Nothing to See Here (20)

“Well, I don’t want to drug them,” I said. “That seems bogus.”

“Have it your way,” he said. “Let’s go.”

We walked into the cabin, which was dark, not a single light on, but we could see activity in the backyard. The sofa, some flowery abomination with plastic covering it, was burned black on one side, the ceiling above it dusted with soot. Carl slid open the glass door, and we saw Mr. Cunningham in a tiny swimsuit and some flip-flops, cooking a steak on a rickety old charcoal grill. His wife was dead asleep in a lawn chair.

“Carl!” Mr. Cunningham said. He was in his seventies, but he had curly gray hair like a wig. He looked like he was in the process of melting, his skin sunburned and sagging everywhere, hanging in folds. He had a huge dimple in his chin.

“What’re you doing there, Mr. Cunningham?” Carl asked, adopting a very friendly tone.

“Living the life!” Mr. Cunningham said. “Cooking a steak.”

“Looks good,” Carl replied.

“Well, a man can’t live entirely on blue-green algae, Carl,” Mr. Cunningham continued. “Steak is a kind of superfood, I suppose.”

“The kids in the pool?” Carl asked.

“Been there since this morning,” he told us. “They like the water. Jane, you know, couldn’t swim. But she made sure the kids knew how. That’s the kind of mom that she was, giving her kids what she didn’t have.”

“She was an amazing woman,” Carl replied.

“If Jasper hadn’t fucked everything up . . .” But then Mr. Cunningham simply looked at his steak, which was sizzling, popping, just a single steak on the grill.

“He’s going to take care of these kids,” Carl reassured the man, but Mr. Cunningham wasn’t listening.

“You have a check for me?” Mr. Cunningham finally asked.

Carl handed him a cashier’s check and then looked over at Mrs. Cunningham. “Would she like to say goodbye to the kids?” he asked.

“Let her sleep,” Mr. Cunningham said.

“Is their stuff packed up?” Carl asked.

“It was the kids’ responsibility,” Mr. Cunningham said. “I don’t think they ever did it. They’re not entirely reasonable children.”

Carl looked disgusted, but he simply nodded. “Okay,” he told me, “I’m going to get their stuff together. You wait here with Mr. Cunningham and then we’ll get the kids and head home.”

“I kind of want to go see them,” I said.

“Well, just wait a few minutes like an adult and then you can meet them,” Carl said, and then he was off.

Mr. Cunningham didn’t even seem to notice me. I don’t know who he thought I was. “What does blue-green algae do for you?” I asked him.

He wouldn’t look at me, but he replied, “Everything, dear.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, his wife snoring, and then I said, “I’m just going to go say hi to the kids.” I needed time apart from Carl, so the kids would understand that I wasn’t some narc, so I could hypnotize them with my own weirdness.

“Suit yourself,” he said.

As I walked to the edge of the pool, I realized that the sounds of splashing had stopped. The kids, their faces obscured by giant goggles, were standing in the shallow end, the water lapping against them. It looked like they were staring at me, but with the goggles it was hard to tell. It was a little spooky, truthfully. I was working up this Mary Poppins kind of attitude, and the goggles were throwing me off.

“Hey, guys,” I said, kind of casual cool, the tone where you act like you already know somebody so they’ll be curious. “Bessie and Roland, right?”

In agonizing slow motion, the two of them began to slip beneath the surface of the water. They didn’t swim away, just sat there, holding their breath, while I stood over them, my arms hanging at my sides. I didn’t feel anything like Mary Poppins, that bitch. I needed a prop, some magic umbrella that played music or something. I wasn’t counting, but it felt like they were under there for a good minute or so before they both stood back up, as if they thought I’d left.

“Bessie and Roland, right?” I asked, like maybe they just hadn’t heard me.

“Who are you?” Bessie asked.

“Can you take those masks off?” I asked them. “I want to see what you look like.”

“We’re ugly,” Bessie said.

“I doubt that,” I said, but it was probably true.

“Our eyes get red in this chlorine,” Bessie said. “Pop-Pop just dumps in these chemicals. He doesn’t measure them or anything.”

“Do you wanna come out?” I asked. I figured I had a few more minutes before Carl came back with their stuff and fucked everything up. As a kid, I’d had a lot of experience getting alley cats to trust me. I didn’t do much with their trust, just gave them some scraps of food and light petting; it was all about getting them to come to me. I thought kids weren’t much different from cats.

“We’re not leaving this pool,” Bessie said. She had on a black T-shirt and some swim trunks. Her haircut was severe, kind of like a bowl cut if you didn’t have the bowl to make it uniform. She was sunburned, but not painfully. Her brother was crouched a little behind her, hiding from me. I figured if I could get Bessie on my side, Roland would come along.