"'Cause when you stay at somebody's house for dinner," Joe said, not really looking at Seth, "they expect you to stick around and talk and be social. This way, we can leave whenever we're finished." His lips twitched, sorta like he wanted to smile but couldn't quite work up to it. "And I don't have to cook."
"You wouldn't've had to cook if we'd stayed at Taylor's," Seth pointed out.
Joe stabbed a fry at the dish of vegetables beside the plate with Seth's cheeseburger on it. "Eat your broccoli."
"Broccoli's gross."
"Eat it anyway. It's good for you. And Ruby steamed it specially for you." Joe leaned toward him. "And if you don't eat it, no dessert."
"You heard what your brother said, baby," Ruby said from two booths over. "You wanna grow up to be big and strong like him, you gotta eat your vegetables."
Seth sighed, but one, he didn't want Joe to be mad at him, and two, he really wanted one of Ruby's ice cream sundaes. The big-and-strong stuff was just something grown-ups said when they wanted you to eat something disgusting. So he stuffed a bite of broccoli into his mouth and chewed, holding his breath so he wouldn't taste it. Then he washed it down with half a glass of milk and said, "I really like Taylor."
Joe's eyes kind of bounced off his, then he said, "Well. That's good."
"Don't you?"
"She's a real nice lady. Why wouldn't I like her?"
"I don't know. But you sure don't act like it sometimes, like the way you're always in such a hurry to leave when you pick me up and stuff."
Joe's mouth twitched again, but he didn't say anything right away. Instead, he took a bite of his burger, chewed for a good long time, and drank some tea before he finally said, "I know this might not make any sense to you, but I just don't have time to go getting cozy with some gal. Got too much on my plate as it is, what with work and taking care of you. And what's with the third degree all of a sudden?"
But Seth didn't hear the question right away, because his mind was back there on Joe saying that about taking care of him, and how that was part of what made him so busy. Then his brain caught up, and Seth realized Joe probably didn't like having Seth ask him so many questions. So he just shrugged again and said, "I didn't mean nothin' by it."
"Hey," Joe said in a real soft voice, and Seth looked up into his brother's eyes. "You can tell me, or ask me, anything. And if I get grumpy, ignore me. I just have a lot on my mind sometimes, that's all. Okay?"
"Okay," Seth said, but he noticed Joe still hadn't answered the question about Taylor, and Seth didn't think it was a good idea to ask it again, no matter what Joe said.
But then his brother said, "This is all real new for me, taking care of a kid full-time. And I'm not all that sure I'm much good at it, if you wanna know the truth."
"Don't you like having me around?" popped out of Seth's mouth before he could catch it, and he felt his face get all hot.
"Of course I do," his brother said, real fast, his eyes only touching Seth's for a second before he reached over for the sugar jar to dump some more into his tea. "It's just a lot harder than I thought it would be."
Seth felt a cold, hard lump form in the center of his chest, but he made himself say, "You don't hear me complaining, do you?"
Joe smiled. "No, I don't. But that doesn't necessarily mean everything's okay, does it?"
The lump got harder. "No, I guess not."
They didn't talk much for the rest of their meal. Then Charmaine, their waitress—she had three boys, Seth knew, 'cause one of them sat at his table in camp and was all the time talking about how he wished he was an only kid so he wouldn't have to share everything with his brothers—came over with a piece of peach pie for Joe and a hot fudge sundae for Seth. Charmaine was pretty, and kinda nice, always asking him how he was getting on and stuff, but she always stuck around longer than she needed to. Sure enough, she stood there, talking about nothing, really, acting all smiley with Joe before finally leaving to check on the people in the next booth. Joe let out a sigh, like he was glad she'd gone, but even so, Seth noticed Joe never said anything to her that might make her feel bad.
So how come he made Taylor feel bad, Seth wondered, scooping up his hot fudge then dribbling it back over his ice cream, when she didn't even act all dopey like Charmaine? Taylor was cool. Even if she was nothing like Mom. When she'd hugged him this afternoon, he'd felt good. And safe.
For some reason, he decided not to tell Joe about Taylor hugging him. He didn't know why, he just had a feeling Joe wouldn't like it.
Then he realized Joe was looking at him funny. Not like he was mad or anything, but like he wanted to say something but couldn't figure out how. So Seth took a bite of his sundae and said, "What is it?"
Joe tapped the end of his fork on his plate a couple of times, then said, "I need to talk to you about something. I was going to tell you later, but now seems as good a time as any, I guess." He took a breath and said, "You've got a sister. Her name's Kristen, and she's fifteen."
Well, that was about the last thing Seth expected to hear. He didn't know right off how he felt about that, except maybe a little surprised. Joe said she lived with Joe's and her mother in Tulsa, except they were away at the moment, visiting Joe's and Kristen's grandparents in Kansas.
"Will I get to see her?"
"Yep," Joe said, looking like he was trying to be happier about this than he actually was. "At the end of the month, when they come here to visit."
Suddenly, Seth wanted to know everything about her. "She's like Blair's age, huh?"
"I guess she is. A little older, though."
"Is she cool? What does she like to do? What's her favorite TV show? Does she like school?"
Joe looked like he wasn't sure where to start, but then he said, "Yeah. Kristen's cool. She likes to dance and sing, sometimes she is okay with school and sometimes she isn't, and I'm not real sure what her favorite TV show is right now, but I know she loves to watch ice skating." Then he took another deep breath and said, "Kristen has Down syndrome. Do you know what that is?"
Seth shook his head. So Joe explained that something had happened while Kristen was inside Joe's mom that gave her an extra…cromazone, or something, which made Kristen look the way she did, and made her a little slower at learning things than most people. That it wasn't something you could catch, and it wasn't like a sickness that would go away or they had medicine or anything to cure it. But that Seth had to remember she was more like everybody else than she was different, that lots of stuff made her happy, but she could get her feelings hurt, just the same as anybody else, too.
"See, there are some things she'll never be able to do well, no matter how much we try to help her learn how to do them. And sometimes she gets frustrated because she can't do some things she sees everyone else do."
"Like me and video games?"
Joe smiled. "Yes, I guess it's something like that. But the difference is, as you get older, you'll probably figure out how to play those games. Whereas Kristen's been trying to learn how to read since she was five or six, but she still can't read as well as you can now. Like the menu over the grill? She can only pick out a word here and there. But you can read most of it already." His brother got quiet for a moment, his eyes getting a funny, faraway look in them that made Seth feel uncomfortable.
He looked down at what was left of his ice cream. Only he didn't much want it anymore. There'd been these kids at school, in one of the special ed classes, who couldn't move or talk right, and Seth remembered the way the other kids'd make fun of them when the teachers couldn't hear them, calling them retards and stuff. And his face got all hot again, because, sometimes, he'd join in. But he never in a million, zillion years ever thought about what it might be like to have a brother or sister like that. Or that just because they had all this other stuff wrong, they wouldn't know when somebody was making fun of 'em.
"Wanna see a picture of her?" Joe said. Seth nodded, so Joe got his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out a picture, which he handed acr
oss the booth to Seth. A kinda chubby girl with shiny brown hair and glasses grinned at him from the photograph, her right hand lifted in a big thumbs-up. Seth looked real hard at that picture for some time, until he felt his own lips smile, too.
"She's the reason you have to work so hard, huh?"
Joe's eyebrows lifted, like he was surprised at Seth saying that, but then he said, "One of them, yes. Because she'll never be able to completely take care of herself, so I want to make sure she'll always have whatever she needs. And so my mother doesn't have to worry about what might happen after she can't take care of Kristen anymore. And now you, too, because…because I get the feeling you've had it kinda rough, and I want to make it up to you."
Seth stared at the picture for several more seconds, then handed it back to Joe to take another bite of his ice cream. "Did Dad ever see her?"
Joe looked like he didn't know how to answer that question, until finally he said, "He left us when Kristen was three weeks old. She never knew him. You ready to go?"
Seth was startled to look down and discover he'd finished his sundae after all. So he nodded, sliding out of the booth as Joe pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet, slipping it with the check underneath his tea glass where Charmaine would be sure to find it. As they walked out to the car, Seth couldn't decide which was fuller, his stomach or his head. Joe sure had a lot of people to take care of. No wonder he was so tired all the time. Jeez, Dad had gotten so tired taking care of just Mom and Seth, he'd left, saying he couldn't "hack it."
They'd no sooner gotten into the Blazer when Joe got a call on his cell phone, so they couldn't go yet because Joe didn't like driving and talking on the phone if he could help it. Since Seth didn't figure the call had anything to do with him, he didn't pay much attention at first, until he suddenly heard Joe say, "What? Are you serious?"
He looked across the seat. Even though it was nearly dark, he could see how mad his brother was by the way everything on his face was pointing down.
"What's wrong?" he said when Joe finished his call.
"What?" Joe said again, jumping a little like he'd forgotten Seth was there. But then he shook his head and started up the car. "Nothing that concerns you, okay?" he said. But then he didn't say much of anything the whole way back to the lodge, either, and Seth figured he was probably thinking about that phone call. And maybe Kristen, too, since they'd just been talking about her. So there probably wasn't a whole lot of room left over in Joe's brain to think about Seth.
Or Taylor, either, he thought. Except…
That cold, empty feeling settled in his stomach again.
Except Seth's father had left because he started to like some other woman more than he liked Seth's mom. Seth wasn't supposed to know that, but he did. He also knew that grown-ups didn't always say what they meant, especially if their feelings were all mixed up. But then, Joe hadn't said he didn't like Taylor, only that he didn't have time for her.
Just like he'd said he liked Seth, too.
His forehead all knotted up, Seth leaned against the car door, watching the sky begin to turn a pretty, deep blue over the mountains as the sun went down, thinking about how much easier life was when he'd been a kid.
Chapter 8
The sky had sagged with gunmetal clouds when Joe had gotten up the morning after Hank's bombshell phone call; by the time he got back from a quick run to Tulsa, rain was hammering the site, churning dirt into mud and making it virtually impossible to work outside. He hoped to God this was just a passing storm. Otherwise the schedule could be seriously screwed up.
By the time he'd sprinted from car to office, he was drenched. He straddled the threshold long enough to flick a veritable lake off his broad-brimmed hat onto what passed for a porch, then plunked it on top of a long table littered with brochures and junk just inside the door. On a moth-eaten braided rug under the table, a large black mixed-breed dog peacefully snoozed, despite it sounding in here like stampeding buffalo in a roller rink.
"Little wet out there?" said Danny Andrews, the college kid Hank had hired a year or so ago to help him manage the place. He cradled a tiny baby on his skinny shoulder, his spiked blond hair and earring, not to mention the mild case of acne, making him look far too young to be a father.
Joe managed a tired smile for the kid, even though his soaked denim shirt was making him shiver unpleasantly in the frigid air-conditioning. "SueEllen strong-arm you into baby-sitting?"
A big grin slid across Danny's narrow face. "You kiddin'? Only time I get to play with Scottie without her getting in my face is when she goes off grocery shopping or whatever—"
"That Joe?" boomed a voice from the open office door.
"Yep," Danny said, then leaned forward and said in a low voice, "He's real pissed about something, though, so I'd be careful if I were you."
"I heard that!" A second later, a glowering Hank appeared at the doorway. "And what makes you think I'm pissed?"
"Just a hunch," the kid said with a grin.
Hank grunted, took a second to peek at the sleeping baby, then motioned for Joe to follow him back into the office. Of course, Joe not only already knew that Hank was definitely pissed, but what he was definitely pissed about: Wes's check to the cement company had bounced clear to Oklahoma City and back. Now Joe squeezed his frame into a space barely large enough to fit him, let alone anybody else. Some opera or other was booming from the CD player on a shelf over Joe's head. Not that Joe had a problem with that, in theory, but he could do without the sensation of hearing the music from inside the singer's throat.
Hank aimed a remote at the CD player and sank into a rolling chair behind his desk as Joe said, "I've tried calling Wes three times, but his secretary keeps saying he isn't in yet. And he's not answering his cell."
"I know," Hank said. "I've been trying to get him all day, too."
"Swear to God, Hank, I've never known him to do this before."
Not-amused eyes lifted to Joe's. "Dougherty'd already made out his payroll based on that check."
Joe let out a choice cussword.
"My sentiments exactly," Hank said. "So I figured I better cover it, and fast, before word got out to the other subcontractors."
"Wait a minute…" Joe frowned. "You covered it?"
"Deposited funds directly into his account this morning."
"You shouldn't've done that, Hank. It's not your responsibility."
Hank leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest. "Technically, maybe not. And you better believe your boss will pay me back every single cent. But like I said, I don't want any problems. Hell, half the place is torn up—if it all falls through now, I'm up the creek."
"That's not gonna happen, Hank. And you've got my word on it."
Hank's eyebrows lifted. "And what would you have done? Made good on the check yourself?"
"If I'd had to, yeah."
Hank looked at him hard for a moment or two, then said, "Wes Hinton and I are partners in this deal. You're his employee. Your boss screws up, it's not up to you to fix it."
"Technically, maybe," he said, echoing Hank's words. "But if it's my project, I guess I feel I've got a personal stake in it."
"Then why the hell are you working for somebody else?"
The question broadsided him. Not because it was out of line, but because, over the past year or so, that very question had begun popping into Joe's head with unnerving regularity. He'd love nothing more than to be his own boss, have his own business. Maybe in development or construction, maybe something else. But self-employment was for people who could afford to take the kinds of risks Joe couldn't. However, he was hardly going to go into all this with Hank, so all he said was, "Maybe one day I will. When the timing's right."
Hank's gaze held his for a second or two before Hank turned his head, listening. "Sounds like the rain's let up." He pushed himself to his feet, pulling a pack of gum out of his shirt pocket and proffering it to Joe before pulling out a piece for himself and unwrapping it, the silver liner glit
tering as it fell into the trash can by his desk. "Let's go up to the new cabins. I want to make sure the roofs held up."
Joe stuck his own gum in his mouth. "Still not convinced the prefabs are 'real' buildings?"
"You got that right."
Hank whistled for the dog, who jumped up and shook himself awake, and they headed out to trudge up a muddy hill determined to suck their boots off. Fat, cold water droplets occasionally dive-bombed them from the trees as Hank said, "You always been the type to take everything on your own shoulders?"
Joe shrugged. "Least this way, I'm sure of things getting done."
"Yeah, I know how that goes," Hank said on a low chuckle. "But you know—and you can tell me to shut up if this is none of my business—if it's one thing I've learned, it's that the tighter we hang on to the reins when life tries to get away from us, the more we're liable to break something when we get thrown."
"You're right," Joe said quietly. "It's none of your business."
Hank's craggy features rearranged themselves into a big grin. Mutt—the dog—trotted up with a stick for Hank to throw, then went tearing through a sodden layer of forest debris to retrieve it after he did. "Figured you'd say that. But look at this…" His hands in his pockets, he stopped and looked up, taking a deep breath. Joe stopped, too, following Hank's gaze. A shaft of sunlight had knifed through a fissure in the clouds, gilding the rain-heavy branches, brilliant against the deep blue-gray of the sky. "Is that awesome or what?" Hank said.
Joe grinned in spite of himself. "Somebody's been hanging around a teenager too long."
That got a funny look, then Hank said quietly, "I see a lot of me in you, Joe. Or the me I was a few years ago. So damned determined that I was in charge of my life, that nothing or nobody could make me do or feel anything I didn't want to do or feel. No, hear me out," he said when Joe shook his head, smiling. "When I became a cop a million years ago, I sure as hell couldn't've told you it was because I had control issues, or whatever you want to call it. I just knew I liked being on the side that caught the bad guys and put them away. At least often enough to make it worthwhile." He looked away and said softly, "Until some trigger-happy idiot killed my fiancée in a robbery, and then got away with it because nobody could ever find him."
Everybody's Hero Page 10