I smiled two minutes later at the sound of sneakers behind me. Curiosity killed the cat. The kid and I were two of a kind, just as I suspected.
I had this small adult’s number.
* * *
We walked first to my dad’s house, to meet the realtor. He lived in the neighborhood, albeit in one of the stuccoed new monstrosities built where old houses like this one had been torn down, so he knew both the house and the area.
My dad had signed the contract that the realtor had dropped off the week before, so we finished the paperwork. We walked through the house to review a few things, then he headed off to pound in the sign and make the listing.
I stood and had one good look around, probably the last look, seeing my mother in a thousand places.
“Is this the part where you tell me how rough you had it as a kid?” Jimmy asked.
“No, but since you mention it, let me show you something.” I marched him to the back of the house and a very pink room. “Your mother and I shared this room until we were eighteen.”
There was still a magic marker line down the middle of the floor and Jimmy looked at it with a frown. “Is that the boundary?”
I smiled. “It was. I did it when she took something of mine and I nearly died for my creative expression.” He clearly didn’t understand. “Magic marker on the floor. Big sin. Right up there with tape on the walls and thumbtacks in the door.”
He looked around. “It’s not that big.”
“You said it, not me. I just hated the pink.”
He smirked, then laughed. “Mom loves pink.”
“I know. She loved this room. I think it scarred me for life. I can’t even chew bubble gum because of the color.”
He laughed again, then watched me a bit uneasily.
I smiled at him, deciding to keep him worried. “Come on. We’ve got things to see, people to do.” And I headed out of the house, locking the door behind me and taking my memories of my alive-and-well mom with me, thank you very much.
We walked down the street and I could nearly hear the neurons firing away next to me. Jimmy was looking at the neighborhood, really looking, perhaps imagining Marcia and I growing up here. We covered a lot of turf before he spoke up.
“What’s it like being a twin?”
There was no reason to be ambiguous. “I always thought it sucked. Everyone thinks you come in a pair and that you’re interchangeable with each other. That you should dress the same and look the same and talk the same way. It gets old.”
“And that you should share your stuff,” Jimmy added. I glanced to him in surprise. “That’s what Mom said once. That I should feel lucky that I don’t have to share my birthday with anyone else.”
“You feel lucky yet?”
He grinned, knowing that I was teasing him. “No.”
“Why not?”
“We were supposed to go to Jamaica this winter. It’s not fair!”
“My heart is bleeding for you here.”
“Dad always said I couldn’t learn to scuba dive until I was ten.”
“Ahh!” The light went on. “And you’re ten this year, but you aren’t on a beach with a bunch of scuba diving pros. I get it.”
“It’s a big deal, you know.” He trudged along in his unfastened sneakers, hands balled in his pockets. “If we don’t go next year either, then Johnny and I could be learning to dive at the same time, which would be so lame.”
“You like to be first.”
“I get to be first! I was born first! It’s not fair.” He kicked stones along the sidewalk beside me, glowering all the way. “Besides, all my friends all went somewhere cool. It’s like totally unfair.”
“Poor baby. How many times have you been to the Caribbean?”
“We go every winter. Except this one.”
“And I’ve never been. Trust me, kiddo, I’ve seen a lot more March’s than you have.”
“Don’t tell me I should feel sorry for you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I lived in Japan for three years and that, my short friend, is luck.”
“Did your dad pay for that?”
I laughed. “Right! I worked there. That’s what paid for it. Remember that moral about paying for what you want?”
He made a dismissive noise, but I wasn’t expecting much else.
“Here’s something else for you to think about. Your mom and I are twins, which meant that neither one of us was technically older.”
“Mom always said she was born first.”
“Yeah, she did. It’s not like she remembers.”
He snickered at that.
“But here’s the thing. You get an easy tag. You’ll always be the older one, no matter what happens. Your mom and I didn’t get any easy tags. Neither of us was older or taller or prettier. We were exactly the same. People mixed us up. It really bit.”
“I bet.”
“So, you end having to find something that makes you different from the other one. Something not so superficial as being more blond or being older or even being smarter.”
Jimmy was interested now, though he probably didn’t want to be. “Like what?”
“Well, like the good one and the bad one. That was what we went with. It has a certain simplistic elegance.”
Jimmy grinned. “I know who was who.”
“Well, duh. So did everybody. But you know, as a distinction, being the bad one has no legs.”
“Huh?”
“It can’t take you far. It’s cool as hell when you’re a teenager, but you get into your twenties and it’s not so cool. You either have to get really bad and take crime as your career choice, or you have to fake being bad, which starts to look pretty stupid. Either way, you end up with bad choices and fewer opportunities. See, I’ve been there and I’ve done that, and I think that a smart kid like you could come up with a better choice than being the bad one.”
He was skeptical. “Like being the good one?”
“Puh-leese! Think outside the box! What about being the artsy one? Or the technogeek? The history buff or the mechanic who can fix or build anything? What do you want to be? What do you want to do?”
“How do I know?”
“You don’t have to have the final answer. You just need a place to start.” We walked along and I liked the sound of his furious thinking. This was a good start.
“The astronaut,” he said, nodding firmly.
“And what do you need to do to be an astronaut?”
Jimmy blinked. “I don’t know. Go into space.”
“Before that. How do they pick who’s going to be an astronaut?”
He looked up at me, expecting an answer, but I shook my head.
“You’ve got an Internet connection at home. Find out. Why should everyone just give you the answers on a silver platter? Do you think astronauts have no initiative?”
“What’s initiative?”
“Taking things into your own hands. Doing what needs to get done without being told to do it.”
He got the same look his father has when he’s thinking hard. “I could go to the NASA site,” he said carefully. “Maybe they say what you need to do.”
“Maybe they have links to the biographies of the astronauts in their program.”
“What’s a biography?”
“Kind of a history of their life. A resume of what they’ve done and their education. You could look for the things the astronauts have in common.” He was busy with this one and I knew I’d gotten my foot in the door.
But I wasn’t nearly done yet. We were going to slam this lesson home, hard. “Let’s go talk to my old pal.” I caught Jimmy’s shoulder and steered him into the police station right beside us that he hadn’t even noticed we were passing yet.
Flaherty, of course, was waiting. He tried not to look as if he was waiting on us, but he failed miserably. He loved doing this trick. He’d told me on the phone that it was his contribution to society.
There’s a reason why Flaherty’s still a
beat cop. He’s a good-hearted guy, but he is incapable of being unobtrusive. He’s great on the beat, dispensing breezy greetings and quelling glares. He’s also good at being underestimated, something that serves him well.
He was getting older and heavier, so I figured he was still scoring donuts somewhere. His hairline had receded, but his eyebrows were as furry as ever, if not more so, and now grey. They seemed to move independently, like caterpillars desperately trying to escape some sticky stuff that had been applied to his forehead.
“Mary Elizabeth O’Reilly!” he boomed. “And is this not a surprise!”
It wasn’t, but Jimmy didn’t seem to realize as much. On the other hand, Flaherty made an impressive sight as he rolled toward us, buttons nearly bursting. The kid seemed a bit taken aback. Flaherty was tall too - there was a lot of this cop to like. He gave me a quick wink, loving that he was going to fake out a kid on my express request, then scowled at my outfit.
“Did you learn nothing in all these years?” he demanded. “What is it that you’re doing to make your living these days, hmmm?”
“I’m a webmistress.” He blinked so I elaborated. “Computer stuff.” He took a breath to expound upon his view of the high tech industry, but I leaned closer and dropped my voice confidentially. “But you were right all those years ago. Bad blood will out, no doubt about it.”
“Yes?” He did his squinty-eyed cop look, the one that used to terrify all us kids and which now nearly made me laugh.
“This is my nephew, Jimmy.”
“Marcia’s boy!” Flaherty shook Jimmy’s hand with great ceremony. The kid had a tolerant look on his face that I hoped wouldn’t last much longer.
I shook my head sadly. “He steals, Flaherty.”
Pop! The boy was shocked. “Auntie Maralys!”
“This fine boy? Well, it takes all kinds, that it does. What’d you steal?”
Jimmy stammered then named the toy.
Flaherty put out his hand. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Jimmy might have brought it along, but he pulled it out of his jacket and surrendered it.
Looking daggers at me all the while.
Before Jimmy could say boo, Flaherty had spun him around and handcuffed him. It was no accident that he had a small set at the ready, though I was impressed by how quickly he still moved. “Come along, young man. There’s only one place for a thief.”
“Auntie Maralys!”
“Hey, what can I do?” I shrugged and leaned against the counter, apparently indifferent to Jimmy’s fate.
They had some really lousy magazines in the waiting area, bad enough to make me wonder whether people who couldn’t be dentists became cops.
Flaherty came back whistling a few minutes later and perched on a chair beside me. “Scared him crapless,” he said with satisfaction. “We’ll give him half an hour.”
“Thanks. Thanks so much for this. I know it isn’t legal.”
“But it ought to be. Can’t put the fear of Jesus into anyone any more, and you’ve got to get them early even for a fear of the law.”
I fanned my magazine and chucked it back in the pile. “You’ve got some crummy magazines, here, you know?”
“Well, it’s not the library, is it?” He grinned. “Besides, we don’t want to encourage the lawyers to hang around.”
I laughed with him, then hunched forward. “Do you know who his dad is?”
Flaherty shook his head, then a light came on. “Wait a minute. Marcia married a lawyer. What did you say the boy’s surname was?”
“Coxwell.”
Flaherty grinned, even as he looked amazed. “No shit? One of them in here.” He whistled through his teeth. “I would have made more of a show of it if I’d known.”
“James Coxwell is his dad.”
“Well, doesn’t that take the prize. Was this his idea?”
“No, mine. I’ll never forget this place.”
He squeezed my hand in a paternal way. “But it steered you straight all these years.”
“It did. I never wanted to see the inside of a cell again.”
“Crude but effective, that’s what I say.” Flaherty nodded and looked around the station. “James Coxwell, you say. Now there’s a family of legal eagles. Is he the one said to be going to the DA’s office?”
I nodded. “News travels fast.”
But Flaherty was remembering something. “He took me apart in court once, had me wondering whether I even knew my own name. He’s good, dangerously good - it’s fine news to have him on our side. He’s tough about people following the rules, and there are those who don’t appreciate being told their job, but it’s the respect for the law that marks the good guys.”
Before I could comment, he leaned forward and tapped my knee with a heavy fingertip. “Here’s another thought for you. You take that boy to see his father in court one day, especially now as he’s on the right side.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll do that.”
“It’s an education.”
“I’ll bet.”
“All right then, Mary Elizabeth. I’ve got to walk my beat, but it was a delight to see you again. You ever need my help again, you let me know. And you give my best to your father.” He stood and smoothed down his shirt. “You still remember the way?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Larissa will go down with you, let him out when you’re ready.” He gestured to a statuesque black woman in uniform, who glanced up at the sound of her name and smiled at me.
“Maybe I’ll go down now,” I said, sparing a glance at the clock. What a soft touch I’m getting to be. It had been barely twenty minutes.
Flaherty touched my shoulder. “You never get another chance to make a first impression, Mary Elizabeth,” he counseled quietly. “Let him wait the full thirty.”
* * *
I did.
Larissa walked down to the lock-up with me, then hung back, letting me talk to the kid more or less alone. He was the only guest of this particular hotel of the State of Massachusetts at the moment, either because the streets had gotten less mean or because it was early in the day.
He looked small and young.
He glanced up when I strolled along the corridor, then looked down at his shoes. He was clearly relieved to see me and just as clearly determined to hide that relief. I leaned against the opposite wall and let the silence stretch long.
“When I was twelve,” I said finally. “I stole a lipstick.”
There was a flicker of interest from the boy behind the bars. “Lame,” he whispered and I smiled.
“You bet. I took it from the nickel and dime store at the corner. It’s not there any more. I not only had no money but I wasn’t allowed to have any make-up until I was thirteen. But I wanted that lipstick. I was sure it was just the right color for me, maybe even that I deserved it. I thought it would be cool to steal something. I was sure I’d never get caught.”
“But you did.”
“Not by the store. They never had a clue.”
He looked up, curious despite himself.
“Someone ratted on me.” I spared the kid the detail of who that person had been. You can work it out - I painted that line down the middle of the bedroom right after I got out of the big house. I’m sure my parents despaired of me then. “And Flaherty came to the house. I thought he was visiting my dad, but he zipped those handcuffs on me just like that. And then he walked me all the way here. I thought I would die because all of my friends saw us.”
Jimmy turned to face me, interested now.
“They left me there all night.”
“All night?” he squeaked.
“It was a different time, Jimmy. We thought the world wasn’t nearly as dangerous then as we do now, and lots of people thought kids needed tough lessons.” I crossed the corridor and leaned against the bars beside him. “And I wasn’t alone?”
“You were in here with crooks?”
I smiled. “A pair of old hookers. Prostitutes. They talked about a l
ot of stuff that I didn’t understand but maybe you would. One of them fell asleep and then the other one came to talk to me. I was scared but I wasn’t going to let her see that.”
He watched me avidly.
“She told me about her life, about her father raping her and about getting kicked out in the street when she was nine. She told me about searching for food and being alone and being cold and selling her body to get something to eat. She had this voice that was all gravelly, from cigarettes and who knows what else. She told me a lot of the things she’d done, most of them illegal, and then she took my hand.” I shook my head, remembering. “I thought she was about a thousand years old, you know, and she smelled.”
He shuddered. “I wouldn’t want her to touch me.”
“I didn’t either, but I didn’t want to act like I was scared.” Jimmy nodded understanding. “So I let her, and her touch was so gentle, even after what she’d been through. Even though she talked so tough. She said to me -” I coughed up my best impression of that voice “`I bet you don’t feel too blessed tonight, do you kid?’”
“When I said no, she smiled and squeezed my hand. ‘But you are and don’t you ever forget it. I wish someone had loved me enough snatch me back from the edge.’”
Jimmy stared up at me for a long moment before he looked away. “Am I supposed to feel lucky now?”
“Don’t you?”
He didn’t look up and he didn’t answer me. I beckoned to Larissa, content with incremental progress, and she unlocked the door. “Don’t you let me see you back here again,” she said sternly to Jimmy as he walked free.
Jimmy didn’t say anything but he was thinking about it. He retrieved his toy from the front desk, and gave it a hard look before he tucked it away.
The first class at Maralys U was making headway.
* * *
Next stop was Meg’s to check on progress for The Dress, of which there had been none. She had prominently displayed the last of James’ suits, on my request, with not just the price on the tag but James’ name on it. Jimmy noticed - the kid was literate, after all - but said nothing. His eyes did widen at the price and he stayed quiet long after we left.