Whatever Doesn't Kill You (15 page)

When I get home after school, the usual crowd of moms is standing at the bus stop, yammering away on their cell phones and puffing on their cigarettes. As I approach, I can see that the cluster looks bigger than usual, with Xavier's mom and the twins' mother waiting to pick up their respective offspring, which means I'm just going to have Wex and Henry today. But wait…I squint, incredulous as I get closer and realize that there, tucked in among the other mothers, is my sister, smoking and chatting away like she's suddenly part of this odd little family.

“You're picking Wex up at the bus?”

Emily looks surprised to see me, despite the fact that I've been the one out here every school day for the past two and a half years, ever since Wex started junior kindergarten. “Yeah, why not? I'm his mother.”

Of course I can't think of a single reason why she shouldn't be out here, but I still feel a little put out, like she's stealing my job or something. It doesn't help that when the bus pulls up, Wex bounds off it with a squeal and throws his arms around Emily's legs.

“Mom! You came to meet me!”

She gives him a grin that looks surprisingly…I don't know…human, and hugs him back. “Yep. You want to go out for supper? Momma got paid. We can go to McDonald's if you want; you can play in the PlayPlace.”

Wex looks enraptured, even happier than he looked on Christmas morning. I watch the two of them cavorting across the parking lot like old buddies and feel a little sick to my stomach. For all the razzing I've given Emily about being a horrible mother and bugging her to pay more attention to Wex, there's always been a part of me that enjoyed being the one he comes to when he skins his knee or gets teased at school. It hardly seems fair that Emily can just wake up one morning and decide she wants to be a good parent, and suddenly she's his favorite person. It makes me realize what Travis must have felt when I suddenly came along and got him kicked out of his home. For the second time in a week, I've been displaced.

“All right, kiddo.” I take Henry by the hand. “I guess it's just you and me today.” Henry grins and chatters away as we walk back to the apartment to wait for his mother while Wex and Emily head off to catch the bus to McDonald's. I watch the two of them, hand in hand, feeling somehow empty. Since I lost one mitten at Griffin's on Sunday night, I've made do with cold hands, and I bury the hand that's not holding Henry's in the pocket of my jeans. There's something in there, wrinkled and made of thin cardboard. I pull it out to take a look at it.
I&B HEATING AND COOLING.
The business card of the company where Travis is working. I'm not much on superstition, but I can't help but wonder if this is some kind of sign. I flip the card over and over, weaving it in and out of my fingers as we walk down the hall to the apartment. There's a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I have a sudden urge to drop Henry's hand, turn and run. Travis Bingham is getting his life together: he's out of prison; he's got a job. It hardly seems fair that while he's starting to pull things together, my life is falling apart. In the week since I first saw him staring back at me from that newspaper article, I've lost all my friends, Simon is pissed off at me—or was, at any rate, although I'm still a little sore about that—and now I'm losing Wex too.

Suddenly I'm hoping Henry's mom comes early today; I think the time has come for me to go talk to Travis Bingham.

I spend the next hour pacing the apartment, ducking into my bedroom and Googling directions and bus routes to I&B Heating and Cooling, then back out to the living room to switch the
TV
channel to YTV when Henry gets tired of the Disney Channel. I make him a peanut butter sandwich and one for myself as an afterthought. I have no money to buy dinner out and probably no chance of getting paid today. I perch on the edge of the couch, eating and tapping my foot impatiently, wishing Henry's mother would just get here already.

After a while Simon comes in from 318, where he's finally gotten all the crap off the walls. He's covered in spackle from patching holes. He stops by the door to kick off his work boots, which he keeps unlaced most of the time, then gives me a funny look.

“You have to pee or something?”

“No, why?”

“You're bouncing around like you've got spiders in your pants. You got someplace to be?”

I stop bouncing and stand up. My palms are actually sweating, and I wipe them on my jeans. “Yeah, I've got…” To go confront the man who ruined my family? No. Definitely not the approach to take. “…a party to go to. Marie-Claire invited me.” What the hell: if it works for her, maybe it will work for me.

“Marie-Claire.” Simon thinks that over for a second. “The scary goth chick who likes college boys? Gee, I can't see anything wrong with you going to a party with her.”

“No, no.” Damn it, I hadn't thought of it that way. Of course he's going to get all parental on me if he thinks there are going to be boys involved. True, I've been hanging around with Griffin my entire life, at least until this week, but Griffin hardly counts as a boy. “It's not one of
those
parties. It's, like…” Think! Think of something harmless! “…her little sister's first confession or something.”

“First communion?”

“Maybe, I don't know. Some religious thing.”

Simon lifts an eyebrow at me, suspicious. I try to think of the last time I tried to put one over on him and can't think of an occasion. There's a weird little knot in my stomach that I suppose might be guilt. I don't like lying to my brother. It's not just that I'm horrible at it, but he really doesn't deserve it. If it weren't for him, I'd be…well, in foster care, I suppose.

“How old is Marie-Claire's sister?” Simon asks.

I shrug. “Um, grade six? Maybe seven?”

“Then it's probably her confirmation. First communion is, like, grade two.”

“Ah.” The knot loosens a little. Maybe he wasn't suspicious after all. Maybe he just thinks I'm an idiot because I don't know anything about religion. Simon and Emily went to Catholic school when they were little, but Simon says Momma got a little ticked off at God or the Pope or something after Dad died and put me in public school out of spite.

“What time's the party?”

I glance down the hall at the clock in the kitchen.

It's quarter after four.

“Five o'clock.” Most businesses close at five o'clock, don't they? I'm hoping I&B Heating and Cooling isn't the sort of place where they knock off work early on a Friday afternoon. I don't think I can wait another two days to do this.

Simon sighs. “Well, let me get a shower and then I'll hang out with Henry so you can go to your party.” He holds up his index finger. “One time, you understand? This is not going to become a habit. I have enough work of my own to do around here.”

“Deal.” I almost jump up to give him a hug, but he's covered in dust and white goop. Besides, we're not really huggy people. If I act too excited to be getting out of babysitting to go to a twelve-year-old's church party, Simon really is going to get suspicious.

I have to run to catch the bus, my heart racing from nervous excitement and, let's face it, from the exertion as well. Too many years with Katie as my gym partner means I probably haven't spent nearly as much time running around as I ought to.

I&B Heating and Cooling is tucked away at the end of a dodgy-looking strip mall, next door to a boarded-up employment agency and two doors down from a nail salon. I get off the bus in front of the mall and pace up and down the sidewalk a couple of times.
Casing the joint.
I heard that in a movie once. I guess that's what I'm doing. There's a sign over the door with the company logo: a penguin wearing a parka, which looks like it might have been drawn by an eight-year-old. It's the same logo that's on the business card in my pocket, but somehow when it's all blown up big like this, it looks way cheesier. The shop has a glass door at the front that leads to a little reception area, where a heavyset blond girl with about half a dozen rings on her fingers and a dozen more piercing various parts of her face and ears is sitting. It looks like she's packing up for the day, stacking papers and tidying her desk. I pull out my cell phone to check the time: four fifty. If they close up at five, I don't have much time to find Travis. The parking lot wraps around the side of the building, where it joins up with the parking lot to another strip mall, this one with a women's gym and a pizza place. I see a van with the same cheesy cartoon penguin on the side parked around the back with its rear doors open.

“Jackpot,” I hear myself say aloud. I recognize the older guy unloading toolboxes and bringing them into the building through a back door; he was at the hairdresser's with Travis.

“Hey, kid,” he yells into the building. “You want to grab that extension cord for me?”

I freeze, a million thoughts running through my head. Who is this kid? Could he be talking about Travis? No way—Travis is in his thirties, way too old to be called a kid. Then again, when you're as old as this guy, maybe everyone under forty seems young. Or maybe Travis doesn't even work here anymore. Maybe he got fired, or violated his parole and got sent back to prison, or—and then, there he is. Dutifully fetching the extension cord from the truck, dressed in a grimy blue coverall and work boots, is the man himself, Travis Bingham.

I take a few steps toward him, pulling off my hat despite the cold wind. The first time I saw him, I was so bundled up he couldn't see much more than my nose, and the second, I was sitting in a hairdresser's chair at the back of the store while he stood in the reception area, not even looking in my direction. This time, I want him to really see me.

“I know who you are,” I tell him.

Travis looks up, startled, squinting at me like I've woken him out of a deep sleep. We stand there for probably a full minute, just staring at each other. It suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea how dangerous he might be. How quick is his temper? Does he have it in for our entire family, not just my dad? If he suddenly attacks me and I scream, will anyone come running? But then a look of recognition washes over his face, and he even smiles a little.

“Emily?”

I scowl, shake my head. Not the reaction I was expecting. “No, I'm Jenna. Emily is my sister.”

“Oh, wow. Right. Of course. You must be, what, sixteen?”

“I will be in October.”

“Wow. Geez. How did you—?”

“Your picture was in the paper last week. I tracked you down from there.”

He looks a little alarmed at that and lifts the huge extension cord up in front of him like a shield or something. “You tracked me down? Why would you do that?”

I suddenly think of being at the reptile show at the Festival of Friends with Simon when I was five or six. The toothless old guy running the booth had all kinds of snakes and turtles and iguanas you could pet, and a few spiders and other creatures that were just for looking at. One of those was a skittery little lizard who spent the whole time we were there scrambling around the back of its tank, trying to find a place to hide from all the kids tapping on the glass. I didn't want to go near it, but the toothless guy laughed at me and patted me on the head. “Don't worry, sweetie,” he told me. “He's more scared of you than you are of him.” That's what Travis reminds me of now, a rattled little gecko cowering in the back of a terrarium. More scared of me than I am of him.

“Don't worry, I'm not, um, out for revenge or anything. I just want to talk to you.”

Travis looks at me for a long time, and I stare right back at him, thinking how much older he looks than Simon despite them being about the same age. The East End is a tough enough neighborhood, but I guess Travis has spent the last fifteen years in an even tougher one. He looks…weary. Worn down. I feel like he's sizing me up, like the wheels are turning in his head as he tries to stare me down.