Dread Locks (8 page)

“Parker, where are you going?” Dad asked as I passed his study.

“Out.”

“Out where?” He swiveled back and forth in his special desk chair—the one Tara had sat in the first time she trespassed in our house. I was out the front door before he could question me anymore. I never used to be secretive with my parents. I never had anything to be secretive about. But I was changing bit by bit. I was getting a little harder. Harder to read, harder edged.

I went straight to Tara’s. I shouldn’t have. I should have taken the time to calm down, but when you’re mad, you don’t see clearly enough to know that you’re not seeing things clearly.

When I got there, Tara must have seen in my face how angry I was.

“Having a bad day, Baby Baer?”

“You’re lucky your sisters are on the other side of the Atlantic. I wish my brother was, too.”

“Sounds like you could use a specialist in sibling removal.”

“Not removal, just torture,” I said. “I want him to suffer.”

She laughed, and instead of inviting me in, she stepped out, closing the door behind her. “You’ve shown me your favorite place,” Tara said. “Now let me take you to mine. Get your dirt bike.”

I did as she said. I went back, got my bike out of the garage, and met her at her front gate. “I’ll drive this time, you ride in back,” she said.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

I rode on the back of my own bike as Tara went winding through the streets of our expensive neighborhood, then turned down an old dirt path I never even knew existed. All the while, I felt this tingle of excitement. I was free-falling into one of Tara’s mysteries, and I liked the feeling.

For miles we wound between huge, old oaks that nearly blocked out the sun. Then we came out into a remote clearing filled with half a dozen giant praying mantises.

“What the ... ?” I nearly fell off the back of the bike. The green creatures rose about twelve feet high, their heads as big as my whole body. Tara stopped the bike sharply, kicking up a cloud of dust that filled my nostrils, making me sneeze.

“Do you like it?”

It took a few moments for my mind to process what I was seeing. These weren’t giant insects; they were oil wells. Not the kind that tower high, but the kind that pump up and down, looking something like big bugs. But these had been painted green with big bug eyes. None of them were moving. In our town it wasn’t unusual to find these old, abandoned oil pumps, but I don’t think anyone knew about this forgotten cluster—and I certainly didn’t know they were painted green.

“You painted them like this?”

“I thought they were too ugly painted gray.”

“When did you find the time to do this?”

Tara shrugged as she got off the bike. “Sometimes I can’t sleep.”

As I looked around, I laughed. Six big bugs filled the clearing, and no one but Tara and I knew.

“These things are balanced by counterweights,” she said. “I’ve oiled the gears. It doesn’t take much to get them moving.”

Together we leaned on the great mechanical beasts, bit by bit getting them to pump up and down, until the clearing was full of great green, bobbing bugs. Then we sat down in the middle of it all, the smell of old oil filling the air, and the strained sound of tired gears grinding out the afternoon. I asked Tara why she had bothered to paint them, and again she just shrugged. “Sometimes,” she said, “art’s only purpose is to make the artist happy.” But she had succeeded in more than that, because being in the middle of this strange moving symphony made me happy, too.

“I spoke to Ernest,” I finally told her.

She didn’t appear troubled at all. “We had a fun evening out. I won’t be seeing him again.”

“Yeah, that’s what Ernest said.” Then I took a deep breath and asked her what I was really thinking. “Tara ... am I ... am I just a joke to you?”

“Never,” she answered, without hesitation. “Why would you think that?”

“Just something my brother said.”

“Your brother, Garrett,” she repeated. It bothered me that she knew his name. “Is he horrible to you?”

“He’s just an idiot.”

“You had a fight?”

I shrugged. “It was stupid. He ended up breaking my trophies.” I thought for a moment, then added, “So I told him,
‘Na!’”

“The Greek curse!” Tara said. “Good for you!”

I laughed, because she didn’t. She took it seriously. She took me seriously. We didn’t say anything for a long time. We just listened to the groaning gears of the bobbing bugs as they pumped empty wells.

“What are you afraid of, Parker? What are you afraid of more than anything else?”

It was a strange question, but not coming from Tara. If she
hadn’t
asked a strange question, I would have started to worry. “I don’t know. Dying, I guess.”

“That’s what everyone says, but it’s not true. People are more afraid of other things. Think. What do you
really
fear?”

I closed my eyes and thought. I wasn’t in the habit of dwelling on what frightened me—I usually had better things to do—and it wasn’t very often that I was challenged to think too deeply. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“What am I afraid of?” I said, stalling. “I’m afraid of... being forgotten.” I wasn’t sure I meant it until I said it. I opened my eyes. “I mean, I guess we all have to die someday, but to live and have such a pointless life that you’re forgotten right after you die ... that’s what I’m most afraid of.”

Tara smiled. “I believe you. I believe you’re telling the truth.”

I gazed toward the mantis heads again. They were slowing down. They could move only so long from the momentum we had given them.

“What if I told you that you WILL make a difference,” Tara said. “What if I told you that you don’t even have to die?”

I turned to her. Was she crazy? In the half-light of twilight, with Tara sitting there wearing her mirrored shades, it sure seemed possible. No. More likely she was just trying to freak me out again. She liked doing that. And I liked when she did it. This time, though, it felt one step over the edge.

“If you told me that, I would say you were nuts.”

She didn’t have any answer to that.

“My sister thinks you’re a vampire,” I spouted out in the discomfort of the moment.

Tara laughed. “A vampire? Hah! I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that simple.” She sighed. “Well, Parker, rest assured that I don’t drink blood or turn into a bat.”

“My sister will be relieved.” I moved a little bit closer to her. “How about you, Tara? What are you afraid of?”

I could see her shoulders move uncomfortably, like she had a chill. “Never mind that.”

“C’mon, you asked me. Why can’t I ask you?”

She looked at me through those impenetrable lenses of hers. I wondered if this was the way she had looked at Ernest—or if that look had been something different.

“I’m afraid of ...” She took a long time to think about it. “... more of the same.”

I didn’t know what it meant, but I could tell she was being honest. “So, is sitting here with me more of the same?”

“No,” she answered. “Being here with you is ... new.” Then her tone of voice suddenly changed. She became more focused. “I want you to do something for me,” she asked.

“What?”

“I want you to introduce me to your brother.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Why would you want me to do that?”

“Maybe I want to get to know him,” she said. “Maybe I think he’s cute.” And then she whispered, “Or maybe I just want to prove to you that you’re not a joke.”

And although I had no idea how meeting my brother might prove anything to me, I agreed to introduce them. I wanted to say something to her that sent all of her feelings spinning out of whack, like she had just done to me, but I couldn’t tweak people like that. Especially not her. Tara was untweakable.

We sat there in silence until the sun was below the horizon and the mantis heads had all ground to a halt. But there was a gear work still moving—a silent machine that was all Tara’s—and I knew that whatever she was planning, I was helping to grease the gears.

9

THE FIRST LOCK

E
ven though I didn’t understand her request, I was curious. Tara never did anything without some larger plan. Introducing her to Garrett was not going to be fun. Garrett would do his best to make me look bad in front of her and make himself look good. The only good part about it was that I had complete control over the time and place. I put a little thought into it and came up with a perfectly wicked way to introduce them.

I swung by Tara’s place on my dirt bike the next Saturday afternoon to take her to the mall. It was before Halloween, and the mall was a zoo with shoppers, and I knew that Garrett would be hard at work. He had a part-time job at the Pound-a-Beef, everyone’s favorite awful fast-food place. He worked there not because he needed the money, but because Mom and Dad n-sisted he develop some sort of work ethic, just in case he couldn’t fake his way through the rest of his life.

This was where I would introduce Tara to him. I wanted Garrett to be in the position of having to serve us. “Hi, Garrett—this is Tara,” I would say, and I imagined him going all red in the face when he had to say, “Hi, Tara. You want fries with that?” What a great moment it would be. And besides, he’d looked like a moron in the beige-and-pink uniform he had to wear.

I didn’t tell Tara any of this, of course. I wanted her to be as unprepared as Garrett for the meeting. Whatever her game was, she was going to have to think on her toes.

We got to the Pound-a-Beef just after the lunch rush. Garrett was at the second register. He hadn’t noticed us yet because he was busy taking an order from a woman with two bratty kids.

“No, no,” the mom was saying. “Ketchup.”

“So that’s two burgers, one with no ketchup?” Garrett said.

“Extra ketchup!
Extra ketchup!”
howled one of the kids.

“Oh,” said Garrett, staring cluelessly at the readout on his register. “I thought you said extra mustard.”

The woman sighed. “I said no mustard on the first, and extra ketchup on the other, double cheese, but no tomato, put their onions on my burger, and fries. Well-done.”

“Fries well-done?” said Garrett, quickly punching buttons on the touch pad in front of him.

“No, the burgers!”

I held back a laugh. He would definitely look like a moron to Tara now. Finally, he completed the order, collected the woman’s crumbled bills, and said, “Next, please.”

As soon as he saw it was me, he started to scowl. “No free lunch for family members,” he said. “You want to eat; you pay like everyone else.”

Garrett’s eyes shifted to my left. I could see him freeze up slightly when he saw Tara.

“Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual and effortless. “Tara, this is my brother, Garrett. Garrett, Tara.”

They shook hands. “So you’re the infamous Tara,” he said, grinning.

“In the flesh.”

“Nice shades.”

“I got them on the French Riviera.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can we order now?”

“Sure,” said Garrett. “What do you want?”

Tara and I placed our orders, but as I reached for my wallet, Garrett held up his hand and said, “Well, whaddaya know! I accidentally rang it up for free.” And he winked at Tara. I was too stupefied to say anything. “I guess it’s on the house,” he said.

“That’s awfully sweet of you,” said Tara, smiling. “By the way, I like that uniform on you. That color combination suits you. Very fashion forward.”

Garrett puffed up like a balloon. “Thanks.”

Tara smiled at him a bit too long, then he went off to get us our food.

Tara and I sat uncomfortably on the plastic chairs at the plastic table, chewing our plastic food. “What was that all about?” I asked. No sense hiding how annoyed it all made me feel.

“Be a good boy, Baby Baer,” she said. “Play your part, and you’ll have your reward.”

I heard someone approaching and turned to see Garrett. He pulled up a chair beside us. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I asked, irritated.

“I’m on my break,” he said. “I thought I’d take it with my little brother.”

I squirmed in my seat, but said nothing.

“So, Tara,” Garrett said, “done any more breaking and entering lately?”

“I think trespassing is the most I could be charged with,” Tara answered, smiling. Then she reached for a fry and knocked over her drink. She tried to make it look like an accident, but I knew it was intentional. Orange soda poured onto the floor, splattering my shoes.

“Oops! Parker, could you get me a refill?”

“Have Garrett get it,” I said. “He works here.”

“But I asked
you
.” She held up her empty cup to me. I stared at it for a moment, then grabbed it in frustration and left. Play my part. Play my part. Was this my part? Fetching her a drink? Fetching her my brother? What else was I supposed to fetch her?

I refilled her soda, silently stewing to myself, and by the time I returned I knew that something had changed. Some deal had been struck between the two of them while I was gone.