Spoils (15 page)

The wind stirs a flurry of dust and dried oak leaves. Knots of Spanish moss tumble against my legs.

“How do you know all this?”

“Please,” I say, avoiding the question. “Will you do it?”

The sky is dark with charcoal-gray clouds, thick and low. The rising wind blows Gavin's shirt, pressing it against his chest. A big raindrop bursts on his light gray shirt, leaving a dark circle. Another falls. And another. One lands on my cheek and slides down like a tear. The patter of drops picks up.

“Your computer!” I gasp.

As if waking from a spell, Gavin jerks and grabs his laptop bag protectively. There's a bright flash of light.

“You need to get under cover,” I yell.

The hustle and bustle of Fourth Street is eight blocks behind us. We're in a residential neighborhood now. We have to get indoors, fast. A loud crack of thunder booms nearby, vibrating in my chest. More people are killed by lightning in Florida than in any other state. There's more than the computer to worry about.

“Ride your bike to the ice cream shop,” Gavin tells me, pushing a little at my back to hurry me.

“I'm not leaving you!”

“Then leave the bike,” he yells as another crack of thunder drowns out our words.

He's right. We need to run and it'll slow us down if I push my bike along. I don't have time to lock it. The raindrops come faster and faster. I lean my bike against a lamppost. The clouds are a dark, menacing gray and when lightning flashes again, it illuminates everything like a sudden burst of white-blue sunlight. Even though I know it's coming, thunder cracks loud enough to make me jump. We only have a few minutes before the clouds open up on us. Gavin tucks his bag under his shirt and hunches over but that won't be enough to protect it. No computer could survive the drenching downpour of a Florida shower. Gavin turns to backtrack to the ice cream store, but I know someplace closer.

“Follow me!” I yell. There's a rushing sound as the wind picks up and the drops pick up their tempo.

We race down the sidewalk. I lead him through a narrow alley between two apartment buildings, not bothering to check if their lobbies are unlocked. They won't be. Not in this neighborhood. I veer to the right at the end of the alley and Gavin follows close on my heels.

The streets are deserted. Everyone else noticed the storm rolling in and found shelter. We run to a back alley with a row of metal Dumpsters, a long brick wall and a series of doors. We're both pockmarked with wet spots on our shirts and faces.

I stop in front of a metal door painted dull maroon and marked Steeped and pound on the door.

“Natasha!” I scream. “Let us in!”

Gavin pounds on the door with me, his fists making deep, rattling booms on the metal door. There's a small overhang over the back door, enough to block the light rain, but it won't be much protection once the storm is directly above us. It was a gamble to run here. If Natasha doesn't open the shop's back door, we're stuck. But as I prepare to dash around the entire building, down the connecting street and to the storefronts, the door opens and we literally stumble in.

Thunder reverberates again, the clouds burst open and rain pours down so hard and thick that visibility drops to nothing. Everything looks white. Gavin leans against the hall walls in relief and I shut the door on the storm.

It's dim in here, even after the gloom outside.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” says a smug voice.

I blink as my eyes adjust. It isn't Natasha that opened the door. It's John Parker. Though he did let us in and in doing so saved Gavin's computer, I can't help feeling an uncharitable disappointment to see him.

John Parker leers at me.

I glance down and see that my shirt is wet and that it's quite obvious that I'm cold. I cross my arms defensively.

I always knew John Parker was a creep but there's something aggressive about him now that makes me grateful I didn't come in from the storm alone. Gavin picks up on it too, because he steps forward, half in front of me. That suppressed element of danger about him is suddenly not so suppressed. Gavin thrusts his hand out.

“Thanks for letting us in,” he says almost pleasantly, gripping John Parker's hand. John winces and tries to pull his hand back. Gavin holds on to it for a second longer, making a point as his knuckles whiten, before letting go.

John Parker cradles his hand and looks at us sourly.

“Your sister's not here again,” he accuses. “I had to open the shop by myself.”

“Okay.”

“She needs to tell me if she's not going to open the shop,” he continues. “I can't do it all, you know.” He runs his hand through his Lego-man hair, flexing his biceps, still thinking he's awesome, trying to be charming and intimidating at the same time.

“Well, John,” I say coldly. “She's your boss. If you don't like it, find another job.”

His lips thin with anger and then without another word, he turns and walks back to the shop. I let out a breath I wasn't aware I was holding.

“I'm thinking he wasn't a great hiring decision,” Gavin says.

“You think?” I laugh, though it's really not that funny. “I don't know what my sister sees in him.”

The beaded curtain still swings from where John Parker shoved past it. Gavin sneezes, pulling my attention away from John. We're both wet and cold in the air-conditioning.

“Come on,” I say. “Let's see if we can find something in Natasha's office to wear.”

Her office is unlocked. I root around in some old merchandise boxes and find an XL tea-shop–logo shirt for Gavin and a smaller one for me.

“Look, we're twins,” I exclaim when I catch sight of us in the full-length mirror hung on the back of the door.

“Sick.” Gavin shakes his head. His shirt is cream with pink lettering and mine is pink with cream letters. We match.

Our reflection in the gilt-framed mirror shows the top of my head reaching his chin. My hair is wet and has tumbled down all around my face. There's a hectic flush on my cheeks and the bridge of my nose; my eyes are bright and clear.

“I'm a mess,” I say.

“You're beautiful.”

“You're blind.”

He barks a sharp laugh and I instinctively turn toward him because Gavin has the best laugh and it doesn't come out often. I giggle.

Florida afternoon thunderstorms, though fierce, are notoriously short-lived. By the time Gavin fires up his Mac to make sure it survived the trip, I no longer hear rain drumming on the ceiling and the last rumble of thunder was more than fifteen minutes ago.

We stay in Natasha's office another few minutes and then head out the back door again, into the dripping alley. John Parker stays in the main shop speaking with a customer.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” Gavin asks, glancing at the shut door.

“Don't worry about it. I live a few blocks away.”

He looks like he's going to argue, so instead of giving him the chance, I stretch on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. He exhales slowly, eyes closed.

“Thanks for stepping in with that creep,” I say. He opens his eyes and there's so much in his gaze, it almost hurts to see it. In that moment, I know he'll do anything I ask him to. “You'll go to South Florida?” I ask.

He nods in acknowledgment. “I'll be back by Friday.”

“Good luck.”

Then I turn and walk away, swerving around an old man getting out of a car he parked crookedly, taking up two spots in the alley. It only takes a moment before Gavin's echoing footsteps head in the opposite direction.

I close my eyes in a quick prayer.

The trees still drip from the afternoon shower and the black asphalt steams in the afternoon sun. The grass is a new, clean sort of green, and a black cormorant stands in a grassy patch of sun, wings outstretched, looking like a totem pole topper as it dries its feathers. I pass an orange tree, its leaves glistening with raindrops. Green oranges the size of baseballs hang from its branches.

I'm a block and a half away from my house when I suddenly remember to go back for my bike.

I turn and lope, jumping over shallow puddles, running through the thin wisps of steam rising off the sidewalks. It's only been a few minutes, I reassure myself. I arrive at the street where I left my bike. I walk up and down the block, then for good measure check the next two blocks in either direction. But every lamppost I pass is empty.

My bike is gone.

Melvin watched as the youngsters on the sidewalk separated. He figured the air around them might combust with all the heat and fireworks those two were putting out. He might be eighty-six years old but he wasn't dead yet. Looking at them, so young and fresh, full of piss and vinegar, made him feel tired. A little wistful too. Oh, the fights he and Betty would get into some days. Neighbors three doors down could hear their shouting—you'd have thought the world was coming to an end.

He smiled a little. Of course, their reconciliation…well, sometimes they'd fight just to have a reason to make up afterward.

Betty died eight years ago this October. It was hard to believe she'd been gone so long. Oh, how he missed her.

His daughter, Sally, kept telling him he should sell the condo, move closer to her. But what did he want with Connecticut? He'd lived there for sixty years. Snow and ice. People in too damn much of a hurry. There was a reason he and Betty retired down south. Sally always was too bossy for her own good. Now that her youngest was out of the house, she must be feeling bored, to start in on him. He'd stick with Florida. It was the last place he and Betty lived together, and the only way he was leaving the condo was feet first.

Still, he wasn't doing so bad for an old fart. There were several lady friends who invited him to dinner on a regular basis. He knew each one hoped to be the new Mrs. Franklin, but although he was happy enough to eat their home cooking and take them to a show or a lecture, he knew that he would never marry again. There was only one Mrs. Franklin and she was resting in Connecticut.

He looked over his shoulder at the two whippersnappers and shook his head. To have the energy for those emotions, well, sometimes he was glad he was eighty-six and sometimes he wished he were twenty-six again. What he wouldn't give to get to do it again. Not to do things differently, but to be in the thick of it again.

“Good luck to you,” he said to the empty street. “It goes by faster than you can imagine.”

I'm annoyed by the haunted-mansion creak of the rusty hinges on the front door, annoyed by my wet shoes squeaking on the marble, and completely pissed off at the thief who stole my bike. I had that bike for four years. Getting to school would be a real pain now.

As usual, no one's up and about.

I stomp off to the kitchen for something to eat but our walk-in pantry looks worse than usual. Because it's so large, the rows and rows of bare shelves seem like a post-apocalyptic grocery store. There's an ancient can of baking powder; several mostly empty bags of rice; a dusty tin of smoked oysters that must have come in a gift basket years ago when my parents still gave and received things like that. Lately my mom's been getting weird things at the store, food we don't usually eat. Canned hominy. Powdered potatoes. Golden Puffs cereal. Grape jelly, though none of us like it. But even those odd foods have been devoured. I check the fridge for leftovers, but someone must have gotten to them already. In our giant stainless steel Sub-Zero French-door refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom, there's a door full of condiments, a tub of ancient cream cheese and a half-empty jar of salsa.

Hoping that my mom is out at the grocery store, I end up boiling rice, mixing jasmine, white and basmati because there isn't enough of any one for a full serving. After a quick sniff and a shrug, I dump the salsa in with the rice. What cooks up won't ever be served at any self-respecting restaurant, but I'm pleased enough with it. It's filling and comforting in the way that warm mush can be. I take it outside, even though it's prime time for the mosquitoes to be out, and sit on the back patio watching the water.

Everything will be different soon.

I push my half-empty bowl aside and hug my knees. The seat cushions are still wet from the afternoon shower and the damp seeps into my shorts.

What will my parents say when I tell them the money's gone? I don't know what we'll do, where we'll go. But with every second that ticks by, we're traveling closer to a cataclysmic event for our family. I wish it were already over and done with, that I was already on the other side, eighteen years old and living with the fallout. Will they hate me?

I force myself to leave my spot on the patio and to start solving one of the smaller problems in my life. My wheels. I ride my bike to high school, to SHCC, to practically everywhere that's too far to walk.

Someone in the family might have bought a bike at some point. My mom could have in a fit of wishful exercise thinking. Or Eddie might have if he had visions of triathlons dancing in his head. It's possible. He has enough footballs and basketballs slowly deflating and gathering dust that it's just as likely there's a bike slowly rusting into oblivion in the frightful nightmare of our garage. There's an easy way to find out.

The punishing heat in the dim garage immediately has me sweating. When we first moved in, my dad talked about installing an AC unit for the three-car garage, but that project fell by the wayside. Currently there's barely enough room for my mom's car to park on the far left of the garage. Which isn't actually a problem since my dad sold his car five months ago. Eddie's lease was repossessed after he missed four payments.

I hate going in the garage. There's thousands of dollars' worth of stuff in here, but there's a lot of crap too, all jumbled together. Even the items that are still good are grimy with cobwebs and roach scat. The garage is the sad and shameful graveyard where the fun times we thought we'd have came to rot and die.

But bikes are big. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out if there's one in here.

I poke my way past gallons of half-used paint; boxes bursting with holiday decorations, wrapping paper and school projects; an old rusted push mower, three tires, two TVs. There's our dining-room set from the old house and two dressers that used to be in Natasha's room before she redid it. It reeks in here too, which makes me wonder if some citrus rats have moved in. There could be a whole family nesting somewhere in the garage and who would know? My dad's workshop is in a corner of the garage. He jerry-rigged a small AC unit to keep him from being flambéed during the summer. His corner holds all sorts of odds and ends and the beginnings of several types of small engines, none of them completed or functioning.

Bike,
I remind myself. But after half an hour, dripping with sweat and covered in crud, I haven't found one.

Eddie's probably awake by now. It's time to stop this ridiculous search and ask him if he ever bought a bike.

I hear the TV before I even reach his room.

“You decent?” I call out before opening the door.

ESPN is on and Eddie is probably still in bed. I hesitate for a moment. I reeeeally don't want to walk in on my brother if he's not dressed. If he didn't hear me because of the TV, there's no guessing what state he's in. As a safety precaution, I shut my eyes.

“Eddie?” I call out loudly from the doorway. “Is it safe?”

“Stop shouting, you idiot,” he says. “Come in.” Then his voice drops to a growly rumble. “If you dare.”

I crack open my eyelids. He's in bed wearing a T-shirt. The rest of him is covered by his bedspread. Good enough. The blinds are drawn across his window to facilitate TV watching, which is ironic because Eddie's room has one of the best views in the house.

“Somebody stole my bike,” I announce, perching on the edge of his bed. It smells in here too, all musty and sweaty. He hasn't changed his sheets in a long time. There's no maid anymore and my mom won't enter his room. Not that my mom should be doing Eddie's laundry. By the time each of us turned fifteen, my mom declared the statute of Mom-doing-your-laundry-for-you expired. At twenty-seven, Eddie seems to be challenging that. Grease-stained fast-food bags are crumpled on the floor near the bed like used tissues.

“Your room is disgusting,” I say. “You need to clean it up.”

“You volunteering? Or doesn't it count unless I have gills?”

“It doesn't count when you have two hands of your own that can pick up a freakin' broom.”

“Thanks for the tip, Mom,” he says. Then he belches and turns the volume up on the TV. “Well, if that's everything, sorry about your bike.…”

“No, Eddie.” I don't mean to fight with him. In fact, I can't, since he won't ever fight back. “I need a bike. I was wondering if you had an old one somewhere I could borrow.”

He blinks slowly and then turns away from the TV to face me.

“You're asking if you can borrow my bike?” he asks incredulously.

“Yeah.” I shrug uncomfortably under his stare. “Why is that so crazy?”

“Leni,” he says. “You realize that I haven't left this house in over a year?”

“Um, I…” To my mortification, I find I didn't realize it. My cheeks heat up in shame. Now that he's said it, I suddenly see it's true. He might as well have been under house arrest. I try to cover for this gross inattentiveness. “I didn't know if you'd bought one a while back and weren't using it.…” How could I have missed it? He's my brother and we live in the same house but I was so grossed out by his slovenly gluttony and the constant TV that I really hadn't seen past that to the state he'd sunk to.

I look down, unable to meet his eyes.

“No,” he says quietly. “I don't have a bike you can borrow. Sorry.”

“Eddie,” I say, reaching out for his hand. It's hot and fleshy. I squeeze it, sighing deeply. “I'm sorry. I didn't realize.”

“Don't worry, kid,” he says, surprisingly kind. “I didn't advertise. Sometimes I don't even think Mom and Dad have figured it out. Seriously, though, why do you need to borrow a bike? You're getting a truckload of money on Friday. Buy your own freakin' bike. By the time the credit-card bill comes, you can buy the whole damn store.”

I hesitate, but then decide I might as well get a preview of what's coming my way.

“I'm not keeping the money,” I say softly, whispering the secret of the century. You might think with the TV blaring playbacks, and with his perpetual groggy stare, that Eddie might have missed my meaning, but his bloodshot eyes pop wide open and he sits up in bed.

“What. The. Hell?” There's a spark there of the Eddie I know, the mischievous trickster who loves nothing more than a good joke. “Are you serious?”

“Serious as an oil spill.”

He flops back in bed dramatically, making me bounce up and down, a dingy in the wake of a carrier.

“I know it's going to make life harder on you.” I sweep my arms to indicate the room, the house. “It's going to be rough for all of us.”

“You taking my advice?” he says, arms outflung, staring at the ceiling, not seeing it. “You gonna party in Bali?”

I shake my head, even though he's not looking at me. “No, that's not what I'm doing.”

He struggles to sit up again and stares at me with dull-eyed disappointment.

“Don't tell me, you're going to give all your money away to some tree-hugging group that claims it can save the world?” he says, shaking his head. “You're something else, Leni.”

“No. Not that either. Not that I wasn't tempted. But I'm doing something a bit different. I'm fixing something that broke. And sometimes a lot of money can do things nothing else can.”

“Like what?” He tilts his head in question.
Like a miracle,
I think. He's not yelling. He's not calling me names or telling me what a horrible person I am to do this to the family. That's actually a lot better than I expected. He's shocked, true, but in a weird way, he's intrigued. Which is good, I can work with intrigued.

“It can buy an innocent person a second chance,” I tell him.

He's quiet for a moment.

“You really think your money is going to do that?”

“It's a gamble,” I say, with more honesty than I planned on. “It could be a huge mistake. But I saw how Mom and Dad spent their money, and how you did and Natasha did, and no offense, but none of that turned out to be such a great thing either.”

“Oh, you're wrong,” he says. “It was great while it lasted. It was abso-freaking-lutely great.”

“While it lasted,” I finish for him. “I guess I'm shooting for abso-freaking-lutely great even after it's all gone.”

“Good luck with that.” Then he laughs with a sort of rusty guffaw. “Not that it wouldn't be something to see.”

“Yeah.” I smile, but I'm so sad on the inside. He is in there amid the ruins, my funny, loyal brother. “That would be great, wouldn't it?”

To my surprise, he smiles. “Leni, I have to hand it to you, I didn't think you'd have the balls to say no to Mom and Dad,” he says. “Good for you, kid.” In a weird way, having his approval makes me feel like the burden isn't as heavy as I thought.

“I almost didn't,” I admit. “It makes me sick to let them down. But honestly, I don't think the money was going to fix that many of our problems anyway. We might as well deal with all this now instead of later, you know?”

“I don't know, dealing with crap is usually better later instead of sooner in my book.”

I give the trashed room a pointed look. “Yeah, I noticed.”

He doesn't bother replying to that. Sitting in the middle of his rumpled, lived-in, king-size bed, he looks like nothing more than a giant overgrown slug. He even has a cowlick sticking up in the back like an antenna.

“Who is it?” he asks.

We both know what he's asking. I debate not telling him. I wonder if this should be a secret, anonymous, like Gavin's accuser at Tech. But then I think,
Screw it, I'm not using the devil's tactics.

The phone rings somewhere in the house; we both ignore it.

“It's Gavin Armand.”

The words drop like a bomb in the room, blowing away the excitement, the good feeling. His face freezes at the name and I shiver at the sudden change in Eddie's mood. Eddie was here for the arrest and trial. At the time, I didn't pay much attention to my older brother—I was rather self-involved with high school drama. I do remember he was on the periphery, leaning on the doorjamb in the kitchen, listening in on the latest development, the most recent setback. The sudden anger on his face at Gavin's name tells me that I've been clueless about my brother in a lot of ways.

“So you're saying he didn't really hack into the DMV to sell people's Socials?”

“He did,” I say. “But he got kicked out of Tech for nothing, that's the part that wasn't fair.” When I say it like that, it doesn't actually sound very compelling. “What I mean,” I quickly say, “is that someone robbed him of his second chance. And with his background, no one will ever give him another one. You should have seen it when we bumped into his old professor. He was so ugly to him. That's what it's going to be like for the rest of his life, everyone judging him, thinking he's beneath them. Gavin's really smart. He can literally make the world a better place.”

“You've lost your mind,” Eddie says. “That creep was convicted. Of defrauding. The government. Remember? Why the hell would you want anything to do with him?” It's the first time Eddie's been angry at me in years and I shrink back from him. “Just because some hot guy asks you to spend a million dollars on him, you do it?” He shakes his head with disgust. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Gavin didn't ask for it,” I say, stung and defensive. “He doesn't even know I'm doing anything for him.” I tell myself Eddie's anger comes because he loves me and doesn't want me to get scammed, but there's something in his tone, some deep contempt that feels very personal and hurtful. “And I don't have a crush on him. What is with you and Dad? We're not dating.”

“You are a fool,” Eddie says, his lip curled. “You are a pathetic little fool. You and Natasha.” His eyes narrow, disdain dripping from his words. “What is wrong with you two? You don't know how to let a guy go, do you?”