Dominic switched off the disposal and set the wineglass on the counter. ‘Yeah?’
‘I don’t really want a pizza.’
‘OK.’ Dominic shut off the water, shoulders tense.
‘I’m going to go over to Sunny’s house.’
‘You want a ride? I’ve got to go down to Española to drop some things off to Fabian.’
‘No. I got my bike. She did know my mom, didn’t she?’
Dominic turned to Kyle. Maybe the kid still read comic books, believed in ghosts and the Guaje Monster, but Kyle wasn’t a child anymore. That newsflash was as heavy as a pair of cement boots. He’d done well up to this point, but the next few years would shape the boy into a man. He couldn’t get it wrong. He had to set an example. His comic book loving, BMX bike jumping, half-boy-half-adult son looked so solemn, so earnest, so sensitive, and Dominic hated himself for not taking more care, for not being as perceptive as Kyle was. ‘Yes,’ he finally answered. ‘They were…friends.’
‘Oh.’
‘You want to know things about your mom, don’t you?’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’
Dominic shook his head. ‘You have no reason to be. It’s my problem, my issue, Kyle. Not yours. I don’t like that woman. You can formulate your own opinion of her and other people, you’re old enough to do that now, but that’s beside the point. I owe you an apology. Come here.’
‘Oh, God, not a Dad hug.’
‘Shut up and get over here.’
Kyle took a step forward and set his forehead against his father’s. Dominic grabbed a handful of his son’s hair, just at the nape of his neck, wrapped an arm over his back and squeezed. ‘I’m sorry. I love you, Flash.’
‘Love you too, Dad.’
Fabian handed Dominic a beer bottle with a chunk of lime sticking up out of the top, kicked off his shoe, dropped into a bent-wood rocking chair with a beer of his own, and carefully, propped his bandaged left foot on a padded ottoman.
Fabian knew something was on his friend’s mind, but he also knew it was best to keep his mouth shut. All would present itself soon enough. He ran a hand through his well-groomed dark beard and had a swig of beer. ‘You didn’t have to bring those tiles down. I have to go up The Hill tomorrow. Didn’t Daphne tell you I only needed three boxes?’
‘Yes, but you’ll need five. You always miss-measure,’ Dominic mumbled from his seat on the old-fashioned porch swing.
‘And you always overcompensate.’
‘Over-compensate, over-react, over-dramatise, over-analyse…oh yeah, over’s the right word.’
‘The countdown begins,’ Fabian mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Dominic used his tongue to push the lime into the bottle. For a second he wished he was small enough to follow it in. ‘How’s your toe?’
Fabian leaned forward a little, surveying the bandage wrapped around his toe and arch. ‘You remember when Fred Flintstone dropped his bowling ball on his toe, how it swelled ten times its size, turned purple, and pulsated?’
‘Yeah.’
‘My big toe looks just like that. It throbs the same way, too. I had no idea removing an ingrown toenail would be so bedilitating.’
‘Debilitating.’
‘That’s what I said. Kristi’s ready to kill me. She’s sick of my whining. She can’t stand having me home, I can’t stand being home, and the dog and I are getting fat. You hear from Willa?’
‘Not since she told me to leave her the fuck alone. ‘
‘Well, you were…hovering.’
‘I wasn’t hovering. I don’t hover.’
‘OK, fine. You were looming over your other best friend. If I lost my Kristi, and you loomed over me the way you loomed over Willa after Miles died, I’d most likely tell you to fuck off too. Willa needed the space to grieve for her dead husband and she couldn’t do it with you there mothering.’
‘I don’t mother.’
‘Right. Sorry. You father. So what is it you’re over? Can I assume it’s Kyle related?’
Dominic shuffled his feet, pushing off to get the swing moving. ‘I stuck my foot in it. The kid finally asked about Stefanie and I blew it simply because Terry’s ex came back to town.’
‘Which one?’
‘The first.’
‘The Tortillera?’
‘Yep, the one who kicked it all off.’
‘Why should you care if she’s back in town? Last time I checked, you and your brother weren’t on speaking terms.’
‘You know I’ve been trying to figure that out. Despite the fact he’s the Mr Universe of narcissistic pricks, we’re family, and in the two years since Dad died, my mother makes sure I don’t forget I’m the big brother. So that damn sense of responsibility reared up and bit me on the ass. That woman came into the store yesterday and it all rushed back.’ How she looked naked rushed back too. Images flooded his mind, her fair skin, the soft looking swell of her breast, the curve where her thigh met the back of her…He set the bottle against his mouth and took a drink, washing away the thoughts. ‘All I could think about was the way she deserted my kid brother, how she…she….’ Dominic stopped swinging, ‘The thing…with … you know…she set those dominoes in motion.’
‘Oh. I see. Fair enough that she’d remind you of that. But, you know, if you ask me—’
‘I don’t need to ask you.’
‘But if you ever did, I’d say Terry screwed up Terry’s life. You and your family want a scrapegoat just to soften the blow that their baby is a fuck-up. Since your dad died your mother’s gotten worse about it trying to find someone to blame for everything. You feel sorry for her so you let her get away with it.’
‘Scapegoat. The word is scapegoat and yeah, I feel sorry for her. It’s hard to be a widow, but that’s not exactly the point, is it?’
‘What is the point?’
Dominic’s left eye narrowed for a second, beer bottle paused at his lips, ‘The fact is, Lesley screwed over Terry and now Kyle’s working for her. What if she…What if she…’
‘What if she what?’
‘What if she screws him too?’
Fabian shook his head, ‘I really don’t think that’s going to happen.’
‘You know what I mean!’
‘I thought he had a job with you?’
‘She lured him away with the almighty dollar and full-time work.’ Dominic sighed, blowing out his ill will and accepting the plain facts. Odds were, she was, Fabian notwithstanding, just as clueless as everyone else in his family. Seeing her had reminded him just how precious Kyle was. And he wanted to keep it that way. What he was feeling was just one more rung on the parental ladder. ‘I’m all for him having a job, but I pushed that work ethic so hard I think I created a monster. He’s barely sixteen. He’s never going to get this part of his life back. This is the time he’s supposed to enjoy still being a kid. He’s growing up so freakin’ fast.’ Dominic lifted his beer to his mouth, drinking deeply.
‘I guess he’s gonna have that Camaro by the end of summer, isn’t he?’
The Camaro? Oh, God, the damn car! Dominic thought he’d smothered the flames but a fuse was still smouldering and suddenly it flared. Abruptly, he dragged the bottle away from his lips, dumping half the contents down the front of his shirt. ‘Oh, shit, that’s just wonderful.’
‘Well, the countdown was a little delayed, but we have lift off,’ Fabian stifled a sigh, leaned back in his seat, and watched his friend go with throttle up.
‘She’s going to bring down another Brennan. I had this whole car thing under control. He was going to come up shy; the insurance was going to put it a little further out of reach. So he’d have to rethink his plans, wait a little while longer. I swear, I could deal with him being curious about sex, with his listening to that moody Emo crap, with sneaking out at night, with drinking beer or even smoking a little weed up at the Dome. But a car? How am I supposed to handle a car with a V8? I can’t handle him with a car. I can’t do
that.’
‘Oh come on! You had a car when you were sixteen.’
‘And you of all people should remember what that was like.’ Dominic set the beer bottle on the deck planks and jerked his t-shirt over his head.
‘You didn’t kill me, and just because we were stupid doesn’t mean your son will be.’
He glanced at Fabian, his eyes lingering on the mark their teenage stunt-driving stupidity had left behind on that deep, reddish-tan skin, a raised, jagged pink stripe that slashed across the front of his best friend’s throat. ‘Oh spare me the chicks dig scars bullshit! Damn that woman. I want to wring her neck!’
Fabian couldn’t contain his amusement. He laughed as Dominic strangled a beer-drenched shirt.
The altitude took a few days to get used to. Chicago was a few hundred feet above sea level, but Los Alamos sat perched at nearly eight thousand. Lesley’s lungs noticed. Her energy had been sapped by the elevation. Knocking out the kitchen-dining room wall and rat chasing had touched on her reserves. And spending the evening with her family had sucked her dry.
Once a woman’s over forty her hair should be shorter and her shorts should be longer, Lesley. Why don’t you stay here for good, Lesley? You could renovate those quads over on Ridgeway and 36th, Lesley. You’re going to kill yourself on the damn motorcycle, Lesley. You’re running out of time to have a baby, Lesley.
No matter how much her parents cajoled, complained or outright bribed her, she wasn’t going remain here permanently. And she was keeping the motorcycle, too. Yes, the state was picturesque; the mountains were beautiful, the air refreshing, but this was not the town for her. She was a big city girl now and had been for nearly sixteen years. Of course, they missed that point and had been completely unimpressed when she explained how visiting them made it seem more special, like Christmas in the middle of July.
If it feels like Christmas then why aren’t you staying with us?
Because I’m well past forty and you still tell me to be home by ten..
Lesley was tired of arguing in circles. Back at the house, the roll-away bed was waiting. Tomorrow, she’d have breakfast alone and head off any potential you’re life’s in the crapper discussions. She’d spend the day working on the renovation and head back to her parents’ place in time for dinner, fortified and ready for when the argument started all over again.
Unfortunately, when it came to breakfast, the food she had back at the house added up to an old bagel, a bottle of water and a packet of sugar. Nine-thirty on a Sunday night was too late to make the forty-five minute drive to the Albertson’s supermarket at the north end of Santa Fe, and she was just too tired to think about riding to the 24 hour Walmart Supercenter in Española.
So she pulled into an angled spot beneath one of the parking lot’s lights outside Smith’s, the only grocery store in Los Alamos, and hoisted the Harley on its side-stand.
A scraggly, bearded man with an American eagle tattooed on the back of his neck sat at the little table near the store entrance, nursing a bottle hidden beneath a brown paper bag, while his portly buddy adjusted his nuts and shoved a doughnut into a mouth missing a few teeth. They checked her out as she pulled off her gloves.
Los Alamos hadn’t changed much in the years since she was a kid. High school kids without cars still hung out in parking lots. In the sloping area between the Blockbuster and the Häägen-Dazs shop, lanky boys clattered around on skateboards. A gaggle of teenage girls wearing too much makeup, and not enough clothes, preened and posed like Paris Hilton. Spillover from the Sonic Drive-in, half a block up the street, sat in front of Bealls Department Store, eating their greasy fast food. Paired-up couples sucked face under the glowing lamplight. A thickset kid did a bunny hop on a black, Freestyle BMX bike, while an energetic boy in a red baseball hat converted bike tricks to a shopping cart.
Lesley watched the shopping cart kid as she pulled off her helmet. With a running start, the lean boy shot forward. With both hands planted firmly on either side of the gleaming basket, his long legs pumped to gather momentum. In a single, well-timed leap, he vaulted onto the shopping cart, shifting the weight of his legs for stability.
Damn, that looks like fun. Lesley smiled and secured the helmet on a hook beside the bike saddle. She unzipped her jacket, pocketed her keys, and watched the cart roll to a stop as she walked towards the supermarket entrance.
‘Hey, Mama,’ Portly, missing-tooth guy said with a nod.
Scraggly beard wiped his nose and coughed up a wad of phlegm, spitting just after staring at her crotch. ‘Nice ride,’ he hacked.
‘Thanks,’ Lesley nodded back.
‘How’s a little girl like you handle so much power?’
‘With both hands, just like you.’
‘It’s a Sportster, innit? I always wanted me one of them. Mind if we take a look?’ Beardy had a swig from his paper bag and got to his feet.
‘Go ahead,’ she said, moving though the automatic doors, ignoring the murmured, ‘I bet she’d really like something big and hard between her legs.’
The shopping was done in ten minutes flat. A single paper grocery bag held coffee, a box of Apple Jacks, milk, and two rat traps. She would have added a few more things, but storage on the bike was limited to a saddle bag.
Back out in the parking lot, the tattooed guys had disappeared, but the shopping cart act had continued. Lesley watched again, yawning as she set the bag of groceries on the bike’s leather saddle.
The boy in the red baseball hat took off once more, launching his body onto the rolling cart, balancing himself with the grace of a ballet dancer. Carefully, as the contraption rolled towards a lamppost near her motorcycle, the boy lifted himself on two hands. The cart tipped up on one side, poised on knifepoint as the kid stretched out his legs. The boy gained more speed as the metal basket rolled down the lot’s slope, his precision balance as steadfast as a tightrope walker. It was impressive.
That is, it was impressive until the cart hit a pothole.
The kid went down hard, chin-first. His hat popped off, jaw-length blond hair unfurling over his ears. His fingers remained woven through the metal basket as the gleaming steel shopping cart upended, the wheels still spinning. The cage-like body thumped heavily onto his back, the whup of his breath being driven from his lungs as audible as the sound his left arm made snapping, twisting into two distinct, impossible angles.
Like a clip from America’s Funniest Home Videos, the girls in their hooker-in-training outfits squealed and tittered, gangly skateboard dudes chuckled as they jumped the curb in front of the Blockbuster, while the oblivious junior face-suckers went on making out.
Lesley ran towards Kyle, peeling off her jacket. She got there the same time as a short, stocky boy who sported a dark, but threadbare moustache.
The teen jumped off the black bike, letting it crash to the pavement. ‘Dude, dude! Oh, shit!’ he cried, his voice cracking as he crouched beside Kyle, wiping his hands on a t-shirt emblazoned with Albert Einstein.
After the impact, boy and cart had come to rest sideways. Kyle lay on his side, his left arm twisted behind his back, the cart snuggled up against him. He was out cold, but breathing steadily. His elbow had begun to swell and a stream of blood ran from the gash under his chin, a small puddle forming beneath his cheek.
‘Kyle?’ she said calmly. A millisecond of sick fear and panic had passed as soon as adrenaline kicked in. She knelt on her jacket, feeling her pocket for the cell phone she’d left recharging at the house. ‘Kyle, can you hear me?’
The chubby kid’s sausage-link fingers dug into the metal meshwork of the shopping cart to remove it.
‘Wait!’ Lesley grabbed his hand, ‘Don’t move it. Don’t move him. We don’t know if he’s broken anything else.’
The boy nodded. Tiny diamantes of sweat sparkled on his worried face.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Sunny.’
‘Do you have a cell phone, Sunny?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Call an ambulance.’
Sunny swallowed and unclipped an electric blue cell phone from his belt. Musical tones sounded as he dialled.
Lesley returned her attention to Kyle. She ran her hands over his legs, feeling for anything else that might be broken. He moaned, his feet moving. ‘Kyle?’ Lesley tried again.
He moaned again, his head lifting a few inches. ‘Sunny?’
‘Yeah, dude, I’m, here. I wish you could have seen the back-flip you did. It was inspiring, even better than the jump you did in Lambourne’s pool. The Skaterscum were impressed.’
Gently, Lesley slipped her fingers through Kyle’s hair, feeling for indentations, soft spots, or a lump that might indicate a head injury. His eyes opened. He blinked and looked at her, confusion contorting his face. ‘Where’s my…Lesley? Sunny, where’s my bike? Is my bike, OK? Don’t tell me I bent the frame! Oh, oh, God, my jaw hurts. I think I bit off the tip of my tongue.’ He tried to roll onto his stomach and immediately cried out in pain.
‘Don’t move, Kyle.’ Lesley said, covering him with her jacket, ‘You broke your arm and might have dislocated your elbow. Your fingers are stuck in a shopping cart. Can you move them?’
His shock wore off quickly. When he tried to wiggle his fingers, his face turned from white to green, the high lamps that lit up the parking lot accentuating the unwholesome colour and the warped angles of his arm.
Sunny turned a shade similar to Kyle, but he did a decent job maintaining attitude, awkwardly patting his friend’s leg. ‘That was an award-winning awesome wipe out, Ky.’
Kyle whimpered.
‘OK, sweetie, don’t try to pull your fingers out. Just leave them there.’ Lesley pulled off her violet sprigged blouse, leaving her clad in a lavender tank top with a built-in bra. She rolled up the blouse and put it under Kyle’s head.
‘I think I might be sick.’ Shivering, Kyle swallowed a few times, his face going from greenish to grey as he turned his head toward the pavement, ‘Call my dad, Sunny,’ he groaned softly, ‘Oh, I want my dad.’
In a few seconds his quiet moans were drowned out by the sound of the ambulance racing from the Los Alamos Medical Center two miles up the road.
A Basic Renovation Page 6
