"Yes."
"My mom"s in the city. She and my dad are having lunch to see if they can work it out."
"Okay, then," I say, backing up, preparing to go.
"And so"-she pauses for effect-"my brother and I decided to play our version of that TV show Predator. My dad says it"s amazing how dumb people can be. And we knew my mom was up to something, but didn"t know what."
And with that the little brother comes out of the powder room, where he"s been hiding, and gets my hands behind my back-slapping the cuffs on.
"Look," I say, "first off, you"re doing it wrong, I"ve committed no crime. And, secondly, you"ve got the handcuffs on incorrectly-if you cut off my circulation, you"ve got nothing. You"ve got to make them looser." The kid doesn"t blink.
I wiggle my hands. "The cuffs are too tight, they hurt."
"I think that"s a good thing," the kid says. "They should hurt."
"Looser, please," I say. And the kid shakes his head. "Looser."
He doesn"t budge.
I consider falling to my knees, pretending to foam at the mouth, or simulating a heart attack. I wonder how much it would be dramatic play and how much would be real, because I"m actually having a panic attack. I consider falling, but look down at the hard slate floor and calculate the possibility of broken kneecaps as too great a risk.
"How old are you?" I ask, attempting to distract myself.
"Thirteen," the girl says. "And he"s almost eleven."
"Didn"t your parents tell you not to let strangers in-how do you know I"m not some monstrous, dangerous person?"
"My mom wouldn"t have lunch with a dangerous person," the boy says.
"I don"t know your mom very well."
"Look at you," the girl says. "You"re not exactly scary."
"Do we need more restraints?" the boy asks his sister. "Should I tie up his legs? I have bungee cords."
"No," she says. "He"s not going anywhere."
The boy yanks my arm, hard. "Sit down," he says, pushing me, and I"m surprised by his strength.
"Hey," I say. "Go easy."
Once I"m seated on the living-room couch, if you can call it seated with your arms locked behind your body, the two kids stand in front of me, as if expecting me to say something. I take the cue.
"Okay," I say, "so how"s this gonna work? Is there, like, a hidden camera?"
"We have a camera," the boy says. "But no battery."
The living room is all white-white sofa, white walls, the only color two bright-red womb chairs.
"So-what"s the story?" I ask.
"Basically, our life sucks," the boy says. "Our parents pay no attention to us, Dad works all the time, Mom"s entirely electronic, and I can"t remember when we last did anything fun with them."
"We think he"s having an affair," the girl says.
"What"s an affair again?" the boy asks his sister. She whispers in his ear, and he makes a disgusted face.
"What makes you think he"s having an affair?" I ask.
"Whenever his cell phone rings, he runs out of the room. And my mom yells at him, "If it"s work, how come you can"t answer it in here?""
"We logged into Mom"s computer. She"s also doing weird stuff, and we think our father knows, but aren"t sure."
"How many times have you done it with her?" the boy asks, cutting his sister off.
"Done it?" I say. And then I realize what he"s asking and blush. "Never," I say. "I"ve never met your mother. We chatted online and she invited me to lunch."
"That simple?" the girl asks.
"Yes."
"Do you have a wife?" the girl asks.
"I"m divorced."
"Kids?" the boy wants to know.
"No."
"Okay, but she does," the girl says.
"Yeah," the boy says.
"I understand," I say. "Have you tried talking to your mother, asking her what it"s all about?"
"You can"t talk to her," the boy says. "She doesn"t talk. All she does is this." He makes weird repeating motions with his thumbs.
"My mother only talks to her BlackBerry. All day, all night. In the middle of the night she wakes up to BlackBerry people around the world. I hear her in the bathroom, typing and typing," the girl says. "My father once got so mad he flushed it down the toilet. It got stuck in the pipe, and the plumber had to come."
"Not a good idea," the boy says.
"Very expensive," the girl says.
We sit for a while. The kids make snacks: pineapple juice, maraschino cherries, white bread with slices of American cheese. They have to feed them to me on account of the handcuffs.
"Try not to crumb," the girl says.
I almost choke on a cherry. "You might want to check the expiration date on those," I say.
"What"s tea-bagging?" the girl asks, while feeding me another piece of crustless white bread.
"I don"t know," I say honestly.
She dabs the corners of my mouth with a napkin and lets me sip from a juice box.
"It"s something grown-ups do; it was in one of my mom"s e-mails," the boy says.
"It"s not good to read someone else"s e-mail, e-mail is private," I say.
"Whatever," the girl says. "I"ll Google it later." She takes the juice box away.
"Do you have any pets?" I ask.
"I was in charge of the cla.s.s fish over school vacation," the boy says.
"Do you like school?"
Both kids look at me blankly. "Do you have friends?"
"It"s more like we know people. We"re not friends but we know them. Like, if we"re out somewhere or something and see them, we might wave or nod but we don"t talk or anything."
"Do you have a babysitter?"
"Mom let her go. She decided she didn"t like having someone around all the time," the boy says.
"We have an electronic minder. Every day at three p.m. we have to check in; if we don"t it beeps us, and if we don"t respond it calls a list of names, and if no one can find us it calls the police."
"How do you check in?"
"You dial a number and type in your code."
"I always forget mine," the boy says. "So I write it on my hand." He holds up his hand; "1 2 3 4" is written in ink on his palm.
"We have chips," the boy says, standing up.
"Thanks, but I"m trying to watch what I eat," I say.
"Not chips you eat-chips implanted under our skin so they can track us," he says.
"Like, if anyone wanted to know where we were right now, they"d know we"re at home. I keep thinking maybe they never installed the software," the girl says. "Or they don"t care."
"Look, kids, I hope this doesn"t sound bad, but, despite the fact that you kidnapped me and held me against my will, you seem like good kids-you made nice snacks, you both worry about your parents and wish they showed the same concern for you, and that"s really not asking too much. What about offering your parents a Get Out of Jail Free card? Offer them their freedom and ask them to give you up for adoption? Do you know how many people would love to have housebroken-I mean potty-trained-white, English-speaking children?"
"Wow, I never thought of that," the girl says.
"You could find a nice family where they"d make sure you went to school, did your homework, and flossed your teeth."
"Maybe you could adopt us," the boy says.
I shake my head. "Clearly I"ve got Stockholm Syndrome," I say.
"What"s that?" the girl asks.
"You"ll Google it later," I say. "I"ve got a lot on my plate-my brother"s kids, and I"m trying to finish a book on Richard Nixon-do you know who he was?"
"No."
"He was the thirty-seventh President of the United States, born in the small town of Yorba Linda, California, in a house that his father built with his bare hands. Nixon was the only President in United States history to resign the office."
"What does "resign" mean?" the boy asks.
"It means he quit in the middle," the sister says.
"His father must have been really mad," the boy says.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"Why?"
"I have to teach this afternoon. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?" I ask.
"It"s over there," the boy says pointing.
"It"s a half-bath," the girl says.
I slide myself to the front of the sofa and wiggle my arms. "Can"t exactly use the bathroom with my hands behind my back," I say.
"Obviously," the girl says.
"Right," the boy says, coming to unlock me. The kid struggles with the key.
"Do your best," I say. And somehow encouraging them to do their best calms the kids, and within seconds the cuffs are off and I"m heading towards the bathroom.
"I"ve got news for the two of you," I say as I come out the bathroom door, fully prepared to fight them if I must. "I"m leaving now, but I urge you to talk to your parents-you deserve better. And I want you to know that what happened here today was a success, you did a good job convincing me never to do this again, no more Internet dates-it"s not safe. This experience was like a Scared Straight program for adults."
"What"s Scared Straight?"
"It"s something for gay people," the older girl says.
I don"t have the energy to correct her. "All right, then," I say, opening the door.
The girl looks tearful. "I fear it"s hopeless," she says.
"You"ve got your whole life ahead of you. Next time they leave you home alone, call your school, explain how you"re underachieving, how you"re tracked like lost dogs. You may be young, but it"s your life, you need to take charge of it."
"He"s got a point," the boy says.
"You"re very convincing," the girl says.