Chris got back on track. “Obviously, I think Raz is having a hard time being replaced as starting pitcher. You might want to discourage the friendship for the time being.”
“Tell me about it, I’ve been trying. I thought they’d sort it out, but maybe not. This is ridiculous.”
“It’s not fair to Jordan.”
“No, it’s not!” Heather raised her voice. “I feel bad for Raz and I don’t mean to be mean. Please don’t think I’m a gossip, but I don’t know if you heard, his older brother Ryan was arrested last night.”
“Yes, I did hear that.” Chris noted she didn’t say it in a gossipy way, but her tone was sympathetic.
“Okay, so they’re having trouble in the family. I saw Susan at the game, but I didn’t get to talk to her. I feel terrible that Raz’s father died, too. But still, none of that is Jordan’s fault. Jordan earned the position, all by himself. Nobody helped him. Everything he does, it’s on his shoulders. He was never given any advantages.”
Chris heard the emotion behind her words and sensed she wasn’t talking about Jordan anymore. He broke off a piece of cookie and popped it in his mouth.
“I probably should have mentioned this, but his father and I broke up when he was born. He’s grown up without a father and he’s ‘risen above his raisin’ as Dr. Phil says.”
“I don’t think you need to worry. As you said, Raz and Jordan will sort themselves out, and this too shall pass.”
“Right, I know.” Heather pressed a stray strand of hair from her eyes, with a new sigh. “It’s been a long day, I guess. A long, weird day.”
“The day you quit your job.”
“Right, the day I quit my job.” Heather rolled her eyes, with a self-conscious giggle. “It’s settling in.”
“What is?”
“Reality. I don’t have a backup plan.”
“I always have a backup plan,” Chris said, another thing that was true.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Heather lifted an eyebrow, and Chris realized he’d said the wrong thing, thrown off-balance by her.
“No, what I was about to say is that you don’t need a backup plan. Just go to the next step.”
“What’s that?”
“Find a new job.”
“Ha!” Heather laughed, but it had a hollow sound. “That’s not as easy as it sounds. I was just online at monster.com and Craig’s List. I applied to fifteen jobs already, but there’s not a lot of places looking.”
“Nothing’s as easy as it sounds. You can’t let that stop you.”
“Now you’re talking like a coach.”
“Well, I am a coach,” Chris said, without thinking.
“Okay, then, coach me. I’m open-minded.” Heather leaned back, crossing her arms, and Chris tried to think of something a real coach would say.
“Be positive.”
“Good start.”
“I’m sure a lot of businesses would love to have someone like you.”
“What makes you say that? You don’t even know me.” Heather looked at him like he was crazy, the same way she had looked at Jordan, which was very cute. Totally cute.
“I do, in a way,” Chris answered, and he wasn’t even talking about his research on her. “Through Jordan.”
“What about him? You don’t know him that well, either.”
“I know enough to draw some reasonable conclusions. He turned out great, and you just told me that you raised him by yourself, on your own.”
“Yes, so?” Heather blinked. “What are you saying, that I should get a job as a nanny?”
“No, not unless you wanted to. What I mean is, you need to view your skill set more broadly.”
“Skill set?” Heather threw back her head and laughed. “I have a skill set? That’s news to me.”
“No it isn’t, it shouldn’t be,” Chris said, meaning it. His tone turned soft and he didn’t even plan it that way. “It takes a lot of skills to be a single mother, raise a kid, and run a household by yourself. You have to pay the bills, repair what needs repairing, and make sure that Jordan gets to school and to the doctor and to practice, am I right?”
“Yes, when he was younger, I guess.” Heather shrugged. “But I don’t fix things, Jordan does. Or they don’t get fixed.”
“Then they didn’t need fixing. And all the time you’re working at a full-time job, so you have that to deal with. True or not?”
“True,” Heather answered, with the trace of a smile.
“And I’m sure you were very good at your job, whatever you did, and you said you wanted to leave it, and you did that, too. So you have a broad skill set and you should move forward with absolute confidence.”
Heather smiled, chuckling. “You’re an excellent coach! You’re getting me to think positive. Gung ho! Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose, all that.”
“So it worked?” Chris chuckled.
“It kind of did!” Heather threw up her hands. “Go, team, go!”
“Ha!” Chris burst into laughter, realizing that the weirdest thing had just happened. He had been playing the role of a coach and saying whatever a coach would say, but somewhere between him and her, the words had become true. And above all, they had helped her, which made him feel good. He felt not only like a coach, he even felt more … human.
Suddenly a cell phone started ringing in the living room, and Heather looked over. “Oh, excuse me, I have to get that, but I’ll be only a minute. It’s my cousin in Denver and she just had a baby—”
“No, that’s okay, I should go,” Chris said, standing quickly. He had to stop what was happening between them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t according to plan, backup plan, step one, or step two. It was basically something that couldn’t happen at all, especially not with Heather. He needed to use Jordan, and her. They could only be the means to an end, in a dangerous and deadly game.
“You don’t have to go. Give me a second.” Heather hustled for the phone. “I just want to see if she’s okay.”
“No, it’s late. Good night now.” Chris crossed to the door, pulled it open, and let himself out.
It was no time to grow a conscience.
Chapter Twenty-two
An hour later, Chris was driving through thick, dark woods to a meet. The night sky was starless, and clouds swept across the moon, carried by unseen winds. He tried to put Heather out of his mind and focus on what lay ahead, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been with his share of women, but she was different. He didn’t want to figure out how, because any relationship with her could end only one way. So it had to end now, before it started.
Chris turned into a dirt driveway, and his Jeep’s headlights raced over a peeling white sign with faded letters, COMING SOON, CENTRE MALL & FOOD COURT. He parked and cut the engine, scanning the scene in the scant light. It was a construction site for a mall, but the project had evidently been abandoned after the pad had been installed, paving a footprint for the strip of stores. The concrete glowed darkly in the moonlight, surrounded by trees that had been cut to black stubs.
Chris got out of the Jeep, dismayed to see that the silhouette standing next to the car wasn’t the one he’d expected. Neither was the car. It was a gleaming black Audi coupe, not the nondescript black Ford SUV he knew so well. The man standing next to the car had on a Phillies cap, and there was only one man Chris knew who wore a ball cap thinking he was a Master of Disguise. The cap’s brim put his face almost completely in shadow, which was fine with Chris because Aleksandr Ivanov was ugly as sin.
Chris walked over. “Hey, Alek. Where’s the Rabbi? He said he’d be here.”
“He couldn’t make it.”
“Why?”
“What’s the difference? You miss Daddy? Deal with me. What’s going on?”
Chris bit his tongue. He wasn’t looking for trouble. “Okay, I have a guy. I’m in.”
Alek snorted. “By ‘guy,’ you mean a kid. A high-school junior. This is some next-level shit, Curt.”
Chri
s thought his real name sounded strange to him, but didn’t say so. He realized he was mentally betwixt and between, after the cookies with Heather. He had to get his head back in the game. Alek had a bad temper, and the stakes were too high to get distracted.
“Who’s the kid?”
“Jordan Larkin.” Chris felt a twinge offering up the name, like a betrayal. But he shooed the thoughts away.
“So what’s the problem? You called the Rabbi and told him you had a problem.”
“I said I might have a problem.” Chris didn’t want to talk it over with Alek, who was half as smart as the Rabbi.
“Gimme a break, Curt. I don’t have time to jerk around.” Alek checked his watch, a neat swivel of his head under the cap.
“Turns out one of the teachers is from Wyoming. He knows Northwest College.”
“You said that wouldn’t happen.” Alek snorted again.
“The odds were slim to none. It’s a fluke.” Chris’s chest tightened. Alek always reminded him of one of his foster fathers, the worst one. A bully to everyone around him, like a prison guard to his wife, his other foster son, even the cat. Milly was the cat’s name, a calico. The night Chris had finally left, he’d let Milly out and she ran off. She would never look back. Neither would he.
“What’s his name, this teacher?”
“Abe Yomes.”
“So what are you telling me for? Handle it.”
“The question is how.”
“You’re a big boy. Don’t ask me. Handle it. I gotta go. What a waste of time.” Alek turned away, got in the car, and started the engine.
Chris watched him go, wishing the Rabbi had come. Together they would have assessed the risk and figured out what to do about Abe.
But if Chris had to handle it on his own, he would.
Chapter Twenty-three
Saturday morning dawned sunny, and Susan put on her sunglasses as she drove Raz to baseball practice. He kept his head turned to the window, cell phone in hand and listening to music through his earbuds. She’d hardly slept a wink, her thoughts on Raz and Ryan, torn between the two of them like when they were young and fought over the same toy. They’d tantrum, and she’d tended to get down in the weeds with them, but Neil would tell her:
Honey, when they fight, they spiral down. Don’t go into the spiral. You’re the parent, remember? If you go down the spiral, you’ll all end up in the toilet.
Susan remembered his words as clearly as if it were yesterday, which was the problem. She remembered everything about Neil, how he had acted, what he had said, the jokes he’d made, the way they’d made love. She wished she remembered less. She wished he wasn’t so present all the time, in her head and her heart.
Susan drove ahead, her thoughts churning. It had been almost a year since Neil died, and a year was the grief cutoff. He died in August and it was already April, so she had only four months left. Nobody said so explicitly, but she got the message. She saw an article in the paper that said, most widows return to their “pre-loss level of life satisfaction” after a year. So she knew she had four months to become a normal person. Still she didn’t believe there could be a deadline to mourning the dead.
Susan stopped at a light. She knew what they were saying at work, behind her back. She was milking it. She just wanted the sympathy. She was wallowing in grief and not moving on. She was dragging down her sons, too. They’re spiraling down to get swallowed up by the grief toilet.
The light turned green, and Susan glanced over at Raz. They were only a few blocks from school, and she wanted to make sure they understood each other.
You’re the parent, remember?
“Raz?” Susan said, but there was no reply. “Raz.”
“What?” Raz turned to her, his expression slack and his skin pale. His eyes looked bloodshot and puffy. His hair was wet from the shower, dripping onto his blue Musketeers T-shirt, darkening it around the neckline. He had on his gym shorts and sneakers, his feet resting on his backpack in the well of the passenger seat.
“I want to talk to you.”
“So, talk.” Raz blinked.
“Please take out your earphones.”
“I can hear you.”
“I’m not going to talk to you with your ears plugged up. This is important.”
“Fine,” Raz said tonelessly. He pulled out one of his earphones.
“Both, please.”
Raz pulled out the other one.
Susan reminded herself to be patient. Neil had been, above all things, unbelievably patient. “Okay, so first thing this morning, what are you supposed to do?”
“Mom, I know.”
“Yes, but tell me. I want to hear what you’ll say.”
“You mean like a rehearsal?” Raz’s weary eyes flared in disbelief.
“Yes, exactly.” Susan returned her attention to the road because his expression only made her angry. She drove ahead, passing the tall oaks, the clipped hedges, and the clapboard colonials with their shiny PVC fences.
“Okay, well, whatever, first I’m going to Coach Hardwick. I’m going to tell him I’m sorry I threw the bat.”
“Right.” Susan kept her eyes on the road. “Remember, the first words out of your mouth are ‘I’m sorry.’ Lead with ‘I’m sorry.’”
“I know that. I said that.”
“I want you to go to him before practice even starts.”
Raz sighed heavily. “That’s not going to be that easy, Mom. He’s busy.”
“Just go up to him and say ‘excuse me.’”
“He doesn’t like to be interrupted.”
“He won’t mind after he hears you say ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Should I say I’m sorry for interrupting, too? How many things am I sorry for, Mom? Am I sorry for breathing?”
“Don’t be fresh,” Susan said, then an awful thought struck her.
I’m sorry for breathing.
It was true. She was sorry that she was breathing, when Neil was not. She wished she were dead, and her husband was the one dealing with these angry, thankless children, who acted like they were the only ones who lost him, when exactly the opposite was true. Neil might have been their father, but he was her husband. She’d been there first. She’d loved him longer. He was more hers than theirs. She was his lover, his wife.
Susan’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and she gritted her teeth not to turn around to Raz and smack him in the face. That’s what she actually thought, a vicious notion that came out of nowhere, shocking her. My son is driving me so crazy that I want to smack him.
“Then I have to go to Coach Brennan and tell him I’m sorry that I ruined his party, even though I didn’t ruin his party. They stayed after. They had a good time. It didn’t end or anything. Jordan was fine, he didn’t have to get stitches.”
Susan roiled inside, enraged at his freshness, at his attitude, at his selfishness. He used to be a fun little boy, but he had turned into a total brat.
“Then I go to Jordan and tell him I’m sorry that I hit him. I’m not allowed to say that I didn’t mean to hit him, because like you always say, ‘When you do the act, the consequences always go with it.’”
Susan tried to press away her horrible thoughts. The high school was in sight. She breathed in and out, trying to calm down.
“Then, after I apologize to everybody at practice, I have to call Mrs. Larkin and apologize. I have to tell her I’m happy for Jordan if he’s the starting pitcher because ‘that’s what friends are for.’” Raz made air quotes, and Susan turned left into the school grounds.
The road ran uphill, and she passed the student parking lot on her left. She glanced over at the entrance, where several Central Valley police cruisers sat in front of the school. She looked away, having seen quite enough police cars recently.
“Cops?” Raz frowned at the cruisers. “Wonder what’s up.”
Susan drove forward, having a schedule to keep. She had to drop Raz off, go home, and pull Ryan out of bed because she was taking
him to a therapist at eleven o’clock. Susan would be meeting with her own therapist at the very same time, so two-thirds of The Sematovs’ Shit Show would be on expensive couches.
“Mom, look, something’s the matter,” Raz said, alarmed, and Susan stopped the car. A group of uniformed police, teachers, and staff were leaving the school building, and some of the teachers were crying.
“Oh, my.” Susan took one look and knew that someone had died. She had lived that scene. She still lived it, in her mind.
“That’s Dr. McElroy, and Mr. Pannerman. And Madame Wheeler’s freaking out.”
“Who’s Madame Wheeler?” Susan didn’t know who Raz meant for a minute. Neil was the one who went to Parents’ Night.
“The French teacher. Ryan had her, remember? She’s the one in the front.”
“Poor woman,” Susan said, touched at the sight of the stricken teacher, holding a Kleenex to her nose. She left the building next to Dr. McElroy, whom Susan did recognize, with a bearded male teacher, also weepy. Three female students held each other as they cried, and a baseball player in a Musketeers T-shirt and gym shorts hurried from the entrance and started jogging toward the field.
“Hey, that’s Dylan. Maybe he knows what’s going on.” Raz slid down the window, waving to get the attention of the tall, wiry kid. “Dylan!”
“Raz!” Dylan hustled toward the car, his backpack bouncing. “Hi Raz, hi Mrs. Sematov.”
“Dude, what’s up with Madame Wheeler? Why are the cops here?”
“Oh man, it’s bad.” Dylan bent over to peer inside the car, pushing up his glasses. Wrinkles creased his forehead. “Mr. Y died last night. Dr. McElroy’s crying. They’re all crying.”
“What?” Raz gasped, shocked. “That can’t be! I just saw him! How did he die?”
“Mr. Y is dead?” Susan recoiled. It was horrible news. Mr. Y was Raz’s Language Arts teacher, and Ryan had him, too. They both loved him. That’s how she knew the name, they talked about him so much.
“He committed suicide,” Dylan answered, blinking behind his glasses.
Step Two
Chapter Twenty-four