Whatever Doesn't Kill You (19 page)

Katie grabs my arm on my way out. “Call me later, okay?”

“Definitely.”

It's warmer outside than I expect, and the wet feel of the air makes me wonder if it's going to snow again. I climb into the cab of Simon's pickup truck and fasten my seatbelt. My stomach rumbles, and I think about my missed opportunity for breakfast.

“What the hell is the matter with you lately?” Simon gets in, slams his door behind him. His face is purple, and I can see a vein bulging at his temple. “I called Marie-Claire when you didn't come home. There was no party. Why the hell would you just make something like that up? If you wanted to sleep over at Katie's, you could have slept over at Katie's—why would I say no?”

I shrug. “It was kind of spur-of-the-moment, I guess.”

“What does that even mean? Damn it, Jenna, I would expect this kind of crap from Emily. What's the matter with you? You're skipping school, you're bailing on work, you're lying to me every chance you get. What the hell is going on?”

“I've been…um…busy.”

Simon's eyebrows fly up his forehead. He lets out a weird little cough. “
Busy
? What's that supposed to mean? Is there a boy in the picture? Are you on drugs?”

“No. But I…had to go out with somebody last night.”

“With who?”

I sit for a minute, staring out the window at Cannon Street. It's quiet on a Saturday morning, nobody to be seen. I wonder again what became of the mumbling homeless guy from last night. I don't know what to say to Simon. This isn't how I saw this confrontation happening. I wanted…what? The upper hand? Control of the conversation? That's it. And I don't have it.

After a long while of sitting with the truck in park and Simon trying to stare a hole through the back of my skull, I turn around to face him. “I'm hungry,” I say, scowling back at him. “I never got a chance to eat breakfast.”

Simon lets out a sigh. I'm winning again. “There's food at home. You can eat after you tell me what the hell's gotten into you.”

“No.” I suspect his rage level is nothing compared to mine right now, and I'm determined to get the upper hand back. “I want to go to Bedrock Bistro. And I'm
not
going home right now. If you try to make me, I'll…well, I just won't. That's all.”

Simon's death glare is pretty impressive, but mine is better. After a minute or so of staring at him, he lets out a hiss.

“Fine,” he says and starts the truck.

I've never been to Bedrock Bistro before, but I pass by it all the time. It's got pictures of Fred Flintstone and the gang out front and a leaderboard that says stuff like
Best Eggs Benedict In Hamilton
. I don't know what eggs benedict is, but this has been a week for trying new things. I've skipped school, gotten a makeover, eaten shawarma, been an accomplice to auto theft—or, at least, auto borrowing-without-permission—tracked down a murderer and made a new friend. Or maybe even two. Not like I'll be hanging out with Travis Bingham anytime soon, but he's not such a bad guy, all things considered. And who knows? Maybe shooting my dad was the best thing anyone could have done for me. Emily only lived with him for eight years, and look how screwed up she is.

Simon drives us to the restaurant. His face has gone from purple back to its regular pink, although his ears are still pretty red, so he's clearly still fuming. The little parking lot is crowded on a Saturday morning, but Simon manages to catch a car just backing out of a spot and pulls in as it's leaving.

We get a booth in the back. There are
TV
s everywhere playing episodes of
The Flintstones
. Simon orders coffee and I get a big glass of chocolate milk, and neither of us says anything to each other for a long time. I can tell Simon's waiting for me to talk, like there's nothing else for him to say. I wait until the waitress comes with our drinks, though, and order my eggs benedict.

Simon looks like he's ready to explode, but he's not the type to make a scene in public. Yet another reason why I'd rather have this conversation in a crowded restaurant. I suppose I should just spit it out, already.

“I couldn't tell you where I went last night because I was going to meet Travis Bingham.”

There. I've got it out there. If Simon were a cartoon character, his eyes would have popped right out of his head with an
arooga
sound like they always do on
TV
. He sputters, and I can't help but feel like we're in one of the
Flintstones
episodes playing on the
TVS
all over this place. “But—where did you? How? Why would…”

“I saw in the paper that he was out of prison. It wasn't that hard to find him, really. I'm pretty clever when I want to be. And he had quite a story to tell me.”

Simon's face has changed color again. He's whiter than Marie-Claire when she's in her full vampire goth-girl getup. “I can imagine,” he says, his voice suddenly very small.

“I'm actually surprised you didn't know he was back in town, seeing as you were such good friends. But the thing I don't get is, if you were as good a friend as he says you were, how come he hasn't seen you in fifteen years? I'd think you might have written him a letter or something, seeing as how the whole thing was your idea.”

Simon opens his mouth like he's going to say something, clamps it shut instead and then opens it again, his brow furrowing. Finally he takes a sip of his coffee, I presume to gather his composure, and then presses his lips together so tightly the color drains out of them. “I wasn't allowed to see Travis,” he says finally. “It was a condition of my probation.”

Now it's my turn to gape at him like a perplexed goldfish. “You got probation?”

“Yeah. Travis left that part out of the story he told you, huh? Well, fair enough. The judge figured I'd suffered enough and let me plead guilty to Mischief Endangering Life, and I got a year of probation. I was seventeen, so I don't even have a criminal record anymore. Travis was a year older, so he was tried as an adult. He's the one who really got shafted.”

“Well, Dad didn't make out so well in that whole situation either.”

Simon sighs. “Jenna, Dad wasn't exactly—”

“I know. Travis told me. He was a drunken asshole. But I'm pretty sure that's not a capital offense.”

“It was more than that, Jenna. You don't know what it was like, having to walk on eggshells all the time. You never knew whether he was gonna come home with a big smile on his face and presents for everybody, or whether he was going to storm in and beat the crap out of anybody who stepped in his way.”

“Did he beat up Emily and Mom too, or was it just you?”

I see a little muscle twitch under Simon's left eye. “Mom got the worst of it when I was little. If the house wasn't clean enough, if dinner wasn't what he felt like eating on a particular night, all hell broke loose. Emily managed to stay out of his way most of the time, but she was always right there, watching everything he did to her. And…me. By the time I was in high school, he'd pretty much given up on Mom to focus on me.” He has a strange look in his eyes, like he's staring straight through me and back into another time.

“Travis told me you were supposed to be the one working that night, but you never showed up. Why—”

“Hang on.” Simon gestures for me to stop talking as the waitress arrives with our breakfast. Simon, adventurous as always, has two eggs over hard and a side of bacon. He digs in like he hasn't seen food in a week. He's probably hoping I'll be too busy with my eggs benedict—which isn't as exotic as I thought it would be: just eggs and ham on an english muffin with some kind of goop all over it, although the goop is pretty delicious—to press him for more information.

“So where were you, then?” I ask again after a few bites of goopy egg.

Simon looks…I don't know. Embarrassed? “I was at home. I was supposed to be at work at five, and I was so jazzed about this stupid plan we had—we'd been talking about it for weeks, and here it was, finally happening. But my stomach was all in knots, I guess from nerves, so I went to the bathroom and threw up. I felt better right after, but doesn't Dad walk in and see me getting sick.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So he figured I had the flu or something and told me to go to bed, he'd cover my shift for me.” He lets out a snort. “First nice thing he ever did for me, and look how it turned out.”

“And you couldn't call Travis and tell him not to come?”

“I tried, believe me. But this was fifteen years ago; it wasn't like everybody had cell phones. Travis had already left, and I couldn't sneak out and head him off at the pass because Mom was home. I was hoping he'd walk by first and notice Dad was there, but…” He shrugs, leaves the thought unfinished and takes another bite of egg.

I watch him chewing, letting everything he's told me sink in. But there's one thing still bothering me. “So if Dad was such a horrible person, why didn't anyone ever tell me?” I want to know.

Simon shrugs. His color has pretty much returned to normal—pasty and freckled. “Emily and I talked about that once, and Momma too, back before…you know, the
thing
.”

The
thing
. That's a nice way of saying
the time she took
a bunch of pills and tried to drown herself in the bathtub.
“And what did you decide when you talked about it?”

“We thought, you know, you had this little fantasy about this amazing daddy that you never got to have. And you know, it was kind of nice. Like, he got to be a better person after he died than he was when he was alive, even if it was only in your imagination. Why would we want to spoil that?”

“I can't decide if I'm flattered or insulted by that.”

Simon shrugs. “When in doubt, be flattered, I guess. But you just wouldn't leave things alone. It was like you were determined to just keep picking and picking at it until you found out what was underneath.”

“And now I have.”

He lets out a sigh. “Now you have.”

I finish my chocolate milk and take another bite of egg as I try to figure out what comes next. So Simon didn't get away scot-free after all. All these years, and I was the only one who didn't know.

“So Travis said you were really smart.”

Simon gives me a funny look. “And, what, now I'm stupid?”

“No, not…especially. But you could probably do a lot better than you have been.”

He pulls an odd face, like he's setting his jaw. I recognize that expression: I make it myself when I'm being stubborn. “I do okay,” he says.

“No you don't. You clean up after crackheads and chase welfare bums around for rent. And to make matters worse, it's not like you get to drive home to a nice house on the Mountain at the end of the day. You have to
live
with them.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do? I barely finished high school—that's all I've got.”

“So finish something else. You're thirty-two—it's not like you're sixty-five and ready to retire. Get a girlfriend. Get a hobby. Quit beating yourself up and go get a life.”

Simon looks startled, then laughs. Actually, really laughs. “You should get a job as a motivational speaker. Just go up onstage and call everybody a loser and tell them to go get a life.”

“I call it like I see it. You big wiener.”

“You're a jerk, you know that?”

“Yeah, but I'm your jerk and you're stuck with me.”

He shakes his head, a little half-smile crossing his lips. “Finish your eggs, you twerp.”

It's noon when we get home, and Simon goes down to the basement to get his cleaning stuff. He's behind, which he reminds me jokingly is entirely my fault.

Wex is sprawled out on the couch playing Tekken. When I come in, he barely looks up from digitally beating the crap out of some anime guy in a loincloth.

“Where's your mom?” I ask him.

“Taking a nap. She has to work tonight.”

I sit down beside him. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“Yeah, Mom made pancakes. Aw.” He throws down his controller. “You just made me die again.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. But seriously? Emily made… food?”

“Yeah. She works in a restaurant, you know.” He sounds a little defensive.

“She washes dishes.”

Wex shrugs. “So? She's learning to cook too.”

Wow. Emily's sober, she's paying attention to her son, she's got a job. Will wonders never cease?

“So it sounds like she's doing okay, huh?” I say.

“Yeah, I guess so. And I like her boyfriend, too.”

“Yeah? You think he's the real deal?”

“Yeah, they've been going out for a few weeks now. His name is Dave. He works with her.”

“
Dave?
Dave the
waiter?
” I start to laugh.