Nine Inches (21 page)

“How are the kids?” he asked. “Everything okay at school?”

“Jason’s doing
fi
ne, but Trevor’s struggling with the math, as usual. I think he’s gonna need a tutor.”

Sims nodded grimly, adding another
fift
y or a hundred bucks a week to his mental tally. But what could you do? If the kid needed a tutor, he needed a tutor.

“What about you?” he said. “Anything new?”

“Well . . .” She hesitated for moment. “I think I’m gonna start studying for my real estate license.”

“Really?”

“I probably won’t make a lot of money at
fi
rst, but there’s a lot of potential in the long run. Especially if the market picks up.”

“Hey, that’s great. I bet you’ll be good at that.”

Th
e waitress came and took their orders. Sims kept staring at Jackie as she pored over the menu. She reminded him of someone, though he wasn’t exactly sure of whom. But then she smiled and said she’d like the scallops, and suddenly it was clear: the new Jackie reminded him of the Jackie he’d met ten years ago, the woman he’d fallen in love with and proposed to on the Staten Island Ferry. It was like she’d gone up to the attic and taken her old self out of storage, not just the face and the body, but that glow, that fresh, lovely glow that a woman gets when she knows she’s loved and desired. Sims hadn’t seen that glow for a long time.

She must have been reading his mind because she smiled sadly when the waitress le
ft
and said there was something else she needed to tell him, a pretty big thing, actually: she’d been seeing someone for the past three months, a high school assistant principal named Paul Gutierrez, and they’d just gotten engaged over the weekend. She held up her le
ft
hand so he could see the diamond ring, right there where Sims’s bigger diamond had once glittered.

“Paul’s a sweet guy,” she told him. “And the boys really like him.”

“Wow.” Sims kept his eyes on her
fi
nger. It was a lot easier than looking at her face. “
Th
at was quick.”

“When you’re our age, there’s not much reason to wait.”

“Wow,” he said again. “How the fuck did that happen?”

•••

SIMS TOOK
the news pretty hard. It was bad enough to think about Jackie sleeping with another man, but what killed him was the idea of this Paul guy living in
his
house, raising
his
kids. It was a weird, demoralizing feeling, knowing that this stranger would be helping Jason and Trevor with their homework, dropping them o
ff
at school, picking them up from soccer practice. Paul would play catch with them in the yard and take them on beach vacations, where they’d body surf and collect shells and little pieces of colored glass, and in the evening he’d take them out for pizza and ice cream. Maybe he’d take them on a day trip to the amusement park, where he’d ride the roller coaster, screaming along with the boys, and years later they’d all think back to that vacation and remember how great it was, how much they’d felt like a real family.

Mike’s ex-wife had a boyfriend of her own, so he knew exactly what Sims was going through.

“His name is
Denny
.” Mike shook his head, as if the name were too much to bear. “
Th
e kids talk about him all the time. Denny this, Denny that. Denny drives a Honda Element.
Th
at’s his big claim to fame.”

“
Th
is guy Paul, I’m sure he’s perfectly nice. But I just want to beat the crap out of him, you know? Just on principle.”

Mike scowled approvingly, as if watching a mental movie of the beatdown.

“Denny’s a graphic designer. But he plays rugby for fun. Who the fuck plays
rugby
?”

Th
e only consolation for Sims was
fi
nancial. He wasn’t sure how much money an assistant principal made, but he
fi
gured it had to be a pretty decent amount, which meant that Jackie and the boys would be able to maintain the standard of living they were accustomed to without relying solely on Sims. And who knew? Maybe Jackie would get her real estate career o
ff
the ground one of these days.
Th
at would give him even more breathing room if he ever decided to make a career change. It was just too stressful being a pediatrician, his stomach clenching up every time he examined a sick kid, not knowing which of his patients was the next Kayla Ferguson, the one holding the unlucky ticket. He just wanted to do something else for a while, a job that didn’t involve telling a mother that her child was going to die.

What he really wanted to do was start a blues band with Mike,
fi
nd a drummer and a bassist, play a few local gigs, and see where it led.
Th
ey’d been talking about it for a while, and Mike had been putting out feelers, checking around with some of his musician buddies to see if anyone was available. In the meantime, they’d been working hard on some songs, mostly covers, but a couple of originals, too, music by Mike, lyrics by Sims.

When they knew they were ready, they went into the Inner Sanctum, plugged in their guitars, and made a cell-phone video of “Born Under a Bad Sign,” playing along with a backing track Mike had recorded on his laptop.
Th
ey did six takes before they nailed it, Sims holding down the rhythm without a hitch, Mike singing with bitter conviction and adding some sizzling lead guitar. When they were
fi
nished, they bumped
fi
sts and uploaded their
fi
le to YouTube. A
ft
er that, there was nothing to do but sit back, crack open a cold one, and wait for someone to notice. On the whole, Sims was proud and hopeful — he thought they’d done an excellent job with the song — but there was a faint current of dread running beneath his optimism, because good things turned to shit all the time, and you couldn’t always see it coming.

TH
E CHOSEN GIRL

ROSE’S FRONT WINDOW LOOKS OUT
on the bus stop across the street. Despite the ferocious early March cold — the radio says it’s eight degrees with the wind chill — the middle school kids have assembled as usual in their sacklike jeans and ski jackets, clapping their gloves and stamping their fancy sneakers against the frigid ground, snorting plumes of vapor as they crane their necks for a glimpse of yellow down at the far end of Sycamore. It’s only seven-forty — the bus won’t be here for another
fi
ve minutes. Rose presses her cheek against the warmth of her co
ff
ee mug, releasing an involuntary shudder of sympathy for the Chosen girl. Five minutes can feel like forever on a morning like this, even when your parents haven’t sent you out of the house without proper clothing.

Th
e Chosen girl stands o
ff
to one side, over by the
fi
re hydrant, her primly old-fashioned out
fi
t — long skirt, drab woolen sweater, simple cotton kerchief — intensifying her isolation, making her seem even farther away from the other kids than she already is.
Th
ere’s a look of vacancy on her face, as if she’s unaware that she’s the only one at the bus stop not wearing a coat. Her brother and two other Chosen boys are dressed for the weather, bundled into nice bulky parkas that let them blend into the scenery at
fi
rst glance, though they, too, stand apart from the others, a cluster unto themselves. As far as Rose knows — and she’s the
fi
rst to admit that she doesn’t know much about these strangers who have become such a conspicuous and disturbing presence in her town — the Chosen just don’t seem to believe in coats for the women and girls, though it’s hard to imagine something like that could actually be part of their religion.

Watching the girl, Rose can’t help thinking of the expensive winter jacket — her grandson’s Christmas present — that’s been gathering dust in her hall closet since November, a two-tone monstrosity emblazoned with the ugly logo of a team called the San Jose Sharks. It would be too big for her, of course.
Th
e girl — Rose imagines her name to be Rachel or Sarah, something plain and biblical — is such a scrawny little thing; the coat would just swallow her up, the garish mall colors mocking her sickly complexion, the dishwater pallor of her lank hair. It would be warm, though, and Rose pictures herself carrying it across the street, draped across her arms like a sleeping child, wordlessly o
ff
ering it up to the half-frozen girl. Would she take it?

Would you?
she silently inquires.

As if she’s heard the question, the Chosen girl looks up, tugging nervously at her kerchief. Her expression darkens, but it’s not anger on her face, just an adolescent petulance that makes Rose smile in spite of herself. At almost the same instant, the familiar bulk of the school bus slides into view, coughing dirty exhaust. It lurches away a few seconds later, leaving behind a forlorn vista of blacktop, sidewalk, and trampled grass. Rose remains seated in her chair by the window for a long time a
ft
erward, still staring at the spot where the girl had been, the co
ff
ee mug going cold in her hands.

MANY YEARS
earlier, when her son had waited at the same bus stop, Rose had not been allowed to stare out the window like this. Instead she’d had to
fl
atten herself against the wall, peering through the narrow crack between the blind and the window, seeing without being seen. She’d done this to humor Russell, who’d been morti
fi
ed by the sight of her face pressed against the glass, her benevolent gaze trained on him as he went about his business in the world.

“Stop spying on me,” he’d told her a few days into his new life as a
fift
h-grader. “It’s embarrassing.”

“I’m not spying. I’m just seeing you o
ff
.”

“Well, cut it out.
Th
e kids are making fun of me.”

Rose would have liked to laugh at his concerns, but she knew what a sensitive boy he was, how easily wounded. It was hard enough being smaller and smarter than the other kids; he didn’t need to be ridiculed as a mama’s boy on top of that. So she’d compromised, retreating behind the lowered blind, actually becoming the spy he’d accused her of being in the
fi
rst place.

Th
is arrangement worked out pretty well until the morning the boys stole Russell’s hat. It seemed like a joke at
fi
rst, a dopey prank. Russell was standing by himself as he o
ft
en did, not bothering anyone, his face hidden beneath the bill of his brand-new Yankees cap, when Lenny Barton came tiptoeing up behind him. Lenny was an older boy, husky and boastful and unaccountably popular, despite the fact that he was repeating sixth grade and rarely washed his hair. As far as Rose knew, he and Russell had never had any trouble before.

Lenny snatched the hat quickly and cleanly. When Russell rushed at him to grab it back, Lenny began backpedaling, waving it in the air just out of the smaller boy’s reach. It broke Rose’s heart to see her son jumping for his precious hat like a dog being taunted with a stick. Lenny tossed the hat to another boy, who tossed it to another, causing Russell to careen madly in pursuit, always reaching his target a second too late.

Rose closed her eyes and reminded herself that it was all harmless play, but it was no use. When she opened them again, the game had gotten worse. Some girls were in on it now, and she could hear their squealing laughter rising above the mocking chatter of the boys. Russell was exhausted, stumbling and
fl
ailing, and when she saw him go down — it was hard to say if he’d fallen or been tripped — Rose had
fi
nally had enough. She was out the door and halfway across the street before she realized that she was only wearing a nightgown and slippers, but by then it was too late.

“Stop it!” she shouted, her voice sounding shrill and hysterical in her own ears. “Just stop it right now!”

Th
e whole bus stop froze at the sight of her, a grown woman standing by the curb in a
fl
imsy peach nightgown, her hands raised as if for a
fi
st
fi
ght. Rose looked at the faces of her son’s tormentors as they traded glances and fought o
ff
smirks. Already she knew that she’d made a terrible mistake. Before she could say anything, the hat came
fl
uttering out of the crowd — she hadn’t seen who threw it — and landed near her feet. Rose bent down to pick it up, pressing one hand against the collar of her nightgown to conceal her breasts, which felt huge and pendulous and all but naked in the cool morning air. It wasn’t until she straightened up that she dared look at Russell.

“Here’s your hat,” she said, slapping it against her leg a couple of times to dust it o
ff
.