Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [181]
“Mass times force equals velocity,” the boy said, just before his grandmother dropped him off at Community day camp. “It’s true. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t. But actually, Freddie, that doesn’t sound quite right.”
“Well, it’s true. Absolutely. I’ve been studying physics. And mass times force equals velocity. That’s why a baseball travels faster if you hit it hard. You’re forcing the ball to, like, accelerate.” He waited for his words to sink in. “To escape inertia. You want to hear something else? This is even more amazing. Gravity equals weight times voltage. That’s Yardley’s Theorem.”
“Yes. Well, okay. We’re here,” Estelle said, pulling to a stop in front of the Community day camp building, a grim yellow concrete-block affair with a flagpole hoisting a limp flag just inside the turning circle. During the winter, the building served as a community center. During the summer, they offered activities for kids from ages eight to twelve, with trips to spots of local interest. Last week the boys and girls had visited an institution for assisted living, giving each old person a gift of their own devising. Frederick had given his own old person an African violet. The day camp counselors also staged sports activities on the playground in back. Frederick hated all of it and performed his sullen silence with great majesty whenever Estelle picked him up.
“Do I have to go in there?” the boy asked, once she had stopped.
“Well, I did drive you over here. Kiddo, give it the old college try.”
“I’ve done that all summer.”
“So do it again.”
“They all hate me,” Frederick said. “They throw their lunch food at me.”
“Throw it back.”
“Yeah, that’ll work. They throw sandwiches. Which explode.”
“Well, can’t you—”
“I got a cupcake in my hair yesterday.”
“Make an effort—”
“All right, all right,” he said.
“To go in there—”
“I said all right.”
There was a brief air pocket of dead silence.
“See you in a few hours,” Estelle muttered, as her grandson heaved himself out of the car. He was still writing something on his phone. He also had words penned on his arm.
“Don’t bother coming back. Just call the coroner,” the boy shouted, closing the car door and causing the baseball bat to roll again on the floor.
Her husband, Randall, down on his knees in the garden, waved to Estelle absentmindedly with his trowel as she pulled up on the driveway. “Not enough fertilizer for the pansies,” he said to her once she was out of the car and behind him, leaning on him. Using his customary tone of comic despair, he said, “And I’ve been overwatering the snaps, damn it. Look at them.” He stood up, shaking his head before turning and giving Estelle a quick kiss on the lips. When he did, the brim of his sun hat poked against her forehead. “Drop him off okay?” Randall asked.
“So I bought him a baseball bat,” Estelle said, putting her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “It was a hopeful gesture.” She straightened her husband and dusted him off. “But he stayed grumpy. Oh, and this is interesting: there was a fight in the checkout line at the discount store.”
Randall nodded, gazing at her carefully. “Sure. Of course there was,” he said. As always, she was taken aback by his capacity for understanding her, for knowing her least little mood. “Stel,” he said, “I’ve made some lemonade, and … Freddie’s disposition isn’t your fault, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.” She whistled to the dog, who regarded her with indifference from his shade under the crab apple tree. “I just wish sometimes that Freddie were, oh, I don’t know, more … normal, and I hate myself for wanting that. Who wants normal?”
“You do,” he said. “Well, let’s have a softball game on the vacant lot when he gets home. Us and a few normal neighbors. With his new baseball bat.”
“A softball game?”
“Yes. With Freddie. Or maybe we should just let him be.” He gave her hand another squeeze and preceded her into the house, holding the door open behind him. How considerate! Randall had always been considerate: he was one of those easygoing people—affable, graceful,