Repossessed (10 page)

I
t was on the way home that I remembered Jason was supposed to accompany me to Bailey's this afternoon.

Well, I'd just tell him to stay home. My chances of having time alone with Lane were already shaky. They would shrink to solid nothing if Jason was with me.

It wasn't as if I were going to be around to make a habit of being there for him, anyway. The kid would be back in his solitary routine before you could say “Shaun is dead.”

When I walked into Shaun's living room, Jason was in his usual spot in front of the television, controller in hand. He didn't look up when I entered. I would have thought he hadn't noticed, except that he spoke.

“You're late,” he said without turning around.

I turned to look at the clock over the mantel. Shaun
usually got home around three thirty; it was now three thirty-five.

“I thought maybe you went straight over to Bailey's.” That was a long sentence, for Jason.

Had he been looking forward to this afternoon?

I knew I must
immediately
tell him that he was disinvited.

“Um,” I said instead. “How was school?”

Jason said nothing. His fingers—well, his thumb, mostly—kept moving on the controller, and I stood there with Shaun's backpack over one shoulder, watching him destroy three aliens in a shower of purple goo. When the aliens were gone, I waited for him to guide his soldier around the corner where, I felt sure, there would be more aliens, some of them the type with claws who shot blue laserlike blasts that shattered their victims into a million pieces.

Instead, the scene froze. A square appeared on the screen, and inside it were words: “Continue.” “Options.” “Go to Menu.” “Quit Game.” These words denoted choices for Jason to make.

He didn't make them. Instead, he actually turned around and looked directly at me.

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” he asked.

Me?
Nice
?

“I don't think I've been particularly nice,” I told him. “I've been…civil.”

Jason just eyed me. “Uh-huh,” he said, but his voice and posture and facial expression radiated…what was it?

Suspicion
.

“We hate each other,” Jason told me. “Remember? You're not supposed to be civil.”

“I don't hate you.”

Jason stared at me for a moment. Then he made a strange sound—something like
shee-ah,
only through his nose more than his mouth so that it was half snort, half word—and went back to blowing away aliens.

I needed to leave the backpack in Shaun's room, then head out to meet Lane at Bailey's. Instead, I stood there watching Jason's back, thinking. I didn't believe that Shaun had really hated Jason. It was more likely just irritation that had become cruel habit.

On the other hand, it seemed to me that Jason had come pretty close to hating Shaun. It hadn't started that way, as I recalled; it seemed like it had started with Jason bugging Shaun.

Why had he bugged Shaun?

Boredom?

Admiration?

Wanting attention?

All three?

Looking at Jason's back—which, really, was what Shaun must have mostly seen of him—I felt suddenly tired. In my line of work, I'd known countless siblings who'd grown apart without ever having actually known each other. By the time they got to me, it was far too late for them to do anything about their regrets.

Well, I thought,
I'm
not
Jason's sibling. It's not my problem, and I can't solve it.

Still…

“I don't hate you, Jason,” I told him again.

He snorted again. “It's not like you invited me to go with you today because you
like
me.”

He hadn't taken his eyes off the screen. He'd spoken with utter belief.

So how was it that the last words hung in the air and made it into a question?

They hung there, and then they fell into place all around me, an unintended trap. I
had
invited Jason because I liked him. If I now told him to stay home, my actions would confirm his statement.

I turned away and fled to Shaun's room, where I tossed Shaun's backpack aside before shutting the door and leaning back against it.

A strange emotion boiled within me, born of conflicting urges. Was it frustration? I couldn't quite figure it out.
I could do anything I wanted. I certainly had a choice whether to take Jason along. No one was forcing me.

Still, the feeling seethed. It seemed to require some kind of vent in order to be eased.

I'll curse,
I decided.
Yes. I will let Jason come, but first I will curse. That will get the frustration out of my system.

But none of the words I knew seemed like they would satisfy. Most American curse words seem to be related to perfectly natural bodily functions, and I've never seen why they strike people as being wicked. They didn't strike
me
as being particularly fufilling anyway. The only word commonly used that indeed felt like a curse was one that started with a
d
and ended with
mn
, and I had
no
desire to use that. No human would let it cross his lips if he knew what it meant in truly practical terms.

“Rats!” I tried. “Confound it! Egad! Tarnation! Blast!”

“Blast!” seemed to work pretty well, so I stuck with that. “Blast! Blast! Blast!” I pounded my fists against my thighs with each repetition. I didn't say it very loudly—didn't have to. It seemed that the pleasure of cursing wasn't about volume, but about vehemence.

After a while, I thought I did feel a
little
better. At the very least, it had distracted me.

I straightened, ran a hand through my hair à la Jason, took a deep breath and let it out. I noticed that even now, I still had a twinge of hope that my plans might work out.
Not likely—but it
was
still slightly possible.

Was this the hope that they say springs eternal in the human breast?

I went back into the living room.

“So,” I said pleasantly to Jason, “you coming or what?”

“G
ood afternoon, Mrs. Darnell,” I said when Bailey's mom answered the door. My only infinitesimal last pathetic chance at achieving union with my darling today was in the hands of a slightly overweight, slightly untidy housewife who had already raised three sons besides Bailey and who, unfortunately, was not stupid.

“Hi, Jason,” she said, holding the door open. “And
good afternoon
, Shaun,” she told me as we came in. “So. Why do you sound like Eddie Haskell, and why do you look like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth?”

“It's a good day to be alive,” I told her.

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Darnell agreed, without missing a beat.

Bailey came ambling across the living room. “Hey,” he
greeted me and Jason. “Oh, Mom. Shaun might need to study a little bit. Is it okay if he goes in Dad's office for some privacy?”

Bailey, may the Creator bless him, was making a last-ditch effort to provide me with a love nest.

“
Shaun
wants to study?” Mrs. Darnell repeated, her voice rising at the end. She looked me up and down. “Shouldn't he have brought some books, then?”

Oops.

“And what's wrong with
your
room, anyway?” Mrs. Darnell asked Bailey.

“Jason and I are going to be playing Tec Warriors in there.”

“Then Shaun can use the kitchen counter. You know your dad doesn't like kids in his study.”

The kitchen counter did not sound to me like a promising place to achieve spiritual and physical union. The kitchen opened onto three other rooms.

Behind me, the doorbell rang. “You get it,” Bailey told me, but his mother was already opening the door.

“Um, hi.” It was Lane's melodious, lilting voice. “I'm here to study? With Shaun?”

“Oh. Sure. Come on in,” Mrs. Darnell said, evidently unperturbed.

I beamed at Lane as she entered, a book and a folder cradled against her chest.

Bailey's mom eyed Bailey. Then she turned her head and eyed
me
for a moment. I knew she had to be much better at reading me than I was at reading her. “Uh-huh,” she said, apparently about nothing, and in a tone I couldn't identify. Then she added, “Lane, you and Shaun are going to come work in the kitchen.” Her voice was pleasant but firm. “You'll have room to spread out in there.”

I looked at Bailey.
A valiant effort, my friend. But it's time to throw in the towel.
“All right,” I told his mother, officially giving up.

It was disappointing, but not unbearably so. Being in Lane's presence set all my senses humming.

Mrs. Darnell led the way into the kitchen. Lane followed her. I followed Lane. It was odd how being so close to her made me feel as if I were floating.

Lane and I climbed onto barstools while Mrs. Darnell opened a cabinet and started fishing around in it. “I know Shaun likes Cheetos. We also have pretzels, carrot sticks, and Ding Dongs. What would you like, Lane?”

“Nothing for me, thanks.” Lane set her book and folder on the counter. “Didn't you bring your geometry stuff?” she asked me.

“I forgot.” I saw Mrs. Darnell eyeing me again as she slid the Cheetos across the counter.

“Do you want to go get it?” Lane asked.

“Not really.”

“Lane, Coke or Pepsi?” Mrs. Darnell asked.

“Thanks, but I'm not thirsty.”

“Shaun?”

“Pepsi,” I said. I'd already had Coke last night.

Mrs. Darnell handed me a blue can from the refrigerator, then headed out of the kitchen. I didn't open the can, and I didn't eat any Cheetos. Instead, I leaned on one elbow and watched Lane open her geometry folder. She pulled out a pencil that was tucked into the pocket.

“Anything in particular you want to start with?” she asked.

I could see Mrs. Darnell through the open doorway behind Lane, in the small laundry room next to the kitchen. She was pulling clothes out of a basket and putting them into a large white washing machine.

Lane sat so close that I could have easily leaned over and nibbled her ear. “Um,” I said, wondering if it would alarm her if I touched her hair again. “You pick.”

At that, I thought Lane looked slightly perplexed. Her brows furrowed a bit, at any rate. Her eyes were many shades of brown at once—a lighter color around the pupil, darkening around the rim of the iris.

She shrugged and started flipping through her book. “Well, what are you having trouble with?”

“Everything,” I said, because “everything” would take more time. I leaned toward her, breathing in. Yes, there
was that scent, faint and delicious.

“Maybe we should back up a bit, then.” She frowned, still turning the pages. Her hands were exquisite, each finger ending in an oval nail, pink with a white crescent on the end. “Did you do okay with triangles?”

“Triangles,” I agreed. Was this what it was like to be drunk? Her skin looked softer than anything I'd seen. I wanted to touch it with my fingertips, stroke her face and neck, run my hands over her bare abdomen and thighs. And I wanted to see her navel. The only one I'd seen so far was Shaun's.

“Did you understand the different kinds? Isosceles, equilateral, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. Well, what about the Pythagorean theorem?” She turned to look at me. “Did you have any trouble with that?”

I felt as if I were melting inside. “Explain it to me.” It had become an effort for me to turn breath into words, because words suddenly seemed to be vague and foggy things.

Lane turned more pages until she found one she liked. “See the right angle?” she said, pointing. “The side across from that is the hypotenuse.” As she talked, I watched the way her lips moved, forming sounds—hundreds of them, each one sliding effortlessly into another so that I couldn't
have said where one ended and the next began. I waited for glimpses of her tongue and teeth, and thought how it might feel if they moved, licking and nipping, over my body.

Lane stopped. “Are you cold?”

“No.”

“I thought you shivered.”

“No,” I lied.

“Do you remember the formula?”

“Which one?”

She put her hand over part of a page. “For the Pythagorean theorem.”

“
a
²
+ b
²
= c
²
.”

“Okay, but what does that
mean
?”

“It means,” I said, “that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the hypotenuse squared.”

“Wow, you got that quick.”

“You're a good teacher.”

I thought she'd have liked to hear that, but she frowned down at the countertop. “Shaun,” she said after a moment, “you don't really need help with geometry, do you?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Then why did you ask me?”

“Because I wanted to be with you.”

She fingered the edge of the book's page, her brow slightly furrowed again. “What do you mean,
be
with me?”

“To be in your presence.”

Again, that thoughtful—no,
careful
—silence. Then: “Is this, like, supposed to be a joke?”

“No.” It was odd that she wouldn't look at me. I didn't want her to be uncomfortable. I wanted to please her. “I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen,” I told her, taking the first step she'd outlined in her diary.

Now
she looked up. But something wasn't right.

She appeared…
displeased
?

“Look,” she said in a flat voice, “I
know
you're making fun of me.”

“No,” I said. “I'm not.”

“I
know
I'm not beautiful.”

“Of course you are.”

“I am
not
.”

“You are.” Why didn't she believe me? Because
she
didn't think she was beautiful? What did that have to do with
my
opinion? What did it have to do with reality?

“Mrs. Darnell,” I said as Bailey's mom came back in, a round plastic basket of folded clothes balanced on one hip, “isn't Lane beautiful?”

Mrs. Darnell stopped. She looked Lane up and down. “Yes,” she said firmly. “Very attractive. Especially the hair and eyes.” She switched the basket to the other hip. “Are
you two through? Because if you are, Shaun can help me out by taking this basket to Bailey.”

“I'd better get going,” Lane said, shutting her book and getting up.

“No!” I said. “Don't go. Please.”

“We're done ‘studying,' Shaun.”

“But that doesn't mean you have to leave!” I felt as if all the air were being sucked out of the room.

Mrs. Darnell had been observing all this. Now she spoke up. “You don't have to rush off, Lane. Why don't the two of you go see what Bailey and Jason are up to?”

“That's right!” I said in desperation. “Hey. Come play Tectonic Warriors 2 with us!”

I saw one of Mrs. Darnell's eyebrows go up, but she didn't say anything.

“What's that?” Lane asked.

“It's a video game,” Mrs. Darnell told her.

“I don't know how to play,” Lane said. “I've hardly ever played
any
video games.”

“Now's a good time to try it, then,” Mrs. Darnell said lightly, handing me the laundry basket. “You have three experts to help you.”

I looked at Mrs. Darnell. She seemed to have picked up exactly what was going on. What's more, she appeared to be on my side now! She didn't approve of a quest for physical union, but she was more than happy to help me be loved.

“Please,” I begged Lane, who was clearly wavering. Why couldn't she just accept that her dream of Shaun was coming true?

I'd been banking on that acceptance. I thought she'd rush to greet it. I'd been wrong, and now all I could do was wait while the balance teetered.

“Well. Maybe just for a minute.”

“Great!” I shoved my barstool back and stood up. “Come on!”

Lane slid off hers more slowly. But she gave me a timid glance that I took as being slightly hopeful.

“Thanks.” I mouthed the word to Mrs. Darnell as we passed.

“Make sure the door stays open, Shaun” was all she said.

 

Lane was correct; she was
not
very good at video games. She was sensible about it, though; she didn't squeal or giggle through her mistakes. She seemed to take her poor performance seriously, and I thought she was embarrassed. I sat on the edge of Bailey's bed, observing her closely. I would have preferred it if she were lying naked next to me; still, I enjoyed watching her, even fully clothed. Her face took on that now familiar pinkish tint as she gamely tried and failed to kill alien after alien. Especially when her man on the screen spun around in
circles, firing off rounds at his own feet.

Jason snickered on the floor next to her. However, when Lane turned to look at him, he quickly wiped the smile off his face. “Don't worry,” he said sincerely. “You'll get the hang of it.”

That was the Jason most people never noticed. The one who made an effort to spare someone else's feelings. He was being kind to my darling. I cast an affectionate glance at his back.

Lane put her controller down. “I'm terrible,” she said.

“Maybe you should do the tutorial,” Jason suggested.

“Maybe you should come sit over here,” I said, patting the bed next to me.

“Bailey,” Lane said, getting up, “are all those your books?”

“Yeah.” Bailey had not been playing, but had pulled the chair out from his computer desk and had been sitting in it, watching Jason and Lane play. Or rather, I thought, watching Lane. I noted that his expression was similar to the one he'd had in the cafeteria yesterday when he'd realized I intended to have sexual intercourse with her.

She went to stand in front of the same shelves I'd perused yesterday. She didn't look at the scattered objects but bent over, looking at the book titles.

“You like Desolation Object?” she asked Bailey
without turning around.

“Yeah.” Always the same easygoing tone with Bailey. “Not as much as, say, Tansukai,” he added, “but it's pretty good.”

Lane straightened. “Tansukai? Do you watch the anime?”

“Yeah.”

“Which do you like better, the anime or the manga?”

“Anime. You watch it?”

“Yeah. I like the manga better, though. They censor the anime too much. Plus the English voices sound like California surfers.”

“I like the voice for Nakamura, though. He's cool.”

“Yeah. And he has some great lines. Did you see the one where he was about to behead Lon and he goes, ‘Prepare yourself to feel the wind on your tonsils, dear brother'?”

“I liked the one where he was fighting those two warlords and he says, ‘Unfortunately, your intestines will soon be languishing outside your abdominal cavity.'”

“Who's your favorite character?”

“Probably Kohanu or Mina.”

“Why?”

“Um,” said Bailey, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I like the way Kohanu is kind of a jerk. And Mina fights cool.”

“I like The Doctor. I like mysterious, cool bad guys with secret pasts.”

Bailey nodded, whether in agreement or understanding I couldn't tell. He said nothing further, but when Lane turned back to his books, he continued to watch her. It seemed to me that his pert, buxom manga girls might be paling in comparison to a flesh-and-blood share-your-interests Lane Henneberger, right here in his room.

Isn't she lovely?
I thought, feeling smug.
That's my woman!

“Let me know if you see anything you want to borrow,” Bailey told Lane.