Standard Deviation: ‘The best feel-good novel around’ Daily Mail. Katherine Heiny
Pearl turned to them and said, “Now, you two run along and enjoy your day. Matthew will be just fine here. You can come back and pick him up around four.”
“Four?” Audra said, glancing at Graham. “But what about lunch?”
“We’ll give him lunch here,” Pearl said calmly.
Oh, well, now that was a problem. Matthew did not eat lunch at other people’s houses. It had been tried; it could not be done. It led to tears, often on the sides of both Matthew and the hostess. Other people’s mothers didn’t understand that Matthew would not eat their brand of ketchup, their flavor of potato chip, their variety of cereal, their make of apple juice. It had to be utterly and completely familiar or he wouldn’t touch it. No sandwiches cut in triangles, no generic Oreos, no off-brand grape jelly. And then there were the people who actually expected Matthew to sit down with their families and eat meat loaf or chicken pot pie. (The world is full of reckless fools—Graham had not realized that before Matthew began trying to eat meals at other people’s houses.)
“It would be better if we stopped back and picked him up before lunch,” Graham said.
“But I don’t want to leave early!” Matthew said. Honestly, this day was full of surprises.
“Well, maybe we could come back and bring you something to eat—” Audra began.
“I’m sure we can manage lunch,” Pearl said, obviously unaware that Matthew’s past was littered with the corpses of women who said “I’m sure we can manage lunch.” “I always make the boys something to eat.”
“It’s just—” Audra said, biting her lip. “It’s just—he’s really terribly fussy.”
“All the boys are fussy,” Pearl said calmly. She began to list their meals off on her fingers. “I usually make Alan a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off. Manny has already told me he wants plain rice and a banana cut in slices and a glass of whole milk. Clayton, of course, will have pancakes because it’s Sunday. I also have both creamy and crunchy peanut butter, and saltines.”
Oh, at last, at last! These were Matthew’s people! They spoke Matthew’s language! Why then did Graham feel so sad?
“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind,” Audra said. “And if I could just take a quick peek at your pancake mix and syrup and make sure it’s a brand Matthew likes?”
“Of course,” Pearl said graciously. “Just come on into the kitchen. And be sure to tell me if there’s some particular way he wants the pancakes made.”
Audra stepped into the kitchen to give Pearl a crash course in the way Matthew liked his pancakes—milk instead of water in the mix, syrup served in a separate cup, no butter ever—while Graham watched Matthew and the other members of the Origami Club begin folding sheets of green paper so thin they were almost transparent. Graham had thought the shrimp would be folded out of coral-colored paper, but evidently not. Alan was complaining about his mother, which was reassuringly normal.
“So my mother’s having her garden club over to lunch,” Alan said, “and she wants me to fold all their napkins into hydrangeas, and I say, ‘Fujimoto’s Hydrangeas? You want me to make six Fujimoto’s Hydrangeas? Out of napkins?’ and she says yes and I say, ‘Napkins that these ladies are all just going to shake open and wipe their mouths with?’ and she says yes and I say, ‘Do you have any idea, any real idea, how difficult it is to fold a tessellation?’ and she says, ‘Do you have any real idea how difficult labor and delivery are?’”
“I think we’re all set,” Audra said, coming out of the kitchen. “Matthew, sweetie, call us if you need anything at all, okay?”
“Okay,” Matthew said, not looking up. His tongue poked out to touch the middle of his upper lip—the sign of his greatest concentration.
“Goodbye, everyone,” Audra said. “It was so nice to meet you!”
The folders sort of nodded and grunted, and Pearl walked them to the door. “Don’t worry about a thing!” she whispered, squeezing Graham’s arm. “Matthew’s going to fit right in!”
Well. Yes. So much had to go unsaid there.
In the elevator, Audra wrapped her arms around Graham and leaned against him. In these dingy surroundings, she smelled as fresh as a bar of soap just broken in half.
“Promise me we won’t let Matthew turn out like those men,” she whispered, “and if he does, that we’ll still love him anyway.”
Elspeth sent them a change-of-address card. It was just a small white note in a plain envelope with her name and new address at the Rosemund.
Graham stood in the lobby of their building, drops of summer rain glinting like diamonds on his overcoat, and tapped the card against his palm for a long time. He wondered if she would ever know he’d helped her get that apartment. Probably not. Bad deeds—even anonymous bad deeds—came home to roost eventually in the form of a speeding ticket or a court summons, but anonymous good deeds generally went unacknowledged forever. Unless the person you had done the good deed for was extremely resourceful and tracked you down via Craigslist Missed Connections.
He brought the card up with the rest of the mail and handed it to Audra in the kitchen.
“Oooh,” she said eagerly when she saw the return address. She pulled out the card, scanned it, and looked at Graham expectantly.
“What?” he asked.
“After all this time, she finally writes to you and it’s this?” she said, exasperated. “Not even a written message. It’s so—so unforthcoming.”
“That’s sort of her personality,” Graham said. “She’s not a forthcoming person.”
“But it’s still sort of a window into her life,” Audra said, her cheeks pink with indignation. “She may as well send everyone blank pieces of paper, because this says nothing about her.”
“Well, actually it says a lot about her,” he said. “It says everything about her, in fact.”
And didn’t it say a lot about Graham, too, that he used to be married to such a person? That such a person (oh, involuntary but still-so-disloyal thought!) had suited him much better than Audra?
Friday afternoon, and Graham was in his study in the apartment, waiting for a phone call from the Origami Club.
When Graham and Audra had picked Matthew up last Sunday, Clayton had given them a somewhat pompous speech about how the club would have a special meeting during the week to discuss potential new members. He said this in a way that simultaneously implied there were many potential new members to discuss and indicated that Matthew was the first new potential member, ever.
Anyway, Clayton had said he would call Graham and let him know their decision on Friday, and Graham had been so certain of Matthew’s success that he’d gone out and bought a bottle of sparkling cider, which was now chilling in the back of the refrigerator. (Graham would have liked to celebrate with real champagne, and even let Matthew have a sip. But last May, Graham had removed a tick from Matthew’s scalp using Bombay gin and a pair of tweezers and Matthew had told his science teacher he got drunk over Memorial Day weekend, so now Graham tended to err on the side of caution.)
Graham’s cellphone chirruped and the screen read CLAYTON PIERCE, ORIGAMI. Graham had programmed the number into his phone—that’s how sure he was.
“Hello?”
“Graham Cavanaugh?”
“Yes.”
“This is Clayton Pierce,” Clayton said. Then he cleared his throat and continued grandly, “The members of the Origami Club would like to extend a cordial invitation to Matthew to join our organization and help us maintain the high quality of life that origami allows us to enjoy. We are a dedicated group who meet each Sunday for origami and fellowship.”
The