The Meridians(25)
Nor was the little girl acting out or being silly: she truly seemed to believe that everyone was a great person who was not only capable of being a friend, but worth being her best friend.
They were both beautiful children, and their mother was no less wonderful. Often, on days where Kevin would not look at her, would not do anything but stubbornly insist on playing with his cars, or lining up blocks in perfect parallels that stretched all the way across the living room and kitchen, Lynette would call Doris, and the older woman would always be there to commiserate with and comfort her.
"Magic, magic, magic!" shouted the magician. Like many magicians, the man wore a tuxedo. Unlike most, however, his tux was bright yellow, with a cherry cummerbund and a forest green bow tie. He was like a walking Kodak commercial. "Magic, magic, magic time! Come and be amazed! Or at least," he said to the appreciative laughter of the parents, "come and sit down and give Mommy and Daddy a chance to snitch a piece of pizza!"
The children were herded like water droplets until they were all finally sitting in something that approximated a cohesive group. Lynette brought Kevin nearby, though as always he was carrying a few of his toy cars and was much more interested in them than he was in the people around him. At least he had let her and Robbie come to the event, though. Some days he was so determined to be alone that taking him anywhere was an impossibility. On those days of stultifying routine, it would be one long series of stacking, lining, shifting, and ordering, putting everything in the house into appropriate categories until her home resembled some strangely un-valuable room at the Smithsonian. Then when everything had found the place that was perfect, Kevin Angel would go through and start to reorder everything once more, only stopping to go to the bathroom and to eat and sleep.
Today, however, he let them pack him into the car with minimal fuss, and he had been wonderful through the course of the party, playing quietly and seeming, if not to interact with the other children, at least to be enjoying their presence.
The first trick was a simple one: the magician showed the children a long, thin strip of metal. He asked for Ashton, the birthday girl, to name her favorite animal starting with the sound "el." Several children - though not Ashton - shouted out "elephant."
"Fantastic! Splendid! Splendiferous! Fantoobulous!" shouted the banana-tuxed magician, and withdrew a small lighter from his pocket. He passed the lighter under the piece of metal. A moment later it started to curve, and to the children's apparent delight, it formed the outline of - who would have guessed? - an elephant!
The children cheered, and Banana Man nodded graciously.
"For my next trick!" he shouted, "I will need a volunteer!"
Again he called on Ashton. He showed the group of children a small red ball made of foam. "I'm going to make this ball disappear," he shouted, to the yells and cheers of the children at the party. "But I need Ashton's help. And your help, too!" he shouted at the assemblage. He handed the ball to Ashton, and carefully folded her small hand over it so that none of the ball was visible. "I need you to do this," said the magician to Ashton, and demonstrated how she should wave her free hand over the tightly clutched fist with the ball in it. "And you all," he said, looking at the rest of the children. "I need you to yell 'Zimbo, zamboni, big macaroni!'"
"Zimbo zamboni big macaroni!" shouted the children, as well as some of the parents. Lynette shouted as well, enjoying the magician's evident delight in his work. Beside her, she heard Robbie do the same, and then saw him touch Kevin lightly on the shoulder and point at the magician. "Want to see magic, bud?" he asked.
Kevin actually looked up for a moment - a rare thing - then went back to his toy cars.
Lynette couldn't help but feel a little sad. She still hadn't grown to completely accept her son's newfound limits, she knew. She still hoped against hope that he could be like the other children. Not that she didn't love him - she did, she loved him with a fierceness to rival that of any other mother on the planet. But she felt sad that it was likely he was going to miss out on so many fundamental human experiences.
But that was wrong. She put a smile on her face, and like her husband had done, she touched Kevin lightly on the shoulder. It was what passed for a hug with her son. He stopped playing with the cars long enough to touch her hands with his tiny fingers, a swift caress that was so light it could have been administered by the wings of an angelic being, then went back to his cars.
Fiery, fierce pride erupted in her bosom at her son's touch. He might not be like everyone else, she knew, but she also knew that he was going to be - already was - something special. He was hers, her little Kevin Angel, and he was a loving boy and he was her son, and to her those two things were worth any Nobel prize that another child might grow up to earn.
In front of the group, the magician helped Ashton open her tightly clenched fist. The ball was still there. He frowned. "I guess you guys weren't loud enough," he explained with a comically sad face. "Let's try it again."
"ZIMBO ZAMBONI BIG MACARONI!" shouted the children, laughing at the inherently funny sounding words as Ashton waved one hand over the other so hard that Lynette wondered if the girl was going to take flight.
The magician opened the little girl's clenched hand.
The ball was gone.
A cheer went up from the children. The magician raised Ashton's hand triumphantly, as though it had been her who had done the trick. Ashton, a natural performer herself, bowed and then clasped her hands and shook them over her head.