Spoils

by Tammar Stein

  Hoping that my mom is out at the grocery store, I end up boiling rice, mixing jasmine, white and basmati because there isn’t enough of any one for a full serving. After a quick sniff and a shrug, I dump the salsa in with the rice. What cooks up won’t ever be served at any self-respecting restaurant, but I’m pleased enough with it. It’s filling and comforting in the way that warm mush can be. I take it outside, even though it’s prime time for the mosquitoes to be out, and sit on the back patio watching the water.

  Everything will be different soon.

  I push my half-empty bowl aside and hug my knees. The seat cushions are still wet from the afternoon shower and the damp seeps into my shorts.

  What will my parents say when I tell them the money’s gone? I don’t know what we’ll do, where we’ll go. But with every second that ticks by, we’re traveling closer to a cataclysmic event for our family. I wish it were already over and done with, that I was already on the other side, eighteen years old and living with the fallout. Will they hate me?

  I force myself to leave my spot on the patio and to start solving one of the smaller problems in my life. My wheels. I ride my bike to high school, to SHCC, to practically everywhere that’s too far to walk.

  Someone in the family might have bought a bike at some point. My mom could have in a fit of wishful exercise thinking. Or Eddie might have if he had visions of triathlons dancing in his head. It’s possible. He has enough footballs and basketballs slowly deflating and gathering dust that it’s just as likely there’s a bike slowly rusting into oblivion in the frightful nightmare of our garage. There’s an easy way to find out.

  The punishing heat in the dim garage immediately has me sweating. When we first moved in, my dad talked about installing an AC unit for the three-car garage, but that project fell by the wayside. Currently there’s barely enough room for my mom’s car to park on the far left of the garage. Which isn’t actually a problem since my dad sold his car five months ago. Eddie’s lease was repossessed after he missed four payments.

  I hate going in the garage. There’s thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff in here, but there’s a lot of crap too, all jumbled together. Even the items that are still good are grimy with cobwebs and roach scat. The garage is the sad and shameful graveyard where the fun times we thought we’d have came to rot and die.

  But bikes are big. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out if there’s one in here.

  I poke my way past gallons of half-used paint; boxes bursting with holiday decorations, wrapping paper and school projects; an old rusted push mower, three tires, two TVs. There’s our dining-room set from the old house and two dressers that used to be in Natasha’s room before she redid it. It reeks in here too, which makes me wonder if some citrus rats have moved in. There could be a whole family nesting somewhere in the garage and who would know? My dad’s workshop is in a corner of the garage. He jerry-rigged a small AC unit to keep him from being flambéed during the summer. His corner holds all sorts of odds and ends and the beginnings of several types of small engines, none of them completed or functioning.

  Bike, I remind myself. But after half an hour, dripping with sweat and covered in crud, I haven’t found one.

  Eddie’s probably awake by now. It’s time to stop this ridiculous search and ask him if he ever bought a bike.

  I hear the TV before I even reach his room.

  “You decent?” I call out before opening the door.

  ESPN is on and Eddie is probably still in bed. I hesitate for a moment. I reeeeally don’t want to walk in on my brother if he’s not dressed. If he didn’t hear me because of the TV, there’s no guessing what state he’s in. As a safety precaution, I shut my eyes.

  “Eddie?” I call out loudly from the doorway. “Is it safe?”

  “Stop shouting, you idiot,” he says. “Come in.” Then his voice drops to a growly rumble. “If you dare.”

  I crack open my eyelids. He’s in bed wearing a T-shirt. The rest of him is covered by his bedspread. Good enough. The blinds are drawn across his window to facilitate TV watching, which is ironic because Eddie’s room has one of the best views in the house.

  “Somebody stole my bike,” I announce, perching on the edge of his bed. It smells in here too, all musty and sweaty. He hasn’t changed his sheets in a long time. There’s no maid anymore and my mom won’t enter his room. Not that my mom should be doing Eddie’s laundry. By the time each of us turned fifteen, my mom declared the statute of Mom-doing-your-laundry-for-you expired. At twenty-seven, Eddie seems to be challenging that. Grease-stained fast-food bags are crumpled on the floor near the bed like used tissues.

  “Your room is disgusting,” I say. “You need to clean it up.”

  “You volunteering? Or doesn’t it count unless I have gills?”

  “It doesn’t count when you have two hands of your own that can pick up a freakin’ broom.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Mom,” he says. Then he belches and turns the volume up on the TV. “Well, if that’s everything, sorry about your bike.…”

  “No, Eddie.” I don’t mean to fight with him. In fact, I can’t, since he won’t ever fight back. “I need a bike. I was wondering if you had an old one somewhere I could borrow.”

  He blinks slowly and then turns away from the TV to face me.

  “You’re asking if you can borrow my bike?” he asks incredulously.

  “Yeah.” I shrug uncomfortably under his stare. “Why is that so crazy?”

  “Leni,” he says. “You realize that I haven’t left this house in over a year?”

  “Um, I…” To my mortification, I find I didn’t realize it. My cheeks heat up in shame. Now that he’s said it, I suddenly see it’s true. He might as well have been under house arrest. I try to cover for this gross inattentiveness. “I didn’t know if you’d bought one a while back and weren’t using it.…” How could I have missed it? He’s my brother and we live in the same house but I was so grossed out by his slovenly gluttony and the constant TV that I really hadn’t seen past that to the state he’d sunk to.

  I look down, unable to meet his eyes.

  “No,” he says quietly. “I don’t have a bike you can borrow. Sorry.”

  “Eddie,” I say, reaching out for his hand. It’s hot and fleshy. I squeeze it, sighing deeply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

  “Don’t worry, kid,” he says, surprisingly kind. “I didn’t advertise. Sometimes I don’t even think Mom and Dad have figured it out. Seriously, though, why do you need to borrow a bike? You’re getting a truckload of money on Friday. Buy your own freakin’ bike. By the time the credit-card bill comes, you can buy the whole damn store.”

  I hesitate, but then decide I might as well get a preview of what’s coming my way.

  “I’m not keeping the money,” I say softly, whispering the secret of the century. You might think with the TV blaring playbacks, and with his perpetual groggy stare, that Eddie might have missed my meaning, but his bloodshot eyes pop wide open and he sits up in bed.

  “What. The. Hell?” There’s a spark there of the Eddie I know, the mischievous trickster who loves nothing more than a good joke. “Are you serious?”

  “Serious as an oil spill.”

  He flops back in bed dramatically, making me bounce up and down, a dingy in the wake of a carrier.

  “I know it’s going to make life harder on you.” I sweep my arms to indicate the room, the house. “It’s going to be rough for all of us.”

  “You taking my advice?” he says, arms outflung, staring at the ceiling, not seeing it. “You gonna party in Bali?”

  I shake my head, even though he’s not looking at me. “No, that’s not what I’m doing.”

  He struggles to sit up again and stares at me with dull-eyed disappointment.

  “Don’t tell me, you’re going to give all your money away to some tree-hugging group that claims it can save the world?” he says, shaking his head. “You’re something else, Leni.”

  “No. Not t
hat either. Not that I wasn’t tempted. But I’m doing something a bit different. I’m fixing something that broke. And sometimes a lot of money can do things nothing else can.”

  “Like what?” He tilts his head in question. Like a miracle, I think. He’s not yelling. He’s not calling me names or telling me what a horrible person I am to do this to the family. That’s actually a lot better than I expected. He’s shocked, true, but in a weird way, he’s intrigued. Which is good, I can work with intrigued.

  “It can buy an innocent person a second chance,” I tell him.

  He’s quiet for a moment.

  “You really think your money is going to do that?”

  “It’s a gamble,” I say, with more honesty than I planned on. “It could be a huge mistake. But I saw how Mom and Dad spent their money, and how you did and Natasha did, and no offense, but none of that turned out to be such a great thing either.”

  “Oh, you’re wrong,” he says. “It was great while it lasted. It was abso-freaking-lutely great.”

  “While it lasted,” I finish for him. “I guess I’m shooting for abso-freaking-lutely great even after it’s all gone.”

  “Good luck with that.” Then he laughs with a sort of rusty guffaw. “Not that it wouldn’t be something to see.”

  “Yeah.” I smile, but I’m so sad on the inside. He is in there amid the ruins, my funny, loyal brother. “That would be great, wouldn’t it?”

  To my surprise, he smiles. “Leni, I have to hand it to you, I didn’t think you’d have the balls to say no to Mom and Dad,” he says. “Good for you, kid.” In a weird way, having his approval makes me feel like the burden isn’t as heavy as I thought.

  “I almost didn’t,” I admit. “It makes me sick to let them down. But honestly, I don’t think the money was going to fix that many of our problems anyway. We might as well deal with all this now instead of later, you know?”

  “I don’t know, dealing with crap is usually better later instead of sooner in my book.”

  I give the trashed room a pointed look. “Yeah, I noticed.”

  He doesn’t bother replying to that. Sitting in the middle of his rumpled, lived-in, king-size bed, he looks like nothing more than a giant overgrown slug. He even has a cowlick sticking up in the back like an antenna.

  “Who is it?” he asks.

  We both know what he’s asking. I debate not telling him. I wonder if this should be a secret, anonymous, like Gavin’s accuser at Tech. But then I think, Screw it, I’m not using the devil’s tactics.

  The phone rings somewhere in the house; we both ignore it.

  “It’s Gavin Armand.”

  The words drop like a bomb in the room, blowing away the excitement, the good feeling. His face freezes at the name and I shiver at the sudden change in Eddie’s mood. Eddie was here for the arrest and trial. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to my older brother—I was rather self-involved with high school drama. I do remember he was on the periphery, leaning on the doorjamb in the kitchen, listening in on the latest development, the most recent setback. The sudden anger on his face at Gavin’s name tells me that I’ve been clueless about my brother in a lot of ways.

  “So you’re saying he didn’t really hack into the DMV to sell people’s Socials?”

  “He did,” I say. “But he got kicked out of Tech for nothing, that’s the part that wasn’t fair.” When I say it like that, it doesn’t actually sound very compelling. “What I mean,” I quickly say, “is that someone robbed him of his second chance. And with his background, no one will ever give him another one. You should have seen it when we bumped into his old professor. He was so ugly to him. That’s what it’s going to be like for the rest of his life, everyone judging him, thinking he’s beneath them. Gavin’s really smart. He can literally make the world a better place.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Eddie says. “That creep was convicted. Of defrauding. The government. Remember? Why the hell would you want anything to do with him?” It’s the first time Eddie’s been angry at me in years and I shrink back from him. “Just because some hot guy asks you to spend a million dollars on him, you do it?” He shakes his head with disgust. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Gavin didn’t ask for it,” I say, stung and defensive. “He doesn’t even know I’m doing anything for him.” I tell myself Eddie’s anger comes because he loves me and doesn’t want me to get scammed, but there’s something in his tone, some deep contempt that feels very personal and hurtful. “And I don’t have a crush on him. What is with you and Dad? We’re not dating.”

  “You are a fool,” Eddie says, his lip curled. “You are a pathetic little fool. You and Natasha.” His eyes narrow, disdain dripping from his words. “What is wrong with you two? You don’t know how to let a guy go, do you?”

  It’s a below-the-belt blow and even Eddie looks a little sick after he says it. I can barely hold back the words that want to tumble out, to the point that I break out in a light sweat, a combination of anger and mortification. It won’t help to stoop to his level, to fling a few choice insults in his direction about all the clever choices he’s made in his life.

  “Anyway,” I say, rising from his bed, wiping my damp hands on my shorts. “That’s why I need to find a bike to borrow. I’ll be as broke on Friday as I am today. Actually, more broke because I won’t have a trust fund.”

  “Don’t do it, Leni,” my brother says. His face is puffy and gray. He has dark bags under his eyes and he suddenly looks exhausted. “You’re making a huge mistake. You’re going to regret it.”

  My stomach twists at the cold pronouncement. Am I? Is this a huge mistake?

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” I say. “I think you wasted your money too, not that you ever asked me. I love you, but I’m not asking you for permission. I’m just telling you where the money is going.” The bowl of warm mush I ate an hour ago slowly turns on me, no longer comforting. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else. Okay?”

  He hesitates and for an awful moment I think he’s going to say, No, I’m not keeping this a secret. But in the end, he nods, looking sick and miserable, and I leave his room feeling as bad as he looks. Turning to shut the door behind me, I catch a glimpse of him as he grabs a mug from his nightstand and hurls it viciously against the wall. The mug isn’t empty. It breaks with a loud crack and liquid splatters on the floor.

  I close the door behind me with a soft click.

  It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, I repeat to myself, a litany, a mantra. It doesn’t matter what Eddie thinks. He doesn’t understand. Who is he to cast stones, sitting in his disgusting room? He doesn’t know the full story.

  Even though it’s all true, I can’t ignore the fact that his bad reaction means there’s going to be a hell of an explosion when my parents find out. And he wasn’t even upset that I wasn’t giving them the money—he only flipped when he found out who it was for. Dear God—I rub my temple, swallowing back the panic—please let this be the right thing.

  I wait a bit in the dim hall, my ears straining, all my senses reaching out, searching for anything, a hint, a feeling, something that will tell me God is listening, that Michael is with me like he promised, that I’m doing the right thing. My heartbeat and its echoing thrum of blood whooshes through my veins. I isolate the headache to a pulsing pain behind my right eye, a favorite spot for stress headaches. On one of the websites I stumbled across, the archangel Michael, God’s right hand, was described as the intercessor, our heavenly advocate, who pleads the case for (stupid, wicked, dense) mankind before our creator.

  Maybe that’s where he is now, trying to buy me more time before my personal judgment day. Breathing quietly calms me, my heartbeat slows down, my nerves steady a bit. But that’s about it. There’s no one in this house except me and my messed-up family.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sometime around midnight, Natasha slides into bed with me. I wake up from a deep sleep with a start to find her lying next
to me, reeking of smoke, beer and sweat.

  “Natasha.” My heart pounds with the sudden shock of finding her in bed with me. “Are you okay?”

  Natasha lies flat on her back, staring at the canopy, only a pale blob in the darkness. I push back my sleep-tousled hair, thinking she’s going to speak. But she stays silent, looking and acting like a corpse. I guess that’s her answer.

  “I was at the shop today,” I say, though I know it’ll be useless. “John Parker really shouldn’t be your assistant manager. He shouldn’t even work at the shop. Something’s not right about him.”

  “The devil always wins,” Natasha whispers. Her breath is rank and her words have a sibilant hiss. “You think he’s not watching. But he is. You think you’re smarter. But you’re not.”

  I shiver, though the night is warm and the AC hasn’t kicked in. The ceiling fan turns in slow, creaky circles, barely churning any breeze. My skin is damp and sticky with sweat, my hair clinging to my face. I push the strands away and turn to look at her.

  “What does that have to do with John Parker?” I try for a reasonable tone, although she’s freaking me out. I resist the urge to open my closet, to look under the bed. That’s not where the monster is hiding. “You hired him,” I remind her, stubbornly sticking to this less freaky topic. “So demote him. Or better yet, fire him.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Are we still talking about John Parker?”

  “Leni…” Natasha sits up suddenly and cups my face between her clammy, skeletal hands. I instinctively jerk away, feeling trapped. Tears well in her bloodshot eyes and she curls her hands into fists and hugs them to her chest. “I know I seem awful to you,” she says. “And if you can’t forgive me, then no one can.”