Running Lean (7 page)

His panic turned like a shifting whirlwind, getting darker and more violent. Worst grades of his life last semester, and Peyton was poking her nose into his private stuff. “What were you doing looking at my progress report?”

“Mom left it on the desk.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is my business. You’re my brother—”

“You’ve got no right to judge me about anything like you’re so perfect.”

“Don’t make this about me. You’re the one looking at porn.”

“And what were you doing that time you were out all night with Ryan, Miss Abstinence-Until-Marriage.”

Her eyes widened. He’d got her.

“You just … worry about yourself,” she stammered.

“Good advice. Why don’t you take it?”

A door opened. Someone walked through the living room—Calvin could guess who by the heavy thud of his footsteps.

“What’s going on in here?” Dad asked.

Calvin glared at Peyton and shook his head. “Don’t,” he whispered.

Peyton sighed. She turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “I heard noises. Calvin was messing around on the computer.”

“It’s almost two thirty. Both o’ y’all get to bed. We got church in the morning.”

Calvin followed Peyton upstairs. At the door of the room she shared with Lizzie, Peyton whirled to face him. “Don’t think you can get away with it again.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. I’ll remember that. Thanks,
Mom
.”

“Calvin—”

“Whatever. I didn’t do anything wrong.” He angled past her and headed up another flight of narrow, steep stairs to the partially finished attic room he’d shared with Michael. The plywood floor creaked beneath his feet and the bed thumped and rattled as he fell into it.

Calvin stared at the roof joists, his eyeballs throbbing and his limbs trembling. As the minutes passed, marked by the chirruping of frogs outside, his anger faded but was replaced by fear. He was afraid to sleep, afraid to dream, afraid of nightmare visions of bones with Stacey’s face.

C
alvin leaned toward the bathroom mirror as if a closer view would help him figure out what he was doing wrong. His tie never looked right when he knotted it himself. The cone-shaped part always ended up lopsided.

He straightened and sighed at his reflection. Clean, presentable.

Exhausted.

Ghosts of his nightmares flitted before his eyes. Skinny girls with smiling mouths and hollow stomachs. Nothing even remotely pornographic about them. The images were scary, like staring at death with the flesh still on.

Calvin swallowed a taste like sour milk.

If Peyton had looked on for a half second longer, she would have known the truth. And she might be helping him, instead of holding an accusation like blackmail over his head.

Sounds of his family getting ready for church filtered through the bathroom door. Lizzie’s whine could cut through a concrete wall.

Calvin ran a comb under the faucet and slicked his curly hair back from his face. It wouldn’t stay that way, but at least Mom wouldn’t fuss at him for a while.

Someone slapped the other side of the door. “Hurry up in there! I gotta go,” Zachary yelled.

“Go in Mom and Dad’s bathroom.”

“Cal-vi-i-in!”

Envisioning the boy dancing from one foot to another and holding himself, Calvin groaned and gave up. His brother pushed past him before he had the door all the way open.

Looking the best he could manage for the formal Easter Sunday service, Calvin carried his suit jacket and dress shoes downstairs. He plopped onto the sagging cushions of the living room couch, and then his eyes were drawn to the flag. Again. Strangely, though, the flag didn’t punch him in the gut this time. It felt … normal. It belonged. He understood it. Unlike the new burden on his heart that was flashing horror movie images into his brain. Could one problem make the other one fade?

No, not right. Nothing would make him stop missing his brother.

Calvin focused his mind on stringing new laces into his shoes, replacing the ones Scamp had chewed.

Mom came out of her bedroom, the floral smell of her perfume advancing before her. She swung to the foot of the stairs. “Y’all hurry up. We are
not
going to be late for Easter service.”

Peyton came downstairs with Lizzie two steps behind. “Ryan is on his way. I’m riding with him.”

One problem solved. Ryan would distract Peyton during church.

Lizzie dropped to the floor in front of Calvin and stuck her face under the coffee table. “Mo-om! Where are my sandals?”

“Wherever you left them,” Mom said, rattling around in her purse for something. “Where in the world are my keys?”

“Wherever you left them,” Lizzie muttered.

Calvin grunted.
Good one, Lizzie
.

His sister slapped the coffee table and stood. “I left them right here by the couch. Calvin, did you do something with my sandals?”

He scrunched up his face. “I didn’t touch your stinky sandals.”

“Shut up. They are not stinky.”

Dad’s heavy tread thumped the floor behind the couch. “Y’all stop arguing. You’ll upset your mama.” He followed Mom into the kitchen. “Babe, help me with this tie, will you?”

Upstairs, a little-boy voice bellowed, “
Cowabunga!
”

The distinct hollow sound of a bouncing ball struck the steps three times. Calvin turned his head in time to see a soccer ball rebound off the last step then come down on top of Mom’s antique curio cabinet. Everything inside the curio tinkled and rattled. A bronze horse figurine tipped off the top and thudded to the floor. A stack of mail fluttered down after it.

“What was that?” Mom shouted. She rounded the corner from the kitchen.

“Nothing broke,” Jacob called.

“
Jacob!
How many times have I told you not to throw footballs, basketballs, baseballs, volleyballs, soccer balls, hockey pucks, Frisbees, or foosballs in the house?”

“A hundred and eleven?” Jacob’s voice faded as he dashed into some hiding place upstairs.

An involuntary grin came to Calvin’s tight lips. Laughing would guarantee a smack on the back of his head.

Michael would have loved it.

Calvin missed laughter.

Mom muttered to herself as she checked the curio contents and bent to retrieve the figurine. “Lizzie, did you get your baby sister dressed?”

“Yes, Mom. She’s in her playpen. I still can’t find my sandals.”

Zachary, smartly dressed in a pale yellow shirt and a purple-and-gold—striped clip-on tie, came into the room and threw himself onto the couch beside Calvin. Grinning, he raised a finger to his lips to signal Calvin’s silence.

Having restored everything to its proper place on the curio,
Mom turned. She sighed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Elizabeth, your sandals are on top of the drapery rod.”

Lizzie whirled toward the windows and gasped. “Zachary!”

“Ha, ha!” Zachary rolled off the couch and crawled under an end table to escape his enraged sister.

Lizzie climbed on Dad’s recliner to retrieve her sandals while Zachary ran outside. Yapping, Scamp dashed out behind Zachary before the screen door smacked the frame. Jacob appeared at the foot of the stairs. Still in his underwear. Silence fell for a single breath.

“Oh, dear Lord, have mercy on this family,” Mom said in a tone that sounded nothing like a prayer. “Calvin, would you
please
get the rest of the kids into the van while I dress this child?”

Calvin bounded up. He grabbed Mom’s keys off the end table—where she had left them after her third trip to the grocery store yesterday. “Everyone, in the van. Lizzie, get Emily.”

“Ooh, thinks he’s the boss now,” Lizzie cooed, “like he’s just so perfect.”

“Not,” Peyton muttered as she beat him to the front door.

“Wow. We’re all just
so
holy, aren’t we?” Calvin thudded across the porch behind her.

Inside the house, Jacob wailed, Mom complained, and Dad barked short commands. Calvin searched for Zachary under the front porch. He could guess what Mom would say about the kid’s soiled church clothes. He didn’t want to think about what she’d say if Peyton ratted on him about what she thought she’d seen last night.
Happy Easter
.

Piano notes echoed sweetly through the sanctuary and a hundred voices lifted to the ceiling.
Alleluia, He is risen, Alleluia
. Calvin sang half-heartedly. He glanced at Peyton, who was standing at the
other end of their pew, and caught her staring. Probably thinking he was a hypocrite for singing at all.

The hymn ended and a woman stood to sing a solo. Calvin sat down while attempting to arrange his khaki slacks. The hand-me-downs from Michael were already too small. When the hymn moved into an instrumental part, Calvin leaned toward his father to whisper, “Can I borrow the truck this afternoon?”

Dad kept his eyes forward. “Where you going?”

“To see Stacey.”

“Easter. We spend it as a family. And she should be with hers.”

Calvin huffed and settled back against the wooden pew. Stacey had said her parents went to church twice a year—Easter and Christmas. Maybe. Would they be bothered if their daughter went out this afternoon?

Dad coughed, his fist against his mouth. “You can see her tomorrow. Think we need to talk later this afternoon, you and me.”

A warning stiffened Calvin’s spine. Had Peyton said something to Dad? Calvin stared at the singer, tried to look like he was listening.

He barely heard the words.

After the service and the holiday greetings with other church members—the pastor and his wife, other elders of the church, and Mom’s friends in the women’s group along with a few regular customers from Dad’s automotive shop—Calvin’s family tumbled out to the parking lot and loaded into Mom’s nine-passenger van. Calvin sat in the back seat with Lizzie. All the way home, the boys in the middle row played some distorted version of rock-paper-scissors, which always seemed to favor Zachary and brought Jacob to whining tears again.

Sitting next to Calvin, Lizzie dug in her purse for something then gave up with a sigh. “I heard Dad say he wanted to talk to you. You in trouble?”

Calvin guessed she couldn’t find her iPod to shut out the noise and decided to talk to him instead. Nice. He answered with a shrug.

“Want to hide in my room? He’ll never look for you there.”

Calvin grunted. “Tempting. If I can stand an overdose of boy band singers. Pro’bly get a rash.”

Lizzie’s chin jutted upward with her snort. “You could learn a few things from those guys.”

“Like what? How to make tweenie girls sigh? I could get arrested for that. Child endangerment.”

“You wish. You’re the least dangerous guy I know.”

He resisted a smile. “Think so? We’ll see.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

Calvin looked out the side window like he was too cool for the conversation. “It’s on now, sister.”

She groaned. “See if I try to be nice to you again.”

Easter supper happened early in the afternoon, with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and some cousins joining them. Vegetable casseroles and creamy salads surrounded Mom’s roast lamb on the table, and everyone served themselves buffet style. Calvin filled his plate like all the others, but stared at it for a long time. His stomach rumbled. His mouth watered. His mind argued that the food would taste delicious and make him happy, but his heart wouldn’t let him take more than a few bites.

Was Stacey doing the same? Is this what she felt when she sat down to a meal? Perched on the front steps with his plate on his knees, Calvin tried to analyze the reasons for his lack of appetite. It was just feeling sad and worried, right? He’d yet to hear anyone mention Michael’s name, but his absence created a gaping hole. Added to that, the problem with Stacey kept tugging at his thoughts, no matter what he did. And the sight of Peyton with her fiancé—who
somehow was excluded from the “family only” regulation—acting as if nothing had happened last night set Calvin’s anger on a low simmer. It was enough stuff to kill anyone’s appetite.

What was Stacey upset about? What wasn’t she telling him?

Yeah, secrets. That’s what I needed to be thinking about right now
.

He made himself finish the food on his plate, so he wouldn’t offend any of the chefs. Aunt Sally, who’d brought her “famous” butternut squash casserole, would take it quite personally if she didn’t go home tonight with a bowl scraped clean of every last bit of baked-on cheese.

Inside the house, the kids were crashing or cranky from too much Easter basket candy, and the adults were settling down in every available chair with loosened belts and half-lidded eyes. Calvin disposed of his plastic plate and drink cup and headed toward the stairs. Maybe he could disappear into his room and no one would notice.

A seven-year-old cousin foiled his plan. Her blonde hair a wild halo about her head, Morgan ran up and attached herself to Calvin’s leg. “Take me for a ride on your bike, pleeeeese!”

He clasped her little hands to gently peel her off. “Sorry, baby girl. Bike’s busted.”

A much larger hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Yeah, let’s go out to the workshop and talk about that, buddy.”

No escape. Calvin ruffled the little girl’s hair and dragged himself outside behind his father.

In the workshop, Dad fiddled with a wrench as he rested his backside against the worktable and began the parental interrogation. “Kinda concerned about you, bud. Everything okay?”

Calvin shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the tarp-covered Mustang. “Yeah.”

“School? Doin’ any better?”

Not up to his “full potential.” He’d heard the speech before. Last fall he’d signed up for the toughest classes of his life but botched the
first semester because he had to deal with a funeral. Things hadn’t improved much since then.

“I’ll get through it,” he said.

“I know … it’s tough. But you gotta find a way to make it work. If you want to get into college—”

“I know, Dad.”

Dad hummed and made fleshy tapping noises with the wrench in his hands. “What else is going on?”

Calvin turned sideways, taking in his bike sitting near the wall. The Yamaha looked tired. Lonely, dull, like a stray dog hiding in the shadows, remembering the days when someone loved him. Its chrome didn’t pick up any reflection from the daylight just a few feet away.

Calvin swallowed. He grabbed at his ready excuse. “I gotta find another throttle cable.”

“I hear ya. Mike had trouble finding parts for his car too. But that ol’ bike … Don’t know you can find too many parts for it anymore. Might have to let it go, I’m afraid.”

Calvin snapped his head up to look at his father. “I’ll get one. Somehow.”

Dad’s expression—not quite scowling, but almost—told Calvin he didn’t call him into the workshop to talk about Michael’s classic car or a broken-down motorcycle. “Cal, what happened last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Son—”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to use the computer. Peyton thought she saw something, but she didn’t. And she wouldn’t believe me when I told her it was nothing.”

Because he’d panicked and clicked away from everything, like any guilty person would.

“What did she see?”

“Ah … I don’t know.” He reached up toward his hair then dropped his hand and slapped his thigh. Just like a guilty person
would. “A popup ad. A woman in a bathing suit. I can’t control stuff that pops up. I was looking for motorcycle parts.”

Dad drew a slow breath through his mouth then blew it out. “Motorcycle parts. Yeah, they got some raunchy stuff on some of them sites.”

“Yes, they do. But Peyton wouldn’t believe me, and she started screeching and woke you up.”

“She can be a little high-strung.”

Calvin thrust two index fingers toward his father. “Exactly.”

“Why couldn’t you sleep? Something bugging you?”

“The bike! Tyler and Flannery want to go riding this week.”

“Hmm. Your mama said Stacey got sick yesterday.”

Calvin jiggled his head. Switch gears. He’d spent more time that morning thinking about how to defend himself than what he could say about the truth.