Asking for Trouble (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  “Well, no,” she’d admitted. “I have a flashlight. Not sure if the batteries work, though. I haven’t checked in a while.”

  Which had made everyone laugh, and which had given Joe a little glow of satisfaction, because he’d been right, she’d needed it all, and having it would make her safer. It might not be the most romantic present, but it was what she needed, and didn’t that count?

  So, yeah. He’d felt pretty proud of it, but it wasn’t a pearl necklace.

  Moving On Up

  “I have an announcement to make.”

  That was Alec, and Alyssa looked up from her heaping plate of Christmas dinner. She was definitely going to have to take a walk tonight. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You guys are pregnant too.”

  “No,” Alec said with a laugh. “No, Desiree says it’s not time yet. And as you all know, she’s the boss.”

  “I am not the boss,” she protested. “You’re the boss.”

  “Maybe at work. Maybe. Huh, Joe?”

  “Maybe,” Joe said, his little smile crooking the corner of his mouth. “Technically.”

  “Announcement?” Dave reminded his son.

  “Yes. Announcement. This one will make you happy, Dad,” Alec said. “This one’s just for you, your real Christmas present. You know that foundation we set up?”

  “The one Desiree set up, you mean?” Dave asked, a decided twinkle in his eyes now.

  “Go on, rub it in. Yes. That one. We figured out—all right, she figured out that for now, we shouldn’t try to hire a whole staff and all that, eat it up with expenses. She says we should wait till we’ve built up the capital. But we’ve made our first big donation, to Project Second Chance.”

  “What’s that?” Mira asked.

  “Foster kids,” Dave said. “Right?”

  “Right,” Alec said. “They do mentoring and college scholarships and support and all sorts of good things. And they’re based right there in San Francisco, so Rae could do her due diligence without leaving me lonely.”

  “Desiree’s idea, I assume,” Dave said.

  “No,” Rae put in. “No, Joe’s, actually. I knew I wanted to do something along those lines, but I didn’t even know they existed. Turns out Joe’s a donor.”

  “Good for you, Joe,” Susie said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Rae’s doing more than I am,” he said, his expression even more wooden than usual. “She’s the one getting involved.”

  “They’ve asked me to join the board starting in July,” Rae explained. “And since I’d looked over all their statements pretty thoroughly . . .” She shrugged and laughed. “You know me. I’m going to want to tell them how to do things anyway, I might as well put myself in a position to do it. Although it’s really Joe who should be on the board. He’s the one with the history.”

  “I’m not good at being on boards,” Joe said. “Not too good in meetings.”

  “No, that’s true,” Alec agreed. “You’re not. Give the money and go away, that was my idea too. But of course Desiree had to get involved. Such a managing woman.” He sighed.

  “Oh, you love it,” she said.

  “Mmm. Could be.”

  “But,” she said, serious again, “they do really good work. And oh!” She jumped in her chair. “I just had a thought. About you, Alyssa. Oh, this could be perfect.”

  “Me? Me what?”

  “You want to do something different, right? You said, something that mattered. I don’t know what that is, but there’s a job there, at Second Chance, that I think would be just right for you.” She was getting really animated now. “They’ve got an opening for an Assistant Director of Development. They’re planning to hire in the New Year. What do you think?”

  “Uh . . .” Alyssa was taken aback. “In San Francisco?”

  “Well, yes. You said you were looking for a change. Maybe not that much of a change, though?”

  “No,” Alyssa said. “No, actually, it sounds good.” When she’d graduated from high school, she’d wanted nothing more than to move away from her family, get the chance to be her own person. Live a little, not be the preacher’s daughter anymore, not be expected to set an example. San Diego State had been the answer to a very unholy prayer, and she’d never got farther north than LA in all the years since.

  But now, the idea of being closer to her brothers, her parents was . . . good. She had no real ties in southern California to hold her, nothing but friends she didn’t see enough. Too much sprawl, too much traffic, too much time at work, lives that were full of jobs and partners and, increasingly, kids.

  “Why not?” she decided. “Why not move? Except, well, I don’t have any background with nonprofits. All I have is sales. What does an . . . an Assistant Director of Development do?”

  Rae waved a neatly manicured hand. “This is what I mean by perfect. It’s sales. It’s fundraising. You could do it with your eyes closed. All that Kincaid charm and looks and brains—you were born to do this job.” She laughed with obvious excitement, then grew serious again. “If you’re all right with the money, that is. It probably wouldn’t pay half of what you were earning. That could be a real roadblock. But down the road, you can do all right in development. Don’t get me wrong, you wouldn’t get rich, but you could do all right.”

  “Call it an investment in a career change, you think?” Alyssa asked, beginning to get excited herself. “Maybe so. Maybe. I have some money saved.”

  Rae smiled with satisfaction, and Alyssa’s parents were following right along and smiling, too. Right up their alley, and Alyssa realized that the idea of doing a job that would please them didn’t make her uncomfortable. She seemed to have lost the need to rebel for rebellion’s sake, which meant she must be maturing after all. Who knew?

  “I can make a call right away,” Rae said. “If you want me to. Just let me know.”

  That caused Alyssa’s first moment of hesitation. “I’m not sure. I know it’s all about who you know, but having them know I’m Alec’s sister—wouldn’t that put both of you into an awkward position if it didn’t work out? Especially with you on the board? Nepotism, and all that.”

  “Hmm,” Rae considered. “Probably true, but without experience in the field,” she added with her usual frankness, “you won’t have much of a shot unless you get a push from somebody.”

  “I’ll do it,” Joe put in. “I’ll call, if you want to go for it. I know the Development Director a bit. Just let me know, and I’ll make the call. Rae’s right, they do good work.”

  Which was why they got his money every year. Not because Project Second Chance had helped him, but because they hadn’t. Because he could have used the help, and he wanted to give it to some other kid. Something they could count on, something that wouldn’t get their hopes up only to dash them again.

  He’d thought he’d had that something once or twice. One time, for a little while, he’d really thought so. On that day towards the end of his sophomore year, especially, when Mr. Wilson, his Computer Science teacher, had asked him to come by after school to meet with him.

  Joe had hesitated. “If I miss the bus,” he said, reluctant as always to reveal any details about his life, “I don’t have a way to get back.” He didn’t say “home,” because the foster home wasn’t home. Not this one, and not the one before that, or the one before that either.

  “Right. I should have thought of that,” Mr. Wilson said. “Come by at lunch, then.”

  Joe wanted to ask him if there was something wrong, but he didn’t. His heart sank, though, because his Programming class—well, going to A-Tech at all—was the best thing in his life, and if he’d messed that up . . .

  He tried to forget it. Focus on now. Pre-Calculus, AP Chemistry. He did the work, he paid attention—well, he did the best he could, with the long list of things that could have got him kicked out running through his mind. But wouldn’t it have been the dean or the assistant principal talking to him, not a teacher? He shoved the thought away again. Focus.
<
br />   Lunch period came at last, and he was hesitating at the door of Mr. Wilson’s classroom.

  “Come in.” His teacher waved him to a chair next to his desk, pointed to his own sandwich, neatly encased in wax paper and sitting on the neatly arranged desktop. “Hope you brought your lunch, because I hate to eat alone.”

  Joe pulled out his first peanut butter on white bread and took a bite, barely sparing a thought for the embarrassing meagerness of his lunch, because as always, he was hungry.

  Mr. Wilson worked on his own turkey on whole wheat for a minute before he began.

  “First of all,” he said, “I want to assure you that this is just an idea. And if you aren’t interested, if it doesn’t sound good to you, that’s fine. It’ll make no difference to how you do in my class. You’re the best student I’ve ever had, and if that’s it, that’s plenty.”

  Joe stopped chewing.

  “How long have you been in foster care?” Mr. Wilson asked now.

  Joe swallowed. “Two years.” This was either very good, or it was very bad. “Almost.”

  “And how many foster homes?”

  “Five. Counting the short ones.”

  “And how many days have you been absent this semester?”

  Joe could feel himself turning red, but he looked back and answered. “Six.”

  “Because?”

  “Things happened.”

  “Joe.” Mr. Wilson put his sandwich down. “I’ve got a reason for asking. I won’t be passing along anything you say here. Because?”

  “Fights, mostly,” Joe said reluctantly. “Getting kicked out.”

  Mr. Wilson nodded. “Did you start them? The fights?”

  “Well, yeah. If I had to. I mean, if something was happening.” Like when he’d heard Lenny crying and pleading from the next room, the last time, and had ended up breaking the door down. He’d been kicked out, but so had Craig and Ronnie, Lenny’s tormentors. And Craig had left with a broken nose, Ronnie with a black eye. And a few other problems, too.

  “Do you have to fight?” Mr. Wilson asked. “Do you need to?”

  “No.” He knew what Mr. Wilson meant. He’d known plenty of people who enjoyed hurting other people. Starting with Dean, his mother’s boyfriend, and going right on from there.

  Another nod. “What about alcohol? Marijuana?”

  The heat was rising again. “Yeah. Some.”

  “Willing to stop? Need help to stop?”

  “Uh . . . I don’t know. Yeah, willing to stop.” He’d like to stop. But it helped. It took the edge off, and he had a lot of edge.

  “Need help to stop. Got it.”

  “Uh, sir? Is the school kicking me out? I mean, thinking about it? Because I can stop. I can do better.” He clamped his mouth shut so he couldn’t say any more. So he couldn’t beg. The Advanced Technologies Academy didn’t just have the best test scores in Las Vegas. It had the best test scores in the entire state, and it was his only ticket. If the day Joe had found out that his dad was dead had been the worst day of his life, the day he’d got the letter from A-Tech had been the best. It was all he had, and he’d screwed it up. How could he have been so stupid?

  Mr. Wilson was holding up a hand now. “No. Wait. I’m asking if you’d like another place to stay.” He laughed a little, looked down at his sandwich. “Go figure, I’m nervous. I’m asking if you’d like a guardian until you graduate from high school. We’d have to petition the court for it,” he warned as Joe continued to stare, “and your mother could fight it. It is your mother, isn’t it?”

  Joe swallowed. “Yeah. But she probably won’t. She probably wouldn’t.”

  “Does she have an addiction?”

  How did he know so much? “Yeah,” Joe said desperately. Please don’t ask any more.

  “So what do you think? You’ve got a fine mind. You know what they say, it’s a terrible thing to waste, and I don’t want to see you waste it. It won’t be forever,” Mr. Wilson warned. “But we can get you through high school. You stay on the right track, no reason you can’t get a great scholarship, go on from there.”

  “You mean, with you?” Joe asked slowly, hardly daring to believe. “At your house?”

  “Yes. And I should tell you,” Mr. Wilson said, stolid himself now, “I’m gay. And that has nothing to do with this, but you should know, in case it makes a difference.”

  “But this isn’t about . . .” Joe went ahead, because the only way to deal with things was head-on. “It’s not about sex?” That was what it had been about with Lenny, and it was one reason he knew how to fight. Because when you were fourteen and skinny and in foster care, you learned how to fight.

  “No.” His teacher looked straight at him. “It’s not about sex. And I can promise you that it’ll never be about sex. I have sexual partners, yes, but they’re adults. I’m not interested in children, and I’m not interested in you, not like that. But I need to know that you’ll go to counseling, and that you’ll stay clean. I’m not having anyone in my house who’s doing anything illegal. That’s a deal-breaker.”

  A man always keeps his word. Joe could see his dad as if he were standing there, frowning down at him when Joe had asked if he could skip the Boy Scout service project he’d promised to help out with. And about a hundred other times, too. A man always keeps his word.

  He straightened up in his chair, looked Mr. Wilson in the eye, and answered. “I can stay clean.”

  New City, Same Old Me

  Alyssa stood shivering in a piercing mid-January wind, looking across a broad stretch of asphalt at the unlovely sight of Burlingame’s Auto Row, where she and Joe were spending a winter Sunday on what had to rank high on the list of life’s least-fun experiences: used-car shopping. They were standing outside, instead of in the nice toasty dealership, because Joe had just made her walk out.

  She hadn’t planned on buying a car, that was for sure. That had been no part of her new frugal life plan. But once again, life—and her bossy brother—had forced her hand.

  Alec had frowned when he’d felt the jerk and shudder her little car had given as she’d reversed out of her parking spot in her Santa Monica apartment complex for the last time, exactly one week earlier.

  “What the hell is that?” he complained when it happened again as she turned out of the lot.

  “Oh,” she said, tensing a bit through the next stoplight, then relaxing as they got through the moment, “it does that. It’ll be fine once we get to cruising speed on the freeway. It’s just when it starts out, cold or something.”

  “Cars do not just ‘do’ that. It’s not cold. It has to be in the sixties out there.”

  “You know.” She took a hand off the wheel and waved it airily. “When the engine’s cold. When it’s starting up.”

  “Did you take it to the shop?” he persisted. “What did they say?”

  “Not yet.” She merged onto the freeway, thankfully moving much faster than usual at all of seven-thirty on a Sunday morning. Alec—and Joe—had flown down the previous morning. The two most overpriced movers in America, but when Alec had heard about her plans to tow a U-Haul trailer up I-5, he’d barely bothered to insist, he’d just told her he’d be showing up. And even though it galled Alyssa that her brother still thought she was that helpless, she’d been grateful for his help, and Joe’s, too. Because, she’d thought privately, she really had been nervous about the trailer thing, and moving vans were expensive.

  “Not yet?” Alec reminded her when she didn’t go on. “What do you mean, not yet?”

  “I mean not yet. Because it’s fine now, see?” Which it was, now that they were doing 65. And besides, she hadn’t wanted to hear what the mechanic would say. Anyway, all cars got quirks when they got old, didn’t they? Just like people.

  Two hours later, though, after a delay for some road construction that had had the car jerking again, Alec told her, “Pull into the rest stop up there.”

  “Men,” she sighed, putting on her blinker so Joe, following in the
truck, could see. “You should have gone before we left the house.”

  Alec wasn’t listening. As soon as she’d pulled into a spot in front of the restrooms, he was out of the car and motioning to Joe, just jumping down from the cab of the truck.

  “You know cars a lot better than I do,” Alec told him. “Come drive this, tell me what you think.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment, just held out a broad palm for the keys, which Alyssa surrendered reluctantly. He squeezed himself into the driver’s seat, looking much too big for her tiny subcompact, backed out with another jerk that had Alyssa wincing, and did a circuit of the lot before pulling back into the same spot.

  He got out and slammed the door, handed the keys back to Alyssa. “It’s your transmission. Pretty obvious. Didn’t the shop tell you that?”

  She sighed. “I didn’t take it in yet. It’s just got a couple hiccups. You guys need to relax.”

  “It’s not a hiccup when you’re merging onto the freeway, and then all of a sudden you’re not,” Joe said. “It’s an accident. How long has that been happening, that rough shift?”

  “I don’t know,” she said reluctantly. “Before Christmas, anyway. Maybe a month?”

  “A month?”

  “I had a lot going on,” she defended herself. Like losing her job, and looking for a new one, and interviewing in San Francisco, and getting ready to move to a brand-new city, which had involved a drastic downsizing in her life. You could call that a lot going on.

  “Think we can make it?” Alec asked Joe. “Or buy a car right here, do you think?”

  “I can’t buy a car right here,” Alyssa protested. “I can’t afford a new car. OK, maybe there’s something wrong. If there is, I’ll get it fixed. Happy?”

  “A new transmission’s going to run you a couple thousand,” Joe said. “More than it’s worth.” He eyed her little yellow car with a cynical eye that made Alyssa want to give it a reassuring pat.