Night Owls

by Jenn Bennett

  “You can change your mind,” I said.

  He stowed his sunglasses on the visor and stared at our front steps like a monster might come storming down them at any second. “And turn down a free meal? Never.”

  “You say that now, but you haven’t met my family yet.”

  As traffic sped behind us, we headed up to the front door. On the other side of it, a trio of laughs floated from the kitchen on a fragrant cloud of tomato and melted cheese. It smelled freaking delightful. And Mom was in a superior mood, laughing it up and practically singing her curiosity when I called from the park to find out if I could bring Jack along. Now, if she just wouldn’t put two and two together about the graffiti in the museum, and if Heath would keep his mouth shut about everything I’d told him about Jack, this might not turn disastrous.

  I signaled Jack to follow me through the living room toward the chatter. Our kitchen wasn’t fancy, having last been updated in an ugly 1990s shade of pale mauve, complete with fake butcher-block countertops. But it was pretty big for a city kitchen, with a long peninsula counter that separated a round four-chair breakfast table from the rest of the room. Mom was standing on the other side of that peninsula, and Heath was lounging at the table. And right as I walked under the archway from the living room, an African-American man as big as a professional wrestler stepped in front of me.

  And when I say wrestler, I mean bulging muscle—beefy and corn-fed, with a few extra pounds of cushion, and tattoos snaking up both arms. He was dressed in a T-shirt with a fiery metal logo, and he had one of those wallet chains looping from the back pocket of his black jeans. To go along with all that, he had a full-on bad ass beard, like one of the big S&M dudes who walk around with nothing but a bullwhip and leather chaps at the Folsom Street Fair.

  The whole package announced You do not want to screw with me, but the beautiful smile curving his lips was all sunshine.

  “Beatrix?” he guessed.

  “Noah?” I guessed back.

  His rumbly laugh echoed around the kitchen as he scooped me up into a hug. “Damn, you’re a little thing like your mama, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re apparently made of mountain. Are you sure you’re an engineer and not a lumberjack?”

  “Last I checked.”

  When he pulled out a chair, I widened my eyes at Heath, who was beaming so much he nearly blinded me.

  “Well, I’m glad to finally meet you,” I said, moving into the kitchen to make room. “And while we’re on introductions . . .” Jack stepped under the arch. “Jack, this is my family. This is Saint Noah, my brother’s boyfriend. And that’s my brother, Heath, and over there is my mom, Nurse Katherine the Great. Everyone, this is Jack.” I refrained from adding the Vandal.

  Jack extended his hand to Noah, and then to my brother, who looked Jack over like he was a piece of cake as he purred “Hello, Jack” in a voice an evil cartoon cat would use on a doomed mouse. “I’ve heard all about you.”

  Ugh. Kill me now.

  “But I haven’t,” Mom said, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “Come closer and let me get a better look at the person my daughter’s been hiding under a bushel.”

  Uh-oh. She was strangely cheerful and teasing, but it didn’t stop my neck muscles from clenching. And poor Jack had no idea what he was walking into, but he strolled around the counter and shook my mom’s hand, too.

  “Thank you for having me. Hope it’s not an inconvenience.”

  She made a sweeping gesture toward two pans of lasagna cooling on trivets. “If we can eat all this, we should get some kind of prize. It’s no inconvenience whatsoever. Do you go to school with Beatrix?”

  “Your daughter and I met on the N line a few weeks ago,” he said. Which was pretty much true. “And I’ve seen her at Alto Market.” Also true, just not quite the Truth.

  “What’s your last name?” she asked.

  “Vincent.”

  “Jack Vincent,” Mom said, leaning back against the counter to peer up at him. “Why does that name sound familiar? Oh, Mayor Vincent.”

  “Yes,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “That’s my father.”

  His father . . . What?

  A chorus of “oohs” swirled around the kitchen. Except from me, because his father was the freaking mayor of San Francisco and he didn’t tell me. Sweat pricked my scalp under my looping braids. Jack coughed into his hand and sneaked a fear-filled glance my way. I did my best to keep my face blank.

  “Well, well, well,” Mom chirped. She grabbed his chin and angled it for her inspection as though he were a patient; sometimes Mom forgets normal physical boundaries. “I knew you looked familiar. Handsome like your daddy, huh?”

  Jack chuckled nervously.

  “First a saint, now a prince,” Mom said, letting go of Jack’s chin to grin at Noah across the counter. “God’s finally listening to my prayers.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I mumbled. “Jack’s a Buddhist.”

  “O-oh,” Mom said, like it was the coolest thing she’d ever heard.

  I suddenly felt like I were in a David Lynch movie and there was some bizzaro, surreal plot I didn’t really understand unfolding all around me. I quietly had a heart attack while Mom and Jack and Heath and Noah all chatted about Buddhism and about how funny it was that Jack had shown up for dinner, because Mom had made meatless lasagna to appease Noah, who was apparently a pescatarian—which just meant he was a vegetarian who cheated and ate fish. And they talked about Jack’s superstar father, who was serving his second term as one of the youngest mayors in the city’s history, not to mention one of the most popular, but, no, Jack had no idea if the rumors were true that Mayor Vincent might be entering California governor’s race in the near future. Blah, blah, blah.

  For the love of Pete, how flipping stupid was I? To be honest, I always tuned Mom and Heath out when they started talking politics. Yet I’d known his last name sounded familiar. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t connected the dots when I saw his dad, but if I tried to picture him without the dark shades and the baseball cap, yeah, I supposed it was him, all right.

  Everything made more sense now, like how Jack said his dad lived for his job. And the mayor was notoriously private about his family life, which was probably why I couldn’t dig up much about Jack online. No doubt they lived in one of those six-million-dollar houses near Buena Vista Park—not the six-hundred-thousand-dollar ones. And the car that was waiting for Jack and his dad at the hospital that night? That was the freaking mayor’s car. No wonder the man had been cooler than ice with me. He was the king of the city.

  Which was why he’d forbidden Jack to talk about the schizophrenia. I vaguely remembered seeing pictures of the mayor and his wife together, but maybe I hadn’t seen any recently because, you know, she was in the hospital. Keep up appearances, Jack had said. His father was worried it might hurt his political career. Pretty crappy attitude, if you ask me.

  “You feeling all right, babe?” Mom asked, rubbing my back.

  “Oh, I’m one big bag of sunshine and puppies.”

  She squinted suspiciously at me and then spoke to Jack. “How are you at grating cheese, Prince Vincent?”

  “My cheese-grating skills are second to none. I’m a fully licensed grate master.”

  “Excellent. I’ll need enough Parm grated to cover those baguettes. Bex will show you where the grater is. And, babe,” she said, talking to me, “do the garlic butter thing you did last time. Noah, I need your height to get an extra chair down from the hall closet. It’s stuck sideways on the top shelf, thanks to your boytoy’s inability to follow simple instructions.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Heath said drily. “You’re a real hoot.”

  The three of them chatted their way into the hall. I pulled out a block of Parmesan and some butter from the fridge. Jack stepped behind me as I unwrapped it on the counter.

  “You pissed?” he said near the side of my head.

  “Surprised. And feeling more than a little dumb. But
in my defense, I’m used to seeing him in a suit behind a podium. And, you know, you might’ve mentioned it.”

  “I wasn’t thinking clearly when you saw us together at the hospital. I should’ve introduced you. It’s just that everywhere I go, I’m always Mayor Vincent’s son. I know, boo-fucking-hoo, right? But that’s all I am to people at school, the neighbors, the hospital doctors. . . . Even one of the masters at the Zen Center has hinted that having my dad show up at one of the charity events would help raise awareness. I get so damn tired of it. And for once I just wanted . . .” He paused, searching for words. “I wanted you to see me and not my family—not the politician or the psych patient. Just me.”

  I opened a bottom cabinet and rummaged until I found our ancient metal box grater. “To be honest, I hate politics. If you never mention anything remotely mayoral ever again, it won’t hurt my feelings. Now, the schizophrenia? You can talk about that all you want, anytime. However, none of it changes the way I think about you.”

  He didn’t reply so I figured the matter was settled. I tapped on the grater. “Now, I should warn you that Mom is a total freak about wasting food, so if you grate more cheese than we need, I’ll be eating Parmesan on cereal for the next week. Just so we’re clear, don’t do that.”

  I stepped out of his way and grabbed a bulb of garlic from a bowl near the stove. On the other side of the kitchen wall, a loud boom! was followed by laughter. Guess Noah got the chair down.

  “Hey, Bex?” Jack said as he grated. “Just so we’re clear, if we were alone, I’d probably kiss you right now.”

  I gave him a swift glance as the hallway laughter made its way back to the kitchen. “Just so we’re clear, I’d probably let you.”

  DINNER WAS ODDLY PLEASANT. THERE WAS BARELY room for all five us around the kitchen table, but it was nice to be squished next to Jack, and we played elbow wars every time we bumped into each other.

  And if Mom had detected any weirdness between us earlier, it was long forgotten—partly because Jack and I were fine now, and partly because Mom was too busy flirting it up with him and Noah. (Who knew all it took was a couple extra guys praising her cooking to turn Katherine the Great into a gooey pile of strumpet? It was almost embarrassing.)

  And the pleasantness turned to joy for my mom when Heath announced he was moving in with Noah at the end of the summer. And the joy turned to outright glee when Noah announced he was going to help Heath figure out a way to go back to school. Not for nursing, but to become a vet tech. “We were looking at a veterinary program in San Leandro. He’d have to commute across the Bay on BART—”

  “But a few of my nursing credits will transfer,” Heath said excitedly. “I’m too late for fall, but I might be able to get in this winter. January, hopefully, if I don’t get turned down for financial aid.”

  It took all of ten seconds for Mom to raise two victory fists in the air, and then she was hugging Noah like he really were a saint. Maybe he was.

  So why wasn’t I over the moon about all this? I was happy for Heath, sure. But it was only a couple of weeks ago that he was out partying. And it was only a couple of months ago that the two of them were on “a break.” And it was only six months ago that Heath was ditching a community-college nursing program. Again.

  But despite his long list of screwups, he was still my brother, and I guess I was sad he’d be breaking up Team Adams and leaving Mom and me behind.

  “You can have Laundry Lair,” Heath said after dinner, leaning across the counter toward me while Jack and I rinsed off plates and filed them in the dishwasher. Now I knew why Heath had cleaned off the brimstone wall; he’d already been planning on moving out.

  “I dunno,” I said. “On one hand, more privacy. On the other, it smells like car exhaust and mold down there.” I didn’t mention it was half the size of the dining room—a sticking point between us since we’d moved in here.

  Heath smirked at me. “And once you get your stuff down there, it’ll smell like formaldehyde and pencil lead.”

  “Where is your room?” Jack asked me.

  “Not exactly the mayor’s mansion here,” Heath said. “Rooms are where you can find space to fit a bed.”

  I threw a kitchen towel at my brother. “You can handle the glasses.” They never got clean in the dishwasher, so we had to do them by hand. I left Heath to it and walked Jack to my X-ray doors, explaining the whole dining-room-origin story, while, at the other end of the living room, Mom and Noah conspired over coffee to plan my brother’s future. I left one door cracked so it wouldn’t look like I was luring Jack into my web to have my wicked way with him.

  “This is amazing,” Jack said, peering into the mission china cabinet at my strange assortment of anatomy tchotchkes. “It’s . . . so you.”

  “Go on and say it. It’s weird, I know.”

  “It’s very weird. And I love weird, so you’re in luck. Whoa—is this vintage?”

  I showed him my Visible Woman (which he went bananas over) and introduced him to Lester the Skeleton (which creeped him out). I almost pulled out the artist mannequin that my dad had (possibly) sent—the wood-carving shop in Berkeley still hadn’t answered my email—but I was too worried Mom might stroll in and ask about it. And while I was busy freaking over the fact that Jack was in my room, he flipped through a couple of sketchbooks—random drawings I hadn’t posted online. Some were from art class at school. He stopped on a still life and chuckled.

  “What?” I said, sitting next to him. On my bed. Some primitive part of my brain was already running through potential seduction fantasies, like accidentally spilling something on his shirt so that he was forced to take it off, and then I’d have to rub down his bare chest with my bedspread.

  The primitive part of my brain wasn’t particularly bright.

  “Still Life with Fruit,” Jack said in a faux-cultured voice. “I can practically feel the resentment in your crosshatching. Definitely not your favorite subject matter.”

  “You’re not wrong. Guess you had me pegged from the get-go. Keep flipping through that and you might find some angry logo design, too.”

  “Where’s”—he lowered his voice—“Minnie? Can I see her?”

  “I’m not finished or anything,” I said, suddenly self-conscious.

  “When’s the deadline for the art contest?”

  “I’ve already signed up, but I have to turn in my piece three days before the exhibition. Which means I have to finish by July twentieth. I can show you what I’ve done so far. I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to put it all together, but if you want . . .”

  “I want. Believe me, I want.”

  Wait—what did he want? Not Minnie, that’s for sure. Dark eyelashes blinked at me as his knee rested against mine, and suddenly it was that first night on the bus all over again, staring at each other with flames shooting between us. I quickly decided my fantasy with the spill on the shirt was far too tame—I needed to spill something down the front of his jeans.

  “What are you thinking?” he murmured.

  “I’m thinking about your 4-H belt buckle,” I murmured back.

  Well. That shocked him. Guess my future bon vivant college self had officially chosen Jack over the ex-swimmer college professor.

  “I was thinking about how hot your bra looks beneath that see-through toga shirt, so I guess we’re even.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Show me Minnie before I embarrass myself in front of Nurse Katherine the Great.”

  Guh. Okay, now he’d shocked me. But God as my witness, I would see that belt buckle again in the near future or die trying.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and blew out a long breath as I stepped across the room to my drafting table. The sketchbook was stashed among a couple of others between the table and the wall. Not that Mom would instantly know I’d been at the lab if she saw the sketches. I copied a lot of “internals,” as I liked to call the inner-organ diagrams, from old textbooks.

  Jack hovered near my right arm, watching me flip
open the sketchbook. If anything could put a damper on rampant sexual frustration, it was looking at cadaver drawings. I skipped over my preliminary sketches and went for the one I’d been working on the last two sessions: a view of Minnie’s full torso, including the dissected arm. It was pretty disturbing and, frankly, I’d been having a hard time looking at my sketches after I left the lab. This one was extra-bad because I’d included her face and hair. But I really felt I needed to because it humanized her—made her less of a “thing” and more of a real person.

  Maybe a little too real . . .

  “Think I’m going to pass out,” Jack mumbled at my side in a funny voice.

  I started to apologize, but the words never left my mouth. His legs folded, and he dropped like someone had shot him. He was pranking me, surely. That’s what I thought for all of one second.

  He wasn’t getting up.

  16

  I FELL ON MY KNEES BY HIS SIDE AND TOUCHED HIS face. He wasn’t dead. He groaned and tried to lift his head off the floor, but his eyes weren’t opening.

  “Mom!” I yelled, but she was already racing into my room with Noah and Heath.

  “What happened?”

  “He was looking at one of my drawings and said he was passing out, and he just collapsed.”

  Mom went into nurse mode. “Honey, can you hear me? Jack?”

  “M’okay,” he slurred. His eyes fluttered open.

  Her hands moved in quick succession over his neck, forehead, wrist. “Listen to my voice. Are you diabetic?”

  “No.” He tried to shift his legs.

  She quickly repositioned them. “Are you on any meds?”

  “No.” He swallowed thickly and opened his eyes. “God, I’m dizzy.”

  “Bex, hand me the pillows off your bed.”

  When I brought them to her, she was unbuckling his 4-H belt buckle. I nearly flipped until I realized what was going on: restrictive clothing. She loosened it, wiggling open the top button of his jeans before checking his neck again. He was wearing that black T-shirt, which wasn’t tight. “Under his feet. They need to be higher than his heart,” she instructed. “Has this happened before, Jack? Have you fainted before?”