Part III
Corey sat in the library, in a chair facing the school’s phonograph. Celia stood to one side, flipping through a box of 33 rpm record albums.
The record player was a donation. It was made of molded gray plastic and had speakers were built right into the lid; they disappeared when the phonograph was closed. At its base, the words Highest Fidelity were etched in a gold script. The turntable had a long stem reaching up from its center, and a retractable arm, so that records could be stacked and played in succession. Celia knew better than to use this feature, however — knew that it would scratch the records even worse than they already were.
“Let’s see, Corey…” she said. “I heard that you like classical music. I do, too, sometimes. I mean, to be honest, it isn’t my favorite. But I do try to appreciate it, you know?”
She looked up at him. He was staring intently to the left of her left shoulder.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said.
She came upon a thick box in the middle of the records. It was a four-album collection, entitled Classics of the Great Masters. She smiled at the hokey name, but this was what she was looking for. Obviously another donation, it looked like one of those mail-order specials that people would order off TV. It also looked as though it had never been opened, which was not entirely surprising. But a welcome discovery nonetheless.
“Let’s see what we’ve got, here: ‘First Movement, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony; the William Tell Overture; the Waltz of the Flowers and other selections from the Nutcracker; Romeo and Juliet; the Flight of the Bumblebee’…not a very original collection, I’m afraid. But I suppose that’s to be expected. Anyway, the beginning might be as good a place as any to start. Or do you have any requests?”
She let the question hang there for a moment.
“The beginning it is, then,” she said, cheerfully, and removed Album 1 from its cover. She set the disk on the turntable, bypassing the stem-and-retractable-arm gadget, and set the needle in place. There was that moment of loud hissing silence as the needle found its way along the smooth outer rim, sliding to the groove, when suddenly the familiar first four notes of the Fifth Symphony blasted out like an explosion. It was hard to believe that an unassuming little device like the Highest Fidelity machine could produce such an impact. Celia looked down and saw that the three knobs, Volume, Tone, and Amp., had all been turned all the way to the right.
Not surprising, not in the least.
Instinctively, she reached down and turned the volume to a much lower setting. She was about to make similar adjustments to the other controls, when she realized that she had heard something else — something which had not come from the phonograph.
She looked up at Corey. He was staring directly at the center of the record as it turned. Not to left, not to the right. He was looking right at it. His expression bore that same intensity it always did, the suggestion that he was concentrating, working something out in his mind. But there was an added clarity. It wasn’t just that he was no longer looking to one side; he was seeing more. Somehow there was more of him in the room than there had been a few seconds before.
Corey made a sound, just the slightest grunt or yelp, but Celia caught it. It sounded like a protest. This was the first evidence she had seen that the boy had working vocal chords.
“What is it, Corey?” she said. “Do you like it louder?”
She turned the volume knob back to the right. The music was absurdly loud in the little room. Celia wasn’t sure whether Corey responded to the change — maybe he seemed to relax a little when she turned the volume up, she wasn’t sure. She watched him for a moment, then once again she turned the volume back down, lower than she had before.
“Awa,” Corey groaned, his face showing the strain of some vast internal struggle. “Awa, awa, awa.”
There was no question; he wanted the music louder. Celia turned the volume back up. She watched the boy, saw the tension ease a little as he continued to stare at the middle of the spinning album.
“Now why did your parents tell me you can’t talk?” she said aloud.
In fact, she couldn’t be sure that what she had heard was language. But the sounds Corey made were not far from the words I want as pronounced in the softened, nearly consonant-free dialect of Alice and Judy, and of most of the other children at the home. Years of experience made it easy for Celia to decipher this kind of language when she heard it. Corey’s utterances were on the borderline — maybe he was attempting to pronounce words, maybe he was just letting out a primal sound of displeasure.
Corey visibly relaxed as the music continued. His facial expression kept its intensity, but he no longer appeared to be straining. He had the look of a much older boy, or even a grown man, working through some difficult mathematical problem.
“What are you trying to figure out, Corey?” she asked. “How is the music helping you?”
When the piece concluded, Corey did not cry out. He continued to stare at the record, although his gaze began to drift to one side almost immediately. Apparently, he could tell the difference between a piece of music reaching its conclusion and having someone randomly fiddle with the volume. The former was an occasion for protest; the latter was not.
Celia remembered the board game.
Corey listened to each sequential piece, his intensity never wavering, his gaze directed at the center of the record as it turned. Celia had played both sides of the first record before she realized that it was getting close to dinner time.
“What do you say we give it a rest for now?” she asked
Corey didn’t protest (or show any response) when she slid the record back into its sleeve and closed up the phonograph. Celia considered what she had observed as she led him back to the other children. That the boy was interested in music was confirmed. What it was his parents were trying to hide remained a mystery.
She led him into the common room, where the other children were gathering for dinner, and seated him next to Joey. Caroline and Sheila had set out plates with sandwiches and celery sticks for each child, as well as bowls of tepid tomato soup for some of the older children
Grace, who was seated in her booster chair at the end of the table, waved Celia over to her.
“Miss Crawford, come here,” she said enthusiastically.
“What’s the magic word?” Celia prompted, making her way to where the little girl was sitting.
“Please, come here, Miss Crawford. Please oh please oh please.” Celia had already arrived by the time Grace got to her second please, but she decided not to interfere with the elaborate show of courtesy.
“I am here, Grace,” she said. “What is it?”
“Did you play music for Corey?”
Celia nodded. Of course, everyone in the home must have known she was playing music in the library. Even with the door closed, there was no missing it when played at that volume.
“I think Corey likes music,” Celia said.
Grace nodded.
“Yes he does. It helps him.”
That struck Celia as a curious observation.
“I don’t understand, Sweetie. What do you mean when you say it helps him?”
Grace looked over at Corey, seeming to check whether he was listening.
“Well,” she said, “you know, it kind of helps him sometimes. He wished you would play some music and now you did.”
“Yeah, it helps him,” said Judy, who was seated at the end of the table, next to Grace. She was probably paying no real attention to the conversation. She spoke simply out of the habit of agreeing with, and repeating, whatever the younger girl said.
“I see,” said Celia. “That’s interesting.”
Grace’s imagination was clearly hard at work. The little girl didn’t need imaginary friends, Caroline had once observed, when she had so many flesh-and-blood friends who were essentially blank canvasses on whom she could paint any secret lives she wished. But it was odd that she would use that phrase, it helps him, in reference to Corey’s listening to music. For lack of a more clinical description, that was exactly how Celia would have put it.
“And how do you know it helps him to listen to music?” she asked.
Grace took a bite of her grilled cheese sandwich, and didn’t respond for a moment.
“That’s why he wished for it,” she said after a moment. “Because it helps him.”
“But how do you know he wished for it?” Celia insisted.
Grace eyed Celia thoughtfully.
“Did he tell you?” she said in a half-whisper.
“Did he tell me what?”
She gestured for Celia to come closer.
“Did he tell me what?” Celia repeated, now also speaking in hushed, conspiratorial tone.
“Corey has a secret,” the little girl whispered.
“What secret?”
Grace looked up and down the table, apparently considering whether it was appropriate for her to go on with what she was saying.
“He’s magic.”
“I see,” said Celia. “How is he magic?”
“His wishes come true.”
“Oh, really?” said Celia. “How does that happen? Does he have three wishes?”
“No,” said Judy, who apparently was listening after all, even more so now that the conversation had become confidential. “He gets one wish. Then he blows out candles.”
“Right.” Alice chimed in. “Just one wish. Or it won’t come true” she said sternly.
Celia listened as the two older girls spoke, reflecting on Corey’s earlier vocalizations. It was possible that Corey had spoken. Celia was so used to the way the children in the home talked, she heard only the words. To a stranger sitting at the table, the exchange between Judy and Alice would have sounded very different. It might not have been distinguishable as language at all:
“Nuh, ee get wu wish. Din ee bluh ow cando,” Judy had said.
“Rye. Jus wu wish. Oh ee woh coh true,” Alice had replied.
“Candles on the birthday cake,” Lucinda interjected, making the exchange an official free-for-all. The subject of the upcoming party was not from any of their minds anyway.
“What kind of cake?” asked Joey.
“Chocolate,” several voices answered at once.
“Not chocolate,” said Grace. “I don’t like chocolate.”
She looked at Corey.
“Can it please be a pink cake?” she asked in a pleading voice just this side of whiney. “A pretty pink cake? Please oh please.”
“We have to remember whose birthday it is,” Celia said to the group. “It won’t be long until it’s your birthday, Grace. I’m sure you can get a pretty pink cake when the time comes. But tomorrow, we want to have a cake that we think Corey will like.”
“What kind he likes?” Lucinda asked.
“Chocolate,” the chorus answered again.
“Bet he’d like a pink cake,” said Grace.
“I think,” said Caroline, who had just emerged from the kitchen carrying a pitcher of red Kool Aid, “that Corey would like a nice yellow cake with white frosting.”
“Well, that should settle it, then,” said Celia. Caroline would already have made arrangements for the cake to be delivered the next day, and would know all the specifics. With that conclusion, the children lost interest in the subject and resumed numerous other conversations.
“Maybe he’ll wish for a pink cake,” said Grace.
“That’s enough, Grace,” said Celia.
“Well, he wished for music and he got that,” she persisted.
“How did you know that Corey wished for music?” Celia asked. “How do you know that he’s magic? Did he tell you?”
“No. He couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Miss Crawford,” Grace answered with gentle patience. “Corey can’t talk.”
Celia laughed. The seamless mingling of fancy and reality was always startling to encounter.
“You’ve got me there, Missy. But then how do you know he’s magic? And how do you know what it is he wishes for?”
“I dreamed it,” she said, with utter nonchalance. She dropped her remaining crust of sandwich on the plate and turned to Judy. “Hey, after dinner I want to play Chutes and Ladders. I won this morning! Do you want to play?”
“Me, too!” said Alice, before the other girl could answer.
So meeting a magical boy whose wishes come true, winning a board game, it was all the same to a four-year-old. Celia decided to let the matter drop.
Corey’s birthday party took place the next day after dinner. Birthday parties at the home were a simple affair. As strapped for resources as the tiny institution was, it was all Celia could do to keep the children warm, clothed, and fed. Even providing some nominal educational and recreational activities was a strain.
Christmas was one thing. It was the only time of year when the community was able to remember that the home existed, and toys, food, and at least one tree would all find their way there with only a little prompting. But celebrating individual birthdays was a different matter. At times, it seemed like an unnecessary luxury. The practice was an artifact of the Myra years. Celia had changed many of Myra's longstanding traditions, but this practice would be a difficult to discontinue. And for all her reservations, Celia didn’t have the heart to do so.
An old, worn banner reading Happy Birthday was hung over the kitchen door, and a few balloons and scraps of crepe paper were affixed to doorways and the dinner table. The table was set with a colorful plastic table cloth with pictures of balloons. Each child was given a faded conic party hat to wear. The tiny elastic chin straps had long been lost on most of the hats, so few of them would actually stay on.
After dinner, Corey was given a stack of birthday cards made by the other children earlier that day. The cards were colorful and ornate, made from construction paper, crayons, paste, and glitter. Celia opened and read (or showed, when there were no words) each of these to the group, thanking each child individually on Corey’s behalf.
Next came the gift. Celia opened it herself, avoiding the ordeal of assigning the task to one of the children only to be met with protest by the rest of them. By scrounging, she was able to come up with a couple of dollars and had ducked out earlier that afternoon to find something for Corey. She tore off the wrapping paper, which she had applied just a few minutes before dinner. It was a record, a collection of big band music she had found in a clearance rack at the nearby discount store. There had been no classical music available.
The children applauded each of the cards in succession, but the sense of disappointment was palpable when Celia unwrapped the album. What fun could that be? But Grace, who was seated next to Corey, was pleased with the gift and cheered when she saw it. Out of habit, the other children followed suit.
For his part, Corey registered no comprehension that any of this was going on. Celia decided to forego the games that would ordinarily be part of a birthday party. This left only the item that the children were most interested in: the cake. With a nod from Celia, Caroline and Sheila went into the kitchen. A moment later, Caroline came back out and switched off the overhead light in the dining room. She held the kitchen door open for Sheila, who walked into the dining room carrying the cake, brightly lighted by the flames of its tiny candles.
The frosting on the cake was a vivid pink color.
“Okay, everybody?” Celia said, and started the children singing the happy birthday song. She made her way around the table, wanting to ask Caroline about the change of plan with the cake. Why would she choose to indulge Grace this way? Didn’t she know it was inappropriate?
But before she could speak, Caroline had a question of her own.
“When did you do it?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The cake. When did you call the bakery and tell them to change it?”
Celia shook her head.
“What…what are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?” Caroline asked. “I ordered a yellow cake with white frosting, same as always. Are you telling me this was some kind of mistake?”
That was an excellent question.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Caroline shook her head.
“I’m kidding? Come on, I know Grace is your favorite of yours, but really. Isn’t this taking it just a little too far?”
Celia shook her head.
“I didn't call them,” she said.
At the end of the table, Sheila and Grace blew out Corey’s candles for him, followed by a round of applause from the rest of the children.
“What did you wish for?” Alice asked Corey.
That, thought Celia, was another excellent question.