“Everything okay, Mom?”
“Everything is fine,” she said.
Then why didn’t it feel fine? Not only was my mother uncharacteristically quiet, she also seemed preoccupied.
“Did you see Ted this weekend?”
Ted Gold is the man my mother has been seeing. He’s a financial analyst. I’m not one hundred percent sure what a financial analyst does, but I know that Ted is good at it. He’s made a lot of money. He isn’t one of those flashy rich guys, though. He dresses down more than he dresses up. He loves to cook, especially for my mother. He also loves to listen to jazz, although he’s flexible. He volunteers as a basketball coach one night a week at a youth center not far from where my father lives. He never misses a game. And even though he’s a short, balding, nerdy-looking guy, all the kids seem to like and respect him. I like him too.
“I worked all weekend,” my mother said.
“Even Saturday night?” No matter how busy she was, my mother usually reserved Saturday nights for Ted.
“I had an important case dropped on me at the last minute.”
I didn’t doubt that. But something was wrong. I was sure of it. Except for Saturday, when he was with my mother, Ted usually called her every night. But, I realized, he hadn’t called her at all last week.
“Did you and Ted have a fight or something?” I said.
“What makes you think that?”
“He hasn’t been over to the house in a while.”
“Scheduling problems,” she said. “It’s been hectic.”
“You were home every night last week,” I said.
“I mean his schedule has been hectic,” she said.
“Since when is Ted ever too busy to see you?”
That’s when my mother did something that she always claims she tries to avoid. She got angry with me. “For heaven’s sake, Robyn, stop giving me the third degree,” she said. “You sound just like your father.” Believe me, that wasn’t intended as a compliment.
“Thanks a lot,” I said. If she didn’t want to talk to me, fine. After what she’d just said, I didn’t want to talk to her, either.
It was quiet in the car. I stared out the passenger window.
“Robyn?” my mother said after we had gone a few more miles.
I continued to stare out the window.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that. . . .”
I turned and saw a troubled expression on her face.
“Ted and I are taking a little break, okay?”
The look on my mother’s face told me that it was not okay. I wondered whose idea the “little break” had been. I wondered if it would turn out to be permanent. Most of all, I wondered how my mother was feeling about it— whether she was hurt or angry or confused or all of the above. But she didn’t tell me, so I didn’t ask. She was quiet the rest of the way home. It wasn’t until we pulled into the driveway that she finally reverted to standard mom mode.
“Didn’t you promise me that you would clean out the garage?” she said as she nudged the car inside.
And I had promised—right after my mother had ordered me to clean it out. But talk about a Herculean task. Ask almost anyone and they’ll tell you that my mother is a neat freak. She keeps the house in impeccable order. A lot of times, though, she accomplishes this by piling stuff willy-nilly in the garage.
“I’ll do it, honest,” I said.
“When?”
I hate being put on the spot, especially when a miserable, thankless chore is involved.
“Probably next weekend.”
“Probably?” my mother said. “Make that definitely, Robyn.”
Right.
When we got inside, my mother headed straight upstairs. She said it had been a grueling day and that there was nothing like a long Sunday in the office to make a person want to soak in a hot bath. I went into the kitchen and stared at the home phone for a few minutes. I didn’t want to call my father. I knew what he wanted to talk about, and I didn’t want to talk about it. But if I didn’t call him, he would keep calling until he got hold of me and by then he would know for sure that something was wrong. Probably better to get it over with. I picked up the handset, punched in his phone number, and spent the next few minutes telling him everything—well, almost everything—I knew, had ever heard, and was willing to admit about Trisha Carnegie. It didn’t take long.
“Do you have any idea who she would confide in, Robbie?”
“No, Dad.”
“Who does she talk to at school?”
“I already told you. No one.”
“Everyone talks to someone, Robbie.You can’t spend five days a week in a building with fourteen hundred other human beings and not talk to any of them.”
“Yes, you can, Dad. You can also spend five days a week in a building with fourteen hundred other human beings and have them not talk to you.”
There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.
“So you’re saying that this girl not only has no friends, she has no acquaintances either, no one she might talk to regularly?”
“If she does, I don’t know who they are.”
“What about teachers?”
“What about them?”
“Is she close to any of her teachers?”
“I don’t know, Dad.”
“It’s just not possible that no one knows anything about this girl,” he said.
“I worked on a project with her and I don’t know anything about her,” I said. There, it was out in the open. Now nobody could rat me out.
“What do you mean, you worked on a project with her?”
“In history,” I said. “I told you. She’s in my history class.”
“She didn’t mention anything about what was going on in her life?”
“No.”
“She didn’t mention any names to you? People she might know, places where she hangs out?”
“No.”
“She didn’t mention her mother?”
“No.” I was glad I was talking to him on the phone and not in person. If he had seen my face, he would have known that I wasn’t being completely honest with him. “Dad, for the millionth time, she doesn’t talk much.” She didn’t work much, either, which had been my number one problem with her.
“Well, thanks, Robbie,” he said at last.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” I said. Then, mostly to change the subject, I said, “Dad? I forgot to tell you. I saw Mr. Jarvis yesterday. He said the baseball tickets worked out great—the kids he took had a good time.”
My father said he was glad. Then he said, “Where’d you see him, Robbie? Don’t tell me you were protesting again.” He was referring to my scrape with the law the past summer, which had ended with an agreement that I volunteer at an animal shelter in return for a storeowner not pressing charges against me. Long story.
“Very funny, Dad. I ran into him downtown. Nick was with him.”
“Oh?” That was all he said, but there was something about the sound of that one syllable—caution?—that caught my attention like a whiff of smoke. And where there’s smoke. . . .
“Did he say anything to you, Dad?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Jarvis. Did he say anything to you about Nick when you gave him those tickets?”
“Like what?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“Not that I recall. Why?”
I knew then that there was something he wasn’t telling me. For one thing, his voice was pitched a little higher than normal. For another, he was answering my questions with more questions, a sure sign of evasion. It probably served me right.
“So Mr. Jarvis didn’t say anything to you about Nick?”
“No,” my father said. Then, after a tiny pause, he said, “Your mother looked a little out of sorts when she picked you up. Is she okay?”
One more thing to hide.
“She’s fine, Dad.”
After I hung up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on with Nick, maybe something to do with his appointment, and that my father had an idea what it was.
"Slow down for a second,” Morgan said. “Where’s the fire?”
She had caught up with me at my locker, where I was cramming textbooks and binders into my locker as fast as I could.
“I’m going to see Nick,” I said. Our school works on a two-day cycle. On day one, I have a full load of classes. On day two, I have a free period right before lunch, which gives me enough time to get across town to meet Nick at his school if I want to.
“Oh?” Morgan said, grinning. “Are you going to come back with that same goofy expression on your face that you had on Saturday?”
“Goofy?” I said.
“As in, crazy in love,” Morgan said. “He’s hot, Robyn. What are his friends like?”
“Nick kind of keeps to himself,” I said. I jammed my math textbook onto the already tightly packed top shelf of my locker and slammed the door. “Gotta run.”
I had to wait almost fifteen minutes for a bus that was supposed to come every five minutes. Then the bus hit every red light between my school and my destination. By the time I got to Nick’s school—a small, extremely alternative school above a sporting goods store in the west end—Nick’s lunch period had already started.
I scouted the fast food restaurants in the vicinity and finally found Nick in the back of a taco place. He was scarfing down an order of nachos as if he hadn’t eaten all day, which, knowing Nick, he probably hadn’t. The way he told it, the staff at Somerset have to drag him out of bed every morning and even then it’s a miracle he gets to school on time. He glanced up and saw me coming toward him, but he didn’t smile. He didn’t even look pleased. Instead, he reached for the hoodie on the back of his chair and he pulled it on over his T-shirt. When I reached his table, he stood up and kissed me on the cheek. I was confused, but the kiss made me feel better.
“You had me worried for a minute,” I said. “I thought you were going to run out the back door.” When he looked baffled, I explained. “As soon as you saw me, you put on your sweatshirt.”
“It’s kind of chilly in here,” he said.
It wasn’t.
“You want something to eat?” he said.
I didn’t.
“Nick, is everything okay?”
“Sure,” he said. But instead of looking at me, he looked down at what was left of his nachos. He stared at them for a long time, as if the bits of taco chip and black olives were more fascinating than me.
“Nick?”
His head bobbed up and he smiled at me. The first time I had seen that smile, it had felt like a miracle. Most of the time, Nick looks like a tough guy, dressed all in black, tall for sixteen, and lean. When he’s serious or angry, you don’t doubt that he could do a lot of damage. He’d been in trouble for most of his life.
“You sure you don’t want something to eat?” he said. “How about something to drink?” He jumped to his feet before I could answer.
“Nick, I—”
But he was already heading for the counter at the front of the restaurant. When he came back, he handed me a soda. I noticed he used his right hand. Nick is left-handed.
“Diet, right?” he said.
“Right.”
He sat down again, pushed aside his plate, and bent over his own drink. Beads of sweat were forming on his upper lip.
“It’s warm in here, huh?” I said.
He nodded, but instead of taking off his hoodie, he stood up again.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the bus.”
The bus? I’d only just arrived, and now it sounded like he wanted to get rid of me. I thought about Beej. He’d had his arm around her, but right after that, he had kissed me and told me that he wanted to take me out on my birthday. I thought about how he had acted when I asked him what he was doing downtown with Mr. Jarvis. What was going on?
As soon as we got outside, he peered up the street, cupping a hand over his eyes to block the glare of the autumn sun.
“I think I see your bus,” he said.
“I have plenty of time.”
“Yeah, but I gotta get back. I have to study for a test.” He started for the bus stop, then stopped and gestured to me. “Come on,” he said. “You’re gonna miss it.”
I didn’t. I reached the bus stop at the same time as the bus. Before I climbed in, I said,“How about Wednesday? I could come over here again. I’ll get here earlier.”
Nick shook his head. “I’m busy on Wednesday,” he said. “Another time, okay?”
. . .
I had met Nick less than two months ago, when we were both volunteering—well, sort of volunteering—at a local animal shelter. I liked him—a lot—and sometimes I was one hundred percent positive that he liked me too. Other times, though, I wasn’t so sure.
My mother represented Nick the last time he was in trouble, and she doesn’t really approve of me being involved with him. It isn’t that she doesn’t like him. But she thinks I’d be better off with a regular guy—in other words, someone who hasn’t been in juvie court half a dozen times. I think that’s why I went to my father’s place after school instead of my mother’s.
My father was sitting in the living room when I got there. He was hunched over piles of newspaper clippings, printed documents, and handwritten notes on his coffee table. He barely looked up when I let myself in. When he did finally glance at me, he seemed distracted. “Oh, hi Robbie,” he said. “How was your day?”
“Okay, I guess.” He didn’t pick up on my lack of enthusiasm, which was fine with me. I didn’t much feel like talking. “I’m going to do my homework.”
I went into the bedroom that my father calls my room, but which he treats more like a guest room. People from out of town stay in it sometimes. So do old friends, clients who need a place to stay, and Vern some nights when he and my father have been working late.
I closed the door and flung myself onto the bed. It’s probably nothing, I told myself. Nick probably just has something on his mind. People are allowed to have things on their mind, things that they don’t necessarily want to tell other people. It’s no big deal. But that wasn’t true.
Every now and then, I’d catch myself daydreaming: Nick and me, walking somewhere nice, maybe strolling in one of the ravines that cut through the city, maybe even outside of the city completely. It would be spring, when the wildflowers are in bloom and you swear you can smell each blade of grass, each bud on each tree. There we’d be, just the two of us, maybe holding hands, eating a picnic lunch and talking. Yeah, I know. It sounds like a Hallmark moment. If it had been someone else’s daydream, I would have laughed. But that’s how he made me feel.
But what had happened earlier wasn’t anything like my daydreams. Nick had acted nervous, jumping up and down, pretending he was doing things for me, when really he was just staying busy so he wouldn’t have to talk to me. He hadn’t been overjoyed to see me, that was for sure.
I lay on the bed, thinking about Nick instead of my homework until my stomach began to growl. I’d skipped lunch and now I was starving. I got up and went to see what my father had planned for dinner. He seemed startled to see me.
“You remembered I was here, right, Dad?”
He nodded, but I was willing to bet he hadn’t.
“Aren’t you hungry?” I said.
“Does your mother know you’re here?”
Oops.
“Call her and tell her I’ll make sure you get home. Then we’ll go downstairs and get a bite.”
I did and then we did.We were both preoccupied and at least one of us knew it. Unless someone made a stab at conversation, it was going to be a dreary dinner. So after we settled into our booth in La Folie, I said, “You were really lost in thought, Dad. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said.
“It’s that job Vern mentioned last night, isn’t it?” I
said.
My father nodded. Just then, the waiter arrived with our food. Dad looked down at his plate and smiled appreciatively. La Folie is his favorite restaurant. Mine too. The food is always terrific, even when all you have is a turkey-and-tomato sandwich and an order of fries, which is what I’d ordered. The chef used thick homemade bread and real turkey—no Wonder Bread or processed turkey slices. And the fries were frites—thin and crispy and served with a little cup of garlic mayonnaise. It was heaven.
My father cut into a chicken breast coated with Dijon mustard and crushed pecans.
“You heard about that fire a couple of months back?” he said. “Five horses died, along with a trainer at a stable north of the city.”
“Carmine Doig’s place, you mean?” I said. My father looked surprised. “I can read, Dad. It was in the paper. But I thought it was an accident.”
“That’s what the fire investigator’s report says.” He sounded as if he wasn’t convinced.
“Did you talk to the fire investigator?” I said.
“I can’t. He’s dead. Suicide. They found him last Tuesday morning in his garage.”
Oh.
“I read his report, though. He didn’t find any evidence of arson. He concluded that the trainer was overcome by smoke. Apparently, he had an office inside the stables. The theory is that he’d been celebrating a little too enthusiastically after a race—got overcome by smoke before he could wake up.”
The theory? It sounded as though my hunch last night had been right. “Is that what you’re doing, Dad? Looking into the trainer’s death?”
“Carmine Doig calls himself a businessman,” he said. “He’s a developer. Made a fortune putting up office buildings north of the city. Now he’s into subdivisions and horses. Racehorses. But the company he keeps. . . it’s not nice, if you know what I mean.”
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