The Keys to Jericho

by Ren Alexander

  Walking through the construction’s main entry, it’s not long before I find her gazing out a front window. She doesn’t acknowledge my presence, but I know she saw me coming up the walkway.

  I’m annoyed by that, yet oddly eager.

  “Uh, hey.” Suave, Jared. I clear my throat, feeling fucking maladroit and ridiculous.

  “Hey.” She still doesn’t turn around, making any kind of conversation 1,000 degrees of awkward, at best.

  Crossing my arms, I take a deep breath. “So, your mom is my dad’s assistant?” Thick silence follows, enveloping even the wall-less room. Shit. Small talk is not my thing.

  She finally says, “That’s the rumor.” Neither is hers, apparently.

  Shifting, I unfold my arms and hang onto the frame of the living room entryway with a hand. I casually try, “Your mom said you’re a teacher?”

  “Yep.” Sounding bored, she doesn’t look away from the window to even tell me to fuck off.

  “My best friend is a gym teacher.” I cringe at how classy that was not, and like all teachers belong to a secret society and know each other. I sound like such a dumbfuck.

  “Oh.” More boredom. Maybe she’s wishing for that nail gun now.

  What am I even doing? I can practically hear the whistling thud Wyle E. Coyote makes when he falls off a cliff.

  I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t, which unnerves me even more. I want to walk over to her and shake her until she at least protests. Anything, except to ignore me.

  Her loud sighing brings my attention back to her. She shakes her head before reaching up to pull down her sunglasses, muttering to the window, “I have to go help my mom.” She doesn’t even give me a courteous glance before leaving.

  What the fuck is her problem? I’m actually making an effort here since she did seem interested in me yesterday and we are working together, but her fuck you attitude is beyond bizarre. I haven’t done a damn thing to her. I don’t even talk to females much, yet this one blew me off before I had the opportunity to drop her first.

  My aching knuckles make themselves known and I release my grip from the frame, pissed off that I’m wasting my time on this girl who means zilch to me. Shaking my head, I leave in a huff to find Tony. However, instead of working with him today, I’m helping Lange with siding. It’s a light blue, which is probably better than having boring white in my face the whole damn day. Then again, who cares about fucking siding? It could be neon orange and I wouldn’t give a fuck today.

  I continue to watch for Kat; still irked from our non-convo earlier, but even angrier with myself because I’m still checking for her whereabouts.

  With her still on my mind, I’m pretty useless. Lange often has to repeat something or ask if I’m okay.

  Maybe I should be asking, “What the hell is my problem?”

  When Lange announces it’s time for us to take a break, I grab some water, a stale donut, and disappear to the back of the house, taking a seat on one of the back patio’s steps. The backyard is approximately half an acre of nothing. My dad’s yard, which is about the same size, is nothing but trees. My sister and I used to climb some of the trees, and play hide and seek amongst them. One time, we played hide and seek in the trees. I wound up losing my grip, as well as my balance, and I fell, breaking my arm. Good times.

  I knew my dad would plan a family reunion while I’m staying with him. That man just can’t help himself. He’ll take any opportunity to shove my sister in my face, making his comparisons and telling me what I’m doing wrong with my life. It doesn’t matter that she had no fucking clue what she was doing with hers until three years ago, when she got her current job and moved away.

  As I lift my blue Solo cup to take a sip of my water, a feminine blur catches my eye, and I automatically pull the cup away from my mouth. Looking the other way, Kat sits down on the brick patio’s wall, making sure not to give me the impression she wants me to talk to her, which only provokes me more.

  Determined to figure out what her deal is with me, I stand and go over to where she’s sitting. “This seat taken?” I try joking with her. Unfortunately, I’m too tense and I end up sounding stilted, and as cheesy as my father.

  Looking up, her purple streaks glow in the daylight and her sunglasses hide her eyes, but they can’t hide her pursed lips. Bowing her head to the ground, she shrugs and blandly mutters, “I guess not.”

  “Calm down. I said I’d sit with you.” I smirk at my teasing, but she doesn’t respond to me at all.

  “So, you from Annapolis?” Fuck. Why do I care?

  “Yep.” Oh, we’re back to this answer.

  “I am, too.” I prop my foot on a huge rock next to the wall. “What’s your last name?”

  She actually glances at me before dipping her head down again. “Brandcroft.”

  “Mine’s Beckett.”

  She nods at the ground. “I know.”

  “Oh. Right. My dad.” I roll my eyes at my own ineptness. We sit in wooden quiet until without thinking, I idiotically ask, “Is there something wrong?”

  Grasping the edge of the wall, she leans forward, like she might jump down and take off again. “Why would there be?”

  “Because you barely talk.”

  “Maybe it’s you.” Me?

  “Me? What did I do to you? We just met! I don’t usually get that accusation until after a date.”

  Kat dourly laughs. “Yeah.” She glances over at me, the light brightly reflecting off her sunglasses, and shakes her head. “We just met,” she repeats with a not-so-subtle bite to it.

  I perplexedly scowl. “I don’t get you.”

  “You absolutely don’t,” she says, forlornly this time. Twisting away, she swings her leg over the wall and leaves me gaping after her.

  Wait. What?

  I spontaneously jump up and follow her. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing. I can’t do this with you.”

  “What?” She ignores me, walking faster, which makes me walk faster.

  “Jared, you ready?” I abruptly stop and give my dad a sharp look, but when I look back to where Kat was, she’s gone.

  “What going on?” he asks, walking up to me and observing the blazing trail she just made.

  Shaking my head, I mutter, “I have no idea.”

  “Well, let’s get going. We can order a pizza if you want.”

  I mindlessly answer, “Sounds good.” And so does getting drunk off my ass.

  Monday morning, I’m on a mission. I need to find out what her problem is with me. I don’t take kindly to being treated like shit by a girl, especially one that I’ve been nothing but cordial to.

  The night before, my dad tried to get me to have dinner with him, but I was in no mood, so I told him I had a headache and wanted to sleep. It wasn’t a lie; though, I didn’t do as much sleeping as I did staring at the ceiling.

  When we pull up, I notice Tony’s van. He’s always the first one here. I don’t even know what kind of car Kat drives. She’d better be here. We need to finish our conversation.

  I can’t do this with you.

  Before I find myself asking Brenda where her daughter is, I find Lange and we continue working on the siding.

  By late morning, I’m immersed in siding and Lange’s stories about his kids. Normally, that would bore me out of my skull, but his kids are idiots and should probably live in a cage. He actually has me laughing.

  “The night of his college graduation, he actually came home wearing a Frisbee around his neck, his hair spray painted neon green, and his fingernails painted bright pink. You don’t even want to know about the Barbie tattoo we saw on him two days later.”

  “Shit.” I laugh, shaking my head at his grimaced face.

  “He said he and his best friend picked out each other’s designs and kept it a surprise. Well, surprise.” He leans his head back, looking up at the side of the house as he places his end of the siding section. “Don’t even ask why he painted his hair green because trust m
e, it’s best you don’t know.” I again find myself laughing.

  “Do you know how hard that shit is to get out of hair? Sherry and I refused to be seen with him. We told him to shave his head or no graduation money. He went right out and had it shaved, right down to a shiny dome, but then we told him he looked worse than he did with green hair, so he had to wait three months for it to grow back. I thought he was going to cry. We gave him the check after we stopped laughing.”

  “That’s a new level of evil.”

  “Lange. Jared. Coffee?”

  I nearly drop my end of the siding as I look over my shoulder. Kat stands at the bottom of our scaffold, holding up a tray of Styrofoam cups. With a smile. My expression positively has to give away my confusion.

  As soon as we make our way down to the ground, Lange thanks her as she hands him his cup, but I’m still undecided. She pushes the tray toward me and smiles again. When I take the cup, she smiles even wider. “Sorry, it’s not very hot. I had some errands to run. Do you need cream or sugar?”

  We both answer no.

  With still a smile, Kat says, “Have a great day, you two.” She turns to leave, glancing back once before she disappears around the corner.

  “I think she likes you,” Lange announces with a snort.

  I skeptically regard him, chuckling at his insanity. “I doubt that.”

  “Better watch. The boss’ sister.” He laughs again, elbowing my arm.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

  “What’d you do to her?”

  “I honestly have no fucking idea.” Striving to sound as casual as possible, I ask, “Do you know much about her?”

  He scratches his graying beard and shrugs. “No. She’s pretty quiet. I’m not around her much, though.”

  Considering what he said, I take a large sip of my coffee and the taste that invades my mouth is horridly bitter. As if my head is launched from a slingshot, I turn, spraying the coffee into the air.

  Lange humorously asks, “What? Not Earl Grey, my lord?”

  My fist goes to my mouth as I splutter a cough. “Fuck! That shit is nasty!”

  “Maybe you got the bottom of the pot?”

  “God! That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted! The bottom of a molded coffeepot would be an improvement!” I lift the cup and study the side of it, not sure why, but maybe it holds some sort of clue.

  “Then, you haven’t tasted a shattered heart and broken dreams,” he says with a laugh.

  I spit into the grass before dubiously frowning at him. Hesitantly, I take a whiff into the cup, but can’t smell anything. It still smells like coffee. Turning to Lange, I skeptically ask, “Has she ever brought you coffee before?”

  “Nope.” With a shit-eating grin, he takes a drink of his ostensibly great-tasting coffee.

  “Figures.” I roll my eyes and then hone in on the area around us, but there’s no sign of her, as there shouldn’t be. The coward.

  I irritably throw my coffee into the Dumpster and get back to work, but not before I scrounge for gum from Lange, who unfortunately, only has the spongy shit, which has melted into purple globs from sitting in his hot truck. I have no choice but to take one just to get rid of the disgusting aftertaste of the coffee from Hell. The gum tastes like grape Kool-Aid and I make a face. Lange laughs and I reward him with a bubble snap in his face, and for the rest of the day, he can’t stop laughing at me. Jackass.

  Seeking out Kat is a huge waste of time. She’s either hiding or left altogether.

  I’m having a hard time trying not to figure out what her problem is. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t give a troublemaker like her a second thought.

  Then why am I giving her a third?

  Or fourth?

  CHAPTER 4

  “Why don’t we go watch the races tonight?” My dad rounds in front of me, stopping me in my tracks. I think he’s been babbling on about something walking beside me, but I haven’t been paying much attention.

  My dad is referring to the Wednesday Night Sailboat Races in Annapolis Harbor, which start in the middle of April and occur every Wednesday evening over the summer, lasting until the last Wednesday prior to Labor Day. It’s a weekly regatta where over 100 sailboats sail out from the mouth of Spa Creek, out around marks on the Chesapeake Bay, and finishing near the Annapolis Yacht Club. As it is with many people, watching the races each week is a long-standing tradition of small picnics or blowout parties, depending on the people you’re watching the races with. In my case, Adam Beckett. No fun anticipated.

  “Uh…” Perching my hands on my hips, I look around, trying to stall, to come up with some kind of excuse, but I’m struggling for one. I don’t have anywhere else to be. He knows Rio won’t be coming down here on a weekday and that Dash is helping his mommy organize her tassels.

  When all I’m left to look at is his hopeful mug, he crookedly smiles, which reminds me of my sister’s. “Come on. Can’t you spend some quality time with your old man?”

  I testily scowl. “I am. Here. Every day.”

  He shakes his head as his hazel gaze studies my face. “No. We barely say two words to each other while we’re working.”

  “Well, we don’t have to work…”

  “Jared.”

  Crossing my arms, I inhale deeply, losing my patience with him. In contrast, he patiently waits for an answer. We stare each other down until he heaves a sad sigh. This time, I do roll my eyes in his face. “Fine.”

  He proudly grins. “It’ll be fun. We’ll grab some pizza and hang out at the Yacht Club, like you, Hadley, and I used to.” He pats my back and as he walks around the back of his truck, I pull the trigger on my finger-gun pointed at my head. I’d rather be doused in glue and rolled in glitter than spend quality time with my father, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

  When we get home, we both grab showers. As I’m drying off, I get a text from Duquesne.

  -----------------------------------

  So is it death by hanging

  or firing squad for me?

  -----------------------------------

  I smile, knowing he’d cave first. He’s so predictable.

  -----------------------------------

  I like beheading.

  -----------------------------------

  Nice. Just make sure

  Douche doesn’t have me

  sucking my own dick in my

  casket.

  -----------------------------------

  I won’t make any promises.

  -----------------------------------

  Grinning, I toss my phone onto my bed and get dressed. As I put on my watch, my phone rings. Leaning over, I notice Dash had taken a picture of himself giving me the middle finger, and made it his number ID.

  I snatch up my phone. “Where have you been, Calder?”

  “Helping my mom! I told you that.”

  Twisting to look into the mirror, running my hand through my hair, I say, “Yeah, I heard her stripper pole was rusty and needed replaced.”

  “Hardy, har, har. I hear you were kicked out of doing charity work because they asked for a screwdriver and you mixed a drink.”

  “No, I was kicked out because when someone talked about studs, I thought they were referring to you, so I got into a fistfight over their lack of taste.”

  “Fuuuuuny, Jericho. So, I guess you need me there tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, but tonight, you’re going to the races with me.”

  “Ugh, I don’t know.”

  “We’re bringing pizza.”

  “Meet at our usual spot?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Shaking my head, I grin at my reflection.

  Too easy.

  Setting the box of pizza on the truck bed, I hoist myself up onto the black tailgate, and my dad does the same. Since we finished early at the site, we’re also early here. Our view of the race from this small parking lot i
sn’t the greatest, but it’s a good place to eat.

  The races just aren’t about, well, racing. They’re more of a weekly social event, with a nod here and there at the boats. Some people really get into them, as if their lives depended on it. Dash and I used to meet up and escape our parents when we were old enough to venture out somewhat on our own. Afterward, we’d all go out for ice cream, and Dash and I usually got in trouble for flicking something at each other, be it the nuts on our sundaes, wadded straw wrappers and napkins, salt packets, or the contents of Hadley’s purse. We always found a way to get into trouble.

  Dad asks, “So, how are you doing?” As I adjust my blue cap on my head, I glance over to see him suspiciously watching me.

  “Huh?” I impetuously frown as I reach back to grab some pizza.

  He shrugs and looks out to the marina. “We haven’t really talked since you got here. Actually, we haven’t really talked…ever.”

  My frown intensifies. “We talk.”

  “We don’t.”

  “We’re talking now.”

  He sighs and looks at me. “Are you nervous moving to Philadelphia and starting a new job?”

  I take a bite and slowly chew it before mumbling, “Nervous?” I laugh. “No.” Yes.

  “Are you going to miss Baltimore?”

  “No.” Yes.

  “What about Rio?”

  “What about him?” Perturbed, I fleetingly glance at him before looking down at the pavement below my dangling legs. I take another bite, hoping he’s done with his questions, but he answers me with another.

  “Aren’t you going to miss him?” Yes.

  I indifferently shrug and glower at the gathering boats. “He’s so far up his new girlfriend’s ass that it’ll take surgery to get him out. He won’t even know I’m gone.”

  “That’s not true. You won’t be that far from him. You’ll still be able to do things together.”

  “If he’s allowed to.”

  “You two have always been close. You’ll figure it out.” I don’t respond because I don’t know what will happen. Furthermore, I don’t want to give my dad more incentive to keep talking about it; however, that’s a mistake on my part. “You should worry more about being farther from Dashiell than Rio.”