All Wheel Drive

by Z. A. Maxfield

  What time was it?

  Still fully dressed, Healey had to tease his phone out of his pants pocket to look at it.

  Who the hell gets up at 3 a.m.?

  Healey let his head fall back against his duffel and tried to close his eyes, but it was no use. Unless he was willing to have another sip or two off his old friend Jack, he wasn’t going back to sleep. Stacks of boxes loomed over him like a miniature skyline. He could have gone anywhere. Yet here he was, contemplating cleaning out someone else’s garage apartment.

  And for what? Nash wasn’t here. None of them were. He could feel sorry for himself just as easily in a five-star hotel. This was not his best idea ever.

  He stood, shoulders and legs painfully stiff. Arm throbbing. Face itching and sore. Ow. Coffee would help. And there were people he could call in town without it getting back to his pop.

  Oh, man. Pop.

  After a decade of loneliness, Pop had found a second loving relationship. Healey was dodging the happy couple, just as he’d dodged Nash and Spencer and Shelby. Everyone he loved was happy for the first time in—maybe ever. They finally had what they deserved, and Healey wasn’t about to let what happened to him destroy that.

  He didn’t bother trying to clean up. Hadn’t thought hygiene through at all. He could use wipes to wash, was able to clean up after using the toilet, and he could manage brushing his teeth, but with an arm in a cast, he wasn’t going to smell so good if he didn’t come up with a better plan than “flop at Nash’s old place.”

  He picked up a newspaper on the way to the local quick mart, where he bought the largest coffee they had and a bag of snack cakes and donuts. He got energy drinks and enough sugary junk to guarantee a cleaning frenzy and then a crash of epic proportions. He had plenty of Jack left. He could take a nice long nap.

  But . . .

  When he got back to the apartment, he prepared his tongue for the chocolatey deliciousness of a red velvet Little Debbie Snack Cake, and all it did was remind him of Ford.

  Fearless Ford, who was always up for whatever prank their friends dreamed up.

  And Funny Ford, who reduced everyone’s stress during finals week by dressing as the Easter Bunny and sitting on a tennis ball machine, blasting rainbow-colored tennis balls out of his ass.

  And Freaky Ford, who’d been Healey’s first serious boyfriend. The man who’d rocked his world.

  But then there was Feckless Ford, who started fights he couldn’t hope to win and got his friends’ asses pounded when they had to jump in to rescue him.

  Frightening Ford, whose moods could swing wildly due to BPD.

  And, finally, Nearly Fatal Ford, who almost got both of them killed outright, first in a high-speed car chase, and then a road rage incident.

  I almost got killed.

  Healey needed time.

  Like Pop, he was a gentle person.

  A tinkerer by nature, Healey was an engineer, a Rube Goldberg machine innovator, an absentminded ivory tower dweller.

  Before the accident, he’d had a light heart and an optimistic future—nothing but possibilities. He’d wanted to get to know strangers. To help people. But now, since his near-death experience, he wondered.

  Had he failed to value what he had?

  Had benevolent fate turned on him?

  He’d been given a glimpse into the abyss, all right, and he’d shrunk from it like the coward he knew himself to be.

  So now he killed time.

  He killed it and killed it and killed it, waiting with dread for whatever came next. When the hour was decent—and still reeking just a bit of Jack and unwashed sick person—he dialed the other number in Bluewater Bay he still knew by heart.

  “Hello?”

  That old-lady voice, Boston proper, crisp, concise, fell on him like a woolen blanket.

  “Ms. U?”

  “It’s 6 a.m. Which one of you miscreants thinks the ass crack of dawn is a good time to call? A woman my age could die from the shock of an early-morning phone call.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “Don’t call me until you’re an actuary.”

  Before she could hang up, he said, “Wait, Fearless Leader.”

  “Healey?” She let out a gasp followed by a half sob.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Of course she’d heard all about his brush with notoriety and disaster and morbid celebrity. Stanford Students in Frightening Freeway Fracas. He held the phone away from his ear while she wept. Waited until the snappy yanking of tissues from a box could be heard in the background along with a cat.

  “I’m sorry.” She blew her nose fiercely. “Oh my God. You must think I’m such a ghoul. But I heard your voice and I don’t know. I saw footage of the accident on television.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I’m not sure I really believed that until right now.”

  He glanced around his box-strewn squat. “I’m in Bluewater Bay.”

  “You are? Where?” For once someone seemed as surprised as he was by the fact.

  “I’m renting Nash’s garage apartment from the new owner.” The tape on the nearest box was yellow. The handwriting faded. Spring 1980.

  “Aren’t you injured? Is anyone staying with you?”

  “That’s why I’m calling, I guess. There are things I didn’t figure on, and I need help.”

  “You remember my house?”

  “Of course.” After years of Academic Decathlon and Science Olympiad and Robotics, he knew where to find Ms. Underhill. “I know your house, the lake house, and all your favorite sweet shops. I can find you.”

  “You come over right now.”

  He’d figured she’d say that. Well, he’d hoped. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never doubted her love of her students.

  “Thanks, Ms. U.”

  “You have earned the right to call me Clara, Dr. Holly. You’re my peer. Academically, you’re—”

  “Don’t call me Dr. Holly.”

  He hadn’t had the title long enough to answer to it. “Dr. Holly . . . Are you Healey Holly? Can you hear me? Do you remember what happened? Do you know where you are?”

  He closed his eyes. “Still too weird.”

  “All right.” Her calm acceptance of his anger shamed him.

  Now he was snapping at old women. Great. “I’m sorry.”

  “No need for any apologies between old friends.”

  Warmth filled him.

  “Come on over and let me get a look at you.”

  “What’s left of me.” Bitter. Bitter.

  She sucked in a breath.

  “No. I mean—” He kicked one of Diego Luz’s mother’s boxes. It rattled like glass, and he cursed. “I feel—”

  He didn’t know.

  “What was that? Glass breaking?” She always worried about silly things.

  “Stubbed my toe kicking a box.” He peeled a flap back and discovered it was full of camera equipment. Lights. Reflectors. Old stuff. Well-used. “I have to move some things out of Nash’s place, but—”

  “You’re coming over right now. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “Thanks, Ms. U—”

  “Nah, ah, ah.” He could practically hear her long bony finger wagging.

  “What did I tell you about showing your work?”

  “Call me Clara.”

  “Clara,” he relented after a put-upon sigh. “Open windows, I suspect I need a shower.”

  He hung up.

  He’d seen a television show once where a guy cut off his cast because it bugged him. Healey’s arm was still in a soft cast. He could just—

  “Don’t think,” he told himself, because even he could see it wasn’t going to make anything better. “Just for today, let someone wiser think for you.”

  And there was no one better for that than Clara Underhill, retired mathematics teacher, Science Olympiad coach, and often-less-than-benevolent dictator. He picked up his keys and phone, and left Nash’s place.

  Diego drove up
in a red Outlander while he was coming down the stairs. Instead of leaving, Healey waited and watched while Diego transferred himself to his wheelchair. He’d watched Shelby do the same a thousand times. She hadn’t been old enough to drive when he’d left for college, but she always insisted on doing things for herself. She’d learned to transfer herself into their old Volvo and any other car she rode in by grade school.

  Diego caught him watching. “Wanna get out your phone and film it?”

  Healey put Diego’s harsh tone down to the strain of using his upper body to pull the chair across his lap. Even a titanium sports wheelchair gets heavy.

  “I wanted to say hello. Introduce myself in the daylight. I’m . . . um, Healey.”

  Using a piece of cloth to protect his paint job, Diego let the wheelchair’s base slide to the ground and turned to get the wheels. “Fine. Then you’re done.”

  Healey hesitated. “Did I do something especially offensive here?”

  “You mean besides not taking no for an answer?”

  Healey admitted he wasn’t easy to say no to. When you had a stubborn, volatile twin, you learned not to let anyone get in your way.

  Maybe that was one of those good news/bad news things.

  Healey dug in. “Three grand to squat in a room you aren’t even using doesn’t sound like it’d exactly be a hardship for you.”

  “I hear you loud and clear, Mr. My Money Talks And My Bullshit Don’t Stink.” Diego continued assembling his wheelchair. He said the words like he was Mr. Chill and Healey was some rude redneck he needed to school. “When a guy comes along who thinks they can buy and sell people like me . . . it’s always because they’d sell their own mothers for a buck.”

  “People like you?” Healey gasped. “I’m not—”

  “You want to rent my place? I tell you no. You give me a fake name like we’re doing some gangster shit. You figure it’s about money. You think, ‘What else could it possibly be about?’ You ask yourself, ‘What else could this man possibly want besides money?’”

  Heat entirely unrelated to global warming suffused Healey’s face because Diego’s words felt uncomfortably true.

  “Dude.” Diego glared at him. “If you don’t know the answer to that question, this is no longer about me.”

  Red-faced, Healey toed the ground. Good. Presumptuous asshole.

  “Why say yes, then?” Mr. Innocent Blue Eyes looked wounded.

  “I’m not stupid.” Diego shrugged. “Some dude comes along and offers you a fat wad of cash? You take it.”

  He turned his face away, even though he had yet to maneuver himself into his chair.

  Healey snickered. “That was a damn good exit line. Too bad you’re still stuck here putting your wheelchair together.”

  “Fuck. You.” Oh, now it was on. Diego gave him his full attention. Or at least, the attention of two of his fingers.

  One on each hand.

  Healey said, “I apologize. You are right and I was wrong. I handled this really poorly.”

  “Yes. You did.” Diego returned his gaze, eyes narrowed.

  “What I didn’t say is . . . I grew up in this house. It seemed—”

  “Christ.” Diego let his head fall against the headrest. That’s why the dude looks so goddamn familiar. “You’re Nash’s brother.”

  Diego’d even met Nash when Spencer Kepler had been in town, shooting Wolf’s Landing. Why hadn’t he seen the resemblance? Everyone knew Nash was an identical twin. Diego defended his lack of observation because the resemblance was largely hidden—the dude was a scruffy mess, and instead of a buzz cut, slightly longer-on-the-top style like Nash’s, this guy wore his sides shaved and the top long and silky. Past his shoulders.

  Now that Diego put the whole story together, he understood. Healey had been in an accident that turned into a high-profile media event—rich, smart, white kids wreck their car and make a scene. Who’d a thunk it? Now that Healey knew he wasn’t immortal, he’d run home to lick his wounds.

  But . . . maybe that wasn’t fair. Back when Diego got out of the hospital, he’d have chewed off his foot to avoid the knowing looks, the shock, and the helpless pity he saw in other people’s eyes.

  Healey asked, “You know Nash?”

  “We’re acquainted. I’m with the Wolf’s Landing production crew.” Diego transferred his body to his chair, shut the car door behind him, and locked up with a lazy squeeze of the keys. “You should have said this used to be your house.”

  Healey flushed at the suggestion.

  Diego muttered, “Right. ’Cause we wouldn’t want the truth to get in the way of whatever you’re up to.”

  “For the record”—Healey’s voice was quiet—“I know there are more important things than money.”

  “Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. The point is, you act like you think I don’t know that.”

  “Fair enough.” Healey stepped forward. “Can we start again? I’d sit or lean or squat so we’re eye to eye, but you’ve gotta take a rain check because I’m busted to shit right now.”

  He moved stiffly. Painfully. Diego winced for him. “You don’t belong in that upstairs room. There’s no furniture. Did you sleep on the floor?”

  Faint pink washed over Healey’s cheeks. “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “You can’t clean yourself. You can’t feed yourself.”

  “I can feed myself,” he said with quiet resentment.

  “From grocery store to food preparation to dining? Or from drive-thru to mouth?”

  Eyes cast down, Healey shook his head. “I see your point, but I’ve got a handle on it.”

  Diego knew enough about traumatic life changes to spot the inertia and brittle irritability, for example, that result from depression. He could spot his own cycles and get himself out of a bad patch without help, most of the time.

  Healey Holly hadn’t learned any of that yet. Evidence stood before him, defiant and determined to be independent despite the fact it wasn’t in his best interest. Battered but upright. Bewildered and unhappy and lost.

  Diego knew exactly what Healey was feeling.

  Empathy could be such a bitch.

  “Look, you need to find another place to stay. Find people to help you. I can see why you’d ditch your family—” he put his hands up before Healey could argue “—and don’t give me shit about how that’s not what you’re doing, because you can’t bullshit an OG bullshitter like me.”

  “I literally can’t go to my family.” Healey glanced at the sky as if he were looking for answers written there. “Everyone has some glorious new happy thing. Everyone is—”

  “No disrespect, but that’s not my problem.” Diego backed away. “Think this through. Here is not where you need to be. I can’t even get up there if you call for help.”

  “I won’t.”

  Right. You won’t because you’re a stubborn ass.

  “And that’s the other reason. I don’t carry insurance against your stoic bullshit. If you won’t ask for help because you’d rather die, then that makes you two times more of a problem.” Diego jerked his chair around sharply. “I changed my mind. Get the fuck out of my place.”

  “I’ll be out by this afternoon.” Healey nodded solemnly before turning to go. “Thanks.”

  Seconds passed where the only sound was Healey’s heavy footfalls on the sidewalk.

  “Nah, man. Shit.” Still conflicted, Diego called after him. “Don’t be like that.”

  Healey turned around. “I’m really sorry. I’ve been told I’m inclined to forget other people have needs. I’m on it.”

  At a renewed pace, Healey took off.

  Diego didn’t bother calling him back. Dude had a right to sulk for a while when he lost his balance. Everybody knew that.

  You could have handled that better.

  Next time.

  If there is one, next time I’ll be more . . . hospitable.

  Inside his house, Diego heated up a delivery service meal. He ate it at the table using Mami’
s everyday china and antique silver, chasing his mother’s often-repeated admonition to eat like a civilized human being. The house was too quiet. Too large. It’d seemed perfect when he’d bought it.

  He’d needed a crib he didn’t have to modify too much and bingo, there it was.

  An old place. Dated, but the price had been right. What he hadn’t noticed until he’d moved in were the thousand tiny reminders that the place had been some family’s home for decades. Marks on the floor from the daughter’s wheelchair. Pen and pencil growth charts on the walls inside the pantry. Handprints in a newer pour of concrete. Trim chewed on by pets. Inexperienced-driver dings on the mailbox post.

  By the looks of things, a lively bunch had once thrived in his house, and now one of its own had returned, but as far as Diego could tell, there was nothing in Bluewater Bay for Healey to come home to.

  Poor bastard.

  He took his second beer to the couch to watch the tail end of a soccer game, and while he was there, he got a call from his stepdad. Muting the TV and putting his phone on speaker, he answered.

  “Hey, I caught you.” Genuine pleasure backlit Cecil Luz’s words. “Got a minute to talk? How are things?”

  “Of course. Same old here. What’s new there?”

  “Your cousin Yesenia got into Berkeley!”

  “I heard.” Diego tugged a pillow beneath his head to get comfortable. “Tell her congrats for me.”

  The Luz family was massive. Diego received messages marked #FamiliaLuzNoticias from every stepsibling, distant cousin, aunt, godparent, no-longer-married-but-still-friends, or lived-next-door-once acquaintance, all grafted onto the Luz family tree by Cecil Luz.

  Like the LA street gangs he preached against, lawyer Cecil Luz fostered a family culture of fierce loyalty and love.

  Also like LA’s notorious gangs, traffic into the Luz family only went one way.

  The family motto wasn’t “blood in, blood out,” but you’d have to do something awful dicey for Cecil Luz to take you off the Feliz Navi-Dad(!) newsletter mailing list.

  After delivering all the latest happenings, he added, “Dr. Ortiz called me over the weekend.”