Minders (27 page)

F
ord got fired from his job Friday afternoon. The foreman called him into his office and accused him of stealing. “Found those gewgaws you set aside. Birds and such.”

“I wasn’t stealing those,” Ford said. “I was preserving them.”

“Not the gewgaws. You’re stealing from my time, boy,” he said, leaning in. “I put up with your Frosty Jones and the Temple of Scrapping for a long time, you working slower than everyone else because you find a door handle or a dumb blonde or a piece of a piece of a painting you think is pretty to look at, but I’ve had enough.”

Ford was still having trouble believing it. “Dumbwaiter,” he murmured to himself before saying, “Please don’t fire me. My family needs the money, sir.”

“Kept you on as long as I did in memory of your brother, rest his soul. Great kid. Swing first and ask questions later, that was his way. Fine demolition man.” He looked away. “You’re a good worker, but you just don’t have the spirit to destroy.”

As though to prove the man wrong Ford went outside and bashed his hand into the wall so hard his mind flashed red, yellow, and blue.

If I were mind-controlling you
, Sadie told him as he painfully flexed and straightened his knuckles,
there would be a lot less punching of walls.

• • •

Saturday evening Ford sat on the couch with TREASURE HUNT 4: CURTAINS CALL in front of him. Finding Bucky was part one of his plan to find the Pharmacist, Sadie had learned, so he was ransacking his memory for details of Bucky’s theater to match to one of the six probable locations he’d marked on the map. Copernicus, his head in Ford’s lap, had the other half of the couch.

It was slightly past the time when he should have turned on a light but he hadn’t, so the room was filled with shadows, which, Sadie saw, helped him bring out the details of his memories. She was amazed by how much he recalled about the theaters, tiny things like the design on a molding, or the exact width of a door—nothing she’d paid attention to. It made her a little melancholy to realize that you could get all of someone’s brain input and still only know him partially.

“Maryelise’s boyfriend is back. He must really like her, he was here this morning,” Lulu announced from her perch at the window. Ford had insisted on keeping the television off, so in revenge she was narrating everything she saw. “Hamilton got a new bike, piece of paper flipping over, three leaves, another leaf, Vitacrisp package doing somersault, Vitacrisp package doing another somersault, fancy gray car going down the street, fancy gray car stopping at the curb, fancy gray car door opening, fa—”

Ford covered her mouth with his hand.
Thank you
, Sadie breathed.

He stood next to her, looking down at the street. Ford didn’t recognize the fancy car, but both he and Sadie recognized the tall, red-headed guy who got out, walked up the path to the front door of their building, and buzzed their apartment.

Mason Bligh was so tall he’d had to duck slightly to step into their apartment. Then he’d been forced to stand just inside while Lulu and Copernicus gaped at him with instant infatuation. Sadie suspected that didn’t happen to Mason Bligh often, but the girl and the dog were unquestionably smitten.

When Ford asked Lulu to step aside she’d turned and run toward their mother’s room, yelling, “Mom! Come see the beautiful man!” Copernicus had stayed to stare at his new idol.

Surprise, concern, and wariness all flashed through Ford’s mind. Before Ford could say anything antagonizing, Mason said, “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”

“It’s no bother, it’s not like I have a job,” Ford answered, but not in a menacing tone. Sadie had the impression that he was keeping his aggression in check so he could hear himself think.
As if he’s too curious to be angry
.

He gestured Mason toward the couch and sat opposite him, tense and expectant. “I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls,” Mason said. “I was out of range until last night, but first thing this morning I went to the job site, and you’re right, there were—are—some treasures.”

Ford stared at him while he spoke, and Sadie knew he was genuinely baffled.
What’s this guy doing at my house, being nice to me?
was the first question pinging around his brain. Almost instantly it became
What does he want from me?
and finally ended as
He’s going to try to rip me off.
It was like a tragic opera, Sadie thought, the way Ford could interpret the most benign gesture as something harmful.

Not knowing he’d just been cast as a villain in the Life of Ford Winter, Year 19, Mason said, “I came because of these,” setting on the trunk one of the medallions with the carved birds that Ford had salvaged. “And this.” He pulled out a large city plan and laid it over the map Ford had been using to search for Bucky.

Without waiting for Ford to say anything, he went on. “I have a vision of what this area could be. Farmers’ market, skate park, fish hatchery, plus housing, an arts center. Three new schools.” His hands moved over the dark blue plan, which covered a light blue rendering of the existing area. “I need someone like you to help me bring it to life. What do you think?”

Sadie realized she was holding her breath. Mason was offering Ford a chance to work on the kind of thing he dreamed of, what he fantasized about when he should have been concentrating on the laws of the road. Would he run with the opportunity, or would he find a way to destroy it?

Ford turned on the light and glanced at the map. “I think it’s a nicely updated version of a plan someone proposed five years ago that never got finished.”

Copernicus, who had been making a circuit of the room, put his head in Mason’s lap. “You don’t think it’s feasible?”

“People lose interest,” Ford said, looking away into the shadows, and it was clear to Sadie he was talking more about himself than City Center. “This may be a game to you, but it’s not a game to the people who live here.”

Mason rubbed his hands through his hair as if trying to come to a decision. “Ten years ago yesterday my whole family was killed in a car crash. I was twelve and inherited a lot of money, but I was angry and miserable and only thought about myself. Basically, for a long time I was a spoiled brat. I feel like it’s time for me to reverse that. Give something back, do something meaningful.” Mason scratched Copernicus behind the ear. “Something that will be meaningful to other people too. It’s not a game to me.”

Ford studied him. “Why City Center? You’re not from here.”

Mason blushed. “There’s, ah, also this girl.”

Sadie felt a pop of surprise from Ford, but he kept it out of his voice. “From Detroit?”

Mason blushed even more. “She lives here now. She’s beautiful and smart and wants to change the world. I want to impress her.”

Ford frowned. “By rebuilding City Center?”

“She’s hard to impress.” Mason blinked earnestly at Ford from behind the lenses of his glasses. “Will you help me?”

Ford leaned toward the map. “If you’re serious about doing something meaningful, you’re going to have to scrap all that”—he waved a hand casually over three-quarters of the plan—“and put in things people really want.” He grabbed a pen. “May I?”

Mason nodded.

“Keep your farmers’ market, why not, but what we need are supermarkets. All we have are convenience stores and liquor stores.” Ford drew the store where he’d envisioned it on that first morning Sadie went to work with him, and another at the intersection of five major roads, where, Sadie saw from his memory, a vacant record store stood as though auditioning for a makeover.

He kept drawing as he spoke, the images coming into his mind a moment before communicating with his hand, turning themselves or adjusting slightly as he put pen to paper but clearly working from the ideas he’d been forming for years. “Put in bike paths, since most people around here can’t afford gas even if they have cars. A skate park. An indoor pool. Playgrounds that aren’t asphalt. Make this mixed use, roller skating in summer, ice skating in winter, maybe concerts. Get some food vendors too, but good ones, not the ones that make the air smell bad.” This, Sadie thought, from the guy she’d seen eat Bits O’Beef straight out of the can. “Take these old tracks and turn them into a park. That would change everything, give people a place to walk that’s not the street.”

Mason had been rubbing his hand over his head, and now his hair stuck up even more assertively. “You have a lot of ideas.”

“Sure.” Ford dropped the pen and leaned back into the cushions, and Sadie felt the warm, excited sensation fizzle into the sticky gumminess of humiliation. As though he’d shown too much of himself, revealed how deeply it mattered. The stickiness drew a plume of anger toward it. He pushed the map away and Sadie heard Ford think,
Don’t pretend like you care. You’re just another rich kid coming down here to play games with us puppies before running back up to your penthouse condo.

Mason looked at the plan, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, how about three?”

Ford was still lost in a part of his brain where three meant half the number of texts Plum had not responded to. “Three what?” he asked.

“Three thousand a month.”

Sadie heard bells ring and a kettledrum start harrumphing and over them Ford thinking,
Be cool. He’s bluffing. Be cool
. But another part of his mind was already imagining what that money could do, the images spinning around: Lulu on a tire swing behind a newly painted house, his mother on the front porch painting at an easel, coming home with bags of groceries, Lulu poking her head into the kitchen and wrinkling up her nose and saying, “Steak
again
.”

Warmth filled Sadie at the last image, and she wasn’t sure if it was hers alone or also Ford’s. She heard him repeating
stay cool
to himself then heard him say in a voice that sounded almost right, “Three thousand dollars? To do what exactly?”

“Be my consultant. Scout properties, look over plans.” Mason sounded a little like he was making it up as he went along. He scratched behind Copernicus’s other ear, buying some time. “Find owls hidden under the drop ceiling at the library, dumbwaiters from the 1930s. You’re good at it, better than anyone, Frank says.”

“Frank?” Ford asked, his mind still on the money, now imagining taking Lulu and his mother to the mall and being able to say, “Pick what you want.” The thought of it made his chest feel too small, unable to accommodate the way his heart was swelling.

“Frank, your ex-boss,” Mason said. “He tells me you’ve got the eye. Something about you being passionate and outspoken. Although the way he put it was more like stubborn and not knowing when to shut up.”

Ford surprised Sadie by laughing. “Sounds like Frank.” He eyed Mason. “Will you do what I say?”

Mason shook his head. “No way, not all the time. I’m passionate and outspoken too. But I’ll listen to your suggestions seriously.” He took a deep breath. “I should tell you that I’m not always easy to work with. I want someone I can argue with. Someone who has different opinions. Someone I can yell at, and get yelled at by during the day, but still get a burger with at night because we respect each other.”

If someone had purposely composed a script with all the right words to say to Ford—
respect, passion, argue, burger
—it could not have been more effective than Mason’s speech, Sadie thought. Even she couldn’t have done better, and she knew him… well.

Mason had managed to touch Ford not only in his thoughts and his emotions but also, she sensed, at some deeper level. A guy who was around the same age as James offering him not just a job but a friendship. It made Sadie happy for Ford, but also a little nervous. It seemed like a lot for Mason to live up to.

Ford looked not at Mason’s face but at his hands, which were loose over the knees of his pants. “Five.”

It’s like he’s playing poker, Sadie realized, watching Mason’s hands. The way he’d watched the hands of the other players that day at the Castle.

Mason’s hair seemed to stand up a little more on its own. “Five thousand a month?”

“You’d go to seven, but I’m taking it easy on you,” Ford told him.

Mason said, “You play poker. Fine, five.”

Ford nodded. “Let me think about it.”

Mason laughed so hard his face turned bright red, and Sadie felt a tiny glimmer of the happy, warm-tomato-soup-after-a-snowball-fight feeling in Ford’s chest. “You think about it,” Mason said, getting up, but he didn’t escape until after he’d petted Copernicus one last time and given Lulu his phone number so she could sleep with it under her pillow, “like a real princess.”

• • •

Sunday was gusty, the clouds skidding across the sky. It was James’s birthday, and at Lulu’s request they’d gone to the planetarium to look for the star she was certain James had turned into when he died, but they weren’t able to find it. “I knew it was a long shot,” she told Ford, as though she needed to console him. “Four months is not very long for someone to become a star.”

“No, it’s not,” Ford agreed.

There was clearly something on Lulu’s mind during the bus ride home, and Sadie was fascinated watching Ford’s internal landscape expand and contract, as though calibrated by a very precise machine that constantly measured the exact right arm’s length to keep Lulu feeling safe but not smothered.
Concern
was the best name Sadie could come up with for it, although she thought it might be mostly love.

Sadie felt lucky to witness it, and a little jealous. She loved being an only child, but a part of her couldn’t help wondering how different her life would have been if she’d had a little sister like Lulu
.

They were four stops from home when Lulu turned to Ford and blurted, “Do you miss him? Every day?”

A hundred jagged shards of grief sliced ribbons in him, and he fell into an abyss of pure pain. He wanted to cry out, crawl from his skin, and beg for mercy until the pain was gone.

Why didn’t it get any easier?
she heard him think, aching for him, with him. This grief was as potent as the grief after he left Plum’s, only now there was Lulu watching him. Needing him.