Little Lamb Lost (13 page)

“Sure.” My voice was hoarse.

“Bullshit.”

“Let it go.”

“Fine.”

We washed dishes for a few more minutes,
and then Royanne said, “I thought after a while we could send the kids upstairs
to play and we could watch a new movie I got it’s a new DVD that action one
with Bruce Willis —”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go soon. I’ve got
a date.”

Her eyes went wide. “Really? You? With
who?”

“A guy named Grant Summerville. I met
him at the computer store.”

“A computer geek, huh? What’s he look
like?” Her tone was skeptical.

“He has nice green eyes.”

“Well, have fun. You deserve it.”

I didn’t think I did, but I could try.

Chapter Twelve

Neither Grant nor I were going to have
much fun on this date if I didn’t haul myself out of the dumps, so when I got
home I loaded the CD player with my favorite old-school tunes. A little Van
Halen and some Def Leppard did the trick. I styled my hair and put on makeup.
Chose a distressed denim skirt and a red cap-sleeved top to wear. Maybe the red
and blue was a little bit too patriotic. To hell with it, I thought, as I slid
on my shoes. ’Tis the season.

Grant arrived at seven-fifty. He looked
cute, in a gooberish way, in a short-sleeved button-down, shorts, and sandals.
At least he wasn’t wearing socks. He put the computer and my discs down on the
stoop long enough to give me a quick hug hello. He had to bend way down to do
it. He smelled good. Like shaving cream.

He carried the computer into the house
and stopped for a second to take in the sage-colored walls and the beige
furniture. “Nice place. You been here long?”

“About four months. It still needs a
little work.”

“Where do you want this?”

“In here.” I walked him to the office,
where the computer cart and desk were back in place minus the plastic drop
cloth. He put the computer in its spot and ran the cables to the monitor and
printer, then plugged it all in and hooked up the mouse and keyboard. He booted
it up and typed in a few things, checking to make sure it all worked. I watched
his long fingers move rapidly across the keys.
    

“Done.” He powered down the machine.
“You ready?”

I wrote him a check for the repairs, got
my purse, and locked the door behind us. The sun was setting and the air was
cooler. Someone on the street had been doing yard work and the scent of
new-mown grass lingered. I caught the blinking glow of fireflies rising in the
trees, and the raspy hum of crickets. The neighborhood was gearing up for
celebration, bottle rockets popped and a Roman candle whistled. Grant had come
in the company van and held its door open for me as I climbed inside. No seats
were in the back, but instead the walls were lined with metal racks with bungee
cords stretched across the front of them. For transporting computer parts, I
reasoned. The floor at the back of the van was empty except for a quilt and a
picnic basket.

“Where’re we going?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise. You like surprises?”

“Yeah, sure. Well, sometimes. It
depends.” He laughed.

The cockpit was tricked out with
gadgets. I noted a GPS system, a DVD screen, and an MP3 player. The MP3 player
softly played a Taylor Hicks song. Grant hummed along, drumming his fingers on
the steering wheel in time to the music. I started to relax.

“So, how long have you worked at High
Tech?”

“I opened it about two years ago.”

“You own it?”

“Yep. I did some time after college as a
corporate programmer, then worked for a bank, then an insurance company. I
decided I was tired of busting my ass for someone else when I could open up my
own place. That way I could make more money and have more control over what I
did.”

“That must be nice. To work for
yourself, I mean.”

“It is. It’s hard work, though. Long
hours. I’ve got three employees now, and I’m looking for a fourth. So we’re
growing, and that’s good.”

We talked about his background as he
drove toward downtown. About where he went to college and where he had worked
before. He knew his way around well, which prompted me to ask if he grew up
here. He told me about growing up on Air Force bases around the world until he
and his parents and sisters landed at Maxwell in Montgomery. His parents still
lived near there.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you
from here?”

“Oh, yeah. My family’s been in
Birmingham for six generations now. My great-great-great grandfather came over
from Holland when the city was brand new, in the 1870s. He was a builder. My
family owned a construction company for years before my grandfather sold it
when he retired.”

“Is he still alive? Your grandfather?”

“No, he died when I was eight, five
years before my mother. I never knew him. My father, well, he was — is — kind
of a radical. He and my mom were real active in the civil rights movement. They
went to protests, worked with CORE, Dr. King, did the march on Washington, and
all that.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah, it is. I guess it’s where I get
my do-good mentality. But my dad and grandfather didn’t get along so well
because of my dad’s beliefs. My grandfather liked the old status quo, and my
father couldn’t stand that. So I never got to know my grandparents. Not that I
agree with my grandfather’s racism, of course, but sometimes I wonder why my
father couldn’t find some sort of middle ground with him, you know?”

“There is such a thing as being too
radical.”

“Or too dedicated to a cause.”

Grant headed for Southside, toward the
University of Alabama-Birmingham campus. He found a place to park, then took
the basket and quilt from the back. We had to walk a couple of blocks before
reaching a quarter-acre patch of grass outside one of the dorms.

From here we could see the top of Red
Mountain, home to the giant statue of Vulcan. The Roman god of fire and
metalworking symbolized Birmingham, celebrating our iron and steel industry. In
one hand, Vulcan held a completed spear to the sky, and in his other a hammer.
The fireworks would be launched from the ten-acre park around the huge statue.
We would have a great view.

Grant spread the quilt on the ground.
“This okay?” he asked.

“Perfect.” The quad wasn’t too crowded
since most of UAB was on summer break. Only a few other student-age groups sat
on blankets nearby, their outlines just visible in the streetlights. Grant
unlatched the picnic basket. “I brought wine. I hope that’s okay.”

“Sure.”

He took out a small corkscrew and opened
the Chardonnay, pulling the cork out with a pop. The basket held two wine
glasses snapped securely to the lid. He poured a glass for each of us, then
went back to rummaging in the basket. “I didn’t know if you’d be hungry, so I
brought some cheese and crackers. And some fruit.” He laid the fare out on an
oval plate on top of the basket. I checked my watch. The fireworks wouldn’t
start for a few minutes.

“So,” Grant asked, after munching on a
cracker, “How long have you worked at DHS?”

I didn’t want to spoil the evening by
thinking about work, but I answered him anyway. “Five years.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.” I sipped the wine. It was crisp
and sweet.

The silence was awkward for a second,
and I realized that I was making him uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.” I checked
around us to make sure we wouldn’t be overheard. “I’ve had a really rough week
at work.”

“I saw your name in the article in the
paper yesterday. The kid that died, he was your case?”

“Yeah. And my bosses were furious about
the article. I almost got fired.”

“Why? I didn’t think it was that bad. I
thought it raised some good points.”

“My bosses didn’t see it that way. They
said it made us look like we were shifting the blame.”

“Were you?”

“No!” I snagged a slice of apple from
the platter and played with it a minute, then voiced what I’d been thinking
deep down for nearly a week. “Maybe Michael’s death was my fault.” I ate the
apple.

Grant pushed his glasses higher on his
nose. “How do you figure that?”

“I should have been more attentive. I
should have been there more. I should have been able to see what could happen.”

“Well, when you learn how to predict the
future, be sure and teach me how. I could make a killing.”

I gave him as much as of a smile as I
could muster, took another sip of wine, and voiced the other thought that had
been nagging me, day and night: “What if it happens again?”

With a sympathetic look, Grant reached
over and gave my hand a squeeze. The first of the fireworks exploded with a
pop, lighting the mountain in a starburst of red, white, and finally blue. The
people around us oohed and aahed. Grant stretched his long legs out, leaning on
one hand, his wine in the other. I followed suit, throwing my head back to see
the sky explode again and again into streams of color. Reds, golds, greens,
blues. Grant and I reclined shoulder to shoulder, taking in the beauty.

The finale, twenty minutes later, was an
amazing frenzy of sound and color. After the last report echoed over the
valley, Grant packed the picnic basket and folded the quilt. When we reached
the van he asked, “Do you want to go get a drink somewhere?”

“Sure.” We discussed the fireworks as he
drove down University Boulevard. After University changed to Clairmont, he took
a left into the Lakeview District. The bars and restaurants there were crowded.
The patrons tended to be a bit older than the ones who frequented Southside and
the UAB area. More yuppies than college students.

Grant parked next to a place called
Fuel. The name was a tongue-in-cheek homage to the fact that the lot was a gas
station in the thirties. Where pumps once stood, a patio was filled with
wrought-iron tables. Inside the rock-faced building, dim lighting and dark wood
gave the small place a pub-like feel. Posters of vintage cars decorated the
walls. I’d been here several times before, hanging out with coworkers after a
long day.

“This okay?” Grant asked.

“Oh yeah, I love this place.” We walked
to the terrace where I said, “Why don’t you grab us a table out here and I’ll
get us some drinks.”

“Okay. A beer for me, I think. Something
dark.”

“No problem.”

I opened the heavy wooden door and went
inside. Most of the tables were occupied, tops laden with empty bottles and
glasses. Someone laughed loudly. I elbowed my way to the bar and held out a
ten, trying to get the bartender’s attention. He eventually made his way over
to me and I ordered a Michelob Ultra and a Negra Modela. I was tipping him when
it dawned on me where I was. Lakeview.

“Hey,” I called to the bartender, “You
know a place called Kaleidoscope?”

He nodded to the door, his hands busy
mixing a gin and tonic. “Two blocks north, one block west.” He topped the
G&T with a lime wedge and passed it to a woman in a black halter.

“Thanks.” I grabbed the beers and went
to where Grant had found us a table near the railing. I sipped the Michelob,
the ice-cold liquid chilling me through, then rested the cool top of the bottle
on my bottom lip.

“What?” Grant asked.

“What?”

“You have a look on your face. Like
you’re planning something.”

I laughed. “What if I was?”

“I’d like to know what. And if I’m involved.”

“You want to be?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“You mind if we take a little detour?”

“Where to?”

“There’s a place around here called
Kaleidoscope.”

“I’ve heard of it. You want to go
dancing?” He looked horrified at the thought.

“No, no, no. I don’t dance. In public.
Anyway, I just want to check the place out.”

“Why?”

“I just do.”

“Okay.” We took a few minutes to finish
our beers and decided to walk the ten minutes or so to Kaleidoscope. “You sure
you don’t want to tell me why we’re going here? I mean, if we’re not going to
dance —”

I was tempted. “Just bear with me for a
while, okay?”

“If you say so.”

The nightclub was a curvy, two-storey
structure made of glass and steel. The front windows were painted with bright
neon colors in geometric patterns, with Kaleidoscope in small white letters on
the glass door. A bouncer dressed in all black stood sentry, checking IDs.
Another man, smaller in stature but dressed the same, took everyone’s money.
The cover charge was ten bucks. I paid a twenty for me and Grant — over his
protests — and went in.

Crowded and loud was my first
impression. And the girls outnumbered the guys nearly two to one. Most of the
girls were dressed in tight, sexy clothes. Some had thongs peeping out above
their pants and skirts. At nearly thirty, I was at least five years beyond the
average age. The dance floor, in the middle of the space, was jammed with
bodies grinding together to a song by Pink. Lights in every color of the
rainbow flashed with the beat of the song. I glanced at Grant. His eyes were
fixed on the massive wall of television screens at the back of the room that
surrounded the deejay’s window. Each TV was playing an ever-changing pattern of
colors and lines that swayed with the tempo. All the movement made me dizzy.