Unexpected Dismounts (5 page)

“Once a tour guide, always a tour guide,” Chief said, eyes twinkling at me. Curse the man. He knew exactly what I was doing.

“I’m going to have to brush up on my spiel,” I said, and launched too fast into a rendition of my conversation with Erin O’Hare while Desmond loped ahead of us, shaking moonlit droplets from his hair. When I included the dark drawing Desmond had wanted to rip off the display, the sparkle in Chief’s eyes disappeared.

“That’s not like him,” he said.

“Can we even say that? I mean, seriously, do you realize how little we really know about what happened to him before he came to us—me?”

Nice. Talk about your unexpected dismounts.

“You know what Geneveve told us—you,” he said.

Did he miss nothing, this guy?

“But how much time did I actually have with her once she got sober?” I said. “A month? The Sisters have told me some, mostly Mercedes. I sure don’t get much out of Desmond
.
”

“Oh, you get a lot out of him, just not about his past.” Chief did grin then. “One thing you have to say about the kid: He lives in the moment.”

As was currently being proven by the amount of wet sand that bagged down the seat of Desmond’s jeans. The fact that the child had no hips didn’t help.

“Should I tell him to pull his pants up?” I said.

“Nah,” Chief said. “He’ll figure it out.”

“Hopefully before he steps out of them. Did his grandfather ever tell you anything about him?”

“All old Edwin ever said was that he was a good kid inside, but he couldn’t take care of him anymore.”

“That whole family had so much potential,” I said. I had to fight down the thickness that always set in when I talked about Geneveve. “Except Geneveve’s sister who took off and left her in the street with her kid. What’s her name?”

“I don’t think I ever heard it.”

“Something pretentious sounding—like Daphne or—was it Millicent?”

“Moving on,” Chief said.

“Yeah, well, she did, to Africa or someplace. Anyway, it’s just hard with nobody to ask about what all he’s been through.”

Chief stopped and nodded my gaze to the wiry half child, half adolescent who was currently on all fours, digging in the sand like a dog.

“I don’t know, Classic,” he said. “Maybe his past is better left right where it is. It’s his future we’ve got to focus on now. You remember we have a meeting with the adoption people tomorrow. Liz Doyle and Vickie—”

“Rodriguez. It’s on my calendar.”

One side of his mouth went up. “I hope you handle them better than you did Willa Livengood.”

“Have I mentioned that you are slime?”

“Not so far tonight.”

I actually opened my mouth to do it, but Chief put his fingers in his mouth and gave the Desmond whistle. Desmond turned like a drill bit in the sand and lunged toward us. I should
have
that kind of influence on the boy.

Or the man.

I managed to stay vertical all the way home, and then spent the first ten minutes after Chief left getting the sand out of Desmond’s and my leathers, although Desmond had enough in the rolled-up cuffs of his jeans to make the whole kitchen floor look like Crescent Beach itself. That was helped along by the fact that he was all over the room. I hadn’t seen him that agitated since the last time I took away his helmet.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Nothin’,” he said.

And then proceeded to open the snack drawer, paw through the options, and shut it—which made me want to check him for fever. He went from there to the phone I’d had disconnected months before, listened like he was expecting a dial tone, and abandoned it for the basket of apples on the bistro table, fruit being a food group he’d never shown the slightest interest in, and didn’t now either. The whole time, his long fingers traveled arachnid-like across the counters, and his eyes glanced off of everything and landed on none of it.

I considered telling him to light someplace, but wedging a word in was impossible, the way he was muttering under his breath. I folded my arms and leaned against the counter until he finally hiked himself up on one of the stools, lanky legs dangling, and said, “Here’s the deal, Al. I keep gettin’ this thing in here.” He jabbed at his temple. “It’s tellin’ me this ain’t gon’ work out, you adoptin’ me.”

“Des—”

“It makes me wanna use the D-word and the S-word, which I ain’t gonna do ’cause I done give that up. Also the B-word—”

“Got it—”

“But I got to just chill, ’cause it is gon’ happen. I got you and Mr. Chief.” He stopped again to flash me a grin and tapped his palm, “and I think I got that Liz lady right here.”

I opened my mouth to say, “Undoubtedly,” but I wasn’t quick enough.

“I gotta tell you somethin’, Big Al,” Desmond went on, eyes wise.

“What?” I said.

“You a real good listener.”

He held out his fist to bump mine and then crossed the kitchen with a new lease on the snack drawer.

For a good listener, I didn’t feel all that relieved at what he’d just talked himself into.

CHAPTER THREE

When Desmond was in bed, I retreated to my second-best place to let God in. The red chair-and-a-half in the living room had been the site of Nudges and whispers in the past, so I curled up there with my Bible and an afghan and tried to close the gap that seemed to be widening between God and my growing list of questions. Zelda. All of Sacrament House, for that matter. Chief. Now Desmond, who apparently had a gap of his own that he was trying to fill by drawing threatening creatures with eye patches and ramming around the kitchen having conversations with himself.

But at first, I just stared at the wall of Desmond art that now hung above the couch. The house on Palm Row was in its third evolution of decor, at least in my lifetime. Who knew what had hung on these walls from the 1800s until my parents bought it before I was born? Since then, it had gone from my mother’s dreadful reproduction of a golden age that never existed, to the bright, overstuffed comfort zone Sylvia had transformed it into when they left it to her. Its current look was Essential Big Al and Desmond.

His drawings in the bright-colored frames that HOG friend Stan had made for us. My favorite, the one that sort of looked like Chief but was Desmond’s vision of God.

A red and black Harley-Davidson throw Chief had given Desmond, which the boy insisted needed to be spread on the green striped chair.

Plants Jasmine was growing for me, in pots Sherry made in the class her NA sponsor took her to weekly, placed in front of the long windows facing Palm Row and the side of Owen’s place.

My life had become the people who reached out to me in this house.

The people you virtually dropped one by one on my doorstep
, I said to God
. So—is it too much to ask for a little help with what to do for them now that I’ve let them in?

I shifted uneasily in the chair, feeling like I was in Vice Principal Foo-Foo’s office. I didn’t expect ask-the-question-get-an-answer-move-on. God may have worked that way with some people, but clearly not with me. I’d learned to search the Nudges and whispers given to prophets long before me, guys who were clearly better choices for the job than I was. And I knew to center myself and leave space where I could be moved. I had even figured out that some healthy venting about the situation God had plopped me into could leave me more willing to hear his side.

I did all of it that and still nothing. Nada. I remained Nudge-less. Which usually meant to keep going with the last Nudge. But wasn’t I doing that? Wasn’t I helping the Sisters move toward their baptisms? And Desmond toward his, though he was admittedly several miles behind them, due to the side trips he made along the way. That was the last thing I’d clearly heard from God.

Unless you counted
Wash their feet.

I didn’t. That one had to be the result of sleep deprivation. Maybe early menopause. Or the insanity I always suspected was lurking just around the next bend.

Yeah. I woke up Thursday morning, an hour late, with a crick in my neck.

I’d left the van with Mercedes so she could take Zelda to the dentist, which meant I had to cart Desmond to school on the Harley, not the most comfortable ride with a behind bruised by last night’s dismount. I made Desmond cling to me like a koala bear because Chief had removed the bent sissy bar. Another thing I had to take care of in an already crowded day.

I checked for voice mail as I watched Desmond stroll toward the school building. Our one-sided talk the night before seemed to have soothed his fears about the adoption. I could have sworn I heard him cry out once in his sleep, but when I’d peeked in on him in his room off the kitchen, he was in hibernation. Maybe it was just the Oreos he ate before I discovered he’d consumed half the package.

There was a message from India: “Honey, call me as soon as you get this,” which I did before I pulled away from the school. She picked up with “Darlin’, you are not gon’ believe this.”

“There’s not much I wouldn’t believe,” I said. “Try me.”

“Willa Livengood wants to meet with you again.”

“That I don’t believe.”

“She called me yesterday evening, and now, I’m not saying she
wasn’t
on her second glass of sherry, but she was lucid.”

“How lucid?”

“Enough to say she liked your spunk.”

“Then she must have been on her
third
glass. Last time I saw her she was about to throw a piece of Yardbird at me.”

“Yardbird?”

“Whatever that stuff is in the china cabinet.”

“My
soul,
we have a lot of work to do.” I could picture India re­arranging her expression. “Now, listen. Ms. Willa told me she started thinking about it and she decided that you couldn’t possibly be that much like your parents, and maybe she ought to give you another chance.”

I shifted my helmet to my other hip. “What does that mean?”

“I guess we’ll find out. But we definitely gon’ find a different venue for it. We’ve got to get her off her throne. So, what if I set up a luncheon-slash-fund-raiser and have her as the guest of honor?”

“Tell me some more,” I said. Any time lunch became a luncheon, I immediately had visions of my late mother serving up crustless cucumber sandwiches in the dining room on Palm Row. Not my favorite memory. Or menu.

“We’ll need a program to draw people in,” India said. “I could do a fashion show, maybe find us a nice string quartet.”

What about a footwashing?

The Harley wobbled on its stand, and for a second I thought I’d said it out loud, but India went brightly on. Even though she was now my staunchest supporter, she was still adjusting to God telling me to buy a motorcycle. This
last
message, if it even came from God, was going to require some serious leading up to.

“What do you think?” India said.

“I’ll tell you what I don’t think,” I said. “I don’t think a fashion show and chamber music are going to get rich women to fork over cash for the Sisters of Sacrament House.”

“Honey, it’s what they’re used to.”

“Isn’t the point to take them
out
of what they’re used to? Seriously, what does Mozart have to do with women sleeping in gutters and eating out of Dumpsters?”

“Did you have another plan?” She still sounded India-cordial, bless her heart, but I pictured her rearranging her whole body at that point.

“Let me think about it,” I said. “I’ve got a meeting to get to.”

“Then how about this? I’ll just send out a save-the-date announcement and leave the rest mysterious.” She gave a ladylike harrumph. “Maybe you’re right. These women could use a little mystery in their lives.”

“Go for it,” I said, hung up, and glanced at my watch. I needed to be at the FIP—Family Integrity Program—office in thirty minutes. Their building was only three blocks south of Sacrament House so I had time to swing by there first and see how Zelda was doing.

When I pulled up, the front door was open and I could see through the screen that Mercedes was bustling around the living room with her usual vigor amped up several notches. Not a good sign. She had either just busted somebody’s chops or was about to.

But it was Jasmine who pushed the screen door open before I even reached the bottom step. I could tell she’d been crying. No surprise there.

“I heard you at the corner,” she said. “We was gon’ call you after you had your meetin’.”

“Call me about what?” I said.

At which point she burst into tears.

“You ain’t no good to nobody that way, Jasmine,” Mercedes said. “Go get you a Kleenex.”

“What’s going on, Merce?” I said.

“Zelda.”

“Is she locked in her room again?”

“No. She gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Just gone. For good probably.”

“How do you know that?”

“We was tellin’ her las’ night that she needed to get her a NA sponsor if she want to make any progress, and she just had one a her fits ’bout how we tryin’ to run her life and get in her business. We tol’ her she need to go deeper and she says ‘I ain’t deep. I’m so shallow, you couldn’t go swimmin’ in me.’ Then Sherry start yellin’ and Jasmine start cryin’. It was a mess.”

“You, of course, completely kept your cool,” I said.

“I almos’ did, till she start talkin’ trash ’bout you. Then I lost it.” Mercedes went back to dusting the trunk coffee table with the vengeance of Attila the Hun. “She went all huffy to her room, and when we get up this mornin’, she gone.”

Jasmine emerged from the dining nook, blowing her nose. “Did you tell her what else?”

“What else?” I said.

Mercedes wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“What else?” I said to Jasmine.

“She done took the money in the jar.”

“That money you give me for when stuff come up, like we need a lightbulb or somethin’,” Mercedes said.

“I don’t know why you tol’ her where it was,” Jasmine said.

Mercedes gave her a black look. “What do I look like? I never tol’ her. She just a drug addict thief. They can smell money inside of a steel vault.”

“You think she’s going to use it to buy?” I said.

“There wasn’t enough in there for a fix. Besides, I don’ know and I don’ much care, which is why I’m cleanin’ this room. I got to do some kinda penance or somethin’.”

I didn’t even know where to start telling her what was wrong with that theology. I had to get to the meeting or Chief was going to make
me
do penance.

“This is nobody’s responsibility but Zelda’s,” I said. “Everyone who comes here has the choice to leave whenever she wants. Just—pray for her and I’ll see if I can find her. But don’t either of you go looking, are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.

“And tell Sherry that too, would you?”

“Sherry done gone to work at her daddy’s,” Mercedes said. “You go on now. We be fine.”

I fished in my pocket and pulled out two crumpled-up twenty-dollar bills. “Put this in the jar and I’ll bring you more later.”

Where I was going to get more, and how I was going to locate Zelda and talk her back into Sacrament House, I had no idea. Nor did I recognize the sinking sensation that settled over me even after I was on the Harley and headed for Old Moultrie Street. It might have been a sense of failure, but who knew? I’d never cared about a job enough to give a rip whether I failed at it or not.

I leaned into the parking lot and came headlight-to-face with a startled elderly man in a business suit who was heading toward the building. He held up his briefcase like a shield and jumped out of my way, and, I was sure, staggered inside to have his coronary.

Enough, Allison. Get your mind lined up with a solution or stick it all somewhere for the moment before you mow somebody down.

Or blow this meeting.

I pulled up to the curb and hauled in a deep breath. That wasn’t an option. Not this time.

Chief was already seated at the conference table in Vickie Rodriguez’s office when a harried administrative aide showed me in. I could tell from the way the paperwork was lined up on the tabletop in precise piles that the aide was suffering from Boss Intimidation. When I got my first glimpse at the back of Vickie Rodriguez at the coffeepot, I saw why.

Either the woman was a former ballerina or she was wearing a steel back brace. I’d never seen a spine that straight. Atop it was a longish head on which dark straight hair had been disciplined into a French braid that dared not allow a strand to come loose. I glanced at Chief, who motioned for me to take off my bandanna.
A stop at the ladies’ room would’ve been a nice touch,
his eyes said.

But it was too late now. The Rodriguez woman turned, stainless steel mug in hand, and looked at me and the wall clock in almost the same instant.

“Am I late?” I said. “I had to take Desmond to school and—”

“You’re not any later than I am!” a voice sang out behind me.

I could have hugged Liz Doyle at that moment. She, of course, flung an arm around me and murmured, “Don’t let her get to you,” before she dumped her purse, tote bag, and the stack of papers that apparently fit into neither, onto the table, sending one of Vickie’s neat stacks over the side.

“Oh! Sorry!” she said.

Liz’s eyes, made greener by the jade jacket now pushed to a rakish angle, blinked at überspeed. I could never decide whether that was from stress or just a bad pair of contact lenses. She was clearly not the picture of efficiency, but somehow she managed to run the FIP’s foster-care program, for which I loved her. She was responsible for getting Desmond into my home and getting this particular ball rolling as well.

Unless Stick Woman stuck her foot out and stopped it. I couldn’t get rid of the image of an uptight soccer goalie as Vickie Rodriguez somehow made her way around Liz and offered me her hand.

“Miss Chamberlain?” she said.

“Yes—ma’am,” I said.

Her hand was cool. Mine was invitingly clammy, I was sure.

“You can call her Allison. She’s good people.” Liz beamed at me and, of course, blinked. “She and I go all the way back to high school.”

“Is that right?” Vickie said. I couldn’t detect a trace of interest.