The City Series (Book 3): Instauration

by Lyons Fleming, Sarah

  Roger pales. For a brief instant, I think he might be close to tears. Then he snarls, “Shut the fuck up.”

  “What’s wrong, you found someone who’ll fight back?” I ask. He doesn’t answer, only fists his hands at his sides. I smile. “Go ahead, do it.”

  I almost want him to punch me, so I can release this pent-up anger, this sadness, into the world. Fighting is one thing at which I’ve always excelled. Mercy is harder. Much harder.

  “Sylvie!” Indy yells like it’s not the first time she’s called my name. She yanks me backward by my arm. “What the hell?”

  Julie and Chris stand open-mouthed, and Casper looks ready to faint. I’m shaking, truly vibrating, with fury.

  “Hey, now.” Chris puts an arm around my shoulders and spins me to face the other way. He may be tall and skinny, but there’s no escaping the strength of his embrace. “Roger’s a jerk, we all know that, but he doesn’t punch women. Do you, Rog?”

  He looks over his shoulder when there’s no response, then steers me another few feet. “We’ve already established that I’m just under Eric in terms of good looks,” he murmurs in my ear, “but I’m not sure I can take Roger the way he could.” I snort and glance at his freckled face only inches away. His teeth gleam. “I mean, I’m cool and all, but it’s more of a Blerd vibe than Luke Cage, you hear what I’m saying?”

  This time I laugh. He’s defusing me, that much is obvious, but he makes me not mind. “I’m fine,” I say. “Just tell him to stay away from Casper.”

  “I’m going to give him quite the talking-to once you are safely downstairs.”

  Julie peers around his side. “You okay, Sylvie?”

  “Fine.” I look to where Indy and Casper stand. “Let’s go.”

  I dropped my bag by Roger, and I’m not sending someone else to pick it up, even if my legs are weak with the decline of adrenaline. I pull from Chris’ arm and retrieve it a few feet from where Roger stands in profile, staring off the roof.

  “Bitch,” he mutters.

  “Overgrown gutter punk,” I say. “And, by the way, 1998 is still waiting for that hair.”

  He doesn’t answer. I sling my bag across my chest and stroll away.

  “Really?” Eric asks.

  I roll over where I lie stomach-down on our bed reading. He hovers in our bedroom doorway, arms folded and eyebrows raised. “Really what?” I ask.

  “Really, you started a fight with Roger?”

  I suck my teeth. “Roger started with Casper, and I told him to stop. If that’s starting a fight with Roger, then, yes, I started a fight with Roger.”

  “I thought he wasn’t doing that anymore.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  I pretend to read while he stands for a full minute, until he sits on the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I could’ve spoken to him.”

  I turn my unread page. “I don’t need you to fight my battles.”

  “It wasn’t your battle. It was Casper’s.”

  I shrug and continue pretend reading. After an audible sigh of annoyance, Eric flips my book shut. “Hey!” I yell.

  “But,” he continues as though I haven’t made a sound, “the thing is, your battles are my battles. Which means I had to talk to Roger.”

  I jump to sitting, face hot. “You did not.”

  “I did. You think I’m going to let him call you names and even think about touching you?”

  I’m fairly pissed that Eric would insert himself into this situation on my behalf, but his eyes flare green with a fury that trumps my own. It’s the same fury that made me want to push Roger from the roof. I can feel it crackling off his tensed muscles, and I don’t like it. Eric is supposed to be the rational one. Golden Boy. I don’t know how to deal with this, except to mollify him and, possibly, make him laugh.

  “I had it under control,” I say in as harmonious a tone as possible. “Until you went storming in to protect my honor. Did you ride a horse, too?”

  Eric stares, treading the line between anger and accord, and then he shakes his head in amused exasperation. Long may peace reign.

  “If I’d known it was going to be a thing,” I add, “with knights in shining armor and white steeds, I would’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  “Stop talking,” he says, though his lips twitch.

  “Next time you leave, maybe we should see about a chastity belt for—”

  “Seriously, stop talking.”

  I do—every once in a while, I know when to shut up. After a deep breath and a long, slow blink, the fire is gone and only a somber resolve remains.

  “Your battles are my battles,” he repeats. “That’s the way it is. And I’m not going to let an overgrown gutter punk talk to you that way.”

  “Who told you?” I ask. His verbatim use of my insult means someone did. On the one hand, that person is on my shit list. On the other hand, it’s put a welcome spark of amusement in his eyes.

  “I have my ways,” he says.

  “It was Casper. No, Chris.”

  “I’m not telling you who it was. Stop changing the subject.”

  “It’s the same subject, just a different component of the subject.”

  “Are you trying to drive me crazy?” he asks, kneading his forehead.

  I fear it’s an honest question, so I answer honestly, “Maybe a little. I don’t know. Probably.”

  He drops his hand to find me smiling, and he laughs despite himself. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you. For once.”

  I fold my hands in my lap. “Sorry. Continue.”

  He watches me, unconvinced, and I blink in return. Finally, he says, “Roger won’t be a problem anymore.”

  “You killed him?” I ask, though I’m sure he didn’t. Or pretty sure, because the Eric of two minutes ago might have.

  “No, I didn’t kill him. What’s wrong with you?”

  “What happened, then?”

  “I went to beat the shit out of him and found him in his apartment, drunk off his ass. We talked.”

  Putting aside, for the moment, the vision of Eric on his way to beat the shit out of someone, I try to imagine how that went down, but I can’t. Roger talking like a human being is a foreign concept. “What’d you say?”

  “I told him to stop being an asshole. He apologized and said he would.”

  I’ve learned that many men are horrible detail-givers when it comes to the reporting of events. I have no idea how they were able to take over the world. Brute force, probably. “Please elaborate.”

  Eric inspects his hands. “He was crying,” he says reluctantly, like he feels some protective impulse toward Roger, of all people. “His mother was a drunk who killed herself when he was ten, not long after he was diagnosed with diabetes, and his dad was already gone. He had an older brother who raised him. His brother was one of the guys who attacked StuyTown last year.”

  I remember how Roger’s face paled when I said he was the reason people kill themselves. A sinking feeling starts in my stomach and drains the energy from the rest of me. Of course I managed to pull the worst possible thing to say out of thin air. I drop back on the bed. “Well, now I feel like crap.”

  “You asked. I didn’t want to tell you. He knew what you meant. He said you were right. He wanted to apologize to you and Casper right then, but I told him to wait until he was sober.”

  I cover my face with my arm, imagining the uncomfortable apology that will take place at some point. I’d rather he was drunk. “Can you tell him all is forgiven? No hard feelings. I don’t need an apology.”

  “He’s lucky I didn’t kick his ass. So, no. I want him to grovel.”

  I peek at him. His smile isn’t the biggest I’ve ever seen, but it’s the most authentic I’ve seen in a while. “You were really going to kick his ass?”

  “I was looking forward to it.”

  I sit up with a laugh. Roger could use a good ass-kicking, and the part of me who’s always wanted someone to back her up appreciates this disp
lay of loyalty. If the tables were turned, I’d do the same for him in a heartbeat, whether or not he approved. In fact, I’m still itching to beat up Denise from Sunset Park for numerous reasons: helping Walt and Kearney, vaguely threatening Paul and Leo, and calling Eric several disparaging names.

  “Then I’m sorry that good sense, or alcohol, prevailed,” I say. “But maybe I’ll make someone else mad enough for you to beat up soon.”

  Eric cups a hand to my cheek. “I have no doubt you will.”

  22

  The store is a half-hour from closing when a small pie drops on my checkstand. Kitty, also known as Rita, makes the pies. It’s the only grandmotherly thing she does—she’s more often found watching people out her window, yelling at people out her window, or cursing like a sailor out her window. A pack of gum, a paper slip to pay for a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a box of dark brown hair dye follow the pie onto my belt.

  I look up from my book. Roger dips his chin. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” I grab my price list and tally his items, hoping he’s forgotten his drunken promise to Eric. If I distract him with small talk, he may be less likely to bring it up. “Pie and whiskey, huh?”

  “Breakfast of champions.”

  “I imagine your blood sugar thanks you.” I immediately curse my mouth, but his answering sniff is close to a laugh. I finish my addition, subtract it from the insanely large number of credits he’s acquired, and then push the signed alcohol receipt across the belt. “You’re all set.”

  I retreat into my book—the number one reason why one should always have a book when out in public. Roger collects his items and stands a moment more, then walks off. I breathe a sigh of relief. Civility works for me.

  “Sylvie!” Indy shouts from across the store, her head barely visible behind a shelf. It’s followed by a loud laugh before she disappears and emerges from the end of the aisle with Landon in tow. His hand rests on her butt, and it stays there as she leans on my checkstand.

  “Yes?” I ask.

  “You’re hanging out with us tonight,” Indy says.

  “I can’t. I have a big midterm coming up.”

  Landon makes sure to swing his hair when he laughs. “Sylvie, I wish you’d hang out more. You’re a funny girl.”

  “She’s a woman.” Indy smacks him without looking back, then winks at me. “With a Y.”

  I smile at the reference to us, to Grace, but this isn’t that Indy in front of me. That one had a huge laugh and a big mouth and was real. This one has a similar laugh, but its unnatural quality makes me feel as though I’ve been dropped into the second act of a bad play when I’m around her. She barely stays at our apartment anymore. Leo checks her room every morning and comes out disappointed. I pretend not to be disappointed that I’ve lost the only girlfriend I had left.

  “Please,” she wheedles. “Please, please, please.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” Landon says, drawing out the word. “What can we tempt her with?”

  “About a gallon of alcohol,” I say, and I don’t say, because that’s the only way I can stand to be around you.

  “Done. Anything to make my Indy’s friends happy.” Landon pulls Indy to the gated area, waits until Roger exits with his bottle, and then yanks Indy inside while she giggles.

  I sit on my stool. Twenty minutes until closing. Roger veers off course in his path to the door and heads for me, completely ignoring my psychic message instructing him to leave. He stops at my checkstand, glances over his shoulder, and then sets down his bottle of Jack. “Here. You’re going to need it.”

  “What?”

  “I heard your conversation. Landon acts generous, but he waters all his liquor down. Way down. You’ll never get drunk.”

  I watch Landon hold a bottle of something brown up to the light of the window, lips puckered like a judge at a wine tasting. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “If you like your friend, you’ll tell her to stay away from him.”

  I tear my eyes from Indy, who watches Landon with a captivation that makes me nauseous. Roger’s hair is still ridiculous, but he’s a great deal more pleasant when he’s not sneering. “Believe me, we’ve tried. She doesn’t want to hear it.”

  “Then drink up.” He slides the bottle closer. “Sorry about the other day. And before that.”

  “I shouldn’t have said what I said abo—”

  “Do me a favor?” he cuts in. “You and Eric are two of the few people here who treat me like I’m not dying any second. It’s refreshing. Let’s keep doing that.”

  “Okay.” I tilt the bottle of Jack and watch the amber liquor swirl. Good manners dictate that I invite him to drink it with us. “Thanks for this. Do you want to come?”

  “Gotta be up early.” Roger salutes me with a finger before he walks toward the doors. “Try not to give yourself alcohol poisoning. You’re going to want to.”

  Here are three words I never thought I’d say: Roger was right.

  Which is why I sit at breakfast with a sour stomach that needs food yet hates food simultaneously. We had to take an outside table, and, though the warmth is appreciated, the sun shines with a light that feels like a personal vendetta.

  Eric is worse off than I am. Every so often he rests his forehead in his hand as if the table needs a close inspection. Thank God I am not a mother. Paul had to drag himself from bed an hour before we did because parents have to do things like feed their young, as well as talk and pay attention.

  Micah sits at an adjacent table with Rissa and the other teenagers. “I wish I hadn’t worked last night. You guys look like you had fun.”

  Paul drops his fork with a bite of egg still attached, claps a hand to his mouth, and runs from our table, leaving Leo staring after him. I pinch his cheek. “He’s fine, squirt.”

  A few bites into breakfast, I feel marginally human. The eggs are powdered—all real eggs are currently making new chickens—but they mixed in salsa so that they don’t taste too eggy, a fact with which I think Paul would disagree. But the toast is where it’s at. Even without butter, toast is amazing. I silently thank the drunken gods that today isn’t one of the breakfasts made up of last night’s dinner.

  Indy and Landon enter the stone patio and sit in the chairs we saved for them. Indy is swathed in a hat, scarf, and sunglasses, and she gives me a feeble smile. Landon, in a tight T-shirt that shows off his nipples, runs a hand through his shiny locks and sets a thermos on the table.

  “Coffee,” he says. Last night, I got to know Landon better, and I remain steadfast in my dislike. But I can pretend to like him for coffee. Eric props himself up as Landon pulls paper cups from his leather satchel. “I thought it would be a treat.”

  We thank him when he slides us both a steaming cup, then throws sugar and creamer packets on the table. I stir them into my coffee with the handle of my fork. Eric drinks half his cup with his eyes closed, and I nudge his arm when he comes up for air. “Eat.”

  He gags. “How can you eat?”

  “First off, I didn’t play Quarters like I was in high school,” I say, and he either winces or laughs. “Which, though hysterical, was not the brightest idea you and Paul have ever had. Secondly, water. I drank a lot of water before bed. Guillermo taught me that trick.”

  I catch Rissa watching and immediately regret my last words. “Sorry.”

  “I like to talk about him,” she says softly. “It’s like, if we pretend they didn’t exist, they leave again. They disappear.”

  It’s too early, and the alcohol still too present in my system, for me to reflect on that idea without tears. And although Indy’s eyes are hidden under her garb, I’m sure they’ve flicked toward me the way mine did toward her. She sucks in her lower lip and turns her head to the Oval garden across the path.

  “I know it sounds stupid,” Rissa says.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Micah says.

  Rissa’s smile lights up her face, and the sun has set the reddish highlights in her brown hair aglow. Sometime in the past month
, she crossed the line from pretty teenager to lovely woman. Landon takes his time admiring her face before his gaze dips lower. I clear my throat, and he casts a can you blame me? look my way. My wordless answer to that question is clear, since he rubs Indy’s back and whispers something that makes her smile. Maybe he said he could see thinking about possibly considering the likelihood of falling in love with her, perhaps even in this century.

  “Hey, little man,” Indy says to Leo. “Where’s your dad?”

  Leo tears off a bite of toast. “He’s puking.”

  “India prayed to the porcelain god last night,” Landon says. He chuckles and leans back in his chair, one perfect arm outstretched on the table.

  “I can usually drink more and I’m fine,” she mutters. “It was that whiskey. Whiskey is evil.”

  “Maybe it was stronger than Landon’s liquor,” I say innocently. “Although he does have that full bar.”

  If a post-apocalyptic apartment can be pretentious, his is. Landon Mann won a Tony Award at one point, and either it was first and foremost among the things he grabbed when escaping zombies, or he made a special trip to retrieve it. Because it sits on a shelf, in all its nickel-plated glory, illuminated by its very own battery-operated light. I’ve tallied up his purchases at the store a few times, and I assumed he bought those batteries for a flashlight or bug-out bag.

  We stayed for three hours. Three hours of every single time the conversation veered onto a fun, non-Landon subject, he would bring it back to himself. And, whenever Indy sensed him growing bored, she’d share a Landon-related tidbit.

  Julie, Casper, and Chris walk from the café holding plates, with Paul just behind. His cheeks and lips have regained a color closer to life than death, and he gratefully takes the cup of coffee Landon pours before he drops in his chair.

  “Rough morning?” Landon asks. Paul grumbles and lifts a hand to his ear at the scraping sound of three chairs being dragged to our table.

  “Sorry,” Chris whispers. He sinks into his chair like an old man, then holds his stomach. “Sylvie, I think Roger’s bottle of Jack was actually not an apology at all. It was a devious, diabolical punishment.”