The World is a Stage

by Tamara Morgan

  It was the first bright spot of the day, and Rachel felt it down to her toes. That was fine. She didn’t need her sister’s forgiveness.

  She just needed her to be okay.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fight Captain

  Michael spent another Warrior Race practice sitting on the sidelines, eating cold Chinese food and wishing he could rebuild himself with bionic parts.

  “You guys don’t stand a chance without me,” he called out, not even bothering to fully chew his chow mein first. “You’re too damn sloppy!”

  “That’s what she said,” Nick said, coming up behind him and dropping to the ground. Michael took one look at Peterson’s younger brother and swallowed a huge chunk of slimy noodles. The kid had a bruise the size of an apple along one square-cut jaw, a cut pasted with a butterfly along the side of his brow. His hair, longer than Peterson’s but still worn short, was greased into dark brown clumps.

  Of course, he didn’t mention how awful Nick looked to his face. Michael wasn’t stupid. “If your lady friends are saying that to you, you’d best get some pointers from your brother. Sloppy is never a compliment.”

  Nick finished tying his shoes. His eyes flashed and his brows met in the center of his forehead, and he winced when he forgot that one of those brows was seriously damaged. “Is it bad?”

  “Your face?” Michael laughed. “It isn’t good.”

  “He’s going to be pissed.”

  “Probably,” Michael agreed. “But don’t look at me. I’m not the one who picks fights with guys two times my size. You have some kind of death wish?”

  Nick’s normally bright hazel eyes darkened. “It’s not my fault.”

  Michael pointed at him with one of his chopsticks and tried to appear nonchalant. With Nick, conversation was always a tricky thing. The least provocation or sign of authority tended to set him off on some kind of cycle of craziness. One of the reasons they’d always gotten along so well was that Michael rarely took to the soap box that had become Peterson’s default position these days. “You know what you need?”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you think I need.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. But I think you should stop by the farm tomorrow.”

  “The farm? You mean like where you grow all those pigs and hay and shit?”

  “Well, we don’t have pigs. Or hay. Though there’s plenty of shit.” Michael could tell Nick wasn’t amused. “It’s lentils, Nick. People eat them. My cousin even has a mattress made out of them.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Do it anyway. Jennings could really use a hand around there, and I have to keep going to your brother’s Shakespeare thing. I worry about Jennings, and I’d owe you big time if you kept an eye on him a little. He’s got both feet in the grave, if you know what I mean. Only thing keeping him alive is the amount of whisky he’s got preserving his insides.”

  In truth, Michael was pretty sure Jennings would outlive them all. He’d been an ornery old man when Michael was a kid, and other than the deafness, which Michael suspected was mostly for show, he was an ornery old man still. But if there was one thing the bastard was good for, it was putting young men to work and instilling some sort of sense of pride of ownership in them.

  “You want me to go help an old man grow lentils?”

  “Yeah. It’d mean a lot to me,” Michael said simply. He resumed his attentions to his takeout carton.

  He heard the rustle of Nick shrugging behind him. “Sure, Michael. If you want.”

  Michael turned his head and added, “We’ll pay you, of course. Farm work’s a job like any other—I can probably convince the old man to go up to fifteen an hour. You have to show up on time, though. Jennings is a bit of stickler about that.”

  He was. Michael distinctly remembered carrying buckets of water up and down a hill for an entire hour for every minute he was late coming home on the weekends.

  “I can show up on time,” Nick grumbled, his eyes snapping.

  Michael refused to take the bait. That kid was just looking for a reason to fight. “I believe you. But it’s not me you have to convince now, is it? Show up at the old barn at seven. We get up with the cocks down there.”

  Michael watched Nick bound out onto the practice field, taking a place behind Julian as he swung from rope to rope on a makeshift Tarzan platform he and Peterson had made the day before at the theater. It was a basic frame, nine feet tall and with four sets of ropes about four feet apart from one another. They’d gotten some pretty crazy looks backstage, but no one had questioned them. Men with hammers had a tendency to do that. And the only person who would willingly confront him on his bullshit, Rachel, was avoiding him.

  Not well, mind you. But she was trying.

  Just yesterday, he’d finished moving the rope swing when Gretchen, the assistant director, approached him. She was cute in that punk, Run Lola Run sort of way, with the kind of buttoned-up features petite women always had and hair dyed in bright blue streaks. “We’re going out for drinks after rehearsal today. You want to come?”

  The way her hand rested on his forearm, fondling his tattoo in a way that would scar the poor, bosomy pinup for years, would have normally sent him running for his jacket and the nearest bar.

  But he heard Rachel’s irritated harrumph from all the way across the auditorium and knew she was watching. Half of him wanted to sweep Gretchen into a mind-bending kiss right then and there. Give Rachel something to really make half-irritated, half-sexual noises about. The other half of him, this strange, conscience-wielding creature he’d never before had the chance to meet, immediately put on a bland smile and demurred, tucking his tattoo back under his sleeve.

  He still went out for drinks, of course. But as Peterson remarked later, it was one of the few times he willingly went home alone.

  It wasn’t something he planned on dwelling over—especially not right now. He watched his friends from the sidelines, too far away to hear the altercation between Nick and Peterson, but clearly able to see that neither man was pleased with the other. Normally, he would have helped Julian and McClellan, who were heroically inserting themselves between the brothers, but he didn’t want to ruin the headway he’d just made with Nick.

  Jennings could do good work. He was sure of it.

  As Nick started stretching under the careful watch of Julian, Peterson trotted over to Michael’s side. His eyes were baggy, and there were extra wrinkles all along the tattooed dragon’s back. The man was in serious need of a few days off from kids and brothers and women of the Hewitt variety.

  “What’s this about Jennings hiring Nick?”

  “Don’t look at me.” Michael shrugged and busied himself with his food. “If you don’t like it, you have no one to blame but your own sorry ass. You’ve got me prancing on Shakespeare’s stage five days out of the week, but the farm needs muscle to run. This is me, killing birds with stones. Or a bola. I always wanted to try one of those.”

  “Be serious for one minute. Are you sure this is a good idea? Nick hasn’t kept a job longer than a week in I don’t know how long, and he’s got to have at least five recreational drugs in his system as we speak. I’d hate to think of him taking advantage of your cousin.”

  Michael laughed. Such a thing wasn’t possible. “Do you remember that first year we met, when I was twelve and there was that whole week where I couldn’t eat anything without puking my guts out?”

  “Yeah.” Peterson sank to the ground next to him. “Jules and I thought you were faking it to get out of the haggis-eating competition.”

  “Please. Haggis is delicious.” As if to prove his point, he took a large bite of his food. “That was a few days after I started working with Jennings. My mom was concerned about the fourteen-year-old neighbor girl corrupting me. Oh, man—that was the summer. I’d lay on the ground under her tree for hours as she climbed and swung. She always wore a skirt. No panties.”

  Peterson sputtered. “You’re making this up.”

  “
Maybe. But that’s what they thought was happening, so my mom shipped me to Jennings to keep for a while. Said I needed toughening up—and let me tell you, Jennings took that shit seriously. That first day, he attached a plow to a harness around my waist and made me work the field like a horse. You wouldn’t believe what that does to a boy’s abs.”

  “Builds the hell out of them?”

  Michael raised his cardboard container in a mock toast. “Thank God for Jennings.”

  Peterson wasn’t convinced. “But that was years ago, Michael. No offense, but you were a golden boy compared to that brother of mine.”

  “Hey, now—I had my corrupt moments. Still do, actually.”

  “I mean it. He’s not like we were at that age—our shit was done mostly for fun, pranks and the occasional bag of pot. His is… I don’t know, but it’s worse. And it’s coming from some dark place I can’t understand. Besides—can you guys really afford to pay him?”

  Michael waved him off. “It’s fine. And if it makes you feel better, I’ll take the day off from the theater and make sure Jennings doesn’t beat your brother to a bloody pulp. But believe me—if Nick can even lift up his dick to piss with by the time Jennings is done with him, it’ll be like tits on a duck.”

  “I’m not even going to ask what that means,” Peterson muttered, but he looked pleased. He cracked his neck with a twist of his head and looked out over the field to where Nick was lying on the ground, flipping Julian off as he counted off pushups the younger man refused to do.

  “It means trust me,” Michael said confidently. “Nick’s never going to know what hit him.”

  Jennings was not the sort of man on whom emotions were clearly visible. Over the years, Michael had come to recognize that his thin, wet lips pursed when he was angry, his left eye ticked when he was really angry and he stroked his thin wisp of a beard when he was thinking.

  As he leaned against the doorway of the centuries-old barn, Jennings exhibited none of these signs. In fact, he was cackling in untoward glee.

  That meant exactly what it sounded like.

  “Fence posts? That doesn’t sound so bad.” Nick looked at the post-hole digger Jennings extended his direction. It was basically a metal shovel with two cutting edges at the end—a tool Michael remembered well but not fondly. “I just dig a little hole and shove the wood in?”

  “Yeah, kid,” Michael said, smothering a few cackles of his own. “It’s as easy as that. All along the eastern field—you’ll know where. The neighbor’s goats have been getting in there for weeks.”

  “Whatever. I can totally do that. I’m gonna take a quick smoke break first, though.”

  Jennings and Michael exchanged a glance, the old man’s lips forming their undeniable angry pout. In the grand Jennings tradition, smoking was punishable by manure. Lots of it—usually dumped right over the head.

  Michael stepped in before Jennings could start yelling. “Not a good idea, Nick. This is an old barn.”

  “I’ll go outside, then.”

  “To the acres and acres of new plants poking their tiny heads out? C’mon, Nick. You’re smarter than that. Besides, you’ll need all the lung power you can get. Post-hole digging is hard.”

  “It doesn’t look hard.” Nick was growing surly. If there was anyone worse than a surly twenty-year-old, Michael had yet to meet him. He’d rather tackle a household of girls Sammy’s and Pris’s ages—with a blindfold on.

  With a hand out to hold back Jennings, who had grabbed a shovel and was looking for something disgusting to pile in it, Michael took the lead. Nick was too old for the same tactics that worked on teenagers who were facing the end of the line but not old enough to know when Michael was playing him.

  He had this covered.

  “It is hard—trust me. I’ve done my fair share. What would you say I averaged that year when the storms blew out the whole west side, Jennings? Fourteen an hour? Fifteen?”

  Jennings tossed aside the shovel and stroked his beard, catching on. “Eighteen, easy. You were one hell of a strong kid, and it wasn’t April when you did it. Ground’s as hard as ice in places, and that kid looks like he still sucks on his mother’s tit. There’s no way he can do half that.”

  Nick was about to open his mouth to protest, but Michael did it for him. “He’s done the Games for years, Jennings. There’s quite a bit of muscle there. He can hit at least twelve.”

  “Consistently? For eight hours straight? I’ve got fifty bucks and a bottle of Jack that says he can’t get it done.”

  Ignoring Nick, Michael stuck out his hand and shook Jennings’s, which the bastard took care to spit on before he offered it.

  “You’re on, old man,” Michael said with a wink. He turned to Nick, who was standing considerably straighter and taller than he’d been just a few minutes ago. “You better not let me down. You have no idea how much Jennings will rub it in my face if I lose. He’s good at rubbing. He’s had about three hundred years of practice.”

  Nick grinned and held up the post-hole digger like it was a lance and he was a knight of old. “I’m on it, Mikey. I might even break your record.”

  Michael laughed. “I’ve got faith in you, but there’s no way in hell you’re doing that.”

  “Think we should have told him about the automatic auger?” Jennings asked once Nick was on his way out the door, whistling a happy tune Michael guessed would last all of three posts in.

  Michael just grinned. “Poor kid has no idea what he’s getting into.”

  “You handled him awfully well,” a voice called from the barn entrance. Michael turned slowly, all too aware of who it belonged to, all too unaware of what to expect. “That was classic Irma la Douce. Good cop, bad cop. Noir at its finest.”

  “Did you just compliment me or call me a douche?” he asked.

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “Well, I was complimenting you. But I’m retracting it now. Jennings, are you ready to go? The class starts at nine, and I want us to get good seats.”

  “I just need a few minutes to guss my old self up. Do I need to wear my good hat?” Jennings reached up and patted Rachel on the cheek—one of those warm, grandfatherly caresses Michael didn’t even know the old man was capable of. “I have a tie too. Somewhere.”

  “Your overalls are perfect.”

  “Bah!” was the only thing he offered in reply, shuffling out the open door of the decrepit barn and leaving the two of them standing among the odd collection of tools, feed bags and half-broken furniture from the old house. There hadn’t been animals in here for as long as Michael could remember, so the smell was more general mustiness than anything else, but it still seemed an odd place to find Rachel, her hair all pulled back and fancy, a white blouse that looked way too thin for this weather covering her arms. Michael fought the urge to feel it, check it for warmth and durability.

  “Wait—where are you taking Jennings?” he asked, his tone light. “He’s supposed to be making a man out of Nick today. You know, giving the balls a squeeze and all that.”

  Rachel’s brow rose. “He didn’t tell you? We’re taking a course at the extended learning center. First class is today. It’s on Russian film.”

  Michael looked around, searching for some sort of clue or hidden camera. Jennings usually didn’t leave the farm unless someone stuffed him in a trunk or dangled beef jerky in front of his face. Getting him to his annual checkup had become something of a personal demon of Michael’s. “Jennings? A class? With you?”

  “Yes. Yes. And yes.” She smirked. “He’s interested in expanding his horizons. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s tired of reading cereal boxes next to you each morning.”

  “Well, shit.” Michael shook his head and shrugged, letting her insult roll right over his back. She hated that, which only added to its appeal. “I guess that means I’m on solo Nick-patrol today. I’m going to have a hell of a time keeping him in line all by myself.”

  “He’s trouble.” It wasn’t a question or a statement—more of an accusation.


  “No,” Michael said. “He’s young, and he didn’t have a lot of the advantages I had growing up.”

  “You call these advantages?” she asked, looking around them.

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “I do.”

  Before she could respond, he added, “And all I’m gonna say about this class of yours is that you better not send Jennings home with any of those depressing Russian movies. The only DVD player up here is in my house, and it’s a strictly foreign-film-free zone.” He paused, pretending to think about it. “Except kung-fu. There’s always room for kung-fu.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “I’m awesome.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s Nick doing here with you, anyway? Shouldn’t you be at the theater doing squats with the set or something?”

  “Nah. I called Dominic—told him I had some stuff to do today. I know you’re not a big fan of Clan Peterson, but Nick’s a good kid. He just needs a little whipping into shape. I told Peterson I’d get Jennings on the case, but he wasn’t so sure the old man could handle him alone.” He spread his arms and took a small bow. “So here I am, proverbial whip in hand. Why? You want a turn?”

  He expected some sort of typical Rachel reaction—a toss of the head, the tic along her temple, a scowl and a stomp—but he didn’t get anything of the kind. She cocked her head and studied him.

  “Don’t you ever do anything just for you?”

  He blinked. “Have you met me?”

  His life was one long Michael-fest. He ate and drank and slept and wooed the ladies. It was his life’s goal to enjoy every minute of his day, whether that meant antagonizing women like Rachel or throwing cabers across a field. He didn’t worry about money or spend very much time reading or volunteer at the children’s hospital.

  He was Michael O’Leary. Life of the party. Selfish bastard.

  “Unfortunately, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in your company lately,” she said, a small smile twisting her mouth. If he hadn’t been so confused by what was coming out of that mouth, he would have called it charming. “So far, I’ve seen you give up about eight hours of every day to sit around a stage and make me mad—and all at the request of Eric. You take a rare day off from said stage, and your first impulse is to offer to babysit Eric’s brother. And you live in the middle of nowhere to take care of an old man who, from what I can gather, isn’t actually related to you.”