Are you sure you’ve got all your things together?” she asked Dewey.
“How many times have you asked me?” Dewey said.
“Don’t answer me like that,” she said.
“Because that’s how many times I’m sure,” Dewey told her. “However many times you asked me.”
She made one more dab with her lip gloss and dropped it and the hand mirror into the makeup bag and dropped the makeup bag into the suitcase and zipped the suitcase closed, pressing down vigorously on a pair of knee boots to get the zipper around.
“I don’t even know why you’re bothering,” Tonio said. He looked out the window, scanning the street in either direction. It was still snowing. “It’s almost ten already. Obviously we’re not going anywhere today.”
“Don’t blame me,” she said. “I tried to call him. It’s not my fault my cell phone doesn’t want to work here. Besides, he could show up any minute.” She sat at the foot of the bed with her hands on her knees, as if she were ready to spring up, suitcase in hand, at a second’s notice if Robbie suddenly materialized there in the doorway. By assuming that pose she could almost convince herself this was an actual possibility.
“That’s ridiculous,” Tonio said. “Where would he be if he were just going to show up all of a sudden?”
“Taking a walk,” she said. “Getting something to eat.”
“Oh, of course. How many diners do you see open out there, Dewey?” Dewey had gone over and joined Tonio at the window, examining the street the same as his father.
“I see one,” Dewey said.
Tonio nodded. “That’s the only one I see, too, big guy. Grand total of one diner. At least it has electricity. And who was not at that diner when we were there half an hour ago eating breakfast?”
“There were a lot of people not at that diner,” Dewey said.
Tonio nodded. “Yeah, and one of them was Robbie,” he said.
“You’re right,” Dewey said. “Robbie’s a degenerate.”
“Where does he get this stuff?” she asked. “You’re ten,” she told him.
“But I have ears,” he said. “I hear things.”
Tonio moved away from the window and started pacing back and forth. “So clearly he stole my fucking money and went to that bar across the road.” He put his hands in his jeans pockets and shrugged his shoulders and scowled at her, as if he was daring her to refute this. She felt perfectly calm.
“Excuse me?” she said, nodding toward Dewey, who now sat on the window ledge where she’d watched Robbie cross the street.
“Oh, right,” Tonio said. “He stole my frigging money. He stole my frigging money, Dewey.”
“I hear you, Dad,” Dewey said.
“He stole my frigging money, the asshole, and he went to that bar and spent it, and from the looks of the few people who were at that diner, I’ll bet one or two of them probably helped him spend it, but naturally they’d be on Robbie’s side, everyone’s always on Robbie’s side, including you, because if you weren’t you would just admit that what we ought to do is pack up and leave him.” Tonio rocked on his heels, his mouth pooched up. “If he’s still around here, which I doubt.”
“Please,” she said. “He’s your brother. You’re not just going to run off and leave him.”
“Right,” Tonio said. “Like he’d wait around for me.”
“How are you so sure that’s what happened to him?”
“Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
“No,” she said.
“Are you sure you don’t know something I don’t?” he said. “Because if it turns out you’re covering up for him or making excuses for him in some way…” He tilted his head back subtly, and then he glanced over at Dewey to let her know what he wasn’t saying, that this was it, the last straw, the one that broke the camel’s back, blah blah, etc.
“Why would I do that?” she asked. She stared at him from the foot of the bed.
He kept his eyes locked on her for a second or two, then he looked down and away. “Come on, Dooze,” he said. “Let’s go see what the deal is with staying another night.”
“Okay,” Dewey said.
“Maybe if this town has a frigging store of some kind we can buy a frigging sled while we’re at it.”
“That’ll be fun,” Dewey said. “I bet they’ve got one. A store. There must be one somewhere.”
They walked out and she heard them talking on the stairs. She unzipped the suitcase and started to unpack.