We go down a level, through a hallway, across yet another open space full of grown-up toys for the Big Brains, and out onto a vast deck overlooking the bay. It’s not the million-dollar view you might get in Tiburon, which faces the city, but it’s not bad. The fog has lifted, and we have a good view of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge. There’s a tanker riding low, slowly cutting through the water like a migrating whale. If I could somehow look around the corner past Angel Island, I’d be able to see the city. And it bugs me that I can’t. I miss my home, my school, my city.
There’s a group of four, kind of glum, munching at a table twenty yards away, too far for us to overhear them. We spread the food out on a picnic table. Sandwiches, chips, two puddings, one chocolate, one vanilla.
“From the cafeteria?” I ask, pulling one of the sandwiches apart to find turkey and Brie.
“They’re good,” Solo says. “Say one thing for your mom: She takes care of her employees.”
“Yes, I noticed. You know what they don’t have? Double-double, animal style.”
He nods. “You’re an In-N-Out fan?”
“Mostly I want it because I can’t get it,” I admit. “I also want some Coldstone. And I’m having a weird craving for the awful Beef-a-roni they serve on alternate Thursdays at my school. Also … Never mind.”
“No, go on. I find it interesting. Knowing what you miss about normal life.”
I take a bite of sandwich and wash it down with a swig of sparkling water with lime.
“Okay. I miss Zachary’s. Best pizza in SF. I miss having to get ready for school, waiting at the bus stop—”
“You don’t have a limo?”
I make a face. “She’s offered. My mother, I mean.”
“But you don’t want to show up at school in a limo.”
“It kind of marks you as a douche.”
“Yep.”
“There are kids at my school who get dropped off in limos.”
“Private school?”
I laugh. “I tried once to get her to send me to a public school. I thought I’d like to meet some kids who don’t have maids but whose moms are maids.”
“Poor little rich girl,” Solo says.
Maybe I should take offense. But the cool breeze kind of drains the nasty from me. “I miss regular life. Or my version of it, anyway. School.”
“But you can’t leave because of your leg.”
What an interesting way he has of saying it. It’s not a question. It’s not quite a statement. It’s almost a challenge.
“How much does it hurt?” Solo asks.
“It … it doesn’t,” I say. “But that’s because of the pain meds, of course.”
He looks down at his food and chews. He has something to say, but he’s considering it. “Have you seen it without the bandages? I mean, have you seen the actual leg?”
I shake my head. “Not … no.” I frown at him, and he studies the placid water. How does he know I haven’t seen the wound? “I asked. They said it was still too bad. They didn’t want to upset me.”
A knowing smirk comes and goes. “Yeah.”
I push the sandwich aside. “Who the hell are you?” I demand.
“Solo Plissken.”
“I didn’t ask your name,” I say. “Who are you? Why are you here? You’re not old enough to be doing a full-time job at a place like Spiker.”
“Does it always take you this long to start asking obvious questions?”
My face burns. “I’m asking now.”
“I’m your mother’s ward. When my parents died six years ago she sort of, well, inherited me.”
The math is simple. And yet I’m sitting here, astounded. “She’s been your guardian for six years? And she’s never mentioned it to me?”
He looks at me straight, eye to eye. “I wonder why that is?”
Suddenly I am very uncomfortable. He knows things I don’t. He knows things he hasn’t told me. Why the hell am I finding things out about my mother from this guy?
I take a breath, try to focus. “What happened to your parents?”
Again, that fleeting smirk. “The safe question. Or maybe you’re going to sneak up on the truth, little by little.”
“If you don’t want to answer—”
“Car accident. No big story there. No mystery. I was at my grandmother’s. They were on vacation. Without me.” He pauses, takes a swig from his water bottle. “Good thing I wasn’t with them. They went off the side of a road, down an embankment. Crash. Boom.”
I flash back to my dad’s death. The insistent knocking on the door, the grim-faced cops, my mother’s agonized scream.
Imagine losing both your parents in the blink of an eye.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “That must have been horrible for you.” I tear a strip from my napkin. “My dad … well, he died when I was young, too. Why didn’t you go live with your grandmother?”
“She’s eighty-seven. She thinks Roosevelt is president.”
“Why my mother, though? Because she’s so warm and nurturing?”
He laughs. And he has a nice laugh. Damn. I wish he didn’t have such a nice laugh. He’s a temporary blip in my life. He’s not my type. Except for the laugh. Maybe the eyes. Not the smirk, or the hair which needs cutting so badly my fingers are itching to grab the knife and do it myself.
“Your mother and my parents were business partners.”
“So … you own part of Spiker?”
Solo shakes his head. “No. My parents were screwed out of the business by your mother.”
This does not entirely surprise me. Still, for some reason, I feel vaguely guilty. Sins of the mother and all that.
“I guess your dad—he was still alive then—tried to make peace. But it wasn’t happening. Up until then they had all been best friends. My folks died before they could change the will that left me to your mother’s tender mercies.”
“You hate her,” I say.
Solo doesn’t react right away. He thinks. He cups his chin in his hand and carefully considers.
Finally he says, “I don’t do hate.” He grins ruefully. “However, I do resentment pretty well.”
I want to ask Solo more, much more, but my phone chimes. A text.
Need u now. Bad.
When I dial Aislin, the call doesn’t connect. I check my phone: one bar. Figures. Just enough for a text to get through.
“Damn,” I murmur. Aislin in trouble? Not a surprise. Aislin texting me for help? That is unusual. Generally, she just stumbles through her escapades, then regales me with the details later.
“Aislin?” Solo inquires.
Another text. Where r u? Guys after M at GGP. Going there 2 help.
“Damn,” I murmur. “Aislin’s idiot boyfriend’s in trouble. He’s at Golden Gate Park, and she thinks she’s going to save his butt.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“You mean felony or misdemeanor?” I rub my eyes. “You never know with Maddox.”
I text her back. WAIT. I’ll think of something.
“I don’t know what to do,” I tell Solo. “I can’t leave this place, not with … The Leg. Dr. Anderson told me not to put any pressure on it.”