Lightning Rider (Lightning Rider Alterations)

by Jen Greyson

  My insides warm. “You’re a good man, Papi.”

  He twirls his pen and stares out the window long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I hope she left on good terms. They haven’t fought for a long time, but then again, I’m not around much. Something that’s going to change.

  After a big sigh, he shakes a few antacids from a bottle on the corner of his desk and turns his attention back to me. “You eat?”

  “Nope. What are you making me?”

  He snorts. “As if. Your mamá spent a week stocking the freezer.”

  I scrunch my nose. “I love Mami’s cooking, but are you sure you want to eat tamales for three months straight? How about Chinese?”

  He stands and moves toward the door. “Don’t tell her,” he says over his shoulder. “She worked hard so I wouldn’t starve while she’s gone.”

  “Pretty sure she won’t care if we eat out one night.”

  “Have you met your mother?”

  We laugh, then he gets quiet and does that Papi stare.

  I fidget and drop my gaze to the seam of my pants.

  “I really am sorry about what happened, mija.”

  My pants blur and I blink the tears away. Only when I’m certain there’s no trace do I lift my head. “It’s just stuff, right? And money. I’m better without him.” I smile through the ache in my chest. “Besides, now you won’t have to be alone all summer.”

  “No, but you might. I don’t know how much I’ll be around.”

  I shrug, trying to act like I don’t care, even though I wouldn’t mind catching a few fights with him, maybe having a beer. Shitty timing. One final win for Nick.

  Papi opens his arms. With barely a hesitation I stop trying to be tough and launch myself from the chair. As his arm encircles my shoulders, I’m a little girl again, right where I belong. He gives me a big squeeze and quickly lets go, like he’s wary of babying me. I stare at my empty hands. It’s me who’s made him feel that way. Maybe this is a chance to right our relationship, mend a few sore spots.

  He digs in his shirt pocket and sets a pair of reading glasses on his nose before tilting his head back to read the screen on his phone. I stifle the building giggle.

  “Let’s see. Chinese place.” His fingers work across the screen, but I can see it’s kicking his butt.

  I grin and tug it away. “Here. Let me do it.”

  Through his reading glasses, his brown eyes are clear and huge. “I can do it.”

  I laugh. “We’ll starve first.”

  We wander through the back family room toward the kitchen, and I pull up the number of the Chinese place down the street. Before I can call, I miss the first step on the small flight of stairs, and my ankle rolls. Stabbing streaks of pain shoot clear up to my knee. I stumble forward, crashing my shin against the second stair, and the phone spins across the tile. I roll onto my side and clutch my ankle. Stairs dig into my ribs.

  “Evy!”

  I moan. “It was just getting better.”

  “Here.” He scoops his hands beneath my arms and helps me stand.

  I lean on him, and we make it up the last step and into the kitchen. “Those damn things get me every time.”

  “I know. One of these days I’m going to redo that room.”

  He settles me on a stool at the breakfast bar, and we prop my foot on another. He goes for ice, and I glare at the short flight of steps leading from the kitchen down into the family room. What a stupid design.

  Otherwise, the worn laminate countertop and gold linoleum floor of the small, outdated kitchen is cozy. Some of my favorite memories live here. We pretty much lived in this nucleus growing up.

  Papi wrestles with the overstuffed freezer and curses as everything begins to shift. He yanks out an ice pack and slams the door. I make a mental note not to open it anytime soon.

  Though he tries to be gentle with the ice pack, it makes me wince, and I turn away. Against the wall, a worn cardboard box sits totally out of place. “What’s that?”

  “Not sure. Your mamá found it in the attic when she was looking for her brushes and paints. She thought it was my father’s stuff.”

  I jerk my head. “You haven’t opened it yet?” Balanced precariously, I lean across the counter and tug it closer. “I’ve never seen anything of his.”

  With surprising quickness, he jumps around the bar and holds the top closed. “Leave it.”

  The doorbell chimes. Papi’s hands flatten against the flaps, and he rubs the length of them once. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was afraid. I shift on the barstool, and he looks up from the box.

  “Stay here.” His stern expression says the rest. Stay out.

  He and Mr. Steinaman bring in my lone box of stuff and settle Ike into the back bedroom. While they discuss the Cardinals’ chances in the playoffs this year, I scoot closer to the box. Sitting up as high as I can, I crane my neck and lift one flap. The yellowed tape comes away, and I can almost see inside. I lean closer, tipping my barstool up on two legs.

  “Bye, Evy,” Mr. Steinaman calls from the door.

  I jerk and slam the stool back down. The flap drops back into place. “Thanks, Mr. Steinaman. Tell Mrs. Steinaman hello.” My voice is too high.

  “Will do. Hope you’re back soon.” He peeks around the corner into the kitchen, his bald head rimmed with a silver crown of short flyaway strands.

  I wave.

  Papi closes the door and returns to my side. I try to wipe the guilty look off my face.

  “I’ll grab dinner,” he says.

  “Great! Orange chicken for me.” I practically shout. Chill.

  Plucking his keys off the low table by the back door, he’s oblivious to my larcenous thoughts. He shrugs into a denim jacket, then pushes the heavy back door open and lets his retriever, Bimni, in through the storm door. Her brown and white coat catches the buzzing fluorescent light, making it shimmer. Hand still on the glass, he peers over the backyard. “Looks like it’s going to storm again tonight.”

  “Fantastic,” I say with a snort. All my lightning ropes were gone when I woke up this morning, and my meager attempts to recreate them failed. Whatever that was last night, it didn’t stick around. But that doesn’t mean I want a repeat. Even inside Papi’s house, I’m not thrilled about the inevitable pain.

  He lets the storm door fall shut but leaves the inner door against the wall, bathing the kitchen in mottled pre-storm light.

  “Back in a few.”

  After he ruffles Bimni’s ears, she comes over to say hi to me. She licks my hand, but her eyes never leave Papi as he crosses the kitchen and heads toward the carport door. He tells her to stay, and she whines.

  “It’s okay.” I drop my hand to her neck. When she’s sure he’s not coming back, she pads to her bed, circles twice, and lies down.

  When the rumble of his diesel fades from the carport, I scoot closer to the box and slide it away from the wall. Both flaps pop open easily, and I peer inside. A thick book fills the lower third of the box, but that’s all. The leather cover is worn to a smooth tan color along the edges, stained and dark brown along the spine where who-knows-how-many palms have held it. I glance over my shoulder, then dip my hands into the box and ease it out. My fingers barely wrap around it, and I have to prop my knee on the stool for leverage. It’s the same size as the scrapbooks Mami made but thicker. After I get my fingers under it, the box bows enough for me to wrestle it out. As I do, a wooden coin slips off the cover and into the box.

  Beneath my hand, the leather is smooth and cool, except for the tooling in the top corner. Diamonds and crisscrossed lines mingle from the spine to the front edge, and they feel warm against my skin. I peer closer.

  Hmm. A maze.

  I sniff. Instead of smelling like musty paper and leather, it smells like vanilla.

  From this angle, I can barely make out the lettering in the lower middle. Rivera is on there in gothic scroll, which kind of makes sense if this was my grandfather’s, but something smaller is printed b
elow it. I pick up the book and tilt it backward and forward. A bright ray of sun breaks through the storm clouds and illuminates the cover.

  Lightning Rider.

  I drop the book and the loud thump echoes my pounding heart.

  What the what?

  I flick my fingertips with my thumbs. The lightning, the old woman in my vision who called me rider, and now this—that’s a few too many coincidences.

  I clench my hands and relax them, then clench them again. I peer at the book, waiting for it to . . . well, do something.

  Bimni snores, and I jump.

  “Gah!” I shake out my arms. “Stop being such a girl.”

  I take a deep breath and dive at it, flipping the cover open. Jumbled bits of scrawled writing line the pages, but I can’t make it out. I lean forward and lift the parched paper. The next page looks the same. I can tell it’s in Spanish, but it’s not exactly legible. So much for finding out anything while Papi’s gone.

  A few pages in, the handwriting changes, then changes again, like the book’s been passed down and holds generations of stories.

  I rub my hands together and wonder how someone becomes a lightning rider. Whatever it is, it sounds cool.

  Behind me, the ping of Papi’s engine warns me, and I close the book and lower it back into the box on top of the coin.

  When he comes in, I’m drumming my fingers on the counter and the box is back against the wall.

  Pausing on the top step, he twists his head so he’s staring me down with only one eye. I raise my eyebrows and lock down every other muscle. “What?”

  He sets the grease-stained bag on the counter and grabs plates. “How’s your ankle?”

  “Still sore.” The absurdity of our conversation makes me want to laugh and scream at the same time.

  We load our plates and push food around. I force myself not to scoot farther away from the box. If he doesn’t tear into it soon, I’m going to freak out. Finally, he sets his fork down and stares at the box.

  “You going to open it?”

  He runs a hand through his short silver hair. “Yeah.”

  He stands and slips his plate beneath mine, and I shove both to the end of the counter and mop up the grease with a tiny brown paper napkin. With my head bent, I catch him shoving his hands in his back pockets, still afraid of what he’s going to find.

  Since I already know what’s in there, I find his reaction . . . curious.

  “Want me to do it?” I slide my hand across the counter.

  He bats it away. “No.”

  With both hands on the box, he tugs it away from the wall, throws open the flaps, and braces his hands flat on the counter before peering into the depths.

  He doesn’t flinch. Then his face falls, as if he was hoping for something different. He tugs the book out, none too gently, freeing a collection of smaller booklets that were tucked between the pages. He sets the book on top of them without looking at any of it before going back for the coin and placing it next to the book. Then he tips the box on its end, as if hoping to reveal a false bottom.

  Curious didn’t come close.

  He sighs and lets the box tip back down.

  I curl my fingers around the edges of my stool and squeeze, silently begging him to open the book. Or the booklets. Or examine the coin. Any of it.

  He brushes his fingers across the cover. “This can’t be his.”

  “Are you sure?” Chill out.

  With a wistful shake of his head, he taps the edge of the coin against the counter.

  “How’d he die again?” I release my grip on the stool and stretch toward the book.

  “Lightning,” he answers softly.

  I freeze. Cold electricity spreads through my stomach. The three bites of Chinese feel like sour lumps.

  Coincidences no longer exist.

  “What if it is?” I whisper.

  He looks up, and horror and pain mingle on his face. “What?”

  “What if it is your father’s?”

  “You didn’t know him. Hell, I barely did. This isn’t his.”

  “Read it.” I tip my chin toward the journal.

  He tosses the coin, and I catch it without breaking eye contact. “I’m telling you . . .”

  With a huff, he pulls the book closer and flips it open. A drawing covers the first page.

  I roll the coin over and examine the back.

  A similar etched design to that on the page covers the coin. A curved diamond reaches toward the edges, a sharp point on the bottom tip, perfect circles on the other three, and some sort of maze weaving through the middle. Bolts of lightning stretch outward from the silvery orbs.

  We lift our heads at the same moment.

  “I’ve seen this before.”

  “This looks like my top.”

  “What?” we ask in unison.

  “This design,” I say. “It looks like my top. The one grandma gave me.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why would Grandma Reese have something like that on a shirt?”

  “Not a shirt top, a toy top. And it wasn’t Grandma Reese. Abuelita Rosa gave it to me. Your mom.”

  Now it’s his turn to freeze up. “Do you still have it?” he asks, his voice a mere croak.

  “Should be in the box Mr. Steinaman dropped off.” I ease my foot off the stool. “I never showed it to Nick.”

  Throbbing rings of pain envelop my ankle, but I make it to my room without a mishap. I find the tin and take a quick second to change out of my work clothes and into some of my sister Tiana’s comfies—a black T-shirt with a sparkling pink Jolly Roger over gray sweats and rhinestone-encrusted flip-flops. The girl has nothing resembling leather.

  I hurry back, and while I’ve been gone, Papi’s found an old bottle of tequila and two glasses. If this situation doesn’t qualify for a drink, I don’t know what does.

  The caramel liquid splashes as he fills a short tumbler. While I settle onto my stool, he throws back the first shot and thumps his chest. His eyes water.

  “Been a while?” I scoot my glass toward him and he fills us both. We clink glasses and shoot. I lick my lips. It hasn’t been long since I’ve had a drink, but it has been too long since I’ve had the good stuff. He tucks the bottle on the floor next to his stool and the box.

  I hand him my small red and white tin, and he pops it open. The toy top rests sideways inside.

  Its design is identical to the drawing on the first page of the book and the engraving on the back of the coin.

  “This design was on his pocket watch,” Papi says. “And the face of the clock on his nightstand table.”

  “Really?”

  “We never talked about him after he died. My mamá packed away his things, and that was the end of him. I thought.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’d hoped she’d packed away memories of him in here.”

  “What is this stuff, Papi?”

  “The booklets don’t make sense—I scanned them and they’re lesson plans or something—and the big journal is worse. It’s just story after story of close calls and near misses with strangers.” He flips to the middle. “See? This one . . .” He runs his finger down the page. “This paragraph describes a flood, and the author saving a woman. This one is a tornado, and saving three children. This one a train wreck . . . seven people. Car accident . . . one person. It’s the same thing, over and over.”

  He looks up. “But every page references lightning. I don’t get it.”

  I might.

  I bend around him for the tequila bottle and lift it to my lips.

  Over the bottle, I wince at the burn and his disapproving scowl.

  Chapter 3

  While Papi pinches the toy top and rolls it between his fingers, I drum out a riff on the countertop.

  “I think it might be aluminum,” I say. “I would think it was a superalloy if it wasn’t so ancient.” I take the top and bounce it once in my palm. “No, has to be aluminum.”

  He glances up. “Why?”

  “
Alloys weren’t big until the military figured out all the applications in the space program. I have them on the brain because we’ve been playing with them for some of the fenders and bottom rails of the bikes. They’re nearly indestructible but wicked expensive.” I spin the top, sending it twirling across the counter.

  I haven’t seen that look on his face in a long time. Maybe ever.

  “What did Rosa say when she gave it to you?” he asks.

  Oh, you know, that I might be some sort of freak who controls lightning.

  Like the stuff that killed your father.

  Instead, I say, “She didn’t, really. Just thought I’d want to have it. Said it was Lito’s.”

  “My father’s?”

  “Your grandfather’s.”

  He grabs it and examines it again, then holds it next to the coin. “So you think the coin is my father’s and the top is my grandfather’s?”

  I shrug.

  Looking perplexed, he hands me the top, and I settle it back in the tin, snap the lid shut, and tuck it beneath the waistband of my sweats, pressed against my skin. The top clinks with every movement, and I palm the tin through the cloth.

  I’m not exactly nostalgic, so I don’t know what’s made me attached to a trinket from a man I never met. I don’t do sentimental—Mami’s convinced her emotional gene skipped me.

  Papi examines the coin again before slipping it into his shirt pocket and wandering to the storm door. Beyond the glass, the storm grows. A fork of lightning flashes, and I shiver.

  “Of all things, why did my mamá save these, and what was my father doing with them in the first place?” he mumbles to the darkening day.

  In his voice I hear the scared little boy who’s just lost his father.

  I’m not sure he’s expecting an answer, so I make one last swipe at the grease on the counter and twist the book around so I can read the odd instructions. Papi pushes the door open and steps outside to ruffle Bimni’s ears and throw her slobbery ball across the yard. Thunder rumbles, and I try to ignore the flicker of answering lightning that glows beneath my fingertips.

  A discolored edge of paper pokes out from the bottom of the book, and I slice my fingernail between the pages to find it. Once freed, the paper slides onto the counter. The words . . . flicker.