Fragile Beasts (29 page)

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I’m more stunned by the thoughtfulness behind the act or by the brilliance of the plan.

“Thanks.”

“I know you like her.”

He sits down next to me and we both lean against the car. Baby’s head disappears inside the sweatshirt at the sight of me.

“Yeah, well. A lot of good it does me,” I tell him while gingerly fingering the bump on my head. “She likes you.”

“Not really. She just thinks she does.”

“I guess none of it matters now that she’s going to Paris.”

“She’ll be back.”

He reaches in his pocket and takes out the tiny dog. He holds him against his chest with one hand and strokes the top of his head with one finger. Baby closes his eyes.

“Tonight didn’t turn out good for any of us,” I say.

“Except for Tyler.”

I smile.

“Yeah. I think he’s hooked on cuttlefish.”

Klint’s expression sours.

“Probably has something to do with him wanting to be a bear,” I quickly add, trying to keep him from falling back into a bad mood. “Bears love fish, you know.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Remember when you guys were kids? You used to always dress up for Halloween as a baseball player and he used to wear that old bear costume that was way too big for him,” I laugh. “All these years later you guys still have the same dreams.”

“Being a baseball player’s not my dream; it’s what I’m good at.”

I laugh again.

“Right. Then what is your dream?”

“I don’t have a dream.”

“You have to have a dream.”

“Says who?”

I rack my brain trying to come up with some famous person who said we should all have dreams. All I come up with is Martin Luther King Jr., but he said he had a dream not that everybody else should have one.

“You know what Coach Hill says,” Klint reminds me, “winners win; losers dream.”

“Then to be a professional ballplayer is your goal.”

“I don’t have any goals,” he says roughly. “Being a ballplayer is what I am. Period. It’s what I do instead of being a drunk or a janitor.”

He gets to his feet, cupping Baby in his right hand like he might use him to throw someone out at third.

“People make a fuss over me because I’m a good ballplayer, but that doesn’t make me better than anyone else. I’m not a knight in shining armor. And I’m sure as hell not some character in one of those fruity novels you love to read about a boy with a dream.

“I could’ve gone down any road. Any road. But I got lucky. Dad put a bat in my hand when I was a little kid and encouraged me and when I was able to do what he wanted me to do with that bat, I could tell I made him happy. And I wanted to make him happy. Then somewhere along the way I realized that playing ball made me happy because it was something I was good at. Then somewhere further along the way when it wasn’t making me happy anymore, I realized it didn’t matter because playing ball is all I know.”

It’s the most Klint has said to me at one time since Dad died. Probably even since Mom left.

I want to keep him talking, but I choose probably the worst question to ask him.

“What do you mean it doesn’t make you happy anymore?”

He sighs in frustration, turns his back to me, and starts to walk away.

I scramble up from the ground and go after him.

“You haven’t played a game since Dad died. Just wait until this spring,” I assure him. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”

“That’s not true.”

He comes to a sudden stop and whirls around on me.

“What about you? Do you have a dream?”

“I have goals.”

“Goals. Dreams. Whatever you want to call them. It’s all bullshit. Everything’s random. Don’t you see? We got no control over anything.

“He could’ve put a cigarette in my hand, or a can of beer, or a remote control and everything would have been different. But it was a baseball bat.”

He stares at me without seeing me, yet he still manages to know my fears and he tries to make me feel better.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says. “I’ll play ball. I’ll always play ball. I don’t have a choice. Same way that damn cat of yours has to kill everything that runs across its path.”

He hands me Baby.

“Here. Take him.”

I reach for the shivering little beast. I almost feel reluctance in Klint’s grip to let him go.

“Where are you going?”

“Bed. I’m tired. I’m tired all the time.”

He walks off, his shoulders slumped, his feet dragging.

I think of Cam Jack and his dad putting a set of keys to a tricked-out T-bird in his hand. I think of El Soltero standing in a sunbaked corral with his mother’s apron in his hand pretending it was a torero’s cape and how no one put it there; he picked it up himself.

I don’t know if I should envy or pity my brother.

The only thing Dad ever put in my hand was his own.

I
left Rae Ann in a guest room upstairs sobbing anew after her daughters returned from searching for Baby and informed her they had no luck. She insists she won’t leave without her dog. I insist she will. Between Bert and Shelby, someone is driving her home.

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here behind my house. I didn’t even bother to grab my coat before I came outside, I was in such a hurry to leave. I can’t tolerate cold the way I used to, but I find I crave it more. I want to feel the chill on my face and hands. It makes me feel alive. Warmth and comfort seem too much like death.

A movement in the grass catches my eye. Kyle’s cat comes padding across the yard with a good-sized, limp body dangling from his mouth.

I sigh when he gets close enough for me to see the creature’s identity. It’s a small rabbit. I’d been hoping it was that damned Chihuahua.

He drops it in front of me, purring loudly.

I reach down to pet him. He immediately grabs up the rabbit, thinking I want to take it from him. I scratch him behind the ears, and he narrows his golden eyes above the furry carcass. I don’t really want to see what he’s going to do with it next and besides, I can’t put it off any longer: I have to talk to Luis.

I find him in the kitchen with a glass of red wine in his hand and Joaquín Sabina singing in the background. He’s staring intently at a saucer of anchovies marinating in vinegar. The help has been sent home. Two dishwashers are quietly humming. Everything is spic and span except for the plates of leftovers still sitting on the counters.

He glances at me, then turns his back on me. He takes a sip of his wine, sets the glass down, and crosses his arms over his chest in a huff.

I don’t have to say anything. I know his silent treatment rarely lasts more than thirty seconds.

“Look at this,” he says suddenly, whipping around and nodding at the plates of uneaten partridge. “What would Manuel say?”

“Manuel’s not here.”

“Manuel is everywhere. That’s the problem. And he’s definitely anywhere a partridge is going to waste.”

“You know you won’t waste these. You’ll do something fantastic with them. What about empanadas?”

“Easy for you to say. Are you the one who’s going to pull the meat from their tiny bones?”

“You love it.”

“Don’t tell me what I love. You don’t know.”

He turns his back on me again.

I take down a wineglass from one of the racks and pour myself some of the wine he’s drinking.

I see him watch me from the corner of his eye. It’s killing him that he’s not pouring it for me. Luis is a consummate gentleman.

“I’m sorry about dinner, Luis. It was beyond my control.”

“You knew exactly what was going to happen.”

“How can you say that?”

He takes a step toward me, and the hands begin to fly.

“What a combination,” he exclaims, gesturing first at the door leading to the dining room, then at the heavens, then in the direction of Sabina’s gravelly voice singing about forgiving a woman he wronged for making him wrong her. “No one in their right mind would bring together such a group.

“I know why you did it,” he adds. “You were showing off. You wanted Cameron to see you with the boys. You wanted to rub his face in it.”

“And what about him? The only reason he came here tonight was because he was curious and wanted to see the boys. And then his only intention was to be rude and put them in their place. Beside all that, since when have you become so concerned about Cameron?”

“Since you ruined my dinner.”

“I ruined your dinner?”

“Bueno, bueno,” he mimicks me. “You know this was one of the best meals you’ve ever had in your life and all you can say is, bueno.”

“I said, riquísimo.”

“Bah. Riquísimo. You should have said, fabuloso. And you know I was right about the wine.”

I don’t say anything. He was right about the wine. This one isn’t bad, either. I take another sip and desirously eye the partridges. I didn’t get to eat much tonight.

“Haven’t you heard?” he asks me. “No, of course not because you were hiding.”

“I wasn’t hiding. I’ve been dealing with Rae Ann for the past hour. I stepped outside to get some fresh air.”

“Kyle found the dog. Aha!” He claps and smiles triumphantly. “I see your face. You were hoping he was dead. You are a mean, old lady.”

“You hate that dog as much as I do.”

“Don’t tell me what I hate.”

“Never mind.”

I wave a hand at him and reach for a plate, but he yanks it away from me.

“This is pointless,” I continue, my voice rising with anger. “I tried to apologize. I tried to take the high road. You are being unreasonable. You are being Spanish.”

He pulls back like he’s been slapped.

“You are being a redneck.”

I laugh.

He points a tyrannical finger out the door I came in.

“You take your high road, Pennsylvania coal miner redneck. You take it right out of my kitchen.”

I laugh again, then pick up the bottle of wine and my glass and oblige him.

I walk through my house with the intention of going upstairs to my room when I notice the front door is wide open and there’s a commotion going on outside it.

I don’t want anyone to see me if I can avoid it. I creep as close as possible and flatten myself against a wall.

It appears that everyone I’ve been unable to rid myself of is standing on my porch. Shelby, Starr, and their mother are casting adoring glances at Kyle while cooing over bug-eyed Baby who’s wrapped in a little pink blanket and
has all but disappeared inside Rae Ann’s cleavage where she’s pressing him tightly.

Bert stands nearby, impeccably and elegantly groomed, holding the dog’s gaudy neon pink, fur-lined, jewel-encrusted carrier coolly at his side, looking like some homophobic screenwriter’s idea of a gay doctor who makes house calls.

“But we have to say good night to Aunt Candy,” Rae Ann whines between hiccupping giggles and a few last remaining sobs at the thought of losing her precious rat dog.

Her makeup is a mess. Someone really needs to explain waterproof mascara to this woman. It should be handed out to her with her first drink instead of a bowl of peanuts.

“Oh, no, no,” Bert tells her, putting a hand on her shoulder and shaking his head with concern. “I’m sure Candace has gone to bed. It’s been a very long night for her.”

Bless you, Bert.

“Bert’s right, Mom,” Shelby adds. “We should just concentrate on getting you and Baby home.”

“I don’t want to see your father,” Rae Ann sniffs indignantly, trying to bring some self-respect back into her tearstained, alcohol-puffed face.

“You won’t have to,” Starr tells her. “He’ll be passed out in front of the TV in his den.”

“I guess that’s true.” Rae Ann brightens up. “I hope he remembered to take his shoes off.”

They depart. All except for Kyle, who stands at the top of the steps and waves like he’s the man of the house.

I can’t help smiling at this. I know he’s very fond of Shelby, but apparently his feelings aren’t strong enough to make him follow the weepy, stumbling Rae Ann and her cloying entourage any farther. The object of his affections will have to see herself into her own car.

I wait until the taillights have winked out of sight, swallowed up by the midnight black cavern of trees lining my driveway, then I set the wine bottle on a table in the foyer and step outside.

“Hello, Kyle,” I say.

He looks over his shoulder at me, surprised.

“Oh, hi, Miss Jack. I thought you went to bed.”

“No. I was hiding, for lack of a better word. And eavesdropping.”

“My dad always said you can’t eavesdrop in your own house. You have a right to hear anything anybody says if it’s said under your roof.”

“I think your father was absolutely right.”

I step up beside him and we both stare out at the night.

“I owe you a debt of gratitude,” I tell him.

“What for?”

“You found the dog.”

“Yeah.” He offers me a flicker of a smile. “I guess Mrs. Jack was pretty upset.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“I was glad to help.”

“But I’m sure you would have liked for Shelby to spend the night.”

“I don’t know. I guess it would be nice to see her more but, you know …”

“What about girls at your own school?”

“What about them?”

“Are you,” I pause to carefully pick my words, “friends with any of them?”

“I don’t know. Some of them are okay, I guess.”

Another thing I’ve learned about teenaged boys: whenever asked a question, they either “don’t know” or assume “you know.”

If I were to rule a country, all my spies would be teenage boys. No enemy would ever be able to get any information out of them: Would you like a drink? I don’t know. Have you seen any good movies lately? I don’t know. What would you like for your birthday? I don’t know. Where are the plans to the new military installation? You know.

“I must apologize for my family’s behavior tonight.”

“They didn’t bother me. They seemed pretty much like any other family.”

“Aside from Luis’s wonderful meal, which I didn’t get to enjoy, I think your brother’s friend proved to be the highlight of the whole evening.”