One Shot Away (8 page)

“You sound worried.” She comes into his arms. She presses against him.

“I just have the preseason dreads.”

“You'll be fine.” She takes his hand and places it on her sweater over her breast. “Have you ever had a girl in your room?” Her voice is dreamy, but she's smiling.

“Just my mother.”

The doorbell buzzes. Jimmy looks over Roxanne's shoulder. “Ma,” he calls. “Could you get that?”

“I'm putting the laundry in. Just see who it is.”

Jimmy opens the front window drape a few inches. Two men in suit jackets and loose-fitting neckties wait on the stoop. They are square-shouldered and clean-shaven. One is bald—his head shaved so close the streetlight reflects off it. A dark four-door sedan with no hubcaps and black wall tires is in front of the house. Police. The stolen lumber smashes into his brain. Jimmy feels a line of sweat rising on his spine.

Trish sneaks a quick view of the stoop.

Jimmy backs into the kitchen. He's trying to breathe normally.

“What's the matter?” Roxanne takes his hand.

His mother opens the door. The bald detective is a bull with a thick neck, a large nose and mouth. He's holding up a gold badge. The other detective is young with a dark crew cut. Trish invites them in.

“I'm Detective Barnes,” says the bald detective. “This is Detective Santos. We'd like to ask your son a few questions about some missing building supplies.”

Roxanne stands next to a cutting board hung on the wall that says “Bless This Mess.” Her green eyes flash from Jimmy to the detectives.

“Maybe you should go,” whispers Jimmy in her ear. He walks her to the stoop and shuts the door behind them.

“Jimmy, what's this about?”

“I don't know. Just don't tell anyone about the cops being here, okay?” He presses his cheek next to hers.

“You're trembling. Are you in trouble?”

Jimmy takes her hands in his. “Don't worry and don't tell anyone.”

“Is it something serious?”

He shakes his head. “I don't know yet. I'll call you later.” They hug.

Jimmy takes his place at the table. His hands have turned to ice.

“James, right?” asks Detective Barnes.

“I go by Jimmy.”

“You're eighteen?” he asks.

“Next week,” says his mother.

“You're a wrestler,” he says. “Varsity, right? What weight class?”

“One-sixty.”

“That's light for your height. I figured you were heavier.”

“Varsity squad for three seasons,” says his mother.

“I've seen your son's name in the paper,” says Detective Santos. “You have a lot to be proud of.”

Detective Barnes writes the date on the top of his pad. He raises his eyes. “Do you help your father on carpentry jobs?”

The question thumps Jimmy like a blow on the head.

“If this is about my husband, why don't you ask him the questions?” His mother's lips flatten on her teeth.

“It's about your husband and your son. They were pulled over with a load of lumber in his truck. Your husband didn't tell you about it?”

“He mentioned it,” she says.

“Your husband told the officer that they were on their way to a job site. Jimmy, do you remember that?”

Jimmy swallows.

“Where was that job?” asks Detective Barnes.

Jimmy considers the lies his father told to the policeman. He doesn't want to repeat them.

“Your father was transporting lumber for a job, right?” he asks again.

“Right,” agrees Jimmy.

“What did your dad do with the lumber?”

“I don't know. He dropped me home.”

Detective Barnes writes something in his pad. “Where did he pick up the lumber?”

“I'm blanking out. I've been starving myself to make weight.”

Detective Barnes smiles. “You do remember being pulled over by the marked unit?”

“Marked unit?” repeats Jimmy.

“The police car, the officer?” he asks. “Your dad failed to display a warning flag on the lumber. Do you remember that?”

“I was sleeping through most of it.” His palms are soaked. Jimmy wipes them on his jeans.

“Dead to the world, huh? Not according to the officer,” says Detective Santos. “He said you looked nervous. He said he didn't write your father a ticket because he knew you wrestled for the high school and you looked like a good kid.”

“He is a good kid,” says Trish.

“We're trying to learn what happened that night,” says Detective Barnes.

“It's obvious Jimmy doesn't know, or he doesn't remember,” she says.

“Nothing is obvious.” Detective Barnes leans back and crosses his leg. He places his large hand at the top of his sock and massages his ankle. “I used to work highway patrol,” he says. “If I pulled someone over in a stolen vehicle, ninety-nine percent of the time they couldn't keep their story straight because they were lying. They'd try to hand over their driver's license and I'd watch it in their hand, shaking like a leaf.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” asks Trish.

“I've heard a lot of stories.” He uncrosses his legs and folds his arms.

“Is my son going to be arrested?” she asks. “Don't you have to read him his rights?”

“Whoa, hold on.” Detective Barnes raises his palms. “That's TV, this is a simple interview. We're trying to connect the dots. No one is getting arrested, at least not tonight.”

At least not tonight! The tiny hairs on Jimmy's arms stand up and he shivers.

“At the same time, you should know, this is a grand-larceny investigation. A felony. If your son were arrested, he could do time in prison,” says Santos. “He could forget wrestling and whatever came after.” He looks at Jimmy. “So why don't we start from the beginning?”

“I'd like to talk to a lawyer,” says Trish.

“Ending this interview now wouldn't be the best thing for your son,” says Santos.

“I'm asking you both nice.” She fixes her eyes on Detective Barnes.

“Could we look around?” asks Detective Santos.

Jimmy wants to take a shower, pull his bed covers over his head. He wants them gone from the house.

“Why?” His mother's face is unyielding.

Leave, please leave
.

“Well, if you let us take a look around,” he says, “we'd be that much further with the investigation.”

“No.” Trish shakes her head. “It's late, and everyone's tired.”

The detectives stand. “What does your husband keep in the shed in the backyard?”

“What does anyone keep in a shed? Stuff.”

Detective Santos is looking in an ashtray on top of the stereo cabinet. Jimmy follows his gaze to a joint with his mother's rose lipstick on one end. The detective pokes the joint with his pen. “Who's smoking marijuana?”

His mother holds her hands in front of her face like someone praying. “Oh, come on, that must have been there for six months. We had a party and someone—”

“It's not yours?” Detective Santos asks.

“No,” she laughs. “I've got kids here.”

“You could get charged for this.”

“For one lousy joint? Oh, I get it—if I let you look around, I don't get arrested.” Neither detective budges. Trish searches their faces. “Then go ahead and take a look,” she says.

“We'll start with the shed,” says Detective Barnes, moving toward the back of the house.

“I told you that's my husband's. I can't give you permission for the shed.”

“What does he keep in there?”

“It's not my stuff. I don't bother with it. He told me it's off limits.”

“Off limits? A shed in your yard is off limits?” Detective Barnes smirks. “We can start with the house if you want, but we will get to the shed eventually. If not today, then someday soon. We could get a warrant.”

“I don't think so.” She's not blinking. She's almost daring them.

The detectives walk through the rooms and poke their heads in the alcove. They open the closet door.

“Make this easy and get it over with,” says Detective Barnes. “All that's left is the shed.”

“Enough,” says Trish. “We're done.”

“Not quite,” says Detective Santos. “Flush the joint.”

Trish opens her mouth an inch and takes a few short breaths. She grabs the joint from the ashtray and strides into the bathroom. The toilet flushes.

Roxanne's Volvo idles across the street. Jimmy is flooded with relief. She waited for him. He jogs to the car. Roxanne turns the radio off. “Are you all right?”

Should he tell her about stealing the lumber to pay an overdue mortgage, about his mother spending money on pot? That he didn't know his father was a bona fide thief? “I'm okay.” He takes her hand. “Thanks for not leaving.”

“Jimmy, I know it can't be anything terrible, right?” She brings his hand to her lips and kisses it. Her confidence in him is overwhelming. He wipes his eyes on the shoulder of her coat and buries his face in her honey brown hair. All he wants to do is hold her.

“No, it's not that bad,” he says.

“What did they want?” She's wide-eyed and serious. “I mean, if you want to tell me.”

Jimmy considers laying it out to her, describing the night moment by moment, the wet earth, the guard, the police lights. He wants to trust her, but should she know? What would she think of him? “It's my father. He's always getting into trouble at work.”

She bites her bottom lip, waiting for more.

“I don't even know what it's really about.” He tries to smile.

“Is that the truth?”

“Yeah.”

She lets go a breath. “Close your eyes.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

He hears some rustling, then something is placed on his lap. “Open,” she says.

It's his jacket. Above his name in thread script it says “Captain.”

“It's perfect, really, thank you.” He didn't buy her a gift.

“Can I wear it?” she asks.

“Of course.” She climbs over the bucket seat and almost falls on top of him. He feels her warm body. Her weight. The firmness of her breasts on his chest.

“Move the seat back,” she says.

He finds the control and floats the seat back, until she's lying on top of him with their noses touching. Their mouths come together. It is the longest kiss. When they come up, the windows are fogged and the streetlight is blinking on and off.

D
IGGY COULD HAVE PRACTICED, BUT HIS LIP IS STILL SWOLLEN
. So after warmups he settles on the corner of the wrestling mat, his Spanish book on his lap, thankful that he's not sweating to Greco's whistle. Diggy fell behind in Spanish III. Señora Rodriguez is relentless on verb tenses. She doesn't allow anyone to move to a new tense until they master the last one. He's stuck on the imperfect. He could never memorize or concentrate on anything for very long. Names, dates, and events become tangled in his head like wrestlers in a giant heap. Words and letters leap around the page like frogs. In grammar school, he was tutored in math and English. Diggy once overheard his mother use the term “learning disability” while she was talking to his tutor. Afterward he confronted her. She became flustered and said he was just a slow learner; “You'll outgrow it, don't worry.”

He reads lines in his text:
Yo estaba hablando
. I was speaking.
Estabamos comiendo
. We were eating.
Estabas leyendo un libro
. He closes his textbook. He nods to Jane, who's lounging in the bleachers across the gym. She nods back. Jane's been watching him for almost the entire practice. She's the team's groupie, sort of an obsessed one-girl wrestling fan club, officially called “manager” by Coach Greco. At matches, she keeps the time clock, the score, and mops blood off the wrestling mat with a rag soaked in Clorox. There were two other girl managers last year. The guys called them the Lemming Sisters because they'd basically run off a cliff if you told them to. Both graduated.

Jane's tall and scrappy, with slim hips, C-cup tits, and abs hard as a wrestler's. She's got dull brown hair that falls past her shoulders. Diggy considers calling her over, but there's this thing about Jane: she's got a birthmark around her right eye, covering half her forehead. It looks as if it could be peeled off like dried Elmer's glue. Even in grammar school, when Diggy lived on the same block as her, she was Jane the Stain.