Wired by Francine Pascal

Author:Francine Pascal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2004-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

Basic Human Niceties

ED HEARD THE DOORBELL RING BUT couldn’t bring himself to rush to answer it. He knew his mother would race for the door, anyhow. She was so thrilled to have walking, talking, dating, and heck—even convalescing Ed back home that she didn’t mind taking care of him in these small ways. Ed knew she’d be ecstatic to open the door to his “cute little girlfriend” and show Kai to his room. It didn’t matter how many times he told her that he and Kai had broken up; Ed’s mother was determined to imagine her son’s teenage experience to be idyllic. Short-term paralysis notwithstanding, of course.

He was being bitter, he knew. The entire time he’d been wheelchair bound, he had resented his parents and his sister for being awkward and strange around him. Somehow they’d been embarrassed by his handicap, and since Ed himself was having a hard enough time dealing with it, he could have done with some more support from them. But it had never come.

Now, though, his parents couldn’t dote on him enough. His sister, when she was home, cooed over him and teased him about what a lady-killer he’d become. She didn’t seem to notice that he and Kai had regressed to the realm of the platonic. And every time the phone rang or someone came to the door for Ed, the Fargos took it as another personal victory. They had won their son back from the land of the ill and disfigured.

Today was no exception. “Why, hello, Kai!” he could hear his mother trilling, a shade too enthusiastically. Quelle Donna Reed. Her shrill voice echoed off the tiles of the front hallway. “How nice of you to stop by! Ed’s just gotten back—he’s in his bedroom.”

It was a sure sign that they still, on some level, considered him an invalid: they had no qualms about sending girls straight to his bedroom. Maybe they were hoping they’d catch him in the throes of a passionate make-out session—proving his “recovery” complete, once and for all.

Come to think of it, it would be a fun theory to prove. Too bad there weren’t any real, viable contenders these days.

There was a hearty rap at the door, followed by his mother’s energetic singsong once again. He wondered if that level of perkiness was exhausting to her to maintain. “Ed? Ed, guess who’s here?”

“I can’t imagine,” he mumbled to himself, softly enough that neither Kai nor his mother would hear from the other side of the door.

The doorknob turned and the door slid open to reveal his mother’s beaming face. “Ed, dear, you have a visitor. Are you up for it?” Wide, watery eyes told him she expected that he would be. She turned her head away, speaking now directly to Kai again. “Go on, dear, he’s in there. Just resting.” She all but patted Kai on the head and drifted off in the direction of the kitchen, humming to herself.

Kai’s petite frame filled the doorway as she entered the room.

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