High Heat (7 page)

She shook her head. "I'll just read." She got her book and headed upstairs to the little room she'd be sharing with Mom. I heard the door click as she closed it.

I felt bad, but what could I have done? If she were younger, I would have cheated for her, but I couldn't do that anymore. She'd have seen me, and she'd have been angry. Besides, there was a truth to the game. Some people pull Queen Frostine and move all the way to the top. Others get Mr. Plum and just about drop off the board. She'd drawn Mr. Plum, so she might as well get used to it.

The new place was a dump, and I hated it. But by then I hated the house in Sound Ridge, too, hated that I was hiding in my own house, not wanting to see any of the neighbors, all the time feeling that they were watching us, talking about us, waiting for us to leave. Goodbye to all of you, I thought when we'd finally finished loading the last box and were driving through the gates for the last time.

It took one full afternoon to unload our Ryder truck. Even though we'd gotten rid of three-fourths of the stuff we had, the new place still couldn't hold everything we'd kept. We ended up taking ten boxes to the basement and leaving them in the area reserved for us.

"Somebody could steal this," I said to Mom.

She laughed sardonically. "I wish somebody would."

Daytime wasn't so bad. I kept busy painting the entire unit, top to bottom, closets to windows. But at night it was
different. Sleep wouldn't come, my mind would start racing, and pretty soon I'd be seething. City housing. Why had Mom brought us here? I saw everything—the cramped rooms, the cracked bathroom tiles, the water-stained ceilings, the weedfilled lawn—through Dad's eyes. He would never have lived here. Never.

Right before school started, Mom got a job as a waitress at Pasta Bella working the dinner shift, from six to midnight. "I won't get home until after one," she said, "so I'm counting on you to look after Marian. Make sure she does her homework, takes a shower, gets to bed on time. You understand?"

"Yeah, sure. You want me to baby-sit."

Her eyes flashed. "I want you to do more than baby-sit. I want you to be her friend, talk to her. But since that doesn't seem to be happening, then yes, I'll settle for simple baby-sitting."

"That's not fair," I said, defending myself. "All Marian does is play with her rats or read. I can't make her talk if she doesn't want to."

Mom frowned. "Fair enough, Shane. But if she ever does want to talk, I want you to be here to listen."

My new school, Whitman High, began an hour before Marian's. Mom and Marian were still sleeping when I ate breakfast in the kitchen. The only company I had was the old black electric clock whose second hand would go slowly between the two and the three, and then race to catch up.

After I finished my cereal, I packed my backpack, pulled the door shut behind me, and walked to the bus stop, which was at Greenwood and 140th, just two blocks from the duplex.

As I waited for the bus, I thought back to the year before when my dad had driven Marian and me to Shorelake. Every morning we'd come right down Greenwood Avenue, past the very spot where I was standing. Sometimes my dad would nod toward the clumps of Whitman kids waiting for the school bus. They'd be smoking cigarettes, nuzzling their girlfriends or boyfriends, or just standing there, shoulders hunched. "Look at them," Dad would say, his voice filled with contempt. "Just look at them."

That morning I pawed the ground, glancing up every so often, hoping to see the ugly yellow school bus that would get me off the street. Where was it? Would it ever come?

It wasn't the bus that came but something else, and for a moment I couldn't breathe. A white Mercedes, gleaming in the early-morning sunshine, was gliding toward me. Mesmerized, I stared until I was sure: Reese Robertson.

He was sitting in the front seat next to his dad; both of them were laughing. I turned away, hoping they'd drive right by. But the traffic light turned red, and the Mercedes eased to a stop in front of where I stood.

I turned around and faced the little closed shops on Greenwood, determined not to look back. But I had to look. I turned around just as Reese glanced out his window. Our eyes met, and in that second there was a flash of recognition, and then we both looked away. The light turned green; the Mercedes drove off.

My bus pulled up a minute later. I flopped onto the first available seat, my heart pounding. Greenwood was the main arterial horn Sound Ridge to Shorelake Academy. I'd seen Reese today; tomorrow it might be Greg, and the day after
that Cody. I could stand in the back of the crowd of kids, I could pull a cap down over my face, but they'd see me.

It was the first day of my junior year of high school, but all I thought about was the bus stop. And I thought about it at home after school let out. I hated myself for letting it get to me. A thousand times I told myself that I didn't care who saw me.

The next morning, and every morning, I tried to look down at the ground or off into space. But I couldn't. The chance that a Shorelake guy might be in the next car worked on me like a magnet. I had to look.

I tried to time it so that I'd get to the stop just a minute or two early, and the bus would come, and that would be that. But when the bus was late, which was at least half the time, someone would see me. It didn't matter who it was—Greg, Cody, Reese Robertson—it was always the same. Our eyes would meet, and then we'd both look away, as if we'd never known each other.

Whitman High is a crowded school—more than fifteen hundred kids jammed onto a campus about half the size of Shorelake's. There's no place to go off by yourself; everywhere you turn there are people. The kids in my classes had friends from earlier years. I knew no one, and no one seemed interested in knowing me.

But that was okay. You meet kids, and pretty soon they ask what your name is and where you live, and all that. My
dad's name had been in the paper and on the television news for money laundering, for drug dealing, for killing himself. The more you talk, the greater the chance that somebody will figure things out. It was best not to talk to anyone. I went to school, wandered through the day, and came home.

We never discussed it, but I think Marian was doing the same thing. She'd come home from Broadview-Thompson, her new middle school, and go up to the room she shared with Mom, where she'd do her homework. At around five Mom would call us for a quick dinner. Once Mom left for work, Marian would finish her homework at the kitchen table, then watch television for an hour or so. After that, she'd take her shower and go to her room to read. By nine o'clock she had the light out. It almost seemed as if sleeping was her favorite thing.

The first couple of weeks I was glad to be left alone. But after a while I wished Marian would stay downstairs and talk. There were things I wanted to know about the day Dad had died. Had he said anything to her or to Mom before he went to his study? What happened right after the shot? Did Mom go upstairs? Did Marian?

And I guess I was lonely, too. There was nobody to talk to at school. Mom was gone all the time. Even if Marian didn't want to talk about Dad, it would have been okay by me to play Monopoly or Clue. In a way, it was a joke. Before Dad had died, Marian always wanted to hang out with me and I always brushed her aside. Now, when I wouldn't have minded doing stuff with her, she was the one with her door closed.

In October I hooked up with this skinny, pasty-faced kid
named Lonnie Gibson. Maybe I should say he hooked up with me. He was at the bus stop every morning and afternoon, and he was in my music elective at the end of the day.

Lonnie was a wild man in class—singing off-key on purpose and always laughing at the music teacher, Mr. Bull. He didn't even care about Mr. Stimmel, the school principal. "What are they going to do? Throw me out?" he said.

Lonnie lived in an apartment near the AM-PM Mini Mart on 145th. I'd noticed the place because it was city housing, too. "Stop by some night," he was always saying. "We could hang out together."

"I've got to look after my little sister," I said.

He shrugged. "Well, if you change your mind, come by."

It was a Monday night, around nine-thirty. I had homework, but I didn't feel like doing it. I'd been a good student at Shorelake Academy—Dad would have killed me if I hadn't come home with high grades—but I was near the bottom at Whitman. I was downstairs watching the Bears play the Vikings on
Monday Night Football.
The game was late in the fourth quarter, with the Vikings leading 26–3. They had the ball and were running out the clock. A run over left tackle; a run over right tackle; an off-side penalty. I found myself thinking about Lonnie. Hanging out with him had to be better than sitting alone in a crummy, claustrophobic duplex while watching a lousy football game.

I flicked the television off, then went upstairs and stood outside Marian's door. Her light was off. I turned the knob and peeked in. She was asleep, her breathing slow and regular. She
was still waking up with nightmares, but that was always later, at two or three. I closed the door, grabbed a jacket from my room, then slipped quietly down the stairs and out into the night.

Lonnie was standing in front of his housing complex next to a tall guy I didn't know. "Hey, Shane," he shouted the instant he saw me, his eyes lighting up. "Good to see you." He reached out and shook my hand high, then did the little knuckle thing, as if we were in some sort of street gang. "This is Justin," he said, nodding toward the tall guy, and then Justin shook my hand in the same way.

Justin was older than Lonnie and me, probably eighteen or nineteen. His hair was dyed black, he had a wispy goatee, and he wore a long black trench coat. He reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels, shaking the pack so the tips of the cigarettes came up. Lonnie took one, so I did too.

I'd smoked a couple of times when I was a freshman but hadn't had any cigarettes since. I was afraid I'd cough like crazy and they'd laugh at me, so on the first puff I barely inhaled. The hot smoke burned, but I didn't cough. On my second puff I inhaled a little deeper.

The three of us stood under the streetlight, leaning against an old blue Chrysler, smoking and talking about girls and cars and TV shows. Justin looked at his watch. "It's after ten. Let's see if that little Vietnamese woman is working the minimart."

I looked at Lonnie.

"You'll see," he said.

The market was about a half block away. When we reached it, Lonnie went inside while Justin and I waited around the corner. A minute later Lonnie came back, a grin on his face. "It's her, and she's alone."

"You sure?" Justin asked.

"I'm sure."

"Piece of cake," Justin said. He nodded toward me. "Is this guy okay?"

"Shane'll do fine," Lonnie said and then turned to me. "Just do what I tell you, when I tell you. Okay?"

"What am I supposed to do?" I said.

"Just do what I tell you. There's nothing to it."

For the next five minutes, we hung out around the corner from the store. I wanted to ask what was what, but I bit back the words. Justin kept watching the gas pumps. Finally, when three cars pulled up simultaneously, he took off his trench coat. "Wear this," he said, handing it to me. "And do exactly what Lonnie tells you to do."

As we walked toward the store, Lonnie filled me in on the plan. "We'll go in first. Then Justin will come in and grab some candy. He'll drop a whole bunch of change on the counter. While the lady is sorting it out, you slip Mickey Stouts—the twenty-four-ounce size—inside this coat, as many as you can get. The pockets are deep."

"What if she sees me?" I asked.

He pushed the door open, and I stepped inside. "She won't," he whispered. "She'll have all that change on the counter, three cars out front to watch, and I'll be standing in front of you, screening you. There's no chance she'll see you.
We do it all the time with just two guys. With three there's even less risk."

I could feel my body tighten as we stood in front of the refrigerators. It was like being on the pitcher's mound—every one of my senses was on alert. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Justin push the door open, grab a large bag of M&M's, and take it to the cash register. I heard the clatter of coins as he dropped them onto the counter. The Vietnamese woman lowered her head to sort them out. "Now!" Lonnie whispered.

I slid the glass refrigerator door open, grabbed a couple of Mickey Stouts, and slipped both into the deep inside pockets of Justin's trench coat. I reached in a second time, grabbed two more bottles, and slipped them inside the pockets. My hands went back a third time. When I looked around, the woman was still counting Justin's change, and there was still more room in the trench coat, but that was it for me. I turned, and Lonnie followed me as I walked quickly—but not too quickly—toward the door. At the door Lonnie touched me on the shoulder and pointed to the cover of some magazine. "Nice looking, isn't she?"

Once I was around the corner, I broke into a run. The six beer bottles clanked against one another inside the coat. "Slow down!" Lonnie called out after me. "We're safe. Don't break them."

A minute later Justin caught up with us. "How many did you get?" he asked. "Six."

"Only six? The coat holds ten."

Lonnie stuck up for me. "Six is good and you know it. My first time I only got two."

We slipped into the alley behind Lonnie's apartment and sat next to the garbage cans. I put all six Mickeys in front of us. Lonnie and Justin each grabbed one and unscrewed the top, so I did the same.

My dad had let me have a few sips of beer a couple of times, but I'd never liked the taste. It was too bitter, and now I had forty-eight ounces of it to drink. I was glad Justin had bought the M&M's. I'd take a swig, then reach into the bag and grab some before taking my next swig.

"You ever drink before?" Justin asked me when he'd finished the first Mickey and reached for his second.

"Sure."

He laughed. "Liar."