As he eats, he looks at the other kids playing. An ordinary playground with ordinary kids, but the way he gazes out at it is as if it’s the most extraordinary place in the world. And as often happens when Hadley watches him, she finds herself envying him, wishing she could see the world through his eyes.
The pants of his uniform have ridden up on his knees, and Hadley makes a mental note to buy him new ones. Then she checks the thought. Vanessa will need to buy him new ones. Her throat tightens as her emotions rise again.
Mrs. Baxter lets out a wolf whistle and claps her hands three times, signaling for the kids to gather around. She leads them in a chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” then lines them up so each can hug Skipper goodbye.
He is extraordinarily well loved. Some of the girls even cry. One kisses his cheek, then giggles and runs away. Katie fist-bumps him, snatches his baseball cap, and then puts it back on his head backward. He smiles. She’s been doing that same thing to him since they were in preschool together. Skipper’s really going to miss her. She is his “bestest friend,” as he likes to say.
4
GRACE
The Honda grumbles but mercifully starts, and Grace pulls from the parking lot onto Laguna Canyon Road, her headache picking up steam as she merges into the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Deal with the devil, and you’re gonna get burned. She imagines her grandmother shaking her head as she says it. You knew who that man was. Don’t know what you were expecting.
She sneers through the windshield at the darkening sky, wishing her grandmother would leave her alone and stay out of it. Of course she knew who Frank was. She had just hoped that maybe, just this once, things would work out.
She looks at the gas gauge, then at the line of cars in front of her, and her stress ticks up a notch. Miles’s day care allows a grace period of fifteen minutes before they begin tacking on exorbitant late fees in ten-minute increments. She is well into the grace period, and the needle on the gauge is moving faster than the traffic.
With no choice, she pulls to the shoulder and ekes past the cars in front of her to pull into the gas station on the corner. The left island is down for repairs, and the forward pump on the remaining island is cash only, leaving only the back pump available.
Grace maneuvers toward it and is a few feet away when a motorcycle swerves in front of her to claim it. She slams on her horn, and the biker turns as he dismounts and gives a shrug, along with an infuriating I-don’t-give-a-shit grin. She is about to blast her horn again when three more motorcycles pull past to park beside him.
The first biker begins to fuel up as the last one saunters toward the minimart. Steam blows from Grace’s nostrils, and it’s all she can do not to slam down on the accelerator and mow over the three bikers who remain, along with their four Harleys.
She rests her forehead against her knuckles on the steering wheel as her eyes fill with her frustration and anger. Crying don’t help nothing. She looks up again at the sky.
In front of her, the bikers goof off, throwing trash at each other and smoking cigarettes. They’re probably around her age but, unlike her, don’t seem to have a care in the world. They are decked out in leather touring gear, and their bikes are loaded with saddlebags and sleeping rolls. They are probably on a road trip, and she hates to admit it, but looking at them, they remind her a little of Jimmy.
Had Jimmy not met her and enlisted in the army, this might have been his life, hanging with his buddies and goofing off. He was always happiest when he was on the road, roaming the country with no particular place to go. Their honeymoon was a monthlong trip on his Harley, traveling up the coast, then down through Utah and Las Vegas, possibly the same trip these guys are taking. The thought softens her anger toward them.
The pump clicks off, but the bikers aren’t paying attention, so she taps her horn, a friendly beep to let them know it’s time to stop screwing around so she can get her gas before she goes bankrupt from the late fees she’s racking up with each precious second they are wasting.
The first biker looks up, squints to see her more clearly through the windshield, then offers three hip thrusts and a tongue waggle worthy of Miley Cyrus. Her anger flares, and she decides these idiots are nothing like Jimmy, and she lies down on the horn, pressing it so long and hard her battery is in danger of going dead.
The attendant glares at her, as do the people on the sidewalk. The biker, on the other hand, laughs, and then his friends join in, all of them having a riotous good time at how angry she is.
The biker from the minimart strolls out, an energy drink and roll of chocolate doughnuts in his hands. He moves the pump from the first bike to his own, and he must feel Grace’s rage because he lifts his face, cocks his head when he sees her gaze skewering him, and then, deciding it’s all in good fun, smiles and winks. The small gesture nearly pitches Grace over the edge, her foot leaping to the accelerator as her hand reaches for the ignition, the desire to bulldoze him almost irrepressible.
A second before ignition, her hand and foot stop, the small voice of reason she almost always regrets not listening to screaming that running over four bikers along with their motorcycles is probably not the best course of action at this juncture in her life. With a deep, shuddering breath, she forces her hand from the keys and her foot to the mat.
After what feels like an eternity, the second bike is finally filled, and the biker puts the pump back in its cradle, and all four get on their bikes and ride off.
Grace pulls forward, jams her ATM card into the machine, and enters her PIN.
CARD DECLINED.
She blinks. Stares. Then blinks again as a feeling of dread creeps over her.
She reinserts the card, slower this time, irrationally thinking or praying that a gentler approach might change things, her chin quivering as her disappointment trumps all the other emotions of the day, knowing, even before the machine rejects her again, that Jimmy has let her . . . them . . . himself . . . down. Again.
CARD DECLINED.
“You going to start pumping?” a middle-aged man says impatiently from the open window of his BMW.
Grace swallows, grabs her purse, and rummages through it to scrabble together four dollars’ worth of coins. She hands it to the attendant, and as she walks back to her car, she wonders how he lost it—poker, dice, a losing spread on a boxing match?
Not that it matters—gone is gone.
5
HADLEY
Hadley chops onions and tries not to think about tomorrow and everything it will bring. Prince Charles lies at her feet, a heavy, warm dog blanket draped across her toes.
Frank named the dog Prince Charles as a joke. He loved the idea of ordering royalty around. “Fetch, Prince Charles.” “Sit, Prince Charles.”
It’s actually very funny. “Stop farting, Prince Charles,” Skipper loves to say when the dog passes gas, and the laughter it creates never grows old.
Even Mattie gets in on it. “Prince Charles whizzed on the neighbor’s mailbox,” she will declare when she returns from taking him on a walk. “Very unbecoming for the future king.”
Hadley wriggles her toes to give the old dog’s belly a rub. Sorry, buddy, I wish we could take you with us. She stops chopping, sets the knife down, and rubs her knuckles against her chest, massaging the knot that’s formed there.