Page 76 of Truth, Lies, and Second Dates
“I adore you,” he said, zipping the carry-on closed.
“Thanks!”
“What is that?”
She looked where he was pointing. She was wearing shorts, and just above her kneecap she had what looked like a cloud sticker.
“It’s a temporary tattoo, the kind they give children,” the child explained. “See?” She rubbed her fingers across it, but nothing smeared.
“But whatisit?”
“It’s a lamb. See?”
Tom squinted and could make out little black legs on the clou—the lamb. “Why?”
“They were handing them out at the sleep clinic. You know—‘counting sheep’? That’s why it’s shushing you. So you quiet your mind and sleep.”
“There’s not a temporary tattoo in the world that can effectively shush me.”
“All right. But as I was saying, you could have done something like Marcus did.”
“I could never have done such a thing,” he said. “Even now, I couldn’t. Your fellow MAGE is far more intelligent than I am.”
“But it’s not about intelligence, Uncle Tom. Well, it is, but in this particular case it’s also about parsing emotions. Like when you tried to help that boy when you were younger.”
Yes. That. His father had been a psychiatrist who frequently consulted for adolescent treatment programs. This included examining teenagers accused of violent crimes and testifying in court. Tom occasionally came along.
He had been waiting for his father in the processing area of Hennepin County Juvenile Detention. (Processing area = customer service with armed guards and the more disgruntled customers in handcuffs.) His father was late (a not uncommon occurrence), he had finished his book (also not uncommon), and after twenty minutes of boredom Tom struck up a conversation with the youth sitting across from him.
“Does that bother you?” Indicating the handcuffs.
“Naw.”
“Why?”
“Not the first time.”
“What happened?”
The other boy blinked slowly, but was also bored, so he answered. “They think I killed some guy I never met. Can’t kill someone you never saw.”
“Oh. Maybe your lack of affect was off-putting.”
“What?”
“The next time someone thinks you killed a person you never met, you have to convince them that you care, but not too much.”
“What?”
“Like this: you know Jenny through a friend.”
“Never met Jenny.”
“Jenny is hypothetical. So someone tells you Jenny’s husband is dead. It’s unfortunate when someone dies, right?” When he didn’t get an answer, Tom added, “Well, theoretically it is. So you should be sad. But nottoosad, because you never knew Jenny’s husband and you barely know Jenny. So while it’stechnicallysad, it won’t have any real impact on your life and it doesn’t necessarily makeyousad. So how to react to that news?”
There was a long silence, and then the other boy leaned forward and said, “How?”
“You want to project a kind of vague sorrow. It’s mildly sad when someone dies…”
