‘Yes.’
‘Does five thousand sound high?’
‘It sounds fine, Reggie.’
‘What kind of car did you buy?’ she asked.
* * * *
He wasn’t worried about the money running out. There was enough to last till he did what he still had to do. The home equity loan on the house was big enough to carry him through to the end of this. Just barely, the way he was spending, but that’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? Corrections? Adjustments? Make for himself now the life he should have enjoyed all along? Drive through the countryside with a nineteen-year-old redhead in a leased Jaguar convertible? That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it?
The look on Alicia’s face when he said, ‘Remember me? Chuck?’
Oh, Jesus, that was almost worth it all, he’d been almost ready to quit right then and there! That priceless look of recognition an instant before he shot her. Recognition, and then pain. The bullets smashing home. A pain deeper than his own, he supposed. He hoped so. And she’d known.
They would all know, because he would make sure they knew. Hi, remember me? Long time no see, right? Bad penny, right? So long, it’s been swell’t’know ya!
And bam!
Good.
* * * *
Tomorrow was a school day, and so the surprise birthday party for the twins was an afternoon one, and they were both home by eight that Tuesday night. When Carella came in at nine thirty, April was in the living room with Teddy, still chattering away, her hands moving on the air for her mother to read. Lipstick. High heels. Miniskirt. His thirteen-year-old daughter now. He yelled, ‘Hi, everybody,’ went in to where they were both sitting under the imitation Tiffany lamp, signed, Hi, Sweetie, kissed Teddy, and then kissed his daughter and asked, ‘How was the party?’
‘Cool,’ April said, ‘I was just telling Mom.’
‘Where’s Mark?’ he asked.
‘In his room,’ April said.
‘Everything okay?’
Teddy discreetly rolled her eyes.
Their eyes met. Communicated.
‘I’ll go say hello,’ he said. ‘When’s dinner?’
‘Mark and me ate at the party,’ April said.
Mark and I, Teddy signed.
‘You ate at the party, too?’ April said aloud, and then signed it, just in case her mother had missed her dynamite wit. Teddy mouthed, Ha ha. Carella was already on the way down the hall to his son’s room.
Mark was lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. No music blaring. No TV on. He made room for his father, sat up when his father took the offered space.
‘What’s the matter?’ Carella asked.
Mark shrugged.
‘Tough being a teenager?’ Carella said, and put his arm around his son’s shoulders.
‘Dad…” Mark said, and hesitated.
‘Tell me.’
‘You know who I always thought was my best friend?’
‘Who, son?’
‘April. Dad, she’s my twin! I mean, she was my womb mate, excuse me, that’s a twelve-year-old joke, I’m thirteen now, I have to stop behaving like a friggen Munchkin!’
And suddenly he was in tears.
He buried his face in Carella’s shoulder.
‘What happened, Mark?’
‘She called me and my friends Munchkins!’
‘Who did?’
‘Lorraine Pierce. The girl who gave the party for us. It’s because lots of us are still shorter than the girls, and our voices are beginning to change, but that’s no reason to tease us. We’re thirteen, too, Dad. We have a right to grow up, too!’
‘What’s this got to do with your sister?’
‘April let her! She just laughed along with all the other girls and the older boys. My own sister! My twin!’
‘I’ll talk to her.’
‘No, let it go, please. They were just showing off.’
Mark dried his eyes. Carella kept looking at him.
‘What else, son?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me what else.’
‘Dad… I think she’s a bad influence.’
‘Who, son?’
‘Lorraine Pierce. April’s best friend.’
‘Because she called you and your friends Munchkins?’
‘No, because…” He shook his head. ‘Never mind. I don’t want to be a snitch.’
‘Nothing wrong with snitches, son. Why is she a bad influence, this Lorraine?’
‘To begin with, I know she’s a shoplifter.’
Carella was suddenly all ears.
‘How do you know that?’
‘April told me.’
‘How does she know?’
‘She was in the drugstore with Lorraine when she swiped a bottle of nail polish.’
‘When was this?’
‘Two, three weeks ago.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Carella said, and got up to close the door.
* * * *
April had already gone down the hall to her room by the time Carella came back into the living room. Teddy was still sitting under the imitation Tiffany, reading, her hands in her lap, her black hair glossy with light. She closed the book at once.
Did he say anything? she signed.
‘Plenty,’ Carella said.
The way Mark reported it to him…
Around the beginning of the month sometime, April had gone to a Saturday afternoon movie with her good friend Lorraine Pierce. They’d stopped in a drugstore on the way home, and April was leafing through a copy of People magazine, when she saw Lorraine slip a bottle of nail polish into her handbag. At first, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing: Lorraine taking a quick glance at the cashier, and then swiftly dropping the bottle into her bag…
‘Lorraine!’ she whispered.
Lorraine turned to her. Blue eyes all wide and innocent.
‘Put that back,’ April whispered.
‘Put what back?’
April looked toward where the cashier was checking out a fat woman in a flowered dress. Moving so that she shielded Lorraine from the cashier’s view, she whispered, ‘Put it back. Now.’
‘Don’t be ridic,’ Lorraine said, and walked out of the store.
On the sidewalk outside, April caught her arm, pulled her to a stop.
‘My father’s a cop!’ she said.
‘It’s just a stupid bottle of nail polish,’ Lorraine said.
‘But you stole it!’
‘I buy lots of things in that store.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I’ll pay them when I get my allowance.’
‘Lorraine, you stole that nail polish.’
‘Don’t be such a pisspants,’ Lorraine said sharply.
They were walking swiftly up the avenue, away from the drugstore. April felt as if they’d just robbed a bank. People rushing by in either direction, the June heat as thick as yellow fog. The stolen nail polish, the swag, sitting at the bottom of Lorraine’s handbag.
‘Give it to me, I’ll take it back,’ April said.
‘No!’
‘Lorraine…’
‘You’re an accomplice,’ Lorraine said.
* * * *
Teddy watched Carella’s mouth, his flying fingers. At last, she nodded.
They could have both got in serious trouble, she signed.
‘That’s what Mark told her.’
What’d she say to that?
‘You don’t want to hear it.’
I do.
‘She repeated Lorraine. She said, “Don’t be such a pisspants.”
April said that?
‘I’m sorry, hon.’
April?
Teddy sat motionless for a moment.
When she raised her hands again, she signed, I’ll have a talk with her.