Boy Toy (4 page)

But I have a rule about the Narc: I don't go there before midnight.

"You want Narc fried chicken, I'll sit in the car while you go get it."

"Man ... Never mind. Drive-through anything's fine. Except for Taco Smell."

I drive aimlessly for a while. No rush. I like being in the car, as long as traffic isn't too bad. Cars are little privacy cocoons that we take with us. If you could refuel while driving you could, theoretically, stay moving forever.

Zik's usually a chatterbox, but he's saying nothing right now, so I figure it's on me.

"So, how was dickhead at practice today?"

Zik snorts laughter. "You gave him a black eye."

"No shit!" Score one for me!

"And he was wearing his cap different. Forward, you know? Like this?" Zik demonstrates with his own ball cap, tilting it forward at an odd angle. It's just right to avoid brushing, say, a big ol' goose egg on the back of your head. I can't help it—I giggle like a five-year-old who just heard someone say "poop."

"Then it was all worth it. My sacrifice has not been in vain."

"Yeah, speaking of..." Zik stops to point out the drive-through for Lake Side, a pretentious local joint with fries to die for. I agree with a shrug. "Speaking of sacrifice, man—how'd your parents take the news?"

Eve. My heart jackhammers for a second, and I think a flicker's coming on. "The news?"

"Getting suspended?"

Oh. That. "They're OK with it."

He shakes his head. "You've got the coolest parents in the world."

It's our turn at the window, so I get to avoid responding to that. The truth of the matter is that by the time I decided to go tell them last night, Mom and Dad were in the middle of a fight, and next thing I knew Mom was out the door and backing out of the driveway. That's her usual response to their fights—flight. I figured that wasn't the best time to tell Dad. In the morning, while he was eating breakfast, I told him, including what Kaltenbach had said to set me off.

"He really said that? You're sure you didn't misunderstand him?"

"Yeah, Dad."

He shook his head sadly. "You're seeing Kennedy today, right?"

"Right."

"OK. Good."

And, mission accomplished. If Mom had been home, there'd have been a scene.

The girl at the drive-through window hands me our change and two bags of food. We keep going north up 54. Route 54 is the main road through Brookdale, bisecting the town into east and west halves almost perfectly. Go north far enough and you end up in Canterstown, which is such a small hick town that even people in Brookdale make fun of it. The Canterstown Sledgehammers, though, are a kick-ass ball team. They've beaten us ten times out of the last ten games, and four out of five before that. Kinda sucks to get your ass kicked by shit-kickers.

Zik dives into his bag, and the smell of perfectly fried fries makes my mouth water. I drive with one hand and stuff my face with the other. As we enter Canterstown, Zik rolls down the window and hurls his soda at the sign that says "Welcome to Canterstown, Home of the Mighty Sledgehammers!" He can't help it—you can never
completely
escape your DNA.

"You're pretty quiet, man." Zik rolls up the window. "Usually you've got something to say."

He's right. But entering Canterstown has sparked a memory. Not a flicker; a memory. Eve—Mrs. Sherman—whatever—brought me here to a little family restaurant once. Late in the day, right after school. The waitress thought I was Eve's little brother, and Eve didn't say anything to disabuse her of the notion.

Awesome restaurant. Best turkey pot pie I've ever had in my life, and the strawberry pie for dessert was made with fresh strawberries that they picked from a patch a half-mile away...

"...the newspaper," Zik's saying.

"Huh? Sorry, man, I missed that."

He sucks in his breath. "I said I—I saw the article. The one in the newspaper. About her."

"Oh."
Former teacher released from jail.
That was the headline in this morning's edition. Simple and to the point. Buried on page seven.

"I'm just saying, that's all." He's dancing close to the edge here. We've never talked about it. Not once. Not even about what happened at Rachel's that night five years ago; he was ten feet away and he never asked me. But I bet he asked Rachel. Or Michelle told him. Flicker

—little bastard!—

"Shit!" Zik shouts, as I twist at the last second to avoid the kid on the bike.

My breath comes fast. "Little fucker! Shot out at me like that!"

"Dude, I saw him coming. He fucking
signaled.
It's like you wanted to plow him down."

Is that true? Is that what happened? Did I miss something while in the flicker?

"I better take you home." The dash clock says it's not even seven yet, and I hate to dump Zik at home while his parents will still be up.

He's morose, but he understands. Or at least he pretends to understand, which is good enough for me. Sometimes that's the mark of a best friend—someone who puts up with your shit and pretends it doesn't bother him.

Former teacher released from jail.

That's it. My name's nowhere in the article, of course. I'm "a local minor male." I was a minor, so my name was out of the papers, but everyone still knew. After Rachel's closet, how could everyone
not
know?

According to the article, her family was there in the courtroom, but said nothing. I guess that was her brother and her mother, then. Her father's dead. I wonder if her husband was there? Are they still married?

—fucking little perv!—

—you maniac!—

I pull over to the side of the road amid honking horns. Hit the hazard lights. I just need a second to collect myself. Just a

—listen to me!—

—fucking ruined my life!—

Just a second.

Without realizing what I'm doing, I drive to her apartment.

I have the address memorized: 1033 Fire Station Road, Apt. B. There's no fire station there—there used to be, back when Brookdale was founded, but now it's a collection of apartment complexes and condos. I remember the address from the subscription to
Electronic Gaming.

I pull up at around eight. It's dark by now, dark enough to need headlights, dark enough for streetlamps to glow.

Former teacher released from jail.

Why wasn't I there? Shouldn't someone from my family have been there? Isn't that how it works with parole?

I find a parking spot and sit there for a while. So this is déjà vu, huh? Not like the flickers at all. The flickers are real, like sci-fi time travel, only for a second. This déjà vu is just ... creepy. Creepy as hell.

It's imperfect, though, because this place isn't the same as five or six years ago. There's a little island of grass between the parking lot and Fire Station Road—six years ago, they had just planted these spindly bushes there, and now it's like a green barrier of thorns.

Other things have changed, too. The retaining wall on the south end of the complex has been freshly painted a cheerful blue—it used to be naked gray cinderblock. The yellow stripes on the parking lot tarmac are bright and straight.

—not much, is it—

Potted plants line the walkways. They weren't there before. I'm
on
the walkway. I somehow got out of the car without realizing. God, am I losing my mind?

OK, so, potted plants. The big crack in the sidewalk, the one I used to jump over, is gone.

She used to hold my hand as we walked from the car, and every time I would come to that crack, I'd jump over it as if it were an endless chasm...

She used to hold my hand...

My fingers twitch. There's a brick archway that leads into a little outdoor alcove with a row of steel mailboxes. Beyond, through another archway, are the stairs, concrete risers that go up for six steps to a landing, then a half-turn, six more steps to the first floor. Twelve steps in total. I know because I counted them and the number was the same as my age—

Don't go so fast. I'm an old lady.

You're not old, Mrs. Sherman.

That's sweet of you, Joshua.

—and when I turned thirteen, I started counting the landing, too, and then a couple of days later, in the closet with Rachel...

It's like I'm walking backwards through time, propelled by memory, receiving the occasional rocket boost from a particularly powerful flicker.

I lean against the alcove wall. There's a new security light that shines directly on the mailboxes, and a bulb of opaque glass suspended from a corner, way up high. Camera. I stand there awhile until I catch my breath, then scan the mailboxes.

Unit B.

The little black tape from a label maker spells out: Maguire, S.

I touch it, just to make sure it's real. The raised white letters bump my fingers. Fuck the camera. I prod at the label with my fingernail until I find a loose corner, then slowly peel it back, but there's nothing underneath.

I'm tempted to go upstairs. To walk up those twelve/thirteen stairs, down the corridor to Unit B. Knock on the door.

And ... what? Ask S. Maguire if I can walk around? See if the inside of the apartment has changed as much as the outside of the building? Relive the memories of—

This is fucked. What am I
doing
here? She's not here. She hasn't been here in years.

Back in the car, the remains of my fries and burger from Lake Side have gone cold and the ice has melted in my soda. I toss it all in a trash can. I shouldn't have come here. It was stupid. What did I expect to find? I pound a fist against the steering wheel—the Escort is old, but tough enough to handle the occasional temper tantrum.

I'm in no hurry to go home. By now, Dad will have mentioned my suspension to Mom, so I'm scheduled for a severe talking-to when I walk through the door. Not my favorite way to kill time. Besides, since I had to chuck my food, I'm still hungry. Might as well have one final meal before being hassled.

The way home from the old apartment takes me past the Narc. My stomach rumbles. Fried chicken sounds really good right now. I pull in and get halfway to the lunch counter before I realize what I'm doing.

I'm in the Narc before midnight.

OK, calm down, Josh. Chill out. Maybe
she's
not working today.

I'm frozen in the canned goods aisle, unable to move. A woman with a squealing kid stares at me like I'm a sasquatch stumbling in from the wild. I have to get out of here.

But I'm too terrified to move. She could be here, around any corner. She doesn't
have
to be at the lunch counter; she could be on a checkout aisle or stocking shelves or something.

She could, in fact, be about to come around the corner into the canned goods aisle.

I bug out. I head back to the doors, forget that I can't go back out the way I came in, then dodge for an empty checkout aisle. Quick scan: she's not at any of the registers. I breeze through the empty aisle and blow through the automatic doors, back into the humid April night and straight into Rachel Madison, who's standing there in her red Nat's Market apron, nursing a Coke.

We stare at each other for a second. We're maybe two feet from each other, closer than we've been since that day five years ago. I want to run like hell—I'm not track-and-field fast, but I could get pretty far before she could say anything.

Instead, I stand rooted to the spot, wondering with sick horror what she'll say. I realize—and honest to God, this is the first time I've realized this—that I never apologized to her. I never got the chance back when it all happened, and I've tried to stay away from her since then. Too difficult to be near her. And she never works past midnight, so...

It's my first time really looking at her in years. She never did finish filling out. When she got too old to play baseball with the boys in Little League, she shifted over to softball, which kept strengthening her legs into a muscled dream. Her hips have rounded a bit—helps her on the pitcher's mound, and makes it fun to watch her walk away. Her breasts topped out at A cups, but she makes the most of them.

I'm staring. I have to stop that.

—look all you want—

Gah! She's gazing at me, worried. "Josh? Are you OK?"

Flickers! Goddamned flickers! "Yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. Sorry." There we go—an apology after five years. Think it counts? No, me neither.

"You looked a little ... spacey for a second there." She narrows her eyes, pulling the freckles in toward the bridge of her nose. They've lightened a little bit over the years. Or maybe it's just makeup?

"Yeah, I guess..."

"Don't usually see you around here," she goes on. "I always thought you were the one guy in Brookdale who didn't like the Narc."

I don't know what to say.

"Or maybe you're just avoiding me? Like in school?"