Pay It Forward (20 page)

“Don’t, okay? Just go home now, Arlene.”

She could hear in his voice that he was crying, and it startled her. He never had done that before, so far as she knew. It was a weakness she attributed only to herself. And she knew he would want no witness to the moment. So she did as she had been asked.

U
ntil Sally called, he didn’t realize, consciously, how much he had missed her. He hadn’t let himself realize. He had allowed it to hover, little bats at the edges of his day’s work, shadows in his periphery, but he had ways to keep things at a proper distance. Obsession with work, obsessive exercise, too much sleep, too little sleep. Drinking himself to sleep.

But then she called, and there it was, all that feeling, and he knew in some part it had been there all along.

She asked how he’d been and he said fine, which was a lie.

She asked how the story was going and he said it wasn’t going, it was gone, dead-ended, a cold trail, which was true.

Then nobody said anything for a painful few seconds, and he asked her out to dinner. She said she’d had dinner out every night this week, but if he’d come over to her new apartment she’d cook.

He said he loved her, which was true, but it caused her to fumble a bit, and make it clear she would still hold on to the right to reserve judgment.

I
T WAS AFTER DINNER
when the phone rang. He was sitting close to her on the couch, thinking how familiar it was, the smell of her. Maybe partly perfume, partly just her skin, or maybe her skin smelled like perfume. He wasn’t sure. He was thinking a drink would be nice, but not saying that.

Then the phone rang, and he prayed it would not be for him.

She picked it up, and her face went dark. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “You gave out this number?”

He shook his head. “Call forward.”

Whatever moment they had been close to achieving, it disappeared from his horizon. He knew that. It cracked in the air between them and he felt it.

“It’s a young lady, for you.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

She handed him the phone and left the room. He sat breathing, holding the receiver for a moment. He could hear her in the kitchen, moving dishes in the sink, a bit harder and louder than necessary. He always ended up being himself in front of her, with his real life all too visible, and then it all fell down.

“Hello?”

“Chris Chandler?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?” He tried not to sound irritated but it might not have worked.

“Terri, from the grocery store. You know. From Atascadero? Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“Uh, no, it’s fine, Terri. What’s up?”

“Well, you said to call you if I thought of anything. Only this probably isn’t much. It’s probably nothing. But I did think of something. That last time I saw her? I remember what she was in such a good mood about. I remember I said her garden looked really nice. And her face just kind of lit up. And she said, ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful?’ or something like that. She said, ‘The neighbor boy did all that.’ She told me his name but I forget it now.”

Chris waited in silence a moment, hoping for, expecting,
something more. Her garden had been important to her. That much he already knew.

“Well, I said it was probably nothing.”

“No, I’m glad you called, Terri. Really. If you think of anything else…”

“Well, that’s it, I guess. For now. Just that she was all happy about the garden.”

“I appreciate your calling, Terri. I really do.”

“Well, I don’t want to run up my phone bill. Bye.”

He hung up the phone, blinking slowly, and saw her standing in the kitchen doorway. “Oh, God, Sally, it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not seeing anyone. It was just one of those people I interviewed about that story.”

She didn’t move out of the doorway. He wondered if she believed him, if she ever did, if she ever had. If she really should.

“I’m trying to decide if that’s better, or worse,” she said.

But then she smiled and came back and sat close. He picked up the phone and left it off the hook.

I
T WAS JUST AS HE WAS MOVING
onto the bed. That’s when it began to hit him. Shirt off, pants unzipped, following her naked body as if tethered to it. Not trying to think about anything else, not realizing there could be anything else to think about.

It came in through the back of his mind, in the unwelcome voice of Richard Greenberg, or Green, or whatever the hell his name was. Three sentences, echoing when least wanted.

“Said she didn’t pay him, he did it for free. Yeah, right. Kids love to do that.”

He pushed the words away again. She pulled him down, her mouth on his neck. Hands exploring his bare back. So familiar, so sorely missed.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Why?”

“You seem distant.”

“No. I’m right here. God, I missed you.”

He kissed her. Richard was right. She paid a kid to do her garden. She must have. Which had no bearing on this situation whatever. Useless. So she was happy because her garden had just been done. It meant nothing. One of his legs, sliding between hers. How had he lived without this so long? Said she didn’t pay him, he did it for free. Big favor, for a kid. For anybody. What kind of kid would do that for free?

“You are not right here, Chris.”

“Oh. I’m not?”

He rolled over onto his back, and knew. Something religious in the revelation, because he’d asked Mrs. Greenberg for a sign. Let me see something. And all the while he’d been looking right at it. What kind of kid would do that for free? Same kind of kid would keep doing it for free long after the lady was dead.

He’d been looking at the next link back, and he’d driven away.

He shouldn’t have asked the kid if he knew about her will. What a stupid way to go at it. Why would the kid know about her will? Why should he? Nobody knows how someone else is going to pay it forward. He should have asked the paperboy if he knew anything about the Movement.

“The paperboy,” he said out loud.

Sally got up and began to dress. “Go home now, Chris.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That makes two of us.”

H
E SAT ON
M
RS.
G
REENBERG’S FRONT PORCH.
The weather hadn’t changed, or if it had, it had changed back to hot in his honor. The neighbor lady across the street glanced out her kitchen window now and then, as though she’d do well to keep
an eye on him. Imagine how crazy she’d think I am, he thought, if she knew I’d come three thousand miles to sit here. Twice.

A paperboy came by, on foot, walking the route with a cloth bag over his shoulder. A red-haired boy with freckles. He lobbed a paper at the house next door.

“Hey, kid.”

The kid froze, looked panicked. Didn’t answer.

“I don’t bite.”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“I just want to know what happened to the other kid.”

“What other kid?”

“The paperboy who was here last month.”

“He won the prize.”

“What prize?”

“Best paperboy of the year.”

“So, where is he?”

“He won the week off with pay.”

Oh. Crap.
Chris thought of the nearly maxed MasterCard in his shirt pocket. It wouldn’t keep him here another week. The red-haired boy was trying to hurry past. “What’s his name, do you know?”

“Trevor.”

“Trevor what?”

“I forget.” Level with Mrs. Greenberg’s walkway, the boy broke into a run and disappeared down the street.

Chris began walking in the opposite direction. Passing the next-door neighbor’s lawn, he briefly picked up their paper. The
Atascadero News-Press.
He memorized the street number of their office, on the main drag. El Camino Real.

A wave of heat hit him as he opened the rental car door. By the time he found the office it was closed for the day.

H
E SLEPT FITFULLY,
after much trying, and woke after eight to the day’s heat, already gearing up to punish him. He could feel it gather strength. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He had breakfast at Denny’s, found the newspaper office again. Sold them a song and dance about a national award for enterprising young people. They gave him a name and address without question. He got lost twice trying to find it, finally had to stop for gas and a map.

When he knocked on the door it was after nine. It wasn’t until the sound of his knock faded that Chris felt awake enough to realize that the kid would not be home. Kids go to school on weekdays.

A small, pretty, dark-haired woman flew out the door.

“I’m twenty minutes late for work. Whatever the hell you’re selling, I ain’t buying it.” She pushed past him into the driveway and stood beside an orange GTO from the sixties, fumbled in her purse, for keys, he assumed. The car was parked behind a late-model truck, stripped, and damaged as though it had been through a meteor shower.

“Shit,” the woman said. “Left my keys in the house.”

“What happened to that truck? Looks like somebody took a lead pipe to it.”

The woman turned the knob on her front door, then ran into it, as though amazed that it didn’t open.

“Shit. I locked myself out.” She turned to consider him, as if for the first time. “Who the hell are you and why aren’t you going away?”

“My name is Chris Chandler. I’m a reporter. I’m looking for Trevor McKinney.”

“He’s at school. Where the hell you think he’d be? And I’m late for work, and locked out, and standing here talking to you ain’t puttin’ me in no better mood.”

“Did you leave any windows open?”

“Just that high one.”

“Come on. I’ll give you a leg up.”

He laced his fingers and offered his hands like a stirrup, poised under what he assumed to be the bathroom window. She stepped up onto his hands, surprisingly light. She reached up to the window, put her fingers under the screen, and pulled hard, bending the frame. The screen shot across the driveway, mangled, he presumed, beyond repair. It landed beside the truck, looking only lightly used in comparison.

She leaned the top half of her body through the window, and he hoisted her up higher. She disappeared.

A moment later she came barreling out the front door again.

“So, where’s Trevor’s school?”

“I’m late for work.”

“You’d have been a lot later if I wasn’t here.”

“I wouldn’t have locked myself out if you hadn’t distracted me at the last minute.”

“Where’s that school again?”

“What the hell you want with my son?”

“Just want to ask him a couple of questions. About a Mrs. Greenberg.”

“I don’t know no Mrs. Greenberg.”

“He does.”

“For all I know you could be a kidnapper or a pervert. I gotta go.”

She dropped into the low bucket seat, struggled briefly with a club on the steering wheel, fired and revved the engine. The old glass-pack mufflers roared. She drove off without so much as a wave good-bye, cutting a little close to his legs on the way out of the driveway.

As it turned out, there was only one junior high school in town anyway.

C
HRIS STOPPED AT THE OFFICE,
where he was given a visitor’s pass and instructions to room 203, where Trevor McKinney was apparently scheduled to arrive for social studies class.

When he stepped into the classroom, only the teacher was present. Chris stared at the teacher’s face for a protracted moment, then glanced away. He felt he needed to look more closely but didn’t dare.

“Chris Chandler,” he said, and stepped forward to shake the teacher’s hand, focusing awkwardly on his tie. “I’m looking for a Trevor McKinney. I was told he’d be here next period.” He flashed his visitor’s pass.

“Yes. Take a seat, Mr. Chandler.”

The teacher seemed curious but asked no questions.

Chris didn’t want to sit at a small desk but, in a kind of regression, felt compelled to do as he’d been told. The room looked small to him. He wondered if his own junior high had been bigger, or if it was all a matter of perspective.

He glanced at the teacher’s face again and the man looked up, as if he could tell. Chris turned his eyes to the blackboard as though he’d planned to all along. The board was blank, freshly erased, except for a sentence in neat block lettering.

THINK OF AN IDEA FOR WORLD CHANGE, AND PUT IT INTO ACTION.

“Is that an assignment?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting assignment.”

“It can be.”

“Any of the students change the world yet?”

“Not yet. Some of them have had good ideas. Trevor had a particularly good one.”

Three students walked in and slapped books down on desktops. Chris recognized the paperboy immediately. The boy looked back at him.

“Remember me?” Chris said.

“I think so.”

“From Mrs. Greenberg’s house.”

“Oh, yeah.”

The boy walked over and stood by his desk. “I think I asked you the wrong question,” Chris said. “So now what I’m going to ask is this: did somebody do a big favor for you, and is that why you take care of Mrs. Greenberg’s garden for free?”

“No. Nobody did a big favor for me.”

“You don’t know anything about the Movement?”

The boy’s face looked blank. “The what?”

Chris felt something sink in his gut. Another expensive trip to nowhere. Another dead end. What good would it have done, anyway? So the boy might have taken him one link back. Then it all falls down again. His girlfriend was right. It was all obsession with him, no thought or sense, and all too often it added up to nothing.

He stood to leave.

“Well, bye,” Trevor said.

Chris shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. “Your teacher told me you had an interesting idea for that assignment.” He pointed to the blackboard. The room was filling up with children now, a claustrophobic feeling.

“Yeah, I invented this thing called Paying It Forward. It was for last year’s class. I got the best grade. But you know what? It was a total bust.”

That tingle hit behind Chris’s ears, a hot feeling, slightly dizzy.

He smiled.

“Maybe it didn’t work out as bad as you thought,” he said.