Like No Other Boy by Larry Center

Author:Larry Center [Center, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Splitrail Publishing
Published: 2020-06-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Ms. Yates stood and stepped forward to meet me and Tommy, while the scientists remained sitting around the conference table. Tommy moved away from her, hands in mouth now, head down. He cuddled Radar, motor-boated, and spun around. Then he smacked himself.

“Tommy, no,” I said. “Please don’t do that.”

But he was completely in his own world and didn’t seem to even hear what I was saying.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Crutcher,” Ms. Yates said, extending a hand to me after she’d studied Tommy. She spoke in that familiar Boston accent of hers.

We shook hands and I felt my face turn red. For a minute, I grew speechless, a rare moment for me indeed. “Ms. Yates. I’m—I’m honored.”

Her reassuring, thin-lipped smile was unable to put me at ease. As my hands clammed up, a sudden shyness overtook me. I was basically in a mild state of shock. I studied her piercing blue eyes, her broad forehead, her round face, on which she’d applied just a smattering of makeup. She wore a simple navy-blue dress belted at the waist; the ring on her left hand was the giveaway—it was huge, unfathomably expensive looking.

I sensed a kind of fiery dynamism that orbited around her, something that none of the photos in the newspapers or the shots on TV could reveal. She didn’t just look at you, she absorbed you, subsumed you, her entire being fully engaged in the present moment.

“I'm so excited about this,” she said, giving me a wide-open smile. “This has got to be one of my most interesting projects ever.” She looked down at Tommy, who was fidgeting now as he turned and stared again at the adult chimp. She apparently knew not to try to greet him or touch him. I guessed she’d been forewarned. “He’s such a beautiful little boy. I know you’re proud of him.”

“I am.” I swallowed, again at a loss for words. “Tommy, can you say hello to Ms. Yates?”

Tommy gave her a quick look, and then a deep, robotic: “Hello.”

“Hello to you too, Tommy,” Ms. Yates said. “He’s so precious!”

“Hello . . . Fine . . . Hello . . . Fine.” Tommy repeated himself a minute more as we watched him, then sucked on the backs of his hands, which I gently tugged from his mouth.

“One of the reasons I was so drawn to this project was because I have a nephew who’s autistic,” Ms. Yates said. “He’s also eight years old. I see how much he struggles. He’s pretty severe. My sister and her husband are out of their minds with worry.” Her brow wrinkled. “If this research can offer just a small window into how people with autism think and behave, I’m all for it, not to mention what it could possibly mean for our understanding of the nonhuman primates. Dr. Dunn? Am I right?” Yates turned to a shiny-headed bald man with a smooth-shaven face and a jutting jaw.

“Absolutely. This is truly groundbreaking work. I’m pleased to meet you as well,” Dr.

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