by P. E. Ryan
“I hope you’re kidding. The last thing you need to do right now is juggle any more karma knives. Have you talked to Adam, by the way?”
“No. I wasn’t planning to. I think I’m more or less an ass in his eyes now.”
“Not an ass. A thief. I talked to him.”
“You called him? And he said I was a thief? This is worse than standing around in those stupid costumes, worse than the guilt, worse even than having my mom so mad at me—”
“Would you calm down, Spasmatic? In the first place, he called me. In the second place, thief was my word, not his.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me clarify: he doesn’t think you’re an ass, or a horrible person. He thinks you stole. Which you did. But I worked my magic and did my best to convince him that that wasn’t the regular you. I tried to convince him that Uncle Cesspool practically forced you to do it.”
“That’s not really true.”
“I know. Adam didn’t believe it, either. But I made a good case. And he knows it’s not his place to bring down the gavel. He just isn’t sure he wants to get more…involved with you.”
“He said that?”
“In so many words.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I gave you a C minus for caving under the influence of a bad uncle, and an A plus for being a friend who is mortified that he could have done such a thing, and who wants to make it up to everyone. How’s that?”
“Thanks. I guess.”
“You should call him.”
“I can’t do that. I’d be wondering what expression he had on his face while I fumbled for what to say. It would be horrible.”
“So go over to his house. Talk to him live and in person.”
“No way.”
“Think about it, at least. You’ve got nothing to lose, right? I mean, the karma knives are already spinning circles over your head as it is.”
“You have a really funny way of consoling people. Speaking of karma knives: What’s the latest with your brother and Stacy? Are your parents still pushing for the you know what?”
“No. That’s totally off the discussion table. I mean, Stacy never would have done it, anyway, but then she got her sonogram, and that itty-bitty picture changed everything. The whole pack of them is gung ho now, full speed ahead.”
“Because it was so cute?”
She shook her head. “Twins. Like that makes any difference.”
He made tuna casserole that night (the ingredients, surprisingly enough, were already in the cabinets, and the recipe looked easy to follow). He served the meal, cleared the plates, and washed the dishes. His mom stayed at the table and watched him work. He was putting plastic wrap around the leftovers when she said, “I appreciate the meal. And all the housecleaning.”
He nodded as he held the casserole dish with both hands and opened the refrigerator with his foot.
“But you’re still in big trouble.”
“I know,” he said.
“And we still have a lot to talk about.”
“I know,” he said again, “but can you give me just a second? I’ll be right back.”
“Sure.”
He closed the fridge and walked to his room.
When he came back into the kitchen, he set the stack of money on the table in front of her.
She sprang out of her chair as if he’d presented her with a scorpion. “Oh my god,” she said, staring at the bills. “Where did this…did Mike come back here?”
“No, I think he’s gone for good, Mom. But he didn’t take that, like I thought he did. He left it in the ship model he gave me.”
She sat back down, one hand covering her mouth. With her other hand, she flipped through the bills. “It’s stolen property. I mean, it may as well be stolen. I still cannot believe you took part in this.”
“Don’t I even get any points for not just keeping my mouth shut when I discovered it?”
“No.” She shook her head, staring at the money. “People don’t get rewarded for not doing the wrong thing. People get rewarded for doing the right thing. Although I’m glad you didn’t keep your mouth shut. It gives me hope that you might still have a head on your shoulders.”
Might.
“Lord,” she said. Her shoulders sank back against the chair. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We could add it to my college fund. I won’t touch it, I promise.”
“We can’t put this money into your college fund! We can’t keep it, Garth. Can’t you see that? It doesn’t belong to us.”
“Well, we can’t return it to the people it came from, either.”
“No, you and your uncle made that pretty much impossible, didn’t you?”
He sat down across from her. After a moment, he said, “We could give it to the police.”
“I was just thinking that. But it’s not an option.”
“Why?”
“Because what you and Mike did was highly illegal, and the police would want an explanation for where this all came from. If I tell them about Mike, or any of the places where you two pulled your stunts, they could go around asking questions and that could put them on a trail that leads right back to you. We’re talking about, what, hundreds of eyewitnesses?”
“I was in costumes for some of it,” he said. “People probably didn’t get such a good look at me.”
“I wish you were in one now,” she snapped. “I wish you were in the Garth costume you used to wear before that con man came to town. I miss the Garth costume, I really do.”
“You know what?” he said, suddenly angry. “That’s just what it was, Mom: a costume. Because every day I was pretending to be somebody the world would have an easier time accepting.”
“That was for your own good.”
“It was for your own good! So you could worry less! It made me miserable, and you didn’t care—”
Her eyes had gone slightly damp yet again. He didn’t want to make her cry: he didn’t need one more thing to feel guilty about.
“Never mind,” he said, pushing up from the table. “Give the money away. Burn it. I don’t care. But just so you know, I’m done with the costumes—all of them, including the one you want me to wear.”
He left the kitchen, stormed off down the hall, and slammed his bedroom door, expecting her to follow.
To his surprise, she didn’t.
The next day, he retreated to his room as soon as she got home from work and stayed there with his door closed. After a while, he heard voices—the television, he thought. Good for her; she could watch TV because she wasn’t grounded for the next twenty-five years. Then he realized there was only voice, and it was hers. She was on the telephone. Calling Grandma Rudd, maybe, to complain about what had happened with Mike. He eased his door open to eavesdrop, but she’d fallen nearly silent by then and was only humming yes and no; whoever was on the other end of the line was doing most of the talking.
Just before sundown, she knocked on his door.
“It’s open,” he said. He was sitting at his desk, assembling the hull of the Flying Dutchman.
She stuck her head in. “Leftovers for dinner, all right?”
“Stomachache.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a bad liar?”
“No. They tell me I’m quite good at it, in fact. It must be because I’ve had so much practice.” He didn’t look at her as he said this. He stared at the hunk of plastic in his hands.
She said, “I am making an effort here, you know.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. You just don’t know it yet. So don’t be too mean, or you’re going to feel really terrible about it later, okay?”
He looked over. She was staring at him intently, waiting for him to respond.
“Okay,” he said.
She closed the door.
The next morning, there wasn’t a note taped to the milk jug. There was a letter—in a proper envelope, bearing his first name in her handwriting—propped between the salt and pepper s
hakers on the kitchen table.
He let Hutch out, poured himself a large bowl of cereal, and sat down. For the length of time it took him to eat, he just stared at the envelope without opening it. What was the worst thing it could say? That she could never forgive him for what he’d done? That she was turning him in to the police in order to teach him a lesson? That she was certifiably insane with worry? Just open the damn letter.
He did.
Dear Garth,
First off, I hate being mad at you. Second, Mike was very, very wrong when he came up with the idea for what you two did. And while I firmly believe in forgiveness, it’s going to take me a long time to be able to forgive him. But I want you to forgive him, and I want you to learn from what happened.
Please know: I’ll always worry about you getting hurt. To my mind, I’d be a bad mom if I didn’t. But I don’t want this “wall” you mentioned to stand between us any longer. Hard as it is for me to admit, Mike was right about how you should be able to be true to yourself, and to other people. And I can’t stand the thought of being excluded from a major part of your life. I’ve been thinking about our first conversation about your being gay, and I’ve been remembering what I was like at your age. No one could have told me—much less convinced me—to behave differently from how I felt. And it isn’t realistic for me to ask that of you now.
He reread this last sentence twice and thought, Amazing. She finally saw where he was coming from; she’d just had to reach that point on her own.
I want you to be who you are around me, and around other people you trust. That doesn’t mean everyone under the sun, but your friends and anyone you might be interested in dating. I also want you to have the support network a person your age needs. By that I mean not just people who will listen to you, but people who can offer guidance and real information.
Last night, I called ROSMY. I’ve made an appointment for the two of us to meet with a counselor this evening, if you want to go. So I’m trying, Garth. And I need you to be patient with me, okay? Let’s take it one step at a time. The appointment is for 7:30 p.m. I know you don’t have any other plans, since you aren’t forty yet and are still grounded (ha-ha). We can eat a quick dinner together and then go.
Oh—and I’ve decided what to do with the you-know-what. Since it was given in good faith for charity, I’m giving it away. So if these people tonight seem to be worth their weight in salt, they’ll be getting an anonymous donation in the near future.
Don’t forget: No television. No fun. And no leaving the apartment unless it’s to walk the dog.
Love you with all my heart,
Mom
He read it three times. He refolded it and put it back in the envelope. Then he took it out and read it again. She was trying. She needed him to be patient. Something Adam had said came drifting back into his head.
There really aren’t any one-way streets.
He let Hutch back in and went to his room, and for a while he just sat in front the Flying Dutchman and stared at the complex network of unassembled pieces. Where was Mike right now? How would he react if he learned that Garth’s mom was finally starting to come to terms with who Garth was? How would he react to what she intended to do with all the money they’d raised? And would Lisa be surprised? He thought about picking up the phone and calling her, updating her, asking her advice on how to handle his end of the counseling session…
And then, suddenly, calling her was the last thing he wanted to do. No: it was in competition for last place, along with speculating on Mike, on his mom, on what might or might not transpire that evening. His mind had been so crowded lately, but it was tilting now like a listing ship, every thought and image sliding into the water save for one that clutched onto the deck as the ship righted itself.
And what was that one thought? That one image?
Garth Rudd, alone, gripping the tiller and working the line for the sail. Steering into waters that were calm, or not calm.
He walked across the hall to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower. When the water was warm enough, he stood beneath its spray with his eyes closed and tried to hold on to that solitary image.
Naked, he stood against the doorjamb of his room and placed his finger level with the top of his head, then checked it against the mark. It was slightly higher than the mark he’d made just days ago. Was that possible? He got a pen from his desk drawer. Stood against the doorjamb again. Tried not to extend his spine, but tried not to slouch, either. As conservatively as possible, he made a new mark on the painted wood, then turned and examined it. An eighth, maybe even just a sixteenth of an inch higher than the previous mark. But it was something.
He’d take what he could get.
We take what comes, his mom would say, and we make the most of what we have.
He dug out the yellow T-shirt with the grinning dragon, and pulled it on. Bicycling to Adam’s house would be a blatant violation of his punishment. He stepped into the kitchen, took Hutch’s leash from the nail beside the back door, and turned around to find the dog already at his feet, gazing up at him with expectant, sticky eyes.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re walking.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Tara Weikum and Erica Sussman for their enthusiastic editorial guidance, and to Lisa Bankoff for being the best agent an author could ever hope to have.
And, as always, thank you to Fred Blair for his encouragement, his support, his presence.
About the Author
P. E. RYAN also writes under the name of Patrick Ryan and is the author of the teen novel SAINTS OF AUGUSTINE and the adult novel SEND ME. He lives in New York City.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY P. E. RYAN
Saints of Augustine
Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Solus Photography/Veer
Jacket design by Alison Klapthor
Copyright
IN MIKE WE TRUST. Copyright © 2009 by P. E. Ryan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061975363
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
ter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share