Empty

by Suzanne Weyn

  “So we’re broke?”

  “Not exactly,” her mother said, “but all our savings are also invested in stocks, and our stocks—like everyone else’s—are not worth as much as they used to be.”

  “That’s what I said,” Niki insisted. “We’re broke.” That’s how it sounded to her.

  “We could sell this house,” her mother suggested.

  “If anyone has the money to buy it.”

  Her mother nodded. “True.”

  The expression on her mother’s face unnerved Niki. It was crossed with uncertainty, and even fear. Niki felt her mother’s dread pass to her like a contagious illness. “How did you and Dad let this happen?” she asked.

  Her mother defended herself. “It’s happening to everyone. Don’t worry. Dad went on a job interview today. It looks very hopeful. Now go get ready for the bonfire. Wear something warm. They say the temperature is going to drop tonight, maybe below freezing.”

  “Below freezing? No way. Besides, I’m not going—not wearing glasses.” Crossing her arms, she rubbed the sleeves of her lightweight cashmere sweater. “And, speaking of freezing, it’s freezing in this house! When are you going to turn the heat on? I thought Marietta was the town with the oil.”

  A man’s voice cut in. “You still have to pay for it.” Niki turned to see her father standing at the front door.

  “Dad, turn the heat on!” Niki demanded.

  Her father trudged forward, and Niki instantly knew he’d been drinking. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him drunk, but this time there was something wild and desperate in his expression that frightened her.

  “Did you have a difficult time in the city?” her mother asked cautiously, going toward him.

  “Difficult?” he scoffed, slurring the word. “This is my tenth interview in two weeks. It’s not dif-fi-cult anymore. It gets easier every time.”

  “Sit down. I’ll make you something to eat,” Niki’s mother nervously offered.

  He shooed her off with a flailing swipe of his arm. “No, our baby is cold,” her father insisted. “We can’t have that. I have to get her some heat!”

  There was a frightening madness in his voice. Niki could suddenly hear just how drunk he actually was.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Niki said, wringing her hands. Her words had set him off. If only she could call them back somehow. “It’s not really that cold. I don’t mind.”

  He stumbled toward a button beside the fireplace and hit it. Gas jets ignited into blue tongues of flame around a ceramic log.

  “That’s better. Thanks,” Niki said quickly. “I’m warm now.”

  “Yes, much better,” her mother agreed. “Now let me get you something to eat, George.”

  “I’m not hungry,” her father replied with a rumbling, disdainful laugh. “That flame won’t last. Didn’t you know? There’s hardly any propane left in the gas tank. The price of propane gas has gone through the roof. And you can’t get any, anyway. It’s all being sent to the war effort.”

  George Barton lunged forward and grabbed hold of a straight-back chair. Niki jumped back as her father lifted the chair above his head and smashed it hard against the fireplace, sending its pieces flying. “Here’s firewood!” he announced as he pulled open the protective glass fire window and tossed in rungs of the shattered chair. “This will burn.”

  “George! Stop! Please!” her mother pleaded. “That chair was an antique.”

  “Get used to it, Kate. This is how we’re going to be living now. If we can’t eat it, we’re going to burn it.” George Barton pulled a mirror off the wall and banged it onto the fireplace mantel.

  “Stop it!” Kate Barton screamed, but her husband ignored her as he yanked the wooden frame from the mirror.

  “Fire sale—everything must go!” he cried as he threw the mirror frame into the now roaring fire.

  Niki clutched her mother’s trembling arm. “He’s gone crazy! What should we do?”

  Her mother began to cry and covered her wet eyes with one hand. “I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice quavering, tears brimming. “I don’t know.”

  An hour later, Niki stood as close to the bonfire as she could get. Her mother had been right: The night was unexpectedly frigid for September. In the fire’s jumping light, she could see Tom beside her, his face a shifting landscape of shadows. She kept hold of his hand for warmth and also for guidance, since beyond a small circle close by, everything was a blur.

  “You okay?” Tom checked.

  She smiled tightly and nodded. “It’s cold, though.”

  He shifted her around so she was closer to the fire. “Better?”

  “Better,” she confirmed.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  She was still shaken by the scene at her house. When Tom had finally rung her front doorbell, she’d abandoned her mother, leaving her alone to deal with her drunken, raging father. Grabbing Tom’s hand, she’d fled down the front walkway into his old wreck of a truck. Normally, she’d have been horrified to be seen in such a piece of junk, but tonight anything that would take her away from her house was a welcome sight.

  “Are you upset that I was so late?”

  Niki hadn’t wanted to talk about what had happened with her father, so she said nothing, tried to act like nothing was wrong. But clearly he could tell she was troubled. “No, I understand that you couldn’t find gas. Even in Marietta, you have to know exactly when to show up at the station. And that truck of yours must suck up a ton, too.”

  “Way too much.”

  “The smoke is getting to my eyes,” Niki offered as a partially true explanation for her strained eyes. She hadn’t told him that she’d come out without contacts or glasses. No doubt, her unfocused expression was adding to his sense that something was not right with her.

  “Do you want to move away from the fire?” Tom asked.

  “No, then I’ll be cold.” Niki laughed lightly at her dilemma. “I’d rather be warm.”

  The night had been full of song and a friendly rivalry between some members of the Marietta Mariners football team, Sage Valley’s rivals. The next big football game would be a home game with the Mariners. Technically, the bonfire was a Sage Valley event, but every year a group of Mariner players and cheerleaders showed up to taunt and be taunted in return.

  Tom wrapped his arm around Niki’s shoulder and pulled her tighter. She took in his warmth and the pleasantly smoky smell of his jacket. Maybe he was someone she really could like. She hadn’t started out to do anything more than make Brock jealous. But, with her limited vision, she couldn’t even find Brock in the crowd. And after the time she’d spent kissing Tom the other day…well, Niki was growing to like him more than she’d suspected she would.

  From the parking lot, someone hurtled an enraged curse into the night.

  A windshield shattered.

  “What’s happening?” Niki asked Tom.

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. He let go of her hand. “Stay here. I’ll find out.”

  The crowd around the big fire separated to make room for a bunch of Mariner cheerleaders. To Niki, they were just moving blurs, but she could clearly hear them chanting the Mariner cheers. Around them, her classmates booed and heckled good-naturedly.

  Would her cheering squad be expected to respond to this? Did they last year? She hadn’t been elected captain then, and couldn’t remember if they’d assembled to face off against the Mariner squad. Could she get through a routine half blind? She’d have to insist it wasn’t one with a pyramid or any kind of throw and catch.

  All of a sudden, Niki became aware of a large person standing beside her, tall and square—she’d know Brock just by the smell of the fabric softener his mother used. “Hey, Niki. Are you here by yourself?” he asked, his voice neutral.

  “What do you care?” Niki shot back.

  “Don’t be like that. We’re still friends.”

  “No, we’re not, Brock. You dumped me twice! A friend wouldn’t do that.�
��

  “Aw, come on, give me a break. You know it wasn’t working out. Maybe we won’t fight so much if we’re friends. I wanted to know if you’re alone because I think there’s going to be some fighting, and maybe you should get out of here before it starts.”

  A sharp shout carried up from the parking lot on the cold wind. Just as the Mariner cheerleaders were ending their last lines, everyone turned toward the sound. Its sharp, aggressive hostility lifted it above the joking barbs her classmates were pitching at the rival cheerleaders.

  “See what I mean?” Brock said. “You should leave right now. I’m going down to see what’s going on.”

  “Shouldn’t you leave, too?” Niki suggested.

  “I’ll be okay, but you should go.”

  “No, don’t leave me.” But it was too late. He’d gone.

  “They’ve siphoned all the gas from our tanks!” someone shouted.

  Outraged voices rose up on every side. She didn’t even know that word—siphoned. Niki could see well enough to take several steps forward along with the crowd around her. “What’s happening?” she asked a girl who had come into focus to her right.

  “Some of the Mariner players have sucked the gasoline from our cars.”

  “Are you kidding?” Niki gasped. “How’d they do that?”

  “Don’t they usually stick a hose into the fuel tank or something like that?” the girl replied before she rushed forward with the rest of the crowd that was running off into the darkness beyond the bonfire.

  There was more shouting. Down in the parking lot, motors revved but wouldn’t start.

  Niki inched her way forward. Most of the shouting was indistinct. She heard thumping and pounding, another crash of broken glass. More curses. Occasionally, she could make out a clear sentence:

  “Stop hitting him. Stop! You’re going to kill him!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Gwen stretched out on her couch with a scratchy blue blanket held over her head with one hand, a flashlight held with the other. Propped between her stomach and her knees was a tablet onto which she’d uploaded a book titled Sustainable Future. From it, Gwen was poring over an article called “Residential Wind Turbines.”

  The reading wasn’t easy to understand. The article had subtitles such as: Designing and Carving Wooden Blades; Alternator Theory and Design; Winding Coils; Fitting Magnets into Homebuilt Alternators; Governing Systems; Yaw and Tail Design and Construction; Wiring and Fabrication; Construction Details.

  In fact, it seemed pretty much impossible to imagine converting to wind power. And yet, the article said it could be done. It also said that—as an individual—it might be easier to work with solar energy. What intrigued her about wind energy, though, was that Luke had so much old motorcycle junk lying around. Wire and motors and all sorts of metal were piled in the shed behind the house.

  Tom and Carlos had been on the right track when they’d suggested that Luke had access to stolen gasoline. But it was only enough to keep their old furnace going at sixty degrees and to fuel a small generator for a few hours in the evening. The rest of the gas Luke sold at high prices.

  When Gwen wanted to know why he didn’t keep more for their own use, he said, “You like to eat, don’t you? We need that money for food. Besides, I have to buy the gas from the black market guy, which means filling a truck with gas just to go get the stuff.”

  Gwen scrolled down to a subhead titled: History of the Wind Turbine. She learned that windmills were used to grind grain in Persia as early as 200 BC. The first electricity-generating wind machine was installed in 1887 in Scotland. In America, by 1908 there were seventy-two wind-propelled electric generators. By the 1930s, windmills for electricity were common on American farms.

  Outside, the wind howled. She pictured a wind turbine with its blades spinning, producing enough electricity to light their house.

  Gwen switched off the tablet. Maybe it was useless. There was so much she’d need to know before she could think about building a wind turbine and installing it on their roof.

  Luke and two of his friends stomped through the front door into the enclosed front porch, laughing raucously, in a tone that told Gwen they’d been drinking. They reeked of gasoline and body odor as they dragged in an array of various plastic containers—juice and milk jugs, large water jugs, and even soda bottles, along with red containers.

  Tossing off her blanket, Gwen left the tablet on the couch. Going toward the porch, she recognized the strong odor of gasoline before she even got there. “Did you just come up from the city with that?” she asked Luke.

  “None of your business where we got it,” Luke told her, though he appeared to be in a good mood. “We’re going to make a bundle on this. People are so desperate, they’ll pay anything, especially over in Marietta, where they can afford it.”

  “Isn’t what you’re doing illegal?” Gwen asked.

  Luke looked to his two friends, a tall, skinny guy in motorcycle leathers named Mark, and a wider, muscular guy with long, black hair who they called Rat. They faced Gwen with serious expressions before bursting into laughter. “Gee, I guess it could be, Gwen,” Rat said mockingly through his hilarity. “Are you going to call the cops on us?”

  “Of course not, stupid. I just wanted to know.”

  “You don’t have to know anything,” Luke said, his laughter subsiding. “Just keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything to your friends.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t have any friends.”

  “What about the boyfriend that you sit around and howl at the moon with? What’s his name? Horace?”

  “Hector—and he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, well. Don’t tell him anything about what I do. You haven’t already, have you?”

  Honestly, Gwen couldn’t remember what she’d told Hector. “Hector is cool. He doesn’t care what you do. Tom at school knows. Remember, you sold him the gas that day?”

  “Well, tell him to keep his mouth shut about it.”

  “You tell him,” Gwen snapped, but then thought better of it. The last thing Tom needed was for Luke to be on his case. “He won’t say anything,” she added.

  “He’d better not.”

  “Gwen, why aren’t you at that thing at the high school?” Rat asked.

  “What thing? The bonfire?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not for me,” she answered dismissively. “I don’t really get the whole team spirit thing.”

  “Yeah?” said Rat. “What’s your kind of thing?”

  “Helping my brother move illegal gasoline,” Gwen replied sourly. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You know what I read?” Rat said. “Oil is the biggest business in the world. Can you believe that? In the world! Do you think all those rich oil guys got so fat by doing everything legally?” He laughed scornfully. “Don’t bet on it.”

  “Don’t worry about this being illegal,” Luke said, pushing the canisters to the back of the porch to make room for more. “I could make a bundle because I’m willing to take the risk. No guts, no glory.”

  “Yeah, well, what about me?” Gwen argued.

  “You’re eating, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not what I mean. What if you get arrested? I land in foster care.”

  Luke waved her away as he headed back toward the door for more canisters filled with gasoline. “I’m not getting arrested.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m not going into a foster home,” Gwen insisted. “I’ll run away first.”

  Luke turned at the door and faced her. “Shut your trap and be useful. Pull the blinds and curtains so everyone in town doesn’t know our generator is going. Then help us get the rest of this gas.”

  “Is it safe to store gasoline in here?” Gwen questioned. “I don’t think you’re supposed to store it in milk containers, either.”

  “Just get going, would ya?”

  Gwen lay supine on her lower roof, staring at the stars. Carrying all those canisters of gasoline onto th
e front porch had made her muscles ache.

  Breathing out, a vapor cloud formed in front of her face. She pulled the zipper of her black sweatshirt up as high as it went. Soon, she’d need some kind of winter jacket. Would Luke sell enough black market gasoline to pay for a new one?

  By the time the jacket was an absolute necessity, she might be in foster care. Who would pay for a jacket then? The state? Her foster parents? Anyone?

  Would they find her mother?

  Thinking about her mother made Gwen’s stomach clench with anxiety. She’d run off with her boyfriend when Gwen was in ninth grade. Since she wasn’t dead, just missing in action, Gwen and Luke simply hadn’t told anyone about it, at least not anyone in charge of anything. Their old house had been inherited from Gwen’s grandfather, so they didn’t have anything to pay on it. She saw letters that were stamped FINAL NOTICE OF OVERDUE BACK TAXES, but, so far, they’d gotten away with ignoring them.

  Gwen didn’t even know how to find her mother. She’d simply gone out for a date with Richard and had never returned. She’d left a quick note saying Luke and Gwen were now old enough to take care of themselves. Her job was done. That was how they knew what had happened.

  At first, Gwen had been angry. Furious. Enraged by the abandonment. But it was shockingly easy to settle into her new, freer life with Luke. She could make her own rules, wear what she liked. Not that Leila Jones had ever been strict—Luke always cracked that their mother was “asleep at the wheel.” Life with only Luke in charge was complete freedom.

  Still…did she miss her mother?

  A little, mostly when she thought back to when she was small, to a time when her mother didn’t drink so heavily and before Richard had brought the harder stuff. There was no sense thinking about it too much, though. Leila had chosen Richard over Luke and Gwen, and that was that.

  Luke and Gwen had managed to stay under everyone’s radar up until now. It turned out that Leila had quit her bartending job before she left, so no one at work thought it was odd that she didn’t come in. Gwen quickly broke off the several friendships she had at school to prevent anyone from nosing around. Doing this made her lonely, and she still felt guilty that she had hurt the feelings of some of her old friends, but it couldn’t have been avoided.