We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [195]
“Look at you!” I exclaimed when Kevin emerged. I was carefully frying Celia’s French toast completely dry, lest a little undercooked egg seem like slime. “What happened, were all your size-one clothes in the wash?”
“Some days you just wake up,” he said, tucking his billowing white fencing shirt into the same rippling black rayon slacks he had worn to Hudson House, “with a sense of occasion.”
In plain view, he packed the five Kryptonite locks and chains into his backpack. I assumed he’d found takers at school.
“Kevin looks really handsome,” said Celia shyly.
“Yup, your brother’s a heartbreaker,” I said. And wouldn’t he be.
I sifted a generous dusting of confectioner’s sugar over the toast, stooping by Celia’s soft blond hair to mumble, “Now don’t dawdle, you don’t want to be late for school again. You’re supposed to eat it, not make friends with it.”
I tucked her hair behind her ears and kissed the top of her head, and as I did so Kevin cut a glance toward me as he loaded the backpack with another chain. Though he’d entered the kitchen with a rare energy, now his eyes had gone dead.
“Hey, Kev!” you cried. “I ever show you how this camera works? Good knowledge of photography never hurt anybody; it’s sure paid off for me. Get over here, there’s time. I don’t know what’s got into you, but you have forty-five minutes to spare.” You pushed your greasy plate out of the way and opened the camera bag at your feet.
Unwillingly, Kevin floated over. He didn’t seem in the mood for Gee-Dadding this morning. As you went through the lighting and f-stop positions, I felt a pang of recognition. Your own father’s awkward version of intimacy was always to explain in far greater detail than anyone cared to hear exactly how some device worked. You didn’t share Herbert’s conviction that to take apart the clockwork of the universe was to unlock the extent of its mysteries, but you had inherited a resort to mechanics as an emotional crutch.
“This reminds me,” you said mid-instruction. “I want to shoot a roll of you at archery practice sometime soon. Capture that steely gaze and steady arm for posterity, how about it? We could do a whole photomontage for the foyer: Braveheart of the Palisades!”
Slapping his shoulder was probably a mistake; he flinched. And for the briefest of moments I appreciated what little access we ever had to what really went on in Kevin’s head, since for a second the mask fell, and his face curdled with—well, with revulsion, I’m afraid. To allow even so brief a glimpse of its workings, he must have had other things on his mind.
“Yeah. Dad,” he said effortfully. “That would be . . . great.”
Yet I chose this of all mornings to gaze upon our domestic tableau in soft focus. All teenagers hate their parents, I thought, and there was something priceless about the antipathy if you could take it. As the sun caught the fine gold of Celia’s hair while she cut her French toast into ridiculously tiny pieces and you embarked on a riff about the dangers of backlighting while Kevin twitched with impatience, I was so heartened by this Norman Rockwell moment that I considered sticking around until the kids had to leave for school, maybe giving Celia a lift myself instead of leaving the run to you. Would that I had given in to the temptation! But children need routine, I decided, and if I didn’t get a jump on the morning rush hour, there would be hell to pay on the bridge.
“Shut up!” Kevin barked suddenly at your side. “That’s enough. Shut up!”
Warily, we all three peered at this unprompted impertinence.
“I don’t care how your camera works,” he continued levelly. “I don’t want to be a location