Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  She didn’t care. It was his money. “Thanks.”

  His fingers were rough, calloused to the touch, and a static spark jumped between them.

  “I don’t usually have to pay for them; but I wasn’t able to get to the store today.”

  “So you’re a thief too?”

  “When I want to be.” She knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry. I’ve never stolen from your store. Nor do I intend to.”

  You have nothing I need.

  “Oh, I know you won’t. You’re not stupid. But you still intend to run away. That’s illegal too, ya know.”

  “So. Once I turn 18, no one can do a damn thing.”

  She’d checked it out.

  “Where you gonna go?” he asked for the second time.

  She shrugged, relaxing into the seat a little. Her thoughts were drifting to her mother. And she needed another cigarette.

  “How are you going to support yourself?”

  “I can always get work.”

  She lit her last smoke and opened the new pack.

  “And end up a heroin or crack addicted whore whose smallest worry is her pimp killing her for not making enough?”

  “I’ve seen that movie. I’m not stupid enough to fall into that trap. I got money saved. Quite a bit, too. An’ the only drug I’ll ever do is pot.”

  “That’s illegal too,” Jerome said.

  “Made so by governmental old men who likely never tried it. I did not vote for them, so I will not obey their stupid laws. Besides, a buzz helps quiet my head.”

  “Whatta ya mean?”

  “I got a lot goin’ on up here,” she said, tapping her middle finger against her temple. “It never stops, not even when I’m asleep. The buzz makes it so I think only one or two things at a time. My mind becomes more organized. It’s easier to focus and think.”

  “Think about what?”

  Now he wanted to get inside her head. Should she show him a glimpse and scare him off?

  “Right now I’m thinkin’ ‘Why does this guy nine years older than I am give a shit?’ Why should you care where I go and what I do? You don’t know me.”

  He barely hesitated. “Because I don’t want to see you make big mistakes you’re going to regret. Someone has to show you that you’re alone only because you want to be.”

  He didn’t understand.

  “No. Not because I want to be. Because I am.”

  She took a big breath, ready to step out onto a limb and see what would happen.

  “Did you ever get the feeling that there’s gotta be something more to being here?—A purpose to your life that you can’t see; but you can feel it and taste it. And when you think about it with your whole mind, you can almost see it?”

  Her eyes darted out to the night and back to him.

  “I look out there. I can feel it and, whatever it is, it’s not here. I think about the possibilities, then go beyond to the unknowns. I can feel the power of my future. It calls to me. My heart starts pounding and I breathe faster and I can taste it…and I know it’s right there, right in front of me…”

  It was happening in that moment. Desperation to flee, to see truths. Just as fast, with the intake of a deep breath, it faded.

  With his genetically enhanced ears, Jerome could hear her heart pounding as she went into almost a trance-like state for those few seconds. Landra Ahr had been right. There was something special about this girl.

  “Then it’s gone and I’m left with this…” what word?… “Sense of urgency. And maybe anxiety that I’ll never figure it out.”

  She returned to the moment, looking into his good eye and silently pleading for him to comprehend. He did. More than he could tell her.

  “I know I’ve got to go find it, ‘cause it ain’t comin’ to me.”

  “When?” he asked again.

  “I’ll be gone by April first.”

  “Why April first?” he asked, not missing a beat.

  The waitress deposited a basket of deep fried cheese onto the table, giving Jerome a wink he either didn’t see or chose to ignore.

  “It’s their wedding anniversary,” Tyler grumbled, watching the steam rise from the broken stick of cheese in her hands.

  “April Fool’s Day?”

  Tyler remembered the ceremony almost verbatim, but what girl doesn’t?

  “Do you promise to love, honor and cherish, forsaking all others and giving yourself only to her, through sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, until death do you part. He said ‘I do’ and I thought ‘April Fool!’ at the top of my mental lungs. A few months later, she reminded him of their vows. That was when he said ‘April Fool’ to her face and punched her for the first time. I knew then that I had to get out. I was 13.”

  “Bastard.”

  “What the hell else can I do other than remove myself from the situation? Mom may want to kill herself; but I can’t stay to watch it. You going over to break his arms won’t help. The day he got out of the cast would be the day she died by his hand. It would all be her fault because she can’t do anything herself, ‘cause she’s so stupid. His words, not mine,” she finished with dry dreariness, unaffected by Jerome’s ferocious scowl.

  “He said that?”

  Tyler reached for another cheese stick, nodding.

  “Several times. She believes it. I don’t understand how. She’s the one who works to pull in $400 a week take home pay. He don’t do shit ‘cept take her money away. We could move out on the spot and pay for everything. We’d be fine. She can’t see it. So I ask again: What the hell else can I do?”

  “Call the police.”

  Tyler humphed. “I have. So have neighbors. If there’s no fight going on and no evidence of a fight, cops don’t do shit.” She remembered reading bits in advice columns. “They say to talk to a trusted teacher or clergyman. Well, I disliked all my teachers an’ ain’t been to church in three years except at school. None of my relatives live anywhere ‘round here.”

  “Where are they?” he asked, dunking a stick into the tepid sauce.

  “Most live in Louisiana. I was thinkin’ about goin’ to my Gramma’s but they’d only come get me there.”

  “Sounds like you got it all figured out.”

  If only that was true, she sighed to herself.

  “Most of it. When I get the rest, I’ll go. I’ll leave a note where Mom’ll find it a few days later.”

  “How you gonna get wherever you’re going? Plane, bus, hitchhike?”

  Now the tricky part. She had to watch what she said now and they both knew it.

  “Train,” she lied. “Cheap enough, fast enough. It’ll cost $100 or so to get to New York. The same for Miami. That’ll leave plenty to support myself until I get a job.”

  “How you gonna get a job? You gotta have a permit since you’re only 17.”

  Tyler grinned, wiping her fingers with the bright napkin. “I got it covered.”

  “With what? A fake I.D.?”

  Tyler’s lips broadened into a smile. She wasn’t going to tell him he was right and she was sitting on it right now.

  “I didn’t say that. I said I got it covered.”

  He sighed lightly, staring at her. She stared back.

  “Your Ma’ll worry about you, ya know.”

  Going for the guilt trip, and he could see she wasn’t going to fall for it.

  “I’ll worry about her. I gotta think of myself. Home is a dead issue as far as I’m concerned. Nothing can be done except for him to disappear. Permanently. I ain’t holdin’ my breath for that to happen. I’m better off without my Mom. Kills me to say it, but it’s true. I’m biding my time until I get everything together.”

  “So why ya tellin’ me? Do you want me to make you stay? A cry for help, so to speak?”

  “Anything else I can get you?” the waitress asked as she put their burgers and fries on the table.

  “No, thanks,” Jerome answered, looking like he was dying to question Tyler further. He waited until the
waitress was out of earshot. “Does your mother know where you are right now?”

  “She knows I went with Mark. She kinda lets me go where I want when I want since I got good grades. She knows I hate her husband.”

  “You know,” he began in a slow drawl, dipping three fries into a puddle of ketchup. “They say if you stay in one place the world will come to you.”

  “For those who are content to stay in one place.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Never really have been. Too much Gypsy blood in me. On any given night, I could be in one of five beds, not including my own.”

  “Will you stay home tonight if that’s where I take you?”

  She cocked her head to the side, buzz decreasing.

  “I’ll stay anywhere you take me for one night. But Mother’s husband should be asleep by the time we leave here.”

  She wouldn’t mind going home with him. Could be a fun night. He could get her back to the house before she intended to leave.

  “Is that why you didn’t want to go home? Because you thought he’d still be up?”

  Tyler nodded, swallowing a bite of burger. “I knew he was. I’da been walkin’ into a battle. I don’t wanna fight anymore tonight.”

  “Why don’t you come to my place Sunday and talk with my Sifu?”

  “What’s a Sifu?”

  “A Kung Fu Master. Chen has taught me for half my life, starting when I was 13. He has a way of understanding even what you don’t say. Will you come?”

  “Maybe. I have plans for Sunday.”

  “Like what? That when you’re gonna go?” he asked.

  I’ll already be gone, she thought. She said, “No. I’m gettin’ together with some friends most of the day.”

  “Tell me something honestly,” Jerome began. “How often does he hit your mom?”

  “I told you. On any given night, I could be in one of five beds, including my own. That should tell you something.”

  Unless you’re stupid. She wasn’t going to make the mistake of saying that again.

  “If I walked into your house on any given day, your mother would have a new set of bruises?”

  “More than likely. Could we drop that subject for good, please? I can’t walk into the house if I’m still upset,” she said quietly, eyes fixed to her plate.

  He reached over the table, taking her hand. The unexpected action startled her as much as the intense jolt of static. She did not withdraw from him.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m concerned, is all. Part of me wants to take care of business,” he said in the gentlest tone he’d yet used when speaking to her. He was dropping his own exterior.

  “It’s not your business to take care of,” she replied. “It’s nobody’s business but mine and my mother’s.”

  “But you’re leaving, remember?”

  Sooner than you think, she thought, taking her hand from his to light a cigarette.

  “Would you like dessert now?”

  Tyler glanced up, seeing the waitress. “Sure.”

  She saw the woman wink at Jerome before leaving the table.

  “Does she know you or something?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  Tyler shrugged, not certain herself. “She acts like she knows you’re a big tipper or something.”

  His brow creased. “She acts like any other waitress.”

  “No-o, she acts like you’re gonna leave her a twenty dollar bill and she knows it.”

  He grinned. He was hard for her to read. This one expression could have been one of half a dozen emotions or thoughts.

  “Maybe I will just to prove you right and make her night.”

  “Or maybe you bribed her into seating us back here. This section was obviously closed, but she’s serving us here.”

  He gave a genuine smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and held his hands up in classic “surrender” fashion.

  “Guilty. It’s hard to talk on private matters when people are in hearing distance. I’d rather listen to you than the people seated behind me.”

  At least he didn’t try to deny it.

  “Me, too, but I hate being manipulated, especially when it’s so transparent.”

  “I do what I gotta do, same as you.”

  “Question: Do you have, like, a Christmas eye for the holidays?” she asked blatantly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You obviously have a glass eye. I noticed that when you were standing behind the counter. Do you have, like, a green and red replacement for Christmas? A bunny for Easter? Flag for Independence day?”

  “Uh…no, never thought to get one. Are you always so blunt?”

  “My apologies if I offended you. I am merely curious. Never knew anyone with a glass eye before. How did you lose it?”

  By the long pause, she knew it was an uncomfortable subject for him.

  “Got into a fight when I was fifteen,” he said as if it didn’t matter at all.

  Somehow, Tyler knew better. “Pretty vicious fight. How’s the other guy look?”

  “Don’t know. Haven’t seen him since that night.”

  “Ah. Is he dead?” she asked as the waitress deposited hot fudge cake and a fresh glass of soda pop onto the table.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Yet?” she pursued with a devious grin.

  He returned the grin but said nothing more.

  “Why don’t you get an open round trip ticket? That way you’ll have the means to come back.”

  “That is a self-defeating act. By getting a two-way ticket, I am agreeing that I might fail. That plants a seed of doubt that will make the round trip a self-fulfilling prophecy. I refuse to set myself up for failure. I will succeed.”

  “You have an argument for everything, don’t you?” he accused with a chuckle.

  She shook her head, her gaze sliding out to the snow clouds.

  “My fate lies out there. What I’m looking for is out there. I feel it now more than ever. I gotta go get it before I turn into my mother,” she finished, almost desperate for the night to be over so she could leave.

  “You could never do that.”

  Her eyes went back to him, and that cock-sure grin.

  “Couldn’t I? I’m already oppressed by an uncaring, hypocritical society that only pays attention when I’m a bad little girl. No one but mother an’ I cared that I made good grades. No one cares that I smoke, even though it’s illegal. You just bought me a pack—for which I thank you very much. No one cares if I run the streets all night—until I do something illegal. No one cares that I carry a knife in my boot every single day. In short, no one cares. So why should anyone…Let me rephrase that,” she halted with an upraised index finger.

  “As far as I’m concerned, I will do what I want, when I want and fuck everyone else. I am more mature and intelligent at seventeen and three quarters than most adults I know are at thirty. It’s merely my linear age that makes people think I don’t know what’s best for me and that I don’t know what I want. Well, what’s best for me is to get the fuck out of a terribly dysfunctional home. Any way I can. What I want is to be left alone to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing in this shitty, fucked up world. Now you tell me: Who has the right to tell me what to do with my life? Who has the right to tell me that what I want is wrong? What difference is there going to be in my maturity between this minute and my birthday in June?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, soul unreadable. “You’re right. No one does. And probably none. Three months isn’t enough to make a difference. Unless it’s a remarkable three months.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ready to go home?”

  She took one last drag off her cigarette and stubbed it out. “Yeah.”

  She was unsettled from the conversation, but not upset. She was certain Mother’s husband was asleep.

  Jerome tossed two twenties onto the table as the waitress hurried over. “Keep the change, Betty. Thanks.”

&
nbsp; “Thank you!”

  Tyler held back a chuckle, going on ahead to the exit.

  “Lemme get the door for you,” Jerome said as they reached his car.

  The snow clouds were breaking up. The air was cold and still, smelling of the fresh snow and crushed salt.

  “Which one is yours?” he asked, having remembered which way to turn on Raymer Street.

  “Number 527, on the left across from the school.”

  It was a bold-faced lie, but how was he to know? Dinner, conversation, baring her soul, and a ride home didn’t make him a friend. She wasn’t about to tell a relative stranger where she lived. She only hoped her friend Marge was home. If not, she’d go around back and wait for him to leave.

  The car slowed and he pulled over to the curb opposite the house. He flipped on the internal light and turned to her.

  “You sure I can’t come in? I’d really love to have a talk with your stepfather.”

  She was uneasy under his steady gaze and her return grin wavered with self-consciousness.

  “I’m sure you would. I’d need a new place to live. Since that would be your doing, would you like to take me in?” She knew he wouldn’t, but damn if he wasn’t considering the notion.

  “That would not be a good idea,” he replied slowly. He took her hand and pressed a crisp business card into her palm. “If you ever need a ride or a shoulder, call me.”

  “You want some gas money? I can go in and get a fiver.”

  He smiled and Tyler thought him a very handsome man.

  “What for? I’m a millionaire, remember?”

  She smiled back, glad he’d not taken that offer. She couldn’t be sure Marge would have any money.

  “Well, thanks for the ride.”

  On impulse, she leaned in and gave him a brief but solid kiss on the lips that he fully returned. He was a good kisser. She grabbed the door opener and got out before he could do anything.

  “See you ‘round.”

  She hurried across the street and up the walk to knock on the door. It opened after her second. He pulled away to go around the block, coming right back to park a little farther back to watch.

  “According to the public school database, her home is the next block,” came Landra Ahr’s voice over the comm system.

  “Yeah, I know.”