Ear-Witness (19 page)

I sighed again. “It wasn't your fault,” I said. Then I looked at Jon, and Dad. “Could you tell her?” I said. “I don't even want to talk about him.”

They did. Ion told most of it.

“I knew Jess was having troubles, but I never knew who he was,” Sheena said.

I shook my head. “I should have told you.”

“Well, I'll have to follow up on that. We can't have people misleading the police and get away with it. Mr. Roach and I will definitely have to have a little discussion. At the police station.”

“Misleading the police,” I said. “Now where have I heard that before?”

Dad frowned. “Have I missed something here? This conversation seems to be going on on two levels. One I understand, and one I don't.”

“Not to worry, Mr. March.” Sheena said. “Jess here got a little protective about Raffi early on. Caused a bit of confusion. No big deal. Not now.”

The party started out kind of small: Mom and Raffi; Jon and me; the Orellana family; Kelly and Joey; and a few of Raffi's friends. As evening came and it got darker and the stars came out, we spread from the apartment to the back deck, then down to the back yard, out to the front yard, and across the street to Raffi's building. What we ended up with was almost a block party. People just kept coming, partly because everybody likes Raffi, and partly because of the three guys playing steel drums.

I'd asked Dad, but I didn't really expect him so it was a nice surprise when he showed up. I was glad he did. For one thing, I liked his wife a lot better in person than I did on the phone. Her kid was something else. A smart-mouth thirteen-year-old. Just what I need in my life.

The worst thing that happened, and the silliest, was when Mom and Dad ended up about a foot away from each other, back to back on the front sidewalk. When they turned around at the same time and saw they were almost rubbing noses, they both stepped backwards. It was funny I guess, but sad too. You could tell they felt dumb about avoiding each other, so they sort of pressed their cheeks together, or almost together. Mom was a little stiff and Dad got stupidly jolly, but they were OK.

The best part was when Dad fell in love with Raffi's portrait of me. That was important, because Raffi didn't want to take charity, so he needed to pay Dad. Dad, who knew how poor Raffi was, and who wanted to be a nice guy because of me, kept saying there was no charge, and he hadn't really done much anyway. What the portrait did was give them a way to work that out. Raffi offered to do a new one of me for Dad's office. So Dad was happy, and Raffi was happy. The only one who wasn't too happy was Mom, and that had nothing to do with the portrait, it had to do with something Dad said.

“Paint her in that lacy white straw hat,” he told Raffi. Then he turned to me. “You know Jess, the one you wore at the station. You looked smashing in it, just smashing. I guess you can leave off your mom's shoes though.”

“My new white hat?” Mom said. “My good summer shoes?” Her hands were on her hips and she wasn't smiling. Wearing her clothes is one of those things that's a complete no-no, even if I ask first.

“Oh, shoot,” I said.