CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jeremey
Emmet pretended he wasn’t upset by my parents’ reaction to our engagement, but I knew it bothered him. It bothered me too. I supposed I should be glad they weren’t overtly fighting us on it, but I was angry they weren’t excited for us the way Emmet’s family was. I hated how they pursed their lips and looked away, as if we were an embarrassment or something awkward they had to endure. I wanted them to celebrate my happiness, not grin and bear it.
“It makes me so upset.” I said this to my sister when I Skyped with her after my meeting with our parents. My original goal had been to tell her about my engagement, but the call quickly became a bitch session, which I felt bad about but couldn’t stop. “He makes more money a year than Mom ever did before she retired, and he’s smarter than both of them put together. He got me Mai when he saw I needed something more to cope with my daily life, and arranging for her was no small feat. He single-handedly got the ball rolling for The Roosevelt Project, which is now a battle against the state legislature, and people all over the world are in contact with us, with him, wanting to know how he did it. That guy, Jan, wants to marry me. But all Mom and Dad can see about him is that he has autism, and they don’t like it.”
She leaned back in the couch she was sitting on, clearly worn out. “Look, you’ve known our parents are headcases for a long time now. Why you thought they were going to be different over this, I’m not sure.”
I stared at the keyboard. “I didn’t think they were going to be different. I…don’t know. I can’t not feel the way you do, is all.”
She made a quiet harrumph sound, and when I glanced at her face, she was smiling wanly. “I didn’t say I didn’t feel. I keep telling you. I moved away from them and rarely come home for a reason.”
“Yes, but I don’t want to move away. And I wish you were here. It would be nice to walk down the street to family I actually want to see.”
Jan laughed. “I’m not moving home, and even if I did, it absolutely wouldn’t be down the street, not anywhere close to them. However, you’re right. I need to come home more to see you. I know it’s not easy for you to come to me.”
“Maybe you can come for Lobby Day. We want to have a big crowd at the capitol.”
Jan raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to be in a big crowd at the capitol?”
I blushed, but nodded. “Yes. With the rest of the guys, and Mai. I’ll be okay because we’ll be in our Roosevelt Blues Brothers costumes and we’ll be on a stage with a rest area off to the side where I can go if I need a break. We have a permit to organize there and perform. It’s a rally. A local drag queen is going to come and pretend to be Shakira while we perform ‘Try Everything.’ It’s going to be fantastic.”
Jan smiled. “You’ve blossomed at The Roosevelt, you know? I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks. Me too.” I lifted my chin. “So will you come? Be proud of me in person?”
She laughed. “All right, I’ll see what I can do about time off. Text me the date. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll do my best.”
In the end, she was able to get the time off, several days off in fact, and she booked a hotel in Ames, though Emmet’s mom said she could stay at their place if she wanted. Darren’s parents were coming too, and they did take up Marietta’s offer of a place to stay. They came two days before the event to help us with final preparations, and Darren went over often to be with them, though sometimes they came to be at The Roosevelt too.
Emmet spent a great deal of time at his computer, either working on his algorithm programs or on the social networks Darren had set him up with, talking to people to encourage them to come to the rally or to remind them to contact their representatives and ask them to vote against the bill. He was worried, I knew, nervous for the outcome, doing all he could to make sure we won, and I did what I could to help him, but I knew there was only so much help I could give. In the end we had to wait for Lobby Day. We had to wait and see whether or not RJ King’s threats had been real. We had to see whether the project and the foundation had done enough.
The other residents of The Roosevelt knew we were working on an important project, though not all of them understood. None of them were coming to the rally with us, and neither Sally nor Tammy was coming down, though they both said they wished they could. Someone was making a live stream, and they promised they’d watch that, but it wouldn’t be the same as being there.
It’s funny, but sometimes I thought Stuart might have understood more of what was happening than people gave him credit for. He doesn’t have any way of communicating the way Darren does, but I’d noticed he kept trying to interact with us, especially Emmet and Darren. Maybe I was making it up, maybe I was projecting. Or maybe I’d gotten good at reading people with autism. Because when I sat with Stuart in the lounge and he screeched and flailed with his strange gestures…sometimes I thought he was telling me something important. All I know is when I told him, “We’re going to do our best to win,” he made what sounded like a happy screech to me.
The night before the vote, Kaya and Bob took us out to dinner at Aunt Maude’s and let us order whatever we wanted. A lot of people recognized us, and we felt like celebrities as we sat at our table. While we waited for our drinks to come, a woman came over to Emmet with tears in her eyes. She had on an apron, but she looked as if she’d come from the kitchen, not the waitstaff. The waitstaff around her held her shoulders and encouraged her to come forward.
“I’m so sorry for interrupting your meal, but I needed to tell you…” She wiped at her eyes, whispering a thank you as Kaya handed her a tissue. “Mr. Washington, my son has autism. We’ve tried a lot of things to get him to communicate with us, but he had a few bad experiences at an old school before we moved here, and then the move made him worse instead of better. Then he saw me watching your video on Facebook, and now he watches you seven or eight times a day, the ‘Try Everything’ videos and the ‘Happy’ one. He still isn’t talking, but he’s singing along with the videos, which is a big step for him, and he sings it all day long and will use it to talk to me sometimes, when he’s feeling good. If he sees your picture in the paper or online, he gets excited and lights up. You’re his hero, Mr. Washington, but you’re mine too.” She started crying again, but she kept talking. “You gave me back my baby. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.”
She had appeared in the space between Emmet and me, so Emmet stared at my shoulder as she spoke. When the silence went on too long and she became embarrassed and excused herself, apologizing over and over for interrupting us, Emmet held up a hand, first staying her, then signing to me, with shaking hands.
Please ask her to wait.
Most people at the table wouldn’t be able to read Emmet’s expression, but between his shaking hands and the way he had begun to rock himself ever so slowly in his seat, I knew he was feeling emotional, that this woman’s story had moved him and he needed a moment to compose himself before replying to her. To be honest I was feeling pretty emotional myself, but for Emmet’s sake I pulled myself together and addressed the woman.
“He’s asking if you would please wait a minute. He needs to collect himself before he can reply to you, but he doesn’t want you to leave yet. Thank you for understanding.”
The woman blinked at me, glanced at Emmet, then softened before turning to me. “Oh—yes, that’s fine. I am sorry for butting in, though. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. I work in the kitchen, but I heard from the waitstaff that The Roosevelt Blues Brothers were out here, and I couldn’t miss my chance. You’ve all meant so much to me and my family. I wanted to let you know, especially today, before the vote tomorrow. We won’t be able to go to the rally because it would be too much for my son—I’m homeschooling him right now, and he’d love to watch you perform, but he can’t handle the stimulation. We go by The Roosevelt on our way home from the grocery store sometimes, though, because I told him it’s where Emmet from the video lives. We play the song and he sings along. He gets so happy.”
“I’m so glad to hear it.” I really was. “You should stop and see us sometime. We have a playground in the back. He could use the swings. A lot of the neighborhood kids do.”
“I don’t know if he’s ready for that, but thank you. I’ll remember.” She wiped her eyes again. “Anyway, about the rally. We contact our representative every day. She’s come to our house and met with us, and I wrote up a statement for her to read on the floor. Our whole family has contacted their representatives, and most of them live in a conservative district. So hopefully it helps.”
“What is your son’s name?”
Both the woman and I startled at Emmet’s voice. “Neil.”
“How old is Neil?”
“He’s eight.”
“Do you have a smartphone with a video camera?”
“I do. Why?”
Emmet lifted his gaze to the centerpiece in the center of the table. “David.”
David and the rest of the table had been listening to the whole conversation between the woman and Emmet and me. “Yeah?”
“I need to borrow your sunglasses.”
David reached into the pocket on the side of his tray and pulled out his sunglasses, which were the same as our Blues Brothers sunglasses. He liked the ones we used for our costume so much he’d ordered a second pair for personal use, and he always had them with him. He passed them to Darren, who passed them to me, and I handed them to Emmet.
Emmet slipped them onto his face. “I want you to record something for Neil, please.”
“Oh—yes, please, that would be wonderful!” The woman shifted in place, accidentally almost stepping on Mai. I gave a quiet command to Mai to move to my other side as the woman apologized, and I decided I didn’t want to think of her as “the woman” any longer.
“I’m Jeremey Samson.” I held out my hand. “What’s your name?”
“Amanda Beatty. Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself properly earlier.”
“It’s fine.” I let go of her hand and nodded to her other hand, where she was pulling her phone out of her purse. “Go ahead and take your video whenever you’re ready.”
Everyone else was still watching us, Kaya in particular, but no one said anything as Amanda set up her phone and Emmet arranged himself on his chair in what I knew was his best Roosevelt Blues Brothers pose. When Amanda gave him the thumbs-up sign, indicating she’d begun filming, Emmet began to speak.
“Hi, Neil. This is Emmet Washington, one of The Roosevelt Blues Brothers. I’m here with your mom, who says you like to watch our videos. She says you’re the same as me, that you have autism.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a little Emmet smile, and he rocked in his chair, humming, and I hid my own grin, because I knew he’d done it on purpose, letting himself rock and hum so Neil could see him doing it. “That’s cool. It means you’re a Roosevelt Blues Brother too. You don’t need to have the sunglasses or the hat or the suit to be one, either, though they’re fun to have, and you can make your own kind at home. They should be clothes you feel good in, that don’t itch or make you feel uncomfortable. So if a suit similar to ours doesn’t feel right, don’t worry. A real Roosevelt Blues Brother finds their own suit. Also a Roosevelt Blues Brother can be a girl. So if you meet a friend who wants to be a Roosevelt Blues Brother with you and she’s a girl, it’s okay. You can call it a different name too.
“What matters is you’re like me and my friends, Neil. You’re special. No matter what anyone at school tells you, no matter what laws anyone passes or doesn’t pass, you’re a superhero. You have superpowers. You can see and hear things other people can’t. Feel things other people can’t. Sometimes other people get jealous of your powers and say mean things. Ignore them. You’re a Roosevelt Blues Brother. Roosevelt Blues Brothers don’t care about that stuff, because we’re cool. We’re better than those people. We don’t let people get us down. We don’t quit. If someone tells us no, we find another way.
“I hope I get to meet you someday, Neil. I bet you’re a super-cool Roosevelt Blues Brother. I’m going to end this video now and have my dinner, but you take good care of your mom and your family, superhero. Don’t forget to try everything, and stay happy.” He paused for a second, then added, “That’s the end of what I want to say.”
Amanda had already stopped the video. She was crying, and so was Kaya, and so was the waitstaff and half our table, to be honest. I was close, but I was so proud of Emmet, so overcome, I couldn’t, not quite. Also I knew it would confuse him if I did right then and there, so I held it together, as best I could anyway.
“Thank you.” Amanda’s voice was a whisper as she put the phone away. She didn’t attempt to wipe her tears, but she also looked as if she wanted to hug Emmet, though she made no effort to do so. “Thank you so much, Mr. Washington.”
“You’re welcome. And you can call me Emmet.” Then he turned around in his chair. “Excuse me. I would like you to go now.”
The woman apologized and rose, and Kaya quickly followed her, going, I knew, to smooth over Emmet’s rough edges. It was funny because you’d think someone who had a son with autism would be accustomed to bluntness, though I also knew from living with both Darren and Emmet that autism came in many shapes and sizes. I also knew Emmet’s bluntness could be tough to take at times no matter how accustomed you were to it.
What I also was aware of, however, was right now the reason Emmet was so curt was he too was overwhelmed. I knew he didn’t want to talk, knew he wasn’t asking anything from me because he was processing the encounter in his own way. That said, as I rubbed my thumb along my engagement ring, I acknowledged I needed a little something from him. Or rather, I needed to tell him something.
Pulling out my own phone, I typed a message on a notepad and set it on the table between us, in the range of his camera vision where I knew he could see it.
I love you.
He didn’t react, not at first. But eventually he picked up my phone, held it for a moment, then put it down. When I glanced at it again, it read:
J: I love you.
E: I love you too.