Give It All (9 page)

He knocked softly on the doorframe and she turned. Her smile was odd, sort of sleepy, as he imagined she might look if he woke her, first thing in the morning. Not that he’d imagined such a thing . . . white sheets against her bare skin, the sharper edges worn off her cutting words by the doziness. No, he definitely hadn’t imagined any of that.

“You want to see what my dad looked like?” she asked.

“Sure.” He came around to sit beside her. The book in her lap was a photo album.

“That’s him,” she said, tapping an old snapshot. The man in the picture was bartending, wearing a huge, showy grin as he poured liquor in a long stream into a glass. He sported a shaggy eighties haircut and a Sonny Bono mustache. Not a handsome man, but Benji Harper seemed warm and welcoming. Fun.

“He looks very friendly.”

“He was. He was never angry. Well, never aside from when he watched football.”

Astrid pushed against Duncan’s shin and he stooped to pick her up. “You two don’t look much alike. Do you have any photos of your mother?”

“I don’t, no. I’m not sure if he did, either, though I’ve got plenty of boxes still to dig through.” She seemed to say it mainly to the cat, and gave its neck a rub before examining the collar’s tags. “Tell me these aren’t, like, custom-engraved platinum from Tiffany.”

He smirked. “Sterling. And not Tiffany, no.” Though no less pretentious.

“And I bet she was a pedigreed, pampered kitten whose mother, like, won the cat equivalent of Westminster or something,” Raina went on, petting her.

“Hardly.” Duncan circled Astrid’s left ear with his thumb and forefinger, showcasing its clipped tip. “She spent her formative months stray, and I got her from a shelter . . . She likes you,” he added with surprise. “And she doesn’t normally like anyone.”

“Animals dig me.” The cat purred its approval of Raina’s attention. “I have assertive energy. That’s what Miah told me, anyhow.”

“Astrid clawed my last girlfriend’s neck and ruined her handbag.”

“Maybe Astrid knew something you didn’t. Also, that’s strange—you having a girlfriend,” Raina clarified, still spoiling
the cat. “That seems way too normal somehow. What do you do, on dates?”

He shrugged. “Dinner. Drinks.”

“Movies?”

“Not usually. I don’t like movie theaters.”

“Too dirty?”

“I just don’t see the appeal. Why on earth would I want to pay twelve dollars to sit in a dark room with sticky floors, watching a film I may hate, all the while listening to strangers chatting and . . . and chewing?”

She laughed. “Fair points. I only ever went for the making out.”

Duncan caught a faint whiff of alcohol on her breath, and looked to the dresser, finding an open bottle of whiskey there. “Are you drunk?”

“Buzzed.”

“What time have you got to start working? Seven?”

“Yup.”

Well, that gave her three hours to sober up, he supposed. Duncan was far from the poster boy for temperance, but going to work intoxicated was unacceptable. “I’ll make you some coffee.”

“No, thanks.”

He set Astrid on the floor and stood. “I wasn’t offering, merely informing you.”

“Very forceful, Mr. Welch. Are you one of those well-dressed, domineering, kinky millionaires I’ve heard about? Shall I get the handcuffs?”

“A gag wouldn’t go astray.” He headed for the kitchen. “And I’m not a millionaire,” he called back. Not in terms of liquidity, anyhow.

Raina came to stand in the threshold, crossed arms making a distraction of her breasts. “Cold,” she said as Duncan rooted through the cupboards, looking for coffee. “Colder. Wait—warmer.”

He touched a drawer by the sink.

“Colder.”

Back toward the stove.

“Warm. Warmer.”

He opened a cabinet.

“Hot. Like, scorching hot.”

“Ah.” He grabbed the canister and the little mesh one-cup
filter sitting on top of it. He got the kettle heating and selected her a mug, one boasting a cheesy watercolor image of mesas with
Phoenix
under it in rainbow script. Thinking she needed it strong, he packed the filter nearly to the top.

“Milk and sugar?”

She shook her head. “Black.”

“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to the table.

Her cheeks grew round. Whether she was amused by his pushiness or holding in a snide comment, he couldn’t guess. He didn’t care, besides—he was too struck by how lovely she looked, smiling and sedate.

Raina sat and Duncan leaned against the counter, waiting for the kettle. “So, what’s driven you to day-drinking?”

The smile was gone in an instant, snuffed like a candle. “Nothing. Or maybe everything.” She freed her wild hair and gathered it in her hands, twisting it up, letting it fall. Her shoulders rose and dropped. “I dunno. It’s a lot. A whole big room full of too many memories. And not just memories. Things I’ve never seen. Sides of him I never met. I’m sure he got rid of anything he really didn’t want me seeing . . . but little things.”

“Like?”

“Photos of him from ages before I was born, with people I don’t know. Road maps for northern California, from when he was in his twenties. All this proof that he must’ve had a thousand stories I never got to hear.”

The kettle whistled, and as Duncan poured steaming water through the grounds he asked, “What was he like, as a father?”

A quiet, fond laugh. “He was sort of terrible, in some ways. Not, like, a terrible father. Just clueless. He had two brothers, no sisters, and apparently my grandma was kind of a hard-ass—not the nurturing type. So he had, like, zero clue how to relate to a girl.”

“Ah.”

“But we had fun. It’s not like I was some pink sparkle ballerina princess . . .” Another sweet, soft laugh. “He was famous around town for accidentally leaving me places, at first. Like leaving the stroller parked outside Wasco’s while he went in to buy cigarettes, then forgetting I was there until he’d walked halfway home. But I mean, you could get away with that, back then. In Fortuity, anyhow. I’m sure if this was some civilized suburb, I’d have gotten swept away by CPS. He sometimes walked a fine line between ‘flaky’ and ‘negligent.’”

Duncan let the filter drain, then carried the mug to the table. “Well, you turned out the better for it, I’d say. Autonomous. Self-sufficient.”

“Hardhearted commitment-phobe,” she corrected with a smile.

“Better than doormat.”

She lifted the mug. “Hear, hear.”

“Let me help you with the rest of the cleaning,” he said firmly.

“I dunno.”

“I’ll be a terrible bully, keep you moving too quickly to have time to think very hard about any of it.”
You’ve bossed me around enough. Let me boss you back.
He’d felt so out of control the past two days; he’d take a hit of that security wherever it might be found.

“Maybe.”

He smiled dryly. “Again—not a request.”

She held his gaze, a smile playing at the very edges of her lips. “Fine.”

“And no more alcohol. It pairs dangerously well with the sloppier emotions, and quite terribly with work.”

“Agreed. But I have rules, too.”

“Shoot.”

“If I come across, like, some Father’s Day card I made him in second grade that he’s kept, and I start crying, you pretend you can’t tell.”

He nodded. “All right. Anything else?”

“Just . . . Just don’t be nice or anything. Don’t change how you and I are with each other, just because I seem emotional or whatever.”

He felt a funny shiver to hear her encapsulate them like that.
You and I.
As though they were a unit somehow. That the two of them linked together created something altogether new.

“You treated
me
differently,” he said. “Last night.”

She frowned. “I just made you tea and a sandwich.”

“And now I’ve made you coffee.”

“Just don’t treat me gently. Just because I might cry doesn’t mean I’m delicate or want to be hugged or whatever. Pet your cat backward and her reaction’ll show you roughly how well I handle other people’s sympathy.”

“Noted.” He stood. “And rest assured, I don’t hug.”

“Good.”

“So let’s get to work.”

Duncan led the way into her father’s room. “We’ll need a system. What’s the plan—things to keep, things to donate, things to bin?”

“Yeah.”

“Everything worth keeping—more or less than what would fit on the bed?”

She considered it. “I guess that might be a good way to keep it under control.”

“Good. Anything on the bed, we keep. Anything on this side of the bed,” he said, gesturing toward the far wall, “is rubbish. Everything on this side, we find homes for.” He grabbed a black trash bag from a nearby box. “Let’s do his clothes. Anything for charity, give it to me.” He whipped the bag open and held it at the ready.

Raina went to the closet and began stripping shirts and sweaters from their hangers with an admirable efficiency. “Donate. Donate,” she said, dropping things into Duncan’s waiting bag. “Hmm, too mothy.” She tossed a holey sweater toward the door. As she went, she said, “If you see anything that’s your style . . .”

He laughed. “Cheers.”

“I bet all this stuff, every last thing, back when it was all new, wouldn’t be worth as much as even one of your suits.”

“Probably not.”

She smirked. “I Googled your cologne. It costs five hundred twenty-five dollars.”

He shrugged. “It lasts for years. I don’t think a few dollars a week is such a steep fee, in exchange for smelling nice.” Did she like how he smelled? he had to wonder. Did she
hate
it? If she did, he’d pour the couple of hundred dollars’ worth left in the bottle straight down the nearest drain.

“So, how much
do
your suits cost?” she asked. “Help me put your priorities in perspective.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. How much? Like that really dark, espresso brown one. I’ve seen the pants and vest, and there’s bound to be a jacket.”

“Of course.”

“And I’m sure it’s some crazy posh wool from, like,
endangered Italian yaks. And lined with silk from the last worm of its kind. How much?”

“With tailoring? Probably close to three thousand.”

She shook her head, though she looked more amazed than disgusted, he thought. “Jesus. That’s literally more than I’ve ever spent on any one thing. Including vehicles and bar supplies and tattooing equipment. Anything. What do you get for three grand, aside from the suit itself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something about it must get you hard.” She dropped a load of musty flannel into the bag, their knuckles brushing. “Is it because you want everyone in the room to know you can afford it, and they can’t?”

“Perhaps that’s a part of it . . . Though I genuinely like nice things. I get pleasure from owning and wearing nice clothes.” Clothes made to fit only him, never so much as tried on by another person. The fetish objects of an angry boy who’d resented every last scrap of ill-fitting, castoff clothing he’d been handed.

“I bet I don’t want to know how much your car cost,” Raina said.

“Likely not.”

“How would you feel,” she asked, tugging the last sweater from its hanger, “if you had to just put on a crummy old T-shirt and jeans and white sneakers, climb into some beat-up car, and cruise around for a day? Would that, like, kill you?”

“It might give me a panic attack,” he said, knotting the overstuffed bag, “but no, it wouldn’t kill me.” He’d lived the equivalent for the first half of his life.

“Why would it be so awful? What do you care what people think about you?”

“Can’t a man simply be vain?”

“Not simply, no.”

Touché. But she needn’t be made privy to the
why
of it all. Like her, he resented sympathy. She needn’t know about the boy he’d once been, the one who’d been treated like this dead man’s possessions—eyeballed in the name of deciding
keep
versus
discard
. He’d only once been deemed worthy of keeping, but that hadn’t lasted. His childhood had made him feel not unlike the trash bound for the tip, or at the very least a burden, like the donations. Left behind and unwanted, yet
demanding that someone take pity and give him a home. The detritus of charity.

“Well, I suppose I don’t know why I care,” he said. “Only that I do.”

“It was a hollow threat, anyhow, offering you my dad’s stuff. I don’t need to see his old clothes anyplace except in photos. I’ll be dropping all this stuff off in the next county. Don’t want to see some local walk into Benji’s wearing any of it. I’ve got enough ghosts in my life at the moment.”

He considered that, thinking of Alex Dunn. The man at the heart of Duncan’s own problems. He’d been having trouble sleeping lately, and often found himself thinking about those alleged bones, the ones everybody was so swept up in finding. Bones indeed. They were the skeleton strung through the center of everything that had gone terribly wrong lately, but without them, the shape of the greater whole was indiscernible. Duncan hadn’t thought much of the mystery before, but now that he’d been dragged into it, he’d begun finding himself preoccupied, guessing like everyone else where those bones might be. Who they might’ve belonged to. Who might be missing that person . . .

Perhaps those bones belonged to someone like Duncan. Someone easily misplaced, with no one caring enough to come looking for him. Disposable people. Not worth missing.

He eyed Raina, thinking how she’d cared enough to threaten him, to
force
him to let her look after him. The thought brought a taut, painful sting to his jaw and throat, and he pushed it away.

Raina went through the drawers next, and they quickly filled another bag with donations. Every now and then she’d pause to smell a sweater or shirt and smile to herself.

“Is this easier, with two?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He smiled at the silence that ensued. “You’re welcome.”

Raina rolled her eyes. If they hadn’t been standing in a room scattered with her dead father’s things, he’d have been sorely tempted to push her down onto that bed. If ever there was going to be a right time for the two of them to collide, it was now. With Duncan spread open by everything she now knew about him—and had exploited—and Raina exposed by these tasks . . . Given how stubborn they both were about admitting their feelings, it was now or never.