The Lifeguards(65)

-7-


    Liza


I WANDERED THROUGH MY house. Whitney and the lawyer had been calling me nonstop until I turned off my phone. Did we need to run? Was Bobcat still in jail? I didn’t want to leave Oak Glen, but even if Charlie’s DNA didn’t match (and of course it wouldn’t…there was absolutely no way the boys had attacked a woman, held her down and…no. It was unfathomable), there was a possibility that Charlie’s face—and mine—could end up in the papers.

Our photo in the national news…it could reach Cape Cod. The thought of my sad past—the gray skies, the desperation, my broken mom—filled me with fear. I would not allow the black cloud to reach us. I would make sure Charlie never felt the awful sense of doom, the belief that there was nothing better, no way out.

There was always a way out. Besides, doing something, anything, always felt better than staying still. When I stopped moving, the pain caught up with me, old emotions, new worries. I preferred to stay in motion.

I had a Ziploc bag with a few photographs of my old life including one I’d taken of Patrick at a beach bonfire, the flames lighting up his face. I’d thought then that he looked like a J.Crew model in his fisherman’s-knit cable sweater and chino shorts; I stuck the photo in between the pages of the Bible from Charlie’s First Communion, jammed them both in the bottom of a duffel.

I added clothes and the copy of Joy of Cooking I’d been marking up since I’d moved to Austin. All my underwear, my bathing suits, nice clogs. I went into the kitchen and opened my spice drawer. It stuck a bit and needed a strong tug.

I gazed blearily at my rows of beautiful spices—deep orange turmeric, red peppercorns, priceless strands of saffron, my trademark chicken rub. I was exhausted.

There was only so far I could get before I needed new license plates. Would the police put out some sort of statewide search for a mother and a kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? I knew my brain was scattered, frazzled, delusional.

But it felt as if I could see the truth clearly: Barton Hills was not the place where I would own my home and be safe. I had to go somewhere else, find someplace new where I could stay, where I could finally rest.

I was so worried for Annette and sweet Bobcat. But what could I do? As soon as the detective had flashed his badge I had panicked. Worse: I knew him! I’d had sex with Detective Revello a million years ago. Wonderful sex! As he stood before me saying he was going to arrest a kid I thought of as my son, I had watched his lips, remembered kissing him. I was a mess. I was full of desire and fear. My life had exploded so quickly.

My most valuable item was impossible to move: a Big Green Egg barbecue smoker. Charlie had won the grand prize at his elementary school carnival in third grade: a giant green ceramic cooker worth thousands of dollars. It had taken three dads to transport the thing in Louis’s F-150 truck, and Charlie and I had screamed with delight when it arrived, watching the DVD immediately and learning how to use it together. We fired it up twice a month or so now, along with its accoutrements (called, cringingly, Eggcessories: a meat thermometer with a remote sensor you clipped to your belt, pizza stone, wok, vegetable basket, meat “claws” for brisket, matching aprons, and two BGE branded folding chairs). We’d even attended the Big Green Egg Fest when Charlie was thirteen, joining meat smokers from around Texas for the weekend. Had I hoped I’d find a boyfriend among all those portly guys in aprons? I had.



* * *



—

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” said Charlie, appearing at the kitchen door.

“I’m…” I said. “I’m just organizing things.”

“You’re packing. I’m not blind, Mom.”

“Charlie,” I said, opening my palms.

His eyes bored into me. After the incident at the pool the day before, we’d barely spoken. “Listen, Mom, I know you’re scared,” said Charlie. “I’m scared, too.”

“I’m not scared,” I said, moving toward him to hold him and give him comfort, the way no one had ever done for me. “Everything’s OK,” I said. Becoming the mother I’d always yearned for, I said, “I’ve got you…and we’re safe.”

Charlie slipped from my arms, shaking his head, backing away from me. “It’s like you just can’t stop lying, even when I need you!” he said. “We are NOT SAFE, Mom!”

“Charlie,” I said. “You need to calm down. We need…”

“What I need,” said my son, “is reality. I need to tell you the truth, and I need you to listen to me!”

“Charlie—”

“My dad came here, OK?” said Charlie. He started to cry. “I get it. I know why you left. He’s a junkie, Mom! He’s a fucking waste! I get it! Why didn’t you just tell me? You let me think…you let me believe…”

“Your father?” I said. “Patrick? He was here?”

Charlie ran into his room and slammed the door.

I sank down, lost.

I wrapped my empty arms around myself.





-8-


    Salvatore


IT WAS AN OPEN and shut case, and Salvatore knew he wouldn’t get many of those in his career. The teenage girl had been selling drugs she probably stole from her parents and her friends’ parents—that part of the equation was still to be determined. Maybe she was hooked in to a bigger dealer, which would be a lucky strike for him. Regardless, busting a so-called Craigslist drug dealer was a big deal. A career-defining deal.