Fireside

by Susan Wiggs

  “Yeah, but—”

  She put her hand on his arm. It was the first time she’d touched him on purpose, and it had an amazing effect on him. A warm, alive connection that made him feel, right or wrong, that he wasn’t so completely alone with his troubles. He hoped she didn’t notice, though. She’d probably think it was weird.

  “Quit worrying,” she said. “He’ll be just fine.”

  * * *

  Heading down the lane for the bus stop, AJ sneaked a look back over his shoulder at the big, colorful house behind him. Bo had moved away from the door, probably with a huge sigh of relief. AJ knew Bo couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

  A few kids were gathered at the bus stop, which was basically a bench with a roof overhead. He could hear them talking, two guys and a girl, their chatter punctuated by the occasional laugh. Their breath frosted the air like speech bubbles out of the mouths of cartoon characters.

  They hadn’t spotted him yet. In the early-morning gloom, he was all but invisible. He felt like a foreign spy, slipping in and out of shadows, camouflaged by the trunks of trees lining the sidewalks.

  The deep thunder of a diesel motor sounded as the bus turned onto King Street. It was coming for him. Its owlish headlamps swept the area like a searchlight. Without even thinking, AJ plastered himself against a tree trunk twice as big around as he was. He held himself perfectly still, not even breathing lest the frozen vapors give him away. If he was going to catch the school bus, he’d need to hurry.

  Still, he didn’t move, not even when he heard the shush of the bus’s air brakes and the cranking of the door. Then, a few minutes later, the door clanked shut and the bus drove off in a noxious cloud. Snowy silence descended again, and AJ slowly let out the breath he forgot he’d been holding. Oh, man. What had he done? Was he skipping school? When had he decided that? He’d never skipped school in his life—ever. Not that he loved school all that much, but he hated trouble more. And skipping school was trouble.

  That was how he used to see it, anyway. Now, however, he tended to see things in a different light. Once your mom got detained by the authorities, stuff like skipping school didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  A cold wind was blowing, and the snow flurries flew at him, stinging his face with tiny needles. AJ had no plan. He had acted totally on impulse. One thing he knew for sure—he couldn’t just stay here until he turned into a human Popsicle, waiting for the sun to come out.

  He couldn’t go back home, either. Not that Fairfield House was any kind of home. If he headed back there, Bo would put him in the car and drive him to school. Being driven to school like a kindergartner, and arriving late, would make a bad situation even worse.

  His hand stole to a pocket of his backpack. Last night, he’d printed off some maps and information from the internet and stashed them away. So maybe the plan had been forming even then.

  Lowering his head into the wind, AJ started walking. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so people said, anyway.

  The whole town was strange to him, but he knew in a vague sense that if he headed down the hill toward the lake, eventually he would find the main part of Avalon. There was an area of shops and restaurants, the city hall and the public library.

  And the train station.

  According to Bo, there were daily trains to New York City.

  AJ’s heart sped up, and so did his footsteps. He still had no plan. He knew this was crazy, that he was totally unprepared. All he had was his backpack full of school supplies, the maps and directions and forty dollars in his pocket.

  Which was probably more than his mom had when they deported her.

  It wasn’t hard to find his way around the small town, what with the big, flat, white lake in the distance, its surface tinged pink with the rising sun. If Bo hadn’t pointed it out to him, AJ wasn’t sure he’d even recognize it as a lake, since it was completely frozen over, the snow forming a perfect covering, so cold and beautiful it made his eyes hurt. On closer inspection, he saw hints of the Willow Lake of summer. There were houses with docks projecting out into the flat whiteness. Passing a deserted park, he could see a chair on a scaffold with a sign: No Life Guard on Duty.

  He made his way to the main part of town. The streetlights were just winking out, yielding to the day. A couple of restaurants were open, and the Sky River Bakery was jammed with people, its glowing windows misted with fog. Despite the delicious aromas emanating from the bakery, AJ kept walking. He spotted a railroad crossing and followed the tracks a short way to the train station.

  Okay, he thought, joining the stream of commuters heading into the old-fashioned terminal building. Here we go.

  He immediately lost confidence, however, when he looked up at the schedule board with its flashing lights and bewildering array of place names. How was he going to figure out which train would take him to the city? And once he got to New York, then what?

  He stood in the terminal building, grateful for the big blowers on the ceiling generating heat. Behind him was a row of posters advertising Avalon and Willow Lake, showing happy families paddling canoes, watching fireworks, skiing and looking at autumn leaves. Studying the pictures, AJ could only shake his head. When he was younger, he used to believe families like this were real, but now he knew better. The people in the pictures were hired models. They probably didn’t even know each other.

  AJ took his mind away from the random thoughts and focused on figuring out what to do next. There were four platforms, and a ticket kiosk and some vending machines dispensing tickets. He observed a few passengers. They would buy a ticket, insert it into a slot on a turnstile and then pass through, collecting the ticket on the other side. Once, he spotted a teenager who looked both ways, then oh-so-casually braced his hands on the sides of the turnstile and jumped over, quick as the blink of an eye.

  You really had to know what you were doing if you were going to sneak on without a ticket. AJ decided against trying it. He’d get caught for sure. Better to blend in and stay under the radar. He checked out the other commuters—people talking on cell phones or checking email, some making small talk with each other.

  “...call me when you get to New York, okay?” someone asked. A soft, female voice.

  “You know I will,” a deep voice replied.

  AJ edged closer to the couple. Now he was getting somewhere. The guy was going to New York. All AJ had to do was copy everything he did and get on the same train.

  The guy was a really tall black man with a shaved head, and his girlfriend was blond and pretty, pushing a baby stroller. The baby was bundled up in a fleecy blue thing, with a hood that had small animal ears attached. With pale skin and a fringe of carrot-colored hair sticking out of the hood, the baby reminded AJ of one of those staring-eyed dolls you won at a carnival.

  “Take care, Julian,” the young woman said. She indicated the stroller. “Charlie and I are going to miss you so much.”

  The tall guy hunkered down in front of the baby. “You take care of your mama now, okay?” he asked.

  The baby made a noise and squirmed. The guy stood up. “See you around, Daisy.”

  Her face turned tragic and she hugged the guy, hard and fiercely. “You will see me,” she said. “Promise me you’ll call. And write.”

  “Every day,” he said, bending down and inhaling, as if he was trying to smell her hair. “I will, swear to God.”

  AJ felt kind of squirmy, watching them, like he was spying on them or something. He wasn’t. He just needed to see how to get the train to New York. At least the tall guy didn’t kiss her or anything, even though he acted like he wanted to. He gave her one last squeeze and then went to a short line of people at the ticket machine. The blond girl named Daisy watched him with tears in her eyes.

  Maybe, like AJ, the guy was going a lot farther than New York City.

  AJ slipped into line behind the guy
. His duffel bag had a label with his name: J GASTINEAUX—and a school name—Cornell University. He slid a twenty-dollar bill into the machine and punched some buttons. AJ observed his selections carefully.

  The machine regurgitated some change and a printed ticket.

  When it was AJ’s turn, he fed his lunch money from Bo into the machine, pushed the same buttons as the guy before him, held his breath and waited. The seconds seemed endless, but at last, the machine coughed up some change and out came the ticket with its magnetic strip. He hurried to the same turnstile the guy had used, and the ticket worked like a magic key. He half ran to catch up with the guy, who went up some stairs, across a wire-caged pedestrian bridge and down to platform number four.

  There was a glassed-in waiting room, crowded with passengers. AJ wedged himself just inside the door.

  Now he was forced to think about what was next. When he got to New York, then what? Did he try to make his way back to Houston? His mom wasn’t there anymore. He had a few friends, but they wouldn’t take him in, because they’d probably get in trouble. Their parents would probably worry about breaking the law or something. The reality was, he had no good option, none at all.

  The train came into the station, big and boxy, in a swirl of steam. Passengers poured onto the platform and climbed aboard. AJ stuck close to Julian. He didn’t know why. Maybe because the guy had been nice to the little baby. Whatever. All that mattered to AJ was that now he was on his way.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Julian Gastineaux scooted over to make room for the dark-haired kid. “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s not taken.”

  The kid sat down, holding his backpack in his lap.

  Julian turned to stare out the train window. There was nothing to see. Daisy was long gone. Still, he could picture her perfectly in his mind, could even smell her hair.

  He should have kissed her goodbye. He wished he had.

  And this, of course, was the essence of his relationship with Daisy Bellamy, and had been ever since he’d first laid eyes on her one summer. Their relationship seemed, sometimes, to be made up of a series of goodbyes. Awkward ones. He spent a lot of time looking back over his shoulder, wishing he’d done something, or said something, instead of just letting her go.

  When it came to Daisy, he had no sense. He was all heart and no head. So many times over the past few years, he wished his damn heart would just tell him to walk away...and stay away. His life would be a whole lot simpler if he’d surrender to circumstances. But of course, where Daisy and Julian were concerned, nothing was simple.

  Stretching his long legs until his feet slid under the seat in front of him, he took out a battered paperback novel and folded it back on itself, grateful in a way for the long ride into the city. Enforced downtime. It was a rare thing in Julian’s life. Making the grade at Cornell, especially in his chosen major—Engineering and Applied Physics—took everything he had. And on top of that, he was in the ROTC for the Air Force, so he could afford the degree that was sucking his life dry. The reserve officer training for the Air Force was a huge commitment, but not as huge as the tuition bills for an Ivy League college. Some people thought he was out of his gourd, signing up for the military. But the the military had a concrete plan, something he’d lacked all his life. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing exactly what was expected of him.

  Besides, when he considered the alternatives, there was no question that he was doing the right thing. If he hadn’t worked his butt off to get into college, he’d be in some greasy spoon in a no-name suburb in Southern California, wearing a disposable paper hat at work instead of a parachute pack.

  Daisy was scared for him on this J-term training mission. She knew he was going to practice, among other things, how to jump out of an airplane at 20,000 feet, and survive.

  And of all the things the ROTC demanded of him, all the mental and physical challenges—the early-morning wakeup calls, punishing endurance training and numbing drills—this was surely the coolest.

  The kid next to Julian shifted restlessly in his seat. Julian could tell he was anxious about something. No, scared. That was what Julian sensed, and he grew mildly curious. The boy exuded a kind of toughness most people would find off-putting. Not Julian. He had no idea who the kid was, but he recognized him, because not so long ago, he’d been there. He’d been alone in a crowd and scared shitless, and he covered his fear with that same tough, slit-eyed reserve.

  “How you doing?” he asked. Not in a phony-interested way. He was just cracking the door open a little in case the kid felt like talking.

  The boy turned and eyed him briefly. Julian knew he intimidated some people. He was biracial, but he looked a hundred percent black. He was naturally big, and had grown broader and more muscular from the Air Force’s relentless physical training. His head was shaved like an eight ball. He used to have dreadlocks but, of course, they were anathema to military training, so he’d left them on the floor of a barbershop the day of his induction into the program.

  The Latino kid merely shrugged. “I been better,” he said.

  Julian didn’t want to push, but his curiosity was piqued. “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “I’m okay,” the boy muttered, obviously thinking better of trusting a stranger.

  “You headed to the city for a visit?” Julian inquired, still casual, not pushing at all.

  “Yeah.”

  Julian wasn’t sure how he knew, but the kid was lying. Or hiding something. Or both. “Me, I’m headed down to Montgomery, Alabama,” he said, then stuck out his hand. “Julian Gastineaux.”

  “AJ,” the boy replied. He shook hands, though he leaned away from Julian.

  All right, I can take a hint, thought Julian. He tried one more time. “You from around here?”

  “Nope.” The kid’s hands tightened on his backpack.

  Okay, then. Julian decided to make one final attempt to draw the boy out. “I grew up in New Orleans.”

  No response from Mr. Happy, so Julian sat back, shut his eyes for a few minutes, thinking about New Orleans. It was just Julian and his dad, back then. The two of them against the world. A physicist at Tulane, Maurice Gastineaux had raised Julian in a loving but haphazard fashion, pretty much what you’d expect from an absentminded professor. Maurice had been a rocket scientist, same as Julian aspired to be. Except unlike his late father, who was all cerebral, Julian hungered for action. He didn’t simply want to be a rocket scientist. He wanted to be the rocket.

  He dozed a little, then was awakened by the vibration of his mobile phone, indicating a text message. He flipped it open. Miss you already, Daisy had written.

  There was nothing to say to that. She already knew the way he missed her. It was the kind of missing that felt like a limb blown off, a huge void of hurt beyond imagining. His roommates at Cornell told him repeatedly that he was nuts. What guy in his right mind fell for a girl who lived a three-hour drive away, and who had another guy’s baby, for Christ’s sake?

  Then Julian would show them a photograph of Daisy and they’d be like, oh. Now we get it.

  She had the kind of looks that made people stop and stare, dropping whatever they were doing for a few seconds. She had that yellow-haired goddess thing going on; you could picture her in a Renaissance painting, surfing on a half shell, her long blond hair twisting in the wind. But the thing Julian’s roommates didn’t get was that, even if she looked like one of the gorgons, Julian would still probably be into her.

  But her life was complicated. She had a baby. And not just any baby. Charlie had the red hair and blue blood of his father, Logan O’Donnell. Logan was the opposite of Julian in every way. Lily-white, he’d grown up surrounded by wealth and privilege. The only thing Julian and Logan had in common was that they were both in love with Daisy Bellamy.

  Agitated, he opened his eyes again. The kid next to him was watching intently out the window.
Julian studied him for a moment, remembering the seminar in military intel he’d taken as part of his training. The boy was exhibiting signs of stress—jiggling his foot, chewing his lip. Something about this boy reminded Julian of himself when he was younger. He’d been about the same age as this kid when his dad had wrecked his car, eventually dying of his injuries. Julian used to deal with his own stress and uncertainty by taking physical risks, anything from jumping off a high dive to skateboarding a dry concrete spillway, knowing it could flood without warning at any moment.

  “So you’re headed to the city to do what, if you don’t mind my asking?” Julian said.

  “I mind.”

  “Just trying to make conversation. It’s a long way to the city.” Julian shrugged and turned his attention to his phone. He felt a little strange doing it, but he sent a message to his brother, Connor Davis. Connor’s brother-in-law was Rourke McKnight, Avalon’s chief of police. This kid was no criminal, but it probably wasn’t a terrible idea to let someone know.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kim took a break from going over her mother’s books. She pushed the papers away from her on the library table and stretched her neck one way, then the other, frowning as she kneaded her tense muscles.

  Bo was across the room at his laptop, where he’d been alternately muttering under his breath and shifting in his seat for the past hour. The downstairs rotunda was the designated place for work, and at any given time, one of the guests could be found here, checking email or surfing the web. Kim suspected it was no coincidence that Bo had decided to work at his computer the same time she did.

  Her stomach knotted as she sat back down and stared at the screen of her laptop, which displayed a spreadsheet.

  “Everything okay?” Bo asked. “You’re looking stressed out there.”

  She nodded, the figures blurring before her eyes. “Money troubles,” she admitted, then paused. A person’s finances are a strictly private affair. She could still hear her father’s imperative voice, echoing across time. She used to regard this as an admirable notion, but now she knew why he had refused to talk about money.