by Dani Collins
His mouth pinched with sudden emotion. He lowered his gaze, gently accepting the book. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”
“I know,” she said and wanted to tell him she would miss him and his stubborn determination to master language arts. “You’ve been an excellent pupil,” she said instead. “It’s been an honor to teach you.”
“Will you come see us?” Ayjia asked as L.C. and Zack finished packing the truck.
L.C. exchanged a look with Mercedes, wondering how she wanted him to answer that one. She didn’t say anything, so he went with honesty. “I’ll try, but Zack’s Uncle Sterling has a job for me, and I need to build a house for myself from scratch.”
“That means he has to start with plain land and buy the wood from the lumberyard, sweetie,” Mercedes said with a ruffle of the girl’s hair. “Instead of fixing a house that’s already built like this one was.”
“Oh. Can we come see you there?”
“Uh...” The request surprised him and again he checked with Mercedes, seeing a slightly panicked widening in her eyes. “If you’re still living with your Auntie M after school finishes,” he said carefully. “And if Auntie M is allowed to leave her work for a while. I’d love it if you came to visit me. Meanwhile, you can call me. Anytime. Face call, even.”
“But cell phones are ‘spensive,” she said, her eyes wide.
How would she know that, he thought cynically, unless Porsha had used the phrase a thousand times to cut short Ayjia’s calls.
“I don’t mind,” L.C. said. “I’m going to soak Zack’s Uncle Sterling when it comes to consulting fees.”
“With a hose?” Ayjia asked, brows quirking.
“It’s just an expression,” L.C. said, grinning.
She hugged him, her spindly little arms sweaty and her narrow body frighteningly fragile in his arms as he hugged her back. He held her a long time, not wanting to let go.
But Zack brought Dayton over, dangling from his forearm. Dayton dropped his feet to the ground with a slap and said, “Are you going to come back with Zack when he school starts again?”
“I don’t think so, sport.” L.C. cleared his throat and gently released Ayjia. “And Zack’s free ride is over. He’ll have to pay his own rent somewhere here in town.”
“But if you guys are still here, I will definitely come see you,” Zack promised, clicking his tongue and shooting Dayton with his finger and thumb. “I’ll babysit for home-cooked meals,” he told Mercedes.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Tension pulled at her cheekbones and around her eyes.
“Meanwhile, you keep playing ball like a pro,” L.C. told Dayton. “If you play again this Saturday, like you did last Saturday, I’m gonna see you on T.V. one day.” Kneeling, he held out a hand to shake, since Dayton wasn’t one for physical contact unless it involved a wrestling component.
Dayton surprised him by darting in for a quick hug, then stepped away to squint one eye closed. “Do I have to keep going to Mrs. Garvey’s if you don’t?”
“Hey, you heard her. She said I should do homework and email it to her. I’m not off the hook and neither are you.”
“She is so damn strict, isn’t she?” Dayton said, folding his arms and hitching his weight onto his hip, making Zack choke and Mercedes screech, “‘scuse me?” in a voice thinned by outrage.
Mock outrage. She was laughing under there, but wasn’t about to show it.
“My fault,” L.C. said, scratching his neck. “That one was supposed to stay between you and me. Remember? What goes on the Ring Road stays on the Ring Road.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, ducking his head away from L.C.’s ruffle of his hair. “But she is, isn’t she?”
“She’s a little bit strict,” L.C. agreed, climbing to his feet to face the hardest goodbye.
No, it was all hard. The kids, the seniors, the sunshine and red, naked cliffs. He would miss it all.
Especially Mercedes.
The hurt started behind his collarbone and extended in a hollow ache all the way to the joints in his hips. He cupped her freckled face and set his thumbs against the corners of her mouth, steadying them since she couldn’t seem to decide on whether to let them lift or fall.
He kissed her, keeping it short and chaste but letting her know that if he never saw her again, he would love her for the rest of his life.
“You call me too, ‘kay? Anytime.”
She nodded and he kissed her once more on the forehead, wishing Harrison were alive at least, to keep an eye on her.
Zack moved in to hug Mercedes and L.C. climbed behind the wheel of his truck, already pointed for leaving. The door slammed beside him as Zack climbed in. Dayton waved and Ayjia turned her face into Mercedes shoulder as he drove away.
Every roll of the tires peeled another strip of skin from his heart.
Chapter 22
With everything that had gone on in the last few weeks, Mercedes had failed to close out April on the complex’s books. Here it was almost the end of May and she had an Annual General Meeting looming tomorrow at ten. She frantically pulled together a current statement since the new President was liable to want to see it.
The last manager had let the books fall unacceptably behind, Mrs. Garvey had reminded Mercedes just this morning.
Mercedes knew, she knew, and even though L.C. and Zack had submitted every single invoice for expenses incurred with all the work they’d done, the pieces of paper were stained, crinkled, out of order and covered in notes she still had to find allocation codes for.
And she was due to pick up the kids in an hour.
Where was Zack when she needed him?
Working for his Uncle Sterling and chatting online to his girlfriend, according to Holly. The sweetheart had come by on the weekend to introduce herself and offer her babysitting services, but since Mercedes had yet to sign papers at the daycare, authorizing her to pick them up, there was no way she could call Holly and beg the favor of fetching the kids today.
At least all this work kept her from eating her heart out over L.C.’s absence. She wondered how he was.
“Oh, that’s okay,” she heard a female voice saying outside, as Mrs. Corbett swooshed open the automatic doors behind Mercedes and entered the foyer. “I won’t bother her,” the distant yet familiar tone said. “I’ll just pick up the kids. Do you know which unit she moved to?”
“Porsha?” Mercedes stood and turned to look through the windows. Her sister stood in the courtyard, at the patio of Mercedes’s old unit, talking to Mrs. Garvey.
Mercedes hit the button on the closing doors, batted when the doors didn’t move fast enough, and pushed through to trot across the bricks so quickly her sandals clapped. “Porsha!”
“Oh, hey, you’re here.” Porsha tugged off her sunglasses and held out her arms. Her blond hair was big and stiff with product, her pink halter and white capris snug and bright on her tall, curvy body. “It’s so good to see you! Where’re the kids? And since when did you move?”
“Huh? Oh, a few weeks ago. The kids are at after-school club.” Mercedes pushed back from the scent of cigarettes and minty fresh gum that may or may not have been masking the scent of gin.
“Oh, God, it’s not one of those church clubs, is it? Shit, I did that once and Ayjia was trying to help me find Jesus for months after.”
“No, it’s with the Y, but— Why didn’t you want to talk to me?” As if she didn’t know. “Come have a coffee.”
“Oh, I can’t,” Porsha said with a regretful little bend of the knees. “Ray and I have to get going. Just tell me where the kids are and we’ll grab them on the way out of town.”
“Ray?”
“Ray. Isn’t he incredible?” She pointed toward the parking lot where a mile-long gold convertible sat, a husky Italiano-type at the wheel. The man was smoking a cigar, watching the world through mirrored sunglasses. He hitched his chin in an arrogant greeting when he saw both women looking his direction.
“He’s really
excited to meet the kids.”
“He looks it,” Mercedes said.
“Oh, don’t even,” Porsha said, putting up a hand. “He’s waiting in the car because I knew if you were home, you’d want to lecture my ass off. So okay, fine. Get it over with so I can grab the kids and we can go.”
Mercedes opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“No?” Porsha said after a couple of seconds. “That’s refreshing.”
“I’m speechless,” Mercedes said. “Utterly, fucking, speechless.”
“Language,” Mrs. Garvey said in a shocked gasp, reminding Mercedes she had an audience.
Digging into her pocket, Mercedes felt for a quarter but only came up with a couple of bills. She handed a five to Mrs. Garvey. “For the language jar. I have a feeling I’ll need a few credits.”
Porsha snorted. “Gonna chew me a new one, are you?” She sent a spare-me gesture to Ray and jammed her sunglasses back over her blue eyes. “Look, I knew you’d be pissed that I dumped them on you like that, but I’m here now, okay? I’ll get them out of your hair and I won’t ever do it again. It was just that Ray was so sweet, and we needed time before getting the kids involved. You know I do that all the time, let them start bonding to guys. You should be happy I had the sense not to do that this time.”
“You want me to be happy you abandoned them? You barely even talked to them on the phone, Porsh. Come here. Come down to my unit.”
Porsha groaned and said, “Do we have to do this? Really? Listen, I didn’t phone because I knew Ayjia would start crying. Then I’d be crying and telling Ray we had to come get her and he wasn’t ready for that.” She pointed and called to Ray, “Honey, we’re going down this way if you want to bring the car.” Grabbing Mercedes’s arm, she added, “Slow down, I can’t move that fast.”
Mercedes couldn’t move fast enough. Everything in her wanted to push and jerk and swing. “Just because you couldn’t hear her doesn’t mean Ayjia wasn’t crying, Porsh.”
“Oh, Gawd! Don’t do that to me. You know, you could try understanding what it’s like. I haven’t had a life in seven years. It’s always what the kids need.”
“Oh, please, you’ve never let those kids slow you down. You bought a bottle of gin on the way home from the hospital with Ayjia.”
The gold convertible paced them as Mercedes power-walked and Porsha scurried alongside her down the Ring Road.
“Hey, I stayed dry through both pregnancies, you know I did. And if you passed a freakin’ basketball through your nether regions, you’d feel entitled to a fucking drink on the way home from the hospital, too. Shit, I don’t need this. Just tell me where they are and I’ll get them.”
Mercedes checked her watch. Forty minutes before she had to pick them up. “I thought you were going to wait until school finished for the summer. Because dragging them back to Holbrook for a couple of weeks of school at this point—”
“Oh, forget that. School’s out as far as I’m concerned. Close enough.”
Mercedes halted. “You’re not taking them back to Holbrook?”
Porsha and the stalking convertible halted. “Ray has business up north. He said we can stay with him in Phoenix.”
Mercedes shook with outrage. She spun and kept walking, saying over her shoulder, “Leave them here with me until you decide to go back to Holbrook.”
“Oh, for— Mercedes, stop. Listen.” With a tsking noise, she said, “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I can’t go back. I lost the apartment. That asshole David bounced Dayton’s support check while I was away. My rent didn’t come out. I’ve been evicted.”
Oh, hell. She shouldn’t feel bad for screwing over her sister, but she did. It was the kind of thing that always happened to Porsha and to be accidentally responsible for it... This meant the kids’ toys and the rest of their clothes would be gone. Stuffies and photographs had gone where? Storage? A thrift store? The refuse station?
Hell.
Mercedes stalked to her patio, clattered her keys and pushed open her back door. She let Ray find his own freaking parking spot and got out of the sun.
“Dayton’s check is coming to me,” she explained over her shoulder. “Because I have Dayton.”
“What?” Porsha stepped over Dayton’s latest Lego creation and took off her sunglasses. “Hey, this is nice.”
“Thank you. I like it.” Even though it was lonely as hell since the neighbors had left. “Look.” She couldn’t believe she was saying this. “You and the kids can stay here with me until they finish school and you find a place.”
“No, seriously—”
“No, Porsha. Seriously. The kids need to stay in school. Dayton has this end of year field trip he’s looking forward to and Ayjia has a kindergarten graduation thing.”
“No, I was going to take them to the dinosaur place. They’ll like it better than some field trip or grad cap. I mean it’s not like Ayjia’s old enough to get drunk and lose her virginity, right?” Porsha smirked.
“That’s not even funny, Porsha. Should we have both been drunk when we lost ours? Is there not some part of you that recognizes how wrong that is?”
“Oh my fucking Gawd,” she groaned. “Do we have to do this? I’m sorry, all right? I should have talked to them. I should have come sooner. I’m a lousy mother. What do you want? It’s not easy, all right? I needed a fucking break.”
“I know it’s not easy. I’ve been doing it. If you wanted me to see what it’s like, okay, I get it. You’re right, it’s hard. Every single day. But a break is an afternoon. A weekend. You can’t abandon your kids for two and a half months and not expect it to affect them.”
“Oh, please. Mom did it to us. We turned out okay.”
“I have a police record and you’re an alcoholic.”
“I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not drunk now.” She turned her head to look down the hall and muttered, “Even though it’d make this bullshit a lot easier to put up with.”
“You haven’t had a drink today?” Mercedes challenged, pouring ice water into a couple of glasses.
“No,” Porsha said in what Mercedes figured was a bald-faced lie. “Are the kids’ things in one of the bedrooms down there?”
“Not one little sip?” Mercedes asked. “Since you knew I’d be a bitch about this?”
“All right, yes! I had one drink and you are being a bitch and Ray is waiting. Can we wrap this up?”
Mercedes checked her watch. Twenty minutes. She’d have to leave soon or she’d be late picking up the kids, but no way were the kids going anywhere with Ray.
Draining her ice water, Mercedes left the glasses on the counter and went outside.
“Where are you going?” Porsha tiptoed behind her, all the way to Ray’s car. “Hi, honey. It turns out the kids aren’t here and little sister had a bigger lecture than I expected.”
“Yeah?” Ray said, rolling the ash off his cigar against the side mirror.
“Hi, Ray.” Mercedes waited for his mirrored sunglasses to swivel, drop, climb and more or less meet her eyes before offering him a tight smile. “I’m not trying to make your life difficult, but I think I should lay it on the line for you. See, while Porsha was gone, I had to take custody of her kids. That means I’m responsible for anything that happens to them. So if you and Porsha were to take them on your trip, and Porsha decided to leave the kids in a hotel room while you two nipped next door for a drink, and something happened, I’d be on the hook for that.”
“She’s freaking out over something that wouldn’t even happen,” Porsha interjected.
“I’m not comfortable with that level of risk,” Mercedes continued, ignoring Porsha and speaking to Ray, since she had his complete attention. “I can’t let them go with you. And just so we’re absolutely clear, if Porsha were to persuade you to pick up the kids against my wishes, I would have to give a description of this vehicle to the police. I’m sure it would all come out in the wash and you wouldn’t be charged with kidnapping or anything, but there would b
e court appearances. There would be meetings with child welfare advocates. There would very likely be news coverage at six o’clock because I am that pissed with my sister.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Porsha said.
“Now that you have all the information, Ray, go ahead and make the decision that works best for you. I’ve offered to let Porsha stay here with the kids while you take care of your business up north. Or she can go with you, if she wants. You two work it out. I have to run out to pick up the kids.”
Mercedes went back into the house long enough to collect her keys, make a brief call to Shonda, and lock up. By the time she opened the garage door, Porsha was standing in the driveway alone, arms folded, a suitcase on the pavement beside her.
“You are such a fucking bitch.” Porsha tossed the suitcase onto the lawn, out of the way of the car. She climbed into the passenger side. “I cannot believe you did that. He’s coming back, you know. In a couple of days. As soon as he finishes his business.”
“Great. He can get a room at a hotel and you two can spend your days together while the kids finish school.”
“Are you enjoying this power trip of yours?”
No, she was shaking like a leaf, aware of what she had to say and not sure how to handle it. The kids needed to see their mom. They needed it like air and water. And Porsha was her sister. Mercedes loved her and knew all the pain that had led to the train wreck her sister had become, but a train wreck she was. No way in hell could she be trusted with her kids right now.
“This isn’t about teaching you a lesson, Porsh. I swear it’s not. I just want what’s best for the kids. This has been confusing for them, what with the new school and everything.”
“Then why didn’t you leave them in the old school?” She dug through her purse and found a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Mercedes.
“Because I live here.” Mercedes hesitated then accepted the cigarette. She leaned over to let Porsha help her light it, then opened her window. Bad, bad, bad. “I couldn’t take any more time off work.”