by Davis, Lia;
He nodded again. Zin placed his plate in front of him. “Enjoy. I’m sorry…I didn’t get your name.”
“Valdus,” he said quietly. “My name is Valdus.”
“Valdus. That’s different.” Zin sat down in her own seat. “Dad, so tell us what happened.”
Hugh wiped his mouth with his napkin and cleared his throat. “You know how the Honda has been having some trouble—“
“Uh, yeah, that’s why I won’t drive it,” Jasmine said from her seat.
Zin narrowed her eyes. “Maybe if you hadn’t insisted on a brand new eight-hundred-dollar cellphone, you might have had money to fix your own car instead of taking Dad’s.”
“He offered to let me use it.” Jasmine rolled her eyes.
Zin took a deep breath. Valdus picked at his chicken with his knife and fork. Good. She wouldn’t have been able to bear her horrible sisters if he’d eaten like an animal. He was excruciatingly careful not to drop so much as a crumb. “Go on, Dad.”
“Well, the car broke down in a bad part of town, and Valdus here helped me get her going again.”
“Right there in the street?” Sonia asked, cocking an over-plucked eyebrow. Two years earlier, she’d demanded tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner. She looked like a knock-off Barbie doll.
“Fuse came loose,” Valdus said. “I popped it back in.”
“Since when do hobos know how to fix cars?” Jasmine said with a smirk.
“Maybe he wasn’t born disadvantaged,” Zin said.
Jasmine rolled her eyes. She plucked her cell phone up and started snapping pictures. Noticing the way Valdus lowered his head and gripped his utensils, Zin reached over and snatched the cell phone from Jasmine’s hand. Jasmine yelped and flailed for the device. Zin handed it to Hugh.
“Give that to me,” Jasmine demanded. “That is my property.”
“Technically, it’s his,” Zin retorted. “He bought it, and the service is in his name.”
“I’m twenty-fucking-five years old! Nobody makes rules for me. If I’ve got to sit here with some hobo dude that thinks he’s a damn bear or something, I can take pictures of him!”
“Dad,” Zin said quietly. “Don’t let her do that.”
Valdus placed his fork and knife neatly by his plate. “Thank you for the meal. I’m going to go.”
“We’re going to have to bleach this place down,” Sonia remarked. She whipped out her cell phone and snapped a picture, grinning. Jasmine darted around Zin and snatched her phone from Hugh.
She slugged Zinnia in the shoulder. The sharp, explosion of pain in the muscle made Zin flinch and cringe. She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath to control the rage billowing through her.
She was better than them, in every way.
She glanced over at Hugh. He was pale, with two spots of red on his cheeks. Zin loved him. She really did. He was a coward, though. She glanced up at Val. “If you want to wait outside for just a minute, I’ll wrap up some food for you.”
He gave her a tight nod and left the room quickly, gracefully. Both Jasmine and Sonia cackled and filmed his exit.
“I hope you both die miserable deaths,” Zin said. “Breast cancer is genetic, you know.”
Both women went silent, their faces contorting into similar masks of anger. If they had an Achilles’ heel, it was their mother’s year-long fight with cancer as it ate through her body. They were young, but old enough to know exactly what was happening.
Zin grabbed the platter of chicken and carried it into the kitchen. Quickly, she bagged up a few pieces into a plastic dish with a lid. She dug through the pantry until she found one of the good-sized insulated lunch bags she used frequently, ones that held enough food to eat on all day. She made a couple sandwiches and wrapped them up. After layering the bottom of the bag with reusable plastic ice blocks, she put the chicken in, the sandwiches, and then a few water bottles from the fridge. It wouldn’t stay cold for more than a few hours, but it would give the skinny guy some sustenance.
On a whim, she yanked open the fridge and grabbed two bottle of hard cider. Her keychain had a bottle opener on it.
She hurried out the front door and looked around. Valdus was nowhere in sight. “Oh, please don’t have left yet…” She crossed the yard and looked down the road. There he was, near the little playground the neighborhood kids never even looked at.
“Valdus!” She ran after him. She caught up with him, out of breath. “I wanted you to wait a second.”
He shrugged and looked off into the distance.
“Look,” she offered him the lunch bag. “I didn’t really have anything that wouldn’t go bad fast, but I made you a few sandwiches and put some of the chicken in a bowl.”
He wouldn’t take the bag. Instead, he started walking again.
“Wait, please,” Zin pleaded. “Have a beer with me.”
He paused, finally glancing at her. In the fading light, she made out the one cocked eyebrow. She smiled. “Please, Valdus. My sisters are horrible, horrible creatures from hell. I, on the other hand, am actually glad you came. Dads…weak, but I love him. He gets taken advantage of a lot. You actually helped him. I’m truly grateful to you for that. We don’t have a lot, so food is about the only way I can think of to repay you. Food, and just a few minutes of company.”
The hard look in his ice-blue eyes softened. He has blue eyes. She was starting to see through some of the dirt crusted on his face so thick it all but hid him. The beard was tougher to see through, but she could make out high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and the type of brow ancient Greek sculptors would have loved.
“Let’s just be people for a little while,” Zin said, holding out the cold bottles of hard cider. It was her favorite brand.
“For a few minutes,” he said. His voice was rough, like he hadn’t used it in a long time. “I’m not used to talking.”
She pushed open the gate that led into the playground and walked to the swings. “Sit?”
He had to adjust the weird fur cape, but he sat on the rubber swing next to hers. She reached over and popped the cap off his drink with her bottle opener, then opened hers. She took a long drag on the bottle. The tart, honey-sweetened flavor made her sigh with happiness. “I love this stuff. Never even heard of it until a patient of mine brought me a six-pack.”
Valdus took a small swallow, then a deeper one. “It’s pretty good. There’s a brewery in New York that makes a good hard cider.”
Zin swayed back and forth, then twisted her swing so she could look at the man next to her. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, his expression troubled. He thinks I’m staring.
She was, but not for any reason other than he intrigued her. She came across all types of people in the county hospital’s ER. She liked hearing their stories. Nosy, her coworkers called her, but they all knew she did a damn good job.
“I’m looking at you,” she admitted. “I think I can almost see you, Valdus. You’re hiding behind all the dirt and hair and fur, of all things, but I think I can almost see you.”
He turned toward her. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you?”
She shrugged and let the chains pull her back into the right position. “I’m my own person,” she laughed. “I have to be honest with myself in order to be honest with anyone else.”
“Makes sense.”
They drank in silence as night descended. The cicada song reverberated around the playground.
“I’m so sorry my sisters acted like that.” She scuffed her feet in the dirt. “They are terrible people. Dad…I hate to say it but, he made them that way. He’s too nice. One day I’m going to have enough money to just pack his bags for him and tell him we’re going to—I don’t know, Alaska or Hawaii or somewhere as far from them as we can get. They’re going to be the death of him. I can’t watch it happen.”
“You’re a good woman,” Valdus said. “If I’d known someone like you, maybe I wouldn’t be like this.”
Her heart broke a little bit. “I’
m not all that good. Sometimes I’m lazy and selfish. I hate my sisters, and I hate that I hate them so much.”
“They deserve it.”
Zin drained her bottle and dropped it next to the lunch bag. She wasn’t much of a drinker, so the one bottle gave her the slightest buzz. “Can I ask you something?” She twisted the swing once more so she was facing him.
He glanced at her. “You want to know why, right?” He shrugged one shoulder, indicating the balding bear skin.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Valdus. I’m a little bit nosy.”
“It’s fine. I don’t think anyone has ever actually asked.”
“Really? Nobody ever?”
“Maybe. Probably. Nothing’s coming to mind right away.”
“Hmm. So…why?”
Valdus set his own swing to swaying. “It’s a religious thing. Made a deal with the devil.”
Zin cocked an eyebrow. She’d heard stranger stories in the ER. Granted, they usually involved unusual objects stuck in colons. “Religion? I’m not familiar with this one.”
“I’m the only participant,” he said dryly.
“That sucks. So what deal did you make? I don’t know much about religion. I went to church when I was a kid, but once I started nursing school and then working, that pretty much consumed my time.”
“If I can make it seven years without taking a bath, washing my face or hands, cutting my hair or nails, I’ll be rich and find true love. I also have to survive the seven years. If I die or break any of the rules, Devil gets my soul. And I have to wear the Devil’s jacket and this bearskin the entire time.”
“You’ve never, ever taken off the jacket?” Zin gaped at him, utterly shocked. “You’ve seriously worn that same bearskin cape and that corduroy jacket for…how long now?” She reached out and poked him in the shoulder.
“Six years and five months.”
“Wow. Holy cow. Wow.” She grinned, shaking her head. “I really can’t say much about that. I’ve been wearing the same three sets of scrubs for about three years now. Once you get them broken in, it’s like wearing pajamas all the time.”
“But you get to take them off and wash them when they get dirty.”
“Yep. Very true. So you can’t even wash your hands? That is really gross. You are very brave, my friend.”
He laughed. It sounded rusty. He cleared his throat, coughed. “I don’t like this anymore than anyone else does.”
“Have you ever wondered if the Devil is actually real?” She twisted her swing around again. “I mean, I guess—I don’t know how to say it without offending you.”
“He’s as real as you are. He walked up to me at my lowest point and made his offer.”
“It sounds like a fairy tale. In the end, either the devil outsmarts the handsome young soldier, or the soldier finds a way to trick the devil into letting him go.”
He frowned, head cocked. “How’d you know I was a soldier?”
Zin shrugged. “I didn’t. In the stories, it’s always a down-on-his-luck lovelorn soldier. So you used to be in the military?”
“Army. Ten years, most of it in war zones and combat. I got hurt and earned myself an honorable discharge. Came home to nothing. Couldn’t really deal with…everything by myself.”
“I’m sorry,” Zin said. She reached out and squeezed his arm. He looked at her hand, then back up at her.
“You’re not scared to touch me? You’re not afraid you’ll catch something?”
“I’m not scared of you, Valdus. I told you. I can almost see you.”
He swallowed hard and looked away. Was he trying not to cry? Zin’s heart broke even more for him.
“I’ll be your friend,” she said. “Everybody needs that.”
He stood up. Despite the muggy heat, he pulled he bearskin around his shoulders. In the moonlight, his eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “I need to go. It’s dark. I have a long way to go.”
Instinct insisted she invite him to stay at the house, but she knew her sisters would torture him. He was fragile enough without them destroying what he had left. She rose. “Please take the food. It won’t last long, but it’s something.” She picked the bag up and held it out by the strap.
His nod was barely noticeable. He reached out. As he took it, his fingers brushed hers.
The static charge shot up Zin’s arm. She gasped and laughed. “You shocked me!”
He chuckled and tucked the long strap over his shoulder, beneath the fur. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome, Val. Valdus.”
“You can call me Val. No one has called me that in a long time.”
“All right, Val. I do expect you to come back and talk to me some more. I want to know more about that bearskin.”
He gazed down at her, perplexed. “You want me to come back?”
“Yeah. We’re friends now. I don’t want to subject you to my sisters, so when you come around, just leave the bag by the front steps. I’ll know you’re waiting for me here, and I’ll bring you supper and more food.”
“You’d do that for me? You don’t know me. I could be crazy.”
“Well, I know you’re crazy. You made a deal with the devil and you’re wearing a bearskin cape and a corduroy jacket in summertime in Florida. I think I can deal with your crazy, though.”
He stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “I think you’re crazier than I am.”
“Highly possible.” She winked and smiled, pointing to the bag half-hidden under his cape. “I hope to see that soon.”
She headed toward the gate.
“We’ll see,” Valdus said.”
Chapter Three
Valdus stared at the lunch bag. The food from the bag was long gone. He’d rinsed the bowl in the water hose behind Gus’s house when he’d finished the absolutely amazing fried chicken.
He couldn’t shake the way his gut dropped when his fingers brushed Zinnia’s, three nights earlier. The hot shame that had burned all the way to his bones hadn’t abated a bit.
He wanted to shed the bearskin right then. Discard the Devil’s jacket, dive into the river at his feet and scrub himself raw with sand.
All for her. Some girl he’d spent thirty minutes with after her family treated him like shit.
That shock that sent him into a tangled, confusing tailspin was more than static electricity. Her smile had been genuine. The way her eyes lit up when she laughed. The complete honesty in her words…
Is she the ‘true love’ promised?
He caught a glimpse of his blackened hands, the ragged nails, and the soiled bandages around two of his fingers.
No. No. Hell no. She was being nice. What sort of feelings would somebody like her have for him, after only a fucking half hour of meeting? She might have been nice to him, but he guaranteed there was still that mental block in place that every single soul on the planet had towards homeless people.
They were people, in the same sense that an actor on a screen was a person. Most people didn’t treat the homeless and disadvantaged like they were flesh and blood with real feelings. They had needs, but it amounted to a bottle of booze or a hit of some drug. Show them the minimal compassion, feed ‘em, toss ‘em some unwanted clothes, and then leave them in their own mess.
Val drew his knees up and rested his arms on them. She probably thought he was crazy. The kind of crazy that would keep him on the streets forever. She took his story well, making jokes without ridiculing him. Seriously, though, what kind of fool honestly believed in a walking, talking, deal-making devil?
He crisscrossed his legs and touched his heavy left pocket.
This wasn’t a lie. He’d deposited five grand into the bank, as he had every day for the last six years. The bank manager questioned him once, a year after he started the deposits, and he made up some story about an inheritance. The manager only seemed slightly mollified when he swore it wasn’t illegally gained.
Val had a storage unit, too. He had twelve trunk-sized, fireproof, bombproof safe
boxes made out of black-box material in the unit Ten were full to capacity with cash. Time to fill up another one. When he met someone that made an impact on his life, he filled one and programmed the digital lock to the date he met them and their birthdate. Hard to break into that. If he died before the seven years was up, the storage unit owner knew to make sure the boxes got delivered to them.
If something happened to Val, Gus would mail letters containing opening instruction to each person. . Gus had his own box in the storage unit, although he didn’t know it. The manager had his letter. Val liked Gus, but like every other human on the planet, he didn’t trust him completely, not with that much money. He only put a twenty, sometimes a fifty-dollar bill on Gus’s porch when he slept in the back yard, but that was enough money to make somebody curious.
A month was enough time to be sure he was dead, and not just wandering. Sometimes he wandered, but he always came back to town.
River Park, Florida always seemed like home. It was the first place he’d met someone who seemed to care about him. The people in town were used to seeing him around. He didn’t get harassed much. He’d secretly helped fund half a dozen community projects.
His eyes traveled back to the colorful vinyl lunch bag. Cartoon owls stared up at him. He unzipped it and took out the plastic bowl. It was the type his mom always had in the cabinets, made of sturdy plastic that never seemed to break or wear out. The zig-zag lid snapped on with an airtight seal. It was opaque.
Val popped the lid off and stuffed the bowl full of hundred dollar bills. Zinnia mentioned wanting to take her dad away from the horrible sisters. Whether she actually did that or not, the money would be helpful. Money was always helpful.
He replaced the bowl in the bag and got to his feet. The need to see her gnawed at his skin and bones. He couldn’t shake her.
Didn’t matter if she thought he was just a dirty bum with a weird religious thing going on.
