The Rest of Us Just Live Here (19 page)

“Did you actually do anything for her?” I ask, as Meredith heads into the kitchen to make herself a snack, always keeping us in sight.

“I don’t know,” Jared says. “I was feeling all these good things for her, all my hopes that she wasn’t hurt.” He flexes his hands. “Maybe some of that got into her.”

“Are you getting more powerful?” I ask. “Is that … something that would even happen?”

He just frowns and flops down on the sofa. Mary Magdalene sits on the arm of it, watching him, purring and kneading her paws into the fabric. “You take good care of Meredith, okay?” Jared whispers to her, touching her lightly on the nose. The cat immediately jumps off the couch and starts following Meredith around the kitchen.

“Gas main, huh?” he says to me.

“Don’t get me started,” I say, sitting down next to him. “The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

“What
can
we do about it? We don’t know what’s going on.”

“Come on, Jared, surely the Gods must know something–”

“Mikey, it doesn’t
work
like that. Don’t you think I’d be finding out if I could?”

“Finding out what?” Meredith says, scooching up on the couch next to Jared with a plate of cheese and crackers, Mary Magdalene sitting firmly on her feet.

“Finding out what’s really going on, Bite Size,” Jared says, not lying to her either.

Meredith nods seriously. “There’s still hardly anything on the internet. Rumours and theories and indie kids disappearing, but mostly it’s just people monstering other people for thinking it’s vampires again or for
not
thinking it’s vampires again. Everyone thinks they know better. Everyone.” She eats a cracker. “I think I’m going to give away all my Bolts of Fire stuff.”

“I think I’d want to, too,” Jared says.

“You’re sure
you’re
okay?” he asks me later, driving us to work after Mel came home from her day out with Call Me Steve. I could have called in sick, but I was getting antsy just sitting around the house. It felt like I was waiting for something to happen. Which has to be the worst part of being young. So many of your decisions aren’t yours; they’re made by other people. Sometimes they’re made
badly
by other people. Sometimes they’re made by other people who have no idea what the consequences of those decisions might be. The bastards.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“You’re not.”

“I spent an hour brushing my teeth this morning because every time felt like I hadn’t done it right. Mel finally noticed and got me out of it.”

“See?”

“Jared, we have to
do
something. Make the indie kids tell us what they know. Or
Nathan
–”

“Jesus, Mike, would you leave him alone? I told you, he was with me and Henna at the movies.”

“He could still have some part in it. I don’t trust him. Why was he in the Field that time? What’s he doing hanging around my house in the dark?”

“His mom is like the saddest person in the world. I told him we hung around the Field, so maybe he just needed a place to get away. You’re getting obsessive.”

“Of course I am! Have you
met
me? They could have killed my sisters, Jared. It could have happened right there in front of me.”

“And you,” Jared says, more softly. “They could have killed you, too.”

I look at him, then back out the windshield of his tiny car. “Thanks, man.”

“Look, what do we know?” he says. “We know that only one person died.”

“An indie kid.”

“Yes, an indie kid. A nice one. Who was smart and good at math. She didn’t deserve that. None of them did.”

“Unless they’re the ones who stirred all this up.”

“Even then,” Jared says, sternly. “And come on, have you seen them lately? They’re even more scared than the rest of us. And with good reason.”

I don’t say anything, but he’s probably right about that.

“And what I
did
find out from my grandmother–”

“You talked to your grandmother? I thought she was off in her realms, unreachable.”

“It wasn’t easy, in fact it was a huge giant pain in my ass, but what I did find out is that, when it happened before – because she was there once, remember? – this kind of big public thing meant the beginning of the end.”

I wait for him to continue. “What end?”

He shrugs. “However it’s going to be solved. However the indie kids are going to solve it.”

“
If
they solve it.”

“They always have.”

“Doesn’t mean they always will. Doesn’t mean people won’t get hurt before they do. Doesn’t mean more people won’t
die
.”

Jared pulls into a spot in the Grillers parking lot. “We may never find out what’s actually going on, Mike. It may all end with us not seeing anything else–”

“But Jared–”

“Listen to me,”
he says, sounding angry. “We’ve got prom, we’ve got graduation, we’ve got the summer. Then everything changes. Are you going to live all that time until we go afraid?”

“Probably.”

“Please don’t.” He’s still weirdly angry. “Not everyone
has
to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for
them
, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”

He’s gripping the steering wheel, hard, and I can see light flashing from his palms. “What aren’t you telling me?” I ask. “What’s going on?”

He just sighs and the light dims. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know about the cops or the pillars of light or what the indie kids have got themselves mixed up in, but I do know this: one, they better not blow up the high school before we graduate, and two” – he holds up his palms again, they flash a little with faint light – “if anyone I care about is put in harm’s way again, there’s going to be holy hell to pay. Literally.”

And that makes me feel a little bit better.

Our shift is crazy. Tina has to be out on the floor full-time, waiting tables herself, even on what should be a slow week night. It’s like the town knows something’s happening and doesn’t want to be alone either. Mel and Henna bring in Meredith, who sits in my section this time. I take them enough cheesy toast to feed a cheesy-toast-loving sperm whale.

“How’s the tat?” I ask Henna, who answers by hugging me.

“It itches,” she says in my ear, then she leans back and looks at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Just you. Saving people.”

“So you’re not mad at me any more?”

“Who cares about mad?” she says.

“No Nathan tonight?” I can’t help myself from asking.

She frowns and slides in next to Meredith, who’s already got cheesy-toast butter on her face. We’re so busy, that’s all I can really talk to them right then. I bring cheeseburgers for Henna and Meredith and a chicken salad for Mel, who digs in like she’s famished. I notice slightly too long. She makes a face.

They’re still there half an hour later when something completely unexpected happens for the second time this week. It’s not a bomb this time, even if it might as well be.

My dad shows up.

“Dad?” I say, so surprised I stop right there, at the entrance where Tina is wrangling with menus and trying to seat people. There’s a line of customers waiting to get in, which usually only happens on Sunday mornings after all the churches let out. My dad’s at the front of the line, looking around, slightly stunned, but not smelling of booze that I can tell.

“Busy tonight, huh?” he says.

“What are you doing here?”

He fingers his collar, only catching my eye in brief little glances. “Meeting your mother. Is she here?”

“You’re meeting her
here
? At the restaurant?”

My surprise must finally sink in because he stops, seeming confused. “I think so,” he says, and it’s almost a question.

“Uh,” I say, because I really don’t know what else to say.

Tina finally can’t take it any more. “Are you busy?” she says to me, eyes wide, voice high. “Because I am!”

I snap out of it. “Dad, Mel and Meredith are sitting over there with Henna.” I point. Three astonished, frozen faces stare back at us from their booth. “Why don’t you … you know … sit with them?”

My dad nods, but doesn’t head over to the booth. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” he asks me.

Without even looking at her, I hand the coffee pots I’m holding to a really-very-angry-now Tina and follow my dad out into the parking lot. It’s only just getting dark. The rain let off the week before the Bolts of Fire concert and you can tell that summer might actually be on the way. If we live to see it.

My dad scrunches up his face like his mind’s elsewhere and pulls again at his collar. “Why don’t you take your tie off?” I ask.

“Hmm?” he says. He doesn’t touch the tie. He looks at the moon, up already, only about half-full. “When I was your age, we really did think we’d be living up there by now.”

I wait. He doesn’t continue. “I’m kinda busy, Dad. What’s up?”

He scratches his ear. I think for a second that he’s not steady on his feet, but then I realize he’s just shuffling around, not staying still. I lean in and smell him again. He gives me a small grin. “Nope,” he says. “Sober.”

“Well,” I say. “That’s good.”

“Listen,” he starts, but again doesn’t finish.

“Dad, seriously, I–”

“I’m going to go into rehab.”

He stops because a family has come out of the restaurant. Tina leans out the door behind them, looking at me with furious eyes. I flash a “one minute” index finger at her and she goes back inside.

“That’s, um,” I say, “that’s
great
, Dad. I–”

“Not until after the election. But I’m going to go.”

I frown. “I think you’re a bit more important than–”

“Not her idea. Though she’s been asking for years, hasn’t she?”

“I wouldn’t know, Dad, but even so, I think she’d probably–”

“Don’t want to ruin her big moment.” He fidgets some more, catching my eye and looking away. I lean closer.

“Dad?
Dad.
Look at me.”

He hesitates, then looks at me full on. Even in the dusk, I can see that his pupils are pretty much the size of dinner plates. “What have you taken? Valium? Something prescription?”

“I’m fine,” he says, straightening up. “I’ve just got to make it to the election and then I’ll go into rehab and we’ll all be a family again.”

“I’ll be living two states away.”

He slumps a bit. “Yeah. Yeah, I knew that.”

“What are you doing here, Dad? Are you really meeting Mom or did you drag me out of the busiest night of the year just so you could tell me you’re going to rehab in six months?”

He frowns again, looking back up at the moon. “There were going to be cities up there. No poverty, no war. That’s how it was supposed to be.”

“Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll get Mel to drive you home–”

“I need to borrow some money,” he blurts out.

Well,
that
stops me. “You what?”

He sighs. “The campaign didn’t think it was a good idea for me to have full access to the accounts.” He shrugs, like he can’t blame them. “I’m short of cash. I don’t want to ask your mother.”

I don’t know what to say. What
can
I say? I’m not even angry at him. Just so sad I can barely look him in the face.

I take out every tip I’ve collected that evening and hand him the whole wad of cash.

“Thanks–”

“Go wait in your car,” I interrupt, still not looking at him. “Do
not
drive it.”

I turn my back on him.

As my dad lurches into the parking lot, I step into the entryway of the restaurant, grabbing the front door handle. A small red light catches the corner of my eye. I look over. Behind some bushes, in the shadows–

Nathan, smoking.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quickly. “I saw you talking to him and I was going to say hello but then…”

He doesn’t finish, but I know. He was going to say hello, but then he heard my dad being embarrassing and tragic and he got stuck there, not wanting to alert us to his presence by going either backward or forward.

“How much did you hear?” I say, heat in my voice.

“Mike, I–”

“I can’t believe you smoke,” I say. “It’s disgusting. It stinks. You get breath like a dog.
And
it won’t kill you fast enough.”

“It was an accident, Mike, I swear.”

My chest is burning, like it’s being squeezed in a molten vice. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

I don’t look at him once the rest of the night, even though he sits with Henna after Mel takes Meredith and my dad home. At the waitress station, Tina uses every opportunity to shout at me, but I don’t listen to her. I’m too busy repeatedly counting ketchup bottles and wishing I was dead, wishing I was dead, wishing I was dead, wishing I was dead.