Perfect Collision (3 page)

They’d argued a lot, and often about me. Mom thought he was too lenient with me, that I was just lazy, and if I just made an effort school wouldn't be such a problem. She said Dad just kept blaming it all on my '
diagnosis
.' You could always clearly hear the quotation marks, like it was the
alleged
diagnosis; it somehow made me feel like 'the artist formally known as Prince.' She could go on forever about all the ways he was treating me wrong. And Dad defended me—always. Most of their fights started with me, or at least ended up being about me. I hated it.

Dad swore it wasn’t my fault, that there was a lot of shit going on that didn't have anything to do with me. I knew about some of those other things, too. Staying out of the way, trying to not be noticed, meant people eventually
did
stop noticing me, and they talked as if I wasn't there. Which meant I knew a lot of things I wasn't supposed to know—things I would've preferred to not know. Like the fact that Dad roamed on Mom at times, and his reason, besides probably not liking Mom all that much the last few years of their marriage.

I also knew what kind of business the club was in, but I kept quiet about it; it didn't matter to me. I liked the club, I liked the guys, and what they did or didn't do wasn't my business or my concern.

Either way, it still felt like it was my fault—the divorce. There hadn’t been much discussion about who I should live with, and about three months after the separation Mom moved out to California to be closer to Lisa. I didn’t mind. Things were easier when she wasn't around. She still called and nagged, but her nagging over the phone was a lot easier to ignore than her nagging to my face. Mainly since it meant I didn't have to see her expressions of contempt while she did it.

Once I'd found my phone, I grabbed my keys from the bowl in the hallway, ran outside, got on my bike, and took off to the compound. I was a bit late; I’d promised to be there early to help Mel and the other women fix the food. I’d gotten really good at cooking since Mom moved out. Dad couldn’t cook for shit, and he'd lured me into learning by making some rather farfetched comparisons about art and cooking. But it was okay, since it turned out I liked to cook, and I was quite good at it now. That's why Mel'd asked me to help her with the pre-Christmas dinner.

The weekend before Christmas Day, the club had a combined party for Christmas and Brick's birthday. It was the biggest party of the year, and a few of the kids had complained they weren't allowed to it, which was why they now had the pre-Christmas dinner for members and their family the day before the big party.

Mel had been great; even if Mom was her best friend she’d taken my side. Dad simply explained that Mom leaving him meant she left the club, and Mel was with the club. It didn’t feel that simple to me. Mel had really backed me, just like Edie'd always done. It could be because they were sisters, but my guess was that Mel wasn't too fond of how Mom had treated me.

Once Mom was gone, I realized a lot of people had noticed Mom being pretty shitty with me. I didn't understand why they didn't do more about it while she was around, but I guessed you didn't butt in on how other people raised their kids as long as they weren't, like, hitting them.

I walked into the clubhouse and was heading towards the kitchen when someone grabbed my arm. Not hard, just to stop me.

“Vi? What the fuck!” And then he laughed. It was Mac. When I looked at him, he let go of my arm and held up a strand of my hair. “Still purple?”

I still wore it purple. Edie'd suggested having it dyed two-toned with a purple-black color in the bottom layer. It made it look great; really deep and thick. I liked it, and purple hair had somehow become me.

“Yeah.” I took the lock of my hair out of his hand, and I hoped I wasn't blushing as bad as it felt like I was. “Nice to see you.”

He hadn’t been home much. From what I'd heard, there was a lot going on in Emporia, and the few times he’d been home to visit I hadn't seen him.

I hadn't even seen him the previous Christmas, since Dad and I had spent it in California with Mom and Lisa—which had sucked. It was some attempt by them to 'act like grownups' and 'do what was best for the girls.' On our way home, Dad'd promised me they wouldn't try anything like that again. I'd thought it was stupid from the very beginning, since it was just a few months after the separation, and I'd told him that. Parents had a tendency not to listen to kids, though.

The few times Mac'd been home, he'd mostly been with Mitch. They were really close, but still quite different. Both looked a lot like Brick, though, with their dark hair, brown eyes, and height. But they were skinnier than him, or... not as buff as he was. Mac had really short hair; almost a buzz. He was trying to grow a beard. Or, it sort of was a beard, but not, like,
a lot
of it.

Most seemed to think Mitch was the cutest of the brothers, but I'd always liked how Mac looked better, and he was nicer—calmer. I'd sort of had a crush on Mac before he left. I'd had it for years, but I was totally over him now. Definitely.

Early on, I'd hoped he'd come back from Emporia quickly, but he was a member in that club now. I guessed he liked it there; which made me think that he might not come back. Dawg had done the same thing. He prospected here instead of in his Dad's charter in Englewood, and he was still here. Married and everything.

Just as he was about to say something, we were interrupted by Dad yelling at me.

“Katze! Get your ass into the kitchen—they're waiting for you.”

“Gotta go,” I said to Mac, and he nodded with a smile.

“Hey!” he yelled just as I was about to walk into the kitchen, and when I turned around he smiled at me. “I still like the color.”

I nodded and waved before continuing into the kitchen. Edie handed me the three-month-old Travis. “Can you hold him? I need to help Lanie, and then you're up for the potato salad.”

“
You're
gonna cook?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, I am,” she said and gave me a pretty nasty look.

Edie was a legendary bad cook. Like,
really
shit. First time I was going to a girls' night, Eliza had told me to get something to eat before I went there so I wouldn't have to eat Edie's food. I was glad she'd told me that. Even Dawg was a better cook, and I was worried about what poor Travis was gonna eat when he grew up. I looked at the super cute kid I was holding and gave him a kiss.

“If you ever want proper food, kid, you can come and eat at my place,” I told him.

“Or mine,” Mel laughed. “Already have a deal with Dawg about that.”

“You two suck!” Edie muttered and started chopping vegetables.

I just hoped she stuck to chopping; it didn't seem likely she'd manage to screw that up. But it wouldn't surprise me if she did.

-o0o-

Mac kept his eyes on the purple hair as it left for the kitchen and shook his head with a laugh. He'd been surprised when she showed up with purple hair the first time, and even more this time when he realized she'd kept it. It looked nice, though.

His eyes automatically went down to her behind, and with an appreciative nod he noted she had certainly started to grow up. A quick count made him realize that she was sixteen, and he felt like a perv for scoping her out. It didn't help that the father of the sixteen-year-old ass just then sat down next to him.

“Calmed down over there?” Bear asked.

“Yeah. All sorted. Thinking about coming back here.”

Mac felt very done with Kansas and was seriously considering transferring home.

Bear patted his back. “That would make Brick happy. And Mel!”

Mac nodded with a smile. His dad had met and married Mel when Mac was twelve. They'd met because Mac stole her bike. It broke down while he tried to escape her, and in panic he'd run into the garage his dad owned. She followed him and after screaming at him and pretty much anyone in the vicinity, his dad had come out from the office, and she'd screamed at him, too. Then his dad asked her if her bed was comfortable. He found out less than a week later. Obviously it was, because he'd kept her close ever since.

Mac loved Mel. She was a great woman, a great mom, and had a lot of love for anyone she thought deserved it. About five years after meeting Brick, Mel's sister showed up from traveling around the world––Edie. She'd lived with them for a while, and Mac had jerked off thinking about her more than once. It almost broke his teenage heart when she hooked up with Dawg.

Even if he wanted to transfer back to Greenville now, he didn't regret leaving in the first place. He was still convinced it'd been a good idea to prospect, and eventually join, a different charter than the one where his dad wasn't the President. But Emporia, the club he'd joined in Kansas, had gotten into some shit within the first two months of him prospecting, and it had been rough. Now, when it was over, he wanted to come home. He loved the Emporia guys, but he'd grown up in Greenville. It was still home to him.

He didn't want to talk about it yet, though. And he didn't want to discuss it with Bear until he'd talked to his dad about it. Instead he pointed towards the kitchen.

“Still purple?”

“Violet for Violet,” Bear nodded. “Fuck! Almost gave her mom a heart attack. Think that might be one of the reasons I told her she could keep it.”

Mac laughed. It hadn't been much of a surprise to anyone when Bear and Ella finally decided to split. Their loud arguing in public had been a hint things weren't all that good. Bear plowing through the sweetbutts without even trying to hide it had been another.

Before he had time to comment on what Bear said, his baby sister Eliza came running. She was, without a doubt, the
least
quiet and shy kid in the club. He picked her up and put her on the bar.

“How's my beautiful baby sister?” he asked.

She really was a beauty; she'd inherited Mel's blue eyes and blonde hair, and she was such a fucking charmer. He already knew he would to have to fend off guys with a shotgun when she got older. That much was already clear, and she wasn't more than eight years old.

“Good,” she answered and pulled him down for a hug. The next second she screamed, and she almost ruptured his eardrums with her howling. “Violet! Did you bring my picture?”

“Yeah,” Vi said in her usual quiet way. While balancing Travis on her hip, she rooted around in the huge, military green bag hanging over her shoulder. She soon handed Eliza a blue plastic folder. “I gotta go, Eliza.”

“Will you be back?”

“Yeah,” she nodded and then left.

This time he didn't check out her ass; it seemed suicidal with Bear sitting next to him. Instead he looked down at the picture Eliza took from folder.

“What is that?”

“She paints pictures for me. More grown-up versions of fairytales. This is The Little Mermaid saving the prince from drowning.”

He took a closer look. It was a woman, underwater, holding a man just above the surface. It was all done in different shades of blue, and it was absolutely amazing.

He remembered the pictures hanging on the walls in Eliza's room. He'd noticed some of them were from classic fairytales, just a bit more haunting than normally. More Grimm than Disney, and they were good.

“Did Vi do all your pictures?”

“Yes. She's trying to learn how to paint in color.”

As far as he could tell, there was no 'learning' about it. The girl could paint in color.

Later that night, he noticed Vi on the couch with her black sketchbook in her lap, and he argued with himself for a while whether he should leave her alone or not. He decided it was worth a shot and went over to talk to her. When he got closer, she closed her sketchbook and put it into her bag, just like she'd done the last time. Apparently she still wasn't big on showing her art, but he sat down next to her anyway.

“It was great. The picture you gave to Eliza,” he clarified when he noticed her looking a bit confused.

“Thanks.”

He laughed. “You're better at taking compliments now.”

“A little,” she mumbled while looking down at her hands resting in her lap.

“It's really nice of you. She
loves
fairytales.”

“I know.” She smiled a little. “I need the practice, and she likes the pictures. It's a good trade. I would've kept them in my drawers.”

He was pretty sure it was the longest sentence she'd ever said to him, and he wanted to keep her talking.

“What do you wanna do with it? Painting, I mean.”

“I've been thinking about art school,” she said with a shrug, “but I don't know.”

“I think you'd do good.”

“Maybe, but I don't know. It's just... drawing. I mean, I like to do it, but I wish I could do more with it. I've been thinking about trying sculptures, but I don't know about that either. When you do that stuff, all kinds of art, you have to, like, talk to people and explain it. And it's so narrow.”

“Narrow?”

He was amazed; apparently asking about art was the way to get her talking. And she surprised him, because she seemed very mature for her age. Even if she stuttered and seemed embarrassed, she'd really thought about this and had good reasoning.

“Well, if you do art you end up in a niche. I like painting people, like portraits, which is pretty boring as far as art goes. But I like doing other things, too, that's completely different from portraits. It's not that common to do different types of art. So, I don't know. I just like to paint, different styles, and not talk about it.” She cleared her throat. “I'm not good at talking to people.”

“Could do ink. Not like you need to explain much. Just do one and let the happy customer leave. And you'd get to do different types of art.” It was just something he said, but she stiffened next to him and turned around to look at him with big eyes, as if she’d just thought about something. So, he continued, “Could ask around here, got some good artists coming to the club. One of them might let you start as an apprentice.”

That's when she smiled, and he was taken aback. The girl had the most amazing fucking smile!