“Computers are the future, Granddad.” Malachi locks those hands into frustrated fists. “Doyle likes the work you do. Brookes too. Me and Lee ain’t like that.”
“Leave me outta this,” Lee mutters.
“Lee serves his country as a marine. That’s a man’s work, proud work. There’s nothin’ proud ’bout sittin’ in your briefs playing soldier on some screen all hours of the night.”
“That game takes strategy and skill, and I’ve got one of the highest scores outta hundreds of thousands of players all over the world, Granddad. The world.” Malachi raises his chin at his grandfather like he’s daring him to refute that cold fact.
“Don’t surprise me none. There’s a whole world full of fools doing like you do. Jest means you’re the king of the couch potatoes is all.” Their grandfather’s hoot wakes Brookes with a start and deepens Malachi’s scowl.
“I have a friend—” I begin, but stop short when everyone turns to stare at me with narrowed eyes, like I’m traipsing into territory I may want to avoid. I may be making a huge mistake, but what the hell? I decide to march into no-man’s-land and tell my little antagonistic story. “I have a big gamer friend, and he started to do some development. Dragged me to Comic-Con once, which was actually pretty fun, just kind of weird with all the slave-girl Princess Leia costumes. Like, dozens of them. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, instead of getting together a résumé and portfolio for college, he submitted a preview of the game he’d been working on. He got accepted to a ton of top-ranked schools and was scooped up by Riot once he graduated from MIT.”
This last bit of information means nothing to any of them other than Malachi. The smitten grin he sends me officially morphs him from Sulky into Dopey.
“Riot is a video game developer. They were voted one of the best places to work in technology a few years in a row.”
“And where is this video game place?” Granddad’s voice is gravelly with suspicion.
“Um, Santa Monica? I think. Or is it LA? I’m not sure, but I could text Piotr and ask him—”
“Well, that’s all fine and good for city dwellers.” Granddad puffs out his chest like he’s trying to regain some of his footing. “What would Malachi want with all that?”
“I might like the city.” Malachi slaps his palms on the table and stares his grandfather down.
I hold my breath, but his granddad waves a gnarled hand dismissively.
“You’d get eaten alive. Takes a certain type for big-city life. You move to one of them concrete jungles, you wind up changed, not in a good way.”
I interrupt with a snort. “I’ve lived in some of the biggest cities in the world, and I’m doing okay.”
The twinkle Granddad had for me sputters. “Malachi can’t just be flyin’ off, willy-nilly, far away from us. We won’t see him for months, won’t be with him the way we are now.”
Brookes sits ramrod straight, totally at attention. Lee still has his arms crossed over his wide chest. A Semper Fi tattoo curls around his massive biceps.
“But Malachi would have to travel if he was a marine.” I know my logic won’t be met with a standing ovation, but I’m not anticipating the glare leveled my way by the family patriarch. I sink low in my chair. “I mean, just to weigh pros and cons.”
Malachi’s eyes flicker like kindling’s been stoked inside him. I’m nervous it might blaze into an inferno. “That’s a real good point.”
“It’s a real lopsided point, is what it is,” Granddad lashes out, lips curled. “Thing is, a marine is a marine and that’s a whole ’nother ball game. There’s no comparin’ a marine and a guy who sits on his ass making up computer games, and that’s that.”
Just as things are escalating to early-explosion Pompeii levels, Doyle arrives with plates and forks teetering in one hand and a bulbous glass pitcher of what’s probably sweet tea in the other. His songbird whistle gives a death warble as he sets everything down.
“What have y’all been chattin’ ’bout?” He narrows accusatory eyes at his brothers and cousin.
I clear my throat. “The marines. And video games.”
Doyle winces at me with one eye squinted shut, like a migraine instantly gripped his brain. “Now that we’ve covered ultimate evil and ultimate good, how ’bout some—”
“Peach cobbler!” His grandmother sets the platter down on the table with a proud flourish. Before anyone can say a word to ruin or salvage the moment, she hurries back to the kitchen and returns with ice cream.
Doyle doles out plates and forks like a madman, then slides next to me and whispers, “What the hell’s been going on out here?”
“Just more of my irresistible Yankee charm,” I mutter through clenched teeth like a ventriloquist.
Dessert is a great distraction from the smoking ruins of our conversation, but it doesn’t clear the air entirely. Gramma is fine with silence for the first few bites, but when the only sound is forks scraping her good china, she eyes us with undisguised suspicion. As she spoons second helpings of steaming, heavenly peach dessert onto everyone’s plates without asking if we want more, she snaps, “Cat got all y’all’s tongues?”
“These sweets’re so good, seems a shame to ruin ’em with conversation,” Granddad proclaims with glares for everyone except his wife.
“Oh man,” Doyle breathes.
“It is a good batch.” Gramma’s lashes flutter with pride. “But we’ve got company tonight. I don’t want her to think we’re a house full of barbarians.” Her glare, even scarier than Granddad’s, lasers around the table.
Before I can offer a polite compliment about Gramma’s flowers/cooking/hospitality, Malachi torpedoes any chance at armistice. “Nes said a friend of hers is doing jest fine makin’ video games for a living.”
She glances at her husband, who’s spearing his cobbler with more aggression than is really necessary, and then she asks me, “Did this friend of yours have to take a job far away?”
“It was in Santa Monica.” I’m still not sure if it was LA, but what does it matter? California might as well be Mars as far as Granddad’s concerned.
She gives a little shoulder shrug and side-eyes Granddad. “Well, Santa Monica is a heck of a lot closer than Afghanistan, and a sight less dangerous. And we’d be able to have regular email and phone time.” Granddad huffs, but Gramma ignores him. “Malachi, why don’t you ask your guidance counselor for more information? What we can do right now is gather all we need to know while we focus on gettin’ you graduated.”
Everyone nods, and I realize I underestimated this yellow-haired lady. She is the captain of this vessel, and her word is law.
“Agnes, Doyle tells me you two are gonna try your hand at a prom for all the students at Ebenezer?” She looks at me expectantly. I glance at Doyle, but he’s pretending to be consumed with shoveling cobbler into his mouth.
Coward.
“We’ve been thinking about it, ma’am.” I wait for her ruling on this particular topic, encouraged by her coolness about West Coast video game careers.
“I’m not from this county, you know.” I nod like I do, but, seriously, if she named twenty other counties, I wouldn’t know a single one. “When I was a girl you wouldn’t think twice about seeing separate drinking fountains and bathrooms, right along with pools, buses, eateries, the whole thing. But our county was very forward thinking. There were only a few colored kids at my school, but they were nice as could be, and of course they came to prom, our school’s one and only. We all went to the same school, we all played on the same sports teams and had the same teachers. Why in heaven’s name would we have different proms? I’ve always thought the whole separate prom idea was just plain ridiculous, especially in this day and age.”
“It’s not like it’s white folk telling the blacks not to come to their prom.” Lee darts his eyes at me apologetically. Oh, he looks sorry, but it doesn’t stop him from plowing on like a big, bumbling idiot. “I mean both sides got their own things they like and want. S
o they have two proms and there’s that much less arguin’.”
“What the hell does that even mean, Lee?” Doyle half stands in his chair. “That don’t make no sense.”
“Quit it.” Lee tosses his fork down, then flicks a look my way. “Look, I don’t mean no offense to you. I’m not saying rap music is better or worse than country. I’m not saying collard greens are better than…fried okra. I’m saying certain people like certain things and sometimes the best way for everyone to get what they want is to separate ’em.”
I squeeze my hands together in my lap so hard, I’m afraid I might snap bones. But I will myself to relax and say what needs to be said.
“Oh, I’m not offended,” I say before Doyle can flip the table, which will be his next move, judging from his white knuckles. “I guess I’m confused. I’m mixed race. So do I like fried okra? Or collard greens? I guess I should like both, right? Weird, because I’ve never even had either.”
Lee’s face pinks. “It’s gettin’ twisted now. You can debate it so it sounds like I’m ignorant and being a racist or whatever, but the truth is, people are different.”
“What the hell are you trying to—” Doyle begins, but I link a finger through the loop in his jeans and tug him down onto his chair the same time his grandfather reaches over and presses on his shoulder.
I will myself to speak around the choke of frustration tears. “You’re right, Lee. People are different. Your brother and I are so different, sometimes it’s kinda weird how well we get along.” I grab Doyle’s knee under the table and squeeze hard. He lays his hand over the top of mine. “But I’d be happy to listen to country music—which I always figured I didn’t like because I grew up in New York, where not many people listen to it, but who knows? Maybe it’s because of the color of my skin? Anyway, I’d be more than happy to dance to Reba or Dolly or whoever—as long as it meant I was dancing with Doyle.”
It’s a little more romantic than I actually intended. Things with Doyle are tricky and, even if I wanted him as much as every other girl in our school, I wouldn’t blurt my feelings out at his grandparents’ dinner table.
Except I kind of do and just did. Doyle’s smile is so wide, it must ache. I lace all five of my fingers with all five of his, and the world shrinks to just him and me, holding on to each other for dear life.
But ignorance can’t seem to leave the bloom of romance be.
“Do whatcha like,” Lee snaps like he was just trying to be reasonable until I stomped all over his “logic.” “All I’m sayin’ is you two might be the only ones on the dance floor.”
Gramma derails the conversation immediately, but her overeager questions about the McCullaghs’s orchard and Pastor Mike’s daughter’s bronchial infection are just filler noise.
They don’t stop Doyle from gripping his knife in his fist like he wants to use it on his brother while Lee shoots him fierce glares between mouthfuls of cobbler. Their grandfather scowls at his melting puddle of ice cream, Brookes nods off in his chair, and Malachi sports this defiant grin that I bet will land him picking his own switch before this night is done.
The second it’s socially acceptable, Doyle says, “Gramma, dinner was amazing, but I gotta get Nes home. Big test tomorrow to study for.” He picks up a few plates, and I follow despite his emphatic head shaking.
Hell no, I am not interested in headlining the second Civil War by staying at the table with the men of his family. But I’m as unwelcome in the kitchen as I was in the dining room. Gramma doesn’t even seem to like Doyle being on her turf, so I hover near the back door, trying not to look like I’m eavesdropping.
“I jest want things to be nice between y’all,” his grandma pleads. “Fightin’? Over a girl? That ain’t the way you been brought up. Y’all should know better.”
“I didn’t think we were brought up to be a bunch of bigots and morons neither.” Doyle lowers his voice, but I can still hear it rumble through the overwarm kitchen. “She means a lot to me.”
“Your blood should mean more than any girl,” she bites back, letting her voice carry on purpose. “You seen your daddy lately?”
“Not since Reginald called me to pick him up after the brawl at the Wild Pony.” Doyle gnaws on the edge of his thumbnail. I’ve never seen this nervous habit before. “Why?”
“Jest ain’t right. I don’t know what I ever done wrong raising the lot of you, but it must’ve been something real bad. I got fathers and sons not talking, cousins fighting, brothers can’t get along. I pray to Jesus about it, Doyle. I ask him what I did wrong and how I can do better.” She tugs off her yellow rubber dish gloves—the exact same color as her hair—and slaps them against the counter.
Doyle wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Wasn’t nothing you did, Gramma. We got bad blood, I guess. Every generation seems like it gets a little worse. But better too, in some ways mebbe.”
She leans her head on his shoulder. “Malachi’s gonna be moving to that damn California. They’re always saying on television that it’s about to fall into the ocean, you know. Too many fault lines all over. What will I do when he goes? When all of you go?”
“Don’t worry,” Doyle says, pulling away. “I ain’t going nowhere.”
His words are purely bitter.
She pulls him to her level and whispers urgently against his ear. Doyle’s expression goes darker and darker the longer he listens. I hold my breath waiting for an argument as his jaw tightens like a vise, but all he gives her is a quick, tight nod.
Doyle kisses his grandmother, walks over to me, grabs my hand, and leads me out the door so fast, I’m left calling out my goodbyes and thank-yous over my shoulder.
We get in the truck, he starts the engine, looks at me, and grinds out, “Like I told you. Chaos.”
TWENTY
“We shouldn’t stop here. This is a stupid idea.” Doyle puts the truck in Park anyway. He jerks his leg up and down and leans half out the window, then sits back hard on the seat. “Before we left, Gramma asked me to leave these damn papers at his place so he’ll sign ’em for her. That was his truck at the Wild Pony. I’m sure of it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near here.” He tugs off his hat and combs his fingers through his hair, his eyes a little wild. “You mind stopping for a second?”
We left his grandparents’ house and drove for a while in silence except for the squall of bugs and the steady whip of the wind rushing through the cab. Doyle didn’t ask me if I wanted to come wherever we were going, but I was glad to keep him company. We drove past the saddest dive bar on earth, and Doyle pointed to a truck that was more rust and duct tape than metal and told me it was his father’s. He looked spooked just seeing it. Now we’re parked at the end of a long, dusty dirt road at the edge of his dad’s property.
“You’re sure he’s not around?”
“A truck as ugly as his kinda sticks out.” Doyle steadily devours his thumbnail. It has to hurt, but he doesn’t seem to register any pain. “He spends a good ninety-nine percent of his life at that bar.”
“If you want to drop the papers, we can. I know you want to help your grandma out.” I don’t get why a grandmother would force her grandson to do something that so clearly freaks him out, but maybe it’s because she wants to figure out a way to stitch back together the bloody tatters of her family.
I watch his profile and look where he looks, trying to see what’s in front of us through his eyes.
The grass in the yard is burned black in wide patches around a rusted burn barrel, and there’s a dilapidated double-wide with a sputtering air conditioner hanging from one of the three tiny windows. The other two have black trash bags for curtains. The door is crooked on the hinges and when it flies open, Doyle slams his palms into the steering wheel, startled. A thin, heavily tattooed older guy, naked from the waist up, stands in the doorway and stares. He pulls a ratty shirt over his head and stomps down the steps, barefoot, toward us the way a bull charges a matador.
“What the hell’s
that asshole doing here?” Doyle’s face goes bone white. He throws the truck into Reverse as the man I assume is his father bolts across the yard.
We’re fifty feet away, a hundred, when his father trips or falls—I’m not sure which—and hits the ground hard. Doyle stands on the brakes, and we both lurch forward.
“Is he…okay?” I crane my neck. He looks scarily lifeless.
“Yeah. He passes out a ton. He’s fine.” But it comes out with an edge of uncertainty.
“Should we…check?” I will the prone figure to move, just a twitch. But there’s nothing. I remember what Doyle told me the day I found out about Lincoln. How you only get one chance to call as soon as you hear something. The same has to hold true times ten when it comes to seeing something. What if his father is dying? Will Doyle be able to live with the guilt if he doesn’t help? “Do you want to check on him?”
“Damn. I better. Yeah. I guess. I better jest do it.” I hate seeing him so tense he’s jerky. “I hate his guts, but I can’t leave him for dead like some armadillo run over on the highway. If he comes to, I gotta warn you… I’m not sure I ever met a bigger asshole than my daddy, keep your head down. He’ll prolly say some stupid stuff, maybe get a little wild, but ignore him. All right?” He waits a second while I chew on my lip. “Nes?”
“Should we call Brookes maybe?”
“He’s twenty minutes out. Ain’t his daddy.”
“Lee? Malachi?”
“Lee’d beat the crap outta him. He’d beat the crap outta Malachi.”
“And you?” Panic flares up in me.
“I’ve taken enough licks to be able to stand ’em, but I don’t have a taste to fight. ’Specially not my old man. I’ll jest check for a pulse.”
“Maybe this is a bad idea.” I look into his eyes, the warmest shade of blue. “Tell me the truth. Is it?”
“Hell yeah. Anytime I see my father, it’s a bad idea. Might as well get all the family craziness done in one day though, right?” He tears off his hat again and runs his fingers through his hair. In the light of the setting sun, it looks almost pink. “Look, whatever goes down, promise me you will not call the cops.”
Rebels Like Us Page 26
