Loser's Bracket

  “What if she gets clean?” I ask. “Won’t they just give her one more chance?”

  “There’s that,” Wiz says, “but I’ve known your sister since I started working with you and I knew about her before that. How many true clean and sober days do you think she’s had in that time?”

  I say, “Well, there was this one Wednesday . . .”

  “Bad as her record is, we require a year. She blows it once, we terminate. At the same time, we do what Kennedy and the Russians called ‘back-door negotiations’ where on her good days she gets to see him.”

  “God,” I say. “Sometimes I don’t even know if she wants to.”

  “This plan gives us our best chance of finding out.”

  Walter’s fingers drum on the table. “And if this doesn’t work? If somebody finds you out?”

  “I take the heat,” Wiz says. “All of it. Your name never comes up.”

  “You could go to jail. Prison.”

  “I could,” Wiz says. “That’s the part that excites my wife.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Seriously, I could go to prison, but there’s a far better chance I’d lose my job and be on probation. My kids are grown, my wife makes good money, I could get a job doing something useful. Plus, my lifestyle’s so damn tame I don’t break probation now, and I’m not on it.”

  “Lot of ways this could go bad,” Walter says. “I don’t like puttin’ you in this position.”

  “Hell with it, Walter. I should thank you. I’m tired of pretending to help.”

  And like that. We have a plan.

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  “Annie,” Pop says. “I need to apologize to you.”

  I can tell by the tone, this isn’t a real apology.

  “We’ve let this silly ‘losers bracket’ thing play out, even watched you sabotage your scholarship chances wasting time on sports you had no business playing. And look what it came to.”

  Through barely un-gritted teeth, “What did it come to?”

  “Ultimately, to the fiasco at the swim meet,” he says. “To Frankie’s disappearance.”

  I sit forward. “It’s my fault Frankie’s gone?”

  “I didn’t say that. But even you have to admit—”

  I throw up my hands. “Just tell me the rules, Pop.” I can’t stand to hear the same old thing over and over.

  “Fine. No more Boots,” he says. “No more sitting in the stands with them between games, no more sneaking off to coffee or shopping. No more chance meetings. If you run into Nancy or Sheila, you nod and walk on. I guess I should say the same about Rance, but he’s no threat to anything. I wouldn’t recognize the guy if I saw him on the street.”

  I calm the feeling in my stomach. “If I run into Nancy on the street, like really by coincidence, I don’t walk past without saying something. I can’t make a promise like that.”

  Momma says, “Honey, she has a point.”

  Pop shoots a don’t defy me glare, then looks away. “Very well—one sentence of acknowledgement then; that’s it. Now, do we agree, or do I need to add consequences?”

  And people wonder why kids lie.

  I say, “I understand.”

  “Good. Why don’t you spend the rest of the day in your room, thinking it over. Let’s be sure we don’t have this conversation again.”

  The one thing he’s said that I agree with.

  Momma is massaging her temples.

  I’m nervous about Frankie’s reappearance. It’s like the good guys in all those cop shows say; when you set out to commit the perfect crime, there are a hundred things to consider and you’re lucky if you think of seven. DNA trails and security cameras and smart phones and dumb people saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can trip you up at any point. I’m not part of the planning of any of this, but I could fit into that last category if the stars line up right. Plus, I’m carrying some anxiety around because, as much as she pisses me off, I worry about my sister. She can come off mean as a snake, but when she goes down, like to depression, anything could happen. Plus, I don’t want Walter to go to jail or Wiz to lose his job, or Frankie to end up on the foster care merry-go-round. And I really worry that it could all end up being because of me. Much as I hate the way Pop puts it, if I hadn’t had to have it both ways with my two families, hadn’t been the catalyst for bringing Frankie into the Howards’ lives, this would never have gotten so complicated. But I swear, when I look back remembering who I was as that little kid trying to figure out how to get back to a mother who couldn’t take care of me, a sister I banged heads with hourly, and a ghost dad, I can’t see what I could have done differently. The draw alone has always felt like what I imagine addiction to be. When anxiety reaches a certain level, you’ll do anything to bring it down.

  I can’t mess up my little part.

  So I’m dutifully in my room, helping keep the peace in the Howard household, when my cell pings.

  Walter: Meet for coffee?

  Me: Sure. Give me an extra half hour. Kinda grounded. Will be on my bike.

  Walter: Never mind. We’ll do it another time. Don’t get in trouble.

  Me: Wouldn’t feel right without trouble. Leaving now. See you there.

  So much for keeping the peace.

  Walter’s buying, so this must be serious.

  He says, “We’ve got a small problem. Might need your help.”

  “Sure, Walter.”

  “I didn’t want you involved in this. . . .”

  “Hey, I’m, like, the author of it.”

  “The calm I said Frankie was experiencin’ is starting to crack. He loves seeing me every day, but it’s not enough; he needs more familiar faces.”

  “Think I should go see him? I can do that, soon as I smooth things over with Pop.” The only way I smooth things over with Pop is to eat huge helpings of humble pie.

  “That would be good,” he says, “but he’s achin’ for his momma. Even if he can’t live with her, I think he needs to see that she’s okay . . . have a visit and let her explain things—under supervision, a’course.”

  “Who knows where she might be?”

  “I went back and checked her old place on the off chance, but it was rented out.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We need to have things lined up when Frankie reappears for real. If anybody knows her whereabouts, it’d be that Yvonne girl. I tracked her down, but she wouldn’t let me past the crack in the door she told me to go to hell through.”

  I laugh. “That’s Yvonne. She probably sees you through the same eyes as Sheila.”

  “Kinda what I thought,” he says. “‘Worthless ancient biker’ isn’t a term you hear twice by coincidence.”

  “So what can I do?”

  “Go see her; feel her out for what she knows. If she could lead us to Sheila, maybe we can figure something out—get to her before Wiz takes Frankie public an’ gets her all pissed off. Got her address right here.” He hands me a folded piece of paper.

  “Yvonne! Come on! Open up! I know you’re in there. I saw you through the window when I was coming up the steps.” I yell it through the door.

  I came straight from coffee with Walter; I need to hurry. When Pop finds out I didn’t honor his demand that I spend the rest of the day in my room, he may chain me to the wall.

  “Go away! I don’t know where she is!”

  “That’s not why I’m here! C’mon, open up!”

  I wait long enough that I think she’s blowing me off, but as I’m starting down the apartment house steps to run around back, the door opens. “What?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

  We stare at each other through the crack for a moment, then she steps back, for which I thank her.

  Yvonne has always looked “unfortunate” to me. She’s a big woman, about Sheila’s height but without the muscled structure that is a Boots trademark. If she
didn’t look so incredibly sad she might be pretty. I don’t know much about her, really; just that she’s hung around Sheila the last few years and is incredibly loyal. She must have a high tolerance for being treated like shit, because when Sheila’s not feeling good, which is about a hundred percent of the time, she’s no fun.

  I ask if it’s okay for me to sit and she shrugs, so I do.

  “I know you said you don’t know where my sister is, but you’ve got a better chance of hearing from her than anyone,” I say.

  “What makes you think that? Seems like she’d call her boyfriend.”

  “She has a boyfriend?”

  She shrugs. “Doesn’t she always have a boyfriend?”

  “I guess. Sounds like you don’t like that much.”

  “They’re all assholes.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “she’s a magnet for bad guys.”

  Yvonne looks away.

  “Listen, if she does get in touch, tell her to call me. My old caseworker says until they discover otherwise, they’re assuming Frankie will turn up, so they’re setting up a plan.”

  “What kind of plan?”

  “Depending on what she’s willing to do, a plan with the best chance of her not losing contact with him. Like, significant contact.”

  Yvonne just stares at me.

  “That is, if she even wants it. Truth, Yvonne, I’m not even sure.”

  She drops her face to her hands. “I miss him so much. I’m the one that took care of him; I mean, when she wasn’t pawning him off on you guys. The little guy would do anything just to get a pat on the head from her, but she just cursed him and said how he’d ruined her life. If she’d have moved in with me, I could have kept him safe. I wanted her . . .” and she trails off.

  “You’re really in love with her.”

  “And I treated her good,” she says finally. “Not like all those . . . those assholes. I treated them both like . . .” and her entire body heaves.

  “Like a mom, huh?”

  She lets out a weak cry.

  “Look, Yvonne, you don’t know me very well; mostly you’ve just seen me as Sheila’s bitchy little sister. But for the first time in the history of caseworkers ever, I think they’re going to surround Frankie with something like a family if they find him. Sheila could be part of it, and if she were, you could be, too.” I stand up. “So . . . if she calls.”

  Yvonne walks me to the door, where she grips my wrist. “Annie, I don’t know whether you know it or not, but right before all this happened there was a complaint called into social services.”

  “I know.”

  “It was me,” she says, “and you do know there’s almost no chance he’s alive. This is my fault.” She looks truly anguished.

  I take her other hand. “Listen to me. I have really good reason to think he is. Be ready.”

  “You have a minute?” Marvin peeks in my room, to where I have been once again banished. I am on a short leash.

  “I’ve got way longer than that.”

  “Maybe not,” Marvin says, and a closer look reveals red eyes.

  “What?”

  “Dad is talking about expelling you. He’s thinking about calling children’s services in the morning to say he can’t handle you.”

  “He’ll get over it. You know how he is.”

  Marvin says, “I hate him.”

  “C’mon, Marvin. He’s your dad.”

  “All the more reason to hate him,” Marvin says. “It would be different if just some bad guy was doing this. He sounds like he means it this time.”

  I’m looking calm for Marvin’s sake, but adrenaline runs through me like a river. I didn’t think it would go this far. “You know, Marvin, he has a point. The only reason he’s ‘handled’ me this long is I let him.”

  “I get it; you’re a pain in the patoot; big news. But where would you go?”

  “I’m seventeen. Wiz could help me get emancipated. I’ll bet Leah could talk her parents into taking me in till the end of the school year. Leah could talk anyone into anything. After that, I’m gone anyway.”

  “I wish my mom would divorce him.”

  “Your mother is not going to divorce your dad. Certainly not because of me.”

  “Well, she should. Everything always has to be his way. I might run away.” His eyes narrow. “If you go, I go.”

  “Look, maybe Pop’s just mad. Maybe he’ll get over it. If he decides to put me out for real, he’ll drag me into the den to tell me why fifteen times. I’ll have a chance to talk him out of it.”

  “You’re right. He is angry. If you’d let me tell him about Frankie’s situation—”

  “No! Marvin, everything with Frankie has to work just right.”

  “But he couldn’t stay angry if he knows it’s all about Frankie.”

  “Look, you and I, like, care a lot more about Frankie than Pop does; you have to know that. He’s been cool about taking him, but if it hadn’t been for Momma, things would be real different. So, whatever Wiz comes up with has to be our truth, okay? Just for now.”

  “This is unjust.”

  “Promise me.”

  He sets his jaw.

  “Marvin, I’ll kill you if you tell. And I’ll leave anyway.”

  Surface tension keeps a single tear from falling. “I know. I’m not going to tell; I promised. I just don’t want you to leave. You’re the only person I really talk to.”

  “And, he’d turn all that crap onto you.”

  He leans back and kind of laughs. “There’s that.” He laughs harder. “Annie, if you abandon me I’ll be left in the driveway shooting hoops with that . . . that . . .”

  “Yeah,” I say, “who wouldn’t want somebody between them and Pop. Look, if he boots me, you can meet up with me like I do with Nancy, and really piss him off.”

  A hard knock. “Annie!”

  “Yeah, Pop.”

  “Is Marvin in there?”

  Marvin’s head snaps up. I put my finger to my lips and point to my bathroom. He silently moves there under cover of my coughing fit. “No.”

  “Well, if he wants in you tell him you’re grounded. From all conversation. I don’t want him tainted with all this. We have serious business to discuss.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I say, staring at the door between two raised middle fingers.

  Incoming text:

  Walter: You watching the TV?

  Me: No

  Walter: Turn it on. Channel 6.

  I hit the remote, click on channel 6, and there’s Frankie—or a picture of him—followed by a live shot of Wiz standing on the steps in front of his office building answering questions. The ticker at the bottom of the screen says, “Frankie Boots, once believed kidnapped, found alive and unharmed.”

  Wiz fields questions, calm as can be, from the three network affiliates, public TV, the Spokesman-Review, and the Inlander. He received a text telling him to go immediately to the lobby, where he discovered Frankie sitting in a chair. No, the text wasn’t traceable; it came from a burner cell phone. Yes, the police have been notified, and later this afternoon Officer Graham and Wiz will hold another news conference. Frankie was calm; seems healthy, with no visible marks and no noticeable trauma. No, Wiz will not reveal Frankie’s whereabouts, will only say he’s in temporary placement while the department figures out the next move. The mother has not been notified because her whereabouts are unknown; finding her is a high priority. The department has no comment as to Frankie’s placement should the mother be found and will not comment on rumors there was a pending CPS complaint. And on and on.

  I burst out of my room to get ahead of the curve, which gives Marvin a chance to slip out behind me. “Turn on the TV!”

  Pop says, “I thought I told you—”

  “They found Frankie! Turn on the TV! Channel six!”

  Pop punches the remote in time to see old footage of Sheila pleading for his return.

  “I’ll be damned,” Pop says. “How in the world . . .”

&n
bsp; I stare at the screen and give him the short version of what I just saw in my bedroom.

  The news dazed Pop to the extent that he put our war on hold. But just when I think I can coast under his radar a while longer, we end up in the den.

  “Annie, do you have any idea why I’ve set up this meeting?”

  God, who “sets up” a meeting in their own family? I glance around the den; déjà vu. The two overstuffed chairs sit face-to-face, Pop in one, the other waiting to be graced with my butt. I say, “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  Pop looks like I elbowed him, like, in the groin. “Excuse me?”

  “No. You called me in here. Say it.” I see by the look on his face that Marvin or no Marvin, I can’t save this.

  “Young lady, I’m pretty tired of your impudence.”

  “I’m pretty tired of being imprisoned in my room . . . and I haven’t been impudent. I’ve been sneaky and I’ve been disobedient, but when it comes to impudence, I am not guilty.”

  “Fine. Sneaky and disobedient it is. Before this evening is over, we’re going to take care of that.”

  “Bet we don’t,” I say as I decide to get ahead of the curve. “You ‘called this meeting’ to throw me out of your house.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You know. Rumors. Thin walls. Heat duct between Marvin’s room and yours.”

  “What? Has Marvin . . .”

  “Marvin doesn’t know I go in there,” I say. “File that under ‘Annie’s Sneakiness.’”

  He grits his teeth. I hope he’s thinking of all the things Marvin may have heard through that heat duct. But he does what he does best, which is to stay on task. “Actually, I’ve called you in to help you with some tough choices.”

  “Which are . . .”

  “Until this last year, we found solutions to our differences, would you agree? You followed general rules, didn’t just directly disobey my orders.”

  “Yeah, if you don’t count the Boots thing. But we didn’t find solutions. You found solutions and I lied and agreed with you.”

  “Well, your perspective is what it is, but while I didn’t call you in here to ‘throw you out of my house,’ as you put it, I am telling you that until you graduate, there’ll be no more meeting up with . . . what can I call it . . . your history. Not at games, not at these ‘chance’ meetings. Nothing. No contact.”