The People We Keep(42)



I don’t want to use the phone at Adam’s or at work. I don’t think anyone is tracking the call. It’s not like I’m someone important, like in those movies where a kid goes missing and men in black suits with fancy equipment swoop in and take over the family room to wait for phone calls and ransom notes. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t taken Irene’s car or trashed the motorhome, my dad wouldn’t have even noticed or cared that I left. And I don’t only sort of believe that in a feeling sorry for myself way. I know it’s the truth and I think it’s better to call a spade a spade. But I use the pay phone just in case, so there’s no chance anyone in Little River could ever find out about Adam. And I don’t mention him to Margo. I just tell her I have a room in a boardinghouse, even though I’m not sure if boardinghouses are a real thing that still exist. I ended up confessing I was in Ithaca, but I tell her that I’m probably going to switch to a better place soon, so there’s no point in giving her my address. I think she knows I’m telling tales but worries if she pushes too hard, I won’t call again.

“Oh, thank god, girlie,” she says when she picks up the phone. “I thought you might not call.”

“I said I would. I always do.”

“I know.” Her voice sounds worn. “But I always worry.”

“Well, knock it off,” I tell her, trying to laugh. “You’ll give yourself wrinkles.”

I wait for Margo to laugh and tell me I’m too much or say that when God made me he made a mistake and gave me too many funny bones. She doesn’t.

She sighs. “Gary finally talked to your father. He says as long as you’ve found a place to live and you’re working and he doesn’t have to support you anymore, he can’t see any point in making you bring the car back and you may as well keep it.”

I feel like someone just knocked all the wind out of me. I grab on to the side of the phone booth with my bare hand. The metal is freezing cold, but I’m worried I’ll fall over if I let go, like maybe my knees have forgotten how to be knees. The relief about the car, about not having to go back, that freedom isn’t as sweet as I thought it would be. “So, I guess he figures I’d cost him an old Mercury’s worth of groceries between now and when I turn eighteen.”

“I thought this is what you wanted,” Margo says.

“It is.” There’s a new piece of gum on top of the phone. It’s neon yellow. It’s still wet. I wonder what flavor it was. “But you know.”

“I do. I know, sweets.”

The phone clicks and the recording tells me to add more change.

“I should go,” I say, even though I still have a ton of dimes.

“April,” she says. She almost never says my name.

“What?”

“Your dad got hurt.”

“I’m not even sure he has feelings,” I say.

“They let him out of the hospital this morning.”

I drop a dime in to get the recording to shut up. “What do you mean?”

“Gary, when he went to talk to your dad, he took a couple friends and some of them had opinions about things.”

“Me?”

“You, Irene Bartkowski, a few other things. Gary didn’t realize there was bad blood there. But Chuck, you know, he’s Gary’s bartender, he was friends with Joe Bartkowski. He has opinions about why Joe left.”

“So he hurt my dad?”

“Gary says things just escalated. Fast. But he got in the middle and took your dad to the ER. It’s a few broken ribs.”

“And he’s okay?”

“Right as rain, safe as houses,” she says. “Gary drove him home. Ribs hurt, but they’ll heal. And knowing your dad, he’s happy for the pain pills.”

“Bonus.” I want to pull the gum off the top of the phone. I want it gone. I have to concentrate hard on not touching it. It’s like this urge.

“I didn’t want to hide the truth from you, but I don’t want you to worry. It’s men being stupid. You know how they are.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”

“Next Sunday,” she says.

“Next Sunday.”

“Stay safe, sweetie pie.”

“Margo,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Love you.”

“Oh, girlie, you know I love you too.”

The recording kicks in again asking for more change. I let the phone disconnect.



* * *



I go into Woolworth’s and use the rest of my dimes to buy a card for my dad. I grab the first one that says Get Well. It has a picture of a mouse in a hospital gown that’s open in the back so everyone can see his tail. I don’t know what to write, so I just sign my name. I think about addressing it to Margo, because I know she’d understand and do something so the postmark is unreadable, but then I decide to send it right to my father. He paid for his freedom with a Mercury Sable. He’s not coming to look for me. I buy a stamp from customer service and stick the card in the blue mailbox outside the store.



* * *



Later, when Adam falls asleep, I sneak out of the apartment, walk to the house with the kit car in the driveway, and return the license plates. Adam wakes up when I climb back into bed.

Allison Larkin's Books