While He Was Away (19 page)

The first drawing is silly, a collage of sketches of David, my manga superhero, doing various menial chores: fixing a shower, plunging a toilet, digging a trench, his cape snapping heroically in the invisible wind.

Funny.

In the next drawing, the wind is stronger. It whips Manga David’s cape over his eyes. It doesn’t seem like he’d be able to see, but still he’s firing a rifle. Chocolate bars, not bullets, explode from it into the air. The bars rain down into the outstretched hands of laughing boys who look a lot like David did when he was little.

A little strange, but not so bad.

I look at the next drawing, which shows David playing cards with three other soldiers, who are also wearing capes. Their capes are draped over their shoulders like blankets. If I didn’t know it’s so hot over there, I would think it’s very, very cold, from the way they’re all huddled together around a single candle. Every card in every hand is a joker.

I shiver.

“Penna, let’s go! We’re late,” Linda calls.

Once again this apparently is my fault.

Still, I take the time to write David an email. Short but sweet. That’s all I can pull off right now.

I love your drawings. Thanks for sending them to me. Write me too, okay?

I just sent you something special in the mail. It’s going to rock your world. Just wait and see.

As if his world hasn’t already been rocked.

•••

By the time Linda and I get to Red Earth, Caitlin is in full Happy Hour mode, waiting on about twenty people at once. It’s an hour before we have a chance to talk, and then only in passing. But when she asks if I want to hang out again tonight with Jules, I immediately agree.

Hours after this, the last table finally empties. Caitlin is arranging the table settings for tomorrow. I’m swabbing down the menus. Then we’ll be ready to go.

That’s what I’m thinking about when Tom comes up to me, points to the fireplace mantel, and says, “You might want to check out that photograph. Linda just put it up today.”

“Oh really,” I say.

He takes the menus and rag from my hands. “Really.”

I go over and look.

Up close I realize it’s another photo of Tom as a teenager. He stands at attention in front of Red Earth’s sign. This time he’s wearing a sharply pressed army uniform. The photo has that Technicolor sheen of the 1960s, so his uniform looks lichen green. He wears his cap cocked on his head; the black bill shines glossily in the sun. He seems to be saluting the person who’s taking the picture. Her heavily pregnant shadow falls at his feet.

Justine.

Pregnant
with
Linda.

I spin around and look at Tom.

He’s watching. He jerks his head—
Come
on, then
—and I hurry back to him before he can change his mind.

I’m afraid he might already have changed it, from his deep sigh as I approach. But then he says, “Right after that was taken, I went to Vietnam. And then I went MIA. Justine went MIA her own way not long after that.” He’s still holding the stack of menus. He swipes the rag across the topmost one. Again and again he scrubs at it, though it’s clean enough already. “She didn’t think I’d ever come home. She called me ‘son,’ see? I guess I was the last straw.” He looks up at me, his eyes wary. “That’s what she tells me, at least.”

I grip the edge of the bar. “
Tells
you?”

Abruptly, Tom slaps the menus down on a nearby table. The rag he flings at the bar, and it lands with a thwack near the sink. He gives me a hard look then, like once and for all he’s taking the measure of my character. “She says I’m taking care of her now, but really she takes care of me just by being there,” he says. “It’s like old times almost. Justine brought me into her home when my ma died, see. Justine raised me like her son.”

“She’s my grandmother.” My voice cracks.

Tom nods. “You want to see her?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll tell her that.”

“She’s my
grandmother
.”

“I know. She wants to see you too. But I have to make sure she’s strong enough. She’s up and down, you know?” Tom glances at Linda, who is walking toward us, a tray of dirty glasses in her hands. “That one,” he says sadly, jerking his head. “I haven’t told her Justine’s staying with me. I’ve heard Linda say it often enough—she said it the first day I came in for a job interview. She doesn’t want to know anything about Justine, and she doesn’t want you bumping up against Justine either. Why Linda’s putting all these new pictures up, I’ll never understand. I asked her once, and she said they’re
authentic
. They’re just
decoration
. Seems to me Linda doesn’t know what she wants.” Tom looks at me again, his gaze softening at whatever expression is on my face. “Seems like you do, though.”

I nod.

“Linda might never get over what happened,” Tom says. “There are people like that.”

I swallow hard. Tom has just said what I haven’t been able to say, haven’t wanted to hear.

Tom goes back over to his typical place at the bar. He’s got more than enough to do now that Linda is standing there too. She’s right by his side, passing him sticky coaster after sticky coaster. It’s up to him to clean off the rings, left by all those happy people drinking glasses of wine and steins of beer.

“Tell her,” I call to Tom.

He looks up at me. Linda looks up too.

“Tell me what?” Linda says.

“Not
her
,” I say to Tom, and turn away.

•••

I find Caitlin then.

“Let’s go,” I say.

She flicks her pink and purple hair. “One last setting,” she says. She takes care of it, rolling the paper napkin tightly around the knife, fork, and spoon, and setting them to the left of the clean, white plate. And then she says, “Done.”

Next minute we’re in Caitlin’s car. She drives us to Jules’s house, which is a little brick box much like Caitlin’s own, only with fewer people inside, I guess.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Just wait!” Jules says, climbing into the backseat.

And then we take off.

A few minutes later I’m saying, “No. No, really. We don’t need to go here.”

Because I know where we’re going. We’re going to the viaduct.

“It’s not the
ultimate
destination,” Jules says. “But we’ve got to see it. Right, Caitlin?”

Caitlin nods. “Your mother,
Linda
, has only been talking about it for months.”

“And then we’ll go to the
ultimate
destination,” Jules adds.

I remember then what David asked for, last time we talked on the phone. “Do either of you have a camera?”

“On my cell,” Caitlin says.

“Oh, all right then,” I say.

We pull to a stop about a block away from the viaduct.

“That’s the
ultimate
destination.” Jules points across the street and the empty lot beyond to what was the abandoned factory but now radiates neon and noise.

With David, I didn’t want to go there. With Caitlin and Jules, I’m interested.

“What is it?” I ask.

“This new laser tag and paintball place.” Jules grins. “You’re going to love it. When Zach was home on leave, we went there together. He loved it too.”

I think of David and me shooting paintballs at the guy on the Internet site. “I don’t know.”

“You won’t know until you try. Now show us your mural,” Caitlin says.

We get out of the car and walk toward the viaduct.

And that’s when I see Ravi, whipping around the viaduct on his skateboard. He banks high up the curved wall, down again, and flies across the ground and up the other wall, then does it all again. His wheels skim across the killdeer and their nest, and across David and me, big and blue.

“Hey!” Caitlin yells. “Stop!” She gives me a fierce look. “He’s going to wreck it, Penna.”

Ravi keeps doing his trick. I can hear the whir of his skateboard’s wheels.

“It’s okay,” I say, but Caitlin and Jules don’t listen. They run toward Ravi. I run after them. Ravi skates fast, smooth and steady, back and forth, back and forth, repeating that same move.

We’re at the entrance to the viaduct when Ravi spots us. Still, he doesn’t break his pattern. He keeps on skating back and forth, up and down the walls. He glances over at us as we approach, and his look surprises me. His black eyes are stone cold and distant. It’s like Ravi and I have never talked, like we’ve never seen each other before. He’s dressed in that hooded sweatshirt again.

“Tough guy,” Jules murmurs.

“He’s not so tough,” I say.

“Well, he better not ram into me with that board, or I’ll show him what’s what,” Caitlin says, and she marches beneath the viaduct and right into Ravi’s path.

He jumps off his board and kicks it up into his hands before it hits her.

“How do you do?” Playing polite, Caitlin sticks out her hand to Ravi. When he doesn’t take it, she pumps it up and down, miming a handshake. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Ravi,” I say. “This is Caitlin. And this is Jules. Caitlin and Jules, Ravi.”

Ravi drops his board on the ground and braces it with his foot. “What are you doing here? I thought you don’t like coming here anymore.”

I laugh, trying to keep it light. “How about you? I thought you had to work.”

“I traded nights.” He glares at me. “I was too tired to go to work. I got up early this morning for no reason at all. Now I can’t sleep, so I’m here.”

Caitlin and Jules glance at me.

I clear my throat. “That sucks.”

Ravi nods.

“I hate it when I don’t get enough sleep.”

Ravi studies the ground. “Me too.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you. I mean it.”

Now Caitlin and Jules are really looking at me.

To my relief, Ravi looks up at me too, and his expression has softened. “I’ll be all right. Just give me a day or two,” he says. And he smiles.

I show Caitlin and Jules the mural then. They ooh and ahh over it. All the while, Ravi skates around us. Then I have them all stand back, and Caitlin takes a picture of me before the mural on her cell.

“I’ll email it to you,” Caitlin says, tucking her phone away. Then she tugs a hair band from her pocket and whips her hair up into a ponytail. She points at the skateboard. “You want to show us how to use that thing?”

“What about paintball?” Jules asks.

Caitlin rolls her eyes. “There’ll be other nights for paintball. We can play paintball when it’s raining. It’s nice outside tonight. Let’s enjoy the weather.”

“Spoken like the mom of six,” Jules mutters.

But then Ravi starts to show us how to skateboard, and even she gets a lesson.

We fall some. We laugh a lot.

When I ride the skateboard, I get lost in the feel of it, skimming over the ground, with Ravi, Jules, and Caitlin running by my side. I feel confident, daring. I feel like I can do anything.

I can ask Linda where Tom lives. I don’t have to wait around if I don’t want to. This one thing, this one thing I really, really want, I can make happen.

•••

It’s one thirty in the morning when I get home. Linda’s not back yet. I go right to my room. I check my computer.

There it is. An email from David. No drawing attached. Just words.

I’ve never been so happy for words.

Hey, Penna.

I got an email from Mom that said you stopped by to visit. Thank you.

I guess you know that I started night patrol. I’m okay. I don’t exactly know what’s dangerous for us here anymore, so late in the game. So don’t worry. I’ll tell you more soon. I just don’t feel like thinking about it right now. That’s all.

Here’s something good. Or as good as it gets here, I guess. We’ve started to go to the local orphanage to help the kids here. It’s practically bare except for beds and toilets and sinks. But it’s clean. There are kids of all ages. The youngest are tiny. The oldest look to be about sixteen. There are so many kids roaming the streets here. They keep trying to sell me stuff—stuff you can’t believe. Broken combs. Half-empty matchbooks. Stuff like that. Or they’ll try and shine my shoes. And the begging—you wouldn’t believe it. Or the number of kids sniffing and huffing. Totally stoned on old cans of spray paint and other stuff I don’t know. They’d be better off in the orphanage, but I guess there’s no room.

The orphanage woman told us that since our occupation, nearly four million of her people have been displaced from their homes. Nearly half are children.