“Goddamned Newport Beach doctor wants to be a grower,” said Archie. “Just tell him full asking price — three million, even — take it or leave it.”
“I’ll tell them exactly what you and Caroline want me to tell them. But three million is pretty high, Archie. Prohibitively.”
“Honey?” asked Archie.
Patrick heard his mother sigh. She was wearing her usual white blouse, a pink kerchief around her neck, pressed jeans, and black boots. Her makeup and lipstick were minimal and tastefully deployed. “I’m with you, Arch. Three million.”
“Patrick?” asked Archie. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think you want to sell it.”
“Not for a penny less than three, I don’t.”
“Then hold out, Dad.”
In the silence Dormand cleared his throat. “I really have to doubt that anyone will pay it, in this economy, after this fire. Just so you understand, Archie.”
“I’m not as stupid as I look.”
“Hope the trees live and the rain comes,” said Patrick.
Archie looked at him in assessment. “And if they don’t and it doesn’t, I’ll have to sell it all to salvage three worthless condominiums. A fire sale, literally. God knows what kind of lowball offer that might be. Tell the old sawbones we’re firm at three, Scott.”
“Will do.”
“Would you like to walk the groves, see the trees?”
“There’s no real need for that, Archie.”
Patrick and his parents walked the scorched western boundary of Norris Brothers Growers anyway. In this second full year of drought now cursed by wildfire, the dust and ash rose with their footsteps and hovered in the parched air. Even the weeds and wild grasses that crept to life each year with the first drops of rain were long missing from the untrammeled center of the dirt road and from the shaded, life-friendly soil beneath the avocado trees, even from where the irrigation valves leaked their tiny surpluses into the ground. The earth beneath Patrick’s feet looked like something he’d shovel from a fireplace — dead powder without promise. He thought of the infernal dust of Sangin and the spiders as big as his hand.
They stopped on the high ground and looked down on the eighty acres. Far below, the San Luis Rey River serpentined toward the Pacific in its path of green. From here Patrick could see the barn and the bunkhouse and some of the outbuildings. Ted’s truck was parked in front of the bunkhouse.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” asked Archie. “How can he spend all day inside like that?”
“Some kind of stomachache,” said Patrick. “I’ll let him tell you.”
“He eats a lot of takeout,” said Caroline.
Archie shook his head. “Well, I’m sorry his stomach is upset, but the Farm Credit Bank in San Diego passed on us, Pat. They were our last real hope for a loan. The Norris family is now officially unleashed and on its own.”
“I’ll work extra hard tonight,” said Patrick, checking his watch. “Fridays are big money.”
“What a joy to be unleashed,” said Caroline, draping her arms over their shoulders. “Woof.”
Patrick was right about the big money. He found himself racing between pickup and delivery, then back again for more. How fast he could do the job seemed important. A sheriff’s deputy pulled him over on Alvarado for doing sixty in a forty-five. They talked about the wildfire then Afghanistan, where the deputy had a cousin who was deployed. His cousin knew the Marine who was murdered last week by one of the Afghan army soldiers he commanded on patrol. Slow down, he told Patrick, handing back his driver’s license — woolies aren’t worth dying for and neither is pizza.
But it was hard to hold down his speed. Firooz and Simone had three vehicles going, and every time Patrick came through the Domino’s door they were making and baking pizzas as fast as they could, ordering each other around in Farsi, trying to keep up with the phone and Internet orders in English. On his next run he swerved to miss a Chihuahua darting across Main with its leash still attached, then pulled over and ran down the witless dog, which bit him before he could hand it over to its owner.
He came home at nine o’clock, counted his tips and slipped the bills into an envelope he kept under his mattress. Seventy-eight dollars and change. Not bad.
He showered and walked down to see Ted. The night was close and smelled of soot and an owl huffed through the darkness above the barn. Patrick knocked on the bunkhouse door and stepped in, the dogs wedging past him. Ted sat at his computer table, as usual, playing one of his games. He said he was feeling okay — the pain pills worked like magic and he’d just made it to the next level of the game. Patrick crossed the big rustic room and set a hand on Ted’s shoulder, looking down at the monitor, where the running bull-headed figure tossed wolves into a starlit sky. Patrick saw that Ted had hung several Evelyn Anders campaign posters on the bunkhouse walls: THIS TOWN IS YOUR TOWN. A tall stack of Village View newspapers sat on the computer table and Patrick noted the front-page picture of Evelyn Anders and George’s two young friends. Article by Iris Cash. Ted looked up at him, smiling.
“Why all the pictures of someone you don’t like?” asked Patrick.
“Reminders that I need to do something big and meaningful.”
“Collecting pictures of Evelyn Anders is big and meaningful?”
“Come on, Pat,” Ted said meekly.
“Why do you dislike her so much?”
“Well.” Ted went back to the game for a long moment, guiding his character through the ruins of what looked like a medieval castle. “Evelyn babysat me once. I remember it. Very clearly. You might, too. She kept coming to the bathroom door to ask me if I was all right. She really cared. I was in the bathtub just taking my time, washing everything extra good. You were watching TV in the den. The next day I made her a thank-you card with a frog on it. I mean I cut out a picture of a frog and glued it on, not a real frog. I don’t remember her ever sending me anything back. Like a card or something. Nothing. Nothing. I asked Mom if Evelyn could babysit me from then on but Mom wanted Agatha, the old one. Ick. She smelled like lilac and she wore orthopedic support stockings to hold in her varicose veins. Always asking if she could make me something to eat but her just being there totally like took away my appetite.”
Patrick wasn’t sure what to say to all of this. “You’re not drawing more cartoons of the mayor, are you?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t.”
“Leave her be, Ted.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I talked to Cade and Trevor. You’re not welcome at Pride Auto Repair anymore.”
“Not welcome? Or banned by you?”
“You’re better than the Rogue Wolves any day, Ted. You don’t need them.”
“They’re not the Dark Horses.”
“They’re angry children.”
“Maybe that’s why I like them.”
Patrick went to the door. “Are you playing straight with me, Ted? No cartoons of the mayor? No more hanging out with those people?”
Ted looked at him, the monitor light playing off his face. “You have my word, Pat. So... can I ask you a question?” Patrick waited. “What do you think I would have to do to make Dad respect me?”
Patrick thought a moment. “He respects hard work.”
“There isn’t anything I can do. Nothing I’m good at. I mean, besides driving the taxi.”
“He’s got more in his heart for you than he can let on. It’s the Norris way of being a man.”
“He makes me feel bad.”
“You shouldn’t. You’re a good man. You just haven’t found out what you want to do yet.”