Are You Alone on Purpose? Read Free Page A

boy,” murmured the rabbi. “It’s so sad.”
    Abruptly, Harry reached over and upended the board. The little wooden letter blocks rained down on the kitchen table. “This game is over,” he said.
    Â 
    Harry went to his room, leaving his father to clean up the Scrabble pieces and put them away. He had remembered something, and he went hunting in his closet, where all the old games were, the stuff his mother had bought him when he was little, toys and crap. Harry never used it anymore, but he hadn’t gotten around to throwing it all out yet. He found what he was looking for and dug it out.
    It was a Shandling Sphere, still in its original packaging, unopened. His father’s secretary had bought it for Harry for Hanukkah the year after Harry’s mother died.
    Harry turned the box over in his hands. Behind clear shrink-wrap he could see the Sphere, in bright red, blue, and yellow plastic. On the back of the box there was a little ink drawing of Alison Shandling’s father, with a blurb.
    Harvard physicist Jacob Shandling originally designed the Sphere to help him learn more about his autistic savant son’s mathematical abilities. He discovered that Adam can twist the Sphere into one of its three possible geometric forms, in any of the three possible colors, from any starting position! Now, you can test your own skills against Adam’s. But be warned: it’s tougher than it looks!
    Harry headed back to the kitchen, where his father was slowly putting the Scrabble pieces away, and talking aloud. To her. Harry heard: “I know you’d make him do it, Margaret, but I—”
    Harry interrupted. “Here you go, Dad,” he said, throwing the box hard at his father, who caught it automatically. “Everything you wanted to know about the little retard is on the back.” With positive pleasure, he watched his father’s face. “Or, as the box says, the little autistic savant.”
    â€œHarry—”
    â€œRead it and weep,” Harry said, turning. And he thought: And stop talking to her. Just stop, damn it.

    At school that week, Harry deliberately waited until Wednesday, when Alison Shandling had first lunch, like he did, and her friend, de Silva, had third. That meant Alison would be alone. She was a nerd. She didn’t have a crowd. She didn’t have any friends except Paulina de Silva.
    Wednesday was the day Pizza Hut catered lunch. Harry got three slices and hung out by the cashiers, but ten minutes into lunch the traffic had slowed to a crawl and Alison still hadn’t come by. He must have missed her. Harry got rid of his tray, stole a new carton of milk, and started to cruise the cafeteria. She couldn’t be outside; it was raining. But he didn’t see her anywhere.
    He spotted Felicia Goren. “You seen Alison Shandling?”
    â€œDon’t bother,” interrupted Karen McDonough, who was sitting across from Felicia. “She won’t do your math homework for you. I asked months ago.”
    Karen was as stupid as they came. “I don’t need help with not doing my homework,” said Harry. He looked at Felicia, who was flicking her blond hair back with one hand. Felicia laughed.
    â€œShe’s over there,” she said. She pointed to the far end of the very next table. Harry immediately understood why he hadn’t spotted Alison himself; he’d been looking for someone sitting alone, and she was at a table filled with kids. But they were seventh-graders, and she wasn’t talking with them; she had pushed her tray away and was bent over a book and drinking absently from a big paper cup of soda.
    The other kids at her table wouldn’t be any trouble.
    â€œWhat do you want with her?” asked Felicia. Her eyes were avid; she’d been present for the little scene at the synagogue on Saturday. Felicia was a bitch.
    Harry smiled. “Business,” he said. He walked away, aware that Felicia