Hearing the knock on the bedroom door, Rina put her book down. “It’s open.”
Jacob walked over to his mother, bent down and kissed her forehead. “Just thought I’d say good night.”
Rina checked the time—twelve-thirty. “It’s late.”
“Just catching up. I’ve got a couple of tests tomorrow.”
In his pajamas, Jacob looked about twelve. She said, “Sit down, Yaakov, I want to talk to you.”
The boy sat. “I’m really sorry, Eema. It won’t happen again.”
“Yonkie, why didn’t you tell me you got a fifteen sixty on your PSAT?”
Jacob licked his lips. “Sammy told you?”
“Sammy?” Rina asked. “You told Sammy, but you didn’t tell me?”
“No, of course not. I didn’t even know. Sammy told me. He called up and pretended he was me. I was willing to wait until I got the card in the mail. But that’s Sammy…he’s gotta know everything.” Jacob shook his leg. “I just found out tonight. So who told you?”
“The school called.” Rina sighed. “I had long talk with Rabbi Wasserstein and Mrs. Gottlieb yesterday.”
She sounded so tired, and it was all his fault. His eyes darted from side to side. “What’s going on?” As if he didn’t know.
“Rabbi Wasserstein tells me you’re getting C’s in gemara and Halacha—”
“That’s why I was up so late,” Jacob interrupted. “I was studying. I know I’m doing bad, Eema. I’m trying to improve—”
“Yonkie, this isn’t about your grades. It’s about you.” She spoke in a gentle voice. “Rabbi Wasserstein says your attitude toward school has changed in the last six months. You’re not a problem kid—you’re never disruptive—but you’re not doing well because you don’t seem to care. Half the time you sleep at your desk, the other half you appear apathetic. He thinks you’re very bored.”
“School’s boring. I am bored.” Jacob looked at the ceiling. If only she knew. So trusting. “But I can do better. It’s no big deal. It’s just a matter of doing all the busy work. I’ll do better, Eema. I promise. Don’t worry.”
“Sweetheart, forget about me. I want to talk about you.” Rina kissed his hand. “Mrs. Gottlieb says you’re roughly two years ahead in math without even trying. You’re only a sophomore. She says by the time you reach your senior year, there’ll be no one left at school who’ll be able to teach you.”
“So I’ll take some classes at CSUN. Or better yet UCLA.” The kid smiled. It lit up his face. “I’ll need a car for that.”
Evading the issue. Rina said, “Jacob, I want you to listen and take what I have to say seriously. Okay?”
“This sounds bad.”
“It’s not bad. Just listen. Rabbi Wasserstein told me about a program that he thinks is tailor-made for kids like you—those gifted in math and science—”
“Nerds.”
“Jacob, let me finish, please.”
“Sorry.”
Rina said, “You’d be officially enrolled in high school at Ner Yisroel, but you’ll take your science and math courses at Johns Hopkins.”
“Ner Yisroel?” Jacob made a horrified face. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Yonkie, it’s a golden opportunity—”
“They’re fanatics!” Jacob cried out. “I’ll die!”
“You won’t die,” Rina said. “You might even learn something.”
Jacob bit his lip and was silent.
Rina said, “I know you’re a social kid. And I know you like girls. This wouldn’t be forever. It’s for one year. I think you could make it through one year.”
Jacob exhaled. His expression was still sour. “When would I go? Like for next year?”
“No, no, no,” Rina said. “For your senior year. I’m not sending you and Sammy away at the same time. Selfishly, it would be too hard for me.”
“So either way, I’m going to be here next year?”
“Yes. And that would be good, because your grades in Hebrew studies would have to come up in order to qualify. In addition, you’d have to do really well on your SAT, and you’d have to get eight hundred on the math portion of your SATIIs. Wasserstein doesn’t think that would be a problem though—the eight hundred.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not taking the tests.” Jacob cracked his knuckles. “I suppose I could do all right. I’m a good test-taker.”
“Yonkie, everyone in the school thinks you’re not being challenged academically, but no one knows how to fix the problem.” Rina’s eyes misted up. “I don’t relish the idea of sending you away. Your life has been one big mass of disruption. But time is so precious. Why waste it if there’s something better for you?”
“I know. You’re trying to do what’s best for me.”
“It’s a cliché, but it’s true.” Rina patted his face. “You don’t have to make a decision. I’m just offering it to you as a possibility.”
The teen was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “If I went to Baltimore in my senior year, Sammy would be in New York by then.”
“Yes. The two cities are about a three-and-a-half-hour train ride or a forty-minute plane trip apart. You two could spend Shabbos with each other anytime you wanted.”
Jacob shrugged. “I’ll consider it. I know it’s important to you.”
“Jacob, it’s not me. It’s you—”
“No, Eema, it’s you. If it was up to me, I’d drop out of school and like…sail around the world.”
Rina was stunned, not by his words, but by his honesty. “Jacob, you’re so unhappy. What is it?”
The teen shrugged.
“Do you feel burdened by being religious?”
He regarded his mother. How did she know? “Sometimes.” He hesitated. “It’s not just being religious. It’s…just…I don’t know. Everything seems so pointless. I mean, look at you, Eema. You’re a good person. You believe in Hashem. You do all the right stuff, all the moral stuff. And then, bam!” He clapped his hands loudly. “Abba gets sick and dies. And suddenly you’re a widow stuck with two small kids—”
“Yonkie—”
“And then you go on and remarry, thinking that life is going to be peachy. But then look what’s going on. He’s never home. And still you wait up all hours of the night. I betcha he doesn’t even come home tonight.”
“He’s not coming home—”
“Told ya.”
“Yonkie, this isn’t your concern—”
“But it is, you know. Because I see you day after day with life dragging you down.”
“Where is this coming from? I’m a very happy person!”
“Don’t you ever get lonely, Eema?” Jacob was agitated. “I mean, night after night after night…how many books can you read?”
Rina regarded her son. “You are really angry at Peter, aren’t you?”
“It’s not that, although I don’t know why he’s so against getting another dog.”
“Look, if you really want another dog, we’ll get another dog—”
“That’s not the point.”
“Jacob, your father was broken up by Ginger’s death. He has a very hard time with loss. Not just his loss, anyone’s loss! He feels personally responsible for the world’s problems.”
“What’s his excuse? He never lost a father.”
“Maybe it comes from being adopted, I don’t know.”
Jacob had forgotten about that. “Look, I love Peter. I know he does the best he can. And he may care about the world in the abstract. But I don’t think he spends a lot of time considering other people’s needs.”
“Yonkie, he has a very demanding job.”
“Eema, nobody forced him to take the promotion.” Jacob rolled his eyes in self-disgust. “I’m whining. I guess if you don’t mind being alone, why should I care?”
“Yonkie, Peter loves his work. And that’s a very rare thing, to love what you do—”
“I thought he was supposed to love you.”
“He does—”
“And that’s why he leaves you alone all the time?”
Rina gave his words some thought. “You know, I must not mind being alone. Because I seem to marry men who aren’t home a lot.”
Jacob looked at her. “What do you mean? Abba was home all the time.”
“Sweetie, Abba was never home. Usually, he got up at around five for early minyan. Then he’d come back around a half hour later and take care of you kids until I got up…which was usually around seven. As soon as I was up, he left for the Beit Midrash to learn until dinner. He ate dinner every night with the family…that much he did. And he did spend time learning with you boys, too. But as soon as it was bathtime or bedtime, he was off. He went back to learn until midnight or whatever. I don’t even know when he came home. I was always asleep.”
Silence.
Jacob was looking at his lap. Rina realized she had just punctured a balloon. She said, “Honey, I didn’t mind it. Honestly. Abba loved learning, Peter loves his job and I must love solitude. Especially after a day with your sister, who’s a perpetual motion machine. You think that I’m staying up, pining over Peter. In fact, I’m lying down in a very comfortable bed, off my feet, with no one making demands on me, reading an interesting book—”
“Well, that sounds really exciting.”
“Jacob, you want excitement. I’ve had enough excitement in my life. I want peace.”
The teen laughed softly. “Guess I’m not giving you much of that.” It was close to one in the morning. “I’m not only keeping you up, I’m keeping myself up. I should get some sleep.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” A beat. “Eema, I don’t want you to think that I’m unhappy. Most of the time, I do great. I guess you know…sometimes things pile up.”
“You’re bored, Jacob. You need to find a passion other than girls.”
He grinned. “If you’re gonna have a passion, I think girls are a great one.”
“I’m not saying girls aren’t great. I’m just suggesting something in addition to girls.”
Jacob thought about it. “You’re right. I’m going to be sixteen in a couple of weeks. There’re always cars.”
“Are you doing this to aggravate me?”
“Maybe a little.” Jacob laughed. “Good night.” He turned serious. “I’ll give the Hopkins program some real thought. Maybe it won’t be so bad.” A hint of a smile. “Actually, it may not be bad at all. There are girls at Hopkins.” The smile turned into a broad grin. “College girls.”
Decker was trying to have it both ways. It wasn’t working.
Marge was talking. “Okay, say we arrest him. Then he’s entitled to make the phone call to whoever he wants. At least to his lawyer—”
“That’s exactly what we don’t want. Pluto making calls before the search warrants for the compound are pulled! The last thing we need is him warning the others.”
Decker tapped his foot.
“The idea is to stall him without ostensibly denying him due process.” A pause. “Okay. Let’s say we’re detaining him, not booking him—”
“He’s still entitled to a phone call even if he’s detained.”
“No, he isn’t—”
“He’s entitled to a lawyer—”
“It only becomes relevant if we question him. So we won’t question him.”
“So why are we detaining him?”
“Detaining him pending our current investigation. Until we can verify his story that he hasn’t been up here for the last two days.”
“Pete, that could take time—days. We can’t detain him that long without a lawyer.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“Yes, he does. Even if he doesn’t, we do! We screw up, they throw out everything we found on a tech.”
Of course she was right. Decker frowned. “All right. Let’s say we’re detaining him and he’s entitled to a phone call. And we’re willing to give him one. But we can’t let him use the line up here because it’s blocked off, being part of the crime scene. And we can’t bring him to an alternate locale to make a call, because…because…why?”
Marge shrugged. “We’re too busy.”
“Exactly,” Decker said. “We’re too busy. So we have no choice but to keep him locked tight in the car until our current investigation up here is completed to our satisfaction. Then of course when we leave the site, we’ll try to find him a phone. But by then, it’ll be three in the morning. And you know most everything will be shut down—”
“Pay phones?”
“They’re always broken, Marge.”
Marge was skeptical. “You’re just lucky that his antiquated cellular phone has a signal that doesn’t carry this far.”
“Damn lucky.”
“What if he wants to use our radio?”
“Can’t let civilians use tactical lines. Against regulations.”
“Not the tactical lines, Pete. Let’s say he asks either Scott or me to place a call through the RTO.”
“Then you don’t get through.”
Marge complained, “He’s going to scream.”
“Let him scream—”
“You’re not dealing with him.”
“I’ve been dealing with a dissected corpse, Margie.”
She thought a moment. “I’ll trade you jobs.”
Decker grinned. “Easier to work with a dead asshole than a live one?”
“You got it.”
“No dice,” Decker said. “I choose the assignments. One of the perks of being a loo.”