Silt, Denver Cereal Volume 8 (20 page)

“
She’s one of the girls,”
Charlie said. “She’s not here anymore.”

“
Oh,” Mike said. “I’m
really sorry, Tim.”

“
I wanted Charlie to show
me where it happened, you know?” Tim looked at Mike. “But
he . . .”

“
Charlie?” Mike scowled at
Charlie.

Charlie shrugged.

“
She had this necklace,”
Tim said. “She wore it every day and . . . I keep
dreaming about it. Like it’s there waiting for me to find
it.”

Charlie looked at Mike.

“
I play here because she
thought the guys came from East because she was at a dance at East
before . . . And . . . they were tall
so I thought they might play basketball and . . .
I’m going to find them.” Tim nodded.

Mike gave Charlie a wilting look.

“
Charlie would be happy to
help you and your family,” Mike said. “Do you want to call your
parents?”

Tim shook his head.

“
About dinner,” Mike
said.

“
Oh,” Tim said.
“Sure.”

“
Why don’t you call your
parents and invite them too?” Mike asked. “There’s always
plenty.”

“
I think they would like
that,” Tim said. “And then could we
go . . .?”

Mike put his arm over Charlie’s shoulder.
Charlie looked at him.

“
We’d love to,” Mike said.
“In fact, we’ll all go. Right Charlie?”

“
Sure,” Charlie said.
“Everybody gets involved in everything at our house.”

“
When’s dinner?” Tim
smiled. Charlie realized it was the first time he’d seen the kid
smile.

“
We’re eating at seven,”
Mike said. “We have to wait for Sissy to get home.”

“
Sissy Delgado lives with
you.” Tim blushed.

“
She’s my sister,” Charlie
said.

“
She’s
just . . . beautiful,” Tim swallowed
hard.

“
She’s my
sister
.” Charlie’s voice
was a little sinister and Tim jumped.

“
One thing at a time,”
Mike said. “Why don’t you go home and talk to your parents? Let us
know about dinner. If tonight doesn’t work, then another night
will.”

“
But we can go tonight
right?” Tim asked. “To the place where . . . you
know? Right?”

“
Sure,” Charlie
said.

“
It’s all set,” Mike said.
“We have to go. Charlie’s on an ankle monitor. If he’s not home in
ten minutes, the cops come.”

“
Okay,” the boy said. “See
you later.”

The boy smiled and rode off on his bike.
Mike gave Buster’s leash to Charlie.

“
That was very nice of
you, Charlie,” Mike said, and set off with Sarah and
Scooter.

Charlie scowled after him.

“
Are you coming?” Mike
asked. “We’ve got to hurry.”

Charlie ran to catch up with Mike.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday evening—5:45 p.m.

Sandy opened the side door to the Castle and
stepped into the main living room. She smiled at Delphie who was
leaning against the back of the couch.

“
Can I talk to you for a
minute?” Delphie asked.

“
Sure,” Sandy said. “I
need to get the kids ready for dinner. Is Aden home?”

“
Aden, Jake, and Sam are
meeting with the site managers,” Delphie said.

“
I thought that was
happening this morning.” Sandy hung up her coat.

“
They couldn’t work it
out.”

Delphie gave an impatient nod. Sandy grinned
at her impatience.

“
What’s up?” Sandy
asked.

“
It’s about Ivy,” Delphie
said, and then clammed up.

Sandy smiled, but Delphie didn’t say
anything else.

“
What about Ivy?” Sandy
looked up to see Honey wheeling across the living room with Maggie
in her lap. Honey pointed to the kitchen and Sandy
nodded.

“
Ivy?” Delphie
asked.

“
Are you feeling all
right?” Sandy asked.

“
Me?” Delphie asked.
“Fine. Why?”

Sandy smiled. When she first moved here,
she’d found Delphie’s conversation to be very disturbing. She’d
finally asked Sam about it. He told her that until Delphie met
Celia, she’d never had a conversation about herself. It was very
difficult for her to talk about what was going on with her. She
simply needed prodding to even remember what she wanted to talk
about.

“
Would you like to talk
about taking care of Ivy?” Sandy suggested.

“
Yes.” Delphie pointed at
Sandy. “That’s it. Who’s going to take care of Ivy?”

“
What do you mean?” Sandy
asked.

Delphie shook her head and started to walk
toward the kitchen.

“
Do you want to take care
of Ivy?” Sandy asked.

“
Yes.” Delphie turned back
to Sandy. “But I can’t.”

“
How come?” Sandy
asked.

Delphie shook her head.

“
You don’t want to?” Sandy
asked.

Delphie shook her head.

“
You don’t know how?”
Sandy asked.

Delphie nodded.

“
Hmm,” Sandy said. “I see
your dilemma. I’m glad you decided to talk to me about
this.”

Delphie smiled.

“
I bet you feel like you
should take Ivy in because she’s your family,” Sandy
said.

“
You took in Charlie and
Sissy,” Delphie nodded.

“
You took in Nash and
Noelle,” Sandy said.

“
That’s different.”
Delphie’s voice rose with frustration. “That’s not the same thing.
You don’t understand at all.”

“
No, no,” Sandy said. “I
get it. That’s different because Nash and Noelle had daycare and a
father.”

Delphie nodded.

“
But you took care of Nash
and Noelle a lot,” Sandy said.

“
They went home,” Delphie
said. “I don’t have . . .”

She raised her arms as if in a hug. Her
hands moved to her chest and out.

“
Hmm,” Sandy said. “You
feel like you don’t have enough mothering capacity to help a little
girl who’s been hurt so much. That is tough.”

“
And bad.” Delphie looked
crushed. “Broken.”

Sandy hugged her.

“
Not broken,” Sandy said.
“Just different. We all have different gifts.”

Sandy smiled at Delphie.

“
You taught me that,”
Sandy said.

“
But
every
woman should know how
to . . . do . . . that,” Delphie
said.

“
Says who?” Sandy smiled.
“I think it’s awesome that you know this about yourself. That’s
what makes you great.”

Delphie scowled.

“
First off,” Sandy said.
“Not
every
woman
knows how to be a mother. My friend Heather is a great mom, but she
was an only child. She doesn’t have a lot of patience
for . . .”

Sandy pointed upstairs where they could hear
Nash and Noelle yell at each other.

“
You handle that stuff
with ease,” Sandy said. “We’re all different.”

“
What do I do?” Delphie
asked. “I was just like Ivy until . . . and Celia
took me in, but I’m not Celia. I
am
not
. Valerie could take
Ivy. She said she would, but she’s leaving at the end of the week
for her premiere, and then a month in LA. Ivy would be gone like
Jackie.”

Delphie let out a big sigh.

“
I’m going to miss Jackie
so much.” Delphie nodded.

Sandy smiled.

“
Tell you what,” Sandy
said. “I’ll talk to my friend Heather and see what she thinks.
Maybe Ivy could live with them.”

Delphie nodded.

“
I also think that Ivy had
an aunt,” Sandy said. “She was in Afghanistan when her mother died.
That’s why she didn’t take Ivy. I bet she’d want some time with
Ivy.”

Delphie nodded.

“
Would you like it if I
found out what’s possible?” Sandy asked.

Delphie nodded.

“
I’d be happy to,” Sandy
said. “Now I’d better get upstairs before they kill each
other.”

Delphie nodded. Sandy touched Delphie’s
shoulder and left for her apartment. Lost in thought, Delphie
stayed in her spot against the couch.

“
Delphie?” Honey called
from the kitchen. She rolled into the doorway to the living room.
“Mike just called to say that Charlie’s bringing a family home. I
was going to make a quick pot pie for the kids with the left-over
chicken from last night. Where did you put the puff
pastry?”

“
I think the boys made
something with it.” Delphie smiled. This was something she could
do.

“
Crap,” Honey
said.

“
How ‘bout if I make the
crust and you make the inside?” Delphie stood up.

“
Deal,” Honey
smiled.

Delphie put her arm over Honey’s shoulder
and they went into the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday evening—6:00 p.m.

“
Ready?” Sam
asked.

Jacob nodded. Aden pushed open the door to
the large conference room and followed the men inside. The tension
in the room was thick.

The female site managers took up the far end
of the table while the black men sat closer to the front. The white
men sat across from them and the Hispanic site managers stood in
the back.

Once a cohesive group, the site managers now
wouldn’t even look at each other.

“
I’m going to cut to the
chase,” Jacob said. “We’re pulling out of the site near the
airport.”

As if on fire, the site managers erupted
with rage.

“
I told you so,” Rodney’s
replacement site managers screamed at the top of their
lungs.

The women had a loud conversation across the
table with each other. The men along the back wall argued with each
other in Spanish and the men along the side looked smug.

“
Settle down,” Aden
said.

The white men got up and turned their backs
on the rest of the room. A woman got up and knocked one of the
chairs over. The men at the back were yelling, and Rodney’s
replacements fell quiet, almost too quiet.

“
Enough,” Sam
said.

Everyone stopped moving.

“
That is enough,” Sam
said.

The site managers turned to look at him.

“
Get your rear ends in a
chair,” Sam pointed to the men in the back of the room.
“Ladies—make some space for them. You—along this side. They don’t
have cooties. Move over. And you men! Turn your chairs
around.”

“
But Sam!” Started a man
who’d turned his chair away.

“
Stuff it,” Sam said. “Now
means do it now.”

He pointed to the black men.

“
Wipe those looks off your
faces,” Sam said. “You’re scaring . . .
Jake.”

Bambi chuckled. Her chuckle moved around the
room until everyone was smiling. The men in the back filtered into
chairs around the room.

“
Now, mix yourselves up,”
Sam said. “We are not the ‘Black Dudes’ vs. ‘Those Honkies’ vs.
‘The ladies’ vs. ‘Those Hispanics.’ . . .“

“
Honkies?” Aden looked at
Jake, and he looked away to keep from laughing.

“
Latinos,” one of the
Latino women said.

“
Yeah? Did you know what I
meant?” Sam asked.

She grinned at him.

“
We are one company,” Sam
said. “We have a big problem. Everyone needs to put your
differences aside and get to work fixing it.”

Every eye turned to Sam.

“
Now, I think you know
that Jake is friends with that singer Jeraine,” Sam said. “Celia
and I’ve known Bumpy and his family for a long time.”

“
He’s Rodney’s
son-in-law,” DeShawn Jones, one of Rodney’s replacement site
managers, said.

“
That’s right,” Sam said.
“Jake went to his house last night and saw this.”

Sam nodded to Aden.

“
Go ahead,” Aden
said.

Sam pushed the button and Jeraine’s map came
up on the screen behind them.

“
Notice anything?” Sam
asked.

“
That can’t possibly be
right.” One of the female site managers stood up. “Nate and I went
through those with Aden.”

“
Felicia, can you show the
rest of us what you see?” Sam asked.

She looked at Bambi, and Bambi gave a “go
ahead” nod. She pointed to the cluster of fault lines running under
the location of their big work site.

“
Now you know,” Sam said.
He let the information sink in. When their eyes turned to look at
him, he said, “It’s up to us to determine what to do
next.”

Chapter Two Hundred and
Thirty-Four
Down by the river

Wednesday evening—8:12 p.m.

“
I’m not going.” Ivy
screamed. “You can’t make me!”

Tink and Ivy had begged Heather to take them
to the Castle to help Charlie show the Logans where their daughter
had been attacked. After dinner with Tim and his parents, when the
niceties were over, Ivy had become more and more belligerent.