Never Never (9 page)

The Electric Crush Diner is on North Rampart Street. I find a parking spot on a crowded corner and have to parallel park between a truck and a MINI Cooper.
Charlie is an excellent parallel parker,
I think proudly. Janette climbs out after me and stands on the sidewalk, looking lost. The diner is across the street. I try to peer in through the windows, but they’re mostly blacked out.
The Electric Crush
flashes in pink neon over the front door.

“Come on,” I say. I hold out my hand to her and she draws back. “Janette! Let’s go!” I march up to her in what can only be an aggressive Charlie move, and grab her hand. She tries to pull away from me, but I hold on tight, dragging her across the street. “Let. Me. Go!”

As soon as we reach the other side, I spin around to face her. “What’s your problem? Stop acting like a…,”
fourteen-year-old
, I finish in my head.

“What?” she says. “And why do you even care what I act like?” Her bottom lip is puffing out like she’s about to cry. I suddenly feel very sorry for being so rough with her. She’s just a little kid with tiny boobs and a hormone-addled brain.

“You’re my sister,” I say gently. “It’s time we stick together, don’t you think?” For a minute, I think she’s going to say something—maybe something soft and nice and sisterly—but then she stomps toward the diner ahead of me and flings open the door.
Damn.
She’s a tough cookie. I follow her in—a little sheepishly—and stop dead in my tracks.

It’s not what I thought it was going to be. It’s not really a diner—more like a club with booths lining the walls. In the middle of the room is what looks like a dance floor. Janette is standing near the bar, looking around in bewilderment.
“You come here often?” she asks me.

I look from the black leather booths to the black marble floors. Everything is black aside from the bright pink signs on the walls. It’s morbid and bubblegum.

“Help you?” A man steps out from a door at the far end of the bar, carrying an armful of boxes. He’s young—maybe early twenties. I like him on sight because he’s wearing a black vest over a pink t-shirt.
Charlie must like pink.

“We’re hungry,” I blurt.

He half smiles and nods over to a booth. “Kitchen doesn’t usually open for another hour, but I’ll see what he can whip up for you if you’d like to sit.”

I nod and beeline over to the booth, pulling Janette along with me.

“I was here,” I tell her. “Last weekend.”

“Oh,” is all she says before studying her fingernails.

A few minutes later, the pink t-shirt guy comes out of the back, whistling. He walks over and places two hands on the table.

“Charlie, right?” he asks. I nod dumbly.
How does he…? How many times have I…?

“The kitchen was making me a roast chicken. What do you say I share it with you guys? We won’t get busy for a couple more hours, anyway.”

I nod again.

“Good.” He hits the table with his palm and Janette jumps. He points to her. “Coke? Sprite? Shirley Temple?”

She rolls her eyes. “Diet Coke,” she says.

“And you, Charlie?”

I don’t like the way he says my name. It’s too…familiar. “Coke,” I say quickly. When he leaves, Janette leans forward, her eyebrows drawn together. “You always get diet,” she says accusatorily.

“Yeah? Well I’m not quite feeling like myself.”

She makes a little noise in the back of her throat. “No kidding,” she says. I ignore her and try to get a good look around. What were Silas and I doing here? Is it a place we came often? I lick my lips.

“Janette,” I say. “Have I ever told you about this place?”

She looks surprised. “You mean all the times we have heart-to-hearts when we put the lights out at night?”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m a really crappy sister. Geez. Get over it already. I’m extending the olive branch here.”

Janette scrunches up her nose. “What’s that mean?”

I sigh. “I’m trying to make it up to you. Start fresh.”

Just then the pink t-shirt dude brings us our drinks. He brought Janette a Shirley Temple even though she asked for a diet coke. Her face registers disappointment.

“She wanted a diet coke,” I say.

“She’ll like that,” he says. “When I was a kid…”

“Just get her a diet coke.”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Sure thing, princess.”

Janette glances at me from under her eyelashes. “Thanks,” she says.

“No problem,” I say. “You can’t trust a guy who wears a pink shirt.” She sort of smirks and I feel triumphant. I can’t believe I thought I liked that guy. I can’t believe I liked Brian. What the hell was wrong with me?

I pick up my phone and see that Silas has texted me multiple times.
Silas.
I like Silas. Something about his soothing voice and good boy manners. And his nose—he has a wicked cool nose.

Silas: My dad…

Silas: Where are you?

Silas: Hello?

The guy comes back with the chicken and a plate of mashed potatoes. It’s a lot of food.

“What’s your name again?” I ask.

“You’re such a bitch, Charlie,” He says, laying a plate down in front of me. He glances at Janette. “Sorry,” he says.

She shrugs. “What
is
your name?” she asks through a mouthful of food.

“Dover. That’s what my friends call me.”

I nod.
Dover.

“So last weekend…,” I say.

Dover bites. “Yeah, that was crazy. I didn’t expect to see you back here this soon.”

“Why not?” I ask. I’m trying to be casual, but my insides are jumping around like they’re being shocked.

“Well, your man was pretty pissed. I thought he was going to blow his shit before he got kicked out.”

“Blow his shit…?” I change my tone so it’s not so much a question. “Blow his shit. Yeah. That was…”

“You looked pretty pissed,” Dover says. “I can’t blame you. You might have liked it here if Silas hadn’t ruined it for you.”

I sit back, the chicken suddenly unappealing. “Yeah,” I say, glancing at Janette, who is watching us both curiously.

“You finished, brat?” I ask her. She nods, wiping her greasy fingers on a napkin. I pull a twenty out of my purse and drop it on the table.

“No need,” Dover says, waving it away.

I lean down till we are eye to eye. “Only my boyfriend gets to buy me dinner,” I say, leaving the money on the table. I walk to the door, Janette trailing behind me.

“Yeah, well,” Dover calls, “you live by that rule, you can eat for free seven days a week!”

I don’t stop until I reach the car. Something happened in there. Something that made Silas almost lose his shit. I start the car and Janette lets out a loud burp. We both start laughing at the same time.

“No more Doritos for dinner,” I tell her. “We can learn to cook.”

“Sure,” she shrugs.

Everyone breaks their promises to Janette. She’s got that bitter air about her. We don’t speak for the rest of the ride home, and when I pull into the garage, she jumps out before I’ve turned off the engine.

“Nice spending time with you, too,” I call after her. I imagine that when I walk in, Charlie’s mother will be waiting for her—perhaps to chew her out for taking the car—but when I step into the house, everything is dark except for the light underneath the door to Janette’s and my bedroom. Mother has gone to sleep. Mother doesn’t care. It’s perfect for the situation I’m in. I get to snoop around and try to figure out what happened to me without the questions and rules, but I can’t help thinking about Janette—about how she’s just a little kid who needs her parents. Everything is so screwed up.

Janette is listening to music when I open the door.

“Hey,” I say. I suddenly have an idea. “Have you seen my iPod?” Music tells a lot about a person. I don’t have to have a memory to know that.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Maybe it’s with all your other crap in the attic.”

My other crap?

The attic?

I suddenly feel excited.

Maybe there’s more to me than a bland bedspread and a stack of bad novels. I want to ask her what kind of crap, and why my crap is in the attic instead of in our shared bedroom, but Janette has stuck the buds back in her ears and is working hard to ignore me.

I decide the best route would be to go up to the attic to check things out for myself.
Now, where is the attic?

The front door to my house opens as I’m putting my car in park, and Ezra walks outside, wringing her hands together nervously. I get out of the car and walk to where she’s standing, wide-eyed.

“Silas,” she says, her voice quivering. “I thought he knew. I wouldn’t have mentioned Charlie was here, but you didn’t seem to be hiding it, so I thought things had changed and she was allowed over here...”

I hold up my hand to stop her from more unnecessary apologies. “It’s fine, Ezra. Really.”

She sighs and runs her hand across the apron she’s still wearing. I don’t understand her nervousness, or why she anticipated I would be angry with her. I shove more reassurance into my smile than is probably necessary, but she looks as if she needs it.

She nods and follows me inside the house. I pause in the foyer, not quite familiar enough with the house to know where my father would be at the moment. Ezra passes me, muttering a “goodnight,” and heads up the stairs. She must live here.

“Silas.”

It sounds like my voice, but more worn. I turn and am suddenly face to face with the man in all the family photos lining the walls. He’s missing the brilliantly fake smile, though.

He eyes me up and down, as if the mere sight of his son disappoints him.

He turns and walks through a door leading out of the foyer. His silence and the assurance in his steps demand I follow him, so I do. We walk into his study, and he slowly edges around his desk and takes a seat. He leans forward and folds his arms over the mahogany wood. “Care to explain?”

I’m tempted to explain. I really am. I want to tell him that I have no idea who he is, no idea why he’s angry, no idea who
I
am.

I should probably be nervous or intimidated by him. I’m sure yesterday’s Silas would have been, but it’s hard to feel intimidated by someone I don’t know at all. As far as I’m concerned, he has no power over me, and power is the primary ingredient of intimidation.

“Care to explain what?” I ask.

My eyes move to a shelf of books on the wall behind him. They look like classics. Collectibles. I wonder if he’s read any of the books or if they’re just more ingredients for his intimidation.

“Silas!” His voice is so deep and sharp; it feels like the tip of a knife piercing my ears. I press my hand against the side of my neck and squeeze before looking at him again. He eyes the chair across from him, silently commanding me to sit down.

I get the feeling yesterday’s Silas would be saying, “Yes, sir,” right about now.

Today’s Silas smiles and walks slowly to his seat.

“Why was she inside this house today?”

He’s referring to Charlie like she’s poison. He’s referring to her the same way her mother referred to me. I look down at the arm of the chair and pick at a piece of worn leather. “She wasn’t feeling well at school. She needed a ride home, and we took a quick detour.”

This man…
my father
…leans back in his chair. He brings a hand up to his jaw and rubs it.

Five seconds pass.

Ten seconds pass.

Fifteen.

He finally leans forward again. “You seeing her again?”

Is this a trick question? Because it feels like one.

If I say yes, it’ll obviously piss him off. If I say no, it feels like I’ll be letting him win. I don’t know why, but I really don’t want this man to win. He seems like he’s accustomed to winning.

“What if I am?”

His hand is no longer rubbing his jaw because it’s now moving across the desk, fisting into the collar of my shirt. He yanks me toward him just as my hands grip the edges of the desk for resistance. We’re eye to eye now, and I expect he’s about to hit me. I wonder if this type of interaction with him is common?

Instead of hitting me like I know he wants to, he pushes his fist against my chest and releases me. I fall back into my seat, but only for a second. I push out of my chair and take a few steps back.

I probably should have hit the asshole, but I don’t hate him enough to do that yet. I also don’t like him enough to be affected by his reaction. It does confuse me, though.

He picks up a paperweight and hurls it across the room, luckily not in my direction. It smashes against a wooden shelf and knocks the contents to the floor. A few books. A picture frame. A rock.

I stand still and watch him pace back and forth, beads of sweat dripping from his forehead. I don’t understand why he could possibly be this upset over the fact that Charlie was here today. Especially since Ezra said we grew up together.

His palms are now flat against the desk. He’s breathing heavily, nostrils flaring like a raging bull. I expect him to start kicking up dust with his foot any second now. “We had an understanding, Silas. Me and you. I wasn’t going to push you to testify if you swore to me you wouldn’t see that man’s daughter again.” One of his hands flail toward a locked cabinet while his other hand runs through what’s left of his thinning hair. “I know you don’t think she took those files from this office, but I know she did! And the only reason I haven’t pursued it further is because you
swore
to me we wouldn’t have to deal with that family again. And here you are…” He shudders.
Literally
shudders. “Here you are bringing her to this house like the last twelve months never even happened!” More frustrated hand flailing, twisted facial expressions. “That girl’s father almost
ruined
this family, Silas! Does that not mean a damn thing to you?”