Wayward

by Gregory Ashe

  Hide-and-go-seek evolved into an impromptu dinner of Top Ramen and frozen carrots, which evolved into an impromptu fight over the carrots, which Evie refused to eat. Somers reasoned with her. Somers bargained with her. He pleaded with her. Somers remembered a fight over carrots the week before, and he remembered Hazard doing something—airplanes?—so he tried airplanes, zooming the carrots, coming for a landing. The fight escalated, and Evie squirmed in her booster seat, legs and arms a cyclone that finally knocked the tray loose and sent carrots, Top Ramen, and Evie to the floor. The ramen’s broth splashed across Somers, staining his tee brown, lukewarm where it dripped on his bare feet. Evie was silent for a moment; in the instant after she landed, her face had transformed into total panic. And then she began to scream in earnest, a helpless, panicked noise.

  Gathering Evie against his chest, Somers winced as the pitch of the scream escalated. He picked his way across the kitchen, trying to keep from getting noodles stuck to his soles, and once he was clear of the disaster zone, he walked and walked and walked, big loops of the house, rubbing his daughter’s back and whispering to her. She had settled down to sniffles when Somers stopped walking. He stood in the living room, rocking in place, the movements slow and continuous while Evie wiped her nose on his shirt. Somers barely noticed. He was staring at a picture of them, the three of them, taken at the pumpkin patch. And suddenly he was so furious with Hazard, so unspeakably angry, that he had to concentrate on keeping his body loose, his movements steady.

  He worked his phone out of his pocket, tapped a message one handed, and considered it. He went back and forth on it probably a hundred times.

  You are being so fucking unfair about this.

  And then that herd-animal instinct, the one that helped Somers navigate tricky situations, slid into gear. He read his own words, erased them, and put the phone away.

  They heated up chicken nuggets—they was a generous pronoun, but Evie insisted on arranging the star-shaped patties on a plate before it went in the microwave—and Somers stole one and pretended it was coming out of his nose, which made Evie laugh like a crazy woman. Then it was bath time. Then it was pajama time. Then it was story time. Then it was bedtime.

  She went out like a light, and Somers eased the door closed behind him. He had this fantasy of closing his eyes, slumping against the wall, like he was playing a bit part in a fast-tracked movie: Exhausted Father, let’s get this in one and call it a day. But he went downstairs. He cleaned up the food. He wiped up the broth. He got the mop and bucket out of the utility room and stared at the array of cleaning products. Mr. Clean and Pine-Sol and Lysol and Bona and Swiffer. Jesus Christ, Somers thought, running a hand down the row of bottles. No wonder they never had money for anything. It was all going to floor-cleaning supplies. And, of course, he had absolutely no idea how to use any of them, couldn’t stand the thought of reading them and trying to figure it out—he had the mental image of Hazard coming home and catching him and, what? Laughing?—so he left the mop and bucket in the utility room, grabbed a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex, and did the whole job on hands and knees.

  Somers didn’t keep beer in the house anymore, not unless there was a special reason, but when he’d finished cleaning, he went to the fridge anyway. He stood there with the doors open. The cool air met him like a wall. He could feel, now, the sticky spots where broth had dried on his feet, on his arms, on his shirt. No beer. Not a bottle or can in the house. Did anybody in the world do beer deliveries? What the fuck good were millennials if they hadn’t fixed that yet?

  A Pepsi would make him jittery, but he grabbed one anyway, and then he settled on the couch and turned the TV to ESPN, knowing it was what Hazard would expect, hating that he wanted to turn off the TV just so he wouldn’t give Hazard more ammo. It was talking heads, spring training, baseball. He couldn’t have repeated a word of it. He finished the first Pepsi and went back for another.

  He was standing at the refrigerator when the knock came at the front door. Somers had a brief, glorious vision of it being Nico again—for some reason—and this time really letting loose, telling the spoiled kid everything he’d ever thought about him. Somers hurried toward the front door, opening the can of Pepsi, enjoying the pop of the tab, licking the mist of Pepsi from his knuckles.

  But when he opened the door, it wasn’t Nico. It was Bob Sackeman, local leader of the Bright Lights movement, political advisor to Mayor Naomi Malsho, and the man who was currently blackmailing Somers’s father.

  “Go away,” Somers said, channeling his inner Hazard.

  Sackeman smiled and raised a hand in a half wave. “Good evening, Mr. Somerset. I’m sorry to bother you.” Sackeman was middle aged with salt-and-pepper hair in a conservative part. Khakis, a blue gingham shirt, and penny loafers were his normal attire. Tonight he’d added a blue blazer, brass buttons shining like gobs of fire when he moved under the porch light. What was the special occasion, Somers wanted to know. “I did knock,” Sackeman added. “I hope I didn’t wake Evie.”

  “Go away,” Somers said, licking Pepsi from his knuckles again and starting to shut the door.

  “Actually, Mr. Somerset, I think it would benefit both of us to talk. Just for a moment. About your father. And, of course, about the recent change in your situation.”

  Somers hooked one finger around the door, catching it before it shut. He counted out ten beats, hating himself, and then he opened the door.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “May I come in?”

  With a grimace, Somers beckoned, and Sackeman followed him into the living room. Somers took his spot on the couch, gestured to a chair, and muted the television. “I don’t have anything to offer you. Pepsi, I guess.”

  “No, thank you. It upsets my stomach.” Sackeman made a delicate little pressing motion, as though trying to regulate the disobedient body part. He settled into the chair, looked around the room, and smiled. “You have a lovely home.”

  “What do you want, Bob? I’m tired. I’m having, pretty frankly, one of the worst weeks of my life. And, since I’ve had a particularly bad night and I’m looking for someone to whale on, I guess I’ll tell you I hate your guts. So whatever you want to say, say it and get out of my house.”

  Bob smiled as though Somers had just delivered some stupid water-cooler witticism. “I notice Mr. Hazard isn’t here.”

  “You noticed. Everybody noticed. We might as well have gotten a billboard saying I was moving out.”

  “Is the situation permanent?”

  “No.” Somers was on the verge of saying the rest of it, that this was just some stupid political stunt his father had orchestrated, but he remembered at the last minute: this was his father’s opponent.

  “Would you be interested in making it permanent?”

  Somers’s eyebrows shot up. “Goodnight, Bob. Goodbye.”

  “In a past life,” Sackeman said with another water-cooler smile, “I did image management, which was a polite way of saying I handled . . . incidents that might have been embarrassing to the company I worked for. I learned a few things doing that job. May I share a couple of them with you?”

  “If it’ll move things along.”

  “The first is that image is everything. The current image. Right now. That’s all people care about. Oh, sure. Smart people, thoughtful people, they’ll remember the past. They might even take it into consideration. But most people? It’s what’s happening right here, right now. And it’s a hard trap to avoid—harder than you might believe.”

  Somers nodded. “And the second?”

  “You can get what you want, whatever you want, if you control your image.”

  “Say, for example, if you dress up racism, homophobia, ignorance, and general shittiness as some kind of nationalist zeal?”

  Sackeman gave back an oddly coy, just-us-gals smile. “Or,” he said, “we could talk about your situation. May I ask what your father offered you?”

&nbs
p; “What?”

  “In exchange for this . . . spectacle that you and Mr. Hazard are putting on. What is he giving you?”

  Somers grinned and bit the inside of the cheek. What was he getting out of this? Christmas dinner, if he were lucky. A family. Maybe, possibly, he could get a family out of this. If Hazard didn’t leave him or murder him first.

  “Time’s up, Bob.”

  “Fair enough. No reason to tip your hand. If I could make a counteroffer?”

  “Sure,” Somers said. “I’m a big prize. Let’s see if you can woo me.”

  “You can laugh, Mr. Somerset, but you are a big prize. You’re a local boy. You’re a hero, many times over. You’re attractive, but on top of that, you have charisma. Your father thinks he can woo voters by convincing them that you’re still the American boy next door. When you take a side, it will have repercussions. This is a close race; you might determine the outcome of the election. Or you might not. But small hinges, Mr. Somerset.”

  “Sure,” Somers said, still grinning.

  “You think I’m wrong,” Bob said, shrugging. “That’s all right. I just want you to think about something. A little over a year ago, your life changed. Drastically. You began a romantic relationship with Mr. Hazard, and the effects of that are still percolating through your life. Am I wrong?”

  The smile on Somers’s face slipped. He thought about dinner at Noah and Rebeca’s, the awkward silences, the tension in the air, the groups circling each other but never quite meeting. And he thought about how his life had changed, really changed, since the entire town had seen John-Henry Somerset fag out with his partner. Texts and calls from friends. Invitations to pick-up games of football. Happy hours. Tailgating Tigers games. Boating on the Ozarks. All of it had ended. Not just dried up. Ended. And the excuses Somers had used for a long time to hold the terror at bay—the excuse that every new couple disappears for a while, every new couple seems to fall inside their own little world, and of course, it’s easy to lose touch with people that way—those excuses no longer held any water. Somers’s mouth was dry; he tried to get a drink of Pepsi and found the can empty.

  “Just a few more minutes of your time, Mr. Somerset, and then I’ll let you think things over. I imagine your father has offered you the position of chief if he’s elected. It’s a good offer. It’s the same offer we’ll make you. Chief Cravens is ready to retire; between us, I’ll admit that it’s a change that’s long overdue. But I can offer you something else, too. Call it a bonus. Something your father can’t give you.”

  Somers should have told Sackeman to fuck off, but all he could manage was to shake his head.

  “See, nobody trusts Glenn Somerset. Not anymore. He spent too many years spinning webs with our previous mayor. I’ll be honest, Mr. Somerset. I think you could still win him the election. But then you’re part of the same group: the old guard, the wealthy elite, the insiders. They might be able to get you dinner invitations, but they can’t give you your old life back. I can.” Sackeman drew out a phone and held it up. “Allow me to show you what I mean.” He pressed the screen; the whup of a message being sent filled the silence.

  Somers’s phone buzzed. He checked it, expecting a text from Sackeman, but instead he saw Drew Klein’s name on the screen. Drew had been a buddy for a long time. High school buddy. College buddy. Drinking buddy when they both came back to Wahredua. And now—how long since Somers had talked to Drew? They’d bumped into each other once, at the farmer’s market in the fall, and they’d chatted for a minute before Drew had to go. But before that?

  “Let him leave a message,” Sackeman said.

  The call went to voicemail.

  “Play it,” Sackeman said. “On speakerphone, if you would.”

  Somers tapped the screen; his finger skipped across the glass once, and he had to go back and tap again. Drew’s voice filled the room.

  “Somers, man, I haven’t seen you in forever. Rose and I would love to have you over for dinner. Bring Evie. Hey, if you want, bring Cora. But definitely you and Evie. I know Millie would love another playdate. Call me back, ok?”

  Somers was proud of himself for deleting the message, but his finger skipped across the glass again.

  “That’s a nice magic trick,” Somers said. “You arranged with Drew—”

  “Call someone else. Another old buddy.” Sackeman’s face didn’t change, but his tone on the last two words was mocking.

  Staring at his phone, Somers tried to think. Who? Then he shook his head.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Nobody? You have no friends you can call? That doesn’t make any sense. A year ago, you were the most popular man in Wahredua. The favorite son of a hundred thousand people.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Because you know they won’t answer.”

  Somers’s anger was transforming into hurt and shock. How had he hidden this from himself for so long? How had he ignored the fact that his whole life had slipped away? All the weekends with Hazard watching TV, going on hikes, eating out—but nobody else, nobody they had gone to high school with, nobody they had grown up with.

  “Pick a name,” Sackeman said.

  Somers snatched up the phone and scrolled through the contacts—big swipes of his finger that sent the names spinning across the screen. He stopped at Donny Lamar, whom he’d known since they were in diapers, and called.

  The phone rang. And rang. And rang. When it clicked over to voicemail, Somers’s fingers tightened reflexively around the phone’s glass case, and he disconnected.

  “Bad luck,” Somers said. “He’s at the movies.”

  “Of course,” Sackeman said. “Mr. Somerset—John-Henry, we could play this game all night. It wouldn’t end well. Let me make the point another way. Was that Donald Lamar?” Sackeman didn’t wait for an answer; he played with his phone for a minute, and then, over the speaker came the sound of a call ringing.

  “Hey Bob,” Donny said.

  “Hi, Donny—oh, hold on. I’m sorry, something just came up. I’ll have to call you back.”

  “No problem. I’ll be home all night.”

  After disconnecting the call, Sackeman looked up at Somers. “Do you want to try him again?”

  Heat flooded Somers. “Another trick.”

  “A trick? How? Do you think I have some sort of stranglehold on this town? I’ve given everyone direct orders not to answer your calls or invite you to social events?” Sackeman’s grin was vicious. “For a year? No, John-Henry. This is your own fault. You made your choices. And now you’re paying for them.”

  Somers swallowed so he wouldn’t scream. Then he said, “I think you should go now.”

  “Of course,” Sackeman said again. He stood and said, “John-Henry, please think about it. You’d be chief. You’d be a celebrity. And you’d have your old life back.”

  “I don’t want my old life back,” Somers said. “I want Emery.”

  Sackeman nodded. “If you change your mind, I’ll be at a charity auction tonight for the mayor’s re-election campaign. We’d love for you to join us. Stop by any time. The Astoria.”

  Somers walked him to the door. He let Sackeman step out onto the porch, and then Somers shut the door and turned the deadbolt. He went back to the couch, where his phone was waiting. He stared at the black screen for a long time. Then he got up. He walked a circuit of the house, checking doors and windows, lowering blinds. He tossed the Pepsi can in the recycling, and the clatter woke up his sympathetic nervous system, and he was sweating and flushed and flooded with the need to run or fight. He went back to the phone and before he could think about it anymore, he picked it up and called Donny again.

  He sat in the dark, listening to the phone ring. And ring. And ring.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MARCH 27

  WENESDAY

  8:57 PM

  WHEN HAZARD GOT HOME, his phone rang as he was stepping up onto the porch. The sheriff’s name
showed on the screen. He let the call go to voicemail, and then he listened to the message.

  “Emery, I’m not trying to harass you. I promise this will be the last phone call about this particular matter. If you’re able to come, we’ll be at Word of Life Cemetery on Friday at nine o’clock. I just wanted to give you the time and place. I know you said things are complicated, so I hope you’re well.”

  Hazard stood there, staring at his phone, not seeing anything. Then he erased the message and went inside.

  Somers was on the couch with Pepsi cans lined up in front of him. A lot of Pepsi cans. The lights were off, and the only illumination came from the sudden snap of light off the TV screen, which would brighten for a moment—a pest control commercial with a white background—and then mute into a blue-gray flicker.

  Hazard made sure he made plenty of noise: walking, opening the freezer, rattling ice in his cup.

  “Evie’s asleep,” Somers said.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  He went back to the living room and sat on the couch.

  Another commercial, one with a lot of white, amped up the light in the room, and Hazard caught a better look at Somers’s face.

  “No,” Somers said. “I’m not jealous. So don’t even think it.”

  Hazard set his ice-water on the coffee table; his knuckles brushed a Pepsi can, and the whole line clinked like windchimes.

  “I want to say something,” Somers said, turning off the TV and spinning to face Hazard in the darkness. “It’s not fair, the way you treated me today. We both agreed to this. And I don’t like being treated like . . . like shit because you’re not happy with how things are. We agreed that this was just to satisfy my dad. We agreed that this was just a temporary inconvenience. But you’re not acting like it is.”

  “I didn’t go around telling everyone we broke up.”

  “Neither did I, Ree. And I didn’t go on a date with my ex-boyfriend either.”