Hideaway

by Nicole Lundrigan

  When we got out of the woods the sun was already going down behind the house. Rowan said, “Shit. What the hell is that doing here?” He pointed at the driveway. I looked. A red truck. Not a speck of dust on it. I forgot all about Telly coming back.

  That cold snaky feeling rushed right back into my middle. Terrible stuff. Terrible stuff is coming. I touched the metal thing in my hair one more time. Telly was already waiting inside.

  MAISY

  “Oh, my darlings,” Gloria said when we walked through the happy, happy yellow door. Her eyes were crinkly, and she was wearing a new blue dress. It was tied tight around her middle. I saw the tag up under her arm stuck on with a safety pin.

  “Where were you two?” Telly was standing there. His hands were in his pockets. “Off having an adventure?”

  “No,” I said. “Me and Rowan. We just went, um…” I saw Rowan’s eyes get small then. He didn’t need to do that. I wasn’t going to say nothing about Carl. “We were looking for butterflies. I like butterflies a lot. Their wings are pretty. But you’re not supposed to touch them because it hurts. That’s what Mrs. Spooner said.”

  “Again with Mrs. Spooner, Maisy? What did I tell you?”

  “I wasn’t.” I swallowed. My story wasn’t coming out right.

  Then Rowan said, “She did a lesson with them. On bugs. That’s all. I was trying to show her some stuff.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” Telly said. “You watching after your little sister. Teaching her about all the wildlife around. Respecting it.”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Rowan wiggled out of his sneakers and kicked them into a corner.

  “It’s true, Row. I wish I had a big brother growing up.”

  Then Gloria tugged my hair. But not hard. “You got something snarled up in there?”

  I covered Carl’s lucky gift with my hand. “It’s a decoration.”

  Gloria laughed. “Like a crow she is, Telly. I swear. Always dragging home junk.” Then she whispered, “Pick it out, Bids. In the garbage right now.”

  I went to the kitchen and stepped to make the garbage lid flip up. I tugged the metal from my hair, but I didn’t throw it in. When Gloria turned around I squished it small and hid it in my pocket.

  “Good girl,” Gloria said. Then she put a hand on Rowan’s shoulder. He rolled his shoulder away. Her eye crinkles stopped then. She said, “I’m sorry if you think I’ve been tough on you, sweetheart. It’s been ever so stressful with your dad gone. You can’t even imagine.”

  “It’s okay, Gloria,” I said because Rowan didn’t open his mouth. I think he was pretending she was disappeared, but she was the only one who could do that.

  “Well, it’s good for us all to be together again, isn’t it? Telly’s been dying to come home, he told me. Get everything back on track. Right, Telly?”

  “It’ll be great to talk,” he said. He scritched his head.

  “Yes, talk. We need to talk.”

  “So other than butterfly hunting, what’s going on, Bids?”

  When I said “Not much,” Gloria’s eyes got small. So I changed my answer. “I mean, lots of stuff. Gloria made the front door nice. Do you like the color?”

  “I surely do, Bids. It’s a fantastic color.”

  “I think so too. And me and Rowan saw Darrell fixing his bike. Shar’s coming back from her mom’s soon. Oh, and I lost Jenny the Head again this morning. Can you believe it?”

  “Jenny the what?”

  “Jenny the Head. She’s my doll, but she don’t got no body. She doesn’t need a heart, Rowan said, and Gloria found her in the drawer with the toothpaste. I don’t know when I put her in there.”

  “You’re always in la-la land, Bids,” Gloria said. She patted my head. “Good thing you got such an excellent mom.”

  “Well, let’s hope you can hold on to her this time,” Telly said. He patted my knee. “You go through dolls like a river goes through water.”

  I laughed. Telly laughed too. Maybe everything was going to be okay.

  The house was all cleaned up. We never used the table in the dining room, but now it had plates on it. In the middle there were ribs with red sauce. There was broccoli that I hated, but it was covered in orange cheese from the bottle that I loved. There were biscuits and corn with steam coming out and a glass bowl full of potato salad.

  “How about we all sit? Before the mess of it gets cold. Or warm, I guess. Depending.” Gloria sounded just like a breeze making the curtains shiver. “I’ve been slaving all afternoon.”

  I sat next to Rowan. He still didn’t say nothing. But I swung my feet back and forth to make some noise. Rowan scritched at a new bit of his map growing on his arm. His islands always started out pink and sore. Then they turned white. That was exciting. To see what shape it was. Once after school last year Rowan took me to the library. Mrs. Spooner pulled out a bunch of geography books for us and we traced some of Rowan’s spots. We found out he got a part of Hawaii near his eye. And some place called Baffin Island outside his elbow. Iceland was coming out the back of his neck. Mrs. Spooner smiled a lot at us and said, “You two are most wonderfully inventive!”

  Gloria put her hand on her chest. “Isn’t this just perfect, Telly? All of us having a family meal together. Like it’s supposed to be.”

  Telly smiled and reached for the ribs. He used a fork instead of his fingers. “God, Glow. Some spread you put out.” I couldn’t help staring at him. I almost didn’t know who he was. His face was nice and brown. His teeth were bits of sun caught in his mouth. Even his shirt had no dirt. I think someone might have used an iron on it. Or maybe it was new too, like Gloria’s dress. His fingernails were still black though, like they always were. Parts of him were still Telly.

  Gloria plopped potato salad on Rowan’s plate. Rowan stabbed at it. The fork’s sharp parts made a scrape. I got the shivers.

  “Your hair looks good, Glow. That color really suits you.”

  “You think?” She patted her head. “Sometimes you just see someone and think, I could do that. You get inspired, right?”

  “Right about that,” he said. He took more ribs.

  “So, how’s work? Garage is busy, I’ll bet.”

  “Summer always is, Glow. People getting away, wanting their cars tip top.” Red sauce was smeared on his chin and strings of rib meat hung down from his fancy teeth. He looked better then. More like himself. “It’s an honest day’s work.”

  Rowan coughed, but not a real cough. Then he said to Telly, “Still playing old women?” He sounded mad and his plate was still full.

  “What’s that, Row?”

  “Old women,” he said. “Playing old women.”

  Gloria coughed then. I don’t think that was a real cough neither. “More ribs, Telly? We got plenty. A real heap.”

  “What’s he saying, Glow?”

  “You heard me. Running your scams.” Rowan laughed in a not good way. My heart started to go tak-tak-tak.

  “Rowan. Please.”

  My air stopped coming in. This was turning terrible.

  “Why would you say something like that to your dad? You’re such a hard worker, Telly. We all know it. You’ve never let us down. Never. Rowan, you should apologize right now.”

  Rowan dragged his knife back and forth through the potato salad so it was tic-tac-toe. “You guys were talking about having an honest day and all. Well, I was just being honest too.”

  Then Telly threw a rib bone down into his plate. “Jesus, Glow. You didn’t tell me I was walking into a goddamned trap.”

  It got dark in that room fast. Like night came and no one noticed.

  “It’s the age, Telly, darling. You see what I’ve been dealing with here? He’s tetchy all the time.”

  “Still. No reason for him to be acting so ugly.”

  “No reason? You can’t blame him after everything’s gone on. It’s going to take some time. Once you’re all settled away, things’ll get back on track.”

  “Settled away?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah. The drawers’re empty. Not like I filled them up with someone else’s stuff.”

  Something jabbed at my leg. Hot and sharp. I yelped and tears came out. Gloria looked at me hard. She touched my arm with one hand and pulled the other one out from underneath the table and put her fork down.

  “What is it, sweetheart? What’s got you so upset?”

  “I got stung. My le—”

  “It’s Telly, isn’t it? Such a relief to have him back.” She was nodding and nodding and soon my head was nodding too. “Isn’t it, Bids.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I hiccuped and wiped my face. I rubbed the spot on my leg.

  “A relief. I know it is. For both of you.” She smiled.

  Telly sniffed and licked at the red around his mouth. “I can try better. Row? Bids? We can do more. Go for a drive. A bite to eat. Out for a movie. They just built that new cinema over by Stafford’s, right, Glow? We could go check it out, if that’s okay with everyone.”

  “ ’Course it is, Telly.” Gloria made a purr. She sounded like a cat nobody owned. “You don’t need to say that, but I know it’s music to their ears.” Then she got shy. “To my ears, too.”

  “But, Glow?” He cleared his throat. “We need to get a couple things out of the way first.”

  “Won’t be a big deal. Not like you got a lot to bring in. Bag of clothes and your guns.”

  “That’s not what I meant. My boss says you got to stop calling. That’s a big part of why I’m here. I figured we could try to be civil about things, for the sake of the kids. I want to make sure you get that message about calling the garage loud and clear.”

  “What message?”

  “You got to put an end to it. He can’t change the number, it being a business and all. I mean, that, that makes sense to you, right? He’s this close”—Telly squished his thumb and finger together—“to calling the phone company. Reporting you.”

  “I made cobbler, Telly. Apple and oats. The one you love.”

  Gloria picked up her fork again. I spread my hands out over my legs.

  “That’s real nice, Glow, but you got to know, you can’t be coming ’round all the time neither. You got the kids here, and you got your own work. At Stafford’s? Surely you been missing some shifts, right Glow? Glow, you listening?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, Telly. You always make me laugh.” Then she looked up. “Darn if I forgot the ice cream.”

  “I’m not dicking around here. Do you want me to just lay it out? You can’t be dropping by. At the garage, when I’m working. And you can’t leave shitty notes under my windshield. What’re you thinking? They come off like you’re threatening me. They do, Glow. Even if you’re just joking.” He took a big sip of water. The lump in his throat hopped up and down. “And the boy can’t neither. Just showing up with no warning. Moping around acting all like—”

  Her eyelids fluttered. “Rowan went there? To the garage?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. A while back. Beginning of summer? I wasn’t going to mention nothing, but I want it all out on the table. He stopped me right in the middle of my work. Dealing with a customer. Did a good job messing up my tool trays.” Telly shook his head left and right. “Boss got his eye on me something fierce ever since then. I don’t want to lose my job, Glow.”

  “Asshole.” Rowan whispered that, but everyone heard it. Even Chicken. His ears stood up then went right down. He squeezed under the table.

  I reached my foot just to touch Rowan’s a tiny bit. He nipped me with his toes.

  “This don’t make no sense,” Gloria said.

  Telly pushed his plate away. “Sure, I’m speaking plain as day. It’s nothing complicated.”

  “But what about what you said on the phone? Staying for a while. I thought—”

  “C’mon, Glow. I meant a supper. An hour, two. See the kids. Toss the Frisbee around. Straighten everything out and get a plan together. It got to happen.”

  Her eyes went real small again. “Are you kidding me?”

  Air got sucked in through his shiny teeth. It was a terrible noise. “I don’t got time for this shit, Glow. I’m a busy man.”

  “Telly, I—”

  “Glow? I’m trying here, but I don’t need to hear it. We’re done. I said what I came to say. I want to see the kids, and you can’t stop me.”

  “Why you—” But before Gloria could open her mouth to holler, he was up and out the door. He jumped in his shiny truck and drove away slow. I could tell he didn’t want to get dust all over it.

  Gloria stood up. Her face went pink. “Going to Telly’s work? Going to Telly’s work? What were you thinking?” She was yelling with her face right up in Rowan’s. “Over two months I’ve been trying to get him back on side. And you ruin it all. In one fell swoop.”

  I peeked at Rowan. He just looked at the wall, but I could see his cheeks were turned pink like Gloria’s and his chin was wiggling bad. He wanted to cry. I did, too.

  “Rowan didn’t mean to go,” I whispered. “Maybe he got off at the wrong spot.” My mouth was full of sand.

  She yelled at me then. “Don’t you say one word, miss! You and your butterflies with that nosy Mrs. Spooner.”

  My middle got a bad pain. I got up and took my plate to the sink. Everything inside my eyes was fuzzed. Gloria turned quiet, and I knew she was thinking what to do and that made my middle hurt even worse. I looked out the window. Even through all the mess in my head I could still see dark clouds over the trees. They were blue and purple and yellow. A sky bruise.

  I knew those hurt clouds were coming this way.

  “Up,” she said to Rowan. He was chewing on a rib bone. He let it fall straight out of his mouth. “Up you get. Nothing but a disgusting slug.” Rowan got up. “Do you know what slugs do, Maisy? They slime into your garden after all your hard work. And cowards, they just hide under the leaves and destroy from below. They don’t care about your plants. They don’t care you need to eat. They don’t care your hands are covered in blisters and your back is sunburnt and your eyes are raw from sweat. You agree, Bids?”

  I stood in front of the sink. My knees shook. I couldn’t make them stay still. Dark was coming so fast I could see the kitchen get shadows. Wind burst through the windows. Hot and rushing like something was chasing it.

  “Well, Bids? Don’t you agree?”

  “I, I—”

  “Say it,” she said. She was next to me now. “Rowan is a disgusting destructive slug.”

  I could smell the storm pushing in with the wind.

  “Rowan is,” I whispered. I tried to get some air. But it was too thick in my nose. “A destructing slug.”

  “Get in here!” Gloria yelled.

  My brother came into the kitchen. He looked down at his new island and scritched it.

  There was a loud bang outside. Like a tree cracked right in two. Under the table, Chicken whimpered. He put his paws over his eyes. He didn’t like storms.

  “Too bad they don’t make bait for human slugs.” She yanked on the sliding door. The metal screeched. “Then it’d just be you and me, Maisy. Easy street.”

  Rowan followed her through the door. She didn’t even need to say a word. She was going to take him into the woods. She was going to leave him there like she done last time. But when she was halfway across the deck a bright flash went off and rain poured out of the clouds. Buckets of it. I heard her squeal. She stopped and pointed near the two steps that went down to the grass. Rowan went and stood right in that spot. Another blast of light went off, but Rowan didn’t budge an inch. Gloria did though. She skipped back inside real fast.

  Water dripped off her and she made puddles on the floor. She grabbed a cup towel and wiped at her face. “That was sudden,” she said with a gasp. There was black under her eyes because her makeup was all smeared. She reached over the sink and slammed the window shut. “Don’t worry, Bids, darling. Everything’s going to be okay with Telly. I know him, and h
e’ll be bored with that witch in no time.” She moved her head toward Rowan. “As for that one. I just need him out of my sight for a while. I don’t know how to get through to him. He can’t leave well enough alone.”

  I put my hand in my pocket. I held the metal in my fingers. Something terrible is coming. There was more banging and light outside. Sometimes I couldn’t see nothing.

  She pushed the little black switch by the door handle and it snapped down, so it was locked. “Got to keep the wolves out,” she said. “Right, Bids?”

  I nodded, but only a little.

  “Now I’m off to get a bath, miss. That rain got me chilled through.”

  She went up the steps, and there was another thunder crash outside. The light on the ceiling hummed like it was full of beetles. I heard the floor creak upstairs. The pipes creaked and snapped, too. She’d turned on the taps.

  When I looked out I could see Rowan through all the lines of water. He was standing still, and his hair was like a helmet. His shirt stretched around his neck and there was nothing on his feet.

  Light exploded out of the sky. In the flash I saw Rowan was only bones inside his clothes. He didn’t come closer. He didn’t put his fists on the door. He didn’t try to sneak in or kick nothing. He just looked back at me.

  I sniffed. The smell of flowers crept down the stairs. That was Gloria’s bubble bath. The water stopped, and I could hear her singing a song.

  I put my hand up and pressed it against the door. Rowan wobbled in the rain. I squeezed my eyes tight together. I knew he was hurt inside, but he probably didn’t feel it. Same when I sliced my finger on tinfoil. Nothing was there for a while, but later dots of blood dribbled out.

  There was an empty thump. When I opened my eyes, Rowan was jumping off the deck. He ran fast like he was flung from a slingshot. Another blast of yellow lit up the sky, and Rowan disappeared into the woods.