He sighed. He doubted Audra knew what fair market value meant, anyway.
Just then the buzzer sounded and Graham went to answer. Clayton and Manny stood there, with a third man, who was presumably Alan.
Graham had met Alan before, but he remembered a large, soft man with freckles. This man, though, was a lot bigger—a lot. Graham could not even begin to estimate how much weight Alan had gained, but he seemed to fill the hallway. Manny and Clayton looked like twin Pinocchios next to him. Alan’s face was now too wide for his features—his eyes and mouth and nose seemed all clustered together in the middle—and his shoulders had taken on a sloped, shambling look.
“Come on in,” Graham said.
Audra was just coming out of the kitchen, and when she saw Alan, she gave a startled squeak.
Then she said, “Hello, everyone!” in a hearty voice. “Just go on in the living room! We’ll be there in a sec.”
As soon as they went by, she grabbed Graham’s arm. “What happened to Alan?”
“He gained some weight, I guess,” Graham said.
“Some!” Audra whispered. “He looks like a—a bear. He’s crossed species!”
Graham went into the living room. Clayton and Manny and Alan were all sitting on the sofa expectantly. Graham walked over to the corner of the living room where they kept the liquor and began taking drink orders. He suspected that this would be an alcohol-required sort of meeting.
Of course, nothing was ever uncomplicated with the Origami Club—Alan wanted light beer, which they didn’t have, and Manny wanted to know what was in a Rob Roy, and Clayton had to do some sort of calculation on his iPhone because he was counting carbohydrates.
In the middle of this, Audra came out of the kitchen with a little silver serving bowl filled with Canada mints—those thick pink candies that taste like Pepto-Bismol. Those mints had been in their kitchen cupboard for months, if not years. It was possible the mints had been in the apartment when they first moved in. So right away Graham knew that she considered this a B-list sort of get-together.
This is one of life’s secrets: the status of the guest is directly proportional to the freshness of the snack food offered by the host. This secret had been revealed to Graham only after he had wandered the earth and sought enlightenment for nearly sixty years. (Others of life’s secrets are: baby carrots are in fact just regular carrots cut into smaller pieces, and there is no scientific or medical reason you need to wait an hour after eating before you go swimming. About everything else, Graham was still pretty much in the dark.)
“So,” Clayton said, after deciding he couldn’t have any alcohol and asking for seltzer. “What’s this nonsense about Matthew wanting to quit Origami Club?”
Graham didn’t feel that this indicated much open-mindedness on Clayton’s part, but he started in dutifully anyway. “Matthew’s getting a little older now, and he’s finding it hard to prioritize things.”
“What things?” Manny asked.
Audra spoke up. “Well, you know, he has so many interests now that it’s hard to find time for everything.”
Clayton looked suspicious. “What sort of interests?”
“Ohhhhh,” Audra said, and Graham could tell by her drawling tone and the way she tipped her head back slightly that she had been caught unprepared. So had he. They really should have thought this out more. Audra began speaking very slowly. “Minecraft, of course, and he wants to take banjo lessons, and he’s tremendously interested in astronomy, and he’s learning to speak Spanish.”
What fascinating information! Matthew did love to play Minecraft—that was true. And once when Matthew was, oh, maybe six years old, Graham had taken him to hear an entertainer named Mr. Knick Knack, who played the banjo, and Matthew had liked that quite a bit. And sometimes on a rainy Sunday afternoon, if there was absolutely no other movie playing nearby that they wanted to see, they took Matthew to the Hayden Planetarium. And Julio had taught Matthew how to say El burro sabe más que tú—“The donkey knows more than you”—in Spanish. But basically, everything Audra said seemed to be pure fabrication. It was like leaning over someone’s shoulder while they falsified their résumé or wrote their Christmas letter.
Audra was picking up speed. “He’s also developed an interest in photography and botany. And of course, he spends lots of time with his friends.”
“But we’re his friends,” Manny said, and Graham had to close his eyes for a second. (There was too much love loose in the world—way too much.)
“Well, of course you are,” Audra said. “And you and he will still see lots of each other. After school, and weekends, and holidays.” She paused, but evidently she couldn’t think of any other times they might see Matthew. “It’s just he prefers not to go to the club on Sundays anymore.”
“But origami will teach him many skills that are valuable in later life,” Alan said.
Was that true? Graham wondered. Certainly you could live a full, rich life without ever having folded an origami T. rex. Oh, he supposed origami taught you something about patience and attention to detail, but did that really prepare you for life? Graham was of the opinion that nothing prepared you for life, unless maybe you were forced to run an Indian gauntlet as a toddler.
“That’s right,” Manny said. “You shouldn’t let him quit. I quit piano lessons in the third grade, and my mother let me even though the teacher said I had great promise and could become a professional musician.”
“Oh, I think all piano teachers say that to anyone who wants to quit,” Audra said. “It’s a way of keeping up business.”
Manny frowned. “Are you saying I wasn’t talented?”
“Sort of, I guess.” Audra looked thoughtful instead of contrite. “I mean, did the teacher ever say that you were very talented before you wanted to quit?”
“Well, no,” Manny admitted. “Up till that point, she mostly just said that my shoes scuffed up her hardwood floors too much.”
“She sounds like a dreadful person,” Audra said sympathetically.
“She was,” Manny said, in the tone of someone just realizing they’ve been scammed. “She also said that the Beatles were overrated and she wouldn’t let me learn any of their music.”
“Now, Matthew’s piano teacher, Mr. Vargas, would never say that,” Audra said. “He is the nicest, most patient man, and he lets Matthew learn whatever songs he wants. Plus, he told me about this great Cuban diner in the Village where they make the best fried plantains.”
“What’s the difference between a plantain and a banana?” Manny asked. “Because I’ve never known.”
“I don’t think there is a difference,” Audra said. “It’s like turtle and tortoise.”