by Brenda Novak
“Shut up,” Travis said. “You don’t even know what we’re talking about.”
“You’re talking about his dad.”
“So? We weren’t talking to you.”
“I don’t care,” Scott said. “If Brandon says his dad’s in town, then his dad’s in town.”
“After ten years?” Travis laughed. “He’s a little late, isn’t he?”
Theo joined in the laughter and a few of the other kids snickered, too. One of them was Melissa Hayes, who Brandon thought was the most beautiful girl in the world. “I predict he’ll disappear for another ten years. What do you think, Travis?”
“He’s going to stick around now,” Brandon announced, loud enough for Melissa to hear, although he had no way of knowing whether or not his father planned to stay until morning, let alone make any kind of permanent move. “He wants to be a real dad to me.”
“Right. And my dad’s the president of the United States!” Travis scoffed.
“Bastard, bastard, bastard,” Theo taunted. “What would a tough dude like the one we saw yesterday want with a bastard like you? Only your grandparents want you. Or maybe they’re taking you ’cause no one else will.”
“Leave him alone.” This time Scott didn’t keep his voice low enough. Mr. Haggerty turned just before Brandon slugged Theo in the stomach and knocked over Travis’s desk. The three of them went down in a pile of arms and legs, groans and grunts, with a cry from Melissa when they nearly toppled her desk, too.
A few seconds later, a red-faced and puffing Mr. Haggerty pulled them apart. “What’s going on here?” he asked angrily. “Who started this?”
Brandon pointed at Theo. Theo and Travis pointed at him.
“Tell me why you did this,” Haggerty demanded. He was looking at Brandon, but Brandon could see Melissa out of the corner of his eye and didn’t want to tell the whole class what Travis and Theo had said. He wasn’t really a bastard. Was he? At least not the kind Theo meant. His parents might never have married, but that wasn’t something he could help. And the way Theo said bastard made it sound so…awful.
“It was Theo’s fault,” Scott announced, elbowing Theo in a move that was obviously meant to go unnoticed but was too blatant to avoid Mr. Haggerty’s attention.
“That’s enough,” he said, giving Scott a stern look that warned him to stop immediately. “I’m asking Brandon what happened.”
Brandon stared at his teacher for a few seconds, wondering what to say, but the faces of his classmates were all turned toward him, expectant, curious. What had happened didn’t bear repeating. When he said nothing, he saw Scott open his mouth, but quickly silenced him with a glare. Then Mr. Haggerty grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him out of class.
“Well, if you don’t want to tell me what happened,” he said, “you can explain it to your parents—I mean your aunt—while you sit home on suspension.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“DAD?”
Harley couldn’t believe his ears. Brandon was calling him again? Already? It wasn’t quite noon. Shouldn’t he be in school? “What’s going on, buddy?”
“I’m in the principal’s office. I…I got in a fight during English.”
This surprised Harley. He’d gotten the impression from his son’s speech and manner, and Lauren’s attitude toward him, that Brandon was a pretty mild and obedient kid. “You did? Over what?”
A weighty pause. “Nothing,” Brandon said at last.
“I’ve fought over some pretty stupid things, but I always felt I had a reason,” Harley said. “Who started it?”
“Theo and Travis.”
“Are you okay?”
“I hit my face on something when we fell and got a bloody nose. But it’s stopped now.”
“And where’s your Aunt Lauren?” Harley was flattered that Brandon would think to contact him—and that he’d remembered his number after dialing it only once—but he was also a little curious as to why he was getting this call.
“She’s not home. They tried to call her, but she’s not even answering her cell phone.”
“Do you need a ride home? Should I come to the school?”
This time when his son spoke, Harley thought he heard tears in his voice. “Will you?”
“Sure, bud. I’ll be right there. Just hang on for a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
Harley doubted anyone at Mt. Marley Academy would let him take Brandon and leave, at least not without prior authorization from the Worthingtons, but they sure as heck couldn’t stop him from sitting with his son. Hanging up, he scooped his keys off the counter and headed outside. He’d returned his rental car that morning, so he had only his motorcycle as transportation, but he would probably have chosen to ride it, anyway. When he was in a hurry, he liked the maneuverability of his bike.
He reached Brandon’s school only fifteen minutes later. Unlike yesterday, he parked in front, where the faculty and other parents parked, then cut the engine, set his helmet on the seat and jogged to the entrance.
“Can I help you?” A redheaded woman with curly hair looked up from her computer as soon as he darkened the threshold of the principal’s office. Not quite as Spartan as the principal’s offices he’d visited so often in his youth, this one had attractive paper on three walls and mahogany bookshelves lining the fourth, a jewel-toned rug and heavy, quality-looking furniture.
“I’m Harley Nelson. My son called. He said he’s been in a fight.”
The woman blinked up at him, the freckles on her face only partially hidden by a thick layer of powder. “And your son is…”
“Brandon Worthington.”
“Oh!” She swiveled toward him. “He mentioned that he’d called his father, but I…well, I assumed he meant Quentin Worthington. Quentin and his wife, and Lauren, of course, are the only ones listed on Brandon’s card. I don’t even have an emergency number for you.”
“I’ve been living out of town. Can I see him?”
Her eyes slid to the closed door of an inner office before she looked him over once again. “Have a seat,” she finally said.
For some reason, Harley doubted she’d have told Quentin Worthington to “have a seat.” He shook his head. “I’d rather not. I told Brandon I’d come right away, and I mean to keep that promise.”
Her eyebrows shot up, making the blue of her eye shadow look as though it extended almost to her hairline. “That isn’t how we do things here,” she muttered.
“There’s always a first,” Harley told her. “Will you knock, or shall I?”
“Just a minute.” She stood and made a show of closing her cardigan over her blouse and skirt—why she was wearing a cardigan in ninety-degree weather, Harley couldn’t fathom—and stalked to the principal’s door, where she rapped lightly.
“Yes?” came a voice from within.
Mrs. Wells, according to the name plate on her desk, shot Harley another disgruntled glance and poked her head inside the room. “There’s a man out here who claims to be Brandon’s dad,” she said, the incredulity in her voice apparent.
“Have we heard from Lauren Worthington?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, have him wait.”
“He won’t. I asked him to wait already, and he—”
Harley gently pushed the door out of Mrs. Wells’s grasp. She whirled, but he was standing in the way so she couldn’t close the door again, and she barely came to his collarbone. There wasn’t a lot she could do to contest his actions. At least on her own.
Inside the smaller room, Brandon and a white-haired man who seemed to be in his late fifties sat facing each other across a wide desk. They both stood at his appearance, the principal in surprise, if Harley had his guess, and Brandon in eagerness, considering the way he grabbed his backpack and announced that he was ready to go.
“Slow down a second, bud,” Harley told him. “And tell me what happened.”
Brandon scowled. “I just got in a fight. It was nothing.”
“Nothing?” Harley echoed. “Does this kind of thing happen very often?”
“No, which is what confuses me,” the principal volunteered. “I’m Dr. Vincent Vanderloch.”
Harley accepted the hand extended toward him. “Harley Nelson.”
“This is Brandon’s first altercation,” Dr. Vanderloch went on. “He’s always been a model student, which prompts me toward leniency, but we have an automatic suspension for fighting. He and the other boys won’t be allowed to return to campus until next Wednesday.”
Harley nodded. “I understand. Do you know what caused the fight?”
Vanderloch frowned at Brandon. “I’m afraid your son won’t say.”
“What about the other boys?”
“They claim the fight was unprovoked. They say Brandon came at them, swinging for no reason at all, but with Brandon’s history, I have a difficult time believing that.”
“Where are they?” Harley asked.
“Their parents picked them up just a few minutes ago.”
The phone rang, and Mrs. Wells stepped over to her desk to answer it. “Thank goodness,” he heard her say. “I’ll get Dr. Vanderloch.” She put the phone on hold and came back to the inner office. “It’s Lauren Worthington,” she said.
Dr. Vanderloch raised a finger, indicating to Harley that he wouldn’t be long, and picked up the phone. “I’m afraid that’s true, Miss Worthington,” he said. “Yes, he’s fine. He had a bloody nose, but that was sort of an incidental injury, and the bleeding has stopped now…Uh-huh, that’s right…No way around that, unfortunately. Yes, well, we have a small complication beyond the automatic suspension. Brandon’s father is here.”
Harley held his breath as he waited to see what Lauren’s reaction would be. It wasn’t as if he’d come to school to create problems. Brandon had called him because he needed someone. But she wouldn’t know the background and might take exception to his involvement.
“I’ll let you speak to him,” Vanderloch said.
“What are you doing there?” Lauren asked the instant Harley took the phone.
“Brandon called me when he couldn’t get hold of you, and I came for moral support.”
“What happened?”
“Brandon won’t say.”
“Who did he fight with?”
“Two other boys—Travis and Theo. I don’t know their last names.”
“Travis and Theo have played on Brandon’s soccer team before. I can’t believe he’d fight with them.”
“Well, according to Dr. Vanderloch, he doesn’t have a history of making trouble, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and deal with it once we get him home, okay?”
Jeez, that sounded fatherlike, Harley thought, marveling at how quickly and easily that role seemed to be coming to him. Maybe he could be a good father to Brandon, after all. He wanted to be a good father to him….
When Lauren didn’t answer right away, Harley feared she wasn’t happy with his slightly commanding tone. But what she said next was short and sweet and gave him no indication of any kind.
“I’m on my way.”
“I’d offer to bring him,” he told her. “But I only have my motorcycle.”
“That’s okay! We’ll be careful!” Brandon cried, but Lauren’s response was immediate and unequivocal.
“No, there’s no need to take the risk.”
“Okay, we’ll be waiting,” Harley said, but he suspected it wasn’t the physical danger of Brandon riding on the back of a motorcycle that frightened Lauren. It was the risk of letting Brandon go anywhere alone with him.
LAUREN HUNG UP and dashed out of the house, feeling guilty for not answering the telephone earlier. Audra’s journals had drawn her back to them, and she’d been so caught up in the events of ten years ago that she hadn’t wanted to be bothered. Besides, with the way the phone kept ringing, she’d been positive it was her father. He didn’t give up easily, and he hadn’t called or left any messages since their argument. She was bound to hear from him eventually. But when she’d finally wandered out of her bedroom and checked the answering machine, she’d felt horrible. The calls had been from Brandon and Mt. Marley—all of them. Brandon had needed her, and it was Harley who’d been there for him. “Serves me right,” she muttered, racing down Terwilliger Boulevard, where she turned left on Barber. Some of the explicit details of her sister’s past made her feel like a voyeur, but she was learning a few interesting things about Harley. Like the fact that his mother wouldn’t let him come home if she was entertaining a man, so he was forced to sleep where he could. Sometimes he slept on the front lawn of a friend’s house. Sometimes he slept on a neighbor’s couch. If it was very late, he slept on a park bench.
She also learned that his mother had managed a cheap dry cleaner and worked long hours, usually seven days a week, just to put bread on the table. Audra hadn’t liked Mrs. Nelson much, who was actually Mrs. Hallifax by then, because her house always smelled of greasy fried foods and because she did nothing after work except smoke.
Aside from that kind of detail, Lauren had learned what Harley’s reaction to the pregnancy had been. Audra had found out about the coming baby on April 3, 1992. She’d taken an in-home pregnancy test, which had come out positive, and had instantly tried to call Harley. But they’d just had an argument. She couldn’t get him at home, and she was on restriction, so their father wouldn’t let her leave the house. She had to wait until the next day, but then she’d sprung the news on him right before classes started. He’d grown angry and accused her of being careless, had caused quite a scene in the halls, according to Audra, who’d been upset by his reaction. But remembering Audra’s Valentine’s Day entry, Lauren had to admit he had some justification for his accusations. Lauren harbored a few of her own and even wondered if Audra hadn’t relished the thought of getting pregnant by someone like Harley as a form of revenge against their father. Harley had told Audra he didn’t have anything to give the baby, didn’t have any way to support them if they decided to run away, and demanded to know why she hadn’t been taking her pills. She’d insisted she had been taking them and had gotten pregnant anyway, which seemed highly unlikely. In any event, Audra had called him a selfish pig and told him she never wanted to see him again. After that, he didn’t phone for several days, which scared Audra and made her think he really was going to let her go. But then he finally called and told her he was willing to do the right thing by both of them. He’d never known his father. He didn’t want a child of his suffering the same fate.
And that was where Lauren had left off to check the answering machine.
The school was coming up. She veered into the parking lot, saw Harley’s motorcycle parked in a visitor slot and angled her Lexus next to it.
Brandon and Harley were waiting for her in the principal’s office. Mrs. Wells showed her inside; Dr. Vanderloch immediately stood, Brandon wore a contrite look, and Harley gave her a hesitant smile.
“Thanks for staying with him,” she said to Harley. It was difficult to see him in a role she considered her own, but she could hardly blame him for being there when she wasn’t.
He nodded, then she turned to Dr. Vanderloch. She was used to dealing with Brandon’s teachers and Mt. Marley’s administrative staff. She wasn’t used to dealing with Brandon’s dad. “When can he return to school, Dr. Vanderloch?” she asked.
“He’s supposed to be suspended for three days. But as I was telling his father here, Brandon has always been an excellent student, so I’m willing to count today as one of the suspension days.”
Harley comes back on the scene, and I argue with my father, defy him, and Brandon gets suspended from school. Was the life she’d known gone for good? “Thank you. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
“No problem. He had his father,” Dr. Vanderloch responded. “Would you like me to have Mrs. Wells put Harley on Brandon’s emergency card so he can pick Brandon up from school occasionally?”
Pure panic hit
Lauren at this suggestion. She knew Dr. Vanderloch was only trying to be accommodating. He was a good, fair man and had no way of knowing that she was terrified of doing any such thing. Allowing Harley to pick Brandon up from school relinquished some of her control. It assumed that Harley was safe, that she trusted him and was willing to share Brandon. And she wasn’t sure of any of that.
“We’ll talk about it,” she hedged. “I’ll call you later, if that’s the case.”
Harley jammed his hands in his pockets but said nothing. Dr. Vanderloch smiled and nodded patiently.
Lauren took Brandon’s hand and hurried out of the office, feeling as though she couldn’t escape the school fast enough. Or Harley, either. Brandon was her responsibility, her child in almost every sense of the word. She couldn’t help feeling that Harley had no right to be here, quietly discussing Brandon’s problem with Dr. Vanderloch. He had no right to be on the emergency card, no right to be anything more than she was willing to let him—
“Lauren.”
She turned and finally noticed that she was walking so quickly she was nearly dragging Brandon along behind her. “Yes?” she said, forcing a polite smile.
Taking her by the arm, Harley stopped her just before she reached her car. “Don’t be spooked.”
How could she not be spooked? She was more than spooked. She was frightened of what she’d started and where it might lead, how easily it could spiral out of control. She wanted to do the right thing, but the situation seemed to be getting more complicated by the minute.
“I just—” she cleared her throat “I just…” She was going to ask for some time away from Harley, a few days to settle her mind again, but the words wouldn’t come. She knew if she banished Harley now, Brandon would be crushed. And Harley seemed to care just as deeply.
One of the tears she’d been trying to hold back slid down her cheek. “Come here,” Harley said softly, and Lauren surprised herself by letting him pull her into his arms. He tucked her head under his chin and whispered that everything would be okay, and for the briefest moment, Lauren let herself relax. Closing her eyes, she heard his heart beating from the pulse point at his throat, smelled the faint scent of cologne on his T-shirt, felt the pressure of two strong, sure hands lightly rubbing her back—and found that she believed him. At least for today.
