Tweaked (7 page)

Jade is supposed to be at work, but she is already more than an hour late. I am hoping to grab a minute alone with her—I want to run my plan of paying off Chase's debt by her. I can't tell Jack. I already know what he'd say. He'd say I'm nuts and that there is no
way he'd do it. He'd then quote all the times Chase has ripped me off. I would say the same thing if I was in his position. Jade is more likely to see it from my point of view: to take into consideration the need to get Chase out of the house and doing something, and to do it without Mom and Dad finding out.

It's a Thursday night and the store is busy with people picking up what they need for weekend projects. Admittedly it's not rocket science, but I have become very quick on cash. Ralph prefers me to handle it when there are lineups. He says his patience is wearing too thin to deal with peoples' tempers. They are always in such a hurry, and they don't like to wait for an old man fumbling around. The lineup is five people deep when the phone rings. Ralph is in the storeroom. I answer it at the same time as I continue to work the till.

“Gordie, I need money.”

My stomach clenches at the sound of Chase's voice. Where does he get the nerve to call me at work? “Not now, Chase. I'm busy.”

“But it's important.”

“It's always important. Does it ever occur to you that what I'm doing might also be important?” I cringe a little. I sound exactly like my dad.

The lady I am taking money from raises an eyebrow before shifting her attention to the lightbulbs I am stuffing in a bag.

“Just two hundred. That'll do it for now.”

“This morning it was five hundred. What is this for, Chase?” For the sake of the customers, and only the customers, I try to keep my rising anger in check. “Something tells me you're not going to use it to pay off your debt.”

“Of course I am. Do you think I want Ratchet coming after me the way he went after you?”

I feel my cheeks burn. But there is no point in correcting him—Chase is so out of touch with reality, he probably really does think that Ratchet was after me for something
I
had done. I scan the next customer's items. “Later, Chase.”

“It's for a down payment.”

“Later.” I hang up. I try to smile at the next person in line. It isn't very natural, though, and I probably just look like a guy who is suffering from gas.

The phone rings again.

“Busy place,” the customer says.

I shrug in apology before glancing at the call display. It's my home phone number again. I ignore it. It rings eight times before Ralph, all red and sweaty from moving boxes, emerges from the storeroom.

“Aren't you going to answer that?” He pushes a shock of gray hair aside, leaving a smudge of dirt across his forehead.

“It's a wrong number.”

“How do you know?”

“The same guy phoned a few minutes ago.”

Ralph cocks his head a little as the phone continues to ring. I hate lying to him. Ralph always answers his phone, he listens to his customers, and that's how he's run his business for thirty-five years. The man in line takes the bag I hand him and leaves. Ralph returns to the storeroom. Chase doesn't give up until the twentieth ring and I am ready to reach through the phone and wring his scrawny neck.

Traffic in the store has slowed down when the phone rings half an hour later. This time, it's Jade calling from the hospital. She had taken her mother to emergency that morning. Her lungs had become filled with fluid, and Jade was unable to help her. She sounds shaken and a little uncertain, not her usual positive self.

“You go.” Ralph waves toward the door when I tell him. “It sounds like she could use a little support. I'm fine. The rush is over.”

Jade is waiting for me in the front lobby of the hospital. Holly is asleep with her head in Jade's lap. Jade looks tired and drained, like she has barely enough energy to get up from the row of chairs. She gently moves Holly aside and gets to her feet. “I'm so glad you're here,” she says.

It's instinctual to hug her. It seems to be what she needs most right then. Besides, I can't think of anything
to say. I can't tell her it will get better because I know that with her mother's disease that won't happen. So I hold on to her until I think I feel her gain a little strength. But then she begins to really cry. I pull her closer.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “It's just...well, I don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm supposed to be at work. I'm supposed to be studying for an exam. I had to tell my friend Laura that I couldn't go to the mall to see the sweater she said would look perfect on me. I never have even two seconds to myself.” Wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands, she backs away a little. “I know all that sounds so selfish.”

“No, it doesn't,” I tell her. “It sounds normal.”

Jade takes another moment to collect herself. “They're going to try some new antibiotics. The ones she's been taking don't seem to be doing much good anymore. The doctors want to keep her for a few days to see how it goes.”

“Are you ready to go home?”

She nods. “Can you wait with Holly while I make sure there's nothing else she wants?”

“Of course.” I sit down next to Holly on the row of chairs. Holly's small body rises and falls in sleep. I'm amazed that she can sleep at all under the bright lights and with the door opening and closing, but I guess she's probably used to being shuffled around. I pick up a six-month-old copy of
Sports Illustrated
from the table and open it up. People have been coming and going since I arrived, and I'm not sure why I look up when I do.

I spot a woman of about thirty with a small girl in tow moving quickly through the lobby, on her way out of the building. The woman is thin and tall, and wears her blond hair pulled back in a hairclip. Her face is strained and her lips are set. She marches toward the door in a determined way, a way that makes me think that she won't tolerate any interference.

The little girl has to run to keep up with her. Her long sandy hair is tangled like it hasn't been combed in days. I notice that particularly because it doesn't somehow fit with the trendy denim skirt and jacket she wears, although she does wear two different-colored socks. She holds tightly to the woman with one hand; with the other, she hugs a small unicorn against her chest. She is trotting along so quickly that she stumbles. The unicorn goes flying from her hand and skids across the polished floor. “Mom, my unicorn!”

I am close enough that I reach it before her mother realizes what has happened. I hold it out to her.

“Oh,” says her mother, stopping. “Hannah, say thank you to the young man.”

Hannah smiles shyly. She wraps an arm around the toy and takes it from me. I try to smile back, but it's all I can do not to blurt out my story, to tell them how very
sorry I am, and that if it were in my power, I would do anything to turn things back.

“Come, Hannah.”

I look after them.

“What is it?” Jade has returned. She takes the magazine from my hands and sets it on the table.

“That woman who just left, that was Richard Cross's wife, with their kid.”

Jade turns to look, but she is too late. “Oh, I'm sorry, Gordie.”

I call a cab. I ride home with Jade and Holly. On the way, I can't shake the image of Richard Cross's wife and his little girl sitting across from the comatose man. Do they talk to him as he lies there with the machines pumping? Do they tell him what they've done that day? Do they fill him in on all the things that have happened since Chase hit him on the head? I am so preoccupied by these thoughts that it is not until after we have dropped Jade and Holly off at their apartment and I have instructed the cab driver to take me home that I realize I have forgotten to tell Jade about my plan to pay off Chase's debt.

I pay the driver and get out of the cab. I am walking up our front walk when Chase's druggie friend, Ryan, appears from out of the shadows on the other side of the street. He walks toward me.

“Hey, Gordie.” His tone is humble.

“What are you doing here?” I study his eyes in the dark. They are pretty dull, but I can't be sure he is wasted.

“I came to talk to Chase, but your parents won't let me see him.”

“And you're surprised? They paid fifty grand to get him home. Do you really think they want to risk losing it all by having him hang out with you?”

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand—a druggie habit. Still, he looks down at his feet in a way that makes me thinks he isn't high. He shows no trace of that plastic confidence I am used to seeing in Chase. He looks back at me, and this time, I know he is talking sober. “It's not like that. You heard about Harris?”

“Yeah, I did. That was a pretty nasty way to end up.”

Ryan nods. “I'm scared. I don't want that to happen to me. I'm going to check into rehab, and I'm going to stay there as long as it takes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I came to talk Chase into coming with me. That's why I wanted to see him, but your dad closed the door as soon as he saw me.”

“Huh, well, even if you'd told Dad why you'd come, he would have done the same thing. Why should he believe you? You guys can't discuss the weather without lying about it.”

Ryan drops his eyes again. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, he won't go,” I tell him. “Not because you've decided to go.”

“Will you ask him?”

I shrug. “Yeah, sure. I'll ask him. But don't wait for him. If you're serious, go check yourself in.”

Ryan backs up a little. “Yeah, okay.” He turns and starts down the sidewalk.

I don't believe that he will do it. Harris's death has shaken him up, there's no doubt about that. But I figure he'll be wasted by the end of the night and by morning, he'll have convinced himself that Harris had somehow brought it on himself. He'll continue to use as though he's invincible.

Still, it can't hurt to say it. “Good luck, Ryan.”

He waves.

Three days later, I sell my old Yamaha, cash my checks and withdraw all my savings. I walk home with two thousand dollars in my pocket. I have never had so much money on me or even seen it all at once. It's five in the afternoon and despite the bank being only six blocks from my house, I have never been so jumpy. Even the shadow of a seagull passing over my head makes my heart leap to my throat. Every time a car slows I stash my hands in my pockets and pick up my pace. I desperately hope that it isn't those two losers who are going to wind up with my cash anyway.

In the end, I haven't discussed what I'm about to do with anyone. I really don't see any other way out. Mom and Dad are already so financially strapped, and Grandma would make me promise that I wouldn't do it. She'd tell me she would find the money herself. That would be a real hardship on her fixed income, and Jade...well, she has problems of her own.

So I've decided it's best to get it over with and get on with life in our house. I still have my job—I'll work extra shifts to cover the check my grandparents sent me. But I do plan on getting my money back from Chase eventually, even if I have to stoop to Ratchet's level and extract it with a little blood.

My parents are pleased that we're going to a movie together. At least that's what I told them Chase and I are doing when I asked to borrow Mom's car. I know she's hoping that we've found something in common to bring us closer together. I hate lying to her, but I can hardly tell her that fending off Chase's drug dealers is the reason we're going out.

I back out of the garage and sit in the car in the driveway, waiting for Chase. When he finally slides into the front seat, he immediately flips down the mirror on the visor. He pats his hair in case, between the house and driveway, a strand or two has fallen out of place.

Chase reeks of some heavy sweet cologne and he is wearing a new shirt. It reminds me of how he used to clean up after a five-day bender when he was ready to head back out on the street. I back out of the driveway. “I don't know why you got all dressed up to visit a couple of thugs. Do you think if you look good they won't hold a grudge? Keep in mind this is the last time you're going to see them.”

Chase doesn't say anything. He just sits, staring straight ahead.

“Ever.”

“What?”

“You're not going to see or contact them after tonight. And once you get a job you're going to pay me back, two thousand plus interest. Then we'll talk about the stuff you stole.”

I just assume we are headed for the Eastside, the sleazy part of town where the smell of garbage and urine-soaked concrete drifts from the alleys and where those who gather have only one thing on their minds. But the Eastside isn't where Chase directs me. Instead, once we've crossed the Second Narrows Bridge, I follow his directions until we are driving down an older street in Burnaby. This is a family neighborhood; bicycles lie in the driveways and potted plants decorate the front steps.

“Stop here.” Chase motions just ahead, to a house on the left.

I pull to the side of the road, across from the gray stucco bungalow he's pointed out. There are two cars parked in the carport, a third on the driveway and two on the street in front. The Passat that had hounded Jack and me on the Upper Levels Highway is one of them.

“This is it? This is where you come to get high?”

Chase appears nervous. He pats his hair again. “Yeah.”

“But there are bicycles in the driveways and a stroller across the street.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You are such a scuzz.”

Chase holds out a hand. At first I'm not sure what for until I realize it's for the money.

“Oh, no. I'm going with you.” I flip the door handle and start to get out.

“No.” Chase's reply is almost a shout. “You can't.”