Blackout (9 page)

“I’ll be there in twenty,” he said.

I knew I could count on it. Ben didn’t make
idle promises. I called Rhoda to tell her never mind, and went
outside to wait.

Cree came with him. She was agog about the
movie. We could get at bite at my house. Or Burger King. Or Taco
Bell in Hudson Hills.

I told her about my visit to Kelsey. There
wasn’t much to tell. Ben said he was more than sure he’d gotten all
the pictures off. He didn’t say anything about Kelsey herself, nor
did he mention the trouble between them. That was all past. Ben was
good for moving forward.

Ben was good for so many things. It was too
bad many people got hung up on his peculiarities. Did they think
they were all shining examples of perfection?

At home, we checked what time the show
started and then I called Rick. I didn’t even get his voicemail. He
must have turned off his phone.

An hour later, he called me.

“Sorry, babe. Something came up. I won’t be
able to make it tonight.”

“Oh,” I said, and hoped the something wasn’t
Rosie. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“Can’t talk about it now. When it’s over,
I’ll tell you everything.”

Police work. Of course, it was that and not
Rosie, but she was there. What could be happening in Southbridge
that was so hush-hush?

“Is it okay if we go without you?” I asked.
“I don’t know how long the movie’s going to be there.”

“We who?”

“Ben and Cree and me.”

“Go ahead. I’ll call you later. By tomorrow,
I hope.”

Or whenever. No wonder so many police
marriages and/or liaisons broke up. It was almost as hard being
involved with an officer as it was being the officer
him/herself.

Cree had a brilliant idea. “Hey, maybe
they’ve got Evan surrounded!”

“No such luck.” I would have known. I would
have felt it somehow, just from the way Rick talked.

With my car trouble, I hadn’t gotten to
Flowers by Maxine. I couldn’t make Ben take me there. I would have
to see what existed online.

Cree and I did it together. “Yellow roses,”
was her suggestion. “Cute little ones. My mom has mini roses.
They’re not in bloom right now.”

“That doesn’t quite work for me,” I had to
tell her. “Some people associate yellow with sickness. I don’t, but
some people do.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “What do they
associate with non-sickness?”

“Health, we call it. I don’t know. Green, I
think. Is there such a thing as a green rose?”

“My mom has one. A mini rose. Not bright
green. It’s sort of greenish white. How about pink? Kelsey seems
like a pink rosebud sort of girl.”

Pink it was. I ordered the flowers and put it
on my credit card. “If I can get my car back tomorrow—oh curses, I
won’t. They have to order a part.”

“I could ask to borrow my grandma’s car. And
do what?”

“I was thinking we could visit her and see
what the flowers look like. I mean visit her for visiting’s sake,
not just to see the flowers.”

Cree dug in her handbag. “I should help with
this.”

I stopped her. “No, you shouldn’t. It was my
idea.” I knew she didn’t have much money. She’d tried to find a
summer job but everybody else got there first. I at least had my
daddy bringing work home from his law firm that needed to be typed.
It was boring, but it paid, and I had that wretched car to
support.

She insisted on giving me ten dollars. That
was generous, considering her finances were in worse shape than
mine. Maybe Glyn’s guilty conscience would open up her purse,
too.

We thought we’d eat at Taco Bell but Rhoda
fixed an early dinner of zucchini lasagna because of Ben’s going
away. Daddy gave us sparkling grape juice in place of wine. Even
before Kelsey’s disaster, he stuck to the law and wouldn’t serve
alcohol to minors.

Ben’s truck had both a front and a back seat.
I sat in back and busied myself with missing Rick. I knew Cree was
sad, too. She would soon be missing Ben. At least Rick stayed in
Southbridge where he belonged. And where I was. Ben would be going
to Boston.

We were almost in Hudson Hills when Cree
announced, “I think I’ll empty my bank account, such as it is, and
get a car. A really cheap, broken-down, second-hand one.”

“Don’t,” I said. “A car is a pain in the
rear, especially a broken-down used one. It’ll wipe you out faster
than you can think.”

Ben added, “As the cliché goes, it’s not the
initial cost, it’s the upkeep.”

“The insurance alone,” I said.

“Not to mention repairs,” he said. “And
normal upkeep like gas and oil. And tires. It never ends.”

“You guys are scaring me,” she wailed.

“That’s the idea,” said Ben. “I’ll come and
see you. Often.”

He couldn’t see the side of Cree’s face the
way I could. From the set of her jaw, I knew she wasn’t giving up
the idea.

Cree and I had talked about splitting Ben’s
admission to the movie.

He would have none of it. “What’s all that
about? You’re celebrating getting rid of me?”

“It’s because we’ll miss you.” Cree threw her
arms around him and nearly knocked him over.

“I’ll miss you, too,” he said. “So I’m paying
for everybody.”

“That’s your whole summer’s income!” I
said.

“Hardly.” He fished some bills out of his
wallet and passed them through the ticket window.

We found four seats together. It would have
been perfect if Rick were there. I went in first, stopping short of
the fourth empty seat. On the other side of it was a lovey-dovey
couple. I preferred to leave them to themselves. Cree sat next to
me, and then Ben.

“Do you want me to get some popcorn?” Cree
asked.

“In other words,” Ben guessed, “you want me
to get some popcorn.”

“No, I meant me. Even though I’d have to
climb over you.”

“Forget it,” he said. “We just ate.”

She settled back. “Your mother makes great
lasagna. What are you going to do at college when you can’t get
vegan stuff?”

“I’ll manage.”

The lights dimmed. A burst of music came from
the walls. As the previews began, the lovey-dovey couple stood up
to let someone into that empty seat. I had a weird feeling, but
only knew it wasn’t Rick. That was all I cared. I didn’t bother
looking.

Chapter
Seven

When the movie started, I tried to get
engrossed. I wanted so badly not to think about Evan, but the
harder I tried, the more he stormed my mind. I told myself he
wasn’t worth it.

Then I asked myself what I could possibly do
to help the police get their hands on him. I thought of Rick and
wished he were there, but my shoulder was up against Cree’s, not
Rick’s.

The movie got interesting and funny and I
lost myself in it. It told about a divorcing couple that kept
running into each other although they tried every which way to
avoid it. Cree laughed and snuggled up to Ben. What could be so
important that kept Rick away from me? Okay, he was a cop and
people who needed help didn’t time their problems for my benefit.
If Rick and I ever got hitched, this would be my life. I might as
well get used to it.

After a surprising ending in which they
didn’t get back together, the credits began to roll. That was a
signal for people to surge, to be first through the doors, then
first to the parking lot, the first to get home and pay the
babysitter. We were in the middle of our row, so we waited.

The guy next to me stood up and pushed his
way out to the side aisle. The lights came on and I sneaked a look
since we’d been neighbors for almost ninety minutes.

He chose that moment to turn and meet my
eyes. And to snicker.

O. M. G. It was no wonder I’d thought of
Evan. Why didn’t I know?

How could he appear in public? How could he
sit right next to me, knowing he must be police bait? Was it
possible he really didn’t think he did anything wrong? I reached
across Cree and gave Ben a poke.

Ben whirled around but by then Evan was lost
in the exit crush. As we made our way up the center aisle, which
was closer, I told them what had happened.

“You’re kidding,” said Cree. “How come you
didn’t know?”

“It never entered my mind he’d be so
brazen.”

“Call the police right now. Maybe they can
catch him.”

“If this was Southbridge that might work, but
it isn’t.”

In the parking lot, I looked for Evan. First,
I looked for his car but didn’t see a yellow one with oversize
tires. I had a kind of feeling he’d gotten something different.
Something less conspicuous. I looked all over and didn’t see him
anywhere. He couldn’t have gotten out that much ahead of us. Could
he?

Maybe I hadn’t seen him inside the theater.
Was that possible? Maybe it was someone who looked a little bit
like him and, with Evan on my mind, that’s who I turned him
into.

We were just getting into Ben’s truck when I
caught sight of him again. He was leaving the parking lot, driving
a dark, anonymous-looking car.

Or maybe I didn’t see him that time either. I
must get him off my mind if I was starting to see him everywhere I
looked.

* * * *

Tuesday was Ben’s last full day at home.
Rhoda served blueberry pancakes for breakfast. She never made
special goodies on a weekday. I wondered if she was trying to make
sure Ben came back home now and then. Of course he would, if only
to see Cree. She spent most of Tuesday at our house, helping him
load his truck.

Ben took a look at the paper when he sat down
to rest. Something on the first page caught his attention.

“So that’s what your boyfriend’s been
doing.”

At first, I panicked, thinking he’d married
Rosie, but it wasn’t that. It was a hostage situation.

Man Barricades Himself in Home with
Woman and 3 Tots.

It had been going on since yesterday. How
could people do such crazy things? Putting little children and
my
Rick in danger. Once I asked Rhoda why there were so many
crazy people in the world. She couldn’t answer except to say that’s
the way a lot of people are. Each person has his or her own
viewpoint and too often those viewpoints clash. Well, duh, I could
figure that out myself. I wanted to know why so many people have a
viewpoint that goes against the grain.

Like Evan, for instance. I had long ago
diagnosed him as a psychopath, but why? How did he get that way?
Rhoda said people had theories but no one knew for certain what
made psychopaths.

Oh God, Evan. If the police were tied up with
this hostage-taker creep, no one was going after Evan. No wonder he
felt secure enough to show up at the movies and bug me. Did he just
happen to notice us there or was he following me?

Or was it, as I had almost convinced myself,
not Evan at all?

I couldn’t discuss it with Rhoda just then.
She was trying so hard to be brave about Ben leaving. He wasn’t
exactly her firstborn, since he was adopted, which made me the
actual firstborn. But he was her first child and the first to go
off to college. His Asperger’s gave her something more to worry
about, though on the whole he seemed to do okay in spite of it.

His truck was packed with computer, printer,
CDs and CD player, a ton of books, and of course, some clothes.
Most of it he squeezed into the back seat rather than the truck
bed. On Wednesday, Rhoda made sure he had a sandwich for lunch.

And then she did break down. “I can’t believe
it. Where does the time go?”

She had taken the morning off from work just
for this. Ben said goodbye to both of us—Daddy had already left—and
warned me to take care.

“I’ll try,” I said. “I don’t know if that was
Evan at the movies, but I’ll be careful, don’t worry.”

Ben kissed me. He rarely did that. And then
he was off to say goodbye to Cree.

Rhoda left for work. With no car, I was stuck
at home. That was the pits. I hoped Barger Brothers would get the
part soon. I hoped it would be cheap in price but not in quality. I
didn’t even know what part it was.

I tried calling Cree for company, but she was
busy blubbering and missing Ben. “Why couldn’t he go to Columbia or
NYU?” she wept. “I just know he’ll meet a lot of girls at MIT and
they’ll all be gorgeous and fascinating and—”

“No, they won’t. They’ll all be geeks,” I
said.

“He’s a geek, sort of. But he’s a gorgeous
geek.”

“Cree, will you stop being so insecure? He
loves you.”

“Do you think he really does?”

“Trust me.” I hate when people say that. But
I was doing the same thing she was, worrying about Rick and
Rosie.

I thought of calling Glynis, but she beat me
to it.

“Maddie, help! They’re all over!”

It wasn’t often that Glyn got so rattled.
“Who’s all over?”

“Them.
The football players, but not
Evan. They’re all in front of the house and nobody’s home but me.
What’ll I do?”

“Is your door locked?”

“All of them. And the windows, too.”

“Make sure they’re secure and call
nine-one-one.” I was sure there must be some police not occupied
with the hostage taker.

“What can I tell them? Nobody’s done
anything. They’re just scaring me.”

“That’s the idea. I’d come and help you but I
don’t have my car.”

“Don’t even think about it. You’d have to get
past them and who knows what they’ll do?”

“I’m sure it’s just a warning. And it’s not
going to help them because the police already know. Call
nine-one-one. Tell them you’re being threatened. Then hang a big
banner out an upstairs window that says repent, you sinners.”

“Will being threatened get me police
protection?”

“You won’t know until you try it. Maybe
they’ll arrest those bozos.”