“Are you sure this is considered civilization? I think there were more kids in my class last year than people live in this town.”
Dad smiled, though he didn’t say a word. A handful of pedestrians paused to stare at them as they passed. Most gave off a ‘what are they doing here’ vibe that left her feeling uncomfortable. One guy slapped his friend on the arm and pointed. As soon as the other man spun around, he too shot them a suspicious glower.
“What’s up with them?” Riley made eye contact with a tall, fat man in a cowboy hat, who shook his head.
“The place is a bit insular, hon. Don’t take it personally. They don’t like outsiders. I’ve lived here for almost five years now, and they still treat me like a foreigner.”
As if inspired by a sudden muse, Dad took a hard right. The truck lurched over a bump as it entered the parking lot of Tommy’s.
“It’s almost one and we haven’t eaten. Hungry?”
“Is this the only restaurant here?” She looked around again. “What kind of food do they even serve? The place looks like a roach factory.”
“Mexican stuff or burgers, mostly.” He got out. “None of that su-chee stuff you like.”
She exaggerated a sigh, and shoved her door open. “You seriously want to eat here?”
Tommy’s Restaurant was bigger inside than it looked from the outside. One long, rectangular room held a bar on the left and a number of battered tables covered in wood-patterned Formica on the right. The place smelled of beer and refried beans, but the spice in the air was not at all what she expected―it smelled appetizing.
“Geez,” she whispered. “These chairs look like they stole them from a pizza joint.”
Dad didn’t wait for anyone to seat them. He wandered to a random table and fell into a chair. Riley followed. The occasional whiff of wet wood broke through the scent of food. Dad absentmindedly picked at a metal bucket of peanuts in the middle of the table, flicking his gaze back and forth from a short, stocky dark-skinned man behind the bar to the front door. Tiny red dots spotted the bartender’s puffy cheeks. He smiled at Riley from across the room, but gave her father a wary squint.
She slumped her weight onto her elbows, staring at an unlit candle embedded in a red glass shaped like an avocado.
“Afternoon.”
Riley jumped at the deep voice coming from her left. A boy who couldn’t have been eighteen yet set a menu on the table and smiled at them. He looked as tall as Dad, with high cheekbones and straight, black hair down to his waist. A stained towel hung over the front of his blue jeans, and assorted kitchen stains marked an otherwise plain white tee shirt.
“Uh, hi,” she said.
Dad pushed the menu to her. “Inferno burger for me.”
The boy grinned at Riley. “He thinks we only make one thing.”
Riley gripped the seat on either side, overcome with sudden concern for how she probably looked… and smelled.
The waiter turned the menu to face her and opened it. “Need a sec? You don’t look like you’ve been here before.”
She stared at him for a full minute. “No. First time.”
Two men at a table in the back muttered at each other between looks at her father.
“Welcome to Tommy’s.” He smiled. “I’m Kieran.”
“Riley.” She scanned the menu. “Uh, whatever Dad got.”
“You sure you want that?” Dad raised an eyebrow. “It’s very spicy, and I didn’t think you ate beef.”
“Oh.” She smirked at the menu. “I like everything, except tako.”
“Since you’re living here, hon, you’d better get used to the concept.” Dad poked a finger at the menu. “Half the menu is tacos.”
“No, Dad. Tako. T-a-k-o. It’s sushi for octopus.”
Kieran grimaced.
Riley stuck her tongue out. “Yeah, it’s nasty. Chicken tacos, I guess.”
“Okay. Drinks?”
“Is the water safe here?” asked Riley.
“Corona for me. Yes, the water’s safe. We’re still in the United States.”
Kieran grinned at her, lingering for a moment before walking off to the kitchen.
“And you thought you’d have a problem making friends here.” Dad leaned back in his chair.
Riley’s face got warm. “Dad…”
“You’re blushing. Maybe more than friends.”
If she had a sweatshirt on, she’d have pulled it up over her head. She shrank over the table. “Not funny.”
“Beware of anyone too friendly too fast.” Dad leaned in close. “Anyone might be trying to get to you to get to my work.”
“Seriously?” She looked up from her folded arms. “He’s what, seventeen? You think he’s a spy?”
“I don’t know. Better to be careful until you do.” Serious Dad relaxed to Smiling Dad. “So, you like him?”
“Dad!” Riley lowered her voice to a whisper. “I like, just saw him. Geez.” He did smile at me. Hasn’t called me stick-girl yet.
Kieran returned with a huge plastic cup of ice water and a Corona in the bottle for Dad. Blood rushed to her cheeks when he got close, and she refused to look up at him. She traced her finger along the pattern of fake wood grain in the tabletop.
“Food’ll be out in a few minutes,” said Kieran.
“Thanks.” Dad leaned closer to her, lowering his voice… a little. “Looks like I skip right to the hard part of having a daughter.”
Riley waited for the waiter to walk away. “Huh?”
“Fighting off the boys lining up at the door.”
He did not just say that. “Dad!”
No boys had yet paid much attention to the gamer geek with zero shape, and the ones who did only wanted to tease her because they thought she starved herself.
Minutes later, she looked up when a plate slid in front of her. It smelled so much better than anything she’d touched in days. Her mouth watered despite the fumes from Dad’s burger burning her eyes.
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
She forgot all about feeling weird in his presence and grabbed one of the tacos from her plate. The chicken bits inside looked hand-cut.
“Wow, this smells so good.” She took a huge bite.
“My mother and aunt do most of the cooking,” said Kieran.
Riley didn’t want to rush herself, and made him wait until she finished chewing. “Your parents work here?”
“They own the place.”
He’s still here. “Oh, uh, that’s cool, I guess.”
“Gonna be here long?” He seemed immune to Dad’s piercing glare.
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Hey, Kieran,” yelled one of the men in the back, waving an empty beer bottle. “Need another one.”
The boy smiled. “Nice meeting you.” He pulled his hair off his face and jogged over to the bar.
“I want you to be comfortable talking to me, Riley. I’d prefer you wait until you were eighteen, but if you decide to have sex, I’d rather you do it safely rather than sneaking around behind my back.”
Riley discovered that chicken tacos weren’t too easy to breathe. When she stopped coughing, she hid her face in her arms, wanting to crawl under the table and disappear. She couldn’t look at Dad. She couldn’t look at the room.
“Riley?”
“You did not just say that.”
“I didn’t mean to sound like I don’t trust you. I just wanted you to know that you can tell me anything.”
She huddled there for a few minutes listening to Dad eat. When the smell of her food got to her, she sat up, still bright red. He continued munching on his burger as though he hadn’t said the single most awkward, embarrassing thing she’d ever heard. After a few more bites of the chicken taco, she lost herself in it. Salsa with a hint of lime juice and garlic made her forget his lack of tact as she devoured real food. At least, until Kieran walked back over with another glass of water. She went rigid, staring at the mess of uneaten lettuce upon which the tacos had perch
ed.
“Wow, those tacos never had a chance.” He winked at her, and looked at Dad. “Another Corona?”
“No, thanks. Gotta drive. I’ll have a water too.”
She kept her gaze down as Dad finished eating, sucked down his water, and handed Kieran some cash. Riley got up and followed him to the door, feeling Kieran’s eyes on her. She peeked up through a curtain of light brown hair, catching sight of his smile as he collected the dirty dishes. The look on his face seemed welcoming and curious, and made Dad’s earlier comment all the more embarrassing.
Fearing he may have heard it, she scurried out to the truck and got in.
“I can’t believe you said that.” She glared at him. “I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”
“It’s okay if you like girls.”
“Dad!” she screamed. “What is your fixation with sex?”
He started the truck. “I’m not fixating. I’m being realistic. You’re getting to that age where you’re going to get curious.”
“Oh, my God, will you stop!”
“Okay, okay.” He pulled back out onto the road. “I won’t say another word about it, but if you ever want to talk about anything―”
“Dad!”
He chuckled.
Riley fumed in silence as he drove past the last of the buildings in Las Cerezas. About a half-mile east of the little town, he turned left. The truck bounced along a dirt path closer to tire ruts in the desert than an actual roadway. Metal clanking coming from the back made her worry the trailer would pop off. A few utility poles ran along the side, carrying a single wire out across the desert. He slowed to about fifteen mph. Six minutes before 2 p.m., a lone one-story house slipped into view past a hill on the left, clad in chestnut-brown siding brushed with dust. Dark rectangular panels covered almost every usable inch of roof, except for where a pair of small satellite dishes perched. A rusted wind chime made of brass pipes and a wooden disc dangled from a metal strut to the left of the only visible door. The area around the place was flat sand, except for a covered well to the left.
“Dad…”
“Welcome home, Riley.”
“Seriously?” She leaned forward in the seat, gawking. “You live out in the middle of nowhere. I can’t even see neighbors.”
“You don’t have to worry about making noise after 10 p.m. at least.” He winked. “I like the quiet out here.”
Great. I managed to make one friend in a state where two hundred people live for every hundred square feet. This is going to suck.
“This place has a real toilet at least, right? Not like an outhouse with ass-biting spiders?”
Dad pulled up out front and cut the engine. “Nope. Just pee on the ground anywhere outside. I keep the TP under the big bush there.”
Her jaw dropped.
“There’s a shovel on the back wall for number two. Better to bury that in shallow holes. In five years, I’ve only had one person drive by at an awkward moment.”
She gaped at him, horrified. H-he’s not serious. Her lip quivered as warmth spread over her cheeks.
For the first time since she’d re-met him, Dad burst out laughing. She scrunched her look of shock into a playful-angry glower and slapped at him. He caught her in a partial headlock and held her arms against her chest, trapping her. She squirmed in a half-hearted attempt to escape. After she gave up, they grinned at each other.
“I’m kidding.”
She slid out of the truck and made her way to the front door, waiting for Dad to catch up and unlock it. Beyond a small foyer, the living room lay in bachelor-pad shambles. A sand-brown sofa sat facing a tiny flat panel TV, barely thirty inches, tuned to CNN with a picture-in-picture on Fox news. Text scrolling along the bottom appeared to be closed-captioning for Fox, while the CNN anchor had the audio. To the left, the room opened to a modest kitchen without much of a separation. At the end of the kitchen counter, a doorway led to what looked like a bedroom. Sand-brown paint covered the walls, white on the ceiling. The overwhelming smell of paper hung in the air.
The right side of the main space appeared as though the builder intended it to be a dining room, though Dad had set up a folding table, covered in strange tools and bottles of what appeared to be oil. Small two-inch square cloth pads were everywhere. Beyond the ‘dining room,’ another hallway led to the right side of the house, with three doors and two closets. The last door at the end was open, revealing a bathroom decorated in desert browns and brick red.
“Pick whatever room you want from those three.” Dad headed right for the little TV. “Since we brought Mom’s big ol’ set, I’ll move this one to my room.”
She paced through the house, looking around at a mess that would’ve sent Mom into involuntary convulsions. At least it was all inorganic clutter: fiction novels, historical books about military intelligence operations, a scattering of DVDs with handwritten labels, stacks of papers and cardboard boxes, obsolete tech―and nothing molding or stinking. Her flip-flops popped against her soles as she walked to the first hallway door. The room beyond had the dimensions of a bedroom, painted beige, but it was crammed full of more cardboard boxes. She pulled the door closed and checked the next one. The front-corner room was a little larger, but Dad had piled a mountain of old computer parts, and yet more boxes of paper in it.
“Pack rat much, Dad?” Geez, he should be on Hoarders.
She spun on her heel and checked the lone door on the inside wall. The last bedroom was mercifully free of a mountain of junk. The only furniture consisted of a steel folding chair upon which sat a spiral-bound notebook. Papers hung all over the coffee-colored walls, covered in scrawled writing around pictures of men in military uniforms. Some of the photos showed buildings, aircraft, or locations in other countries. Curiosity took her, and she approached the nearest wall. The writing looked like notes of dates, times, and troop movements as well as comments about possible threats to US personnel, and locations of ‘asset sightings.’ A few pictures had lines traced to them from frightening remarks such as ‘compromised,’ ‘neutralized,’ or ‘lost contact.’
“Riley!” yelled Dad. He rushed in and grabbed her shoulder, a look of wild fury in his eyes. “What are you doing in here?”
“Uh.” She held her hands up. “You said pick a room… I was looking.”
“Oh. Right.” The urgency in his expression lessened. “I’m, uh…” He took a few breaths and loosened his grip. “Sorry I scared you. This is top-secret stuff. Colonel Bering would not be happy if he found out you saw it. One of my software projects is something to help the NSA track certain individuals across the globe, with the eventual goal of predicting their movements.”
She looked down, shivering. “Dad, I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay… I should’ve said something. You had no way to know. Look, just don’t tell anyone about this stuff, okay? It could get people killed.”
“There’s so much crap in the other rooms.” She fidgeted.
“Damn. Good point. Okay, I’ll move this. Go on and start unloading the truck with the critical stuff. Leave anything you want me to carry.” He spun around, appraising the charts. “I’ll get this crap out of your room.”
She hugged him. Losing Mom, losing her friend, losing her whole life crashed into the strange feeling of getting her father back, even if he did live in the middle of nowhere and had scary super-secret stuff all over his walls. Riley held on to him for a few minutes before she plodded back outside, keys in hand, and opened the padlock from the U-Haul trailer. The air that came out smelled like Mom’s house and got her tears flowing. For a long time, she stared at the bits and pieces of her former world, until the desert air washed away the familiar scent.
She carried box after box into the house, dropping her stuff in her new room and the ones from everywhere else in the corner bedroom where all the computer crap was, since it had more space. Mom’s stuff could stay packed for now. Dad’s house didn’t have anywhere good to unbox it, and she would never forgive herself if a
nything broke.
Hours later, all the sensitive information was gone, leaving only a few pushpins stuck in the drywall as well as some scraps of Scotch tape. She frowned at the black marker writing on the cardboard around her: Xbox games, books, clothes, Xbox stuff, more clothes, Anime, Movies, and one box labeled in all caps, ‘Dad, do not open!’
My underwear.
It occurred to her she’d been wearing the same undies for four days. She closed her eyes and imagined the bathroom back home, the last shower she’d ever taken at the house in which she’d grown up. She sat on a box of books, rested her head on her knees, and cried. Riley hated it here. She hated the desert, the strange, angry people that stared at her, and how far away she was from everything comfortable and safe.
Why did Mom have to die?
A presence at the door signaled Dad’s approach, but he backed away without saying a word.
“What?” She sniffled.
“You okay? I was going to suggest we get your bed out of the trailer first. There’s a storage place in T or C where we can put your mother’s. Figure I’d run over there tomorrow on the way to drop the trailer off.”
It’s better than foster care. “Yeah. Just thought of Mom again.”
“C’mere.” He held his arms out.
She walked into an embrace, sniffling. “Why’d you have to live at the ass end of nowhere?”
“You hate it here.” He patted her on the back.
“Yeah, maybe I do a little”―she closed her eyes―“but I don’t hate you.”
shower and clean clothes made Riley feel human again. Despite the clutter, Dad’s house felt newer than home, as if built within the past ten years. The bathroom was clean and far neater than she’d thought possible for a man living alone. The bathtub had sliding glass partition instead of a curtain, and one of those pulsating water jet heads with the long extension hose. Her new bedroom sat catty-corner to the shower, requiring only one step in the hallway to dart between them.
The Summer the World Ended Page 8
