The Pet

Chapter 10

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Tracey threw him a kiss.

Chrissy tore off her clothes and wet her lips when he pa.s.sed.

Mom and Dad shook their heads and turned to help little Sam, who was having trouble tying his shoelaces.

The finish was ahead now, around that last turn.

The crowd was in a frenzy, pressing against the police line that tried to keep them back, though the cops were just as excited as the people they were holding.

He could hear his heart, and it was doing fine; he could hear his feet in perfect rhythm with the swing of his arms and the tilt of his head; he could hear his name being called over and over again, like the beating of a drum, like the slam of a fist hard against cement, like the march of an army across a treeless plain.

He ran harder, sobbing now because he knew he had to break the record so they would know who they were dealing with here. So they would know he wasn"t a G.o.dd.a.m.ned kid anymore.

He ran harder and thrust out his chest, and broke through the ribbon just as pandemonium broke loose and smothered him, washed him, rose in awe of him while he staggered across the gra.s.s and dropped onto his back, arms outspread, legs wide, eyes staring straight up at the goalpost"s crossbar.

The crowd left, the cameras, the police, the sighing women.

99.But he wasn"t alone.

The field stretched ahead of him, longer now from down here, and at the far end, in the ten-foot tunnel in the thick brick wall whose heavy wooden gates were still open at both ends, he could see something standing there. Deep in the shadows. Watching him. Waiting. Not moving a muscle.

There was no light behind it though the streetlamps were on; it cast no shadow darker than itself.

But it was there. He could see it.

And it was watching him. Waiting.

Not making a sound.

He blinked the sweat from his eyes, wiped his face with a forearm, and looked again.

It was gone.

The stadium was empty, and he was lying on the gra.s.s.He puffed his cheeks and blew out, blinked again rapidly, and stared at the tunnel. "Oxygen, kid," he told himself as he stumbled to his feet.

"You need a little of the old O2, if you know what I mean."

His jacket was gone.

He looked down on the spot at the fifty-yard line where he had dropped it, stared with a perplexed frown, and finally looked up to scan the field. Then he turned and scanned the stands. It was gone. He knew he had left it right here; he could feel it leaving his hands and could hear it striking the ground. And now it was gone. He waited a moment for someone to start laughing, waited until he was sure it was not a joke.

And when he was sure, when he knew he wasn"t even safe on his track anymore, he put his hands into his pockets and started for home.

This, Tracey thought, is the pits.

She sat alone on a crumbling stoop in front of a crumbling brownstone, one of a whole block that could just as easily have been in any of the city"s boroughs. The curbs were lined 100.with cars, the pavement packed with children, and there wasn"t a single face she recognized, not a single voice she <>< p="">

The pits.

This was supposed to be Long Island-trees and beaches and elegant houses and developments, a place you visited to get away from it all. But even Ashford was better than this, for G.o.d"s sake. At least it had the football game she was supposed to be playing the flute for right now; it had her books and her stuffed animals and the seclusion of her room; Ashford had Don Boyd.

She squirmed, thinking of the way she had kissed him before she"d known what she was doing. He"d looked as if she"d punched him in the stomach; she felt as if she"d been punched herself, and had run straight to her room without giving her mother the usual minute-by-minute account of her time out of the house. She must have been blushing, though, because her sisters began a teasing that hadn"t let up, not even on the trip over, until her father had finally laid down the law-no talking, he was driving, he needed to concentrate on the idiots who were on the road with him.

She clasped her hands between her knees, watching a game of stick ball grow dangerously close to a brawl, suddenly thinking of the Howler and what he could do to these kids. A shudder. A swallow. A look over her shoulder to the windows above, to the window where she saw her father"s face looking down. She smiled at him, waved, and sighed when he gestured her off the steps and into the building.

d.a.m.n, she thought. If he"s such a macho cop, why the h.e.l.l can"t he get the old lady to move? At least to a place that had trees instead of garbage cans.

Long Island was the pits.

At the doorway she stopped and turned, and a sour smile parted her lips.Good-bye, twentieth century, she said to the 101.

noisy street. I"m going in my time machine now. Fasten your chast.i.ty belts, please, it"s going to be a rough, boring ride.

The house"s original porch had been torn down long before Don and his family had moved in, the previous owner claiming the wood had been rotted, and he didn"t want anyone hurt in case a board or the steps gave way. It had been replaced by one that barely reached to either side of the door, and its roof was peaked, the railing up the steps twisted black wrought iron. It was the only house on the block with a porch like that, and Norman had once insisted he was going to restore the old one; that was before Sam had died. Now he said nothing beyond a grumbling that what was there did little to protect him from the rain or the snow.

Don sat on the top step. He had been inside only long enough to towel himself off and fetch a sweater, had intended on going back to his room, when he saw that his parents hadn"t yet returned. They would never know he was gone. They would a.s.sume they had been obeyed. He had actually sat down on the bed and stared at the blank wall where the stallion had been; then he felt the weight of the empty shelves, and the hollow sound his breathing made, and the chill that seemed to drift from the white-painted walls. He looked into his parents" room, into Sam"s room, then opened the attic door and went up.

They were there. Piled on cartons, helter-skelter on the dusty floor, dropped on a trunk that belonged to his grandfather. He had swallowed, stood, and finally picked up the poster and brought him back down. Taped him up over the desk and stared at him, wondering.

He saw little save the withdrawing of the light.

He heard only the leaves, and the shadows, and the silence of the house rising behind him.

An automobile or two had sped past, but he paid them no heed; a flock of kids shrieked through the twilight, but he 102.

didn"t smile at their greetings; a red convertible crawled down the street, radio on full, and it wasn"t until he realized it had pulled into a driveway a few houses down that he turned his head slowly, as if it were too heavy to move.

The driver"s door slammed.

Chris. He blinked. It was Chris Snowden, and she wasn"t with Tar. She was still in her dark cheerleader"s sweater, still had on her saddle shoes, but her pleated skirt had been replaced by a pair of faded-to-white jeans.

And she wasn"t going into her house; she was walking across the intervening yards directly toward him.

He cleared his throat and wondered what she had planned for him-a bit of teasing, a little temptation, a breathless request for his zoology homework.He could wait; and he did, until she stopped at the foot of the stairs, leaned on the railing and crossed one foot over the other, toe down.

"Hi!"

Her pale hair was parted down the center and gathered in two braids that flopped over her chest. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide and of a blue so dark they seemed nearly black.

Warily he smiled a greeting. He recalled her brief show of solicitude when she"d seen the damage done to his eye, saw it again as she examined his face closely, a half smile at her lips.

"Looks better," she said.

"I barely feel it," he admitted, unconsciously poking around the discoloration. She turned to look at the empty street; he couldn"t take his eyes from her profile. "I, uh, saw you and Tar before. I figured you guys were going to the city."

A shrug, and a sideways look of disgust. "He got sick. Brian had some beer in his car, and after the game they had a 103.

he-man chugging contest. Tar lost." She pointed down the street. "So did my car."

"Gross."

"The creep wouldn"t even help me clean it out. Last time I saw him he was falling into the park." A grin-full of humor, touched with malice.

"If there"s a G.o.d, he"ll end up in the pond."

He chuckled and shook his head at the foolishness of kids, and did his best not to stare when she turned back to him and leaned forward on the railing, folding her arms on it and putting her chin on a wrist. This wasn"t happening, he knew; this was something his mind had dreamed up to punish him for thinking he could somehow rule the world and make it fair again.

"Were you at the game?"

"No. I had ... other things to do."

An eyebrow lifted. "We won."

"We always win."

"Really?"

"Every year," he said, making it clear there was a book somewhere filled with things he thought more important, or less boring. "Especially since Brian and Tar got on the team."

"Oh?" Her eyes drifted closed. "You gonna be down at Beacher"s later?"

"I don"t know. Maybe. It depends on my folks."

She pushed abruptly upright and he almost gasped, thinking he had saidsomething to make her mad. The expression on her face was a dark one, the lines stabbing from the corners of her eyes deeper and longer, giving her age, turned her soft white-blonde hair into a hag"s wig, her softly pointed chin into a boney dagger. The transformation startled him, and he leaned away from it slightly, could not meet her gaze.

Instead, he turned to the right where he saw in dismay the station wagon approaching.

104.

Aw s.h.i.t, he thought; not now!

"You"re in trouble, huh?" she said sympathetically.

He couldn"t help himself-he nodded.

"s.h.i.t. So am I."

"Huh? You?"

"Oh sure," she said with venomous disgust, each word the swing and crack of a bull whip. "It happens all the time, I"m getting used to it. They say get to know the kids, go to the parties, join the clubs. You"re gonna need it, Christine, on your college applications. You"re gonna need all that stuff." She snorted and managed a patently false smile as the station wagon pulled slowly into the drive. "Y"know, Don, no offense but there"s a lot of scuz in your school."

"No offense. There is."

The smile, when she turned it on him, was genuine just long enough for him to notice; then it faded as Norman and Joyce opened their doors and got out, Norman pointing stiffarmed to Don, then to the grocery bags in back.

"A girl," she said quietly, "can"t even get a decent lay around here."

He wanted to laugh, to grab her, to find someplace dark and deep where he could hide and start this conversation over. He wanted to tell her he knew exactly how she felt. What he did was stand meekly and murmur a good-bye when his father gestured again for help with the bags. Chris touched his arm in farewell, smiled again and introduced herself to the Boyds as she headed for home. Norman watched her; Don grabbed the two heaviest bags and grunted back to the house where his mother had the door open and waiting.

In the kitchen he lowered them onto the counter and backed into a corner while he waited for the storm.

Norman dropped his load solidly on the table, Joyce did the same, and they proceeded to move awkwardly about the room, putting things in their places and not looking at him save for a flat glance or two.

105.

"I thought you were to stay in the house," his father said.

"Chris seems like a very nice girl," his mother said with an anxious smile.

"She is," Don told her. Guess what, Ma, she wants to get laid and I"mstill a G.o.dd.a.m.n virgin.

"You"re grounded," Norman reminded him.

"Well, maybe you should get to know her a little better, what do you think?"

Back and forth. Figurines on a clock.

"I guess, Mom. I don"t know."

"Her father is a surgeon, you know. He works in New York. A fairly important man from all I hear."

"How come he lives here then?" he said, flinching when Norman opened a cupboard next to his head and gave him a look that demanded a response.

"I don"t know," Joyce said, frowning over a box of cake mix, weighing it in her hand before putting it aside. "From what I"m told, he isn"t lacking for the old green. And it certainly isn"t because this is the perfect suburb. There is, I gather, something about the mother that-""

Norman slammed a can of soup on the table and faced his son. "I want to know what you were doing outside, Donald, when you were specifically told not to leave the house."

He lowered his gaze to his shoetops and swallowed the burrs that climbed into his throat. His left hand began thumping lightly against the wall.

There was heat in his chest, and heat on his neck, and he could feel the seconds skip by like rocks dropped into a puddle. Without seeing her he could sense his mother shifting toward the doorway, fussing meaninglessly with something, staying because she had to, wanting to leave because she knew what was coming.

That was the Rule: the family never ran out on a discussion.

"I"m grounded," he said. "That doesn"t mean I can"t sit on the dumb porch, does it?"

"You know d.a.m.ned well what it means," Norman said.

106.

"No," Donald said, "I don"t know d.a.m.ned well what it means because you never told me before because I was never d.a.m.ned well grounded before."

Joyce put a hand to her mouth; Norman took hold of the table"s edge and for a moment Don thought he was going to tip it over and come for his throat.

Don looked past him to his mother. "Mom, why are my things in the attic?"

"Things?"

"From my shelves. The animals. You took them away, remember? I"d like to know why they"re in the attic. Am I ever going to get them back?"

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