When Jeff Comes Home (10 page)

Christmas. I have been with him eight months.

Charlie and Brian came back into focus, still watching me.

"Ray and I had great Christmases," I told them, feeling mean.

"Really?" Brian asked. "What did you do?"

"Brian." Charlie looked uncomfortable. "You don't have to say anything, Jeff. Let's just play Monopoly, okay?"

"No," Brian said insistently. "He doesn't mind talking about this, right, Jeff?"

"You know what Dad said," Charlie warned, then looked at me quickly, covering her mouth with one hand.

"Since when do you care what Dad says?" Brian asked, keeping his voice down.

"What did Dad say?" I asked Charlie.

"Well ..." she said slowly. "Nothing really. Just that we should leave you alone and not bother you. You know, especially about what happened."

I nodded, trembling inside, thinking of the four of them sitting around discussing me and the best way to handle my problems.

"You don't mind talking about it, do you?" Brian asked.

The silence that followed grew tense as I didn't answer. Charlie watched me anxiously. Finally I smiled. "No. Go ahead. What do you want to know?"

"Really?" Brian said. "I can ask you anything?"

Charlie groaned. "Brian ..."

"I'm not talking to you," he said, turning on her fiercely.

"What do you want to know?" I repeated.

"Well..." Brian was suddenly shy. "Was he nice to you? That man?"

"Sure," I said, smiling. "He was a little extreme, but—"

"What do you mean 'extreme'?" Brian asked.

"Would you just leave him alone?" Charlie said.

"Shut up!" he snarled, turning back to me. "So he treated you okay?"

"Ray was great to me," I said. "We played games together. Not like Monopoly though. You want me to show you one?" Brian nodded.

"That's okay, you don't have to show us," Charlie said, drawing back.

"Don't worry, Charlie," I said. "It's not a dirty one."

She looked shocked. "I didn't mean that," she protested. "I wouldn't—"

"Hey, Brian," I said. "You remember 'Staredown'?"

"Sure."

"Well, Ray used to play that with me a lot. He played it different than we used to, though. You want me to show you?"

"Yeah!"

"Jeff ..." Charlie tried again. I ignored her.

"Okay, go stand against the wall." Brian leapt up and ran over to the wall next to the fireplace. "Stand back as far as you can," I said. "Don't leave any space behind you."

"Okay," Brian called. "I'm ready."

I walked toward him slowly, my stomach churning in a mix of fear, disgust and, I recognized, excitement. Charlie tried to catch my arm and I shook her off. I didn't stop until I was directly in front of Brian. I leaned down to him, so close our noses almost touched. Brian tried to back up but he had nowhere to go.

"Jeff, stop it," Charlie said more insistently, pushing at my shoulder.

My eyes never leaving Brian's, I shoved her hard, feeling a thrill at her softness yielding to my force.

"Okay," I said, "Let's go. The first one to break the stare gets slapped."

"That's not how you play," Brian protested weakly, a nervous smile flickering across his lips.

I nodded. "Right. But see, that's how
Ray
plays. If you break the stare, you get slapped. You get slapped every time you look away from him, so the only way to win is to never look away. ..."

Brian was crying now, cringing, his arms trembling as he tried to keep them by his sides to avoid touching me. The tension drained out of me and I felt weak again, weak and so disgusted with myself I wanted to die.

"Sorry," I said, stepping away from him, no idea where to go next. I did not want to return upstairs so soon and risk an encounter with Dad. I considered trying to sleep in the guest room, but I did not think Connie had cleaned it since Stephens had slept there. I pictured myself lying on his sweaty, rumpled sheets and a shudder ran through me.

I sat down on the couch, staring into space.

"Jeff." Brian stood in front of me, still crying. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

Charlie stood next to him. "What can we do, is there anything?" She sounded as young and helpless as Brian.

I shook my head slowly, then managed to say, "Leave me alone." I heard my brother blaming himself and my sister telling him to be quiet. "One thing," I choked out, repeating myself until they stopped arguing. "Don't tell Dad."

"Hey, kiddo," Dad said, shaking me gently
awake. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, aware suddenly that something was wrong.

"What?" I asked, choking on the word.

"Hey, relax." Dad laughed a little, but his eyes were sad. "Nothing too awful. The press is outside." I just looked at him. "It's nothing like it was in San Francisco. But they're here, they want to see you, and I think we should just get it over with."

"Talk to them, you mean?"

Dad nodded.

"I don't want to," I said, finally awake.

"I know. But they're not going away until they get a clear shot of you, and ..." He sighed. "It's reality. So let's give them one look, and then go on about our business. All right?"

"Yeah, whatever," I muttered.

"Okay then. Meet you downstairs."

Though we could have left the house through the attached garage, Dad steered me out the front door instead, indicating by pressure that I should stop at the top of the porch steps. I stepped forward another inch, losing Dad's hand off my shoulder, looking out at them.

Four vans, each with television call letters painted on their sides, were parked along the sidewalk outside our lawn. Four ill-matched sets of people stood near the vans, conferring with each other: well-dressed reporters and their work-suited camera operators. Conspicuously apart from this group was a handful of men and women carrying notepads, tape recorders and their own cameras.

"There he is," one of the plainly dressed reporters said, sounding more conversational than excited, and the entire group headed for me.

"There's a lot of them," I said flatly, scared. Dad squeezed my shoulder again and this time I deliberately shook him off.

"A lot of them," Dad agreed quietly. "But it's all right. I'll handle it."

With that he stepped alongside me, smiling out at everyone, a smile so phony I was surprised to see many of them smile back.

"Mr. Hart, how do you feel about all this?" a blond woman asked. At eight in the morning, she was wearing a cocktail dress and high heels.

"We feel great, of course, Cheryl," Dad said. I looked at him sideways. Cheryl?

"Our boy is home," Dad continued, smiling at Cheryl, then past her. "We couldn't be happier." The television reporters nodded sympathetically while the print reporters scribbled into their notebooks, frowning.

"Are you glad the guy is in custody?" a young, athletic-looking man asked, another of the TV reporters.

"Sure," Dad said, still smiling, his voice tightening just a little. "For everyone's sake. Let's not talk about him here."

"Jeff!" someone said quietly in the lull that followed. I saw an earnest-looking woman with short gray hair standing on the edge of the print reporters' circle. She smiled at me, so genuinely I smiled back. "What's the next step for you?" she asked.

"I don't know." I looked at Dad uncertainly. "School, I guess."

He nodded, clapping his hands once. "Well, folks, we've got errands to run, so—"

"Jeff, did the guy molest you?" I looked down to the speaker: a pudgy young man dressed in wrinkled chinos and a stained white polo shirt. He waited patiently for my answer, unimpressed by my silence.

Dad had a grip on my shoulder again. "Thanks, everyone." With that he guided me down the steps and through the reporters, pointing the remote-control door opener in the general direction of the garage.

Dad waited a moment before we pulled out, taking a deep breath, staring down at his hands. Then he backed out slowly, putting on another smile. He rolled down the window as the reporters took their time stepping out of his way.

"Take care now," he called, raising his hand briefly. Most of the reporters smiled back to him or nodded, though my last interrogator stood glumly in the middle of the road, staring after us.

"Bastards," Dad hissed as we drove around the corner.

Chilled by the encounter, unsettled, I hit what seemed to be the safest point. "It seemed like you knew them."

"I do," Dad said. "Some of them. I put in my time with the press." He looked over at me. "They're not all bad, but..." He shook his head. "All right, we've done that. So."

I was silent as we turned onto Wayne's main street. Dad glanced at me again.

"That should hold them for a while. But if anything happens with Slaight, anything with the case, they'll be back."

"Okay, okay," I muttered, folding my arms across my chest, looking down.

"I might not be here to protect you then." Dad sounded like he was talking to himself. "I have to get back to work eventually."

Suddenly, unaccountably furious with him, I lashed out. "Hey, don't worry about it. You don't have to
protect
me from anything. He's in jail, isn't he?"

We were both quiet after that. Then Dad let out his breath in a harsh sigh, his fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

"Sorry," I said quickly. "I shouldn't have said that."

He held up a hand without looking at me. "It's all right."

Dad drove another mile or so to a huge shopping center that had been a cow pasture the last time I'd seen it.

"Okay!" he said briskly once we were in the store. "I'll need your help here. Connie's list is two pages long."

I shuffled along behind him, feeling as out of place as if we'd landed on the moon. We walked through an enormous archway into the store, where Dad nodded toward the carts. He handed me one page of the list.

"Let's each take a cart. You stay near me and look for the things on your list. You see anything you want for yourself, toss it in." He caught my eyes and tried to smile. "We've got to get you back to your fighting weight."

I let Dad lead me through the store. It was a tedious, deliberate process, as I didn't know where anything was and he constantly had to come back and check my list. Finally he just took it from me and used my cart as backup. I wanted to get some kind of food for myself to please him, but I didn't see anything that appealed to me. Finally I grabbed a box of Sugar Pops and some chocolate chip ice cream, food I had enjoyed as a child.

I kept my eyes down, but I sensed a few people staring at me, and I thought I heard some whispers. I ignored them, telling myself I was imagining things. But once Dad and I reached the checkout counter, the game was up. The thin, dark-haired woman checking the groceries was Marie Perini. Vin's mother.

"Oh my God! Is that you? Oh Geez! Jeff Hart!"

"Hi, Marie," I said. She ran out from behind the counter, pushed past Dad, and grabbed me. I could see from Dad's face that he was seriously pissed and about to move her off, but I signaled him it was all right. She rocked me side to side, reaching up to kiss my cheek.

"You're so tall.. . and handsome! Oh, you grew up. You back in town permanent now?"

I shrugged, bewildered by the question.

"Vinny's going to be so excited! He's missed you so much, never stopped talking about you." Marie clasped me tighter and I smelled her perfume and powder.

"It's good to see you," I said, detaching myself gently. "How are you?"

Marie let me go, patting my cheek. "I'm fine, honey, the question is, how are you?"

"I'm okay."

"Out shopping with Dad, huh?" she said, punching him lightly on the arm. He did not look happy.

"We're in a hurry, Mrs. Perini," he told her, gesturing toward the groceries.

Marie nodded. "Of course, don't mind me." She scurried back behind the counter and began dragging items over the scanner, talking all the while. "You are coming over to see Vinny, aren't you?"

When I didn't answer, she shook a loaf of bread at me. "Don't be shy. You
are,
or we'll come get you."

Her face tightened and she addressed Dad. "Mr. Hart, if it was me, I would have killed the bastard."

My face reddening, I moved past Dad to where the groceries were piling up. A plastic sack was already set up in a holder at the end of the counter, and I began grabbing items at random and tossing them in the bag.

"Oh no, honey, don't you get those," Marie said. "I'll call someone. Andy!" she screeched over an intercom. Dad winced, and the misery was complete. I recognized the bag boy right away: my grade school enemy Andy Keller. Though he'd grown into a giant, Andy's baby face and wiry blond hair were unmistakable.

"Hey," he said in a monotone. I nodded to him. Andy and Vin had been best friends when I arrived on the scene in fifth grade. Then, like that, it was Vin and me, and Andy was left out. He had only sneered at Vin's attempts to include him, and finally Vin had shrugged him off. Andy had made it clear then that he hated me, but at the time, I didn't much care. I was becoming Mr. Sports Hero, and Andy was just a mean fat guy hanging on at the edges of the jocks' circle.