Small Steps (10 page)

19

X-Ray’s car was parked out front facing the wrong way. He opened the only door that worked, then slid over to the driver’s side. “So really, where are we going?” he asked as Armpit got in beside him.

“The Four Seasons.”

“Right, because Kaira DeLeon wants to have breakfast with you.”

“Yes,” said Armpit.

He didn’t tell him anything more. It was his payback for the phony tickets.

The whole way there, X-Ray kept glancing sideways at him, trying to see a hint of a smile, or some kind of clue, but Armpit remained cool, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

The X-Mobile turned off Cesar Chavez Avenue and into the hotel’s circular driveway. A doorman opened Armpit’s door for him.

“Excuse me,” X-Ray said to him. “Is Kaira DeLeon staying here?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“Yes, you would. She’s not here. You’d know if she was here.”

Armpit thanked X-Ray for the ride, then walked through the revolving door into the hotel.

The inside of the hotel reminded Armpit of pictures he’d seen of ancient Greek temples, with stone pillars and marble floors. He had no idea where he was supposed to go. The concierge seemed too intimidating, so he asked one of the bellhops, who directed him to the house phone.

Armpit picked up the receiver and dialed zero.

“How may I direct your call?” the operator asked him.

He hung up.

He’d forgotten the name she’d given him. It was the lady from
Bewitched,
he knew that, but he couldn’t remember her name. He could picture her perfectly, and could even hear the musical notes they played whenever she twitched her nose. Mary? Mindy? He was pretty sure it started with an “M.”

A family of four came out of the elevator and headed in his direction. They all had blond hair. The husband could have been a tennis pro, and the wife looked like a model. The girls were twins, about seven or eight years old.

“Excuse me,” Armpit said. “You ever watch the show
Bewitched
?” He knew he must have sounded crazy.

The father crossed in front of his daughters to protect them. He would have kept on going, hurrying his family along, but the mother stopped.

“What about it?” she asked.

“Do you remember the name of the woman, you know, the one who was the witch?”

She tried to remember. They all did.

“Elizabeth Montgomery,” said the father.

“That doesn’t sound right,” said Armpit.

“I’m sure,” said the father.

“That’s the name of the actress,” Armpit realized. “I need the name of the person on the show. You know, the name of the character.”

“Oh, I thought you wanted the name of the actress,” the father said, disappointed not to have been given the credit he thought he deserved.

“Her husband’s name was Darren,” said the wife.

“Samantha,” said one of the girls.

“That’s right!” said her mother. “Darren called her Sam, but her name was Samantha. Very good, Ashley.”

“Do you remember her last name, Ashley?” Armpit asked the girl.

“Stevens,” the father declared proudly. “Samantha Stevens.”

“Thanks.” Armpit picked up the phone and asked the operator for Samantha Stevens.

The blond family stared at him. “Is she staying at this hotel?” asked the father.

Five minutes later Kaira DeLeon stepped off the elevator, along with Fred, her bodyguard. Kaira wore denim shorts and a sleeveless top that stopped above her belly button. Her yellow toenails matched her flip-flops.

“How ya doin’, Knuckles?” she greeted him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Was that it?” she asked. “Is Knuckles your name?”

“No, I didn’t even get what you said.”

“Is it Elbow?”

“I’m not going to tell you even if you guess it.”

“It’s Elbow.”

“It’s not Elbow.”

Despite the weather, Fred was wearing a tan sports coat over a black T-shirt. He looked very stylish. If Armpit didn’t know better, he would have guessed that he was the rich and famous one of the two.

“You hungry?” Kaira asked.

“Starving!” he said, and he had been, until he saw her. Now he was too nervous.

“The café here is really good.”

She led the way down a flight of stairs. The hotel had been built on the side of a hill, so even though they went down, the café was still on ground level, with an outdoor patio overlooking the river.

“Three?” asked the hostess.

“Two,” said Kaira. “And we don’t want to sit too close to him either.”

On the way to their table they passed the blond family seated at a booth. All four smiled and waved to Armpit like they were old friends. He waved back.

“You know them?” asked Kaira, more than a little surprised.

“Sort of.”

They were seated at a table in the corner. Fred’s table was far enough away to give them privacy but close enough for him to come to her aid, just in case.

A waiter came by with coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Kaira had coffee but no juice. Armpit had just the opposite.

“Muscles?” said Kaira.

“I’m not going to tell you either way.”

She dumped a packet of sugar into her coffee, then another one, and then a third.

“So you like sugar in your coffee,” he said.

He felt awkward. They both did.

He was glad when the waitress brought them their menus so he had something to focus on. And when he saw the prices he was glad X-Ray had brought over the three hundred dollars. There was nothing on the menu for less than twenty dollars, and that included cereal.

“Toenail?” asked Kaira.

He didn’t answer.

The waitress returned. Kaira ordered lemon ricotta pancakes, and he ordered corned-beef hash and eggs.

“How’d you get my phone number?” he asked her.

“David got it for me, from security.”

“David,” said Armpit. “He was the guy with the vest.”

“What?”

“He wore a vest and no shirt.”

“I didn’t notice,” said Kaira. “So what was it like at that camp? Was it hard?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you do there?”

“Dug holes.”

“That all?”

“Pretty much. Every day another hole.”

Kaira nodded as if she understood, but he knew she didn’t.

“You like being a famous singer?” he asked her. It was a stupid question, and he wished he hadn’t asked it.

“It’s all right,” she said.

They sat in silence for a moment. It had been a lot easier to talk to each other when Ginny was there.

“Have you seen the view from the patio?” she asked him.

“No.”

“You need to see the view,” she said, in a voice that seemed unusually loud. “You can see the lake.”

“It’s actually a river,” he said.

“Whatever,” said Kaira.

“There’s a huge colony of bats living under a bridge right by here,” he told her.

“Bats?” Kaira said, again in an unusually loud voice. “Let’s go look at the bats.”

“You’re not going to be able to see them now,” Armpit said, but she was already out of her seat. “They only come out at night.”

“We’ll just look from the patio,” Kaira said again rather loudly.

She was talking to him, but he got the feeling that everything she said was for Fred’s benefit.

He followed her through the sliding glass doors out to the patio. A well-manicured lawn gently sloped away from the patio and down to a walkway. On the other side of the walkway the hill got much steeper and led down to the river.

“Nice view,” he said.

Kaira took off her flip-flops. “Do you want to play ditch the Doofus?”

“What?”

She stepped off the patio and raced across the lawn.

For a second he was afraid he was the doofus, but then he remembered that was what she called her bodyguard. He watched her leap over the concrete walkway and disappear down the hill.

He took off after her but lost control as he headed down the steepest part of the slope. “Look out!” he shouted at Kaira, who was now standing on a dirt path beside the river.

As he tried to put on the brakes, she grabbed hold of his arm, and together they spun around three hundred and sixty degrees.

Kaira’s face bounced hard against his shoulder.

“You all right?”

She laughed.

“That was close,” Armpit said.

Kaira smiled at him as she let her palm slide down his arm, then held his hand.

They walked along the dirt path, continuing to hold hands. “So you’re not worried I’ll try to kill you now that you ditched your bodyguard?”

“You?” asked Kaira. “Are you kidding? You’re such a wimp.”

Armpit pointed out the bridge with the bats.

“I don’t like bats,” said Kaira. “They’re creepy.”

“So, like has Fred ever had to save your life or anything?” he asked her.

“All you talk about is the Doofus!”

“I was just curious.”

“Mostly he just keeps people from getting too close to me. Of course, it kind of makes it hard to meet guys. I mean, what guy wants to go out with a girl and her bodyguard? You try to kiss her and you risk getting your head blown off.”

Did she squeeze his hand when she said the word “kiss”? If she did, it wasn’t a big squeeze. Just a little twinge.

What he should have said was “I’ll risk it,” and then kissed her. That would have been really smooth, but by the time he thought of it, it was too late. The timing was off.

They continued along the river.

“I get all kinds of weird letters,” said Kaira. “I’ve gotten seven marriage proposals! One guy claims to be a billionaire Arab prince.”

“You think he really is?”

“Why, you want to marry him?” asked Kaira.

Armpit laughed.

“They’re all freakazoids. There’s this one who calls himself Billy Boy, you know, like that song.” She sang very softly:
“Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?”

Hearing her voice while holding her hand was almost too much for him to take.

“He wants to marry you?” asked Armpit.

“No, he wants to kill me.”

“Really?”

“Seriously. He’s written like five letters so far, saying he’s going to break my pretty little neck. I even got one at this hotel.”

Armpit couldn’t help looking around behind him.

Kaira laughed. “It’s so lame,” she said. “He even cuts out little letters and glues them to the paper.”

“You’re not scared?”

“You’ll protect me.”

“Me? I’m a wimp.”

“So tell me about you,” said Kaira. “What are your big dreams? I mean, besides wanting to marry an Arab prince?”

“I don’t have big dreams,” Armpit said. “I just take small steps.”

He told her about the advice the counselor at the halfway house had given to him. The important thing was to take small steps and just keep on moving forward. “Life is like crossing a river. If you try to take too big a step, the current will knock you off your feet and carry you away.”

“That’s kind of poetic,” said Kaira.

“I didn’t make it up,” said Armpit.

“My manager tells me I need to take big steps,” she said. “I have to grab for everything I can get right now, because in a few years I could be all washed up.”

“I doubt that,” said Armpit.

“There’s this song I’m writing.” She sang again: “
Britney Spears is old and gray—she turned twenty-five today.
That’s really all I’ve got so far.”

“You write your own songs?”

“A couple. I wrote ‘Angry Young Man’ and ‘Damsel in Distress.’ ”

For a brief second he thought about asking her the words to “Damsel in Distress” but then thought better of it. It could only lead to his embarrassment.

“And then El Genius—that’s what my manager calls himself, El Genius—he had people kind of fix them up and arrange the music. He’s such a control freak. Sometimes I think he’s the one who’s sending me the Billy Boy letters, just so he can have even more control over me. It’s an excuse for having the Doofus watch me all the time. He’s also married to my mother.”

“Your bodyguard?”

“No, my manager. But I bet he just married her to have more control over me, because he’s got a girlfriend, too. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to fire him when I turn eighteen.”

Armpit could only shake his head in wonder. She lived in such a different world.

“You’ve got nice strong hands,” said Kaira.

“They’re all calloused from digging.”

“Is that your name? Hands?”

“No.”

“Fingers? Are you the middle finger?”

Armpit dropped her hand. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you my name, but on one condition.”

“What?”

“Whatever my name is, you have to touch me there.”

Kaira took a step backward. “I have to touch you there.”

“That’s the deal.”

She slowly looked him over, starting at his feet and working her way upward. “Ginny said it wasn’t anyplace nasty.”

Armpit shrugged.

“You are so mean.”

“Do you want to know or don’t you?”

“Okay, tell me.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Yes, we have a deal.”

Armpit waited a long moment, then quietly said, “Armpit.”

Kaira shrieked, causing several other walkers to turn and look at them.

“You are so bad,” Kaira said. “Oh, you are so bad. Okay, raise up your elbow.”

He did so.

She slowly moved her finger up the sleeve of his T-shirt, but he suddenly laughed and pulled away.

“You’re ticklish!”

She tried again, but again he couldn’t stay still.

“Are you going to let me do this or not? Close your eyes.”

He did so and waited. She held on to his shoulder. It was hard to keep still.

She quickly poked her finger up his sleeve and fulfilled her part of the bargain.

He opened his eyes.

“Yuck, it’s all sweaty,” she said as she wiped her finger on her shorts.

He started to explain about the scorpion but she wasn’t interested. Her hand was still on his left shoulder, and now she placed her other hand on the right one.

He gently held her waist and felt her rise to her tiptoes. He could feel blood pulsating against the tips of his fingers but couldn’t tell if it was his or hers.