Crow’s Row (27 page)

“I can only watch so much television in one day.” I properly folded the T-shirt and stacked it on top of the others.

“Well,” he said, grinning full-toothed, “I guess I’ll just have to stay here all the time and make sure to keep you really busy.”

“That’s quite an undertaking,” I responded, barely managing to catch my breath. And then a thunderous splash hit the window—and another, and another. We could hear jeering coming from outside. I didn’t have to get up to know that Rocco, and maybe a few followers, were throwing water balloons at my bedroom window.

“When do you have to leave next?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent.

“Tomorrow.”

My shoulders drooped a little. “So much for staying here and keeping me busy.”

“I wish I could stay,” he started softly, seemed to recompose and continued in a more officious tone. “I wish I could do all my work from here, but I can’t. There are some things that I have to be there in person to do.”

Another water balloon assault started, and Cameron sighed. “We better go down there before they break a window or kill themselves trying.”

The day was well-wasted playing by the pool with the rest of the family. Cameron laughed at the appropriate times and had a near-constant smile on his face, but something was different, particularly when he was near me. He was detached—like someone else was artfully playing the role of Cameron Hillard—and he definitely never came within more than a few feet from me. This I noticed more than anything else.

In the evening, after dinner, Cameron, Spider, and Carly removed themselves from the table and headed out to talk business. Rocco and I headed to our station in front of the TV. But before we had a chance to settle ourselves in for the evening, Cameron halted at the threshold and called out to Rocco. “Well, you want to learn the business, don’t you?” he said to Rocco.

Rocco jumped off the couch and the family disappeared through the kitchen doorway.

It was early in the morning when I heard the commotion downstairs. The house was too quickly emptying itself once again. This time, I let Meatball out so that he—at least—could join Cameron. Then I went back to bed to pine under the covers.

When the house was quiet again, Meatball came begging to be let back into our shared bedroom. We had both been left behind, on purpose.

I tried to go back to sleep, and the rolling around under the covers lasted for a good hour. I gave up, threw on an old T-shirt and shorts, and went outside to let Meatball out and find diversion.

But Griff wasn’t at his station near the bottom of the property.

I ought to have known that with the bosses gone, Griff would start slacking off—immediately. I considered going to drag him out of bed but decided against it—one of the line guards was watching me, with persistence. Making a scene on the first day Cameron was away was probably a bad idea. After talking myself out of it, I bitterly went back into the house and tiptoed past the snoring night guards on my way to the gym.

I was never one for running on a treadmill. Something about running for miles and never getting anywhere used to make me feel uneasy—I had forgotten about that, but the memory was resurfacing; running in a room, a house void of people, staring at the unmoving water of the pool, the large windows … I was feeling claustrophobic, like a mouse stuck in a cage, getting nowhere fast on a spin wheel.

With significant effort, I managed to run a few miles, then made it back upstairs to shower and dress.

I had given Griff enough time to sleep in. If he wasn’t up, I was going to go wake him up—no matter what. I opened the front door just as the guard who was staring at me earlier was coming in.

The guard followed my gaze with delight as I looked for Griff outside.

“You’re wasting your time,” he sneered. “Griff already left.”

I saw another guard standing at Griff’s usual post. “Where did he go?”

“Don’t know. He left with the rest of the crew this morning.”

“What? Why?” I asked with slight panic.

“For some reason, the chief all of a sudden decided that he couldn’t leave without Griff going with them. Griff got woken up late last night and told to get ready to leave this morning.”

We stood facing each other for a moment, and I immediately regretted finding myself alone with him. All of a sudden, I was very afraid and felt very alone. The guard reached for the door, and Meatball flew in before the door could close on him.

Meatball stood between us while the guard kicked off his shoes and made his way downstairs, mumbling to himself, “Go figure. The guy that screws off the most gets promoted first.”

I breathed hard and kept my hand on Meatball’s head, but neither of us moved for a little while. And then my mind started working again, and I started thinking. Cameron’s sudden interest in Griff … a coincidence? The sick feeling at the pit of my stomach told me otherwise. Then another reality set in: Cameron and Rocco and Griff were gone; I had absolutely no human refuge until they all came back. I looked down at Meatball and decided to stay very close to him from now on.

When Meatball and I had taken a few deep breaths and our limbs had uncrystallized, we went into the kitchen. I started with a load of laundry and fed the hungry dog. I crisped some bacon and fed that to him too. I got whatever I could find out of the fridge and cupboards and started measuring and mixing and frying and baking. I labored away until the kitchen table and counter were stacked with pancakes, French toasts, muffins, cookies and a couple loaves of bread. I knew I was done when I ran out of room and supplies.

I brought all of the food downstairs to the guards’ kitchen with Meatball closely guarding my heels. No one was there thankfully. I left the food out and sped back up the stairs, hoping that maybe feeding the guards would keep me in their good books. At least no one would starve while I was still alive.

Within minutes, I could hear cheering from the night guards who had either been awaken by the smell of food, or by the clamoring of pots and pans from my cooking session. Either way, happy jostling sounds filled the house—in many ways, a small relief. But when I looked at the clock, horror struck again because I had only managed to kill a few hours.

Taking the box of dog biscuits out of the food pantry, I tried to lure Meatball to me so that I could entertain myself by teaching a guard dog to roll over. But Meatball had stationed himself by the threshold and did not move from there, no matter how much I begged.

So I threw the wash in the dryer and a new load in the washer and waited, walking without aim from the kitchen to the living room windows. I turned the TV on and then paced down the hall. I paused in front of Rocco’s chaotic room. For a second, I thought I might have been hopeless enough to clean his room; that is until manifold, nauseating images of what I could uncover in a teenage boy’s room suddenly popped into my head. I gently kicked the clothes out of the way so that I could close his door and creep away like the thought had never crossed my mind.

I eventually reached the end of the hallway and of the house, and wandered into the library. My roving eye was drawn to the piano. Bill had been a natural at everything he touched, music was no exception. Anything I produced in his shadow was a failure in comparison to what my brother could do. Sooner or later, with Bill’s help, like always, I had been able to memorize sequences of keys, enough to fool my parents into thinking that I could play, enough for them to stop cycling piano teachers through the house.

Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one in the house to deride my triumphant musical comeback, I sat at the piano and started punching the ivories. As I brutally attempted and reattempted to recall the theme song from
Cheers
, I almost fell backward off the bench when something moved from the corner.

“That sounds really awful,” Carly said, pointing out the obvious, standing by the couch.

I was never happier to see her. “I thought you were gone with the rest of them?”

“I decided to take a few days off and stay here instead.” She approached and sat next to me on the bench.

“You mean you were told to stay back to babysit me,” I corrected.

“Something like that,” she said, smiling, gliding her fingers over the piano keys. “I don’t think anyone has played this thing since Bill died. He was a really good musician.”

It had surprised me to hear Carly talk about my brother in that way. “Don’t you hate my brother for what he did?” Still, I wasn’t sure how Carly would react to my question, and whether I should seek shelter behind a couch or just curl up into the fetal position right away to avoid pummeling damage to any vital organs.

But Carly was quite calm. “No. I don’t. I know I should and it would probably be a lot easier if I did, but I don’t.”

“Do you hate me then?” I said, practically whispering.

“No, I don’t hate you either,” she said, laughing. “But it’s definitely a shock to see you, here, after so many years.” She lifted her eyes. “When you first got here, it was almost like having Bill here again. Seeing you, it just brought back a lot of the anger that I had when Bill died. I couldn’t believe that Cameron would have brought you here, that he would do that to me. I understand why now.”

“What do you mean you understand why?” I pressed.

Carly smiled wider. “That’s something you need to talk to Cameron about, not me.”

I made a mental note to remember to ask Cameron.

“Why do you think he did that to you? I mean Bill, and the whole Frances thing. I know that he would have loved you very much. Given my family’s history, how angry he was, it doesn’t make any sense to me that he would have ever done that.”

Carly sighed and paused, her face slightly tensing. “I don’t know. I never saw it coming, to tell you the truth. Even when Bill started getting weird and secretive, I never once thought he would do that. Of all the things that I imagined, that was never an alternative.”

“Did you know he was taking drugs?” I asked, aware that I was looking to make excuses now.

“No … I don’t know … Maybe,” Carly said shaking her head. “If you would have asked me this question a year before he died, I would have said absolutely not. Bill hated drugs, which was pretty funny given our line of business. But then he started to change.”

She glanced down while sadness passed over her porcelain face. “A few months before he died, he started waking up in the middle of the night, in cold sweats, screaming, not making any sense. He was losing so much weight, and the way he was handling the business … he was going to get all of us killed.” Her eyes came back to me, and she held them there. “Emmy, this life that we lead, it’s not for everyone. Most people can’t handle it. Your brother was too sensitive … he just couldn’t handle it all anymore, it was killing him. I think that he wanted to get out before it killed him. The drugs, Frances, they were his way to escape it all.” She dragged breath. “When he died, the business had been falling apart for a long time. Cameron brought it all back. If it wasn’t for him … we might not … we definitely wouldn’t have survived.”

She took another breath. I couldn’t take my eyes and ears off her.

Then her lips crept up. I realized it was for my benefit. “You know, Cameron’s really brilliant. He got into MIT after he graduated from high school.”

I wasn’t really shocked. I already knew of his brilliance. “Why didn’t he go?”

“Your brother called him with a better offer.”

I wondered if he ever regretted that decision—and then realized I already knew the answer. “What were Cameron and my brother like when they were together?”

“I guess they were a lot like Cameron and Rocco, except that your brother was like the kid brother, even if he was older than Cameron. It was funny to watch sometimes. Your brother coming up with the quick moneymakers, as he called them, and Cameron the voice of reason, the one who brought him back to reality. I guess Cameron hasn’t changed much in that way. I think if it wasn’t for Cameron, your brother would have gotten arrested a thousand times.”

“What about Spider and Bill? What were they like together?”

“Exact opposites. Fire and water. Bill was charming and outgoing. Spider is, well, much more quiet. They fought constantly, sometimes in front of customers. It was embarrassing.”

“Spider hated my brother for what he did to you,” I mused.

“Spider did hate Bill for cheating on me, but he had his own reasons for hating Bill too,” she agreed, eyeing me. “You know, no matter how cool some guys think they are, when it comes to some girls, it’s like they lose their mind. They start saying and doing really stupid stuff.”

I knew that this observation was directed at me. “I don’t like to be ordered around, and I definitely don’t like to be told who I can and can’t talk to. What if Spider told you that you couldn’t talk to someone, for no good reason?” I demanded.

“He did … so I started dating Bill just out of spite,” she said smiling. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be so hard on Cameron. He’s got a lot on his shoulders right now. This life isn’t easy for any of us. Some days it feels like it sucks all the life out of you—whatever’s left feels inhuman sometimes.”

“Was my brother ever happy?”

Carly wasn’t smiling anymore and hesitated before answering. “Yes, at some point, he was really happy. We all were in the beginning. It was hard not to be.”