Crooked

by Laura McNeal

  Clara and her father fell silent. Perhaps ten minutes passed. The highway cut through frozen farmland. “Is she going to call?” Clara asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to talk to her?”

  Her father seemed thrown off by the question. “Well,” he said carefully, “I told her it wouldn’t be a good idea for her and me to talk while she was in Spain, but we both agreed that it would be good for her to talk to you.”

  Clara looked out at a boy about her age chipping ice from a stock watering tank. She said, “If Mom calls, I don’t want to talk to her.”

  Her father let the car decelerate ever so slightly. “Polkadot...”

  “No,” Clara said. “I really don’t want to. It’ll just make me more upset.” She thought about it. “Anyhow, she made her decisions about what was best for her, and now I’m making my decision about what’s best for me.”

  “You should sleep on this, Polkadot. It’s not right to make a decision when you’re in this kind of mood.”

  Clara stared out the window. “I’ll sleep on it,” she said. “But I won’t change my mind.”

  It was true. She didn’t. The next morning, while she and her father were having breakfast, the telephone rang. “You get it,” her father said casually, but Clara wouldn’t. The answering machine was off. The telephone rang and rang.

  “Clara, pick up the phone,” her father said.

  Clara stepped close, but she didn’t pick up the phone. It kept ringing.

  “It’s probably Gerri or the MacKenzie boy,” her father said.

  Clara raised the receiver to her ear.

  “Hello?” It was her mother. Her voice sounded close by, like she still might be at Aunt Marie’s in Dalton. “Hello? Clara? Monty?”

  Clara said nothing.

  “Sweetie?” her mother said in a hopeful tone. “Is that you, sweetie? It’s me, Mom, and I’m in Valencia, Spain, in a beautiful old hotel that was a convent two hundred years ago. Are you there, sweetie?”

  Clara didn’t answer. She didn’t care if it was cruel or childish. She set the receiver down hard in its cradle.

  24

  BETRAYAL

  “Any more notes from the great devoid?” Bruce asked one afternoon a week later while shooting baskets with Amos at the old gym. They were playing horse. Bruce, who couldn’t miss, was winning big.

  “Nope,” Amos said, “no more notes.” He wheeled for a long arcing eighteen-footer. It rattled like a pinball on the rim, seemed about to be swallowed into the net, and then somehow jumped back out for a miss. Just as he expected.

  Bruce laughed and, in his sports announcer’s voice, said, “Oh, my, fans, MacKenzie just can’t buy a bucket,” then tossed up a no-look hook, which swished.

  “Eddie’s always watching me, though,” Amos said. “That’s creepy enough.” Even more creepy, though he didn’t say so, was the fact that on Friday Charles Tripp would be out of juvenile detention. Amos casually positioned himself to duplicate Bruce’s no-look hook and tossed up an air ball. The game was over. He drifted to the sidelines to pick up his coat and books.

  Bruce, still on the court, was back into announcer mode: “Okay, fans, Celtics down by two, three seconds to play. Inbound to Bird. Jukes left, pulls up, lets fly for a three”—Bruce’s shot floated through the air—“and oh, my, fans, he gets nothing but net! Nothing but net! Celts win by one!”

  “See ya, Crook,” Amos said.

  Bruce turned suddenly, as if just remembering something. “Hey, did you ask the Brainette out yet?”

  Amos shook his head no. He wished he’d never told Bruce he was thinking about asking Clara out. The problem was, the mere thought of asking her to do something with him made his skin pricklish with fear. And the longer he waited, the bigger his fear grew. At the gym door, Amos said, “Coming by tonight?”

  Bruce shrugged. “If the Judge is on a toot.” Bruce’s term for one of his father’s drinking binges.

  Amos nodded, said, “Exit Amos,” and left. This was a term he’d gotten from Clara when they talked at night on the telephone. She’d told him everything about The Smiling Gumshoe (she was the props manager, as well as having a small part), and at the end of their conversations, instead of saying good-bye, Clara would say, “Exit Clara” and Amos would say, “Exit Amos.”

  When he got to his own front gate, Amos regarded his house. It looked more or less the same as it had when his father was alive, but it was like taxidermy—it sort of resembled the living thing, but not very much. And it had the same creepy effect.

  The house was quiet when Amos unlocked the door. Amos’s mother had always loved music in the house when she was cooking or reading, but now she never turned the radio on. She didn’t go near the TV. She hardly talked. She read books in silence, not the Agatha Christie mystery books she used to read, but serious books: The Confessions of St. Augustine and the poems of John Donne. When either he or Liz watched a sitcom, she would ask them to turn it down—she said she couldn’t stand the laugh tracks. Liz went out with boys more. Amos spent hours at a time sitting on a wooden box pulled up close to his pigeon coop, watching the birds swoop and glide as they had always swooped and glided, listening to them click and coo as they had always clicked and cooed.

  Tonight he made a sandwich, put his coat on, took the cordless phone out to the pigeon coop, and called Clara, who answered after he spoke into the machine.

  “Enter Clara,” she said in a playful voice.

  Amos felt his whole body relax. “I was hoping you’d be there.”

  She laughed. “I was hoping you’d call.”

  “Still screening so you won’t have to talk to your mom, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Clara said quietly.

  Amos bit into his sandwich, chewed, and waited. He knew she would’ve been thinking about it and would want to say what she’d been thinking, and she did. She said, “It’s just that she’s got what she wants, which excludes me, except she wants to tell me how much she misses me and loves me so she can tell herself she’s doing everything she can to include me.” Then, in a softer voice, “So what’re you doing?”

  “Watching the pigeons.”

  “Describe,” Clara said, and he did, between bites, and then they talked as usual about almost anything—her ex–best friend, Gerri, Bruce’s obsession with Anne Barrineau, Clara’s parents, Amos’s mother and sister—until Amos began to feel a kind of calm overtake him, and then a tiredness, and he knew finally he could go upstairs, crawl into bed, and fall asleep.

  At school, Amos was cooler than ever. News of his father’s death seemed only to jack up his status. Boys still collected around him, still wanted to check out his scalp (stitches out; bristly blond hair filling in) and talk about the weird things Eddie Tripp was saying to people (“Tell the milkboy hero I love his Carreras,” or “Tell the milkboy hero that Chaz is at large as of Friday”). As Charles Tripp’s release date got closer and closer, Amos got more and more uneasy. But then, when that fateful Friday finally did arrive, nothing happened, or so it seemed.

  Amos was so relieved at not seeing the Tripps all day that the first thing he did when he got home from school was call Clara. Then, before he had time to think about it, he asked her out. “Want to do something Sunday night?” he said, figuring that Sunday would seem less big-deal than Friday or Saturday. “Maybe just walk somewhere and get pizza,” he added.

  But Clara didn’t say yes. “I can’t,” she said finally. “It’s my dad’s rule. I can’t date till I’m sixteen.”

  “It’s not really a date,” Amos said. “We’d just be getting pizza.”

  After a moment’s deliberation, Clara said, “Well, it wouldn’t be a date if you were to come over and have pizza here at my house.”

  “No,” Amos said, his spirits lifting again. “No, it really wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, but I can’t this Sunday,” Clara said. “I’ve got to help Mrs. Harper clean out her attic.” But then her voice brightened again. “I could n
ext Sunday, though.”

  After he’d hung up, Amos sat on his box by the pigeon coop, feeling better than he’d felt since before his father had died.

  Pizza. Pizza with Clara.

  Amos was floating along on this happy prospect when the phone in his hand rang again. He expected it to be Clara, but it wasn’t.

  It was Sands Mandeville and Sophie Whitaker, calling from Sands’s house, each on a separate extension. Amos had never talked on the telephone to either of them—he’d hardly even said hi to them at school—but like everyone else, he’d regularly seen their pictures in The Leviathan and watched them holding court on campus.

  “What’re you doing?” Sands said, as if she and Amos talked all the time.

  Amos felt a little tongue-tied. “Watching my pigeons,” he said, and both the girls laughed. Sophie said, “Are they doing it or something?” and without waiting for an answer, both the girls laughed again. Amos laughed feebly, too.

  “Okay, Amos-poo, here’s the deal,” Sands said, and explained that she and Sophie were going to be at her house tonight, watching a video on her giant-screen TV, and they wondered if he wanted to come by. Before Amos could say anything, Sophie said that Sands’s folks were off in Barbados for the week and they had a whole bunch of R-rated videos in their video library.

  An evening with Sands Mandeville and Sophie Whitaker?

  Amos couldn’t help himself. He was both excited by the prospect and a little afraid. “Naw, I don’t think so,” he said.

  “You won’t be alone,” Sands said, or maybe it was Sophie. Amos was having a hard time telling who was who. “We aren’t going to pounce on you or anything. Dave Pearse is coming, too. In fact, we told him to come by and pick you up around seven.”

  Dave Pearse? Big Dave was going to give him a ride? It was almost too crazy to consider. “Look,” Amos said, “why don’t you just give me the address and then if I can make it, I’ll just walk.”

  “He said seven,” Sands said, “but he’s always late. I’d plan on seven-fifteen.”

  Amos didn’t say anything.

  “And wear that flannel shirt you wore today at school, okay?”

  To his own surprise, Amos heard himself say, “Okay. Okay, sure.”

  At seven-twenty, Big Dave Pearse elbowed his car horn and Amos went walking out to meet him. Even though he’d put on the green shirt, he thought he was going to tell Big Dave that he couldn’t go after all, that something had come up, but as he approached, Big Dave leaned over, swung open the passenger-side door, and said, “Hop in, Hero,” and Amos’s idea of not going somehow vanished.

  It was warm in the car, and full of loud music. Two blocks along, Big Dave turned down the volume. “So I guess you won the Sands Mandeville lottery. Which would make you just about the youngest contestant ever.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Amos said, and he didn’t. He didn’t even know that it was Sands Mandeville who was inviting him tonight.

  “Yeah, well, I do. I keep hoping my number’ll come up, but it doesn’t. Not that I mind Sophie, but Mandeville—Mandeville’s got the major Sigourneys.”

  They pulled up to a stoplight, and Amos said, “Cigorneeze?”

  “Sigourneys,” Big Dave said. “As in Sigourney Weaver.” He cast Amos a quick glance and laughed. “As in Olympian mammary glands.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, don’t pretend you haven’t noticed Mandeville’s northern territory.” Big Dave grinned again. “Even amateur explorers admire the Tetons.”

  Amos had noticed Sands Mandeville, of course. But now, to think Sands Mandeville might actually be interested in him, Amos MacKenzie—it was a thought that frightened and exhilarated him.

  “So what do I do?” Amos said.

  Big Dave laughed. “Nothing. Just follow along. Mandeville likes to lead.”

  It was a cold, clear night with enough moon to illuminate the pitted snowbanks and rutted streets. These were houses, Amos knew, where his father used to deliver milk. In his father’s route book, there were always particular instructions as to where the milk should be left—front porch, back porch, or even, in a few cases, the customer’s refrigerator (his father had his own keys for those houses). Watching the yards go by, Amos realized that one year ago to the day, his father had probably seen these same nighttime houses under the same thin moon.

  To Amos’s surprise, Big Dave swung onto Genesee, Clara Wilson’s street.

  “Where’re you going?” Amos asked.

  “Shortcut up to Bandy Ridge. Mandeville’s in the high-rent district.”

  Clara Wilson’s house approached on the left. Amos scooched down a bit but kept a line of sight on the house, and especially the second story, where he believed Clara’s bedroom must be. But he saw nothing. An upstairs light turned the empty pane yellow. Amos sat back up. He thought of asking Big Dave to let him out, so he could walk back and see if Clara was home, but he didn’t. The car hooked left, onto Walnut, and began the ascent to Bandy Ridge, Jemison’s most exclusive neighborhood. As they climbed, expansive views of the lighted city opened below them. When they turned a corner near the top of the ridge, Big Dave pointed past a sign that read: DEAD END, NO OUTLET. “Actually, there’s a bike path through there, and it takes you right down to the South Face Mall and the Kensington District.” He smiled. “You can walk to the mall almost as fast as you can drive, not that walking’s anything anybody up in this district would ever do.”

  The Mandeville house stood at the end of a cobblestone lane that curved through a wide, rolling lawn. Big Dave parked under a portico (that, anyhow, was what Big Dave called it; to Amos it looked like an elaborate, columned carport). Inside the house, the girls were in high spirits. They had dressed almost identically, in Levi’s and soft sweaters—Sands in lavender, Sophie in beige—and both came to the door in stocking feet.

  “Well, well,” Sands Mandeville said, smiling at Amos while Sophie took their scarves and coats, “we finally got the famous Amos out into society.”

  Amos blushed deeply, felt sweat gloss his upper lip. They were standing in an entryway that felt like a fancy movie lobby. The floor was marble. Beyond Sands, in a recessed alcove, there stood a black marble statue of a naked woman.

  “C’mon, Mandeville,” Big Dave said, “give the youth some breathing room.”

  Sands Mandeville laughed and swiveled. “We’re in here,” she said, and led the way. The house itself was enormous and highceilinged, with glass chandeliers, smooth-plaster archways, and wood-framed modern paintings. It was the kind of house Amos had seen only in movies and magazines, and glancing into an enormous kitchen, Amos wondered whether the Mandevilles drank Cosgrove milk.

  Finally Sands led Amos and the others to a room that had a vast TV at one end, encircled first by thick carpeting and large lounging pillows, and then by a second circle of curving leather sofas. “I guess this is the breathing room,” Amos said, and everyone laughed, even Big Dave Pearse.

  To Amos, Sophie Whitaker was a darker version of Sands—brown eyes instead of blue, brown hair instead of blond, and, it seemed to Amos, hardness instead of softness. “Well, David,” she said in a commanding voice to Big Dave, “what spirits did you bring?” and Big Dave, drawing pint bottles of brandy from each interior jacket pocket, said, “Two flavors—peach and blackberry.”

  “Yum,” Sands Mandeville said. “Amos and I’ll split the blackberry.” This worried Amos. He and Bruce had once tasted some of the Judge’s bourbon and had hated it.

  Sophie said, “Okay, you chose the brandy, David and I choose the movie.”

  “Got anything with Sigourney Weaver in it?” Big Dave said, and flashed at Amos a grin that made him feel suddenly inside of all this. It was enough of a good feeling that the blackberry brandy seemed to taste better than he’d feared. After a gulp or two, it seemed even to taste good, in fact.

  The foursome settled on a video called Half Moon Street, with the sound off and some classical music that Sands liked tinkling away inst
ead, something by Debussy. She asked Amos if he liked Debussy.

  Amos decided to tell the truth. “Never heard of the guy.”

  Sophie chortled. “Join the club. Mandeville’s gone highbrow on us because she’s got this new piano teacher she thinks is a big dreamboat.”

  Sands Mandeville shrugged and in a matter-of-fact voice said, “You have to admit, for a piano teacher, he’s pretty deluxe.”

  Amos, imagining the deluxe piano teacher, felt the need to say something. “I listened to Edvard Grieg one day. I was sick, and before my mom went out, she put it on and left it on replay. I was too sleepy to get up and change it. Every time I’d fall asleep, I’d wake up and hear all these maniac kettledrums and I’d be in the hall of the mountain king, and then a little while later, the record started again with this soft song about morning, and I’d get drowsy again.”

  Sophie stared at him blankly.

  “Amos, my man,” Big Dave said, “that is what we in the story-telling business would call boring.”

  “I thought it was a sweet story,” Sands Mandeville said, and took another sip or two of blackberry brandy. Amos already felt a little disconnected from his skin, and he hadn’t drunk a third of what Sands had. He found himself staring happily at a lighted display case of small porcelain figures, pale girls whose arms were thin and long and glossy.

  “Too bright in here,” Sophie said, and switched the lights off so that the room swam in the fitful bluish light of the huge TV, where Sigourney Weaver, in preparation for what evidently was a date, sat in an old-fashioned bathtub.

  “I love those Sigourneys,” Big Dave said.

  “Actually, her real name is Susan Weaver.”

  “Well, then,” Big Dave said, “I love those Susans!”

  Sands Mandeville, who had the blackberry brandy in one hand, poked Amos with her other. “We’re in the company of sick individuals. Let’s go way over there to the other side of the room, where we can’t even hear them. To another locale where they don’t even exist.” Her voice sounded melodic and dreamlike. She led him closer to the long-limbed porcelain girls in their long dresses.