by Rebel Adams
“Oh, thanks, guys,” Brenda said with a smile. “That means I can bathe the twins early and get them to bed.”
“What about me?” Pastor Isaiah said and waggled his eyebrows.
“You can get your own bath,” Brenda said.
“Ew!” Shanice said. “TMI, you guys?”
Trevor felt his face heat up.
“Someday you young people will know what it’s like to have that special someone in your lives,” Isaiah said and helped clear the table.
Shanice held back. “I’ll carry one of the chunkies upstairs for you, Mom,” she said and grabbed Zeke. Brenda took Ezra and they disappeared upstairs.
“My daughter appears to be upset with you.” Isaiah said.
Trevor should have seen this coming. “Yes, sir.”
“What did you do? Honestly, anything you did was wrong from the word go, but you want to talk about it?”
“Well, I was with some guys at school today and Shanice interrupted us.” He left out the part about what they were doing. “I may have hurt her feelings when I asked her to leave us alone.”
“I know you’re growing up, Trevor, and Shanice still has a ways to go, but she has always idolized you, since our Baptist Home days. Go easy on my baby girl, or I might have to slap your face with a glove and challenge you to a duel.”
Trevor grinned. “I can’t duel without a weapon.”
“Who said anything about weapons,” Isaiah put up his fists. “I’m talking about duking it out, the old fashioned way.” He jabbed in the air in Trevor’s direction a couple times, and Trevor played along, dodging his fists.
“I was going to apologize while we were doing the dishes, but she went upstairs.”
“She’ll come back down in a little while. You know she can’t stay mad at you.”
Trevor hoped Isaiah was right, because it was just miserable having Shanice mad at him. They’d just finished loading the dishwasher when Shanice came back down, and Isaiah retired to the den. He said it was to watch CNN, but Trevor knew he was giving them some privacy.
“‘Nice,” Trevor said. “I’m sorry.”
Shanice didn’t respond. Not even to his nickname for her. She took her book and sat down at the dining room table then flipped it open.
Trevor took a seat in the chair beside her and tried again. “‘Nice?”
Isaiah yelled, “Shanice, put that boy out of his misery and accept his apology. You’ll learn later in life that as a gender collectively, we tend to sometimes say stupid things.” Trevor heard the TV turn off , then Isaiah headed upstairs, but not before he yelled, “I’ll drive you home when you’re ready, Trevor.”
Trevor felt really stupid now, but he’d do anything to not have Shanice mad at him. “What you saw me doing earlier…I quit. I promise. And I won’t use bad words around you anymore. I don’t want Pastor Isaiah and Ms. Brenda to stop me from coming around.”
Shanice put her book down and looked up at him. “You hurt my feelings, Trevor,” she said, and her bottom lip trembled. “Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t,” he promised, not altogether sure he would be able to keep that promise.
It wasn’t until six months later, when Philip lost his job, that he asked Trevor to do things that made him increasingly more uncomfortable. Phillip took trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas, whereas before he traveled the shorter distances to Hollywood, Florida and Biloxi, Mississippi. VIP cards from the casinos began to come in the mail. Then, rather than make up stories, Phillip just flat out told Trevor to take his clients’ money.
“I need you to move the funds from the people on this list and make it where no one knows it’s you, just like David said you could,” Philip said.
“Why? You know that’s not legal, Uncle Philip.”
“Are you questioning my authority? I’m your guardian. I pay all the fucking bills around here, keep your greedy mouth fed, and buy you all this top-of-the-line computer shit. How dare you question me!”
Trevor did it a few times more before he hacked into Philip’s personal accounts to see why he needed so much cash. A large chunk of the insurance money that David and Elena had left to take care of Trevor was gone, except his college fund. Philip couldn’t touch that, thank goodness. Trevor was looking forward to college as his opportunity to escape.
Until then, unless he was working on something for Philip, he camped out at the Baileys’ house most of the time. Isaiah questioned him about Philip one evening after dinner. They were barbequing on the patio out back that overlooked the pool.
“How are things with you and Philip?” Isaiah asked. “He’s gone an awful lot. I mean, we love having you here, but I just want to make sure you’re being properly cared for.”
“Uncle Philip gambles,” Trevor said, no longer willing to keep Philip’s dirty little secret. “A lot.”
“Oh?” Isaiah said. “I wonder how DCFS missed that little detail about him. I’ll make some inquiries.”
“If they take me away from Philip, they could send me anywhere in the state. Please don’t do anything that will get me taken far away, so I won’t get to see you guys,” Trevor said. “Uncle Philip isn’t the worst foster parent I’ve ever had.” He didn’t want to tell Isaiah about the other, illegal stuff he was doing, because he’d definitely call DCFS about that, and he didn’t know how much trouble he’d be in.
“That may be true, but Brenda and I worry about you with him. David told me about Philip’s behavior when they were growing up, but I thought he’d matured enough to give you a stable home. Never hesitate to tell us if it gets too bad, okay?”
“Okay,” Trevor said.
A year later, Philip had worked his way through the rest of the insurance money. He decided that people who allowed funds to go unclaimed, didn’t care about their finances, and these people should be targeted, since they were so careless with their money.
As gambling became Philip’s pastime and primary means of support, he kept going to loan sharks. The thefts were used to bankroll his gambling habit. Trevor felt more and more trapped, but he knew if he went to the authorities, he could be taken out of Philip’s custody, and put back into the system.
Hired muscle for the loan sharks came around and roughed up Philip when he couldn’t pay. Trevor always dreaded this, since right after a beat-down, Philip would make him do some hacking.
“Hey Trev?”
Trevor had grown to hate the pet name Elena had given him simply because Philip used it. “What?” Trevor was unable to answer with any respect. The man didn’t deserve it.
“Watch your tone, son.”
“I’m not your son,” Trevor said, unable to stop himself.
“Thank God,” Philip said. “As long as you do as I say, I’ll keep a roof over your head and clothes and on your no-good back, but you’ll do what I tell you to do.” Philip handed him a list. “Hack into these accounts and take several thousand out of each. Clean up like you always do, because I don’t want the feds snooping around.”
Trevor must have taken too long to take the list from his hand, because Philip pulled him out of his chair and held him up by the scruff of his collar. “When I tell you to do something, you will answer me in a respectful tone. Do you hear me?”
Trevor wanted to push it, but all it would do was cause his uncle to punish him physically. At sixteen now, Trevor had stopped caring about his uncle and his tirades.
“I’m going to tell Pastor Bailey and Ms. Brenda about this, so they can get custody of me. I’m tired of stealing for you.”
Philip tightened his hold on Trevor’s collar, and his nostrils flared. “If you breathe a word to the Baileys, or anyone, about this, you’ll be sorry. As sorry as my dead brother and his wife.”
That scared him. His uncle was intimating that he’d had something to do with David and Elena’s death. It sickened Trevor to hear that.
“You know, it would be easy for me to hurt that little play sister of yours, too.” Philip said. “She could disa
ppear one day, and the Baileys would never see her again. Not you either, boy. So get your attitude together.”
Trevor was really afraid of what his Uncle might do. If Philip hurt Shanice, it would be all his fault, and he couldn’t live with that. For the first time, he hated how stupid he’d been to help Philip out the first time. He should’ve refused, because now he was trapped. Trevor was sure those guys his uncle was hanging with all were part of some organized crime outfit. He’d watched enough of the Sopranos to know about the mob. His uncle had told them about his computer abilities, and they brought him small jobs to do.
The two tough guys who were around the most, he nicknamed Frick and Frack, were sort of like the cartoon characters, Pinky and The Brain. One was tall, lanky, and feeble-minded, and the other was a short, stocky vicious schemer.
“Hey kid,” the short one, Frick, said to him one day. “Our boss wants you to work on the program that runs his slot machines. He needs you to make it more difficult for anyone to win but leave a few loose, so we can keep the suckers coming. Can you do that?”
“Why would I want to do that?” Trevor said. “I get caught, I’m going to Juvie.”
The little man glared at him. “Phil told us how you cover your tracks when you take for him, so you do the same thing for us, or else you might get into that nice little car Philip gave you, and the brakes will go out, or a bomb might go off.”
Trevor didn’t care. He’d almost prefer it, he was so sick of all of it. “You do what you want to me. I don’t give a damn.”
Frick and Frack worked Trevor over that day until he passed out. They’d been careful not to injure his hands so he could type, but his gut felt like someone had put him through a meat tenderizer, and he was sure one of his ribs might have been cracked. Even that didn’t shake his resolve, but what did was coming to with pictures of the Baileys with bull’s-eyes drawn on them taped to the walls of his bedroom.
Trevor decided then to distance himself from the Baileys. He stopped visiting their home, and didn’t stay with them when his uncle was out of town. The next time his uncle threatened Shanice, Trevor told him he didn’t care about her or anybody. He hoped it would be enough to keep Phil’s focus off the Baileys, especially if he could convince his uncle they weren’t important to him anymore.
Of course, Trevor’s absence from their home made the Baileys and Shanice suspicious and angry, in that order. Brenda and Isaiah called often. A conversation that would go something like:
“Hey Trevor, we’re worried about you. Did we do anything to hurt your feelings? Or something?”
“No, I’ve just got a lot going on. You know, school, activities. . . and I’ve got a part time job now.”
“Really? Where?”
He scrambled for a quick response that sounded credible, given the nature of his true work. If you could call it that. “Um, it’s a work at home gig Uncle Phil got me. Nothing special, just a lot of busy work.”
“Well, don’t let it overwhelm you. We miss you, and we’d love to see you whenever you have time.”
“I know, and I’ll try to make it over sometime.” Even as he said it, he knew he wouldn’t. He wanted to steer Phil and his goons away from the Baileys as much as possible. Eventually, they stopped calling, but Shanice was another matter.
When Trevor refused Shanice’s calls or wouldn’t return them, she would just show up. One Saturday, she got on her bike and rode the seven miles to Philip’s condo. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt on any of the several major streets she crossed to get there, and Philip was off to one of the casinos he frequented. Trevor answered the door expecting it to be either Frick or Frack checking up on him, which they did sometimes when Phil was out of town.
“What do you want as—?” Trevor said, before he saw it was Shanice. He was going to say, “asswipe,” But Shanice would’ve freaked out, so he was glad he was able to change what he was about to say, since it wasn’t intended for her anyway. “—as I’m about to head out?”
Her face crumpled anyway, and it made him backpedal. “‘Nice, I’m sorry. I don’t have to leave right away.” He opened the door a little wider and pulled her into the room so the neighbors wouldn’t see a little girl crying on the doorstep.
He couldn’t bear to see her cry, so he hugged her. “Shh, don’t cry.”
“Why don’t you pick up the phone when I call, or come over to the house anymore?” she said through her sniffles.
Trevor took a deep breath. “Like I told you. It’s just not a good idea for us to hang out anymore.”
“But why?”
“Because, it’s just not.”
She stepped back, as her stubbornness emerged. “You can’t even give me a good reason.”
“I would if I could, Shanice. I promise. You don’t understand what kind of pressure I’m in over here.”
“Then you should at least tell my Dad so he can help you.”
“And get taken from Phil and sent God knows where? No thanks.” Although, that wasn’t the truth either. If he made waves with the DCFS, or with Isaiah Bailey, he would be putting the Baileys at risk, especially Shanice. And if anything happened to her, it’d be lights out for him, too. He’d make sure of it.
“Is he out of town this weekend?” she said, looking around, as if she were almost fearful his Uncle Phil would come out any minute.
“Yeah.”
“Then, why can’t we hang out a while?”
Shanice looked so sad, and he didn’t want to be the cause of her sadness. He caved. “Just for a little while, but I’m driving you back home.”
“Mom and Dad, says you haven’t had your license long enough for me to ride with you.”
“I think they’d rather I drove you than have you ride your bike back.”
“Then I’ll be busted.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “You had lunch yet?”
“No, I’m supposed to be at Carly’s birthday party.”
Trevor grinned. “What do you say, we order some pizza?”
“Okay!” Shanice said, then strode over and plopped down on the sofa in front of the TV. “I haven’t had pizza in so long. Brenda cooks every day.”
“And that’s a problem, how?”
“It’s not. I love Mom’s cooking, I just want a Wendy’s burger, or Papa John’s Pizza sometimes.”
Trevor pulled out his cell phone. “I’m about to grant your wish, princess.”
They scarfed down pizza and caught up. Shanice’s twelfth birthday was rapidly approaching and Trevor’s seventeenth, so a lot was going on with them both in school. He was gearing up for prom, and she was taking advanced math and science classes already. Trevor was impressed.
“How’d you land in pre-algebra anyhow? I didn’t get any of that until 8th grade.” Although he could’ve been in the more advanced classes earlier, it was David’s desire to protect him that kept him back.
“They have this program for kids who think they might want to do something health-related, like nursing or medical school when they grow up.”
“You want to be a doctor?” Trevor said.
“No, a nurse. I want to help people get over drug addiction and stuff, but I don’t want to go to school for all the years it takes to be a doctor.”
“That’s cool. Just don’t fall for some doctor and forget about me,” he teased.
“I’d never forget you, Trevor,” she said. “And I’ll never fall for some doctor.”
“How do you know?” he said. “You’ll go off to college and I’ll be as good as forgotten.”
“You’ll forget me first,” she said. “You already have. You’re the one who’s taking Emily Winters to the prom and everything.”
“It’s just another rite of passage.”
“A what?”
“It’s one of those things you’re expected to do at certain ages that transition you from one stage in life to another.”
“Oh, well. I’m not passing any rites with anyone but you,” She said.
“You’re too young to say that, Shanice. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do.”
“So do you.” She protested, just as he expected her to.
“Yeah, but I’m closer to twenty-one than you are, and I’ll be going off to college in a couple of years.”
“I know, but I won’t forget you,” Shanice said with conviction.
“How do you know this?” Trevor asked.
“Because I’m going to be like Amy March in Little Women.”
“Never heard of it,” Trevor said.
“Probably because boys think it’s stupid. But there is a Little Men, and Jo’s Boys and they’re about orphans and stuff. Anyway, they’re classics. Mom read the books when she was about my age, so she gave them to me for Christmas.”
“What does this have to do with you not forgetting me?”
“You’ll have to read Little Women to find out,” she said cryptically. Then she changed the subject by challenging him to a video game. About an hour later, Trevor drove Shanice as far as a block away from home, then took her bike out of his trunk so she could ride home the rest of the way.
“Hey ‘Nice,” he said. “Don’t ride your bike over to Phil’s again, or I’m going to snitch you out to Isaiah and Brenda. It’s too dangerous for you to ride that far on your bike. You could get hit by a car.”
She hung her head briefly, then raised her eyes to his again. “Then promise me you’ll come see me sometimes.”
“Okay,” he said. “I promise.” But Trevor knew, the likelihood of him following up on that promise was practically nil.
He was finishing up another of Phil’s projects before getting ready to go hang out with a couple of friends from school that night when he decided to look up Little Women on the internet. Trevor found a detailed enough summary to figure out that his surrogate little sister probably had a crush on him.
Trevor grinned, knowing that he would be one of many crushes before she finally decided on the man she would spend her life with. He wasn’t even thinking of a future with any special person at the moment. He just needed to concentrate on figuring out how to get out of the mess he was in with his uncle Philip, and to keep Shanice and her family alive in the process.