Free Peaceable Kingdom by Francine Prose

to learn were around his own age.
    “Eli,” he said, with an odd overemphasis that made it hard to tell if he was being friendly or just contradicting his wife. “Good to meet you. Can I get you another drink?” Eli’s eyes had a swimmy, unfocused gaze that couldn’t quite locate Grady’s.
    “Puppets,” said Eli, refilling Grady’s bourbon. “That’s amazing.” Often guys like Eli said that what Grady did was amazing, mostly in the one-quarter admiring, three-quarters patronizing way people told Barbara: It’s amazing women survive staying home with the kids. How many of the doctors he’d gone to with Barbara had paused, pen poised above the prescription blank, to tell him how much they wished they had talent in the arts.
    Grady said, “I’ve been doing it for five years.” He took a big gulp of bourbon. They were leaning against the hutch.
    “I know what you mean,” Eli said. “Nothing stays amazing for very long. Then other things become amazing. You know what amazes me? I don’t know half of these people’s names.” They both stared into the room. Eli said, “This is embarrassing. Forget you heard this. I sound like the middle-aged yuppie Great Gatsby.” Suddenly it struck Grady that Eli was really stewed.
    Grady put down his glass. He liked having his wits about him. Barbara’s leaving had left him feeling a need for extra vigilance about Harry. He kept telling himself that, despite everything, Harry would be all right; that morning Harry had woken him in great excitement to see on TV what looked like the Balinese equivalent of the Rose Bowl parade.
    “I’ve got my puppet stuff in the hall,” Grady said. His stage was a rectangular frame, surrounded by curtains he hung at waist level from shoulder straps and put his hands up from underneath. His puppets fit in one large suitcase.
    “Is that it?” said Eli. “Amazing.” As Grady followed Eli down the basement stairs, a stocky child flew into them with such force that Eli stumbled. “Walt, this is Grady,” Eli said. “Grady, my son, Walt. Grady’s the puppet man.”
    The boy was dark-haired and glossily pretty, but with a peculiar, passive-aggressive slump you rarely saw in a child. “Are we having a piñata?” he said.
    “No,” Grady said. “No piñatas.”
    “Good,” said Eli, “I can’t stand piñatas. I’ve never seen it go down where some kid didn’t nearly get brained.”
    “I want a piñata,” Walt said.
    “Excuse me,” Eli said. “I need to check on something upstairs.” Stunned, Grady and the birthday boy watched him leave. The child recovered first, lost interest, and drifted off. Grady hoped Eli would come back. He could, if he had to, do his show marooned with kids on a desert island. But everything went a lot smoother with at least minimal grownup support.
    An elderly woman in jeans walked briskly toward him. She had a quick, slightly batty smile and a furrowed, appealing face. “I’m Estelle,” she said. “Walt’s grandma.” Grady could have guessed. Estelle’s right eye had the same funny squint as her daughter’s.
    Estelle said, “I’m Eliot’s mom.” It touched Grady to think of Eli holding out, through at least one previous marriage, for that tic he must have seen from his cradle and imprinted on like a duck. “You think these little monsters can sit still?” Estelle asked. “I guess you can try, but I doubt it. If it isn’t remote control or computer, forget it. If they can’t punch a button and tell it what to do, they’re not interested.”
    Not Harry, Grady thought. Harry didn’t want to run the world but to be its unnoticed servant. He really had been worried that the driveway to this house would go on forever and never lead them here. Over in the corner, Harry and the kid he’d been dinosaur-punching with were playing with silver blocks, each covered with a foil-like skin of hologram bricks.
    Grady rarely started without lots of consultation. When did the parents want him?