A Playdate With Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

He wasn’t like the rest of us. He just didn’t have that kind of brain.”
    She sighed and leaned against her husband. “I should go sit next to Mom. Are you okay on your own, Larry?”
    “I’m fine. Juliet’s keeping me company. Aren’t you?” he said with a leer.
    Michelle didn’t seem to notice her husband’s wolfish expression. She nodded distractedly and left us.
    “Intense family dynamic,” I said to Larry.
    “You don’t know the half of it,” he whispered.
    “Really?” I leaned closer to him and raised my eyebrows.
    He was obviously flattered at the attention and altogether too happy to be dishing his in-laws to an encouraging ear.
    “It can’t hurt to talk about this now. I mean, the poor guy’s dead. Arthur and Leslie never expected much from Bobby because they’re big believers in the heritability of intelligence.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “They expected their kids to be brilliant because they think they are such perfect genetic specimens. But not Bobby.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because Bobby wasn’t theirs. He was adopted.”
    “Really?” This shocked me. Bobby and I had had long talks about our families. He’d never mentioned this.
    “You want to know the really messed up thing?”
    I nodded.
    He glanced over his shoulder and motioned me closer. I leaned in, and he said in a low voice, “They never told him.”
    “Really?” I matched his whisper. “That’s so strange. Why not?”
    “They said it was because they didn’t want him to feel inferior. But David, Lisa, and Michelle all knew. Michelle’s the baby, and she was eight when they brought him home, so of course they knew. The whole family kept it a secret from Bobby.”
    “He
never
knew?”
    “No. I mean, he didn’t know until recently.”
    “And how did this suddenly come out?”
    “Totally by accident. It had something to do with his being a Tay-Sachs carrier. David knows. He’s the one who told him.”

    B ECAUSE it was some time before I could corner Bobby’s brother David, I had to satisfy myself instead with reinvestigatingthe buffet table. I was strategically placed to take advantage of the tray of tiny pecan tarts that made their late appearance on the arm of a white-jacketed server. I was wolfing down my third when I saw David start to walk out of the living room. I wiped my mouth and slipped out after him. I found him slumped in a cracked leather armchair in a library, away from the noise of the crowd. I smiled at him as I entered the room, then gazed admiringly at the walls of books.
    “What a beautiful room,” I said.
    “Yeah. My parents keep all their medical texts in here. When Bobby was little, I used to get the dermatology ones down and scare him with pictures of pustules and varicella and the like.”
    “Gross.”
    “He loved it. He’d squeal and shriek and then say, ‘Show me another one.’ We really liked the V.D. pictures.”
    I lowered myself into the matching armchair opposite Bobby’s brother. “You gave a lovely eulogy.”
    “I guess. I didn’t really know what to say. I mean, what do you say when your kid brother dies?”
    The question was rhetorical.
    “Were you two very close?”
    “No. I mean, we got along, but, you know, I was twelve when Bobby was born. I left for college when he was six. I didn’t come home much after that.”
    “Still, it sounds like you loved him very much.”
    David shrugged and wiped tears from his eyes with an angry fist. “Yeah,” he croaked.
    “I’m Juliet, I was a friend of Bobby’s. And a client.”
    He shook my hand perfunctorily.
    I didn’t really know how to ask David what it was that I wanted to know, but it’s always served me well just to open my big mouth, so that’s what I did. “I hope you don’t think I’m prying, but I was wondering, well, what you make of Bobby’s death. I know it’s not really any of my business, but Bobby didn’t seem at all depressed to me, and I saw him pretty regularly. Do you have any idea why he would