Blame it on Cupid (25 page)

“Tell me,” Merry said.

“First, the hair. The whole guy look. Eleven, twelve, they're all doing the sexual identity thing. You can't believe how exhausting it is. And how funny sometimes. The guys doing the swagger, the girls doing the batting-eye thing, the flirting. From one day to the next, the girls are getting boobs; the boys are getting erections. Either one could suddenly cry at the drop of a hat.”

Merry said, “A challenge to teach this age?”

“It's why I love them. They're so impossible. But the thing is, they're really
on
Charlie about the guy look. They all love saying ‘gay' and ‘fag' and ‘lesbo.' It's not that they're bad kids. It's just the age, when using a tag like that makes them feel like they're cool, have power. But it's more than meanness. It's also about so much identity. And Charlene…cripes, that hair.”

“I know. It's about her dad.”

“Yeah, I got that. She talks about him. If there's an essay to write, she writes about him. She cranks off if the kids call her ‘Charlene' instead of ‘Charlie.'” Jacey shot her a sympathetic look. “I wouldn't be that age again for all the tea in China.”

“I'm struggling. Wanting to be there for her. Wanting to let her get through this her own way. But I admit I'm having a terrible time getting her to talk to me—”

“What? She thinks you're beyond terrific.”

Merry stared at her. “That can't be right.”

“She says you're only going to be there for a little while, but—”

“What? That's not true, either…”

“I'm just telling you what Charlene says. She thinks you're cool. You let her do stuff the other mothers would never let the girls do. Like that sleepover. Wow. Got her enough status to last six months. But…”

“But what?”

Jacey stood up, went over to the desk and brought back two pages from an essay Charlie had written. Merry read it, then looked up.

“The assignment was to write a short, short story about something you'd never done, but could imagine.”

“She wrote about being on a fantasy planet, having to fight everyone,” Merry said worriedly.

Jacey nodded soberly. “This isn't her favorite class. She hates writing. She likes math, computers, sciences. But this bothered me. There's nothing worrisome in the content itself, but she's mentioned several times that you're not staying there long. And that if she had to live by herself, she could. She's strong, like her dad. And then there was this. She just seems so…”

“Angry?”

Jacey nodded. “Not on the outside. Not what shows.”

“She's still mad that her dad died.”

“That's my take, too.”

On the drive home, Merry kept thinking,
Okay, take a breath.
She hadn't learned anything she didn't already know. Charlene was still afraid she was going to abandon her, still angry that her dad died—another kind of abandonment.

Neither were problems that could be fixed overnight, any more than grief was something that could be rushed along. But it did hurt—that she'd been trying so hard, and yet still couldn't seem to do the one thing in her life that she absolutely had to get right…and that was being there for Charlene.

Once she got home and peeled off her jacket, she went searching for the kid—not that locating Charlie was ever too hard. With a free couple of hours, she was either going to be huddled over some grease in the garage or messing with a computer game.

This time it was the computer business. “Hey,” Merry said from the doorway. “Your teachers seem to think you're pretty darn smart. I guess you can fool some of the people some of the time, huh?”

A rare grin. “I told you that parent-teacher conference'd be boring.”

“It wasn't boring. I didn't mind sitting and listening to everybody telling me how bright you are. Speaking of which…if you're so darned smart, don't you think you could teach me one of those games?”

The grin faded. “Look. You don't like this kind of stuff. You don't have to pretend.”

“I'm not pretending! I just never learned how to play games like these. You could show me, couldn't you? Like one of those world-building games you like so much?”

Charlie sighed, as if no child in the universe could have enough patience to survive such an outlandish adult request. “We need two computers. I could bring my laptop to the den, and you could use the spare system in there.”

For Merry, the whole project was akin to forcing down Brussels sprouts—but man, she tried. She knuckled down, determined to sit in front of the monitor for as long as it took. Smiling. But whatever engaged Charlene about trying to take down Thal's kingdom over Dunphi's—or whatever the purpose was—completely eluded her.

“I think you're finally getting it,” Charlene said.

Merry almost gasped. That was high praise. Of course, they'd been at it since three, and it was past six by then. “You getting hungry for dinner?”

“Yeah…when we get done with the game, okay?”

Merry didn't say, what if that's never? What if I'm stuck doing this forever and it never, never ends? But then, out of the blue, the screen went black.

“What'd you do?” Charlie demanded immediately.

“I didn't do anything. That I know of. Your screen went black, too?”

Charlie raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You
must
have done something.”

“Well. Maybe I did, but if so, I don't know what. Just tell me what to do—” Merry started to say, only Charlene abruptly shrieked.

“Stop that! Don't push any more buttons! Don't do anything!”

“I won't. I won't. But, Charlie, I couldn't seriously have wrecked a whole computer by touching a wrong button, could I?”

“Just don't touch anything else. Not your computer. Not mine. Nothing. You just—” Charlie pointed the royal finger. “Go. To the kitchen. Out, out, out.”

All right. So the new attempt at bonding hadn't exactly worked out, but Merry figured—like any other debacle—that it could be turned around. You just had to keep upbeat, keep trying, find your sense of humor, keep the spirit up.

Right?

“I can help,” Merry rushed in. “I'll fix it. Whatever went wrong, I'll fix it. Or get it fixed. Don't worry about a thing! Really, Charlie—”

She didn't mean to touch the computer again. Really. Hers or Charlene's. It was when she bounced out of her chair that she accidentally lost her balance. Her elbow seemed to crash down, which would have been fine if all she'd hit was the desk. But no, her elbow had to collide with the keyboard.

“Merry!” Charlene yelped. “For God's sake, you gave me the blue screen of death now!”

“What's the blue screen of death? What? What?”

Naturally, the phone chose that chaotic moment to ring. Truthfully, the land line might have jangled a couple of times, because it was hard to hear over Charlene's yelling at her. At that precise moment, truth to tell, Merry was kind of happy over the chaos. She realized most normal adults wouldn't consider a temper tantrum in a kid to be a super sign, but Charlene was always so well-behaved, so contained, so quiet. Except for that one fight at school, the girl was darn near perfect, so a little yelling and normal kid behavior seemed reassuring to Merry.

But when Charlene sprang up to answer the phone, Merry abruptly remembered the building number of no-answer calls. She said quickly, “Charlie, let me get that. I'd rather you didn't answer, because lately there'd been some really odd calls—”

Only by then it was too late. Charlie had already yanked the receiver to her ear, and stormed off with the receiver glued to her ear.

Merry hoped it was just a friend who'd called Charl—even though the kids tended to use cells over land lines. But she thought it'd be another sign of normalcy if Charlene whined to her friends about the witless, disgusting grown-up in her life. What good was childhood if you were happy all the time, right?

So she didn't worry when Charlene took off with the phone, just assumed the child wanted some privacy. Only a couple minutes passed before she was back to drop the phone back in its cradle.

Merry, in the kitchen by then, turned around to ask her a question about dinner, and was startled at the sudden change in Charlene's expression. Something was wrong. Her face suddenly looked as if it'd been dusted with chalk and she slumped down in the far kitchen chair. Subdued as a whipped puppy, she said, “Don't sweat the computer stuff, I'll take care of it.”

“Who called?”

“Nobody. Just a wrong number.” Those soft-fierce eyes suddenly blazed on hers. “I need to concentrate on the computer stuff. I can't talk right now. I'll fix it. Just let me alone for a while.”

“I was the one who screwed it up—”

“Shit happens, Merry.”

“I know, I know, but I'm the one who—” And then she remembered that she was the guardian. “Hey. No saying ‘shit.' Not in this house.”

“My dad said the
F
word all the time.”

“So'd my dad. But it still doesn't sell well in Peoria.”

“Peoria? Huh?”

“Just try not to say the damn
s
or
f
words, all right?”

“Sheesh. All right.”

Tarnation. She'd annoyed the kid again. Charlene didn't stomp back to the den in a huff because Charlene didn't do huffs. She just walked back into the den and closed the door.

Merry figured she'd wait her out. In the meantime, she'd scare up something to eat, and hopefully Charlene would be more willing to talk by the time they were sitting together at dinner.

 

J
ACK DIPPED THE RAG INTO
the can of stain, and then slowly rubbed the color into the naked wood. He'd always loved working with wood. A good piece of wood was a lot like having a lover. Rub her just right, and she glowed. Rub against the grain and you'd get a splinter. Just like with a woman, you always paid if you went too fast. But prepare her carefully, then give her the right rubdown, the right finish, and you could turn a plain-Jane into something gorgeous.

At that point, unfortunately, the whole metaphor broke down.

Wood couldn't talk to you, and for damn sure it couldn't get your rocks off.

Voices raised from the other room, making Jack lift his head. He'd told the boys they could have friends over. Since he was stuck commuting them back and forth to school this week, he didn't mind commuting a few spares. That was the theory…but the minute he'd granted the concession, he knew the theory was a huge, huge mistake.

Four teenage boys could destroy exponentially faster and more destructively than two. And that was when they were getting along.

He cracked open the door to the shop—not just to listen for sounds of destruction and breaking glass. But to eavesdrop on Cooper. There was a long period of fatherhood when Jack felt respecting his kids' privacy was the only ethical and honorable choice. But that was then.

He'd been a father too long to oversweat the ethics business. If eavesdropping netted him information on what was troubling his son, he'd eavesdrop—or whatever else he had to do.

So far the dialogue in the other room, however loud, had been limited to Turbo Miatas, screaming chickens, belly tellies, an argument about whether one lone brain cell could think, Brandy Penny's tit size, NASCAR, and who was getting their drivers' license first.

Jack had just dunked the rag back in the stain when he heard a quiet knock at the back door—almost so quiet he was unsure if he'd imagined it. A moment later, though, he saw Charlene's nose pressed against the glass pane, and quickly motioned her inside.

“Hi, Mr. Mackinnon.” Her voice was easy and friendly, as if she visited him every night in her pajamas and her daddy's big navy blue robe past ten. On a school night.

“Hey, Charlene. What's up?”

“I just needed to ask you something, if it's okay.”

“Sure it's okay,” he said, although just like that, bumblebees started buzzing in his pulse. “Problems next door?”

“Nothing too weird. Merry crashed both our computers. Not a good idea to let her near anything with a plug.” Charlie edged forward, located a stool on the far side of the shop, and perched there. “And then last Thursday, it was really cold when I got home from school. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because. She paid the bill. Only she didn't call the guy to refill the tank. She didn't know that if you didn't refill the tank, there'd be no oil for the furnace, you know?” Charlie sighed.

Jack had to hide a grin. “I just don't think our Merry's going to make a technical or mechanical whiz kid, you know?”