Still Life in Shadows (14 page)

Gideon moved over to his computer, perched at the center of his desk. He typed a bit and then, looking at the screen, offered, “Here’s a supplier in Gatlinburg. I could see if he can deliver what we need for your work at the shop.”

Your work at the shop.
She liked the sound of that. She told him what she needed and he said he’d order extra so she’d have supplies around for future repairs.

She tried to think, which was hard to do because excitement welled within her. “Patches!’ she cried. “Sometimes bicycles have okay tires, but they’re flat and need patches with glue.”

“Patches with glue.” He jotted words onto a pad of paper. “Anything else?”

She smiled, excited that he was taking her work seriously. When the phone rang in the bay, Luke answered and called out for Gideon. Kiki wondered if it was another Amish person wanting to leave Pennsylvania. She’d heard how helpful Gideon was to people from where he used to live. Gideon was a real role model.

She busied herself by looking at her keepsake box and then said she’d be fine when Gideon told her that he needed to leave the shop for a while.

Minutes after he left, a rusty tan truck pulled into the lot, smoke trailing behind it. Kiki watched a young man get out and ask Luke a question. Something jolted inside her. This was the man from the other day, the one she’d seen Moriah talking to in the parking lot. What if he was making the delivery Moriah had mentioned?

Kiki rushed toward the man and Luke just in time to hear, “Well, I have something for him.”

“Is it for Moriah?” she asked.

The man’s toned biceps were covered in tattoos and three gold chains draped like tree ornaments around his neck. He looked at Kiki
although she could not see his eyes because they were shielded by a pair of dark sunglasses. “Yeah, it’s for him.”

“I can take it. He told me to take it.”

The man studied her for a minute. “You?”

“Yes,” she said, standing as tall as she could because that action made her more confident. “Moriah told me I was to take a package from you.”

“Well, okay then.”

From the passenger seat of his car, he removed a tiny box wrapped in brown paper. “Make sure he gets it. Keep it safe for him.”

“I will.” She watched him leave, smoke clouding her vision.

“Who was that?” Luke asked as he closed the hood of the car he was repairing.

Kiki tucked the package behind her back, hoping Luke would not see it. “Moriah’s friend, I guess.”

“He looks shady.” Luke opened the driver’s door and climbed into the car. “I think I’ve seen him before somewhere. He’s a heap of trouble.” With that he revved the car’s engine and backed it out of the bay for a test drive.

Kiki wondered what Luke meant, but she didn’t ask. She was too busy thinking of where she could store this package to keep it hidden. Moriah had instructed her to make sure it was safe. She immediately thought of the storage room. Finding an empty Pennzoil box, she carefully laid the brown square inside it. She tried to fold the flaps to seal the box like Mari did after opening produce that came to the tearoom. The wider left flap and the small one at the end and then the wider right one, no was it the left one first and the smaller one under it? Finding she was much too clumsy to get all four flaps to lock tightly, she gave up. Peering around the corner from the storage room to make sure no one was watching, she carefully lifted the container onto one of the shelves. There, it was safe.

She tinkered with John’s bike, removing the tires from the rims, and caught herself daydreaming more than working. Her thoughts never left Moriah or the item. Curiosity consumed her; what could be inside
that box? She thought of the shape—square and small. Perhaps it was a box with a piece of jewelry in it.
My birthday is coming up—maybe it is a gift for me. That could be why he wanted me to keep it safe and not open it. He did say not to open it, didn’t he? Or did he?

Gideon entered the shop, interrupting her thoughts. “It’s nearly five, Kiki. Shouldn’t you be heading home? Gets dark quickly these days.” He looked out the window with his hands in his pockets, that stance that so many adults liked to take.

“My bicycle has a light.”

“Do you have a helmet?”

“Helmet?”

“Yes, do you have one of those?”

Kiki shook her head. She knew that it was the law in North Carolina for kids to wear helmets, but the one she got last Christmas, she’d purposely left at Mama’s house. Helmets made her head itch.

“When you get paid, you should buy yourself one.”

Paid!
Kiki smiled. She couldn’t believe that Gideon—Gideon, the very person who had not wanted her to come to his shop ever again—was now going to give her money for her work. “You mean money? Like real American money?”

He laughed. “I don’t suppose French francs would do you any good here.”

“Real money?”

“Yes, Kiki.”

“Thank you,” she said as she swung her arms around his waist, nearly causing him to trip on his own shoes.

A
fter a snack of oatmeal cookies, Kiki laid her arrowhead collection out on her bed and wished she had a nice box to keep her possessions in. A keepsake box like she had at the shop for her tools would be ideal. But even though she’d asked Gideon to provide her with one, his head was in the clouds these days.
For Pete’s sake, he could build me one if only he would take the time.

Ormond said Gideon used to make furniture as a child. If he could put together a table and chairs, then why couldn’t he make a box? A box was much easier.
Oh, well,
she tried to console herself,
at least he ordered the things I need to fix bikes. I should count my lucky stars, as Mama used to say.

She wondered what Mama was doing today. Probably at Goodwill, buying a few more precious puppets. Kiki knew that the social worker had told Mama to stop buying. Sternly, while tapping her pen against the palm of her hand, she’d told Mama to get rid of the furry cats, dogs, and monkeys that took up so much room in the hallways and bedrooms. But, as Mari had stressed, Mama was addicted. Not addicted to alcohol
or cocaine, but to collecting puppets. She couldn’t stop wanting them, buying them, hoarding them, inside her dilapidated house. At least here in this house, Kiki had room to move and didn’t have to worry about knocking down a stack of puppets that practically blocked her path to the kitchen.

A knock at the front door set Kiki sailing toward it. There stood Angie, the wind blustering around her, sweeping her hair into her eyes.

“Hi.” Angie twisted her fingers together and Kiki thought that maybe she had something in them she wanted to show. That was Kiki’s first thought. Her next was:
Why’s Angie at my house?

“Thanks for fixing my bike.” Angie looked up and brushed hair from her face.

“Sure. It was easy.” Kiki knew she wasn’t supposed to be too prideful, but she couldn’t help it if God had given her so many skills. “It rides really good now.”

“I’m a pro,” she said with a smile and thought about adding how fast she could use tools but then stopped herself.
No one likes braggarts.

“I told some other kids to come to the shop.”

“Thanks.” Since Angie didn’t seem to have anything else to say, Kiki added, “I’m going to watch
True Stories of Rescue Animals.
It comes on really soon. You want to watch with me?”

“Uh.” Angie shifted from one foot to the other. “No. Umm, I have to go.”

Kiki wished she didn’t have to go anywhere. How nice it would be to have someone watch the show with her. “You really have to go now?”

“Yeah. Luva, you know, my grandma, well, she’s driving me back home.”

“You spend a lot of time at your grandma’s.”

Angie looked at her feet. “My parents fight too much.”

Kiki wished she had parents around to fight. Her mama was alone now in that cluttered house in Asheville with walls that were stained with nicotine, surrounded by lifeless puppets. Who knew where her daddy was? She hardly recalled what he looked like. Some days she
pictured him with a dark beard, and other days she had an image of him in a plaid shirt with a stiff collar, smelling of turpentine.

Again Angie said that she had to go. Kiki wondered if she was lying, but minutes after Angie walked back to her grandma’s next door, a white Mercedes backed out of the driveway, and Kiki presumed that her classmate was seated inside. Satisfied, Kiki plopped down on the couch and got ready to watch her rescue animals show.

W
hen she arrived at the repair shop the next afternoon, Gideon presented her with a box. Inside were supplies that he’d ordered for her. She saw plastic wrappings and cardboard containers that said “Bicycle Repair Kit” and “Tubing for Bicycles.”

“What about two new tires?”

Gideon looked surprised. “Why would you need those?”

“I told you! Johnny’s bike needs new tires.” How could he have forgotten to get those?

Stepping into the storage closet, Gideon said, “Let’s see. Could we put Michelin tires on his bike?” Then he laughed, and Kiki realized that he was trying to make a joke. Of course, the shop didn’t store car tires inside this tiny room.

For a second she smiled, liking the fact that Gideon could tease her, but then she felt anxiety rise in her pulse. The secret package she’d hidden for Moriah was in there! Perhaps if she didn’t look up at the shelf where she’d put it, Gideon wouldn’t suspect anything.
Be calm
, she told herself.
Be cool.
Tentatively, she joined him in the closet. “Car tires? He needs regular bicycle tires.”

Pointing to two rubber items that were propped against the wall, Gideon asked, “Would those do?”

He hadn’t failed her. They were bike tires. Excited, she rushed into his chest, knocking a shovel onto the floor. With arms around his waist, she cried, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Now she could repair Johnny’s bicycle.

“Can you keep it down?”

Both Kiki and Gideon looked to see Moriah at the door of the closet, Moriah, with a frown covering his splotchy face.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Kiki.

“Matter with me? You’re acting like some sort of crazed creature. Keep it down.”

“I got stuff for the bikes!” She held up both tires, steadying them with one hand.
Wow, I’m strong!
She could feel the flexing muscles in her arm.

“Who cares?” Muttering, he walked away from them, toward the fridge.

Moriah’s words grated like nails against a chalkboard in her ears. How could he be so cruel? “Hey,” she said, pretending she was not bothered by his rudeness. She ambled over to him, leaving Gideon in the distance. Whispering, she asked, “Do you want it?”

“What?”

“You know.” She looked around to make sure that no one else was listening. Gideon was now in his office. “You know. The secret.”

Moriah opened a bottle of water he’d retrieved from the fridge. After a swallow he said, “Nah.”

“No?”

As he looked out above her head, his eyes seemed like shiny marbles, solid, but without any movement.

For a moment she just looked at his jaw, his blond hair tied behind his back, and his hands. She thought of one word only—handsome. Mama called some of her puppets handsome, but Moriah was better looking than any cloth puppet Kiki had ever laid eyes on.

She watched him walk to the bay where Luke was wiping grease off his hands. There was no time to argue or complain to him about his sourpuss behavior, she decided. Taking John’s Schwinn out of the storage room, she sat down to work on it. She replaced the tires then rode the bike around the shop for a minute before heading out into the parking lot. Once again, she knew she’d done good work, but today that didn’t matter as much to her. Moriah was nowhere. She called John to say his bike was ready and that he owed twenty-nine dollars.

W
hen Ormond asked if she’d like to help him by washing out the coffeemaker and wiping the counter that it sat on, Kiki was glad for something different to do. Angie had said she’d tell others about the shop and to bring their bikes over, but Kiki didn’t see anyone with bicycles this afternoon. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could trust Angie to help her since the girl tattled and often made it a point to ridicule her.

Cleaning the coffeemaker was easy. Kiki let the glass pot fill with warm water from the tap, squeezed two drops of Palmolive from the bottle, and then, using a scrubbing pad, wiped the soapy inside. She rinsed out the pot, her mind jumping to Moriah and the box she was to keep safe for him.

Once her hands were dry, she made her way to the storage closet. By standing on her tiptoes, she was able to reach the Pennzoil box. Making sure no one was watching, she placed the box on the closet floor and opened it. Instead of finding the brown package, she found an empty box.
Empty!
Kiki panicked. She’d put the package in here only yesterday, certain that she could keep it safe. Who took it?