At-Risk (8 page)

“What was it like up there in rehab?” Peter asked. Our mother shook her head at him, but he ignored her. “Was it hard?”

Blue didn't seem to mind. “A lot of talking. All these meetings where they made you talk all the time. Tell your story again and again. How and why you got there. A lot of church, too. They took attendance at the Sunday service. So you had to be there. Or else you lost your bed.”

“What else?” Peter asked. I kicked him under the table.

“Breathalyzers at night when you came in for curfews. If you missed curfew they put you out,” he said. He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Sometimes people deserve to be put out so they can understand what they used to have,” our mother said. “That's the only way they appreciate anything.”

“That's the truth if I ever heard it.” Blue shook his head and put his knife and fork down. “You know, when you want something, you can't always just reach out and take it,” Blue said. He looked over our
heads to our mother, talking only to her. “You got to work hard for it. Then again, sooner or later, it might just fall into your lap.”

“You sure got a lot of nerve,” our mother said, smiling to show she didn't mean it.

Blue had gone and Peter and I were at the bathroom sink brushing our teeth before bed. Peter hadn't said a word since Blue left. He didn't seem to know how lucky he was to have his father back. My own father was dead and buried; I never wondered about him. He was not nearly as interesting to me as the flesh and blood Blue, the Blue who could change the people around me, the Blue who could make my brother quiet and sullen while reminding our mother how to smile.

“Blue's nice,” I said. “I hope he comes back again.”

Peter didn't say anything.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“There is.”

“I thought he was supposed to have come for me.”

“He did,” I said.

“Yeah right,” Peter said.

“Then what did he come for?”

He wouldn't talk.

I jabbed him with my toothbrush. “Tell me.”

“You're too young.”

“Am not. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Or else you'll have to smell me.” I lifted my arms and revealed my armpits.

“You're such a baby,” Peter said.

“Tell me. Tell me. Tell—”

Peter clamped his hand over my mouth. “Okay!” he said. “Just be quiet.” We went to our room and he pulled out one of Blue's letters
to our mother and showed it to me. It was short, just one sentence: “Deloris baby, sometimes the nights here so long it can make a man cry.”

We woke one night to hear our mother at the door.

“What are you doing here at this time of night?” she asked.

It was Blue's voice. “Please, baby. Let me come in.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Blue's here,” I said, excited. I began to crawl out of my bed.

“Get back in the bed,” Peter commanded from his top bunk.

“But—”

“Shh!” he said. “Listen.”

We heard our mother saying something about it not being right with us asleep in the house.

Then Blue: “Deloris, please. I got to come in. I can't be out there tonight. I need help. If you don't help me Deloris, I won't make it. Just let me stay. I'll sleep on the floor. Don't let me go back out there tonight.” He sounded like he was crying.

“I can't.”

Blue said, “Come on, Deloris. You used to love me, baby. You know it.” He crooned, “Deloris, youuuu used to looovvve me, giirrlllllll.”

When we woke up the next morning, Blue was fast asleep on a heap of oily blankets on the living room floor.

“It's not right to kick somebody when they're trying” was all our mother said.

Blue began to stay with us. He would come to our house with oil-stained clothes. Sometimes there were perfectly round holes in his jeans from where the chemicals that leaked on him from under the cars had eaten all the way through the material. Once a week, he had to buy some sort of corn husker liquid to clean the layers and layers
of grease and oil caked on his hands. During the day, he was at his old job working on cars. In the evenings, he was with us, making our mother laugh once again. He was able to bring something out in her we'd never seen. Something that softened her. Blue brought bottles of Grey Goose or B&B and he and our mother would sit in the living room, drinking. Occasionally, we could hear their laughter as we drifted off to sleep.

Before she'd ever met my father, our mother had loved Blue. Another woman she had been. A medical assistant who smuggled free hypodermics out to her boyfriend, because although she didn't like his shooting up, she wanted him to be safe. A young woman strutting past the junkyard where he worked, wearing halter tops and Sergio Valente pedal pushers to catch his eye, hoping he'd stop her to talk.

The three of us were working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle one rainy afternoon two weeks later when Blue asked us nervously, “Is it cold in here?”

“I'm fine,” Peter said.

“Me too,” I said, but I saw Blue shiver.

“Come on, let's go for a ride,” he said.

Blue drove us down Atlantic Avenue under the train tracks. Small drops of water from the tracks sprayed down across the car window. We were framed on both sides by the rusty steel posts, and everything looked the same, but Blue seemed to know where to stop.

“Wait right here,” he said. “I'll be right back.” He jumped out of his side and slammed the door behind him, walking at a fast pace, heading toward a shadowy figure standing on the corner a block away.

“Blue must know that guy,” I said, watching as he slowed when he got to the man's side. Their profiles talked to each other. Blue put his hand out, maybe to shake. “See, look. They're shaking hands.”

“No they're not.”

“Yes they are. See.”

“Shut up,” Peter said.

The other guy took his hand and they stood like that for a second, with their hands in each other's. Then they drew back, and Blue walked away from the man, turning the corner, where we could no longer see him.

Every five minutes, I asked Peter what time it was, but Blue didn't come back.

“Where did Blue go?” I asked.

Peter shrugged, silent and distant. He was hugging himself like it was cold.

“What if he never comes for us?”

“He will. And when he comes back, he'll be feeling fine.”

“How come?”

For a while, he wouldn't say anything to me. He started to play with the radio. He shut it off and began to open and close the glove compartment, pulling it down and slamming it closed hard. Then in a small voice, “You don't understand anything.”

“We're never going to get back home,” I said, trying not to cry.

Peter flicked a glance to me. “You're with me,” Peter said. “Remember that.” He put his arm around me. We sat like that for about twenty minutes, scared.

When Blue came back, he was walking much slower. He seemed to walk and dip, his head nodding. He opened the driver's door. “Hey,” he said, smiling easy at us before getting in. “How y'all doing?”

Peter didn't answer. I didn't know what to say.

Blue seemed different from when he left. Looser, somehow. He looked happy and sleepy.

“Everybody all right?” he asked, scratching his knee.

Peter wouldn't talk.

“We're fine,” I said.

“Good. Yeah, that's real good,” Blue said, and he drove us home.

“Where were you?” was the first thing our mother wanted to know when we got back.

“Hey baby,” Blue drawled. “I just took them for a little ride. I wanted to spend some time with my son and I didn't want to leave the little miss all alone.”

Our mother looked straight through him. She yanked us over to her side. “You got a lot of nerve,” she hissed. “I should kill you dead!”

“What's wrong, Deloris baby? What you talking about, girl?”

“Don't try to play me for a fool, Blue. I know you. I know you,” she said. “Whatever you do, you gonna have to do it on your own.”

“Come on now,” Blue said, smiling easy. “I was just spending some time with my son.”

“You can do that right here in the house, Blue. I never gave you permission to take them nowhere. I never said you could do that.”

“You never said I couldn't,” he said. “Come on baby, what's the matter baby?”

“Don't play with words with me when I'm this close—” she stopped and looked down at us. Then she did something she hardly did. She put her arms around us. “You all right?” she asked us, her hands warm on our shoulders. I didn't answer. I wanted the feeling to last. I thought it felt familiar. She must have touched us like this before—with love and concern and tenderness—but I couldn't remember that far back.

“We're okay,” Peter said, cutting the moment short.

Her hands slipped away and she straightened her shoulders. “Good. What happened?” she asked us. “Somebody is going to tell me something.”

“Nothing,” Blue answered. “Come on, now. It's cool. Hey.”

Our mother looked at Peter. He didn't answer.

I did. “Blue got out of the car and he met a man and he shook his hand and then he—” Peter pushed the back of my knee in with his and I stopped talking.

“Shaking hands? What is she talking about?” our mother asked.

“Just an old friend I ran into,” Blue said, watching us. “Nothing happened, baby.”

Our mother didn't know what to believe.

“Nothing happened,” Peter finally said. “We just went for a ride. That's all.” Then he went to our room.

Our mother wore a borrowed dress the day of the awards banquet. A mixture of royal blue and black, with four panels that intersected at her waist, held together by a thin black strip of a belt, cut low in both front and back. The dress looked as if meant for dancing, for spins and turns, whirls and dips, not for an awards ceremony. “How do I look?” she asked, pirouetting in the living room, making the panels fly. She was more than a little drunk; she and Blue had killed a bottle of Grey Goose an hour earlier.

“You look nice,” I said.

“If looks could kill, baby!” Blue said, clapping and whistling.

“What do you think?” she asked Peter.

“We're going to be late if we don't leave now,” he said, pulling on his suit jacket and leading the way out.

When we arrived and gave Peter's name, they treated us like royalty. The woman at the table consulted a seating chart, then looked up at us with a bright smile. “Oh yes, our scholarship recipient,” she said. She sent one of the hostesses into the room to tell them we were here. Then she embraced Peter as if he were her own son. “We've got a special table up front just for you and your guests.”

“His guests,” our mother whispered to Blue. “How's that for something?”

The first woman handed us to a different woman. She was statuesque, dressed in one of those voluminous dresses that seemed to have no arms or sleeves yet managed to flow over her arms to her wrists like the wings of a dove sweeping down. “Here you are!” she said to Peter, leaning down to hug and kiss him, leaving a lipstick mark on his cheek. Shaking Blue's hand, she turned to us and said, “This must be your lovely family.” She leaned down to me, managing to smile widely and talk through her teeth at the same time, and said, “You've got a tough act to follow, miss. But we know it must run in the family.”

Then she stood up to meet our mother and kissed her on both cheeks. “And you—you must be so proud.” Then she led Peter away with her, stopping every few minutes to introduce him to someone. Her pride in him was clear. Her arm never left his shoulder.

We followed a hostess to our table. For the first half of the ceremony, Peter sat at the dais table, his face blocked by a pitcher of unsweetened iced tea and a vase of fresh-cut flowers. Once the meal was served, he joined us.

“You ever see anything like this before?” our mother asked.

All of the tables wore skirts. The carpet matched the chairs and drapes. A silver place holder sat in the middle of the table, a rectangular white square nestled securely within it, announcing that our table was reserved.

Blue watched the well-dressed hostesses. “There's more gold in here than in Fort Knox.”

We sat down to plates of salad and we poured our dressing from a bowl like Aladdin's lamp. Each guest had more silverware and china than I'd ever seen. Three different glasses, four spoons, two forks, two knives, a coffee cup and saucer.

Sometime during the meal and all of the speeches, our mother
began to slouch in her seat and sit sideways, propping her feet in Blue's lap. More than a few people stared. She ignored them and looked at Peter. “How come you're not eating?”

“I'm not hungry,” he said.

“I'll help you out. I can finish that for you,” Blue said. Our mother waved him off.

“You better eat it,” she said. “Nobody is playing with you.”

“This food is nasty,” Peter said, pushing the plate farther away.

“What are you talking about? You know how much money these people paid for these luncheon tickets? Fifty dollars!” our mother said.

Blue turned to him. “Boy, this food is not nasty; it's expensive.”

“You can't make me eat it. You can't tell me what to do. You might be my father, but you're not my daddy,” he said.

Blue's face fell. He looked at me, caught in the middle, but I couldn't help. I didn't know this brother, this Peter who mouthed off in public. Blue looked down at his plate and said, “I'm here now and I'm trying to be your father if you let me.”

“Yeah right,” Peter said. “I know you didn't come for me. I know why you're here.” Our mother pulled her feet away and did her best to ignore all of us. Peter leaned closer to Blue, but I still heard him when he said, “You really think she wants a junkie like you?”