Jodi Picoult - House Rules

Nobody ever asks Superman if X-ray vision is a drag; if it gets old looking into brick buildings and seeing guys beat their wives or lonely women getting wasted or losers surfing porn sites. Nobody ever asks Spider-Man if he gets vertigo. If their superpowers are anything like mine, it’s no wonder they’re always putting themselves in harm’s way. They’re probably hoping for a quick death.

Mama Spatakopoulous will not talk to me until I agree to eat a little something, which is how I wind up with a full plate of spaghetti and meatballs as I ask her questions about Jess Ogilvy. “Do you remember this girl?” I ask, showing her a photo of Jess.

“Yes, poor thing, I saw on the news what happened.”

“I understand that she came here a few days before she was killed?”

The woman nods. “With her boyfriend, and that other one.”

“You mean Jacob Hunt?” I show her a picture of Jacob, too.

“That’s him.” She shrugs.

“Do you have any security cameras in here?”

“No. Why? Is the neighborhood dangerous?”

“I just thought I might be able to see the interaction that afternoon,” I say.

“Oh, I can tell you that,” Mama Spatakopoulous says. “It was a big fight.”

“What happened?”

“The girl, she got very upset. She was crying, and eventually she ran out. She stuck the Hunt kid with the bill and a whole pizza.”

“Do you know why she was upset?” I ask. “What they were fighting about?”

“Well,” the woman says, “I couldn’t hear everything, but it seemed like he was jealous.”

“Ms. Spatakopoulous.” I lean forward. “This is very important: did you hear anything Jacob said in particular that was threatening to Jess? Or see him physically attack her in any way?”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, it wasn’t Jacob who was jealous,” she says. “It was the other one. The boyfriend.”

When I intercept Mark Maguire, he is leaving the student center with two of his buddies. “How was lunch, Mark?” I ask, stepping away from the lamppost against which I’ve been leaning. “Did you order pizza? Was it as good as Mama Spatakopoulous’s?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he says. “I’m not talking to you.”

“I’d think as a grieving boyfriend you’d want to do just that.”

“You know what I want to do? Sue the shit out of you for what you did to me!”

“I let you go,” I say, shrugging. “People get unarrested all the time.” I fall into step beside him. “I just had a really interesting chat with the pizza lady. She seems to remember you and Jess fighting when you were there.”

Mark starts walking, and I fall into step beside him. “So what? So we fought. I already told you that.”

“What was that fight about?”

“Jacob Hunt. Jess thought he was some helpless moron, and the whole time he was using that act to get her interested in him.”

“Interested how?”

“He wanted her,” Mark says. “He played pathetic so that she’d be in the palm of his hand. At the restaurant, he had the nerve to ask her out. In front of me, like I wasn’t even there. All I did was put Hunt in his place-and remind him that his mommy was buying him Jess’s company.”

“How did she react?”

“She got pissed.” He stops in his tracks and faces me. “Look, maybe I’m not the most sensitive guy…”

“Gee, I didn’t notice.”

Mark glares at me. “I’m trying to make a point here. I said and did things I’m not proud of. I’m jealous; I wanted to be number one on Jess’s list. Maybe I crossed the line a few times, trying to make sure of that. But I never would have hurt her, never. The reason I started the fight at the pizza place in the first place was to protect her. She trusted everyone; she only saw the good in people. I could read right through Hunt’s bullshit, even if Jess couldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

He folds his arms. “My freshman year roommate still played with Pokémon cards. He never showered, and he pretty much lived in the computer lab. I probably said less than ten sentences to him all year. He was fucking brilliant-graduated early and went to go design missile systems for the Pentagon or something. He probably had Asperger’s, too, but no one ever slapped a label on him other than nerd. All I’m saying is that there’s a difference between being mentally retarded and being socially retarded. One’s a handicap. The other’s just a Get Out of Jail Free card.”

“I think current psychiatry might trump you, Mark. There’s a difference between being socially awkward and being clinically diagnosed with Asperger’s.”

“Yeah.” He meets my gaze. “That’s what Jess used to say, and now she’s dead.”

When I step into the kitchen at the Hunts’ house for the second day in a row, Emma is cooking something at the stove while Jacob sits at the kitchen table. I look from his face, bent toward the table over a gruesome collection of crime scene photography, to his mother’s. “Go ahead,” Emma says.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination by the State or local government, including in the courts,” Jacob recites, in his monotone. “In order to be protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act, you have to have a disability or have a relationship with someone with a disability. A person with a disability is defined as a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities… like communication… or is a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.”

He flips a page; now the pictures are of bodies in a morgue. Who the hell publishes this kind of book?

“Dr. Moon and my mother say I have quirks, but other people, like my teachers and the kids at school and that judge, might assume I have a disability,” Jacob adds.

I shake my head. “I don’t really understand.”

“There’s a logical and valid legal reason for you to speak for me,” Jacob says. “You may use the insanity defense, if you think it will work best during the trial.” He stands up, tucking the book under his arm. “But for the record, I personally subscribe to the belief that normal is just a setting on the dryer.”

I nod, considering this. “What movie is that from?”

Jacob rolls his eyes. “Not everything’s from a movie,” he says, and he walks off.

“Wow.” I walk toward Emma. “I don’t know how you did that, but thank you.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” she answers, and with a spatula, she flips the fish that is being sautéed in a pan.

“Was that the only reason you asked me to come over?”

“I thought that was what you wanted,” Emma says.

“It was. Until I smelled what you were cooking.” I grin. “I’ll knock ten bucks off my retainer if you feed me lunch.”

“Don’t you have a built-in cafeteria downstairs from your office?”

“A guy gets sick of red sauce every now and then,” I say. “Come on. Surely you could use a little grown-up conversation after being cooped up in the house.”

Emma makes a pretense of looking around the kitchen. “Sure… where’s the other grown-up?”

“I’m ten years older than Jacob,” I remind her. “So what are we eating?”

“Sea bass with garlic.”

I sit down at one of the counter stools and watch her carry a pot of boiling something to the sink and dump it in a colander. The steam curls the hair around her face. “One of my favorites,” I say. “I’m so glad you invited me.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “Stay already.”

“All right, but only if you can contain your enthusiasm for my company.”