Page 35

“Something’s gone?” Artie asked, and he felt his face getting hot.

Evie said, “God, she is so good at this! I think we should tell Rob. Artie, that girl has a problem! We need to tell him he has a kleptomaniac on his hands!”

Artie said, “Let’s give her a little more time, a few more visits.” Evie turned and looked at Artie and sank down into her chair again.

“Artie. What the fuck?” Evie seldom swore, but when she did the word was often—to Artie’s way of thinking—like a nicely struck tennis ball, a thwack against the racquet. (Artie had never played tennis.)

“I know,” Artie said. “I know, I know, I know.”

“He’s still living with Francesca.”

“I know,” Artie said again.

“Artie, what’s going on? He was so excited when he first met this dopey child.”

“Not a clue,” Artie said. “Have to just let him live his life.” His face was cooling down.

Evie rolled her eyes extravagantly.

Artie said, “What is a kleptomaniac, really?”

“Oh Christ, Artie. It means the girl is screwed up. I know this stuff! It usually starts at a young age, and they steal because they get off on it. I mean, they can’t help it, but they usually don’t need what they steal, and they either shoplift or steal from friends, it’s an impulse control thing. We should tell him.”

Artie turned his head toward the table with the little boxes on it. “You sure she took one?”

“Yes, Artie. She has now taken two.”

And now Artie felt slightly overwhelmed. “Let’s just wait a little bit.”

“Until they say they’re getting married?”

He stared at the toes of his black sneakers, then looked up. “Well, he’s not even divorced yet.”

—

That night, after Rob and Rachel had left, Artie felt a particular sense of being married to Evie, joined as they were in their concern for their son. And so he thought, I am going to tell her I know about Reginald being Rob’s biological father, I am going to tell her. As they cleaned up the kitchen together, he kept thinking: Just say the words, right now, say them. He opened his mouth, and he could not do it.

Why not?

He thought about it, and he could not figure it out. Only on a very small, almost hidden level was Artie aware of his anger. That by not telling her, he felt he had some power. He thought, almost without thinking it: This piece of knowledge is mine, and no one will take it from me.

But as he watched Evie go through her ritual of getting ready for bed, applying her face cream, he was amazed that he was living with a woman who had lied to him profoundly for twenty-eight years and continued to do so. How could she do it? Easily, apparently. She got into bed beside him.

“Good night,” she said.

As he drove through the early morning fog to school on Monday, Artie thought again about Mr. Stepinac, and he thought about how the man would be puzzled and distressed that Artie had shoplifted a comb and then tried to shoplift those two shirts. He wished that Mr. Stepinac had been alive when he got the Teacher of the Year award, but the man had long been dead. Artie wondered about him, maybe the man could have told him what to do with his knowledge of Rob. Except (Artie sighed quietly as he thought this) he was no longer the kid that Mr. Stepinac had encouraged, he was a grownup who had to make his own decisions, live his own life.

When Artie got to school, he parked in his usual spot; he could not see the water through the trees today because of the fog. He went straight to his classroom and, sitting alone, googled kleptomania, and he understood that he did not have that. Then he googled “reasons for shoplifting,” and that was more worrisome. “Emotional problems” came up right away, and then he tried to cancel the searches because this was his school computer he was using, and just thinking about this made him break out in a sweat. When he faced his students, he thought he must look guilty to them.

—

Not surprisingly, every year Artie had a class that was his least favorite, and this year it was his second period class, which did not meet always during second period (as the classes rotated) but today it did. He had taught long enough to know that the collection of personalities in a classroom always resulted in a kind of final personality for the class as a whole, and this class—as happened occasionally—simply did not have a good one.

Standing there that morning, feeling guilty, Artie was surprised when one student asked him how he had reacted to the election. Artie crossed his arms and said, “Tell me how you feel about it.”

“Okay,” said the kid—his name was Rick Roper—“I think it was great.” A few other students in the class made mocking faces. Artie said, “Tell me why.”

“Because the guy is great!”