Turtles All the Way Down(29)

“All right,” she said at last. “Just did some mental math. Fifty thousand dollars is, like, five thousand nine hundred hours at my job. Which is, like, seven hundred eight-hour shifts, if you can even get a full shift, which usually you can’t, so that’s two years of working seven days a week, eight hours a day. Maybe that’s not rich to you, Holmesy, but that’s rich to me.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“And it was all sitting in a box of Cheerios.”

“Well, like half of it was in a box of shredded wheat.”

“You know what makes you a solid BFF, Holmesy? That you even told me about the money. Like, I hope I am the sort of person who would go halvsies with you on a six-figure-lottery situation, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust myself.” She took a bite of her burger and mostly swallowed before saying, “This lawyer guy isn’t going to try to take back the money, is he?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“We should go to a bank,” she said. “Get it deposited now.”

“Davis said we should wait to talk to the lawyer.”

“You trust him?”

“Yeah. I really do.”

“Aww, Holmesy, we’ve both fallen in love. Me with an artist, you with a billionaire. We’re finally leading the debutante lives we’ve always deserved.”

In the end, our meal cost less than thirty dollars, but we left Holly a twenty-dollar tip for putting up with us.





ELEVEN



I WAS WATCHING VIDEOS ON MY PHONE the next morning when the call came in. “Hello?” I said.

“Aza Holmes?”

“This is she.”

“This is Simon Morris. I believe you’re acquainted with Davis Pickett.”

“Hold on.” I slipped on some shoes, snuck past Mom, who was watching TV in the living room while grading tests, and went outside. I walked down to the edge of our yard and sat down facing the house.

“Okay, hi,” I said.

“I understand that you’ve received a gift from Davis.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I split it with my friend; is that okay?”

“How you handle your financial affairs is unimportant to me. Ms. Holmes, you may find that if a teenager walks into a bank with a vast array of hundred-dollar bills, the bank will generally be suspicious, so I’ve spoken to one of our bankers at Second Indianapolis, and they’ll accept your deposit. I’ve set an appointment for you at three fifteen P.M. on Monday at the branch at Eighty-Sixth Street and College Avenue. I believe your school day ends at two fifty-five, so you should have adequate time to get there.”

“How do you know—”

“I’m thorough.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just have,” he noted dryly.

“So you’re taking care of Pickett’s affairs while he is gone?”

“That’s correct.”

“And if Pickett shows up somewhere . . .”

“Then the pleasures and sorrows of his life will belong to him again. Until then, some of them fall to me. May I request that you come to your point?”

“I’m sorta worried about Noah.”

“Worried?”

“He just seems really sad, and there’s kind of no one there to look after him. I mean, isn’t there any other family?”

“None with whom the Picketts have a good relationship. Davis has been declared an emancipated minor by the state and is his brother’s legal guardian.”

“I don’t mean a legal guardian. I mean someone who actually, you know, looks after him. Like, Davis isn’t a parent. I mean, they’re not just gonna be alone forever, are they? What if their dad is dead or something?”

“Ms. Holmes, legal death is different from biological death. I trust that Russell is both legally and biologically living, but I know he is legally alive because Indiana law considers an individual alive until either biological evidence of their death emerges or seven years pass from the last evidence of life. So, the legal question—”

“I don’t mean legally,” I said. “I just mean, who’s going to take care of him?”

“But I can only answer that question legally. And the legal answer is that I administer the financial affairs, the house manager administers the home affairs, and Davis is the guardian. Your concern is admirable, Ms. Holmes, but I assure you that everything is cared for, legally. Three fifteen tomorrow. Your banker’s name is Josephine Jackson. Do you have any other questions of pertinence to your situation?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you have my number. Be well, Ms. Holmes.”

—

I felt fine the next day at school, until Daisy and I were on our way to the bank. I was driving, and Daisy was talking about how her most recent fic had sort of gone viral in the Star Wars fan-fiction world and how she had tons of kudos on it and how she’d had to stay up all night to finish this paper on The Scarlet Letter and how she could maybe finally get some sleep now that she was “retiring” from Chuck E. Cheese’s, and I felt fine. I felt like a perfectly normal person, who was not cohabitating with a demon that forced me to think thoughts I hated thinking, and I was just feeling, like, I’ve been better this week. Maybe the medicine is working, when from nowhere the thought appeared: The medicine has made you complacent, and you forgot to change the Band-Aid this morning.