The Summer the World Ended (21 page)

He fixed her with a narrow-eyed squint. “That was you?”

“No effing way.” She gasped. His voice was deep enough to sound like a grown man over the headset. One hand clamped loose over her mouth as uncontainable laughter got her. “What are the odds…”
that I’d be virtually knifing a guy that lives near my dad while my Mom dies in the next room.
Giggling became crying.

“Kidding. Hey.” He grabbed her hand. “Sorry, I… Uh…” Kieran scratched his head. “Have no idea what about that was worth making you cry.”

“I’m…” She closed her eyes and let the breath out of her lungs before wiping her face on her… lack of sleeves.
Crap.
“Sorry. That was me. Not your fault.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He tilted his head, seeming unsure if he should smile.

“Yeah.” She glanced at the bar pool table behind her. “Your voice reminded me of someone I killed.”

His jaw dropped.

“Xbox.” She winked.

Kieran chuckled and gestured at the table. “Ever play?”

She shook her head, folded her arms, and offered a doubtful look as he ran to grab a pair of sticks. He racked and wandered over, holding up the white ball and a stick.

“You break.” He pointed. “Put the white ball there and try to hit it into the pack as hard as you can.”

She grabbed the cue. “I’ve played on Mom’s computer, I know how the rules work… just never for real.”

Her confidence evaporated when her stroke glanced off the cue ball, sending it curving with a limp spin. He caught it before it disrupted the rack and waved for her to try again. She whacked it dead center on the second try, not bothering to use any of the fanciness she’d gotten used to in the virtual version. Nothing went in.

She half sat on the edge of the table, waiting with one hand on the stick and the end between her feet while Kieran tended to customers. He took a shot when he returned, leaning in and hitting the ball seemingly at random. When a solid dropped, he almost grimaced as if he’d wanted to miss on purpose. He noticed her eye roll and sank two more before the cue ball wound up in a place he had no decent shot.

He chatted about a couple games, mostly about various editions of
Call of Duty,
which had occupied most of her gaming life as of late. It made her long for Amber, but also brought something familiar back into her life. Talking to him got easier as time went on, and she found herself growing more and more annoyed whenever he needed to take a break to run around the dining room. He hadn’t thrown the kind of time at the game she had. At one point when he left her alone to escort a group of three obvious tourists to a table, she sulked at the fading green felt. Talking about the game left her simultaneously homesick and hopeful.

He hurried to the kitchen, and returned to her a minute later. “Did you take your shot?”

“No.” She glanced at the clock. “I should go. Dad’s gonna be waiting for me in like ten minutes.”
Don’t wanna know what he does if I don’t show up. He already hates this town.
She handed him back the stick. “Thanks.”

“Okay.” He set them on the table, hurrying around the end. “Gimme a minute?”

“‘Kay.”

He jogged through the swinging door again. She slipped one foot free of its flip-flop and tapped her toes on the spongy foam. Her ‘epic’ summer was sure turning out weird.

“Let me walk you out?” Kieran approached, smiling. “Mom’s got the floor for a few minutes.”

She almost declined, but thought back to the maniac in the white van. “Sure.”

Before she changed her mind, she grabbed his hand. Kieran didn’t object.

They walked out the door, across the tiny parking lot to the street, and down a block and a half to where the Hernandez Grocery sat on the corner between NM 51 and a road not much bigger than a dirt path.

She looked around, finding no trace of Dad yet. “He’s supposed to pick me up here.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

Riley related the story of the idiot in the white van.

“Doesn’t sound familiar, which means he’s probably not local. I wouldn’t worry about it. Road rage burns out fast. He probably wouldn’t have hit you once he got a good look at you.”

“Why?” She smirked. “Because I look like a kid?”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “You look so sad and lonely.”

Thank you Captain Obvious.
“Yeah well. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

“I’m not talking to you out of pity.” He let his arm fall. “No one else around here has dreams. No imagination. They’re all happy in this dust. I want to climb the ladder, do something with my life. Not spend it in a hole in the ground. I see that in you.”

“Yeah well, I’m not from around here.” She clenched and released her toes. “Dad’s sure the whole town hates him for being an outsider.”

“You have to admit coming to town once every three months and buying a hundred cans of pasta is a bit odd.”

She covered her mouth with both hands to mute the sudden laugh. “Yeah.”

He squinted at a few people watching them from the next block. “People around here don’t like ‘odd.’”

“Am I odd?” She raised an eyebrow.

“No.” He grinned. “You’re perfect.”

Oh, my God.
Her face flushed. “Uh…”
Wow. Awkward.

“I like talking to you.” He glanced to the right at an approaching dust cloud. “Looks like your old man’s right on time. It’s about thirty seconds from being six.”

She forced her way through embarrassment enough to look up. The sight of the tan Silverado at the head of a rolling beige cloud chased away her worry.

“We’re going to the movie theater on Thursday, you wanna come along?”

I didn’t think they knew what movies were out here.
“Uh, sure… if Dad’s okay with it.”

Dad drove by and pulled a U-turn in the parking lot of the Hernandez Grocery. Brakes squeaked as he came to a gentle stop in front of them.

“Great,” said Kieran. “See you then?”

“Sure.” She looked at the truck. “If, well… Yeah.”

Riley climbed in, pulled the seatbelt on, and offered a halfhearted wave as they drove away. She bit her lip and stared down at her legs. After a moment, she pulled open the glove box and examined a jumble of papers and envelopes. A black, rubberized pistol grip lay at the bottom, a bit of a silver barrel visible on the other side.

Holy crap, he wasn’t kidding.

She slammed the hatch closed.

“Who was that?” asked Dad. “Same boy from the restaurant?”

“Yeah. His name is Kieran. His parents own Tommy’s.”

“Did he ask you anything about me or what I do?”

I tried to resist the waterboarding and jumper cables, but I caved in and told him you were overprotective.
“Nothing unusual.”

“Define ‘nothing unusual.’”

“They asked why you avoid town and said you act ‘odd.’ I told them you worked a lot and didn’t have time.”

“Not bad. Did you get the feeling that anyone followed or observed you suspiciously?”

“No. That place is so boring, I think the dust has dust.” She rambled through a brief description of her afternoon, leaving out the bit about the joint. Not that she had any great temptation to try pot, but she had no temptation at all to endure the lecture she figured it would start.

“I feel a little guilty having you cook.” Serious Dad went out the window. He loosened his grip on the wheel and relaxed his posture, even smiled. “I can heat up some SpaghettiOs if you want to be lazy.”

“We still have stew left, and that’s just a microwave away. Should eat it before it goes bad.”

“You are my daughter. So practical.”

Yeah.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. For once, she looked forward to going back to her new bedroom, even if it was in the middle of absolute nowhere.

ad jostled her shoulder, waking her out of the first decent night’s rest she’d had in weeks. Desert cold made it so nice to sleep. The little clock on her nightstand read 07:59 a.m. She whined and rolled back under the covers. Dad chuckled on the way out.

“Okay, sleep in, hon. I’ll warm up some breakfast.”

“Wait.” She stretched. “Why are you waking me up at eight in the morning in the summer? I thought we got to sleep in.”

“I need to be operational in case things escalate. I’m technically working.”

“Oh. Right.” She drifted in and out of consciousness. A momentary recollection of last night’s waterboarding joke returned in the form of a fleeting dream of being strapped down on a wooden locker room bench while four copies of Dad poured warm SpaghettiOs over a cloth on her face. “Gah!”

Riley leapt out of bed and darted through the house, skidding to a halt in the kitchen where Dad fixed himself a cup of coffee. Out of breath, she put a hand on the wall and gasped. He smiled at her, looked her up and down, and chuckled.

“Those pajamas are adorable.”

Teal flannel with a white collar, and little smiley faces for buttons on the top.
The last time I wore these, Mom was still alive.
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes.
Mom bought them for me when she had to replace the skirt that asshat Hensley spilled coffee on.
Riley looked away and down, folding her arms across her chest.
Don’t cry.
The sound of a mug settling down on the counter came a few seconds before Dad’s arms circled her and pulled her tight. She clawed her fingers into his shirt, holding on.
Smells like Dad.

She waited a moment before she risked using her voice. “Wanna watch a movie later? I brought some blu-rays.”

“What do sea creatures have to do with movies?”

“Dad, you’re such a dork.” She let go and gathered stuff to make breakfast, eyed the pot, and helped herself to a cup of coffee.

The sugar in the cabinet was yellow, not to mention a solid brick. No milk in the fridge.

“I’m serious…” He looked it.

“While you were hiding in a cave, they replaced DVDs.” She nudged the fridge closed. “Dad, you got any powdered creamer?”

“Nawp. Drink it black. That way you’ll never be disappointed if you don’t have the fluff. Besides, if you really like
coffee
, you can taste it without all that crap in it.”

Riley took a sip, grimaced, and forced another. “Ugh, how long did it take you to get used to drinking it black?”

He attacked the scrambled eggs she placed in front of him before the plate was out of her hand. “Don’t remember having it any other way.”

She slipped into the seat across from him, crossed her ankles, and let her legs swish back and forth while dumping black pepper on everything. “How old were you when you had coffee the first time?”

“Eleven. We stopped at this little pancake shack at random one day. I ordered coffee out of curiosity. The waitress seemed more shocked than my mother. When no objection came from the parental unit, I got coffee.” He looked up with a mischievous grin. “I had no idea what the little white buckets were for until months later.”

“I never met your parents.” She made a toast-scrambled egg sandwich.

“My father wasn’t around much. Never did get a straight story outta Mom. Ran off, got killed, got arrested. It always changed. After a while, I stopped asking. Mom was a strange duck. Always thought God would watch out for her. I didn’t have a lot of use for the invisible man in the sky, so she got cold and distant. As soon as I was eighteen, I was out, and that was probably the last time I saw her.”