Brother (14 page)

Her question left him breathless. It was as though she had reached inside his head and pulled out his thoughts. As though they had appeared in a thought bubble like the one in her comic, and she had plucked them out of the air and stuck them in her mouth, talking them back to him as her own ideas.

“But don't you got family?” he asked. The question was automatic, the importance of family beaten into his DNA.

“I've got my mom, but we aren't close. She's always had this . . .
thing
. Depression, you know? I can't really remember a time when she was actually happy.”

“Not even on holidays?”

“Especially not on those, and especially not after my dad died. She likes to wallow in it, I guess. You know what they say—some people get addicted to feeling bad because whenever they feel good they feel guilty. I'm pretty sure that's her deal.”

“What happened to your dad?”

“He was a miner, died about five years back, in the Scotia Mine disaster out in Kentucky. There was an explosion—over twenty men died, and he was one of them. After a while, my mom just got hard to look at, so I moved in with Lucy.” Alice nodded down the hall, Lucy's and Reb's voices were muffled in the distance. “I felt bad about it for a while, visited three times a week to make up for it, but it didn't really seem like she cared. We'd just sit around the living room and watch TV without saying anything, so I stopped visiting. We live less than ten miles apart and we talk maybe once or twice a month. Last time I was at the house was on Christmas . . . and I know she's trying. I mean, I can tell something's different, you know? This past year it seems like she's really tried to fix herself up, but I don't know.” She shrugged, laughed a little, shook her head, and slid a pair of fingers across her mouth, as if surprised by how much she had just revealed.

Michael liked hearing her talk. It was nice to know that despite the storybook picture inside his head, Alice didn't dance with the bluebirds after all. It was comforting to know that she was a real person, that she had her own problems, that maybe she had her own secrets. Not on the level of Michael's, but secrets nevertheless.

“What about you?” Alice asked. “If you got into it with Ray . . . or
Rebel
, or whatever, does that mean you two live together?”

Michael gave her a faint nod. “With Momma and Wade and Misty Dawn.”

“Is Misty Dawn your sister?”

Another nod.

“And Wade?”

“That's my dad.”

“Then why do you call him Wade instead of Dad?” she asked, and honestly, Michael didn't know. Reb had never called Wade by anything but his first name. He wasn't sure he had ever heard Ray or Misty call Wade
Dad
at all. But he imagined that if he ever tried to call Wade
Dad
or
Father
or even
Pop
, Reb would just about kill him for it.
Wade
was safe.
Dad
was too possessive, too close.

“Where will you go?” Michael asked, changing the subject for a second time.

“Hmm?”

“You said you don't wanna live here . . . so where are you gonna go?”

“Oh.” She snorted. “You mean where
won't
I go. God, ­anywhere. . . . I'd say New York City, but that sounds so, I don't know, like . . .” She lifted a hand, looping it in the air. “Everyone says New York City, you know? It's a fantasy. New York is so cramped with dreamers, it's a wonder they aren't crawling out of the sewers like rats.”

“I had a postcard from there.”

“Yeah?”

“From Times Square. But I lost it.”

“Who sent it to you?”

“I found it in a parking lot,” he confessed, then looked away when she gave him a funny look. A momentary silence passed between them, one that didn't feel as uncomfortable as the last. Michael let his shoulders slump as he gave her an unsure sort of smile. “Maybe I'll go there one day. Probably not to live, though; I don't think I could.”

“Millions of people do it, so why couldn't you?”

“I dunno.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I guess maybe I'd miss this place.”

Alice scoffed. “You're kidding, right? No way. Even Pittsburgh or Columbus, Ohio, would be better than Daliah. At least there I'd have a chance with this.” She tapped the sketchbook with a finger. “Here? Forget it.”

“What do you mean ‘a chance'?”

“A chance to make this my career.” She flipped through a few of the pages, each one bearing a carefully inked strip. “You know, like get into the newspaper, drawing dailies or something?” She fell silent, flipped the sketchbook closed, looked up at him. “I'm talking too much. You know all this stuff about me, but I don't know a thing about you. What do
you
do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, for work.”

“Oh.” He pursed his lips, winced when his bottom lip shot a jolt of pain into his gums. “I catch things.” He immediately regretted saying it. It sounded bad.
Wrong
.

“
Catch
things? You mean like hunting?”

Yeah, you could say that.

“Yes.” Michael's nerves buzzed again. “For my family.”

There was no thrill in that confession, no jolt of excitement like he'd felt when he revealed his full name. It hit too close to home, as though at any second she'd come to realize exactly what he meant. Her eyes would grow impossibly wide. She'd open her mouth to scream. She'd gasp for air, and he'd have to lunge over the counter and grab her by the throat before she made a sound. Because if she yelled, Rebel would realize she knew the truth, and that would be the end of Michael and Alice both.

“You mean to eat, right?” Alice looked unsure. “You don't just hunt for fun.”

His eyes darted to the hall.

How long are they going to be down there?

It seemed like an eternity since he'd last seen Reb. What if Lucy had said something that had made him mad? What if he had decided that going to the movies was a bad idea and snapped her neck instead, pulled out his switchblade and stabbed her in the stomach a hundred times?

Michael couldn't get a decent breath in. He imagined himself turning blue right before Alice's eyes, choking on nothing but his own viselike anxiety. And then he remembered what Wade had said while teaching him how to hunt as a kid, and he spit the statement out as his own.

“We don't have hardly anything,” he recited mechanically. “We gotta make do with what the land gives us.”

Alice didn't respond.

Michael swallowed against the beat of tension.

He watched Alice put away her receipts and her ledger, Reb's insistence that he not be weird echoing inside his head. He had said something wrong—he could see it in her face.

He nearly breathed an audible sigh of relief at the sound of Rebel and Lucy coming down the hall, and for a moment Michael was sure Alice looked relieved too. Maybe she
had
seen something in his face—a momentary flicker of hesitation, a brief pause that told the whole story. He swallowed against the tightness of his throat and turned to face Reb. An unlit Lucky Strike dangled from his brother's bottom lip.

“You all ready to rock 'n' roll?” Reb asked.

“Yeah,” Michael said, inching away from the counter and toward the front door.

“Sure,” Alice said, giving the three of them a smile that was a few watts shy of her standard grin.

Michael waited for the group to start moving toward the door, but Reb waved him out. “Be out in a minute,” he said. “Wait by the car.”

Michael's gaze flitted back to Alice, but she failed to return the look.

He suddenly felt panicky, as though it was the last time he'd ever see her. Something about the way Rebel was leaning against that counter, cocky and as smooth as the Marlboro Man, made him want to scream. It was one of Reb's ­personalities—a mask he put on for the hunt. He'd become the suave and seductive Raymond “Rebel” Morrow with the killer smile and the bedroom eyes, the gentle touch and the long eyelashes girls went nuts over. Reb had once told Michael that if he wasn't so awkward, Michael could have been even better at it than Reb was.

Faggy or not,
he had said,
chicks dig that long hair.

For a moment, Michael froze with his hand on the doorknob. He was unsure whether to comply with Rebel's request or refuse to leave the girls alone with him while they locked up the store. Reb noticed his hesitation and chuckled.

“Come on, man,” he said, a little plea in his tone. “I just need a minute. We'll be right behind you.”

Michael only realized he was scowling after he turned away from the group, the muscles in his face momentarily relaxing as he stepped out of the store and into the early evening heat.

T
HE DAHLIA CINEPLEX
had three screens.
The Empire Strikes Back
was playing on one.
Urban Cowboy
was on another. And Rebel's movie of choice—
The Shining—
played on the third. Michael inhaled the lobby air, which smelled so heavily of buttered popcorn it made his mouth water as much as passing a McDonald's did. Reb bought four tickets at the window outside, and they entered the lobby. Fascinated, Michael watched a couple of teens fill drink cups from a soda fountain and scoop popcorn into paper sleeves while his brother stood in line for concessions. Michael wasn't sure where Reb had gotten the cash, and he certainly wasn't about to ask.

Lucy giggled beneath her breath and Michael turned her way.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just that you're looking around the place like you haven't ever seen the inside of a theater before.”

Michael pushed his hair behind his ears and shook his head. “I haven't.”

Lucy furrowed her brow, trying to figure out whether he was making a joke. “You're serious?” She looked over her ­shoulder just in time to catch Alice stepping out of the ladies room. “Hey Allie, did you know that Michael hasn't ever been to the movies before? Isn't that bananas?”

Alice joined them in the middle of the lobby. Her expression matched Lucy's—intrigued, curious, mystified. “Really?”

Michael raised his hands as if to show them he wasn't playing tricks.

“Man.” Lucy shot Alice a look. “That means he hasn't seen
Amityville
or
Alien
or anything.”

Reb sidled up to the group, handing out tickets.

“What about you, Ray?” Lucy asked. “This isn't
your
first time at the movies, right?”

Rebel gave Lucy a look like she'd lost her mind, and ­Michael glanced away from his brother to the paper ticket in his hand.

“I love the chick that played the space woman in
Alien
. I forget her name. CiCi or something?” Lucy shrugged, then looped her arm through Reb's as they turned toward a door marked
SCREEN 3
. He squeezed the ticket in the palm of his hand, imagining Reb coming to this very movie theater while ­Michael was upstairs, or wandering through the woods, or down in the basement, working his knife between the vertebrae of a fresh kill.
Brothers united,
Michael thought, and something twisted inside his chest.

“Hey.” Michael nearly jumped when Alice's fingers brushed across his arm. She pulled her hand back as soon as he moved, but rather than appearing afraid, she looked concerned. “You okay?” she asked. Her soft tone was comforting. It pulled him inside an invisible box that only the two of them occupied. When Michael didn't respond, she offered him a faint smile. “Let's get some snacks,” she suggested. “I'll buy.” And then she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to the concession stand.

By the time Alice and Michael stepped inside the theater, it was 75 percent full. They searched for Rebel and Lucy for a minute or two, Alice holding a paper sleeve of popcorn and a box of Junior Mints while Michael palmed two cups of TaB. But after a while Alice motioned to the two empty seats closest to them with a shrug. “Let's just sit here,” she said and slid into place. “They probably want to be alone anyway. Unless you
want
to sit next to them.” She looked skeptical, and Michael shook his head to say that the two seats Alice had chosen were just fine.

As they settled into their seats, Alice took a sip of soda and tore open her box of Junior Mints. “You have seen movies, though, right? You guys have a TV at least?”

“Yeah, we got one,” Michael said.

“Then what's your favorite movie that you've seen?” she asked.

He looked down at his soda and pursed his lips, not sure whether he should be honest or make something up that sounded at least a little cooler than the truth. She smirked, ­noticing his hesitation.

“Come on,” she said. “Out with it.”

Michael squirmed and took a breath. “I like
The Wizard of Oz
pretty well.”

She gave him a look—another one that assured him he was too weird to live. “What do you like about it?”

“I dunno. I guess I like that Dorothy gets to escape to a place where it's colorful and magical instead of livin' in Kansas all her life.” He paused, then added, “Those flyin' monkeys were pretty good too.”

Alice looked thoughtful, as though considering just how good the monkeys had been. She met his gaze a moment later. “But you realize that isn't what the movie is about, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dorothy thinks Oz is amazing until she realizes it's full of danger and sadness and evil. In the end, she's happy to go back to her old life on the farm.”

He couldn't help from frowning at that. Whenever Michael would watch that movie with Misty, they'd turn off the TV before Dorothy went back to Kansas. For them, the mantra of there being no place like home meant something entirely different.