Bad People (35 page)

He came to the duplex, and all of the windows were dark. The apartment was dark. He walked across the lawn, peeked in under the shade, couldn’t see anything. He took out her phone and dialed it again. He didn’t hear it ring inside, but then again it went right to voice mail so it was probably turned off. But they weren’t there. They wouldn’t be in there together especially in the dark. Impossible.

He had never told her to fuck him; he had said flirt with him, make him like you. He would have thought it obvious that he didn’t mean for her to kiss and fuck him.

He was calm now. They weren’t there. Heather was wrong. Or lying. She was lying to get Luke’s attention, which made perfect sense. Now all the trouble between Ardiss and Heather made sense, all the bitching. They were fighting over him.

Luke had nothing to worry about with S/D and Ardiss. The thought was senseless. He took his phone out, turned, and dialed Connie. It rang but she didn’t pick up. He waited for the voicemail, and then left Connie a message. He wanted to take her to dinner, and S/D too, why not? He had a little cash from Barry.

He noticed an older man with a little toy dog on a lease. The man was standing on the sidewalk the dog was sniffing the ground, but the man was not paying attention to the dog, he was looking at Luke.

Luke finished his message to Connie and put his phone away. The man was still looking at him.

“Good evening,” said Luke, casually as he passed.

“Why were you looking in that window?” the man asked. He was bald, and the hair that was left was all white. His face was pink and soft.

“I wasn’t looking in any window.”

“You were.”

“No. You’re mistaken. You’ve made a big mistake.”

“I’ve seen you around here before,” said the man.

“No you haven’t.”

“I have. With those two girls who are always fighting.” The dog yapped. It strained at its lease. It wanted to leave.

“You’re a nosy bitch.”

“Excuse me?” said the man incredulously.

“You are a nosy little bitch. You heard me.”

The man stammered. “M-maybe you would like the police to settle this!”

“Settle what,” said Luke. He made a fist, pulled back to throw a punch, stopping short of the man’s face and making him flinch. The man yelped. Luke laughed, because it was funny.

The dog yapped and went crazy, circling the man’s legs, trapping him and making him stumble. He barely got out of the leash-trap before falling to his knees, which from the size of him and his age, probably would have pulverized his kneecaps. Luke took a step back in order to enjoy the spectacle more. The old man managed not to fall, by luck more than anything, but he dropped the leash. The dog untangled itself and fled. The man went off in the same direction, fearing to even look back over his shoulder at Luke. If the man was carrying a phone, he hadn’t pulled it out yet. Probably he was thinking more about catching his dog and getting home first.

Then he might decide he had better not call the police and consider himself lucky for a narrow escape.

Or he might call the police anyway.

Luke didn’t wait to find out. He walked in the opposite direction and turned at the next corner. He disappeared into the more crowded and well-lit sidewalks of the main drag. He tried calling Ardiss again. And Connie.

Neither answered.

Chapter 39: S/D, Ardiss

“You’re a sweet boy,” said Ardiss after she and S/D made love. “I didn’t expect this. You’re not like I thought you would be.”

S/D cringed at the first statement, and the second statement puzzled him.
Thought he would be
? When? When had she thought that?

They were lying face to face, uncovered on her bed. They couldn’t see each other. With every light in the apartment off and the shades drawn her place was cave black. A more complete absence of light than anything he could make happen in his own room in the condo—where light seemed to leak in around every crevice.

The radiator, as Ardiss had joked earlier, had “a mind of its own,” and the hot air made her bedroom a room-sized blanket.

“What did you think I would be like?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re gentle.”

“Is that bad?” Was it?

“No, no. It’s sweet. You’re so open. And like…honest.”

He hesitated. “I should tell you something.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t.”

“But I…well, okay.” He didn’t want to tell her, but she would have to find out he was in high school some time. Or could he keep it a secret? Next year he would be out. He could go to the UW. She wouldn’t have to know he was a freshman. He realized how stupid that sounded, even to himself. Still, not yet. He didn’t want to tell her anything yet. Maybe he could drop out of school, get a job and an apartment on the hill. Or move in with her. She didn’t like her roommate. He never wanted to leave her side. But of course his mother would never leave him alone if he did that. He would have to wait, at least until next month, when he turned eighteen.

“You there?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“You went all quiet on me. I thought you went to sleep.”

“No.”

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“No.” He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to break the spell, didn’t want this to stop.

“I wonder what time it is?” said Ardiss. “It’s starting to get dark earlier and earlier.”

He felt her lean over him and reach down, fumbling around the floor for something. “Oh—where’s my phone?” she said.

“Who are you calling?”

“I use it for an alarm clock.” She found the cell phone and opened it; he watched her face bath in its soft blue glow. She played with the buttons, checking messages. “What time is it?” he asked, not wanting her to get distracted into her life, into her phone. He wanted things to go back to the way they were a moment ago, lying quietly, feeling her breath.

“It’s not late at all,” she said. “Hmm.” This last was because of something she saw on the phone as she scrolled through.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” she closed the phone, turned it back off, and dropped in on the floor again. She rolled back to him, and giggled, but no sooner had he put his arms around her than there was a scratching at the door. Her little black and white cat was trying to get in. “Aw, Scaredy,” she said. That was the young cat’s name, Ardiss had told him earlier: Scaredy Cat. Earlier the cat had proven worthy of that reputation by barely revealing herself when S/D and Ardiss had come in, just enough to see what was going on and then retreating into the dark confines of the kitchen.

Scaredy meowed.

“She doesn’t like guys too much, maybe she’s a lesbian. In fact whenever—”

She stopped suddenly, as if whatever she’d almost said something that she did not want to, or, at least, believed she had better not, say. “Well, she’s just protective of me is all,” she finished.

“How long have you had her?” S/D asked.

“A couple months. There, she’s quiet now. I think she’d like you once she got to know you; you’re a pussycat too.”

“Uh, thanks,” said S/D leaning on the sarcasm.

“Don’t get all worked up,” she teased. “Don’t go sensitive on me.”

All these statements seemed like tests, and ones he felt bound to fail at. She wasn’t
so
different than the high school girls he knew, at least in that way.

She nuzzled his shoulder. “You’re a sweetie,” she said. “You wouldn’t scare my cat would you.”

“Ardiss.”

“Mm.”

“I want to show you someplace.”

“Mm hm.”

“Will you go there with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. It’s not far, just over the hill.” He sat up.

“What? Do you mean now? Right now?”

“Yeah. I’ll drive, or you can.”

“My car’s at a friend’s, but you want to go somewhere
now
? I thought you were just into hanging out.”

“I am, I was.”

“Okay. All right. We can do that. My roommate will be home in awhile anyway. You think the cat is afraid of boys…”

“Why do you live with her if you don’t get along.”

“I don’t know. It’s complicated. This was supposed to be temporary. A sublet for a couple months, but it turned into…I don’t know.”

“Longer?”

“Yeah. Fuck yeah.” Without warning she flicked on the bedside light, which was distressing bright.

S/D shielded his eyes.

She sat on the end of the bed and bent over to pick her clothes up off the floor. Her backbone was high and rigid. He lay on his side admiring her skin and the colorful tats on her shoulders and biceps: roses and vines. He wanted to kiss those shoulders again, forget about going anywhere, but it might help if they did. Might help if he showed her, and maybe all the “sweet boy stuff” would stop, and then he could be completely honest about his age and everything because none of it would matter.

He got up and dressed on his side. It felt weird, but exciting, knowing he was going to go outside with her. He wished it was daylight so they could have a whole day together, people seeing them, seeing her and him, and probably thinking nothing of it except
lucky guy
, and everybody thinking it all normal.

When they met at the foot of the bed he moved to embrace her again, but she fended him off deftly by catching his wrists and squeezing them just as he barely began lifting his arms. “I gotta pee, and I gotta check on the cat, then we can go.”

When she was ready they left. At the front door of the building Ardiss stopped and looked around as if she were expecting something.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“No. Nothing. I thought I just—So where are we going?”

S/D happened to be parked only a block over. The street was quiet, they only saw one person, an old man just stepping out of his apartment with his little Chihuahua on a lease. Ardiss waved at him but he didn’t acknowledge her, just looked.

“I see that guy all the time,” she said. “He never says hello, just watches everybody. I think it’s funny. So when are you going to tell me where we are going?”

He started to but then she changed her mind, putting her hand up to his mouth. “Don’t say it! I want it to be a surprise.”

“Okay,” said S/D.

They got to his car and she was impressed.

“Have you ever been in one of these before?”

“Now and again,” she said. “Oh, you mean a hybrid! I thought you meant a car. I was going to say that’s a pretty dry sense of humor you got there. No, I can’t remember if I have.”

They got in. S/D looked around everywhere to see if there was something that was going to give away his age. She didn’t seem to notice his nervousness.

“It’s so quiet,” she said, after he had started it.

“Everybody says that,” S/D replied.

He felt a little sad, everybody
did
say that; it was just an ordinary thing she had said. He suddenly felt disappointed in her, and wanted to wipe that thought from his mind. She wasn’t like anybody else; she was like nobody else.

He drove her to his old house. The same thing he had done on his sort-of date with Kim Abbot.

He was hoping for a different reaction from Ardiss. He knew there would be. There would
have
to be, and anyway she didn’t know anything about his past. She just liked him for him, or for who she thought he was.

“I used to live here. This is where I guess you could say I grew up,” S/D told Ardiss. “Nobody lives here now.”

“Okay.” she said.

“Let’s get out.”

“Sure,” she said. “But what are we doing?”

“I still know a way in. Come on, around the side.’

They got out and walked around the side of the house. A side window there had been broken and then boarded up. S/D didn’t know how it had gotten that way—either how it got broken or how it got boarded up, the latter by the realtor he guessed—and he’d never mentioned it to his mom because, for one thing, he didn’t want her knowing that he frequented the old abandoned house. The window was hidden out of view from the street.

That was the way in. S/D pulled the board loose. The black wood screws at the board’s bottom corners came immediately free; they had already been stripped when he had discovered the window. There was a milk crate turned on its side and S/D used that to step up on. “I’ll go in first, and pull you up,” he said. She didn’t say anything, so he asked, “Do you want to do this?”

“Hm. Sure. What
are
we doing anyway?”

“I just want to show you around. I’ll check it out first, just to be sure.” He slipped under the loose board, grabbed the windowsill and pushed himself up. He scrambled over the sill. His landing echoed when he hit the hardwood floor inside. Moonlight flooded in from other, intact, windows, and he could see well. He turned back, leaned out for her.