that prison?”
Mom gave him a sharp look. “Don’t be smart. That’s not what we’re talking about. Seitz is hardly a prison, no matter how much you pretend.”
“You only say that because you don’t have to go,” Jonah said.
Mom gave him an exasperated look. “Someone just walked onto campus and assaulted the headmaster. I’d think even you’d admit there’s a problem. What if that had been a student? Don’t you think that’s a problem, at least?”
“I’m definitely bummed I missed it,” Jonah said. “I’d pay money to see Mulroy take one in the gut.”
“Jonah!”
Alix stifled a laugh. Doctors described Jonah as having poor impulse control, which basically meant that Jonah’s entire world was a series of decisions that balanced precariously on the razor’s edge of clever vs. stupid.
Stupid normally won out.
Which meant that since he started attending Seitz, it was Alix’s job to keep an eye on him. When she’d protested that playing nursemaid for her younger brother wasn’t her idea of a good time, Mom hadn’t even yelled; she’d just sighed in resignation.
“I know it’s not fair, Alix, but we can’t always be there… and Jonah…” She shrugged. “It’s not his fault.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s his nature, just like the scorpion and the frog.”
Alix’s nature was just the opposite. She knew the difference between clever and stupid, and didn’t feel any need to dive across the line. So as long as Mom was doing Pilates and fund-raisers and book clubs, and Dad was down in the city or seeing clients in DC, Alix was in charge of keeping an eye on the little nutball.
“We could punch him for charity,” Jonah was saying. “Like those old-time dunk tanks. Big fund-raising thing. Thousand dollars a pop.” He mimed punches. “Bam! Bam! Bam! Slug Mulroy and feed the homeless. I bet even Alix would donate to that,” he said. “It would make her early-decision application look good.”
“There aren’t any homeless in Haverport,” Alix said. “We put them on a bus to New York.”
“So save the whales! Who cares, as long as we get to punch Mulroy.”
“I don’t think assault is a joke,” Mom said.
They went back and forth like they always did, with Mom taking it seriously, trying to persuade Jonah to stop being “troublesome,” and Jonah taking the opportunity to poke at her, saying just the right thing to annoy her again and again.
Alix tuned them out. When she played the attack back in her own mind, it made her feel a little nauseated. It had been a completely normal, boring day. She could still see Mulroy walking over to the guy, thinking that he was in charge, thinking he knew what was up. Mulroy and Alix had been fooled by the spring sunshine. They’d been living inside a bubble that they’d thought was real.
And then this guy turned up at school, and the bubble popped.
“It was weird,” Alix said. “Right after he punched Mulroy, the guy had to hold Mulroy up so he didn’t fall over. He was gentle about it. It almost looked tender, the way he laid him in the grass.”
“Tender?” her mother said, her voice rising. “A tender assault?”
Alix rolled her eyes. “Cut it out, Mom. I’m not Jonah. I’m just saying it was weird.”
But it really had looked tender, in the end. So slow and careful and gentle as he laid the man down. Tender. Alix knew the power of words. Dad had drilled it into her enough as a kid. Words were specific, with fine shadings and colors. You chose them to paint exactly the picture you wanted in another person’s mind.
Tender.
She hadn’t chosen the word accidentally. The only other word she could think of that might have described the moment was apologetic. Like the stranger had actually been sorry he’d beaten Mulroy up. But that didn’t match with what had happened. No one accidentally shoved a fist into another person’s stomach.
Oh, gee, sorry about that. I didn’t see your belly there…
Dad had been reading on his tablet, half-listening, half-working. Now he broke in as he kept tapping on his tablet. “The school is going to hire an extra security detail. They have the young man’s face from the security cameras—”
“They probably got a thousand pics,” Jonah said.
Dad went on undeterred. “—police have him identified. He should be found soon.”
“He’s identified?” Alix asked, interested. “They already know who he is? Is he famous or something? Is he from around here?” He looked so familiar.
“Hardly,” her father said. “He’s just a vandal they’ve been looking for.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“I called the school,” her father said, barely looking up. “Mr. Mulroy, despite his terrible skills at self-defense, is a very efficient administrator.”
“I’ll bet he’s getting a lot of calls right now,” Mom said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone pulls their children.”
“There’s extra security?” Alix asked. “Do they think he’ll come back?”
“It seems unlikely.” Dad finished his salad and set it aside. “But better safe than sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Jonah. “If we aren’t careful, we’ll come into school and the whole place will be tagged.”
“I didn’t say he was a spray-painter,” Dad said. “I said he was a vandal.”
“Like he breaks windows and things?”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Mom interjected.
“What did I do?” Jonah looked wounded.
“You sounded like you wanted to start a fan club,” Alix said.
“You know, sometimes a question is just an innocent question,” Jonah groused.