The Mirror Man, стр. 50
“Is Mom with you?” the clone asked.
“No. Why would she be with me?”
“She’s just later than usual, is all. Second night this week, isn’t it? Where have you been?”
“At a friend’s house, working on a science project.”
“What friend?”
“You don’t know him,” Parker told him. “A kid from class.”
Jeremiah turned away from the monitor when Brent let out an involuntary chuckle.
“What?” Jeremiah asked.
“That kid has been smoking the ganja,” he said. “Look at his eyes. He’s totally wasted.”
“No,” Jeremiah said, and looked closer at the image of his son on the screen. “Parker’s not into drugs. He doesn’t smoke pot. There’s no way he’s stoned.”
“Sure,” Brent said with a grin. “And I don’t drink beer. Look at him!”
“He’s not!” Jeremiah insisted, noting Parker’s glassy gaze with growing concern.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Brent said. “Tell me you didn’t do the same exact thing at his age.”
“He’s never been into drugs. Who is this kid he was with?” Jeremiah leaned in closer to the monitor and willed the clone to push for information. He didn’t, of course. He wouldn’t. Idiot.
“Did you finish the science project?” the clone asked, clueless.
“Yeah. Is there any dinner?”
“There’s tuna. Have you talked to your mother today?”
“No.” Parker let Louie back in and disappeared into the kitchen. The clone followed, hopefully, Jeremiah thought, to barrage him with questions and accusations, shake him by the shoulders, maybe ground the kid or throw him into a cold shower. Instead, he just stood in the doorway and watched his son make a seriously munchie-size sandwich. Yeah, Jeremiah admitted to himself, he was totally stoned. From the look on the clone’s face, he knew it now, too, and the fact that he still said nothing made Jeremiah want to jump through the wall and just take over. What was he waiting for? Say something! You’re supposed to be his father!
“You’ve been staying after school a lot lately,” he said, a hint of accusation lacing his tone.
“I told you, I was working on a project. You’re the one always saying I need to get my grades up.”
Parker started to devour his sandwich and slipped Louie a bit of tuna from his finger. The dog wagged his tail delightedly and sat rigidly at Parker’s feet, staring up at the food as though he could make it fall to the floor by the power of his own rapt attention.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Jeremiah said to the monitor. “He’s not going to just let him get away with this, is he? What the hell is wrong with this asshole?”
Brent scribbled something down on his notepad, glancing at Jeremiah from the corner of his eye.
“Oh, knock it off, Brent!”
“What? This is my job, remember?”
“Fuck you,” he said, and turned back to the scene in front of him.
Parker made a move for the back staircase, Louie at his heels, and the clone asked where he was going.
“I have more homework.”
“Why don’t we go get an ice cream first? We haven’t done that in a while. What do you say?”
Good move, Jeremiah thought, have a nice talk in a nonconfrontational way. For a moment, he was almost sort of impressed, knowing that, had it been him standing in that kitchen, he might not have played it so cool. He might have started screaming and searching Parker’s pockets for a pipe.
“I can’t, Dad,” Parker said, avoiding the clone’s eyes, and went up the stairs, two at a time.
“Follow him!” Jeremiah urged uselessly.
Instead, the clone just started cleaning the mess Parker had left on the counter and, infuriatingly, began humming a mindless tune into the heavy silence of the kitchen. For a moment, Jeremiah entertained the idea of playing another game with his son. Maybe he could tweak Clyde’s outfit, swap the Ramones T-shirt for something with a subtle antidrug message: Drugs Are for Absolute Fucking Losers. Do You Want to Destroy Every Brain Cell in Your Head? But he knew he couldn’t parent his son through a video game, and he couldn’t trust himself to make contact again.
Once the counter was sufficiently cleared, the clone reached up to a high cabinet over the refrigerator, took down a bottle and fixed himself a tall gin and tonic, light on the tonic. Jeremiah winced. A mixed drink on a Tuesday was unheard of. The clone must have been feeling the strain, he thought.
Settling back in front of the TV, the clone rotated through the channels and sipped his drink until the front door opened again sometime around ten o’clock. Diana came in without a word of greeting, dropped her purse on the floor by the hall table and went straight to the kitchen. The clone got up and followed her. Jeremiah could see his face had settled into a hard expression, his brow furrowed and his lips tightened.
“He looks pissed,” Brent said.
“Can you blame him?” Jeremiah snapped. “He’s probably sick and tired of this by now.”
“Working late again?” the clone said. Diana turned and offered him a half smile.
“Yeah,” she said. “That same case. Is Parker home?”
“In his room.”
“Did you eat?”
“I made sandwiches.”
“I had something at the office,” Diana said, although the clone hadn’t bothered to ask. “I’m exhausted. I think I’ll take a shower before bed.”
“I bet you’re exhausted.” There was a hint of accusation in his voice. “All these late nights. Takes a lot out of you.”
In the lab, Jeremiah scrutinized the monitor. Was the clone finally going to do what he himself could never do? Was he finally going to confront her?
Diana stared at the clone for a long moment without a word and then shook her head and started toward the stairs.
“Wait,” the clone said. Jeremiah held his breath. “Why don’t we have a drink? You can tell me all about this case that’s been keeping you away every night.”
Diana’s eyes narrowed. “I’m tired, Jeremiah. I don’t want a drink. Besides, it’s nothing you’d be interested