We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [88]
My companion’s eyes, previously alert, had filmed. She had no reason to be interested in my son’s dietary proclivities and now looked as if she regretted having started a conversation. I’m sorry, Franklin—it’s just that I go for days barely speaking, and then if I do start to talk it spews in a stream, like vomit.
“At any rate,” I continued with a bit more calculation, “I’ve warned Kevin that once he’s transferred to an adult facility the food is bound to be far worse.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Your boy don’t get out at eighteen? Ain’t that a shame.” Skirting the waiting room’s taboo subject, she meant: He must have done something bad.
“New York is pretty lenient with juveniles under sixteen,” I said. “But even in this state, kids have to do a five-year minimum for murder—especially when it’s seven high school students and an English teacher.” I added as her face rearranged, “Oh, and a cafeteria worker. Maybe Kevin has stronger feelings about food than I thought.”
She whispered, “KK.”
I could hear the reels in her head rewinding, as she grasped frantically after everything I’d said to which she’d only half listened. Now she had reason to be interested in my son’s secretive appetite—and in his “musical” preference for tuneless cacophony randomly generated by computer, in the ingenious little game he used to play composing school essays entirely with three-letter words. What I had just done, it was a kind of party trick. Suddenly she was at a loss for what to say, not because I bored her, but because she was bashful. If she could scavenge a hasty bushel of bruised and mealy details from my conversational drop-fruit, she would present it to her sister over the phone the next day like a Christmas basket.
“None other,” I said. “Funny how ‘KK’ used to mean ‘ Krispy Kreme.’”
“That must be . . . ” She faltered. I was reminded of the time I got a free upgrade to first class, where I sat right next to Sean Connery. Tonguetied, I couldn’t think of a thing to say besides, “You’re Sean Connery,” of which presumably he was aware.
“That must be a m-mighty cross to bear,” she stammered.
“Yes,” I said. I was no longer driven to get her attention; I had it. I could control the upchuck of chatter that had embarrassed me minutes before. I experienced a seated sensation, literalized in an improbable physical comfort in my form-fitted orange chair. Any obligation to express interest in the plight of this young woman’s own son seemed to vanish. Now I was the serene party, and the one to be courted. I felt almost queenly.
“Your boy,” she scrambled. “He holding up okay?”
“Oh, Kevin loves it here.”
“How come? Marlon curse this place up one side, down the other.”
“Kevin has few interests,” I said, giving our son the benefit of the doubt that he had any. “He’s never known what to do with himself. After-school hours and weekends hung off him in big drooping folds like an oversized car coat. Bingo, his day is agreeably regimented from breakfast to lights-out. And now he lives in a world where being pissed off all day long is totally normal. I think he even feels a sense of community,” I allowed. “Maybe not with the other inmates themselves. But their prevailing humors—disgust, hostility, derision—are like old friends.”
Other visitors were clearly eavesdropping, since they flicked averted eyes at our chairs with the swift, voracious motion of a lizard’s tongue. I might have lowered my voice, but I was enjoying the audience.
“He look back