Delusion Road (15 page)

The boy’s eyes seemed to wander the shelves on both sides of him, and he offered no response.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Keegan continued. “Big decision. We don’t want to rush into anything, do we?”

The boy’s eyes continued to drift, and Willa recognized the disconnect common to some kids with special needs. The career and life-management course she had taken last year had a volunteer component, and she’d spent her required hours at Brookdale Elementary helping the resource teacher, Ms. Trask. One girl on Trask’s caseload was autistic, and the boy she was looking at now shared some of her mannerisms.

Keegan stood up. “How about I put them both in the cart and we’ll think on it some more? That okay with you, buddy?” Again, the boy said nothing, but Keegan seemed fine with his silence. He laid both bottles in his grocery cart, then gently ruffled the boy’s hair.

It was such a simple act, but the gesture tugged at Willa. They seemed to have a closeness she’d never shared with her own brother. Even before Aiden had gone away to university they’d rarely talked, and when they did it was usually to argue about something. She was still thinking that when Keegan turned and saw her staring.

“Hey,” he said.

She had to remind herself why she was there. Summoning that image of Wynn striding away, she opened her mouth to give this guy a piece of her mind, but she couldn’t help noticing how he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder and drew him close, as though shielding him. From her? “Hi,” she said, finally.

They stared at each other awkwardly. Keegan looked at his feet, then at her again. “I would’ve thought you had people to do this for you,” he said.

She blinked. “Do what?”

“Grocery shopping.”

“Uh, we do,” she said. “Evelyn, our housekeeper. But her daughter just had a baby so she’s off for a while.” She stopped, surprised by her rambling. She felt off-balance, unsure of herself.

She felt something else, too. Fingers touching her hand. She looked down and saw the boy now standing beside her. She leaned down so her face was level with his. “Hello,” she said, but he didn’t respond, just stared at her. “Your brother?” she asked Keegan.

He nodded. “This is Isaac. Isaac, this is Willa.”

“Nice to meet you, Isaac,” Willa said, and she was surprised when the boy brought his hand up. But not to shake the one she held out to him. Instead, he lifted his higher and touched her hair.

“No, Isaac,” said Keegan. “Personal space, remember?”

But the boy didn’t pull his hand away. Instead, he threaded his fingers through Willa’s locks as though combing them. So softly, though, that she barely felt it.

For a brief second, Keegan’s face crumpled. Then, “Sorry,” he said, gently taking Isaac’s hand in his. “He doesn’t usually do this.”

Willa stood up. “Likes long hair, huh?”

Keegan shook his head. “It’s the colour.”

“What about it?”

“Our mother had blond hair.”

“Had?”

There was a beat of silence before he responded. “She died.”

It was like he’d thrown cold water in her face. “I—” She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

But he’d already turned away, taking Isaac and their cart with him.

C
hrist! thought Griff as the elevator doors opened. The goddamned super practically
lived
in the lobby lately.

The little man glanced up from the rows of brushed steel mailboxes to the left of the entrance, a portable label-maker resting on the floor as he applied a new nametag above one of them. Griff wondered why he bothered. Who actually
got
mail anymore, other than those thumb-thick envelopes from charities begging for money? Griff wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. Postal Service went tits-up any day now.

“Mr. Barnett,” said the super, nodding as Griff passed.

Griff grunted in return. Prick, he thought, sensing the super’s eyes following him out the door. As always, he half-expected the guy to whip out a notebook and jot down the time, mid-afternoon being way too late for somebody in construction to be heading to work. Griff’s growing unease about the little weasel made him wonder if maybe it was time he did some in-house investigating to see if he had reason to be worried.

As he opened the glass door leading to the street, a warm gust caught it and nearly tore it from his hands. Lately, the wind off the lake seemed to have picked up strength, doing its best to pry at exposed surfaces, looking for ways to shred any weakness
it found. For an odd moment, Griff felt as if he were the weakness the wind was seeking, bearing relentlessly down on him. But that, he knew, was his fear of Morozov carving away at him, not the wind. Bracing himself, he headed for the sidewalk, the fabric of his shirt rippling on his shoulders like malformed wings.

Having hacked Talia’s and Sonia’s texts, Griff knew they often stopped at Bean There Downed That after school. He couldn’t have chosen a better place himself: sitting in the coffee shop with his back to Talia, he was close enough to hear all four speak, while the wall of mirrored tiles across from him provided a clear view of most of the group. Talia was the single exception, but it was more important to hear what she said. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d forget what she looked like. Seeing her enter the coffee shop with Soccerguy89, Sonia, and Sonia’s new bad boy, Griff suddenly had another reason to hate Facebook—the photos posted there didn’t do this girl justice. Long dark hair swept back into a ponytail, white halter top emphasizing her deep tan, a sheen of perspiration like Arkansas dew on her throat and her cleavage—damn. He’d had to force himself to turn away.

His phone on the table in front of him, he pretended to check his email. Not that he ever got anything except penis enlargement ads and offers of money from that dude in Nigeria.

“—so I told him he could kiss my ass,” said Sonia.

“Yeah, right,” said Soccerguy89, his tone conveying his disbelief.

“No, she did,” offered Talia. “I was there.”

The boy whistled. “And he didn’t
do
anything?”

Raising his face toward the mirrored tiles, Griff watched Sonia’s reflection shake her head. “Those rent-a-cops the school board hires are douchebags.
That
one is, anyway. That’s the second time he’s tried to pat me down.”

“You can’t blame him for that.” This from the bad boy she’d brought with her.

“Look,” said Sonia, “I’m not about to let some overweight guy with dandruff and a unibrow put his hands on me for no reason.”

Their chatter drifted to other things as they sipped their drinks. Griff had heard Sonia and her bad boy order the house special, a latte that was more sugar than anything else, and Soccerguy89 had gotten something equally disgusting, but Talia had ordered a simple coffee. It was, in fact, the same dark roast Griff was drinking now, and she took it the same way he did—black, no sugar. As the conversation moved on from an upcoming dance to other topics of zero interest to him, his mind drifted once more to the drink she’d chosen, and then to the memory of the sheen on that golden skin, and from there to the arm’s length that separated his body from hers. The sudden movement of a man walking by both tables pulled a swirl of scent into Griff’s nostrils, and he realized it was Talia’s perfume. She smelled like flowers. Nothing overwhelming like the cloying fragrance of roses that old women were partial to, or the heaviness of lilac and lavender he’d noticed on women trying to hide the smell of their sweat. Or the whore-scent of lily of the valley. Talia smelled faintly of wildflowers after a rain.

Lost in those thoughts, he was caught unaware when Sonia and her bad boy got up to leave. “Call me?” said Sonia.

“Sure,” Talia replied.

The bad boy did a complicated hand manoeuvre with Soccerguy89 that ended in a fist-bump, and then he and Sonia were gone.

Griff shifted his chair slightly and watched in the mirrored tiles as the boy behind him reached across the table and took one of Talia’s hands in his, squeezing it gently. “Thanks again,” he said, his voice so soft Griff barely heard the words.

“For what?”

“You know. For not believing that stuff.”

Griff could see Talia nod. “I knew it couldn’t be true,” she said, and Griff saw in those mirrored tiles that it was
her
hand doing the squeezing now.

“After everything you’ve been through,” the guy continued, “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d never wanted to talk to me again.”

Griff watched Talia look away, her gaze directed out the window at heavy traffic he doubted she was actually seeing. A moment passed before she turned to him again. “I spent the last five months believing a lot of things that probably weren’t true,” she said softly. “I’m not living my life like that again.”

A silence settled around them, but Griff could see a question on Soccerguy89’s face. And he was pretty sure it was the same thing he was wondering himself. He was right.

“You really never heard from him again?” the boy asked.

Staring intently at the mirror, Griff watched the back of the girl’s head as he waited for her reply, which was swallowed by the sudden blare of a horn outside. Turning toward the window, he saw a cabbie shaking his fist at a driver who, apparently, had just pulled out in front of him.

Frustrated, Griff looked again at the young couple, but they were getting to their feet.
Fuck!

They moved toward the cash register and, as Soccerguy89 paid their bill, Griff watched Talia looking at him, her expression the same one she’d worn in the photo in front of the Chicago Culture Center.

And he felt something shift inside him, felt a heat rise up from nowhere, felt it smoulder in his chest.

He told himself it was because he’d missed Talia’s response to the question that had plagued him for months now, that time was running out and Morozov wasn’t going to wait forever, that Griff’s own ass was on the line here. All of that was true, of course, but he knew that wasn’t the reason he ground his molars together as he watched the pair leave the coffee shop, their arms entwined. Scowling, he grabbed his phone and stood up, looking toward the wall of windows to catch one more glimpse of her. And he froze.

The super from his building stood on the other side of all that glass, his eyes locked on Griff. And then he was gone.

K
eegan’s fingers felt like they’d parted from his hands two blocks back. The knifelike handles of the plastic SaveEasy bags seemed to saw through tendon and bone as the bundles swung heavily at his sides. There hadn’t looked to be this much stuff in the grocery cart, but there was nothing he could do about it now. At least he’d been able to convince Isaac to carry one of the bags. And Isaac hadn’t complained once. Hadn’t
whimpered
once, which was his brother’s usual response to anything that upset him. Keegan was sure that, one of these days, Isaac was going to let loose a barrage of words to make up for lost time, and the first of these would probably be a curse, like the one that had slipped out of Keegan’s mouth a moment ago when he’d nearly dropped the bag with the eggs.

“Almost there, buddy,” he said as they turned down their street. Even from four houses away, he could tell their father was already home. All the windows were wide open, Evan obviously doing his best to air out the rooms in the hope of cooling them. Even in late afternoon, the heat hadn’t abated. And combined with high humidity, the day felt more like a sauna than September, which had made Keegan appreciate the SaveEasy’s air-conditioned interior.

Thinking of that store now, his mind painted a picture of Willa’s face when she’d met Isaac. Keegan was surprised at how she’d responded to him, not at all the way he was accustomed to people initially reacting to his brother—first, the surprised expression, and then the barely perceptible drawing back as though whatever Isaac had might be catching. Keegan knew he was far too sensitive about people’s reactions to his brother’s autism, but he’d seen the same thing too many times not to be. Willa hadn’t responded that way, though. She’d caught him off-guard, which was probably why he’d told her the truth about his mother instead of the story Forbes had concocted. As soon as he’d said it, he realized his mistake, but there was nothing he could do about it except get out of there.

There was, of course, another reason he had to get away—the lump that had formed in his throat as he’d watched Isaac stroking that long, blond hair.

Sensing one of the stretched plastic handles was about to let go, he shrugged off the memory and glanced at Isaac. “Better move it, buddy!” he said as he lengthened his stride. Beside him, his brother began to jog, and moments later they were in their driveway. “Could use some help here!” Keegan called. His father appeared at a window, then opened the front door as Keegan took the steps two at a time. He raced inside and down the hallway, making it to the kitchen just as the handle separated, the SaveEasy bag dropping safely to the counter.

He could feel blood begin to flow into his tortured fingers, and he flexed them, his skin tingling. Hearing his father enter the kitchen, he turned to make a comment about maybe rethinking
their need for a car, but the look on his father’s face stopped him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Evan said nothing, merely held up one of the cordless phones that served their landline. He pressed a button, and Keegan heard an automated voice tell the user to press “one” for an archived message. His father did, and then another voice filled the kitchen. “Hello. This message is for Keegan. Coach Cameron here.”

Christ, no.

“That was an impressive performance on the field today,” Cameron said over noises in the background. “I’d hoped to see you after school because this afternoon’s tryouts are the last ones.” Now Keegan knew what the background noises were—the sounds of a scrimmage, guys shouting as they jostled one another for the ball. “But after watching you in class,” Cameron continued, “I don’t need to see more. If you’d like to play, there’s a spot for you on the team. I’ll be at school early tomorrow, so if you want to drop by the gym before classes start, I’d like to talk to you about it. Or, if you’d prefer, you can phone me at home tonight.” He gave his number and then the call ended.