CHAPTER ELEVEN

RICK HAD BEEN STRUTTING AROUND BUZZ’S BEIGE-ON-BEIGE offices ever since the Reese Witherspoon cover had sold out on every newsstand across the country. Somehow, just before Gino was arrested in the south of France for shooting Jessica Simpson sunbathing topless, he’d managed to snap Reese topless and propped on her elbows, a studly unidentified Mediterranean man rubbing her back.

It turned out that Gino had spent a total of three nights, not the standard one, in the Cap D’Antibes jail, for which he charged the magazine heavily. Gino’s trying tale of incarceration—which Rick conveniently leaked to E!—coupled with the money shots of Reese, had become the story of the moment. Now everyone was chasing Buzz, which made Rick immeasurably happy. Reese was planning to sue, but Rick wasn’t worried. That went with the territory when you were a sleazy tabloid.

Rick floated across the industrial carpeting in presidential mode, one hand thrust into the pocket of his Dockers, the other administering gentle slaps of encouragement to underlings as he passed. He stopped at Sean’s cubicle and contorted his face with benevolence. Rick never truly smiled. Even now, what amounted to virtual beaming from Rick took the form of an athletic frown, the corners of his mouth pointing down, his eyes lit up with glee.

“Life is good,” Rick said, enigmatically.

Life was never good if you were Rick Hollingsworth. Life was depressing, unjust, unpleasant. It was something you endured. No matter how bad his own life seemed, he was always better off/ happier/less suicidal than Rick.

“The company’s still high on us, huh?”

“Understatement of the year.” Rick puffed his chest. “They are thrilled. Crandall’s thrilled. So thrilled,” he went on, “he’s invited us to dinner on Saturday. At the Townhouse.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Rick replied. Their hands met in a slow motion high five. He’d never met Art Crandall. Crandall was a Page Six staple. He owned three television stations and twelve magazines besides Buzz and was always in the middle of an affair, divorce, or hostile takeover and was known in the media world as a “colorful character.” One of Bradley’s most well-known alumni, he was a media mogul who people in the industry feared and courted simultaneously. Plus, if the write-ups were accurate, everyone from Mick Jagger to Obama to Bill Gates had stopped by the Townhouse in the past two months.

“Seven thirty.” Rick winked. “Bring a date.”

On his way home that afternoon, the streets were clogged with masses of humanity. The main thing was to maintain forward momentum. A wiry little guy with glasses tried to squeeze between him and a woman wearing running shoes and nylons, like a car trying to weave in and out of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sean nailed him “accidentally” with his elbow. The guy tried from different angles, but ultimately gave up. Sean smiled. A small victory.

His phone rang as he got to Grand Central. It was Dr. Altherra.

“Do you have a moment to talk?” she asked in her soothing voice. He imagined the loose wisps of hair framing her face.

“Sure,” he said, and tucked into a spot by the information booth. The wiry guy darted past.

“I’ve spoken with the school about Toby and I’ve also read through their Conners scales. It seems that his behavior in school—and occasionally at home from what you and I discussed—is in keeping with a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder, Inattentive Type. Though from what some of his teachers are saying—the music teacher in particular—it sounds like he may have some hyperactivity as well.”

She had to be wrong. That could happen, he was sure of it.

“Did I lose you?”

“You said he was focused and engaged when you met him.”

“Yes,” she said. “But that’s not counter-indicative for the diagnosis. For Toby and other children with Inattentive Type ADHD, they’re perfectly fine one-on-one and in small groups. They’re usually fine at home. But in distracting environments like school they find it hard to pay attention. That’s why the school’s reports are so important for the diagnosis.”

The diagnosis. Altherra had had a few conversations, administered a questionnaire, and boom, Toby was diagnosed.

“We live in New York. Everyone’s distracted.”

“I’m not,” she said. Of course she wasn’t. She was perfect. “And I’m afraid Toby is more distractible than other children.”

This diagnosis struck him as overly vague. Unscientific. What about lab results? A blood test? Empirical proof? “What about his mother leaving? You need to factor that into all this.”

“I haven’t forgotten that.”

Could the diagnosis be accurate? Could it be a result of something he’d done? Had some rogue gene from his screwed-up family snuck in and messed up Toby’s brain? His uncle Hutch had always struck him as overly antsy.

“The good news is that there are proven ways to treat the problem,” Dr. Altherra said. “I think we talked about this in my office.”

His head was spinning and there was nowhere to sit, just hoards of people rushing past him.

“If you’re nervous about giving Toby Ritalin, I can tell you I’ve had a lot of success with another methylphenidate-based medication specifically designed for children, called Metattent Junior.”

“Are you sure this is the right way to go?”

“In my medical opinion? Definitely.”

“I’m going to have to talk to Toby’s pediatrician about this.” He’d put in a call to Dr. Jon, Toby’s pediatrician, three weeks ago, but Jon was getting harder and harder to reach. He was an Upper West Side liberal who hated private school, privilege, and parents who overreacted. Sean trusted him completely and always got a straight answer from the guy. If there was anyone who was going to tell him not to medicate his eight-year-old—to take it slow and explore less extreme options—it was going to be Jon.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jon had overextended himself. In a city where the best doctors had virtually stopped taking insurance, Jon took any insurance card you dug out of your wallet. As a result it took weeks for him to return a call.

“Great. You should do all the research you can. Not necessarily online, though. There’s a lot of misinformation out there.” She paused. “I can’t call in a prescription for a controlled substance, so I’ll pop it in the mail. Call if you have more questions.”

He snapped the phone shut and stood in the middle of the craziness. The panic started somewhere in his chest and spread through his body like a swarm of red ants. He had no idea what to do. None of it was supposed to be this way. Major decisions like this required two parents. For the first time he realized how utterly alone he was. He flipped open the phone and scrolled down to Ellie’s number. His thumb hovered over the call button. His heart was racing and he squeegeed the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. No, he decided. He’d rather throw himself in front of a speeding Metro-North train than call Ellie and ask for her help.

He called Dr. Jon’s office again. “No I do not want to leave a message.” His voice was loud, but none of the people around him seemed to notice. You had to blow a foghorn in Grand Central to get anyone’s attention. “I’ve left five. I need to speak to Jon today. Now.”

The sheepish girl at the desk told him Jon was with patients and that the office closed at six. He left another message.

He called twice more on his way to Madison Square Garden. He’d just keep calling until Jon was finished reattaching a severed digit or surgically removing an M&M from a four-year-old’s nostril or whatever pediatricians did.

When he got to the Garden, the place was eerily empty. He didn’t know it could get so empty. The last time he’d been here was over the summer. He and Ellie had fought their way through packs of aging Dylan fans. But the venue was so big, the real Dylan had looked like a tiny spec on the stage. They had to watch him on a screen mounted above his head.

Now, Sean had the run of the place. He stopped in front of a poster of Billy Horn from his glory days, charging the hoop, biceps bulging, a look of utter determination on his dripping face. He’d passed by it a million times, but he’d never stopped and just looked—there were always too many people rushing past. It had been five or six years since Billy Horn was winning games. Still, he was a fixture in New York. A decent guy—or at least that was his reputation. The Knicks would never trade him. But they weren’t going to start him anymore, either.

He wondered what it was like to have your ninth birthday party at Madison Square Garden. Toby must think this was how kids all over the country celebrated turning nine. Sean hated to admit that it was cool as hell, being here in the middle of the day, his name on the guest list.

The jowly guard directed him to center court.

Remnants of cake and pizza littered the bench as Zack and his friends dribbled and flailed under the house lights and the glow of the scoreboard. They were dressed in miniature Knicks uniforms that were, no doubt, party favors. Toby’s friends had taken home super balls and Mexican jumping beans from his party. He really should remember to buy a present for Zack.

Billy took the ball down the court with some between-the-leg dribbling designed to entertain the kids. He passed dramatically to Charlie Wilkins, the team’s power forward, who found Zack and passed to him. Zack went up for a long shot and nailed it. The boys on his team whooped and chest bumped. Zack could already shoot three pointers like clockwork.

Sean watched for a few minutes from the aisle. Billy passed to Toby. Somehow Toby caught it, dribbled twice and shot. Sean held his breath as he watched the ball arc up and swish cleanly through the hoop. Toby stared, slack-jawed at his basket. The megawatt sound system exploded with Knicks cheers. The LED screen flashed GO KNICKS! A huge grin spread over Toby’s face.

Right now, no one would know Toby was missing his mother or having trouble in school or suffering from some scary deficit. He was a basketball star, a hero.

Billy jogged over to Toby and gave him a high five. “We could’ve used that shot last night against the Mavs.”

When Billy saw Sean, he summoned him with big, overblown motions. “Come on down.” As in down to the Knicks’ court where every great basketball player had played.

The court was huge and hot from the lights. The floor had a bounce to it.

“Can we talk for a minute?” Billy asked.

He led Sean to a seat in the first row, away from the others. “I’ve got a situation.” It turned out that a Buzz photographer had snapped Billy at the Hustler Club on Twelfth Avenue. “It’s pretty tame,” Billy said. “But it doesn’t look good. Deanna’s going to be pissed.”

He knew exactly where this was going. “That sucks,” Sean said, shaking his head.

“Yeah. It does.” He looked at his size fifteen shoes. “I hate asking, but is there anything you can do about it?”

“Billy, I don’t know …”

“I hate asking for favors,” he said. “I don’t know what to say to Zack.”

Sean had never destroyed film. Not on purpose, anyway. There had to be a line. Then again, Buzz was a crappy publication. It existed to make the lives of celebrities miserable. This wasn’t Watergate or The Pentagon Papers. It was a once-great basketball player in a tittie bar. He might be able to misplace the file for a few weeks. Just until it was old news.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

“I owe you, man,” Billy said, slapping him on the back. “I owe you.”

BY THE TIME THEY LEFT THE GARDEN, IT WAS FIVE THIRTY. SEAN took out his phone to dial Dr. Jon one more time, then reconsidered. Instead of taking the train all the way to 110th, they got off at Eighty-sixth and walked the extra block to Jon’s office.

“I’m sorry, if you don’t have an appointment he can’t see you today,” the receptionist said when they got to the office. She looked like she’d had a long day dealing with screaming children and their screaming parents and was counting down the seconds until she could get out of there.

“I’m not leaving until I see him.” He crossed his arms over his chest and settled in.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “The office is closing in a few minutes.”

“You’re not going to tell him I’m here?”

“Without an appointment, I really can’t.”

“Wait here a minute,” he told Toby. “I’ll be right back.” He stepped over a plastic bead-counting toy in the middle of the floor that could have been used to culture every strain of strep and flu on the west side of Manhattan. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Where are you going?” The receptionist stood up. “Get back here!”

He walked to the back of the office past the empty examining rooms. He hung a right into the cramped room where Dr. Jon was filling out paperwork.

Jon looked up blearily. “Do we have an appointment?” His long face sagged at the jawline and his hair had thinned significantly since Toby’s physical five months before.

“I’ve left ten messages. I have an emergency.”

Jon sighed, pushed his chair back, and clasped his hands over his stomach.

“So,” Sean asked, “do you have a few minutes?”

“I’m waiting. What’s the emergency?”

“Oh, okay. Well, Toby has been …” He lowered his voice, even though the place was empty. “He’s been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Inattentive type. We went to a psychiatrist. And … she prescribed something called Metattent Junior. I was wondering what you thought about that. I mean, I’ve been online and it seems extremely dangerous to give children this kind of …”

“Don’t research this online.”

“In 2005, the Canadians recalled ADD medication because studies showed that children were dying from it.”

“Look, if he has ADD, there’s no other way to treat it. You can do behavioral modifications, which is a good idea anyway. But if you want to give him any real relief, medication is the way to go.”

“But the studies I found online …”

Dr. Jon let out a weary sigh. “The Canadians put Adderall back on the market within two months. They were using American studies they hadn’t analyzed properly.” He paused. “Whatever negative information you’re finding online is garbage.”

Garbage was not what Sean had expected to hear from Jon. “So you think I should give him the drugs?”

“Who did the testing?”

When he mentioned Dr. Altherra’s name, John looked impressed. “She’s good.” He considered it for a moment. “She had the school fill out Conners scales?”

Sean nodded.

“If Angela thinks he needs it, I would try it.”

“But …”

“There are only a few things to monitor. We’ll make sure it’s not affecting his blood pressure, and we’ll weigh and measure him twice a year to make sure he’s gaining at a reasonable rate.”

“Gaining?”

“Yeah, these drugs can suppress the appetite. We want to make sure he’s eating enough so his development isn’t impacted.”

“So there are risks.”

“It’s just my opinion, but I’d say the risk of failure and low self-esteem from poor school performance is a lot greater. He’s in third grade, right? It starts in third, but fourth is even worse.” He shook his head. “Especially at private school. The work is harder, plus kids are extremely aware of how they’re doing compared to their peers. It’s not pretty.”

Jon talked to him for a full twenty minutes. He was impossible to pin down, but once you got him, he was full of information.

“I’ve got to go,” Jon said. “My wife is dragging me to a benefit for kidney disease.” He switched off his desk lamp and put a fat folder into his bag. “Get the prescription filled, give him half a pill on a day he’ll be home to see how he reacts to it. If all goes well, see for yourself if it makes a difference at school. Then go from there. And call me.”