“Okay then,” said Emily. “Thank you for your time.”
“Wait,” Ben said. Mona Rosko had them all fawning to help her, a full cast of marionettes. And then not a peep. There was pride, he got that, had plenty of it, had allowed it to make a mess of him time and again. There was pride, and then there was the sweat and dirt of the world they actually lived in. Time was, he and Veronica would have liquidated their portfolios if it could have bought this kind of attention. And Mona flounced off. “Wait, please.” Tara was gone, probably forever. Rand said so. Veronica, drunk, once even said the words aloud. But if she was out there, she might be near a TV. Tara might see him. It wasn’t likely, but it was likelier than Barcelona. “I have something to say.” Ben shut his eyes and thought of a newsreel bomb falling in black and white. The bigger the blast the wider its radius.
The cameraman stepped closer.
Emily Rourke nodded for him to continue. His mind went kaleidoscopic with everything he should have said in his life but hadn’t.
Marvin and Ed paid no attention at all.
Ben wasn’t nervous. A debate scholarship had helped put him through college and his ex said he was the only man alive who actually thought in bullet points. He took a breath and looked straight at the camera.
“That Mona Rosko is a vinegary old cunt.”
THE OPPOSITE OF SHALLOW
IT WAS WAY TOO EARLY for SAT words, so when Gran said, “I believe you have a swain,” the best Lily could manage was a slurred huh? and a series of thick blinks.
“That young man.” Gran indicated the window. “I doubt he’s here for me.” Her weird accent was back and she brought a hand theatrically to her heart. “Clearly smitten. He must’ve spotted you from afar.” If Mom ever spied a lingerer she’d be dialing nine-one-one and saying stalker. Dad, too. The parentals had some highly detailed theories about what happened to little girls who played on the Internet.
Lily said, “If he’s here for me and he’s a he, he’s out of luck.”
“Poor fellow.” Gran tapped the window. Sure enough, the guy stood smack in the middle of the street like an out-of-uniform traffic cop. And not just any guy. Rocky. Rocky Ludlow. Sierra’s Rocky. Holy Little Black Dress.
“I know him,” Lily said, running scenarios, all of which hovered around the Gouda level of extreme cheese. A pregnancy test, positive, Sierra’s. They were en route to elope and wanted her as witness. A pregnancy test, positive, not Sierra’s. He needed her to intercede before Sierra castrated him with a melon spoon.
“Oh?”
“From school. I’m going to see what’s going on.”
“Let him down easy.” Gran winked. If plotted on a graph, her swoony silliness would peak each morning before her walk with the per-vet. They’d watched him on the news last night. Some brief per-vet platitude about being sorry for Mona Rosko. Then the lady herself, large and stern. She hadn’t been ugly though; her stillness transformed her. Her silence, too. The way she’d crossed the lawn. She’d worn beat-up sneakers, but she moved like a bride. The hammer split the air and Lily felt all flutter and gauze in the face of the woman’s I am. Gran didn’t get it. She wondered why they’d only used a few seconds of Ben. There needed to be a verb. Crushversate: to obsessively bring up one’s crush in conversation.
Of course Gran thought Rocky had come a’courtin’. Her whole mind was wired that way. Let him down easy. Har-dee-har. “Things aren’t always about that,” Lily said. Her parents’ friends always teased her about dating, like talking romance was the accepted shorthand for acknowledging she wasn’t a kid anymore without having to actually engage. In the street, Rocky bounced foot to foot. Trust the Rockster to get himself the thousand miles to Arizona and then forget her grandmother’s address.
“Things aren’t always about what?” Gran asked.
“Love.” Lily made a sour-milk face and wondered if Grandpa would have started crushing so soon if Gran had died first.
“I know. But wouldn’t it be better if they were?”
Lily was spectacularly unqualified to say. Her one kiss had been a disaster. She went out into the morning bright. Rocky’s head whipped around. His features resolved: almost Rocky, but not quite. The mouth was broader, and arranged into an expression of completely un-Rockified pensiveness. He waved, which if Lily were ever crowned Queen of the Universe, was a gesture she’d ban about twelve seconds into her reign. There was always that moment of social panic: how to be one-hundred-percent sure you’re the intended recipient. She didn’t wave back. For all she knew, the guy had a dandruff problem and was raising his hand to scratch. Rocky II came sprinting over. “Hey, check it out. That’s my paper!”
“No way. It’s my gran’s.” Aside from his mouth, the resemblance to Rocky I was terrifying: the hair, the chin, the slightly crooked nose. The absent-from-kindergarten-the-day-they-taught-sharing impulse to waltz on up and say mine.
Rocky II laughed. It made his Adam’s apple prominent. “Yeah, sorry. I meant that’s the paper I work for. Nicky Tullbeck,” He extended his hand like a mayoral candidate.
“My grandmother said you were lurking.”
“I’m reporting,” Nicky said. He wiped his hand on his pants when it was clear Lily was not about to shake.
“This just in: local granddaughter gets the paper.”
“Your grandparents live here?”
“My gran.”
“Little Red Riding Hood.” Rocky did that same smug thing with his chin when he thought he’d said something smart. If she had her phone she’d take a picture for Sierra, who would promptly drop dead at the blissful prospect of two of them. Nicky attempted a flirtatious grin. “To grandmother’s house you go? Like in the story.”
“I’m not stupid,” she said. “I just didn’t think it was funny.”
“Fine. Sorry. You been visiting long?”
“I’m not visiting. I’m living here in secret.”
She hadn’t had a sense of how lousy his posture was until he straightened. “For real? Like that kid?” His phone came out, with a doofy stylus for notes.
“Yeah. Just like him. And we aren’t the only ones. Bin Laden’s hiding at his gran’s house, too. You’re not really a reporter, are you?”
He colored. His eyelashes were long like both Roskos’ but bold and feathery and dark. Further evidence of an unjust universe: no mascara in the world could get her that look. “I’m an intern,” he admitted. “I start at Rice this fall.”
“That’s nice, I guess.” A curtain rustled in the Rosko house. Little Ty, playing secret agent. Mona Rosko, wishing that strapping fellow would kiss the dyke and cure her already.
“It’s a good school. I’m looking forward to it.” His blush receded and his grin returned. Like Rocky, he had an underbite. Ten bucks said that on the way from his eardrums to his brain her that’s nice turned into a breathless, mushy, Sierra-to-Rocky-style omigosh-you’re-smart. A breeze rattled the chimes on a neighbor’s porch and a quick, deep damn! carried from the golf course. “I’m doing a follow-up on that kid who’s been hiding out.” Nicky made Tyson sound like a cops-and-robbers bandit. “This is his street.”
“I know that. I told you I wasn’t stupid.”
“Have you met them?”
She shrugged.
“You have. Do you think you could throw me a quote?”
“Isn’t the Crier sending someone real?”
Nicky examined his hands, front and back. “I’m pretty sure I am real.”
That was kind of funny, actually.
But Lily knew the formulae.
Laugh and it’s encouragement.
Say I’m not interested and hear back bitch.
And half the time he’ll take the God’s honest I’ll-never-be-interested-no-offense-it’s-a-question-of-chromosomes truth as a challenge.
The other half he’ll ask to watch.
“My gran’s waiting. I’ve got to go.”
“C’mon.” He took a quick step toward her. “Look. I was on the
paper all through high school. I made editor my junior year. I got into Rice early decision.” He rolled his eyes. “And I’m spending my summer doing jack-all for an editor I caught using the wrong there twice.”
“Our school paper did that once in a headline.” She hadn’t actually noticed, but her English teacher had gone on about it.
“The guy’s a sleepwalker. He’s got no idea I’m out here. But I figure, if I write up something good I might get to do something this summer besides watch my ex-girlfriend play FarmVille. Help a guy out? I’m dying.”
The way he threw up his hands reminded her of Gran.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Lily said. “Mucking around online all day.” She was pitiful. Her hand made the shape it would take to hold her iPhone.
“I’m dying,” he said again.
The emphasis on the first syllable reminded her of Sierra.
If she let her eyes blur, he didn’t look like Rocky at all.
Lily knew what people thought of her. Even before Miss Titty Tattlecakes’ sob story. She’d overheard her parents. Dad to Mom: Who knows, maybe someday she’ll do a post on how not to be shallow. Mom to Dad: That’s mean. She’s so confident now. It’s helped her come into her own. Lily to parentals, if only she were actually confident: It’s the opposite of shallow. Shallow would be hoarding her know-how. Lipstick helped girls across the country, girls across the Atlantic even. It wasn’t an exaggeration to call it an essential service. Knowing you look good frees your mind for so many other things.
Like doing actual freaking good.
“Ty’s a sweetie,” she said. Sweetie would get better play than one-of-those-creepy-kids-who-seem-forty. “Epic sweetie pie.”
“You mean the kid?”
“Yeah. Tyson Rosko.” The papers didn’t even have his name. No wonder Nicky was paying attention. “He’s the most fantastic kid. I’ve got a Facebook group for him going.” Despite the call from her parents, who were thrilled about it in a yes-I-know-it’s-important-to-you-but-we-said-no-Internet-Lily-we’ve-had-it-up-to-here kind of way.
Nicky’s stylus scribbled briefly. “And the grandma? It’d be great to get intel on her.”
Boom. The word intel made her loathe him again. The kind of word Rocky would pick up from one of those video games where he pretended to be a soldier. And then there was Mona Rosko: her bare, clean house, her quiet boy, her daughter who actually served. Her hair, a coiling curtain of gray. The golden wasted length of her eyelashes. The fluid arc of a hammer brought unerringly down. “She’s strong,” Lily said. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Nicky scrawled. She could read his notes upside down with no trouble. No caps for Rosko.
“She’s doing her best, you know? Her daughter’s stationed in Afghanistan. Someone’s got to look after the kid.”
Afghanistan, Nicky wrote. That, he capitalized. She wasn’t saying this right.
“She’s strong,” she tried again, and then, “real.” Lily mimed Ms. Rosko with the hammer. Nicky looked at her like she was having a fit. “You don’t get it. If you’d seen her on Channel Twelve, you’d get it.”
Nicky smirked. Rocky II: the return. “I don’t think you were watching the same Channel Twelve as the rest of the world.” He fiddled with his phone. It was embarrassing how much she missed the solid, connected palm-feel of her own. Nicky tilted the screen toward her, shading it with his hand. “Footage from yesterday. Leaked, I guess. Obviously they couldn’t air it.”
The reporter from last night, hair bobbed at chin level to make her eyes pop. And beside her, the putty-colored face of Per-Vet Thales. “Wait,” he said, “I have something to say.” He shut his eyes, then bugged them out. Beside him, the reporter gave a brief, conversational nod. The per-vet inhaled. “That Mona Rosko is a vinegary old cunt.”
A quick pan back to the reporter. You could pinpoint the moment she processed the word. “Sir—”
“And you’re a cunt, too. I apologize for saying it, Miss, but it’s true. And you—” he pointed a tuberous finger at the camera—“you’re a cunt for listening.” He brought a hand to his mouth for an improvised megaphone. “All you neighbors! All of you are cunts for even caring about this.” His voice pitched high and mincing. “But we have rules.” Something in his throat shifted. His voice was baritone now, but still whiney. “But he’s a little boy and we have to be nice to him.” His face contorted; his eyebrows wriggled like a pair of tortured caterpillars. A fly zoomed into the frame. It came to rest on his cheek and he swatted it away, his hands huge and pawlike. The fly made its erratic way toward the camera and then back onto his face. He didn’t notice, even when it crawled over the bridge of his nose. “We know the little boy’s safe, and he’s a cunt, too. We all are, because nobody cares about the real problem, about children who—” His throat worked horribly, like he was struggling for air. His skin had gone from putty to meat. The fly turned small circles on his left cheek. “Tenaya Alder, sixteen. Last seen wearing cutoffs and a green T-shirt. Mimi Asencios, sixteen. Last seen wearing her Pizza Hut uniform.” The fly edged toward the corner of his mouth. Benjamin Thales had gone completely robotic, his voice glazed and metallic. “Christy Aves, sixteen. Last seen wearing khakis and a red parka. Lisa Balish, almost sixteen. Last seen wearing her boyfriend’s letter jacket. Meghan Bagnall—” His face was still, except for the small, essential movement the mouth needed to name its names. Beside him, the reporter drew a quick finger across her neck. The mic feed dropped away. Ben didn’t notice. His fish lips kept doing their thing. He stopped, realized the mic was out, and leaned in toward the reporter, who had one clipped to the V of her collar. The camera caught him in profile, the fly silhouetted on his forehead. The microphone caught something about “denim skirt” and “Darcy Bremmen” and “high-top sneakers.” Every time the reporter stepped away, the man followed, head bowed as if to peck at something in her cleavage. “—and a green pullover. Theresa Cavanough. I don’t remember what she was last seen wearing. That makes me a cunt, too.” And just like that he stopped. Face slack and mottled. As if disoriented by the sudden quiet, the fly drifted from the per-vet’s face and settled on the reporter’s exposed collarbone. Then Ben’s voice returned, courteous and lilting, tender as a lullaby. “I’m awfully sorry, Miss. There’s a fly on your shoulder.” He gestured to his own with a flat, open palm, as if to cradle something wounded.
Nicky snickered. “I’m awfully sorry, Miss. There’s a fly on your shoulder.” He was a lousy mimic. Gran’s accents were better. When his hand came to his shoulder, he looked more like he was trying to cup a large and badly placed boob. When she didn’t laugh, he said it again, “I’m awfully sorry, Miss. There’s a fly on your shoulder.” This time, he reached toward her.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry. It’s funny though. The fly’s what makes it. The guy doesn’t even notice, and then he’s all, I’m sorry, Miss.”
The Laws of Cheese dictated she ought to say something arch here. Get a load of those golf pants, or I guess we know who’s hiding the bodies. A quick, dull ache bloomed at the base of her tongue. Her grandmother liked Ben Thales. She’d invited him into her home, baked her specialty biscuits, put out the plates with blue flowers on the rim. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait. Check this out. My buddy Kai did a remix.”
“Sorry. Bye.”
“What? Are you pissed about the C word?”
“I’m not pissed about the C word.”
Nicky followed her up the drive, pocketing the phone. The roof of her mouth itched. Gran was inside, waiting for her daily walk. Gran, whose husband had known the secret to the world’s best scrambled eggs. Who had collected maps with that husband of everywhere they’d traveled, the roads they’d used traced carefully in yellow highlighter. Grandpa had whistled old show tunes when he shaved and had a callus from a lifetime of holding his pen the wrong way. Grandpa had insisted Lily sell her Girl Scout Cookies in person instead of circulating a signup sheet at the office
because even though the world didn’t operate face-to-face anymore, it ought to. He and Gran had met at a skating party when they were both twelve. Thick flakes had clung to dark hair and now he was buried in a state that hadn’t seen snow this millennium.
Oh, Gran.
She was coming out of a time capsule from before she was hormonal. She had no way of knowing that ped-obsessed jerkoraptors like Benjamin Thales even existed.
“You are pissed.” Nicky tapped his temple. “I’m kind of psychic.” He smiled. The insouciant look of someone who thought her shoulder was his to touch by right.
“Me, too.” She tapped her own temple. “I can tell you’d kill for a byline.”
He nodded.
“Well, listen. I was the one who saw the kid get hurt. I’ve been in the Rosko house. I’m actually kind of their official spokesperson.” The lie felt good. The way his eyes widened. His hand went quick to his phone like a gunslinger. “And I’m leaving now.” She barely stopped a bright ta-ta.
JUST A LOCAL GIRL
THE THEME FROM INDIANA JONES meant that Stephen was calling. Last Thanksgiving, Ben’d had Anjali set up the ringtone. “Why Indy?” she’d asked, inputting an unintelligible set of commands. “His favorite’s The Godfather, yeah?” She’d hummed a few bars. Badly. Anjali was slight and vivid and omnicompetent, which made her musical hopelessness endearing.
He’d smiled. “The tune gets stuck in my head like nothing else. Dah-dah-DAH-dah, dah-dah-dah. Now when he calls, it’ll stay with me all day.”
“You dear sweet man,” Anjali had said, and thereafter the tune was full of her as well.
Ben picked up halfway through. “Stephen!”
“So, Dad. I hear you made the news down there.”
“For a second or so. On Saturday.” He’d watched at twelve, at five, and again at ten. He’d seen his father, nine years buried last October, before he’d seen himself. Ben hadn’t realized. He’d lost weight. His hands were all puff and knobs. The skin of his face was half a pulse behind his actual expression. And the waste of it. The utter waste. The things he’d said to that poor young woman. The only thing that had come of it was Sadie’s granddaughter asking, ostentatiously, where on earth he’d gotten those fabulous pants. He was a fool. Yes, a withered old fool. Even if they’d had the stones to air it, his daughter would not have known him.
You Could Be Home by Now Page 6
