by Vivian Lux
His form was perfect. His aim was true. He landed on the far side of the ravine with whoop of triumph and spun around to raise his fist to me, shouting something I couldn't hear.
The thudding adrenaline in my ears had me yelling and swearing. Cursing him and cheering him, laughing and swearing like a sailor. Even from this far off, I could see the bliss in the lines of his body. It had always been this way. The only way he could calm his body was by putting it at risk.
He zoomed off into the trees and I heard the whine of his bike as he circled around the ravine and came back to this side. I was still shouting when he pulled up next to me. "You crazy fucking asshole!" I laughed. "I'm telling mom!"
He grinned. "No you aren't."
"No you're right, I'm not. But seriously, you're insane." I took a breath. "And also really good."
"Yeah, I know." But there was pride in his voice.
"I had no idea you had gotten to this level."
"Yeah well, that's because you haven't watched the show."
I felt a twinge of guilt. "Well that's because I didn't want to feel embarrassed for you," I bluffed. "Now that I know you're not some kind of sad wannabe, I might tune in."
Gabe smiled and adjusted his helmet. "Why do you think they call me the King of Pain?" he asked, but rode off before I could get a chance to answer. He streaked through the trees again and now that I wasn't so on edge, I could really see how he knew what he was doing. I should have fucking trusted him. I should have been watching his show all this time, there was no excuse.
I promised myself I would do just that, the second he went airborne.
He kicked out one leg, showboating. But the kick threw his bike off balance.
He hit the ground at an angle instead of head on. I heard a shout of pain and then the bike went over.
"Fuck," I breathed, yanking my helmet back on again.
It seemed like the trail around the jump took forever even though I was going as fast as I dared. The whole time I rode, the wind in my ears sounded like my brother sobbing in pain.
When I reached the other side, he was lying perilously close to the edge of the ravine, his left arm clutched in his right. I skidded to a stop. "Gabe!"
He let out a noise somewhere between a moan and a hiss. "Think I broke my fucking arm," he said through clenched teeth.
"Of course you fucking did," I snapped.
He jerked a little and glared up at me and I swallowed the rest of my I-told-you-sos. "Here," I said, going for his bike. But it was a twisted, sad thing, the handlebars wrenched permanently to the left. If he could ever ride it again, it would only be in circle. "You're going to have to get on mine," I realized.
He looked offended. "You want me to ride bitch?"
"You got another idea how we get out of here?" I demanded.
He stood up, still clutching his arm. "I can walk," he said, hiding a wince.
"We're miles from the entrance and you need a fucking doctor. Sit your ass down on this bike." When he hesitated, I resorted to begging. "Come on, listen to me Gabe. I'll go slow and easy, okay?"
He pressed his lips together. I felt a sinking sensation in my chest. "You really don't trust me anymore, do you?" I asked him.
He looked at me, caught. "I trust you," he grunted through the pain. "You always think you're doing the right thing. Whether or not it turns out right, you mean well at least."
I opened my mouth and then closed it. "We'll talk about that later," I decided, helping him over to my bike. "Wrap your arm here. Tuck the left one up as best you can." I got on and twisted the throttle.
Gabe grunted when I started us moving, but he managed to hold back anything else. Instead of retracing our steps, I took the shortcut down into the ravine, following a deer trail through the scrub until we came out into the main part of the quarry where the two kids were still racing around. They saw us coming and made a beeline for my bike. "G! What happened to your bike, man...?" they started to say before noticing the angle his arm was bending at. "Oh shit man, that looks fucking bad! Gross!"
Gabe always gave me shit about loving the spotlight, but he was the one eating up the attention right now. I made a mental note to rag on him about this later, once his arm was in a cast. "I assure you," Gabe said to the teenagers. "It feels worse." He managed a grin then turned to me, suddenly excited. "Did you see the jump before it though, Jonah? If I didn't fuck my arm up, I was going to try a 360 next."
And that was how I knew the last bit of ice had melted between us. Because he'd been showing off for me. Showing off for his big brother. Wanting me to be proud.
"You ever do one on the show?" I asked.
"Episode 6," he said immediately.
I nodded. "I'll be sure to watch it then." Then I smirked. "So you cut your face and now broke your arm, you've had a productive day."
He winced and then grinned.
"What should I tell mom we were up to?" I wondered. "Should I tell her you broke your arm cleaning the bathtub or something?"
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, please."
"Can we go to the fucking hospital now, King of Pain?"
"Yeah," he sighed. "Take me to the hospital."
I revved the motor and then carefully set out to take care of my brother.
Chapter Seventeen
Ruby
My classroom was a well-oiled machine by now. The kids knew what I expected, my student teacher was seasoned, my lesson plans were perfect. Sure I was young, the parents always commented on that when we met for conferences, but I was completely confident in my authority over those sixteen kids in my class.
The thirty-three kids in the Spring Play were another thing entirely.
When I entered the auditorium, the stage was a mass of wiggling bodies. Double my classroom size and every one of them pushing, pulling and tugging. I was used to my docile little kindergarteners who were still small enough to scoop up into my arms if I needed to. But these kids ranged all the way up to huge, burly fifth graders, some of whom could already look me in the eye. One kid in the back looked like he was already entering puberty.
I swallowed and put on my best 'teacher voice.' "All right let's settle down!" I called.
Only a few kids looked my way, the rest paid no attention. "Listen up!" I yelled, raising one hand over my head in the universal signal of "you'd better pay attention to me, I'm your teacher."
Maddy Keely from my classroom immediately followed my lead and lifted her hand up, as did Dee's daughter Kayleigh. But the rest of them still shoved and laughed.
This could't stand. I marched down the auditorium aisle and lifted the lid to the grand piano sitting there.
Then I raised my hands over my head and smashed them both down on the keys.
The crashing, discordant chord echoed through the auditorium and made the kids freeze in place, and a few of them of them clapped their hands over their ears.
"Thank you," I said in my normal voice. "It's time to get started."
The kids looked at me, confused. "Who are you?"
"I'm Miss Riley. You know me."
"Why are you here?"
'That's a very good question,' I didn't say. Instead I smiled. "I'm the new director."
"Where's Mr. King?" one of the second graders asked.
"He's dead, dummy," came the swift reply.
I swallowed. "Quiet, please," I said. "Yes, I'm filling in for Mr. King." The very idea of it seemed completely wrong, but here I was all the same. "Now I've read over the script, and I'm assuming you all know your lines for the first scene?"
A few nods, some tentative, some enthusiastic. "Okay then." I took a deep breath and sat down at the piano bench.
I'd been up nearly all of last night going over the script Gid had written. I'd read all his notes on the kids he'd cast, the little asides like, "Tommy farts a lot, put him in back," and "Brayden's got the best voice and knows it, try to keep his ego in check." I scanned the group of kids, trying to match names with faces, and then I saw her. Ha
nging near the wings, ready to bolt. "Hi there Lydia," I called, waving for her to come over.
She bent her head and hurried to me, her long denim skirt swishing. I could hear a few whispers as she crossed in front of the other kids and my heart tugged. "Hi there, could you come help me a second?"
She was shy, I saw that right away. Just looking me in the eye made her turn beet red. I crouched down to her level. "Hey do you have any little brothers or sisters?" I asked.
Lydia shook her head. I was surprised to hear that. Chosen families were known for their big packs of kids. Claire joked that they were trying to take over the town through breeding. "Okay but you help watch the rest of the kids in your neighborhood, right?"
"Parish," she corrected.
"I'm sorry, right." But she was talking to me now and that was a start. "Do you think you could watch some of those kindergartners over there for me?" I said, pointing to Maddy and Kayleigh who were attempting to turn somersaults on the hard stage floor. "I need an assistant."
Her eyes shone. Clearly this was the right tact to have taken with her. "I can do that," she said, formally.
"Make sure they're listening, which means you need to listen too, right?"
"Correct," she replied.
I smiled and squeezed her arm. "Thank you Lydia. I'm glad you're here."
Lydia gave me a small, tentative smile and then went over to Maddy and Kayleigh and immediately engaged them in a hand clapping game. I took a sip of my ice-cold coffee and felt marginally more capable.
Then I looked down at the sheet music and all feelings of competence fled. "Alright, listen up!" I called, my voice hoarse. "I want to run through the first number, just singing, no dancing, okay? Let me just hear how it goes. I'll play the melody one time, just so you remember it - " and I learn it, I didn't say, "then you'll sing it for me, sound good?"
"Thank you!" they chorused. Clearly Gid had taught them about how the theater world responded to directions. I wished he was here.
Blinking, I sat down. Smoothing my sweaty palms down the front my slacks, I sat there a second, staring at the music in front of me.
It was a sheet of staff paper. Gid had formed each note with a dull pencil. Hesitantly, I picked out the melody line and as I did, a smile stretched over my face.
It was simple. Beautiful. A lilting little minor key intro that made me instantly nostalgic for something I couldn't remember.
Was this what was hidden there in his tapes? This beauty?
My fingers were rusty and my sight reading was terrible, but I managed to stumble through the first verse of the song, blinking through my tears for Gid. I must have gotten the gist of it, because the kindergartners were humming along with my playing. That was promising. Maybe I'd be able to do Gid's music justice after all.
I played the final chord and then cleared my throat. "Okay great!" I called. "Now this time you join in with the words!"
I counted down and started to play and a gabble of voices joined in. Thirty-three kids sang at the top of their lungs, shouting in an off-key aural assault. I tried to struggle through the first verse, then gave up and held up my hand. "Okay cut!" I called peering at the music. I felt out of breath and ready to bolt from the room. "Ah, okay then," I said, trying to get myself back together again. "That was a little disorganized, right? Some of you weren't even singing the right melody."
"Um, it's called harmonizing?" a snotty fifth grader spoke up, with a pronounced eyeroll. That had to be Brayden.
"Mr. King had you singing harmonies?" I asked.
"I'm a soprano!" one of the third graders preened.
I narrowed my eyes. Was he insane? These were grade schoolers, not a professionals. Most of them couldn't even read music. Some of them couldn't even read.
I felt like I was clinging to the side of a cliff and losing my handhold fast. "Okay," I said, "we'll talk about that a little later." I leafed through the music trying to see if he'd written harmonies for all of the songs and -
Wait -
"What the fuck, Gid?" I breathed.
"Miss Riley swore!" a second grader shouted, clapping her hands over her mouth. There was an eruption of scandalized giggles, and I knew I needed to rein them in quickly or I'd never get the room back under control but I was too busy staring at the lyrics for the very last song.
I'd been so focused on being able to play the music last night that I hadn't paid any attention to the words Gid wanted these kids to sing.
Thirty three sweet voiced elementary school kids. Standing in front of their proud parents, singing about lonely love lost on the road out of hell? Gid had lost his mind.
"Okay we're done!" I shouted with my head buried in my hands. "Rehearsal's over! Time to go home!"
Chapter Eighteen
Jonah
Finn wandered through the kitchen, scratching his belly on his way to the coffee maker. "Mornin' sunshine," I said from the breakfast bar. "Haven't seen you in a while."
It was an exaggeration, but only a slight one. My youngest brother still technically lived here, but he was rarely around. He'd always needed more alone time than the rest of us. Too much time around people made him volatile.
"I've been here," Finn said as he poured coffee into a chipped, ancient mug. He leaned against the counter. "And you're here too."
"I'm here," I repeated.
Since Gabe's accident, things had slowly started feeling if not normal, then at least not terrible, with my brothers. Gabe must have said something to the twins, or maybe Beau had just figured it out with his scary mind-reading abilities, but I was feeling like they might actually be glad I was here.
It was weird. I was sort of glad to be here too.
"Is that Gabe out there?" Finn asked, glancing out the kitchen window towards the front of the house.
I chuckled. "Yeah, his new bike is getting dropped off today."
"And he's just...waiting for it?" Finn rolled his eyes. "That's pretty pathetic."
I shrugged. "Guess the cast is driving him nuts. He's bored out of his mind."
A wicked gleam shone in Finn's eyes. Out of the five King siblings, he was the only one who'd ended up with blue eyes. He was lean and wirey, with light brown hair that got easily bleached out in the summer time. Meanwhile his twin brother had dark hair, dark eyes, and a big bushy beard now to go with his big, burly frame. Now that we were out of the band and there was no one to make them dress alike anymore, they barely even looked like brothers, much less twins. "What are you thinking about?" I said, suddenly wary.
"Messing with him," Finn said, grabbing his coat from the hook by the door.
I shouldn't have even needed to ask.
The delivery wasn't supposed to arrive until eleven in the morning, but Gabe had been out in the driveway since 10:30am, pacing. His coat was slung over his shoulders to accommodate the cast the ran from his wrist to his elbow, but he shivered all the same. He was that excited about his new motorbike.
"Oh hey Gabe?" Finn called, all innocent helpfulness. "The delivery guy just called the house. Said there was a delay or something?"
Gabe turned so fast he might have given himself whiplash. "What?" he cried.
"Yeah." Finn took a slow sip of his coffee, torturing him. "Yeah, he said something about how the company doesn't want their bikes being ridden by giant doofuses? Messes with the branding."
Gabe's face turned red, and then crumpled in relief. "I'll never understand why Beau didn't just absorb you in the womb," he sighed as Finn cackled. "We'd all be so much better off."
There was a far off rumble. "There it is!" Gabe said excitedly, as the delivery truck appeared through the trees.
"And there it goes!" I laughed as the delivery truck missed our drive and continued down the road.
"See, I told you," Finn said, acting put-out. "They don't want giant doofuses screwing with their image."
"Oh, goddammit," Gabe sighed. He pulled out his cell phone and stalked away to yell at someone else besides his brother.
"You're evil."
"I'm hilarious." He wiped his eyes and they drifted over to the turn-out at the end of the driveway where my rental car was still parked. "Hey, how much longer are you going to keep that?"
I looked where he was pointing and shrugged. I'd called the rental company the day I decided to stay in Crown Creek and they'd been only too happy to extend my rental agreement indefinitely. "Hadn't really thought about it," I said.
As soon as I said it, I winced internally. Though he'd never come right out and said it, I had a pretty good idea that Finn had spent all his King Brothers' money. He was very possibly broke now. Beau had let a few comments slip that made me wonder if the twins were planning on getting a place together. On Beau's dime.
The door from the kitchen into the garage slammed shut. "You should return it, save your money," my father piped up from the top of the drive.
"How does he do that?" I muttered to Finn. "Like he knew we were talking about cars."
"He could smell it," Finn muttered back.
"If you're staying here, why do you need a rental?" my dad went on, oblivious to our joking. "It's not a wise use of funds to just have it sitting here while you fart around with your guitar."
"Then what will I do to get around?" I asked. "Walk? It's twenty degrees out here."
"Pussy," Finn muttered. I lifted my middle finger.
My father looked excited. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirtfront with reddened hands. I wondered if the man even felt the cold any more or if his exterior was completely impermeable. Nothing could get to him just like nothing could get through to him. "Come on, wait til you see what I have." He turned to head down to one of his zillion sheds.
I glanced at Finn who only shrugged, then pointed and silently laughed at me behind my Dad's back. I mimed needing to be saved just like we had when we were kids, and he shook his head and crossed his arms.
