Asking for Trouble (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  Alec groaned. “Not again. Liss, you have to learn to get along on the job.”

  “Like you?” she asked tartly, clearly trying to rally.

  “I’m an entrepreneur. It’s different. I don’t have to get along. I’ve got Rae to smooth everything over. But you can’t afford that. As an employer, I’m telling you, you can’t afford another short stay. You can’t afford another job where you had a personality conflict. Face it, at a certain point, it’s not them, it’s you.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” She blew out a frustrated breath, and Joe could see the effort it took her to confess the truth. “I’ve tried everything I can. I’ve stayed late, I’ve come in early, I’ve taken on extra work and cleaned up the database and organized the office. Me. I’ve organized, and you know that isn’t my best thing. But nothing ever seems to be quite good enough. She’ll tell me this letter isn’t good enough, I know she will. She’ll take it and ‘fix’ it, and it’ll end up being her letter. And, yeah, maybe every job hasn’t worked out, but I’ve always been able to get along with people, most people. I want to. I’m trying. And I can’t.”

  “Maybe it really is a personality conflict,” Joe put in. “They can happen. How do other people do?”

  Alyssa shrugged. “Most people really like her,” she said reluctantly. “Dr. Marsh does, the Director. He thinks she’s great. So maybe it is just me.”

  They dropped the subject then, though Joe made a note to talk to her again about it later, when Alec wasn’t there. He had a blind spot when it came to his sister, that was for sure. He couldn’t seem to see what Joe saw, how hard she was trying. How rough a road she’d had to travel at times, and how bravely she was doing it.

  Alec took himself off to bed after dinner, and Alyssa helped Joe with the dishes—a mercifully simple endeavor, since he could tell she was tired—and then went to sit on the couch, where, despite a stern talking-to about what a bad idea it was, he joined her, refilling his wine glass and hers before sinking down beside her.

  “I’m sore,” she told him. “Are you?”

  “Not too bad. Going to be up for it tomorrow? I warn you, I’m going to make you show me your rescue technique first. No Alec up there to dig me out, which means it’s all on you.”

  She leaned her head back against the couch and sighed. “I was listening, I promise. I’m happy to demonstrate. Just ask me.”

  “All right,” he said. “What’s your beacon set to, tomorrow?”

  “Send,” she said triumphantly. “In case I get buried. In which case I don’t panic, and I try to keep my arms in front of my face to give myself a pocket, and I wait for you to come for me. Hoping, of course, that you won’t be buried too. That’s the part you left out, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  “Well, if that happens,” he pointed out reasonably, “there’s nothing to practice, and no point in thinking about it. But back to the matter at hand. What do you do when I go down?”

  “I flip my beacon to Receive, and then I use the techniques my very, very good teacher showed me today to find you, and then I use my shovel that my teacher gave me to dig you out. See what a good student I am?”

  “Mmm,” he said, smiling at her. “You’ll do,” and she smiled back and drank her wine, and he let himself enjoy being here with her, because it was a pretty good place to be.

  “Why are you so different here?” she asked after a minute. “Is it skiing? Has that been the secret ingredient?”

  “Am I different here? How?”

  “Well, everywhere, really,” she said. “Since I moved to San Francisco, and on this trip, especially. You’re more talkative. More . . . pushy.”

  “Pushy?” He had to smile again. “I’m pushy?”

  “Well, yeah. Or assertive, maybe. Like you’re making the plan, and you’re telling us. You’re telling me, especially. Notice that, how you’re telling me? Because you are.”

  “Is that bothering you? And by the way, I do run a staff of programmers, you know. It’s not just you. And before you say anything,” he went on, holding up a palm, “I know, I’m not the boss of you. Because I’m sure I’m going to hear that next.”

  “Well, maybe you’re all right. Maybe it’s not so bad,” she told him, sparkling at him, pulling her legs up under her and sipping her wine while the fire blazed and the quiet enfolded them, and damn, but he liked her. “And I know that you’re a big deal. It’s just that I’ve never seen that side of you. And OK, I’ll admit it, I’m a fan. Today, with Rae, you were great. Skiing up to find her, going to get the car, telling Alec he couldn’t drive. You did all the right things, and I was so glad you were there. It’s just different, because I’ve never seen you like that before this year. You’ve always been so quiet.”

  “If that’s true,” he said, her words filling him with a pretty good glow, “maybe it’s because you’ve always seen me at your parents’ house, and when I’m there, I’m a guest.”

  “A guest? You aren’t a guest. By now, you’re part of the family.”

  “No,” he said, and just like that, the glow was gone. “I’m not. People always say that, and it’s not true. Do you really not see the difference? You’d better, if you’re going to help those kids. I am not part of your family. I’m a guest, and I’m careful that I don’t wear out my welcome, because I want to be invited back.”

  “But . . .” She looked shocked. “That’s not true. That’s not the way it is.”

  “Yes,” he said, “it is. Think about it. When you were a teenager, you could have moods, because you could afford to. You know you could. I saw them. And that was because you knew that no matter how bad your mood was, your parents were never going to kick you out. You were never going to be so much trouble that they didn’t want you anymore. You could stomp off to your room and slam the door if you wanted to. If I’d done that, if I’d said I didn’t feel like doing the dishes, do you think your parents would have invited me again?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “No,” he answered. “A guest doesn’t get to have bad moods. A guest doesn’t get to insult somebody, or be lazy and not make his bed, or not want to do whatever the family’s doing. A guest had better be on his best behavior, or he’s not going to be a guest much longer. Ask any of those kids you wrote about in that letter. Ask them what happens if they screw up. They’re gone, that’s what, and they know it. They know it because they’ve probably done it. And sometimes, they do everything just right, and everything’s going perfectly, and they think this is it, they’re going to belong, they’re going to have a family, or at least someplace to stay all the way until they’re eighteen. They think that this time, they won’t have to leave again, and they can relax, and you know what? Something happens, and they’re out of there. So they can never relax. They’re always waiting for it to go south. And after a while, they stop hoping.”

  “That’s what happened to you,” she said, her voice quiet, all the laughter gone. “You were a foster child.”

  He looked across at her in alarm. “How did you know that? Did Alec tell you, or your dad?”

  “No. They wouldn’t do that. My dad, especially—never. If you tell my dad something, it stays right there. It didn’t take a brilliant deductive effort, though. That you donate to Second Chance, for one thing. And anybody who says as little about his past as you do, there’s a reason.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “There was a reason.”

  “When you came that first time,” she said cautiously, “at Christmas. When I asked you why you weren’t with your family. Is that because you went to Stanford out of foster care?”

  “No,” he said. “I went to Stanford out of nothing.”

  She didn’t say anything for once, just waited, and he went on, probably because it had been a long, physical, emotional day, and he’d had a beer and a couple glasses of wine, and because Alyssa was curled up on the couch beside him, and he needed to tell her who he was. He needed to find out if it would matter to her, and he didn’t want
to examine why that was.

  “I was a ward of the court from the time I was fourteen,” he said. “Because my dad was dead, and my mom might as well have been.” He could see the questions hovering, but he couldn’t answer those right now, so he went on. “I was in foster care at first, but when I was sixteen, a teacher at my high school took me in, became my guardian. And I did what I just said kids don’t do. I believed I could stay. I relaxed. I had a job, I had some money, I had a place to live. And by winter of senior year, I knew that I had a full ride to Stanford waiting for me. I relaxed.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Mr. Wilson—the teacher,” he explained. “He got pneumonia.” He didn’t tell her he’d had AIDS, because he still remembered the rumors, the comments that hadn’t been quite quiet enough, Joe’s lab partner who’d asked to be reassigned after Mr. Wilson had had to quit work and the rumors had got worse. Not that he thought Alyssa would say anything like that, but the old habit of protecting Mr. Wilson, of not talking about it, was too strong. Maybe another time. Or maybe never.

  “And he died,” she guessed.

  “Yeah.” Joe swallowed. “He died.” After ten days in the hospital’s Intensive Care ward, not getting better. Not able to talk to Joe, even though Joe had visited every day. The desperate worry, and the shame of being worried for himself, too, the barely contained panic at the thought of what would happen if the older man didn’t recover. Mr. Wilson’s parents showing up, staying at the house, faces more strained and white every day. Joe not going into the hospital room any more, because they were there, and they were family, and he wasn’t, and he could tell they didn’t want him there, that this was their time.

  And then the day he’d come home from school, opened the door, and the two of them had been sitting in the living room. Just sitting, until Mr. Wilson’s dad stood up and told Joe what he hadn’t needed to hear, because looking at their faces was enough. Joe knew that look.

  “We’re sorry,” Mr. Wilson Senior had told him two days later, before they’d left to fly with the body back to Wisconsin for the funeral. A funeral Joe would be missing, because one thing was for sure, nobody was going to be buying him a round-trip ticket to Milwaukee. His good-byes had been said in his room, alone.

  “We’re going to have to sell the house,” the older man said, confirming what Joe had already known, that he was alone again. “I know Larry was your guardian, and we want to do what’s right, but you’re over eighteen, and we can’t support you.”

  “I know,” Joe said, because he had known. He’d known this was coming.

  “But you can stay until we sell,” Mrs. Wilson put in hastily. “We want to do what’s right,” she repeated.

  “As long as you’re willing to look after the place,” her husband said. Keeping it businesslike, making sure Joe knew what the expectations were. “You’re going to need to keep the place clean, and keep the landscaping up. That’s the deal. You’ll have to get out when the realtor wants to show it, and move out well in advance of closing, because we’ll be coming back to get rid of the furniture and clean things out, and you can’t be camping out here after that. We’re going to have to trust you to do that much, and I hope we can. I know there’ll be a temptation to let it go, to make it less attractive to buyers so you can stay longer. I’m going to ask you, for Larry’s sake, not to do that. And remember, the realtor will be telling us what shape it’s in. If you do right by us, and by him, we can give you a couple months. But only if you do right.”

  Joe had wanted to yell at him. To tell him that he wasn’t the user Mr. Wilson’s parents seemed to think, that he wouldn’t do that. He knew they thought he was cold, because he hadn’t cried. They didn’t know that he couldn’t let go, because he was afraid he’d never get himself back again.

  He’d had two months, as it turned out. And then there he’d been, eighteen, aged out of foster care, with nowhere to live and noplace to go.

  He’d stayed with some friends of Conrad’s for a couple months, but he’d known all along it couldn’t be more, because they were having a baby. Conrad was in Iraq, not exactly in any position to be more help than that, and Joe wasn’t Conrad’s responsibility anyway. He was nobody’s responsibility but his own. So he’d crashed with a high-school friend until graduation, doing his best to earn his keep, buying as many groceries as he could manage and cooking dinners and always being polite, always respectful, always grateful, staying at school, at work, at the library as much as he could, trying not to get in the way of family time, to give them enough in return that they’d let him stay.

  That didn’t last forever, either, because Aaron’s parents sent him to Europe for a month for graduation, and Joe could hardly stay there when Aaron was gone. He’d spent that last summer before Stanford on the move. At one friend’s or another’s, sleeping on couches during the better times. In the cheapest motel he could find, those last couple weeks, when everyone else was off to college and he’d run out of money except for what he’d got for the bike, which was going to get him to California. Starting awake as the noisy, ineffective air conditioner cycled on and off, trying not to hear the sounds through the thin walls from rooms that were rented by the hour. Hoping he could make it without having to resort to the homeless shelter. Waiting out the time until he’d have a place to go.

  “He died,” was all he told Alyssa. “Winter of my senior year. I’d aged out of the system, but I knew how to survive by then, and I did.”

  “By yourself,” she said slowly.

  “No,” he said, “with a lot of help from other people. And with a scholarship at the end of it. I knew if I could get to Stanford, if I could keep my grades up so I didn’t lose my scholarship, I’d be OK. That was my ticket. I couldn’t afford to screw it up, so I didn’t.”

  “I guess you didn’t have senioritis,” she said.

  “No,” he said, and smiled a little. “Saw it, but never had it. Did you?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I did. I was busy having a good time. And when I went to college, I was really busy doing it. Not like you.”

  “Preacher’s daughter out in the big world?” he asked, wanting to get off the sad-sack topic of his life.

  “Mm-hmm. Sorry if that shocks you.”

  “I think by now,” he said, responding to the glimmer in her eye, the light of her smile like he was programmed that way, “I’ve figured that out.”

  “What do you think you would have been like, if all that hadn’t happened?” she asked. “More like me? Please say yes,” she begged, and she seemed to know that he needed this to lighten up, because she was teasing again. “Please say you wouldn’t have been as perfect as Gabe and Alec.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. I’d have got in more trouble, that’s for sure. I haven’t been in trouble in quite a while. I came pretty close, that night when you had your Tenderloin adventure. That make you happier?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Even though I was the one dragging you in. At least I know you’re capable of it. If you ever get tired of being perfect, I think I could find a spot for you in my not-perfect world.”

  “Want me to get in trouble with you?” he asked, even though it was a bad idea to say it, and an even worse idea to touch her the way he wanted to. He reminded himself that Alec was right upstairs, and took a sip of wine instead.

  “Come on in,” she said, her eyes full of mischief over the rim of her glass, and he was falling, just like always. “The water’s fine.”

  Oatmeal and Wheat Grass

  Alyssa came downstairs the next morning to find both Alec and Joe in the kitchen. Coffee and breakfast, and today, she’d be alone with Joe, and she couldn’t kid herself that she didn’t want to be.

  She’d held her breath the night before when he’d talked about his past, because it was so obvious that he was barely pulling the curtain aside to give her a peek at what was behind it, and she’d known what a rare view she was getting. She’d have been willing to bet tha
t almost nobody had heard that story, that it was coming from a place he didn’t want to touch, because it was still too tender. And that it needed the lightest, most careful treatment, or he’d curl right back up inside his shell again.

  She’d always known that there was something behind the remoteness of his expression, that his walls were there because what was behind them was too painful to show, too shameful to share. She’d known it at fifteen, and she saw it now, and seeing it hurt.

  She’d done her best to tread lightly, and it had seemed to work. She’d felt the relaxation, the warmth in him when she’d accepted what he’d given her without pushing for more, and had been so relieved to get it right.

  He’d tugged at her heart, and then he’d set it pounding, because it had seemed like something was going to happen at last. She hadn’t imagined his response, not this time, and she knew it.

  But nothing had happened after all. He’d got up, said goodnight, and gone to bed, leaving her hanging once again. Something was stopping him from taking that step, and she was getting a glimmer of what that something was.

  It had been a long time before she’d fallen asleep, her body tingling as if he’d been touching it after all. She could almost feel his hands against her skin, sliding over her, and she ached for him. He’d been looking at her, she could tell, the same way she’d been looking at him. She’d felt his heat, his intensity, the fire that burned just beneath the surface, trying to find its release, promising to burn everything in its path. She wanted him to let it go and burn her down. And today, they were going to be alone.

  “I could get used to this,” she said, going straight for the coffeepot, working on that light touch, but it was hard, because she was keyed up. “What’s for breakfast this morning?”

  “Oatmeal for me,” Joe said. “Alec was just trying to order off the menu.”

  “And Joe was telling me what I could do with that idea,” Alec said. “Seems if I want eggs, I have to make them myself.”