One kid was staring sadly into the refrigerator, probably waiting for something to wave at him and say “Hi, Taylor!” Another kid was on the phone, absently twining the cord around one finger. His end of the conversation seemed to consist entirely of exclaiming, “No way! Really? No, seriously, really? Dude! No way!” every five seconds. And then there was the other kid. He was supposed to be doing his math homework, but he was actually outside staring up at the sky and wondering if it was going to snow. If it was, he wouldn’t do his math homework. Dan was making dinner and listening to “All Things Considered” on N.P.R. The weather report firmly stated that the night would be “clear and unseasonably warm,” and the next few days would be even clearer and warmer. In other words, no snow was coming.
“Are you kidding? You’re kidding, right? You aren’t? She did? Really? My God!” Dan didn’t know why Isaac didn’t just make a recording of himself saying that and play it next to the receiver when someone wanted to talk to him. Dan, in fact, had already suggested that Isaac might consider doing just that. Isaac had clearly stated that he did not consider Dan’s proposal to be in any way useful. He further suggested that Dan keep all further ideas to himself.
Dan turned to the kid who was communing with the leftovers in the refrigerator. “Tay, throw me that container of broccoli.”
Taylor took it out and set it down on the counter, sighing.
“What are you thinking about?” Dan asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“Dad, are you sure nobody called from Anderson?” Taylor asked, a note of desparation in his voice. “Are you sure?” Anderson was the high school he had recently taken a test to get into. It was small and exclusive, supposedly offering more opportunities for learning enrichment than ordinary high schools. Taylor's history teacher had recommended him to the school, and he hadn't had much luck keeping the fact that he was applying relatively private. Not only had half the faculty of his school come up to wish him good luck (it would reflect very well on his middle school if he got in) his parents had to mention to just about everybody they knew that he was applying. If he didn't get in, the whole world would think he'd failed.
The worst part was, his parents didn't understand why he was mad at them. "All I said was 'Taylor isn't sure which high school he is going to go to yet,'" his mother had informed him, rolling her eyes. "I said, 'he's thinking of applying to Anderson.'" Here, she had shaken her head. "If I knew it was going to make you so upset, I wouldn't have said anything, but Tay. . ." Nora sighed at this point, deeply, "it isn't something most people would get upset about."
Well, Taylor reflected to himself now, maybe most people wouldn't get upset their mothers supplying the world with information like that, but he wasn't most people. "Dad. You're sure nobody called?"
Dan nodded, offering assurance for the fourth or fifth time that evening. “Give it a little while, though. You only took the test on Saturday.”
Taylor bit lip. “If you pass, I mean. . . I’ve heard they usually call you by Sunday night.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s only Monday, for crying out loud! Don’t kill yourself over it!”
“I just. . .” Taylor took a deep breath. “What if I didn’t pass, Dad?”
“Taylor.” Dan set the broccoli on the cutting board and began chopping it into little pieces. “Taylor. You passed. Don’t worry.”
Taylor shook his head. “I just get the feeling. . . I just get the feeling they would have called by now. I mean, if I had passed.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dan said again. “Anyway, buddy, what’s the worst thing that could happen? You fail the test, so what? Your life isn’t over.”
Taylor buried his face in his hands. “You’re only saying that because you don’t have to take tests anymore.”
“Your life won’t be over, Tay. You’re thirteen years old.”
He swallowed. “But if this doesn’t happen, what if nothing else does? What if I never get into college? What if I never find a job? Anyway, I think Mrs. Lucas will be really disappointed. I mean, she told me I should try this out. . . if I fail, she’ll think I did it on purpose.”
“If that’s what she’ll think, she’s an idiot,” Dan assured him. “And you’ll get into college and find a job.” Dan studied his son for a moment. What was he thinking about going to college and getting a job for? He wasn’t even fourteen yet. “Just try not to think about it.”
“God!” Isaac hung up the phone and caught the tail end of this conversation. “If you’re that worried about stuff like that in eighth grade, I hope you never try analyzing me.”
“Ike,” Dan warned.
“No, I just mean-” Isaac pulled open a drawer and began rummaging around in search of silverware. “I mean, seriously. If that’s the way you look at yourself, I must, like, epitomize everything that’s wrong with the world.”
“Ike, that’s ridiculous.” Taylor rolled his eyes.
“It’s like that monkey on ‘Friends,’” Isaac mused. “Like, when they have to get rid of him and start applying to zoos? And all he gets into is that zoo that takes cows and dogs?”
“So now I’m the monkey from ‘Friends’?” Taylor wailed.
Isaac shook his head. “I’m not saying that, but his life wasn’t over.”
“Somewhere along the line, that makes sense,” I informed Taylor. “To him.”
“Anyway,” Isaac continued “It’s not like a zoo. It’s not like you have to live there the rest of your life without being able to say anything about it.”
“Um. . . right,” I agreed.
“And. . . okay, say you were applying to zoos, and you were some kind of animal,” Isaac told Taylor. “At least you already know you got into your second choice zoo, and you don’t have to go to the one with cows and dogs, unless you happen to like cows and dogs.”
“Cows and dogs,” Taylor repeated, weakly.
“Cows and dogs?” Dan asked Isaac.
“I didn’t want to sound like I thought there was anything wrong with cows and dogs,” Isaac explained. “If that’s what you’re into. I mean, if he really wants to go to the zoo that has cows and dogs, there’s nothing wrong with it. But if he doesn’t, he doesn’t have to, because he got into his second choice zoo. Which isn’t a cow and dog zoo.”
“Well, I did pass the Loyola test,” Taylor agreed. “And I wouldn’t mind going there, but Anderson just seems. . . set up differently than most high schools. I think it would be interesting to try something that’s . . you know, kind of less mainstream than regular school.” He bit his lip. “Unless I don’t get in.”
“Ike,” Dan wanted to know, “what was the comment about you epitomizing everything that’s wrong with the world?”
“Oh, that,” he remembered. “Well, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t even get into the zoo that had cows and dogs. I’d get into, like, the amoeba and goldfish zoo. Or the zoo of, like, fleas retired from the circus.”
It took Dan awhile to collect myself. “You got into Loyola,” he pointed out.
Isaac shrugged. “Well, yeah.” He thought for a moment. “That is kind of a point. But it has nothing to do with the kind of zoo I’d get into.”
“Don’t you feel better now?” Dan asked Taylor, drily.
“Well, I kind of forgot what the original point was, if that’s what you mean,” Taylor admitted. “And didn’t you just. . . with that last statement about how the school you get into doesn’t really have anything to do with the zoo you’d get into. . . kind of negate everything you said before?” Taylor paused. “What were you saying before? What were you talking about? What did any of that mean?” Taylor blinked, incredulously. “Ike!Why did you do that? That was totally confusing!”
Isaac shook his head. “You were confused? It made perfect sense to me.” He grinned. “But if you’re not worried anymore, it must have worked, though.” He headed into the other room. Taylor and Dan exchanged slightly nervous glances.
“Cows,” Dan heard Taylor mutter under his breath. “Dogs. Fleas. Oh, God.” He paused, then yelled out a question for Isaac. “Wouldn’t there be fleas in the dog zoo anyway?”
“They’d spray!” Isaac yelled back.
At this point, Zac entered the room. He had a general announcement he was sure his father and brother would find deeply informative and useful. “The Prarie Warbler can be recognized by it’s distinctive call.”
Dan allowed this to sink in for a moment. “And what would that be?”
“A thin zee-zee-zee-zee-zee-zee-zee-zee, going up the chromatic scale. The notes of a Prarie Warbler are very clear and distinct, which sets it apart from the Parula Warbler. The Parula’s call is also a series of ascending notes, but it’s notes aren’t clear. It buzzes up.” Zac was brandishing a book put out by the National Audobon Society, but he wasn’t referring to it. Apparently, he considered this information so important he had committed it to memory. “It’s considered a confusing fall warbler, because warblers tend to look a lot alike. Most of them have streaks or windbars.”
“And what zoo would it get into?” Taylor murmured to himself. “The first one? The second one? The amoeba zoo? Oh, God.”
“Yes.” Dan agreed. “Okay.”
“It has stripes,” Zac added. “And it wags it’s tail.”
“Wags it’s tail?” Taylor repeated, shocked out of his nervous murmuring.
Zac nodded. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it?”
“Okay, it should be obvious right here that flea circuses and cow and dog zoos are very normal things to talk about, in light of Zac,” Isaac announced from the other room. “So don’t call me the abnormal one.”
“Where can I see this Prarie Warbler?” Dan wanted to know.
Zac rolled his eyes, as if this was a stupid question. And it was. “Why would you want to do that?”
“You’re the one reading the book,” Dan reminded him.
Zac raised his eyebrows. “And what?”
Dan cleared his throat. “Zachary, usually when one pays that kind of attention to a particular topic, it implies that one is in some way invested in what he is researching.”
Zac wrinkled his forehead. “Father, I really don’t think it would be very entertaining to go birdwatching.”
“I don’t know,” Taylor mused, mostly to himself. “I think it would be very relaxing. I mean, it would be a nice walk through the woods, and you’d probably definitely at least see a few birds, and. . .” When he noticed the looks his father and younger brother were giving him his voice trailed off and he blushed, embarassed. “It could be okay.”
“Compared to what?” Zac wanted to know. “Spending the rest of your life having to play with Barbies?”
“I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life playing with Barbie!” Isaac yelled, still setting the table in the dining room. “I’ll play with Barbie any time she wants to come over! Barbie is fine with-”
“Ike, you’re going to grow up to be one of those people who goes around naked in a long coat and flashes people!” Zac predicted, frustrated. “You are a pervert!” He shook his head, starting out of the room.
“Barbie is fine with me, too,” Dan admitted, grinning slyly.
Zac stopped in the doorway and slowly turned around. “And that is why,” he informed his father, “I have never asked what you do all day when nobody else is home.”
“Please, Zac,” Taylor cut in, “there are certain ideas I really don’t want to have to think about.” He glanced at Dan and quickly clarified that statement. “I mean, even if they aren’t true.”
Dan wanted to know what Taylor didn’t want to imagine him doing, but decided it would be wise not to pursue this topic.
“I think being a flasher would kinda suck,” Isaac called. “It’d be freezing!”
“What do you think the coat’s for?” Zac yelled back.
Isaac didn’t hesitate. “I mean, if I were a flasher I’d at least wear clothes.”
“That would make you not a flasher,” Zac pointed out.
“Yeah, but at least I wouldn’t be cold,” Isaac informed him. “And then I wouldn’t be a pervert, either.”
“Go flash people in a place that’s really sunny and warm,” Zac suggested.
“But then the coat would be too hot,” Isaac complained. “If it was that hot, you would just want to be naked all the time.”
“You shouldn’t be a flasher,” Taylor piped up. “No one wants to see.”
“That’s true,” Isaac admitted, and was quiet for awhile. “Wait, Tay? Do you mean nobody wants to see flashers in general, or no one would want to see me as a flasher?”
“Nobody wants to see naked people!” Taylor exclaimed.
“Just because you don’t doesn’t mean nobody else does.” Zac folded his hands primly in front of him.
“You want to see naked people?” Taylor inquired, weakly. Dan was still wondering what Taylor thought he did when he was home alone.
“Naked people are just people like you and me,” Zac singsonged. “There’s no reason to discriminate.”
“Discrimination is bad,” Isaac concurred.
“You’re a bad person, Taylor,” Zac announced.
Taylor rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Nudists would be very offended if they heard you say that you didn’t want to see them just because they were naked,” Isaac informed him.
“Ben Franklin was a nudist,” Zac supplied.
“You have offended Ben Franklin!” Isaac exclaimed.
“Ben Franklin is dead!” Taylor wailed.
Isaac, deciding to drop the subject, turned to Dan with an inquistive look on his face. “Dad,” he said, “what do you do all day when nobody else is home?”
Dan hedged. “What do you think I do?”
Isaac shrugged. “Why do you think I’m asking?”
“Ike,” Dan said.
“Well, you could do pretty much anything you wanted,” Isaac pointed out. “No one would know.”
“What do you think I do?” Dan repeated.
Isaac’s eyes widened. “Is it really that bad? I mean, so bad you can’t even talk about it?” He grins. “Wow, Dad, I had no idea.”
“Ike.” Dan said. “Isaac, really.”
“It’s a good thing we don’t have a dog or anything,” Isaac mused, mostly to himself.
“Isaac!” Dan yelled, but he couldn’t help smirking for a few seconds. “That isn’t funny.” He willed himself not to smile.
“Why is it good we don’t have a dog?” Zac wanted to know. “I don’t think it’s good.”
“Well, I mean. . .” Isaac snickered. “Dad’s too busy doing other things to take care of it.”
“Yeah-” Dan slammed the oven door shut. “Like worrying about what will happen when I release my sick minded children into the world.”
“Who?” Taylor wanted to know. “Me?”
“Why?” Dan asked. “Should I be worried?”
Taylor shook his head, earnestly. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”
“What’s bad about having a dog?” Zac asked. “Can we get one? Can we at least get a hamster or something?”
“No more hamsters!” Taylor shrieked. “Please! No!”
Zac’s lower lip went out. “I liked the hamsters.”
Isaac looked confused for a moment. “We had hamsters? When?”
Dan, Taylor and Zac all looked at him strangely. “The hamsters, Ike?” Taylor prodded.
Isaac thought for a moment, then grinned. “Oh, those hamsters! Yeah, okay. Yeah. . .” he wrinkled his forehead, genuinely puzzled. “What was wrong with those hamsters? Where did they go, anyway?”
“They were okay until they started multiplying like. . .” Taylor shook his head. “Like. . .”
“Like hamsters,” Zac supplied.
“Yeah, and I thought it was so nice that Mari gave me the hamsters in the first place,” Taylor sighed. “And then there got to be so many of them.”
“Nobody likes any pets I like,” Zac lamented.
“You have a fish,” Isaac reminded him. “Shut up.”
Zac turned to Dan. “If I found a dog, could we keep it?”
“Find a dog first,” Dan suggested. “Then we’ll talk about it.”
Zac’s eyes lit up. “So, all I have to do is find a dog?”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Dan warned him. A significant glance passed between Isaac and Taylor, and Dan realized that he probably shouldn’t ignore it. “What?” Dan inquired, weakly.
Isaac shook his head. “It’s not important.”
“What, though?” Dan persisted.
“You realize that you’re giving him ideas by telling him not to have any,” Taylor pointed out, standing up. “I have to go do my homework.”
“What’s wrong with me having ideas?” Zac demanded. “None of you people want me to have any ideas! What are you, Nazis?” He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “All I’m demanding is my rights as a human being.”
“All he’s demanding is his rights as a human being,” Dan informed Zac’s Nazi brothers.
“You told him not to have ideas, too,” Isaac interjected, heading out of the room. “You told him not to have ideas first.” He shook his head. “You’re a fascist dictator.”
“I hope. . . and this is a general comment directed at all three of you. . . that when you grow up, you have children just like yourselves,” Dan proclaimed.
“That’s what Mom always says,” Zac concurred.
The back door opened. “What does Mom always say?” Nora asked. “I missed that.”
“Mom, can I have ideas?” Zac wanted to know.
Nora nodded, smiling indulgently. “Sure, why not?” She paused. “Who told you you couldn’t?”
Zac shrugged. “Everybody else.”
She ruffled his hair, absently. “You poor, belabored child.”
“That’s just what I always tell myself,” Zac agreed, grinning. “And I’m not even supposed to have any ideas, either.”
“He’s so put upon, Dan.” Nora smiled at Dan after he kissed her hello. “How can you be so heartless?”
“It’s the facist dictator in me,” Dan surmised.
“Is that what it is,” Nora remarked, handing Zac a gallon of milk. “Put that in the refrigerator, honey.”
“Do you have my best interests at heart?” he inquired.
Nora nodded. “Of course I do. If you don’t do things around the house, no one will ever marry you and you’ll have to live here forever.”
“Funny,” Zac remarked, “that’s just what Dad always says.”
“Your father is a very wise man,” Dan informed him.
“Yeah, he always tells me not to believe people who are always talking about how great they are,” Zac agreed. “He says it was a sign that they are insecure.”
“You were listening!” Dan exclaimed, genuinely overjoyed to find that one of his sons paid attention when he spoke.
Zac nodded. “Yeah, I was. Your other two sons are worthless slackers who bring shame on the family name. Am I wrong?”
“What are you getting at?” Nora inquired.
“Mom!” Zac exclaimed, his eyes wide. “You always assume I have an ulterior motive.” He shook his head. “Years from now, when I am married and successful thanks to all the work you always made me do when I was a child, who do you think will provide for you? Ike and Tay will be selling pencils on a street corner or they’ll be living in a commune or something. They’re not going to pay for nursing homes for you people. And then you’ll be sorry that you always thought I had an ulterior motive.”
Nora and Dan exchanged a long look. “Nursing homes, Zac?” Nora asked, quizzically.
“My impression was that we’d come live with you in your house,” Dan added, grinning dangerously.
Zac took this lightly. “I just figured you’d be happier doing macrame with your peers. You wouldn’t want to live at my house, where we’ll be throwing wild parties every night. It would be a strain on your elderly nerves.”
“Someday you will have a kid.” Nora murmured to herself. “Just. Like. You.”
“And maybe you can take the senior bus trips to Atlantic City,” Zac proposed.
“Oh, joy,” Dan remarked. Somewhere in the background the phone rings, and he hear the pounding of Taylor’s feet as he lunged down the stairs to answer it. Cow and dog zoos or no cow and dog zoos, Taylor was still worried about how he had done on the Loyola test.
“I’ll make sure we thoroughly enjoy ourselves at your expense,” Dan informed Zac.
“Oh, money won’t be an problem,” Zac responded. “I’m going to marry some rich chick. Hopefully a really old one that leaves me all her money and then dies.”
“Zac, the phone’s for you,” Taylor interjected, sadly.
“Zachary!” Nora laughed, then hedged. “You’re kidding right?”
Zac considered this on his way to the phone. “I don’t see any problem with it. That supermodel did it.”
“He’s kidding,” Nora said nervously, turning to Dan. “Right?”
Dan shrugged. “It doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
“Your eleven year old son has announced that his goal is to marry up in life, his entire moral code has been defined by supermodels. . . and you’re entirely complacent with this?” Nora’s voice became suspiciously high-pitched.
“I told him that I’d be supportive of his goal in life, whatever he decides it should be.” Dan loved making Nora mad. You got such a fulfilling reaction.
“My God!” Nora moaned.
“Can I go to Hugh’s house tomorrow?” Zac yelled.
“Can you take the bus over after school?” Nora asked.
“No, I was thinking I’d rather dig a tunnel out from under the school and into his basement.” Zac rolled his eyes. “How do you think I’d get over there?”
“I was just asking,” said Nora, “because your father has that meeting in New York, and I am at the clinic until late. So neither of us can drive you over. And there will not be a car here, so Ike can’t, either.”
Zac nodded. “Okay.” He turned back to the phone. “Hugh, I can come over to your stupid house on the bus. You take the little short one, right?” There was a pause. “You’re kidding, right? What do you mean, ‘what does that mean?’”
“It actually works out,” Nora remarked to Dan. “Because I know Tay’s got something after school tomorrow, and God knows what Ike’s plans are.”
“No, I don’t think God does know.” Zac set the phone back onto the hook. “Hugh is such a stupid person.” He says this very gleefully.
“That’s a nice way to talk about your friend,” Nora pointed out. “How would you like it if Hugh said the same thing about you?”
Zac paused, considering this. “But it wouldn’t be true, though,” he countered.
Dan looked at Nora. Nora looked at Dan. She shrugged.
“See?” Zac asked.
Nora decided to change the subject. “Call your brothers for dinner,” she suggested.
“This is child labor,” Zac observed. “Oprah will be hearing about this.”
“And you need to bring your laundry downstairs, at some point,” Dan added.
“It’ll be a far better story for Oprah if you go about all of the terribly difficult and utterly unreasonable things we ask you to do without complaint,” Nora informed him.
“Just shed silent tears,” Dan agreed. “And do everything we say.”
Zac nodded, grinning. “I’ll pray for your souls after Oprah adopts me.”
“And make sure you wash your hands, honey!” Nora reminded him. “And don’t-” Zac flew threw the kitchen and launched himself through the doorway.
“Slide down the hall on the throw rug,” Nora finished, too late.