Guardian (3 page)

I suppress another defiant comment about putting Drew out on the Internet and making some real money.

“I could … tutor,” Jessie says. She's been very quiet up to now. “Or maybe give piano lessons to kids.”

“Well, God knows I can babysit,” says Andrea. “I've been doing it for free all my life.”

Everyone turns to me, The Defiant One. Visions dance in my head. Getting up at three a.m. to pedal a bike through neighborhoods full of pit bulls. Putting boxes of tampons in Publix bags for the cheerleaders at our school. “Yard work,” I say. “I love yard work.”

“Great,” Stephanie says. “Just make sure you get ours done first. So the only real start-up expense we have is some head shots for Drew.”

“Nooooooo!”

“Pictures, honey. Pretty pictures. It will be fun.”

Drew pokes at her sedimentary dinner. “You always say everything will be fun,” she mutters. “And then it isn't.”

Some nights I can't sleep. This is one of them. It feels like too much is piling up on me. First, the single, horrible fact that Mike is dead. The loneliness and blackness of that fact, which my mind is just skirting around, for now. The thought of doing all our yard work without him and then having to use the rest of my weekends mowing other people's lawns. In addition to my house chores and my homework. The thought that Stephanie is my only parent now. The thought of Duncan Presser wanting more and more money every week while Stephanie is going to be paying closer attention to where all the money goes. Wondering why Mrs. Morales hates me. Andrea always watching me. Jessie stalking me, trying to get too close. A horrible picture of Drew dressed up in a French maid's outfit. Sandstone, limestone, shale, conglomerate.

That makes me think of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, bless the bed that I lay on. I wonder when was the last time I prayed.

I used to be religious when I was little. The first place I lived after my real mom gave me up was the Sisters of Charity. They had Saint Gabriel plastered everywhere because he was the patron saint of unwed mothers. There was a stained-glass window in the Sisters' chapel with his picture and I would look at it a lot, even though I knew the artist had made a mistake and given Gabriel blond hair. I know because I saw him the week before my mom gave me up.

The nuns thought I was great, being attached to an angel and praying all the time, but when I went to my second foster home—I was about six—I got a big brother, Toby. If I prayed out loud, he'd repeat everything I said in a high squeaky voice. If I prayed silently, he'd keep yelling, “What?” So I quit, just to get along. By the time I wound up with Stephanie and Mike, I had forgotten all about Saint Gabriel and my visitation. But I think about it now.

How he really looked, with his long jet black hair, like an Indian, with a halo of colored lights around his head. How he made promises to me, about staying with me and protecting me wherever I went. You might think this is a case of little kids imagining things, but it's a real memory. I'm sure of it. He came in through my bedroom window just like Peter Pan.

I guess I should have kept up those prayers, because he's definitely not watching over me now. I guess they don't like it much in Heaven, giving some slob kid a real visitation and then he falls off the wagon and forgets all about it. If I had any guts I would say a prayer right now and ask him to come back. But that would be so stupid.

The funny thing is, I dream about him. He's fused with The Motorcycle Man in my dream and he's riding his bike in slow, protective circles around the house. The sound of the engine is so real it wakes me up.

Chapter 3

I throw my weight against the lawnmower, sweat drenching the back of my T-shirt and dripping from my hair. I would take off my T-shirt, but the residents of Leisuretown don't like shirtless boys. Leisuretown is the cash cow I discovered this morning, a retirement development six blocks from my house. They all hire out their yard work, but they were sick of paying Mr. Schuster, who I hear about at every single house. Mr. Schuster charged too much. Mr. Schuster popped a sprinkler head and refused to replace it. Mr. Schuster swore at the cat. Everyone was ripe for my cut rates, sweet childlike face, and respect for cats and other animals. I picked up five clients, which is my limit for a given Saturday, and thought how proud Stephanie would be tonight when she saw how well I did. My biggest concern was that Mr. Schuster might show up and take out a contract on me, but that didn't happen. So I started this morning a happy, optimistic boy, working under the gentle sun, blackbirds singing in the trees and old people peeking fondly at me from behind their vertical blinds.

Now it's five o'clock in the afternoon and I'm only on house number four of five. The sun has turned evil and roasted me like a chili pepper and the blackbirds disappeared around ten this morning. No one has offered me lunch and only one lady gave me water, lukewarm in a plastic cup. If I wasn't taking sneaky drinks out of garden hoses, I'd be dead by now.

“Boy, are you finished yet?” Mrs. Collins calls from her doorway. “I want to start my supper.”

I learned around noon not to ask questions, like, Why can't you eat supper while I'm still mowing the grass? “About five minutes, ma'am.”

She closes the door without a word. I push harder and faster, but her “clipping bag” is full and I have to haul it to the backyard where she's collecting a pile of hay for some reason. Each house has had a hazard or obstacle of some kind. Mrs. Goldstein had an electric mower—I mean the thing actually plugged into a socket and had a cord that fell out about every twenty seconds. Miss Culp liked to come out and chat with me. I learned a lot about Harry Truman from her.

But here's the saving grace. Every one of them paid cash. As I trudge, I can feel the roll of bills that has been growing all day in my pocket. I feel good that I'm helping my family. The smell of cut grass has kept the memory of Mike with me and I almost feel protective of Stephanie, like I'm the man of the house now. I know that's corny, but it's making me see the whole point of the adult world. You kill yourself, but at the end of the day, you feel like a good guy. I mow the last square of Mrs. Collins's yard, empty the final grass clippings onto her haystack, wipe my face on my T-shirt, and ring the bell.

She opens the door. “I gave up and started cooking!” she scolds. “But let's see what you did.”

She walks outside and inspects the whole lawn, glancing back at the house every few minutes, where her supper must be burning. I notice little shivers in the calves of my legs and wonder what she's cooking. I decide to distract myself.

“Why do you collect hay in the backyard?”

“It's a compost pile,” she says. “I collect all the grass and leaves and put my garbage on top. It decomposes and makes a wonderful fertilizer. These days everyone throws away too much. I was raised on a farm in Iowa and we …”

Twenty minutes later—thank God for that supper on the stove—I've got my money and am free to go to my final job. As I leave Mrs. Collins's house, I see a vulture sitting on top of her compost pile. He probably thinks he's the luckiest vulture in the world to have found his own private landfill here in Leisuretown.

House Number Five is Mrs. Chang. She looks at my dripping, skeletal body in horror. “You look all tired out. Maybe you come back tomorrow.”

I think how much I want to give the full amount to Stephanie and also how much I will need tomorrow off to collapse. “No, I'm good to go,” I say. “I'm really thirsty, though. You wouldn't have anything like Gatorade, would you?”

“Who?”

“Maybe a glass of water?” I can smell her dinner cooking too. Rice, soy sauce, garlic. My knees buckle, but I manage to pull out of it.

“Okay, sure!” she says, and closes the door on me. None of these guys have let me in the house. Thank goodness when you sweat all the fluid out of your body you don't need to pee.

Mrs. Chang appears with a glass of V8. I'm not kidding. “No water?” I'm begging now.

“No.”

I wonder what that could possibly mean. She must have a sink in there. I start to see what made Mr. Schuster so mean. But my tissues are screaming for fluid, even salty, blood-red fluid that tastes like beets.

“You be done by six,” Mrs. Chang says. “Okay?”

“Okay.” I stagger away. I see her cat lying on the driveway and remember to be nice to him. Actually, it might be two cats, since I'm seeing double off and on. “Good kitties,” I say, just in case. I go to her garage to find the coup de grâce. A manual push mower. No motor, no gasoline. Not even a cord. I touch the bills in my pocket as if they were a rosary.

When I get home at six thirty, I don't smell any dinner cooking.

“Oh, Hunter! You stink! Go take a shower!” Stephanie greets me.

On my way through the living room to the kitchen, I try not to look at the thousands of photos of Drew spread out on the carpet, which Stephanie and Jessie are crawling around looking at. But I do catch a glimpse of both a pink feather boa and a cowboy hat. I fill and drink eight glasses of water standing at the sink, literally feeling my tissues swelling back to life. Then I go back for Round Two.

“I may stink,” I say, dropping the wad of bills under Stephanie's nose, “but I'm rich!”

That gets her attention. “How much is this?” She scrambles for it like a kid at a piñata party.

“Eighty-two dollars. I mowed five lawns and got a couple of tips.”

“Wow!” Jessie gazes up at me. She doesn't seem to care if I stink. “Andrea only made twenty-five dollars watching the kids across the street! I know I won't make anything like that tutoring.”

Stephanie is busy counting. “Well, Jessie, that just shows you how early it starts. Men always make a disproportionate amount of money compared to women.”

“You're very welcome,” I say.

Money talks. “I'm sorry, Hunter. That wasn't fair,” Stephanie says. “You worked very hard and this is just incredible. Can you make this much every Saturday?”

I can't remember her ever looking at me so kindly. Maybe I am the man of the house. “No problem,” I say.

Andrea comes from the back of the house with her purse and her books, apparently headed to her second shift. “What happened to you?” she asks me. “You look like something ran you over!”

“Hunter made eighty-two dollars mowing lawns!” Jessie cries.

“Oh.” Andrea actually seems to get smaller as she stands there. I totally understand. As the oldest, she wanted to make the most money.

“I heard you did a good job too,” I offer.

“Yeah and … well … I'll get another twenty-five from the Bards tonight.” She looks hopefully at Stephanie.

But Stephanie is looking at my eighty-two dollars.

Andrea shoves by me on her way out the door. “You stink.”

“Hunter, after you shower you can help us look at these pictures of Drew,” says my new best buddy Stephanie. “I decided to save money and go to Glamour Shots but I think they came out pretty good. I've already lined up a contest for her.
Good Homes
Magazine has a contest called Kindergarten Queens. The entry fee is only ten dollars, but if she wins, the first prize is five hundred. And we can use these pictures to start getting her into local pageants.”

I try to skip over the concept that while Andrea and I worked hard all day, Stephanie and Drew were at the mall spending money. “Speaking of ten dollars,” I say. “Since I did so good, can I have ten dollars? I need it for something in school next week.”

This is the part where you're screaming at me right now, like the fans scream in the horror movie. You idiot. Don't go in the basement! Or in my case—you idiot. Why didn't you take the money off the top and never tell her about it?

It's only when I see that both Stephanie and Jessie have lowered their eyes that I realize what an idiot I was. I suddenly sway on my feet and feel dizzy. Drew's hundreds of little candy-box faces smile up at me.

“Well, Hunter,” Stephanie says, casually putting the bills in the pocket of her pants. “There's really no point in making all this money if it doesn't go to household expenses.”

I had to be the big man. I had to drop that whole wad in front of her so she'd see how big and bad I was. God, no wonder people take advantage of me.

“Stephanie,” I say very quietly. “I worked really hard.”

Jessie looks from me to Stephanie, obviously fearful of us both.

“Hunter, I'm sorry. Maybe when we get more on our feet.”

I know this is crap. She's getting Mike's life insurance and support checks for all of us and she works in real estate, for God's sake. I know that she probably had a nice lunch at the mall with Drew and bought her who knows what kinds of clothes and stuff for her new career. I know she's screwing me over and there's nothing I can do.

“I'm gonna take a shower,” I say.

“Okay.” Stephanie keeps her eyes down. It's good to see she has some small sense of shame.

Jessie jumps to her feet. “I'll bet you're hungry. I'll make you a sandwich.”

I feel dangerously close to tears. “That would be really nice, Jess.”

I pass the family room where Drew is watching
SpongeBob SquarePants
. “Was it fun being like a supermodel?” I ask her.

She doesn't even turn around. “Yuck!”

“I don't like my job either.”

I take a long, long hot shower, tipping my head back to drink even more water. I turn the water up to the hottest setting and let it pound on my sore shoulders. As the sweat and dirt go down the drain, it feels like that's my day going with it. It was really all for nothing.

In my room, I find the final insult of the day. Somewhere between her jobs, Andrea has explored my room. She does this on a regular basis, not because I have anything interesting, but just because she can't help herself. She needs to become a detective when she grows up. She tries to be careful, but I see a desk drawer that isn't pushed all the way in, the bed is made differently than the way I made it, and for some crazy reason, one of my pictures, the framed photo of my favorite wrestler, Rolan Thunder, is hanging crooked. I guess she wanted to see if I had put in a wall safe and filled it with jewels. I straighten everything back up—if you've ever lived in an institution you develop this habit of keeping everything in perfect order—and pull a clean T-shirt over my head. I can tell from the smells drifting in from the kitchen that Jessie didn't make me a sandwich, she's cooking a meal for me. She's really the nicest person in our house. I don't know why she gets on my nerves.