Tracking Time

Thirty

Tanice Owen got home from work at eleven. The apartment was dark. She picked up the phone. There were no messages, not even from her husband, Bill. In the kitchen was a note left for David by Alvera, the housekeeper they'd had since David was two. The note read, "I waited to six. Can't wait no more. Pills came"- arrow to the refill of David's antidepressant, Zoloft, from the drugstore on the counter-"Your dinner in fridge, microwave five minutes. It's your favorite, chili. Alvera."

Janice was annoyed. She had to be a damn detective to find out what was going on with everybody. She read the note, furious on two counts. Alvera was supposed to stay until David got home so David wouldn't have to eat alone every night. As a devoted mother, Janice took a lot of care to make sure she had these things covered. She didn't like it when her carefully arranged schedule didn't work out according to plan. Now she finds out Alvera had left early again, and probably had counted on David to cover for her. The fact that the note was still sitting there meant either David had come home and left again because no one was home, or David had not come home and eaten his dinner and he'd lied when they'd talked on the phone. She'd spoken to him at seven during the cocktail hour before her business dinner. He'd told her then he was on his way home. But who knew with him.

These last few years David had been a huge pain in the neck. He wasn't "flourishing," so said the idiots at his fancy school. They'd wanted to kick him out. She and Bill had vigorously opposed hurting David in that way, so they'd had dozens of meetings with counselors, and testers, and psychiatrists to get David back on track. They wanted and expected and needed a kid who "flourished" just the way they had. The kid was loved and cared for. There was no reason for him not to do well.

She was most gratified to find out that the important tests, the intelligence ones, showed that David was smart, not stupid. He just didn't concentrate well. He was depressed. They'd gotten him one of the best psychiatrists, referred by the counselor at school, an expert on Attention Deficit Disorders. The psychiatrist prescribed medications; the school had been appeased by David's test scores and granted him a stay of execution. After all her hard work promoting David's cause to the school, plus their investment of thousands of dollars in fees for tests and consultations, diagnosis, medication, and treatment, Janice had been confident they'd finally gotten everything worked out last spring. He'd done well at camp.

But now in only the second week of school David was starting to slip already. She was very angry at him for letting her down. She couldn't bear the idea of starting the year like this and having him get behind again. She didn't need this.

Before she'd gotten home, Janice had felt successful. She'd left the office early to have a forty-minute massage, a facial, and her hair blow-dried for the event that evening. At the dinner, she'd been complimented on her new red-and-black Escada suit that her sales consultant at the Fifty-seventh Street store had advised her to take even though Janice had been afraid the standout color was something of a risk. Elaine of Escada, who was well informed on these matters, had insisted that combinations of red, gray, and black were going to be the power colors this season. The whole of last year had been gray, gray, gray, completely unrelieved, and it had been a horrible, difficult year all around. The color of spring and summer had been pink, pink, pink everywhere. She didn't wear pink. Since Janice was afraid she'd lose her job in the new merger, she'd taken the plunge for red. Yesterday her boss and associates had liked the suit, so she felt hopeful if they didn't get fired, she wouldn't get fired. At dinner, she'd enjoyed the wine and the food.

But now she was upset again. She did not want to be upset with her wonderful courageous David-who had a problem flourishing because of his ADD, which made her feel guilty because she had no idea where it came from since she and Bill were so very focused-so she played detective and looked in the fridge for the chili. She knew if he'd eaten it that he had come home after speaking to her. She hoped this was the case. Unfortunately, the chili was still there, wrapped in plastic wrap, sprinkled with cheese and onions the way he liked it. David was a big eater, despite the terrible pain he had from the awful Ritalin all the doctors bar none said he had to take to concentrate on his schoolwork. If David had come home, he would have eaten the chili. Janice wandered into her son's room, her pleasure in the wonderful evening draining away with every passing minute. "Jesus!"

There was clutter everywhere. Toys from when David was ten. Pennants from camp. Books, papers, used and unused athletic equipment. Even though Alvera cleaned it up and changed the sheets every week, it smelled horrible. Stale, sweaty boy smell and who knew what else. It occurred to her that she should search his room for signs of drug use. All the ads about kids said she ought to be thinking about this, and she knew other mothers who probed and pried constantly. But David said the idea of drugs disgusted him, and that was good enough for her.

The room tugged at Janice's heart. She resisted the urge to snoop. The kid had problems studying, that was all; it wasn't his fault. He was brave about it, terribly brave, she knew. The other boys teased him because he was big. He was in a hard school and struggling to stay there-and as it turned out he deserved to be there. He was no dummy. The kid surprised them all with his psychological testing. The kid was actually smart. He could do the work if he wanted to. He could be a star.

By eleven David was supposed to be, if not in bed, at least in his room and ready for bed. Still, Janice didn't want to jump to conclusions. Maybe she had misunderstood him. Maybe he had a good excuse. She went back into the kitchen and sat on the stool in the kitchen, played with Alvera's note, and called David on his cell phone. The phone rang three times before the answering function picked up.

"Hey, it's David. I'm not here right now. Leave a message."

This upset Janice even more. How could he not be there right now? He had the thing in his pocket. Janice screamed into the phone. "David! Call me right now. You know the rules. It's a school night! I'm supposed to know where you are." She slammed down the receiver.

Then she realized she hadn't told him where she was, so she called again. "David! I'm at home."

She hung up a second time and marched into her room to undress. It was a hard, masculine room, everything in colors of beige and brown because Bill didn't like anything girly. She wasn't surprised that Bill wasn't home. He worked even longer hours than she did and was often out of town. This upset her, too. Despite the comforting massage, tension crept back into her neck and shoulders. She wished Bill were there to consult about David.

When they were together the couple talked about David and his problems endlessly. Usually he was in the other room because neither of them actually spent any leisure time with him. It was difficult when he was so sullen. So their family outings consisted of dinner together Saturday nights at one of the better restaurants and that was it. Although that was a lot of fun. The three of them recorded and rated every meal in a journal, carefully listing what they'd eaten and drunk and how much they liked or were disappointed by the restaurant.

David remembered every single thing about every restaurant from the time he was three. She could call him up any time of the day and ask him about something they'd done years ago, and he could tell her without having to look it up in the journal. Sometimes she'd be in a meeting and she'd call him with the question just to impress her friends.

They didn't do anything else but eat for entertainment. Bill was focused on his legal cases; he wasn't athletic, wasn't interested in the theater or movies or having a country house. If they planned a vacation, it was always with the caveat that he might have to cancel at the last minute. Even by Janice's standards he was a workaholic. She was angry with him for not being as good a father as she was a mother, but she would have liked his advice tonight.

Finally she poured herself another drink and turned on the news. On the news she heard a story about a missing man in Central Park. This alarmed her further because she knew that David played there with that really nasty girlfriend of his who she wished would fall off a cliff and die. She waited for her son and husband to come home from wherever they went to escape her. She had another drink and fell asleep.