Hit and Run (4 page)

When I finally opened up the toolbox, Mrs. Jhun sat on a stool on the porch to keep me company. She watched me remove the old wooden step, measure and saw a new one, and nail it down.

“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.

Where else? “Mom taught me.” Mom taught me everything I knew about cooking, cleaning, and home repairs. My mom was that kind of person. Independent. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. No retreat, baby, no surrender. And, third time's the charm.

I had a father, too. Some guy named Robert McGill. He and Mom got married a few months before I was born and stayed married until my first birthday. Mom didn't like to talk about him. All she would ever say was, “Your father was a restless man.” Billy told me something different. Billy was eleven when good old Bob got itchy feet. One day, Billy said, Mom came back
from the park with me and found all of Bob's clothes and his tape collection gone. Same with any spare cash Mom had stashed away. “He didn't like kids,” Billy said. “He didn't like that Nancy had me to look after, and he especially didn't like a baby around that she had to take care of night and day.”

I had never met my father and never wanted to. Then, about a year after Mom died, Billy got a letter from some lawyer informing him of the death of Robert McGill in what the lawyer called a single vehicle accident. They think he fell asleep at the wheel. If you ask me, he had been asleep at the wheel for a long time.

“How is your uncle?” Mrs. Jhun asked.

I shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“He takes good care of you?”

I shrugged again. Mrs. Jhun didn't know Billy very well, but that wasn't her fault. She had tried. She had gone back to Korea after Mr. Jhun died. Then, about eight or nine months ago, she had returned. That's when she found out that Mom had died. She came over to our house to tell Billy and me how sorry she was. Billy didn't even ask her in. He made her stand out on the porch on a cold February afternoon. He listened to her, scowled when I invited her in, and looked relieved when she declined the invitation. After she left, he said people who talked the way she did should stay back where they came from. I don't know why he was so mad. She was just being nice, and besides, she spoke pretty good English.

While I worked on her step, she asked me about
school and told me that she was going back to Korea again soon for a visit. Mr. and Mrs. Jhun didn't have any children, but Mrs. Jhun had a sister and some nieces and nephews back there. One of her nieces was expecting a baby. She told me that she liked it there and she liked seeing all her relatives. But she also liked Canada. Besides, Mr. Jhun was buried here in Canada. He had tried so hard to make a life here, she said. She didn't think it was right to leave him here all alone. She said when she died, she wanted to be buried next to him.

“Don't talk about dying, Mrs. Jhun,” I said. “You're way too young for that.”

She smiled serenely. She looked so much better than she had this afternoon that I decided to ask her about what she had said.

“Hyacinth?” she repeated, frowning.

“You were looking right at me when you said it.” Suddenly she smiled and nodded.

“Your eyes,” she said. “They are exactly the color of hyacinth. Your mother's eyes were the same.”

I felt a little better. It made sense in a Mrs. Jhun kind of way. It wasn't crazy. It reminded me of the time she said Billy had a mule on his head. I thought she got a word mixed up. Then she said, “He pushes it and pushes it, but it never goes where he wants it to go.” And that was true. No matter what he did, Billy always ended up with his hair in his eyes.

“You remind me so much of your mother,” Mrs. Jhun said. She smiled again, but there was something
sad behind it. I knew how she felt. I felt the same way.

I stayed and drank another cup of tea with her, and promised I'd come back to see her again soon. Then I headed home to an empty house.

On Sunday I hung out with Vin. Then, when I was walking home along Danforth, I passed Mr. Scorza's grocery store. I stopped and doubled back. We were short of milk. At least, that's the excuse I gave myself when I went in. But as I was walking back to the dairy section, I scanned the aisles.

“Looking for something, Michael?” a voice said. It was Mr. Scorza, and he actually smiled at me. It was kind of a gruff, crooked, half-hidden-behind-his-moustache smile, but it gave me enough courage to say, “Could I talk to you for a minute, Mr. Scorza?”

“Sure,” he said. “Step into my office.”

I followed him up the narrow stairs and stood wedged in the small box-free area of floor space between the door and his desk, which was piled with invoices, bills, and shipping papers.

“What can I do for you, Michael?” Mr. Scorza said. He always called guys by their full names. I was Michael. Tom was Thomas. Steve was Stephen.

“I was wondering, Mr. Scorza,” I began. All of a sudden my mouth turned dry and my tongue got tangled up in my teeth. I must have sounded like a kindergarten
kid on his first day away from mommy, all nervous and shy.
Spit it out
, I told myself.
So what if he says no? It's not going to kill you, is it?

“I have some extra time,” I began, rushing the words out.

Mr. Scorza's eyes were fixed on mine. The smile had vanished from behind his moustache. I backed up a little without looking where I was going. My foot hit a box and I started to topple backwards. My hands flew out and I grabbed at another box to stop myself from falling, but the one I grabbed must have been empty or filled with feathers or something because when I grabbed at it, it lifted easily and I kept falling. Mr. Scorza started to get up from his desk. He looked worried. I sat down hard on the box behind me. Then, with him still watching and still not saying anything, I stood up and tried not to look like a major goof.

“Relax, Michael,” Mr. Scorza said. “I don't bite.”

I tried to smile. My lips trembled. It was too late to back out. I had already started.

“What I mean is, if you needed someone to work a few more hours, I'm available,” I said. “I'm a hard worker, Mr. Scorza.” It was true. I didn't spend any time out behind the store like some guys who said they were going back to the storeroom to get another case of peanut butter or margarine or whatever, but who slipped out into the alley for a smoke first. I never did that. I don't even smoke.

“I know you are, Michael,” Mr. Scorza said. “You've
been working here how long?”

“Almost a year,” I said.

“Ten months, two weeks,” Mr. Scorza said. For all I knew, he was right on the nose. “I had to let Thomas Manelli go today,” he said. “You know Thomas?”

Sure I did. Thomas was two years older than me and a real jerk. Where some guys would slip out for one smoke, Thomas would settle in for three or four, and he'd go on about how stupid Mr. Scorza was, how easy it was to put one over on him.
Guess not, eh, Tommy?

“Thomas worked for me three days a week, four to nine. His shift is available,” Mr. Scorza said.

I stared at him. “You mean, me?”

“If you think you can handle it.”

“You mean, on top of what I already do?”

“If you think you can handle it,” Mr. Scorza said again. “I like to see a boy get a good education. Your schoolwork is important, Michael. You don't want to let it suffer.”

I nodded, but I wasn't thinking about school. Instead I was calculating how much more money I would make. Five hours a day times three days a week would add fifteen more hours to my paycheck. I'd have more money than I'd know what to do with.

“I can handle it, Mr. Scorza,” I said. “I know I can.”

“You can start Tuesday, Michael. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, right after school. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and before I knew what I was doing, I had thrust out a hand. Mr. Scorza smiled at me as he shook it.

“Your mama used to come in here every Friday night and buy her groceries for the week,” he said. “From the time you were this big.” He held his hands barely a shoulder width apart. “She always had you with her. She would be proud of you, Michael, if she could see you now.”

“Thank you, Mr. Scorza.”

I was careful not to trip over any more boxes as I let myself out of Mr. Scorza's tiny office. And I had done it! I had asked for extra hours, and I had got them. Now I was going to be making more money, which meant maybe I could buy a couple of pairs of new jeans and some new sneakers, and I'd still have enough money left over to take Jen out.

I grabbed the cordless phone and carried it back to the living room, dialing on the way. It was stupid. It was like stepping up to the self-serve counter and asking for an order of trouble—supersized, of course—but I wanted to tell someone my good news. I flopped onto the couch and listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. Then:

“Hello?” It was a woman's voice. I recognized her right away—Jen's mom. Her voice sounded cold and suspicious.

“Can I speak to Jen, please?”

“Who is this?” she demanded. I never called Jen's house, and I was beginning to wish I hadn't picked up the phone now. Then I thought,
Where did she learn her
phone manners, anyway?
I'd been nice, said please. She was snarling at me without having any idea who I was. One more thing that money didn't buy, I guess.

“I'm a friend of Jen's. From school.”

“She's never mentioned anyone named Wyatt,” she said, even though I hadn't said my name—which isn't Wyatt. That was Billy's name.

Then I realized that she had call display. Still, she had no right to quiz me. Jen wasn't a baby. She could decide for herself whether she wanted to talk to me.

“Look, is she home or what?” I said.

In the background I heard a man's voice. Jen's dad. A big-deal Bay Street lawyer. “Who is it, Margaret?”

“She's not available,” Jen's mother told me. I imagined her smiling as she said it, looking like Cruella de Vil or Snow White's nasty, nasty stepmother.

Then I heard another voice, a female voice, say, “Who's not available?”

I wished I could shout over Jen's mother to get Jen's attention, but I couldn't. So I hung up. A few seconds later the phone rang. Jen, maybe? I pressed the on button.

“Who is this?” a voice demanded. Jen's mother again. “Who is this? Why are you calling my daughter?”

I hit off and didn't answer when the phone rang a third time. Jeez, how could Jen stand living with parents like those?

Mr. Morrison, my homeroom teacher, wagged a finger at me as I came through the door on Monday morning.

“Mr. Gianneris wants to see you in his office,” he said. “Right now.”

Mr. Gianneris was the vice principal. He motioned me into a chair as soon as I stepped into his office. I glanced at the picture of his wife and kids that he kept on his desk for everyone to see. I wondered what vice principals were like when they weren't at school, chewing out kids. Did they do a quick brain transfer at the end of the day? Or did they go home and chew out their kids the way they did everyone else? My personal opinion: Mr. Gianneris was like the dad in one of my mom's favorite movies,
The Sound of Music
. Line them up and march them to breakfast, Maria. After inspection, of course, and only if they pass.

He peered solemnly at me across his desk. It was
one of those moves that was supposed to make me sweat or confess or something. Then he opened a file folder, glanced at the contents, and asked me if I knew why he had called me down. When I said I didn't, he gave me his best vice-principal glower and said, “Really?”

I thought about giving him some wiseass answer, but what was the point? I was already in trouble. Jazzing Gianneris was only going to make him double whatever punishment he had already decided to dish out.

“This is about history class, right?” I said.