The Orphan (15 page)

‘You think so?’ Steven said. ‘Got any ideas how to go about that?’

‘I do. But first you’re going to have to buy me another drink, cutie pie.’

Steven laughed briefly, but his smile was gone. He stood.

‘You bet,’ he said, and flipped another ten on the bar. ‘Nance. Another Myers and Coke for the lady.’

‘Thank you,’ Sheila said through her teeth.

Steven took his jacket from the back of the barstool, filling its sleeves with his arms before snapping the collar down. ‘Enjoy that.’

‘You’re leaving?’

‘’Fraid so. Lotta work to do tonight.’

‘On Friday?’ Sheila said. ‘I don’t believe you.’

Then she saw the little silver band on his left ring finger. It had been there all along, but it was a symbol, and you couldn’t always see the symbols coming.

Steven gave Nancy the bartender a look. They exchanged something with their eyes. One of them was embarrassed and the other was sympathizing, but Sheila could not tell which was which because they were both clever pigs.

‘Catch you later, Nancy. Nice meeting you,’ he said to Sheila.

But they hadn’t met. He didn’t even know her name. He never asked, even though she’d used his. She sauntered over to the jukebox to spot his car through the front windows.

He got into a small gray Audi, the smug pig. Sheila watched it exit the parking lot, turning south onto South Boulder Road. She went back to the bar, grabbed her Kate Spade with the pistol and the pepper spray and amyl nitrates and then shoved her way outside, wheeling off in her Pontiac.

She watched him go into Sprouts, the healthy food grocer, and emerge ten minutes later with a single sack of what appeared to be a free-range roasted chicken and a fresh baguette. From there it was only five minutes to his house in a Waneka Lake subdivision, where he parked in the driveway and did not notice her one block back. She waited until he was inside plus ten minutes, then walked around back, into the yard. Peering through the windows off the deck, she saw why he had forced himself to resist her even though he wanted to hump her brains out like all the other pigs.

Enter Here Exit Only Enter Here Exit Only Enter Here Exit Enter Exit
—
 

His wife was young, almost pretty, even though she was pregnant. The filthy pig bastard. Leading her on, flirting with her, sticking his tongue in her drink. But, all considered, this was fine. This was better. Sheila could forgive him. He’d led her to a gift here, a world of possibilities. Sheila hadn’t sapped a pig in eighteen months, but Lordy, she hadn’t raped and killed a woman since 2003. The preggo thing threw her off a bit. She didn’t know what that meant, but there could be a lot of power in it. Too bad she was rusty on her symbols. There must be a special one for the unborn. Well, she would figure that little situation out when she got there. As always, it would be part of the mystery. She would create her own black magic, sympathy be damned.

– Enter Here.
 

She took the gun from her Kate Spade and held it at her side as she walked to the back door and let herself into their living room.

‘Hi, Steven.’

His wife looked across the room, eyes widening, then to her husband.

‘Hey, whoa, what the hell?’ He jumped from the couch. ‘No, no, no way. In my house? You better get the hell out of here!’

Sheila smiled at the wife. ‘It’s okay, we’re old friends.’

The wife looked to Steven pig. ‘You know this person?’

‘I absolutely do not. She was at the bar. Something’s wrong with her. She’s unstable.’ Talking about her as if she weren’t standing right here, stable as pig-fucking Abel. ‘Not happening, OK, got it? I tried to ignore you and be polite about it, now will you get the hell out before I have to throw you out?’

Her nostrils flared but she forced herself to present calmly. ‘You shouldn’t have screwed me and left me in the bathroom like that, Steven. That wasn’t nice.’

The wife reacted in an amusing fashion.

Steven looked at her, really looked at her, as if he were finally seeing Sheila for the first time. She gave him one more chance, but it was clear from his expression that he was not going to choose her. Times had changed, and time had been cruel. She was going to have to break her rule and choose for him. The three of them would find sympathy together in the moment. It would all come back.

Sheila broke one of the amyls and inhaled hard. She raised the gun. The room went underwater and their screams weren’t very loud at all.

Oh, how she wished her parents were still alive to see this.

Darren had been trying to fall asleep for almost three hours. Normally, he would have gotten up by this time, slipped on his sweats and sneakers and headed for the shop, but he didn’t want to work on the bikes right now. He didn’t even want to see them, especially the Cinelli. He did not know if all these experiences they’d had concerning the boy were somehow connected to the Cinelli, but there was bad juju around that bike. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew it was there.

‘Are you still thinking about that bike?’ Beth said, rolling to face him in the dark.

‘No. Maybe. Not the bike but… I mean, Jesus.’

Beth rested her hand on his chest and draped one leg over his lap. ‘I’m sorry. I should have dropped the whole thing.’

‘First me, then Raya, now my mother.’

‘She has no idea what she’s talking about,’ Beth said. ‘It was a coincidence. Chad was new to her. Raya was putting ideas into her head.’

‘You really believe that? After what she said to you after we left? Come on, Beth. That was scary. You said so yourself.’

‘In the moment,’ Beth said. ‘But what did she really say, when you get down to it? She barely recognizes us anymore. She could have been talking about anybody.’

‘Adam. She said his name.’

‘Do you know anyone named Adam?’ Beth said.

Darren sighed.

‘Of course not. And there was no one there. I knew that before I even turned around. No one at the reception desk had any record of a little boy visiting her, I told you that. No Adams in the logbook.’

‘Then how do you explain it?’ he said.

‘She gets that way when too many people see her at once. Please don’t turn this into a thing.’ She kissed the hollow of his throat, thick bands of her hair pushing up against his chin. She kissed his chest and thigh-nudged his hips.

Darren coughed dryly. ‘She said I did terrible things.’

Beth took a deep breath. ‘Honey, really. It’s an awful disease. My Great Aunt Polly had it and you would not believe the things that came out of her mouth if I told you. You need to let this go.’

‘I’m trying.’

Beth pushed herself up and sat astride him. ‘Try harder.’

Darren looked at her, taking the clue as Beth pressed against him, grinding her hips back and forth.

‘Is Chad still here?’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear his car going the other way.’

‘They’re watching movies.’ Beth leaned down to kiss him. She met his lips delicately, then firmer with her tongue, entering into a routine that was elaborate for them at this point in their marriage.

But he couldn’t let go yet. ‘And you’re okay with that? At this time of night?’

‘Stop it. Chad’s your new best friend, remember?’

‘That doesn’t mean he’s allowed to sleep over.’

Beth sat up and removed her tank top. He took in the sight of her bare shoulders and breasts, her fleshy hips, all this roundness suddenly before him. Beth was still inspiring to him. She was short, full and soft in all the places he wanted her to be. Her legs were strong. He had an eye for design, loved good design, the aesthetic and the tactile. Her smooth knees, the grace of her thin fingers, the taut cords behind her knees, the tightening brown skin of her nipples and the pale white around them. The lines where the final garment met hip bone and navel, soft, wet.

‘What are you laughing at?’ she said.

‘You. You are inspired design.’

‘Stop.’

But he knew she liked it, was happy to feel him sinking into the moment with her. They kissed for a while and Beth sat up again, peering down into his eyes, questioning.

‘What?’

‘Do you blame me?’ she said.

‘For what?’

‘You always wanted a boy. Do you blame me for giving up?’

‘You didn’t give up. We had other plans. We already made a family.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘How could I regret Raya?’

‘But what if we’re not enough?’

‘Don’t ever think that,’ he whispered into her hair.

She scaled down, held him in her mouth. There was a slow, spacious pressure, the faint edge of her teeth. He reached the verge too soon and closed his eyes, thinking of the bike. The red bike. His blood on it, the boy in white shadow outline.

‘Stay with me,’ Beth said.

He opened his eyes. She sat back above him, holding her breasts, rolling her nipples between her fingers, watching him watch. He knew what she was doing, reminding him to think about her, them, their family, not the past. Just this, now.

Beth leaned forward and slipped one knee up through her underwear, turning them aside with urgency, and then she was onto him, sinking, then connected in near-total stillness. She wouldn’t release him. She wasn’t even moving now, and her tightening paralysis triggered it for him, made it like breaking into pieces. Beth moaned, her hand moving to finish herself while his vision went black. She fell upon him panting in the warm room, their muscles releasing stores of tension. Her lower back dappled with sweat. She clung to him like a koala and fell asleep in minutes.

Darren listened to her breathing for a long time. Close to an hour later he heard Chad leave through the front door, his car rumbling off into the night.

Darren didn’t feel tired, but eventually he heard his mother’s voice, her frail but knowing voice, and he slipped into something that might have been sleep, but if so, was unlike any he had ever known.

He was a very dedicated boy, you know. Very dedicated.
 

Terrible things. Terrible things.
 

Rotten little fucker.
 

Adam. Adam. Adam!
 

His name is Adam, and today is the day he is sent into exile.

All summer he’s been shadowing the five members of the Wonderland Hills Gang. He doesn’t know all their names, but he knows three of the five and he remembers them all by their bikes. Wonderland Hills is where all the rich kids with the hottest bikes in North Boulder live, but today he’s followed them to Palo Park, a mile or two east, to the dirt park between housing developments, where the cool kids come to ride.

Tommy Berkley is the chubby one on the baby blue P.K. Ripper. He’s a good rider, not scared to go after the big jumps, but he’s even better at sitting back with his fat butt hanging over his Uni seat as he holds a wheelie for blocks, sometimes one-handed. Tommy is mellow and funny and Adam isn’t afraid of him. He’s even said hi once or twice at the bike racks when they are locking up before class starts, though Adam doubts Tommy knows his name.

Ryan Triguay is the thinner athletic one who always wears soccer shorts and sweatshirts with the names of European soccer teams on them. He has two bikes, today’s the beautiful white JMC with red components. Ryan rides fast, never jumping high but taking triples and doubles in one go, crossing up his bars and doing crazy tailwhips before landing as quietly as a glider. Some weekends he races out at the track in Brighton. Adam’s seen his trophies, that day Ryan brought them to school for show and tell. Racing is how Ryan won his second bike, a brand-new Hutch Pro Racer, with all-chrome Hutch parts. Ryan has feathered-back hair and piercing blue eyes, with the sleek face of a hawk. He’s confident but quiet. The one time Adam said hi in the hall, Ryan only nodded and kept walking.

The third boy Adam knows by name is Darren Lynwood. He’s the most bad-ass rider of the whole gang, in the whole school, maybe in all of Boulder. He doesn’t race because he doesn’t have anything to prove and he prefers to free ride, concocting his own jam sessions. He is fearless on a bike. His parents are loaded, so he has five or six bikes and a garage full of parts. Today at Palo Park he’s flying around on one of his two Pattersons, the chrome on yellow gold, Zeronine racing plate #1.

Darren is their leader, you can tell by the way the others wait for him to jump first, or last, when he’s setting up for some massive air or a new trick he learned. He’s not big but he’s got a lot of muscle and he’s tougher than the rest of them. He has dozens of scars from BMX. Rumor is, when he broke his arm tabletopping a six-foot berm last summer, he didn’t even cry. Just picked up his bike, told them his arm was broken, and rode all the way home, where he waited for his mom to come home from work and take him to the hospital.

The other two guys are kind of wimps compared to Darren, Tommy and Ryan, not very good riders but still better than Adam. They get to tag along with the gang because they have sweet bikes. The tall kid is from special ed class, clumsy, silent, and his name might be Greg, but Adam isn’t sure.

The last kid lives outside of Wonderland Hills but he’s still part of the gang. He’s got one of the rarest bikes, a Diamondback Harry Leary Turbo signature model, the one in smoke-black chrome. For this reason Adam thinks of him as Harry Leary, even though he knows the real Harry Leary is a grown-up pro racer dude with a blond mustache, not this kid, who’s short and squat, a member of the city’s wrestling league.

The five of them are all in fifth or sixth grade, though some of them look older. They are all popular. Sometimes they even talk to the girls. Each kid in the Wonderland Hills Gang owns at least one bike worth over four hundred dollars, or more, because they have been tricked out with custom parts.

The bikes are everything, their identities, it is tribal.

Adam is in fifth grade but he’s the size of a third-grader. He has the lean frame of a swimmer, or a track star, and it’s true he can run fast, but when it comes to riding, he’s a disaster on wheels. Just practicing a few minor tricks in the cul-de-sacs of his trailer park, he’s already broken two teeth and fractured his wrist. But he’s proud of his injuries and, besides, his dad’s done a lot worse to him than the bike ever will.

Adam’s bike is a yellow and blue Huffy, a gift he received for Christmas three years ago, when he was still too small to ride it. He is pretty sure his mom made his dad buy it for him with the check they got for his dad’s back injury, and Adam knows a Huffy only cost eighty-nine bucks at K-Mart. But that’s new. Adam’s Huffy was used when he got it, he knows, after he overheard his mom saying something about a yard sale while she argued with his dad about thirty dollars.

Now that he is almost eleven, and big enough to ride it, the Huffy is falling apart because his folks make him keep it outside the trailer, year-round. The bearings are rusted, prone to locking up. One of the five spars in his front mag wheel is cracked. It’s a slow, heavy bike made of cheap steel, and even when Adam pedals as hard as he can, he feels like he is pedaling in a swamp. Just riding here today wore him halfway out.

Adam is ashamed of his bike, but he wants to learn how to
ride.
Get good at curb tricks, bunny-hop one-eighties, learn how to hold a wheelie, and most of all how to get big air like the other guys. He comes down here to Palo Park once or twice a week, but he never rides the dirt trails and jumps when the other guys are here, only when he is alone. He is afraid they will run him over, that he will block traffic on the hills and jumps, and he is even more afraid they will laugh at him, or laugh at his bike, which would amount to the same thing.

But today something amazing happens. They invite him to join in.

He’s been so hypnotized by the sight of the Wonderland Hills Gang running their rotation – one guy spotting for traffic while the next guy takes the long downhill run through four jumps and then up the final embankment for huge air to land in the street, taking spot position after he lands so the next guy can go, the last guy racing to the back of the line, so that they continue this circuit in something of a team relay, a unit of friends working together – he couldn’t help himself from getting closer. He’s managed to walk his Huffy within hollering distance of their acrobatic flow.

Harry Leary and the big dude Greg take one last turn and then beg off for the day, leaving only the core threesome. Ryan Triguay is on at the back of the line, waiting his turn. He waves Adam over.

Adam experiences an endorphin rush, followed by a quiver of fear. It could be a trick, they might want to mess with him. But even if they don’t tease him, he’s too afraid to ride with them. He will lose control and try something stupid, yanking his handlebars too hard on one of the small jumps, flipping himself onto his back. He will be humiliated, permanently barred from their gang. So he sits, paralyzed.

But Ryan won’t leave him alone. He keeps waving.

‘Come on!’ he calls across the ravine separating the good jumps from the wide patch of weeds where Adam has been lurking. ‘Quit watching and get a ride in here!’

Then Tommy joins in, cupping his hands to shout, ‘Give it a go! We won’t bite!’

Well, Tommy’s all right. Maybe this is cool. It’s not like they own the park. Lots of kids ride here and Adam’s never seen a fight or anything bad like that.

The desire has built up so long, Adam cannot resist. He nods at them and turns around in the weeds and pedals his skinny ass back to the road, around the ravine, using the street bridge to cross over because the ravine is twenty feet deep, extremely steep and nothing but rough dirt clods and sharp rocks all the way down. Only a maniac would try to ride in and out of that.

By the time he is pedaling into their midst, Tommy and Ryan are sitting on their bikes in a semicircle, front tires turned sideways, practicing that trick of balancing with your feet out on the treads, rolling side to side. Adam has practiced this simple trick many times but he can never keep his feet off the ground for more than five seconds.

He approaches them on his mount, easing up cautiously.

Darren Lynwood is standing over his Patterson, his feet flat on the ground, wearing a Patterson Racing jersey and a pair of new Haro gloves that look incredibly cool and tough. He’s checking out Adam’s bike, blinking as if the sun got in his eyes.

Darren chins in Adam’s direction and then looks at Tommy and Ryan. ‘Guess it’s just us three and the runt now.’

Adam is about twenty feet away, but at this remark he feels his coaster brake engage, skidding his rear tire in the loose dirt.

‘He’s cool,’ Tommy says. ‘I see him riding all over the place. He goes to Crest View.’ Tommy turns to Adam. ‘Aren’t you in Mrs Fletcher’s class?’

‘Yeah,’ Adam says.

‘I’m just screwing with ya,’ Darren says to Adam. ‘Come on over, let’s get a look at your rig. What is that, a Murray?’

‘Huffy,’ Adam says, swallowing his embarrassment.

‘Those mags are all right,’ Ryan says. ‘My first bike was a Huffy and I rode the shit out of those wheels.’

For this small endorsement, Adam is immensely grateful.

‘I tried riding Tuffs,’ Darren says. ‘But I can’t get on board with mags. Too heavy.’

‘One of them is cracked,’ Adam says. ‘To tell you the truth, the whole bike’s a piece of shit.’

He didn’t mean this as a joke, but all three of the guys laugh heartily. Adam understands that he has placed a small bit of his own humiliation before them as an offering, a way to say,
I know I’m a loser and not even in your league, but don’t worry, I am aware of my limitations and wouldn’t dream of threatening your hierarchy.
He hopes this will endear him to them in some small way, giving him just enough room for them to allow him to hang around for a little while.

Darren steps off his Patterson and lets it fall to the ground with a clatter, something Adam cannot imagine ever doing if he owned a bike that nice. He walks toward Adam, sizing up the Huffy.

‘Don’t mess with the guy’s bike, Darren,’ Ryan says. ‘It’s in bad enough shape already.’

‘I’m not gonna hurt his bike,’ Darren says, as if Adam weren’t even here. ‘I’m trying to help him with it.’

Adam doesn’t know if he is allowed to respond.

‘Some new wheels would be the first thing,’ Darren says. ‘Any aluminum rims would be better than these mags. They’re slowing you down. You need three-piece cranks, too. Those one-piece set-ups are strong as hell but way too slow. Probably a new headset, bottom bracket, and a plastic seat. That alone would save you six or eight pounds. Roll a lot smoother too.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Adam says. ‘I’m saving for a new bike.’

‘Cool.’ Darren nods. ‘What do you have your eye on?’

Adam feels like a liar even before he answers. He is saving for a new bike, but he has only managed to save thirty-one dollars, a long way from the kind of bike Adam would like to own, so far away that he hasn’t really allowed himself to get specific. So he lies some more, naming the first bike that comes to mind, but one that he hopes doesn’t sound too presumptuous or absurdly out of his league.

‘Kuwahara KZ-1.’

Darren nods approvingly. ‘Kuwahara’s a good bike, for Japanese. Some of them are crap but the new KZ-1 is bitchin’. The test ride review in
BMX Action
was hot.’

Adam grins. Congratulations, grasshopper. You have chosen wisely.

‘But you can’t ride this dog in the meantime,’ Darren says, frowning. ‘Better to get some decent parts on it so you can learn how to throw a bike around, then strip it down and keep the parts when you can afford a new frame.’

This has never occurred to Adam, but it makes all kinds of sense. No way will his parents help him spring for a new bike. They have a lot of problems lately, and money is only one of them, and not the worst. It will take him another whole year to save for even a decent bike, but he could mow enough lawns this summer to upgrade his wheels.

‘Good idea,’ he says brightly, his mind racing with visions of Darren and the guys helping him pick out new bike parts, tuning up his ride in Tommy’s garage until it doesn’t look so much like a Huffy anymore. ‘I’ll remember that.’

‘Can I take it for a spin?’ Darren says.

‘Oh no,’ Tommy says.

‘I won’t hurt it, I promise.’ Darren looks Adam in the eye for the first time, sincere, mellow. ‘If you want, you can take my Patty for a spin just to be safe.’

‘No, that’s okay.’ Adam steps off his Huffy and leans the handlebars toward Darren, his mind reeling. How crazy is this that Darren Lynwood wants to ride his bike? And did he really just offer Adam the chance to ride his Patterson? Adam must have heard that wrong. But even if he didn’t, there’s no way Adam will get on the Patterson. That’d be like the world’s worst driver getting behind the wheel of a Lamborghini.

Darren wraps one of his Haro gloves around the hardened vinyl of Adam’s peeling grip. ‘You sure it’s cool?’

‘Of course.’ Adam is compelled to add, ‘I don’t care if you wreck it. It’s a jalopy, man. Do whatever you want.’

Darren mounts the Huffy. ‘Really? You don’t care?’

‘Ghost it!’ Tommy suddenly barks. ‘Ghost that sucker!’

‘Yeah, ghost it, D!’ Ryan says.

‘Shut up,’ Darren says. ‘I’m not going to ghost the kid’s bike. What did you say your name was? Aaron?’

‘Adam.’ He doesn’t have any idea what ‘ghost it’ means, but it sounds like a trick, some cool jumping move, and if that’s true, it would be rad to see Darren pull it off on his bike. Darren Lynwood nailing some awesome move off on his crappy little Huffy would, in some way, instantly make his bike a lot less lame.

There is an awkward moment with the three of them watching him, with weird expressions on their faces, waiting for him to say something more.

Adam can’t think of anything except, ‘Go ahead, ghost it, man. I don’t mind.’

Darren looks away for a moment, then laughs. ‘Okay, little bro. Whatever.’

He rides off, cruising in a slow circle, getting a feel for the inferior bike as he yanks on the bars a few times, popping small wheelies, then gets up a little speed and kicks the rear end out. He pedals directly at a two-foot high tumbleweed stuck to the grass and bunny-hops all the way over it. Adam is a bit awed, thinking how strong and coordinated Darren has to be to yank his Huffy two feet straight up in the air, both wheels clearing the brush like that.