Is Anybody There? (12 page)

“She won’t be berserk. She’s in Mexico City for Christmas, with Stanley. Stanley’s her friend. They were going to take me … happy to take me. …” Blake rolled his eyes. “Happier
when I told them my buddy J.D. had asked me to spend Christmas with him. In a cabin, in Big Bear.”

“She’ll check.”

“She can’t. I told her there’s no phone.”

“But didn’t she call J.D.’s mother?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, I bet she would have called you on Christmas Day.”

Blake shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, I got a bus ticket to LA. Then I hitched here.”

“You
hitched
?”

“Sure. Why not? I was out of money. I slept under a tree in that park on the edge of town the first night.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Man, there are some weirdos who sleep in that park.”

I shivered and pulled the blanket higher on my shoulders. I didn’t even want to think about the kind of weirdos there’d be in that park.

“The next morning I came to your house. I was hiding in the bushes and saw you leave your key. At first I thought my father had married again and you were his kid. It took me a while to figure out how things were and that
he was in the apartment. Man!”

I rolled the window a quarter inch and tried not to breathe too deeply. This guy smelled of dust and cobwebs and not having washed in a week.

“I sure stink, don’t I?” Blake grinned. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK.”

“I tried to get up to my father’s apartment a couple of times, but there are these two women who live next door.”

“Miss Coriander and Miss Sarah,” I said automatically.

“It was impossible. If you weren’t here, they were there, like a couple of watchdogs.”

“But five days!” I shivered.

“I came down a lot. I even went outside. The air felt great. You almost caught me tonight, though. I just had time to blow out my candle and get behind that cedar closet.”

“The candle! That’s what I smelled. But how long were you going to slay there, Blake? Forever?”

“Till the day after Christmas. I couldn’t leave before that. I have no money and no place to go. Not till Mom gets back.”

“And you’re honestly thinking of leaving without telling Nick?”

“Maybe.”

I thought having the dashboard light on so long might run down Mom’s battery, so I switched it off and we sat silently in the dark. The dark was easier.

“Look,” I said at last. “I’ll tell you one thing. If I had a dad, a real, live dad, I’d never stay away from him. A father is special. … I mean, a mom is too. Mine and probably yours.” I wasn’t sure about his but I thought I should include her. “If I had a dad I’d go to him. Why don’t you give Nick a chance?”

Blake didn’t answer.

I squinted at the outline of the workbench. “I guess you didn’t need the purple-pitted tent,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing. I didn’t see my sleeping bag in the attic.”

“I kept it in the trunk that’s up there when I wasn’t using it. It’s a pretty good bag. Thanks for lending it.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Thanks for the clock and flashlight too.” I
nodded, although he couldn’t see me. We sat some more.

“What are you going to do?” I bent to rub one of my icy feet.

Beside me Blake’s leg jiggled, from cold or from being scared.

“What are
you
going to do?”

“I’ll have to tell my mom.”

“She’ll tell my father.”

“I think she will. Course you never can figure with adults. But I think she will.”

His leg jiggling had stopped. “Are she and my dad going to get married?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he nice?” Blake asked. “Would you like him for a father, if you were me?”

“I’d like him,” I said.

It was four thirty on Christmas morning when Mom called Nick. It hadn’t been easy to get her to understand, and she’d kept saying, “In the attic? In
our
attic? Nick’s son?” And then, “You poor kid. All alone up there.” She’d hugged him hard, not seeming to care about the way he looked or smelled.

On the phone she didn’t tell Nick why she wanted him right away, only that it was very important. I guess he could have figured that for himself at four thirty
A.M.

“What am I going to say to him?” Blake whispered to me. Mom had asked him if he wanted to wash up, which he did, and she gave him a brush for his hair. It was as thick and curly as Nick’s.

“Just say hello,” I said. “That’s all.”

“Do I have to say ‘Hello Dad’?”

“Not unless you feel like it,” I said.

It was odd the way
I
felt. Pleased for both of them, sure. Antsy because I wasn’t sure how it would all come out. A bit embarrassed about being here for the meeting, but knowing we had to stay because Blake asked us to. And there was something else. I was sad. Sad because some guys can lose a dad and get him back and not even know for sure if that’s what they want. And some guys can lose a dad and that’s all there is to it. The end. Fini. Forever and ever.

We’d left the front door wide open, and we stood in the hallway. Nick came at a rush, blinking in the light, calling Mom’s name. He hadn’t even stopped to put on a bathrobe, and there he was in dark red pajamas staring at the three of us, Mom in the middle with one arm around Blake and the other around me.

“Blake?” Nick asked. Such a soft, disbelieving whisper for such a big, furry creature. He took a couple of shaky steps toward us and Blake took a couple of shaky steps toward him, and I guess nobody needed to say anything because the two of them were tangled
up together in some sort of bear hug. One of them was sobbing.

   “So we’ll set another place for Christmas dinner,” Mom said. She and I were sitting at the kitchen table, talking and drinking apple juice. Blake and Nick had gone up to Nick’s apartment “to start filling in some of the gaps,” as Nick said.

“What a Christmas present for Nick,” Mom said softly. Her eyes were shining.

“Will he get to keep Blake. do you think?”

“I imagine that will be up to some court and judge,” Mom said. “And Blake may have a say in it, too.”

“I don’t like his mother,” I said. “She doesn’t deserve to have him.”

Mom reached out and touched my hair. “Don’t judge too harshly, Marcus. They probably hurt each other a lot. Just be happy with Nick that this Christmas morning he is with his son.”

Mom made me go lie down for a couple of hours after that while she went next door to talk to Miss Coriander and Miss Sarah. I could just imagine their incredulous gaspings and
gulpings. “A child in the house all that time and we didn’t know? We must be losing it altogether, Coriander.”

I’d told Mom I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I did, and I had a hard time waking when she shook my shoulder at ten. She said that Blake and Nick were still up in the apartment and that it was time to call Minnesota and wish Grandma a merry Christmas, the way we did every year. Mom said we should do that no matter what. After that we called Grandpa Mullen, who lives in a church home in Florida. Aunt Charlie was spending the day with him. He said it was 83 degrees in Florida and could we beat that? We said no, it was forecast to be only 81 in California today, and he gave a great crow of triumph. Grandpa Mullen is very competitive.

All the time I was talking and smelling the good smells of our turkey cooking, I was watching the apartment steps, waiting for Nick or Blake to appear.

I thought about how it would be telling Robbie who’d been in our attic. I’d make him guess. He never would, not in a million years.

I thought it was Robbie later when the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Hello!” Right away I recognized Anjelica’s voice, but before I could even say “Merry Christmas,” she gasped, “I want a kiss for Christmas,
IWAKFC
,” and hung up. I hung up too and wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans.
That
was what it meant. She wanted a kiss from me! Well, Christmas was almost over. I wouldn’t see her and I couldn’t decide if that was a relief or a disappointment. Anyway, there’d always be next Christmas.

I glanced out the window one more time and saw Nick and Blake coming down the apartment steps. Nick had a Frisbee. Blake was wearing a new blue sweatshirt that must have come out of one of those Christmas boxes. The dust had been brushed off his jeans, and his hair was damp and hanging in dumb little curls, the way Nick’s does.

They went on the grass and began throwing the Frisbee back and forth. Across the street Patchin looked up and decided to amble over to join them.

I went to the door.

“Hey, Marcus!” Nick yelled. “Want to play?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Call your mom.”

I did. And the four of us and Patchin played together for a long time under the Christmas sun.