by Sean Platt
“You sure you don’t want a ride with us? I mean, you’ll have to watch Dale practice, but hey, there are hot cheerleaders. High school cheerleaders,” he says with a grin.
“Thanks, but Mom wants to talk to me about something. Plus, ice cream.”
“Sorry, dude, cheerleaders beat ice cream all day every day.”
I laugh. Then an awful thought finds me. What if Tommy doesn’t remember this morning’s incident? He needs to be on his guard tomorrow. Otherwise, Evan might blindside him. While we have ice cream, I can ask Mom to take me to school in the morning. But what about on the way home?
Maybe I can get a ride home with Danny and Dale tomorrow. It’s only one day, but maybe that’ll be enough for Evan to forget about Tommy and find some fresh meat to mess with.
“Hey, can I go with you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we’re going to Grandma’s after school. Maybe next time?”
“That would be awesome.”
Mom’s car pulls up, and I say goodbye to Danny. Time for a talk about Frank.
With any luck, the assassin found and killed him. Maybe we’ll come home to an empty house. Sure, Stacy will be upset and probably scared, but they’ll both be better off.
We’re at Johnny J’s All-Night Diner, a cozy ’50s-themed restaurant along a wooded highway. As we take a spot in a cherry red leather-backed booth, the gray sky opens to let loose a torrent.
“Guess we’ll be here a while,” Stacy says looking outside as lightning flashes.
Good, more time for the assassin to find and kill Frank.
I’d hate to get home while the assassin is there and risk either Tommy or Stacy getting killed, too.
As we wait for the waitress in her ’50s poodle skirt to bring us drinks, Stacy calls Frank.
“Hey, honey, just calling to see how it went. Tommy and I are at Johnny J’s if you want to join us. Give me a call. We were gonna have ice cream, but it’s raining awfully hard, so I think we’ll make it dinner and ice cream. Hope everything went well. Love you.”
As I sit there watching Tommy’s mom, a part of me wants to tell her about the bus ride. Tell her about the jerks who ripped up her Skeleton Crew book, and how I’ve now made enemies with Evan Glassman, one of the school’s biggest assholes.
But I don’t want to put any more on her plate than is already there. Plus, I’m not sure if this is the sort of thing that Tommy would prefer not to tell her. Who knows how she’ll react, and if she might make things worse for him at school? Maybe it’s best to lie low for a while, see how things shake out. Maybe the whole Evan thing will blow over. If not, maybe Danny can get Dale to intervene. This is a problem that Tommy can probably handle if he’s as resourceful as I hope he is.
It’s hard to tell, though, what Tommy is like. If Frank was almost ever present in his body while I was controlling it, shading every thought with his anger, Tommy is almost the opposite. I can hardly get a bead on his personality beyond how other people treat him. Well, at least in how Danny and his mother treat him, like a good kid dealing with a shitty situation.
Stacy hangs up.
“So, how was your day?” she asks.
“Okay, I guess. Yours?”
“Let’s just say I’m glad I could get out early. We ought to do this more often.”
“Your boss didn’t mind you leaving early?”
“He’s on a trip this week, so it was just Judy, and she was cool.”
“Good,” I say, wondering how we’re going to broach the subject we’re here to discuss.
The waitress brings our drinks, two cherry colas.
“Y’all decide what you want yet, or you need a few minutes?”
“We need a few minutes,” I say.
I look over the menu searching for something I’m in the mood to eat. Most of the food is greasy fried stuff, but I’m in a young, healthy body, so I can splurge. When the waitress comes back, I order a cheeseburger and fries.
Stacy orders the same, and the waitress leaves. I slide the menus behind the napkin dispenser at the edge of our table, just under the window.
Stacy makes small talk, and I endure for a while until I feel like she’s delaying the topic. I cut to the chase.
“Why are you still with him? You must know that you can do better, right?”
She looks surprised. Not sure if it’s too adult a comment from Tommy, or simply too blunt for her son.
“It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“I love Frank. He came along at a difficult time in my life, in our lives. Your father really screwed things up. Frank saved us.”
Ah, Tommy’s father.
Memories fill in the details. He was a drug dealer, high end, cocaine mostly. But he wasn’t like the drug dealers you see on TV. He wasn’t a gangster. He didn’t carry a gun, at least not that Tommy knew about. He was a car salesman who happened to make some money on the side selling narcotics. We lived in a nice house, Mom was happy, and life was good.
But then he got nabbed; no one’s sure how. Then we lost nearly everything, seized by federal agents. Tommy’s father was killed in a prison yard fight, which devastated both Tommy and his mom. She had to work for the first time in years, and they lived in a crappy apartment for two years before she met Frank.
He was a blue-collar guy but made decent money — and was nice, in the beginning.
“Frank didn’t save us, Mom. You did. You got a job. You worked through all of this. And we were fine before he came along.”
“Fine? We had a crappy apartment in the state’s worst school district. I can’t even imagine you going to school there.”
“So, that’s the only reason you’re with him, for his money, for me?”
“No, not at all. As I said, I loved, er, love him. He’s been through a lot. He had a crappy childhood, and given what I know about his life, he’s not nearly as bad as he could be.”
“Oh, that’s a relief.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t be like that.”
“What? I’m just telling the truth. He’s a jerk, and you don’t need him. We don’t need him. I’d rather live in a crack den, or on the streets, than in his house.”
“He’s not that bad, Tommy.”
“You keep saying that. But he hits you. He freaking hits you! There’s no excuse for that. I don’t care how bad his childhood was.”
She shakes her head. “I wish you could see him how I do. He’s trying, so hard.”
“Wow,” I say, pointing to my bruise, “this is him trying? And how many times has he hit you?”
“You can’t possibly understand what those two years were like before we met Frank. You’re … you’re too young.”
“Understand what? How lonely you were?”
She doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are watering, again.
I can’t imagine she’d ever choose a lover over her son’s safety. That doesn’t seem like her. But I don’t know what else could keep Stacy blinded to the danger of staying with Frank. Maybe she doesn’t see him as a threat, even though his violence has escalated to Tommy. She needs to see the danger before either of them get caught in the crossfire of Frank’s violent mood swings or an assassin’s bullet.
“He’s going to kill us,” I say.
Then, of course, the waitress appears with our food.
There’s an awkward silence as she sets our food on the table, just me and Stacy trading stares.
“Do you all need any — ”
Mom cuts her off, “No thank you.”
The waitress leaves.
Mom looks at me, eyes narrowed, and whispers, “He’s not going to kill us. How can you even say something like that?”
“You hear about stuff like this on the news all the time. And people are always saying, ‘Yeah, he was violent, but he wasn’t that bad.’ You’re enabling him, Mom. He hits you; he hit me. What’s next? Especially now that he lost his job?”
“What would you have me do, leave him?”
/> “Yeah,” I say it a bit too loudly, as if it’s the world’s most obvious answer.
She closes her eyes, covers her face with her hands. Her weakness is infuriating.
“We can go home right now, pack our bags, and leave tonight.”
“Where would we go?”
“I dunno. Don’t you know anyone who could take us in until we get back on our feet?”
“Gram’s in the nursing home, and I don’t have any other family, at least none who are talking to me after what happened with your father.”
“A coworker, I dunno. Heck, we can get a hotel room, or move to a crappy apartment. We did it before; we can do it again. Come on, Mom, we can do this.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I can’t leave him.”
“Why? Give me one good answer.”
“Because he said he’d find us and kill us if I did.”
Shit.
Frank is surprisingly nice when we get home. We sit in the living room, Frank and Stacy on the couch and me in a recliner, discussing our days.
He tells us how he went to his work and his prick of a boss wouldn’t give him his job back. “Screw ’em. I can do better,” he says.
Stacy makes some suggestions, places she’d heard may be hiring, including a few that would offer a significant bump in pay.
The whole thing is surreal. They’re talking like a happy family, no sign of either Frank’s rage from yesterday or of the fact that the man has threatened Mom into imprisonment.
I’d tried to convince her to tell the police, but she’s too scared. Stacy explained how no restraining order in the world could protect her if Frank were determined enough to hunt her down. Then I’d suggested we go into hiding, but she said it’s not feasible. At least not now.
As we sit in the living room, I find myself starting at the television, Frank has it on ESPN, but sports are the last thing on my mind. I’m wondering why the assassin didn’t return to finish the job. Had he, or she, seen that I was in Tommy’s body and decided to put a hold on the order?
I try not to watch as Frank turns on the charm, wrapping his arm around Stacy and cuddling her on the couch. The entire time, I’m sickened that she’s allowing him to work his way into her heart. But maybe she’s putting on a show or making the best of a bad situation. She’s so used to pretending and capitulating to his demands. Maybe she’s forgotten how to be genuinely happy.
He nuzzles her neck, whispers something.
It’s all I can do not to go to the kitchen, get a knife, and slit his throat myself. I smile at the fantasy. I don’t think I can kill him in cold blood. If he tried to hurt Tommy or Stacy, I’d do whatever it takes to protect them, but I’m not an assassin.
Or am I?
I can tell he’d like me to leave the room, but I’ll be damned if I’ll give him the satisfaction.
Frank looks at me a few times, raises his eyebrows, suggesting I go. I pretend not to see him and stare at the TV.
After a few minutes, I hear rustling on the couch, then they both get up.
Mom leans over and gives me a kiss on the forehead, “Goodnight, honey.”
“Goodnight,” I say, hugging her, realizing that tomorrow I’ll probably wake up in a different body, so for me this is goodbye.
I don’t want to let her go.
But Frank says, “Come on,” and pulls her away, off to their bedroom where he’s going to defile her.
I stare at the television, not sure what to do. Maybe I’ll hit the Internet — Stacy’s laptop is on the dining room table. Then I hear them laughing in their room, and what sounds like Stacy moaning.
I can’t listen.
I get up, go to the front door, and close it softly behind me.
A cold breeze blows the trees in my yard, and I look up the block at the other houses, wondering if the assassin is in any of them. It’s dark, and the street is quiet. There are lights behind most of the windows, but the shades are all drawn. No sign of a killer lurking in shadows.
Of course, if the assassin is well trained, I probably wouldn’t see him or her. So just in case he or she is watching, I decide to wave my hands back and forth as a signal.
Come and get him. Just leave the mom and kid alone!
I wait for several minutes, but the street is dead quiet. It figures, the one time I want the assassin to kill Frank, he or she is nowhere to be found.
I head back inside and am about to lock the front door, but then decide to leave it unlocked. Maybe the assassin will sneak in in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping and on my way to tomorrow’s host.
Chapter Four
I wake up to a loud purring right next to my ear.
Then a light tap-tap-tap on my face.
I open my eyes. An orange tabby, Charlie, is staring down at me with big golden eyes, waiting for breakfast. I scratch him between the ears, and he presses against my hand.
Tired, I look past him and at the clock: 6:31 a.m.
My name is Ruby Simmons, a retired schoolteacher, an amateur painter, and owner of four cats, which might be two shy of being known as “the cat lady.” My body is old, and I can feel it, especially after being in such a young body yesterday. I sit up in bed and see three other cats waiting for breakfast. Two in a cat bed on the floor, one sitting on the windowsill. They begin meowing.
Another detail fills itself in. I live on Baker Street.
I’m back. But for the first time, I’m relieved. I want to know what happens to Frank, Tommy, and Stacy. But whether I can do anything to help them in this old body, I don’t know.
I pull myself out of bed, body creaking and aching as I step past the cats, all running up to me, competing to rub against my legs.
“I’ll feed you; gimme a second,” I say, brushing by them on my way to the bedroom window. I pull the sheer white curtains aside and peer out at the Miller house at the end of the block. Everything looks the same as I last saw it. Both cars in the driveway, no police tape on the doors. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed that the assassin didn’t strike.
Followed by the cats, I head to the bathroom, splash some water on my face, then look at my reflection. Ruby is a tall black woman in her sixties with a short haircut, hair mostly still dark. She looks a lot younger than her body feels to me. Prompted by a memory of her morning routine, I return to my nightstand and open the drawer for my morning meds.
I’m surprised to see a pistol sitting on the nightstand and flashback to Ruby receiving the gun from her husband Keith when he first got sick. While he hadn’t told her how bad the cancer was at the time, giving her a gun and the words, “I want you to be safe if I’m not around to protect you” said it all.
Fortunately, she’s not had occasion to use the gun — yet.
I take my meds then head to the kitchen so I can take care of the meowing, purring fuzzballs.
Once I put down their food, the cats completely forget me and get to the business of devouring their breakfast. One of them, a fat black-and-white female named Oreo, is particularly noisy, purring loud enough to sound like she has a broken motor.
I leave the cats to their food, get dressed, then head out the front door. Ruby takes a walk every morning and evening, so this gives me an excuse to walk by Frank’s house.
I push past the white picket gate at the end of my sidewalk, look to my left, and see Old Man Wilbur sitting on his porch swing, pretending to read the paper.
He sees me and raises his hand in a wave. “Good morning, Ruby!”
“Morning, Wilbur.” My best attempt at a smile is kind but does nothing to invite conversation. Ruby has endured too many chats with Wilbur, particularly since his wife passed away a year ago. Though she feels sorry for him, she doesn’t like him and is pretty sure he’s called code enforcement on her a few times. He calls for petty things, like not taking her trash can in on pickup day, or for letting her grass grow too tall when she’s not feeling up to mowing it herself. She thinks he keeps a notebook under his paper where he
writes down every perceived violation before calling them in to the city. Nothing worse than a gossiping busybody, in Ruby’s opinion.
It’s still a few minutes prior to Tommy’s usual departure time, so I turn right, up the street rather than heading down to the end of the cul-de-sac. I try to time my walk by their house as close to their leaving as possible, and maybe overhear something to indicate how they’re doing today.
As I walk up the street, Ruby’s memories fill me in on each of the neighbors. She’s lived here longer than nearly everyone other than Wilbur, so she knows the surrounding blocks and is friendly with most of her neighbors, even if her closest real friend, Dee, lives a half mile away. Wilbur is the only person she specifically tries to avoid.
Katherine, a single mom with twin three-year-olds, is putting her kids in the car, getting ready for daycare before heading to work.
“Hi, Kat,” I call out.
“Hey, Ruby. How’s it going?” she asks, straightening the car seat and strapping in one of the girls.
“Can’t complain. And no point if I could, because ain’t nobody listening,” I comment with a laugh — I’ve heard a lot of old people say this, so I figure I’ll try it with Ruby.
I walk up to her, peek in at the girls, and comment on how cute they are this morning.
“How are you?” I ask Kat.
“I’ll let you know after I get some Starbucks. The girls decided that today would be a great day to wake up at 4:30.”
“Oh, my,” I say, looking at them.
They giggle at me, clueless that waking their mom so early is not a good thing.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those kinds of days,” Kat says. “See ya later.”
“Have a good one.”
I continue on my walk then pick up my pace when I feel like it’s nearly time for Stacy and Tommy to leave.
I hear a slamming door and turn to my right, the house next to Frank’s, and see Craig Carson, a math teacher at Tommy’s school, storm out of his house looking pissed. He’s usually a jovial guy, especially when he’s hosting a block party with his next-door neighbor, Ruben Santiago. It’s surprising to see him so angry.