At Any Price

“Don’t worry. They get bored with it after about ten minutes,” he said.

In quick succession, I was introduced to four more people, all full-sized. The first two were Britt, Adam’s cousin, and Rik, her husband—the parents of the two out in the front.

After initial introductions I thanked Britt for teaching Adam how to dance. “He taught me the foxtrot and blamed it on you,” I said with a grin and Britt shot an amused look at Adam.

“All that bitching and yet he still remembers all the dances—and is using them to impress the ladies. Why am I not surprised?”

“Hey, I was bitching about the arm twisting—I mean literally.” Adam turned to me. “She’d sit on me and twist my arm up behind my back until I agreed to be her partner.”

Britt snorted. “Let’s just say that I weighed a bit more than Adam back in those days.”

I couldn’t help giggling at the mental picture.

Next, Adam introduced me to his uncle, Peter Drake, a tall, thin and soft-spoken man. He wore a silly barbecue apron with writing on it that said, “I’m grilling the witness.” Adam’s Uncle Peter must have been tipped off that I was coming because he showed absolutely no surprise that I was there.

“Welcome,” he said. “How do you like your steak?”

“Medium well,” I said. And he shuffled out the back door with a plate of raw meat.

Adam was called away to make a phone call—no surprise. He worked even on Sunday during a family dinner. I had no idea how long he would be, so I wandered off to see what kind of trouble I could get into.

I knew Adam had another cousin about his own age but I didn’t see him until I ambled down the hall to find the bathroom. On my way back, I saw movement in one of the bedrooms and poked my head in.

“Hi,” I said.

A tall man in his midtwenties sat at long L-shaped table that held two nicely tricked-out computers. He was bent over something tiny, holding a paintbrush in one hand. He looked up at me and just as quickly jerked his eyes away. He was a good-looking man—clearly a trait that ran in Adam’s family—but he was dressed curiously, with a mismatched sweater vest pulled over a plaid shirt.

“Hi. You’re Emilia,” he said in a monotone, returning to his detailed brushwork.

I nodded. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Adam told me about you.”

I was surprised. He was so matter-of-fact about it. I wondered when Adam had mentioned me to his cousin and in what context.

“What’s your name?” I asked, stepping into the room. This looked like his bedroom, but he clearly did not live here. The place was immaculate and there was no bed in it.

“I’m William Drake, Peter Drake’s son,” he said formally.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I chirped. Adam had mentioned that he had a cousin on the autism spectrum. For part of my qualifications for medical school, I had volunteered to work with special needs teens and adults—most of whom had Asperger’s Syndrome or some other form of autism. I crept up to get a better look at his handiwork.

“May I ask what you are doing?”

“Painting figurines,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing ever. My eyes flew up to the shelves above his head, filled to overflowing with painted pewter figurines. They depicted all sorts of fantasy heroes—wizards, thieves, magicians, warriors, elves and dwarves.

“Wow, these are awesome,” I said, moving up to get a closer look. The figurines were not more than an inch tall, made of pewter and each painted in great detail, sometimes even with coats of arms on the shields and delicately rendered facial features, which must have required painstaking hours to depict. “You must have hundreds of these here.”

“We don’t use them anymore. Adam never plays D and D like he used to in high school.”

“Oh, these are for Dungeons and Dragons? I’ve never played.”

“We used to play all the time. A big group of us. Adam was the GM.” Huh. Adam had been the Game Master. Why didn’t it surprise me to find that out? The Game Master was the one who controlled the story and the game environment for the other players, moving their characters within that world. With his penchant for control, I was not surprised that Adam played that role in his group of friends.

“And you painted all the figurines?”

“I paint for my job, too. I work in the art department for Dragon Epoch.”

I took a seat across from him, following his delicate movement. He was painting a female sorceress with flowing purple robes covered in golden symbols. “So you must get to see Adam all the time, then, if you work with him.”