Son of Destruction (28 page)

He showed big square robot teeth in a yellow robot grin. ‘Not yet.’

With security off, Carter got into the Tills’ storage no problem by punching a panel to open a secret door. He dragged in a pile of old newspapers and crumpled them on the pool table, grinning. ‘Smart, right?’

He was trying to make it look like it was
not
a kid with a pool cue who wrecked Mr Till’s special watermelon felt, it was death by accidental fire. Steffy was not about to help him. She stood back while he kicked the slats out of a chair; there was no stopping Carter now. She couldn’t stop him from sticking them underneath the newspaper either, when any asshole knew you piled the kindling on top. At the end she ran outside because she couldn’t bear to see him light the match.

It’s OK,
she told herself, shivering in the dark, and on quiet Coral Shores she could almost believe it. She had to!
It’s only a
little
fire.

By the time Carter came back to the car, she was telling herself that he hadn’t just done that. This was her boyfriend, after all. He might get mad and do stupid things but nobody starts a fire in an empty house. In fact she was sure of it, because he got in the car grinning like nothing had happened, and they both started to laugh. A song they liked came on the radio and Carter was singing which made Steffy feel better, so she sang too.

They ended up on Bayfront Drive after all. He put the top down so if kids saw them together, they’d be impressed. At the curve nearest the bridge, they parked. It was sweet, very sweet, sitting under the palm trees with Carter’s lips going all those nice places. It was sweet and sexy and sad, clinging in the dark. Steffy thought they were just making out, but she knows now that while Carter was doing all those nice things to her, his mind was not on it. It was somewhere else.

God she was scared when the sirens started to howl.

Carter quit doing what he was doing and faced forward.

They watched the sky light up over Coral Shores.

They quit talking, too. It was too weird out; Steffy was too scared. Even Carter was scared; she felt him jittering, pressed close with one leg over the stick shift and Steffy pulled so tight that the ridge on the bucket seat hurt her ass.

Heavy trucks rumbled past. There were so many that the street shook.

When it was all done they just sat. Finally when the glow died and the sky was empty over Palm Shores, a long time after the last city truck rolled past on its way back to town, he grunted and started the car.

Then he said, ‘You know I love you.’

‘I’m so glad.’

The next thing Steffy knew the two of them were way the hell out here on Pierce Point, walking around on crushed shells and dead mangrove leaves in the sand spit at the end, picking up driftwood and bits of shell that might turn out to be pretty or useful which was hard to tell, because it was too dark. Sheltered by the mangroves they wandered, talking only about stuff they found in the sand, hanging out in that nice, nowhere place as if nothing strange had come down, wandering until it got light. When the first trawler rounded the point on its way to the Gulf, Carter bundled her back into the car.

They’ve been riding around ever since.

This is sad
, Steffy thinks, looking at the boy she’s loved for so long. Now she’s not so sure. Wait. Didn’t she just get everything she ever wanted? Carter Bellinger all to herself, and for a whole, entire night? Here they were in his car. With the top pulled up over them like covers, they could be lying close in bed, and didn’t he just tell her again that he’s in love with her, which she’s been waiting to hear since fifth grade?

She and Carter are close now, closer than she’s ever been to anyone. They just went through
so much
. She ought to feel happy, but she doesn’t. She wants to feel excited and loving and totally bonded, like they are the same person under the skin, but she can’t.

She just feels bad. An entire night together and she doesn’t have enough from him, or he doesn’t have enough from her.

Steffy’s not sure what this means, only that where she ought to be feeling all the right things, all she has is a terrible, terrible sense of loss.

‘Oh,’ she murmurs accidentally.
This is just so sad.

God forgive her, Carter takes it wrong.

‘Oh Steffy,’ he barks, so abruptly that it startles her. ‘Let’s drive to Valdosta and get married!’

This makes her feel so guilty that she can’t stand to look at him. She does not say the obvious. She doesn’t even say, why should we, we haven’t even had sex? What she does say, and it takes her a while to think of it, is, ‘I can’t, Carter. I’m babysitting Grammy Henderson today. I have to go home.’

I woke up feeling awful. If I slept at all. I mean, by the time I fell down on the bed it was light outside.

How can you grow up along with all your friends, smart women who talk about everything all the time and still end up knowing the tune, but not all the words to your life? I tried to tell Dan how it happened, I mean, I opened up my
soul
but my nice new friend ran out of the house at dawn like his hair was on fire and it breaks my heart.

On top of Davis, it was just too much. At least that’s done. Kicking him out was like lopping off a foot to stop necrotizing fasciitis or gangrene; you have to amputate to save your life. You’re not dead but you
hurt
so much that you roll around on the bed, too messed up to sleep.

Oh, I know where he is. Davis, I mean. He’s out at the Pierce Point Marriott where every other man in God’s creation is having more sex than Davis ever had with Gale. Instead of screwing, he’s on the phone with that quasi-intellectual skank, do you know what he said to me? He said, ‘She may not have her doctorate but she’s the most intelligent woman I know,’ but he means she will go down on him in a broom closet if she has to, anything to get what she wants and what she wants is my husband.

Well she can have him, credit card debt and all, thank God Chape Bellinger’s office made me separate our finances before this thing blew up in my face. God, I’m depressed. It’s lonely in here without Davis, the rat, and Steffy’s off at my friend Cathy’s house for a sleepover with Jen, I’m one woman alone in here with no one to talk to, but at least Steffy has a best friend.

No Davis coughing or thumping around downstairs; it’s so quiet that I can’t sleep, I’m too tired to do anything, but it was almost time to start getting ready for church, so I shuffled downstairs and made coffee – instant, since it’s just me. I was half minded to call Cathy and ask her to wake my daughter, say I need her to . . .
something.
Too early. Instant coffee and.

And nothing.

Morning paper, for all the good that does me, nothing I really need to know, like what in God’s name made Davis bump fronts with his own first cousin. It’s practically incest. Or what’s going to happen to me.

‘Mom. Mom?’

‘Steffy!’
Rescue! Thank heaven you’ve come.

But she was running in like I just saved her from sudden death and before I could say,
‘
Why are you home so early,’ or, ‘Did Cathy drive you,’ or, ‘Where’s your stuff,’ she ran smack into me with this ginormous hug. ‘I’m home!’

‘Sweetie, you’re early!’

Her smile was so wide that I should have started with the questions, but she headed me off with such a nice surprise. ‘It’s Sunday, right?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Duh, Mom. Church.’

‘Church!’

‘No way are you going to church alone.’

And my heart went out to her; there are things about your nearest and dearest that you know, and things you don’t want to know, and what’s important to me right now is making it through. That’s the only thing any of us really needs – somebody to help us make it through; I was so excited! ‘Aren’t you sweet! I’ll make blueberry muffins.’

‘If you want, I’ll wear the pink dress.’

‘You hate that dress.’

She looked at me, all,
Oh, Mom
. ‘It’s church.’

‘I thought you hated church!’

‘You’re not going in there all alone.’ She gave me the sweetest smile. ‘Since Dad . . .’

‘Say no more.’
You understand!
And didn’t I hug her then, and didn’t I think we might make it without him after all. ‘Don’t you worry about Dad. And don’t you worry about me. We’ll both be fine.’

Now Steffy’s sitting at the kitchen table with her head bent in the morning sunshine, as if we’re already in church. She has the funnies open in front of her but she isn’t reading, she’s just sitting like a little sponge, soaking up the room, and me? The kitchen smells so good with my muffins baking, the sunlight looks so pretty on my daughter’s hair that I don’t feel half as bad as I thought. It’ll be nice living here, just the two of us. We can be ourselves. Now that I know prickly, resentful Steffy’s on my side, I can handle this. I can do anything, now that I know.

I turn the oven up a notch so the muffins will be ready sooner and I can slather them with butter and honey and serve them to my wonderful, loyal only daughter and best girlfriend before the mood evaporates and we have to go out and face the rest of my life.

‘What are you doing here?’

Blinking, Walker jerks to attention so smartly that his head bumps the glass. Is he drooling? God. A minute ago it was dark and he was asleep, and now he’s in his Beemer on the main drag of Fort Jude in broad daylight, across from the Flordana Hotel. Even though he’s parked in the shade, the heat’s piling up in the vintage car. Downtown Fort Jude on a Sunday is deader than a beached manatee, but his brother Wade is at the window on the passenger’s side, making a comic fish-in-a-fish-tank mouth on the glass. Walker rolls it down so they can talk. ‘What do you want?’

‘I said, what are you doing here?’

‘Oh. This.’ Walker comes back to himself in stages. ‘Waiting for a guy.’

‘On Central Avenue?’ This gives Wade such comprehension problems that he is blinking too.

‘Pretty much.’

‘On Sunday morning?’

‘Is that a problem for you?’

‘Dude, look at you!’ Wade is all dressed up today: white shirt with white-on-white striped tie, white handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket of his light-weight French blue suit. ‘Are you sleeping in your car?’

‘No.’ Countering his kid brother’s suspicion with suspicion, Walker squints. ‘What are you? Going to a funeral?’

‘It’s Sunday,’ Wade tells him. ‘I’m taking Jessie to church.’

‘Jessie.’ In high school Walker and Jessie had a history, but he’s not the only one of her men, and that’s not all he was to her. There’s something bigger between them. He trusts her. She trusts him. They’ll always be friends. Nice woman. He’s glad she’s happy now. ‘Nice.’

‘In case you haven’t noticed, I think we’re an item.’

‘So, cool!’

‘And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re parked in front of her hotel.’

‘I am?’ Walker hesitates just long enough to make it look as though this is a surprise. ‘I am.’ Then, ‘Church,’ he says thoughtfully.

Grinning, Wade touches the silver cross locked to the buttonhole in his lapel. ‘I’m getting elected head of the vestry today.’

He doesn’t envy Wade, but in a way he envies Wade. ‘Pop would be proud.’

For a second there, his staid younger brother shows a gleam of the old Wade sparkle. ‘Pop would be astounded.’

Where he hasn’t smiled in days, Walker breaks wide open in a grin. Put it to the lazy morning, the sunshine, the fact that soft as he is, tubby and out of shape, his baby brother cleans up real nice. And unlike his older brother, Wade Pike is happy now. ‘OK then, enjoy.’ Walker starts the motor.

‘I thought you were waiting for a guy.’

‘I am. But he said if he didn’t show up by ten, I should look for him in front of the Fort Jude Club.’

Wade says, ‘We don’t open until noon.’

‘We?’

His brother grins that insider’s grin. ‘I’m the next Commodore.’

‘Well, look at you.’ Walker takes off the hand brake and lets the car roll an inch or two, to let Wade know that talking or not, he has to go. ‘Better step back, you don’t want to crud up your suit.’

‘Noon sharp. For the champagne brunch.’ Even though the car’s moving, Wade sticks his head in the window to add, ‘When we all get out of church.’

‘Bye, Wade.’ Walker pulls away gradually, so his brother has time to jump aside. When he comes around the block again he sees Wade handing Jessie into that shiny Explorer he likes so much,
What is it with these people and big cars
. Jessie has the pocketbook with matching shoes today, Manolos, he thinks, take
that
, motherfuckers. He sees that for Morning Prayer at the Fort Jude Episcopal Cathedral, his childhood friend from Pierce Point is elegant and subdued in silk. He also sees that Jessie’s body is sexy as ever and every man in that church will know it, no matter how carefully she pins up the front of her staid little dove grey wraparound dress, but nothing will come of it. They are, after all, in church.

He is struck by the way ritual keeps these people in place. Dates marked on every monthly calendar. Everything by the book.

Watching the Explorer go, Walker marvels at how sweet this is.

He loves this town in spite of itself because in Fort Jude at least, for some people, Sunday mornings are boring and predictable because the core society works hard to keep everything in place. They set store by ritual. The inevitability of certain things. People here rely on the power of shared history, ceremony and the continuity of the seasons to reinforce and support them, beginning with Buccaneers and Gators games in the fall and the Chamber of Commerce Harvest Festival on through the Christmas debutante ball and January Superbowl parties, relying on the predictability of meetings and fundraisers, cocktail parties and dances to keep them in place until baseball season starts for the Devil Rays and members gather for the big Easter egg roll at the Fort Jude Club, the first big event of the spring. In a subtropical city with no autumn, no dreary winters to mark the seasons, Wade’s friends use these events to signify the time of year as surely as church bells remind them that it’s Sunday again.