Fair Coin

by E. C. Myers

  Published 2012 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  Fair Coin. Copyright © 2012 by Eugene Myers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover illustration © Sam Weber

  Jacket design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke

  Inquiries should be addressed to

  Pyr

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pending

  ISBN 978-1-61614-609-2

  ISBN 978-1-61614-610-8 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  A lot of people helped change this book from a wish into reality. Many thanks to Carrie Wright for encouraging me to write it and for being its first reader and editor, even if she did insist I lose most of the puns.

  Thanks to the brave members of the Clarion West Class of 2005 and my writing group, Altered Fluid, who read early manuscript drafts and offered encouraging but honest critiques and advice. I am especially grateful to Kris Dikeman (for the infamous plot graph, of course), Amy Sarah Eastment, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Rajan Khanna, Mercurio D. Rivera, Karen Roberts, and Katie Sparrow.

  I'm fortunate to have family and friends who understand why I ignore them for weeks and months at a time, yet are always there when I'm suddenly looking for company. Maia Bernstein has been my biggest cheerleader since I first began writing, and so many others have supported me and my work along the way, including Torie Atkinson, Sean Boggs, Lucy Chen, Dan Crucy, Liz Gorinsky, Jackie Hidalgo, Megan Honig, Scott Kletzkin, Dayle McClintock, Rachel Perkins, Ben Turner, Carrie Wright, and Di Zhang.

  I truly appreciate my super agent, Eddie Schneider, and everyone at the JABberwocky Literary Agency, as well as Katherine Mason, for pulling my manuscript from the slush. And of course, my utmost gratitude goes to my editor, Lou Anders, who took on this weird book with enthusiasm and turned it into something really special, and to the entire Pyr team, who worked hard to make me look good.

  I couldn't hope for better people to share this with.

  Ephraim found his mother slumped over the kitchen table, her right hand curled around a half-empty bottle of vodka. A cigarette smoldered in the ashtray beside her; it had burned into a gray cylinder up to its lipstick-smeared filter. He ground the butt in the tray forcefully and waved wisps of smoke away from his face.

  “I suppose this is my fault,” he said to her still form. She'd drunk herself into a stupor, but she'd probably blame him for not rushing home from school to wake her for her late shift at the supermarket. He picked up the vodka bottle. Even if he woke her now, she wouldn't be in any condition for work. Besides, she was already an hour late.

  “Mr. Slovsky's gonna dock your pay again,” he muttered. Ephraim slipped the vodka out of her hand and took it to the sink. He filled a quarter of the bottle with tap water and swirled it around, diluting the alcohol. It stretched out the liquor supply; they already couldn't afford her two-bottle-a-week habit. Of course, it would be better for both of them if she didn't drink their money away at all. He screwed the cap on tight and thumped it onto the table where he'd found it. She didn't even stir.

  “Mom?” Normally she'd be coming to by now, slurring incoherent curses while reaching for another drink. But there was no motion at all. Everything seemed to still around him, the sound of the humming refrigerator and the ceiling fan dropping away. Something was very wrong.

  He touched her on the shoulder and leaned over her face to check her breathing.

  “Mom.”

  There was something clutched in his mother's left hand. An amber pill bottle. A few purple capsules littered the scratched formica around it. Ephraim's chest tightened as he realized that he'd never seen her take any kind of prescription medication.

  “Mom!”

  Ephraim shook her shoulders gently, then more roughly when she didn't respond. More of the candy-colored pills flew from the bottle and skittered across the table to the floor. The soft capsules popped under his sneakers as he stepped around her and took the bottle from her limp hand. The long chemical name on the pharmacy label meant nothing to him.

  Ephraim eased his mother to a sitting position. Her head lolled forward. “Mom.” He patted her cheek gently. “Wake up. Wake up!” He felt her breath against the back of his hand—that was something, at least. “Please, wake up.”

  “Mmmm…” she murmured. Her head twitched.

  “Mom!”

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared at him glassily. “Ephraim, where are you?”

  “Right here, Mom. Look at me.”

  She blinked a couple of times, trying to focus on his face. “Honey?”

  “Yes, it's me.”

  She was really out of it.

  “What happened to you?”

  She shook her head and tried to push him away. He held her shoulders tighter, worried that she would hurt herself. “No!” she said. “No!”

  “What's wrong?”

  She scrambled out of her chair and struggled when he tried to grab her arms. The chair fell between them and he bumped his hip painfully against the side of the kitchen table. She was stronger than she looked.

  “You're dead!” She jerked away, more awake now. “Ephraim's gone!”

  “Calm down, Mom. I'm right here.”

  “Ephraim's dead.” She sobbed.

  “You just imagined it. Mom, look at me. Look at me! I'm fine.”

  She stumbled toward the stove and grabbed onto the side, then leaned over and retched. Clear liquid splashed onto the faded linoleum, along with some of the pills she had taken.

  “Jeez!” he said.

  She wobbled, and he rushed over to catch her if she fell.

  She collapsed to her knees, head bowed. She coughed a couple of times and stared down at her own mess. Finally she looked up, and this time he knew she recognized him. She was crying; eyeliner was smeared under her eyes like bruises. “Ephraim? But…I saw your body.” A thin trail of saliva dangled from her chin.

  “Do I look dead to you?” he snapped.

  “A bus, it hit you, and—” She rubbed her face. “But you're here. You're alive? Are you really my Ephraim?”

  “Why'd you do this, Mom?”

  “You were so young.” She closed her eyes. “My poor baby…”

  “Mom, stay with me. You have to stay awake,” Ephraim said.

  “Stay…” she echoed.

  “Mom!”

  Her lips moved, murmuring something too low for him to hear. As he leaned closer to listen, she slumped back against the oven door and stopped moving.

  Ephraim snatched the phone and dialed 911. While the line rang he lowered his mother gently down on the floor, using her purse as a pillow. His hands shook and hot tears blurred his vision.

  A calm voice spoke from the phone. “911, what is your emergency?”

  “My mother took some pills,” he said.

  If one more doctor or nurse came by to tell him he'd saved his mother's life, or tell him how lucky it was that he found her when he did, Ephraim thought he would be sick.

  It was still sinking in, what his mother had done. What she had tried to do.

  During the ambulance ride to Summerside General, she had drifted in and out of consciousness. Each time she awoke, she'd stared at him as though she couldn't believe he was there. Sh
e'd thought he was dead, she said.

  He looked up and saw a nurse at the open door with curly brown hair and a kind smile. She seemed familiar, though he'd never met her before. The badge on her chest identified her as Julia Morales.

  “Ephraim Scott?” She pronounced his name “Eff-ra-heem” with a rolling R, the way his dad did, instead of “Eff-rum,” the way everyone else said it. He liked the exotic sound of her Spanish accent.

  “Yes. How's my mother?” he said.

  “She's still in Intensive Care, but resting comfortably. Thank God you found her when you did.”

  Ephraim winced.

  Her expression softened, and she sat down next to him, placing her hand on his arm. “Your mother will be okay now. Dr. Dixon doesn't think there'll be any permanent damage, but we have to hold her overnight.” She frowned. “Possibly longer.”

  “Longer?”

  “We can't send her home until we evaluate her. To make sure she won't try this again.”

  “It was an accident,” he said. “She mixed up her medications. She had a little too much to drink, that's all.”

  “Sweetie—”

  “She's never done this before. She didn't mean to!” The loudness of his voice in the small room shocked him into silence.

  “Okay,” the nurse said. “How are you doing?”

  “How am I?”

  “With all of this. It's a lot for someone your age. If you want to talk—”

  “I'm just worried about her.”

  She sighed. “You go to Summerside High?”

  He nodded.

  “Maybe you know my girls. Mary and Shelley Morales?”

  That's why he'd recognized her—she was Mary and Shelley's mother. The resemblance was clear now: her hair frizzed like theirs, she had the same thin nose and thick eyebrows. The same curvy figure.

  “I'm in their English class.” He didn't mention that they wouldn't know him. The identical twins were far too popular to pay any attention to Ephraim, especially with all the other guys fawning over them—including his best friend, Nathan Mackenzie, who they outright ignored.

  He almost asked Mrs. Morales what was up with naming them Mary and Shelley; it was an indication of how well-liked they were that no one had made fun of them when the class read Frankenstein last semester.

  “So…what happens now?” he said. “With my mother?”

  “A psychologist is going to talk to her. Try to understand what was going on when she—” She left the sentence hanging, her eyes darting heavenward. He noticed a silver cross dangling from a slim chain around her neck. “Child Protective Services will want to talk to her too. And you,” she said.

  Ephraim clenched his jaw. “But she's fine normally, she really is.” Aside from the alcoholism and depression.

  “It's hospital policy.”

  Ephraim took a deep breath.

  “She kept saying that I was…dead. Like she really believed it,” he said.

  Her hand jerked up then to the side in a quick motion, a bit like the blessing the priest gave at church, a cross drawn in the air.

  “Someone made a terrible mistake,” Mrs. Morales said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We did have an accident victim earlier this afternoon. A boy, about your age and height, same hair color. His face was badly scraped, but honestly…I could see why someone might think he was you.” She studied him carefully.

  He tried to maintain a neutral expression, though his feelings were jumbled in a mixture of shock and anger. This was important, though—his mother wasn't crazy. She'd been fooled just like everyone else.

  “He was hit by a bus?” Ephraim asked.

  Mrs. Morales nodded, her lips pressed together. “Just outside the library. He was killed instantly, they said, a small blessing.”

  “So if you couldn't even identify him, how did my mother find out? Why didn't someone check with the school first? I was there all afternoon.” Ephraim had stayed late, hoping for a chance to talk to Jena Kim, the hottest geek girl in his class, while his mother nearly killed herself.

  “We had reason to think he was you. Your library card was in his wallet.”

  Ephraim's hand went to the bulge of his wallet in the right-hand pocket of his jeans. He'd used his card only the day before, and he remembered sliding it back into its usual place. Hadn't he?

  “It was enough to make the identification, but we called in your mother to confirm it. I guess that poor kid must have picked it up somewhere. We all thought you were dead until you walked in here tonight.” She pursed her lips. “On paper, you still are. I'd better fix that.”

  “Can I have my card back?”

  “We gave all your—his—things to your mother when she came in.” She shook her head. “I'm sorry your mother had to suffer through that. If one of my girls…. Such a tragedy. Now we still have to find his family.” She stood up.

  Ephraim leaned forward as she moved to the door. “Is the…uh, the body still here?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “You wouldn't want to see it.” She paused in the doorway. “I'm off shift in an hour. Do you have anywhere to go? Anyone you can call?”

  Ephraim didn't want to return to his apartment. He would have to wipe up his mother's vomit, crawl around and pick up every one of those purple pills from the kitchen floor.

  “Not really. Can't I just stay here?” he asked.

  “You've done enough for her tonight, no? We have a spare room. My oldest son is working at his university this summer.”

  Ephraim almost smiled at the thought of telling Nathan he'd slept at Mary and Shelley's house. But he wanted to be close to his mother in case she woke up. She might need reassurance that he was still all right. He should have been there for her today, and he wasn't going to risk leaving her alone while she still needed him.

  “No thanks,” he said. “I want to stay here.”

  “Then I'll ask the other nurses to let you know if anything changes. At least you won't miss anything important at school tomorrow.”

  Ephraim didn't need the reminder. He'd been dreading the last day of school more than anything—until he'd discovered his mother at the kitchen table.

  Mrs. Morales left to finish her rounds, and Ephraim sat still in the waiting room until his stomach gurgled loudly. He had missed dinner, of course. He didn't have much of an appetite but felt he should eat something. The hospital cafeteria was closed now, but he'd seen a vending machine down the hall. Unfortunately he didn't have any money for it.

  Ephraim picked up his mother's purse. He'd grabbed it when the paramedics came, in case they needed her ID or credit cards or something at the hospital. He looked for change, rifling through balled-up Kleenexes smeared with mascara, tubes of lipstick, and an empty two-ounce plastic bottle of rum. He threw the bottle across the room; it clattered hollowly behind a row of seats.

  Shoved down to the bottom of the purse was a clear plastic bag with “Summerside General” printed on it. He fingered the wrapped contents and felt a prickle along the back of his neck. The bag contained a wallet, a key ring, a black digital watch, and a single quarter.

  Ephraim dumped the bag out on the orange plastic seat beside him. He counted the keys on the ring. There were exactly five, matching the ones in his pocket: one for the lobby door, two for the apartment, one for the AV Club storage space at school, and a little circular key for a bicycle lock.

  The watch was a cheap Casio like the one around his left wrist, but the plastic face was cracked. Faded pixels danced across the shattered LCD screen when he pressed his thumb against it.

  He hesitated before prying open the Velcro of the gray canvas wallet. It felt comfortable in his hands, well-worn and familiar, just like his own. If he'd closed his eyes, he would have thought it was his. He flipped through a few pieces of paper that looked like foreign bills or Monopoly money in assorted colors, faded receipts, and business cards from comic book shops he'd never heard of. It also contained a membership card to a new vide
o game store; a ticket stub from the multiplex cinema for something called Neuromancer; an expired coupon for a free ice cream; three fortune cookie fortunes; and, in the zipped inner pocket, a sealed condom.

  Ephraim's library card was tucked into the plastic sleeve, exactly where he would have put it himself. He tugged out his own wallet—similar but made of black canvas—from his jeans and looked inside. The card wasn't there. He hurriedly checked through all the sleeves and compartments, but his library card was definitely missing. He'd lost it after all.

  Ephraim let out a breath. His palms were cold with sweat. He had really worked himself up, had halfway expected to find another library card. But it was all just an amazing, terrible coincidence.

  Just one item left in the bag. The quarter gave him a static shock when he pulled it out. It was one of those commemorative US quarters: the back of it said “Puerto Rico 1998” at the top, with the mint date of 2008 at the bottom. The picture showed a little frog in front of an island with a palm tree.

  He had a jar of those state and territory quarters back in his room, but he'd never come across one for Puerto Rico. They'd been released in limited quantities, making them rarer than the rest of the series. But the territory coins had all been minted in 2009, which meant this one could be a prototype that somehow had made it into circulation. Guiltily, he slipped it into his back pocket, reasoning that it was better off with someone who knew its value so it didn't end up in a parking meter or vending machine. He imagined if the hospital managed to contact the other boy's family, he could return it to them and explain why he'd held onto it.

  Ephraim retrieved his library card, too, and dropped the rest of the things back into the plastic bag. He stuffed the bag back into his mom's purse and slipped it under his arm as he walked down the hall.

  His mother only had a few dollars tucked into the plastic wrapping of a carton of cigarettes, so he picked out a bag of chips, Twinkies, and a can of soda. On his way back to the waiting room, he spotted someone rounding the corner ahead of him. It looked like Nathan.

  “Nathan? Nathan, wait up!” Ephraim ran to the corner, but his friend wasn't anywhere in sight. A nurse at the station looked up at Ephraim and frowned. “Sorry. Thought I saw someone I know,” he said.