Look at me: by Jennifer Egan

for the feeling she’d had, watching her uncle silence her father just now. Charlotte felt a sudden, urgent need to be closer to Moose, to have him look at her as he’d done a few minutes ago, with recognition. “There’s something I want to find out,” she said.
    Moose nodded. Then he said, “All right.”
    No one spoke. Even Harris found himself mute. Somehow, he knew it was too late to undo this thing—worse, that he’d brought it on himself. His eyes grazed his wife’s, expecting accusation, but he was relieved instead to find softness there. “Well, I’m glad I made my point,” he finally said, then laughed—a helpless giggle that caught in him and persisted. Everyone looked at him oddly—except Moose, who began laughing, too, a big chesty laugh that seemed to throw its arms around Harris’s like two drunks, their commingled mirth hushing the dining room a second time. Harris dabbed at his eyes. His plan had backfired—completely, unequivocally. What could you do but laugh?
    Ellen smiled at her husband. It pleased her to think of Charlotte studying with her brother, as if having them in each other’s company would somehow bring them both closer to herself. Then her eyes fell on Ricky’s empty chair, and she flinched. “Where is he?”
    “He went outside,” Charlotte said, and turned on Ellen her cool, unreadable eyes.
    “Go get him, Char, if you don’t mind,” Harris said. “We should think about heading home.”
    Charlotte grabbed a handful of chalky after-dinner mints from the crystal bowl near the door and went out. The darkness was sultry, the warm air delicious on her bare arms. She took off her glasses and let the night run together around her. “Ricky!” she called softly into the darkness. She skipped down the concrete steps to the pool, which gleamed a sharp, luminous turquoise. It was empty. “Ricky,” she called again.
    She returned to the golf course, pausing to take off her sandals, which she held in one hand. The grass was fat and cool, prickly under her feet. At some distance she saw flickering shapes, and put her glasses back on. They were in a sand trap, three pairs of shoes lined up along its edge.
    A hard moon poured cold blue light over the golf course. The sand in the trap was damp from the sprinklers, which must have just been turned off. Charlotte reached the edge of the trap and saw an enormous sandcastle splayed in the moonlight. Surprisingly delicate, its turrets accented with little pinecones. The girls were digging a moat.
    “Wow,” she said. “The morning golfers will freak.”
    Ricky lay on his back in the sand, looking up at the stars. “We’re leaving,” Charlotte told him.
    He raised a hand, and she pulled him to his feet.
    The clubhouse gleamed through the dark. Charlotte carried Ricky on her back, his arms around her neck like a possum. She’d given him her sandals to hold, and they bumped against her collarbone. He was even lighter than he looked. “You okay?” she said.
    “Tired.”
    “You’ve been running around.”
    “Remember before?” Ricky said, after a pause. “How tired I was?”
    “Yes,” she said. “But this isn’t like that.”
    He could say or do anything he liked, but people looked at Ricky and imagined him dead. He must feel it constantly, Charlotte thought, must see it everywhere he looked.
    “Am I well?” Ricky asked drowsily, into her hair.
    “You’re well,” she told him.
    Under the portico, the adults were congregating outside the clubhouse doors. Uncle Moose and her father walked together toward the parking lot to bring the cars around.
    “Down,” Ricky said. Charlotte set him on the grass and took back her sandals. As she paused to put them on, Ricky stampeded toward the grown-ups, yelling something, pitching a pinecone at Jessica, who was walking a little ahead with her sister. It hit the back of her skull, and she shrieked. And now came the inevitable laughter, twirling like ribbons into the warm night.