Chapter 13

<<Why didn’t someone tell me washing dishes ruins your nails!>> Tule tweets, before sending a second: And OMG it makes it so hard to tap the phone glass—I can never be a pro dishwasher.

Skin peels from my hands. I leave the last cauldron to dry in the rack. It’s so big you could cook a toddler in it. The zombie hands are gross, but that’s what happens when you wash dishes for three hours. It was only when I was almost done that Annie suggested I wear rubber gloves. By next month—if I’m good—I graduate to chopping. I’m not excited. I swear Junker almost lost a few fingers tonight and I’m about as coordinated as a spastic hippo.

I’m tired in that good-day’s-work feel, though. It’s nice to be knocking hours off of my community service again too. Annie’s booked me back tomorrow night for another sitting. And you know what’s really cool? There are fringe benefits. It wasn’t until a group of teens walked in that it hit me: I can feed all the international students here! Think of the savings.

“See ya,” I say, waving at Annie who still wipes counters.

“Ciao,” she replies. Junker told me Annie’s been doing this for twenty-four years without a single dollar in payment. My guess is she’s reformed mob, living off the proceeds of her life of crime.

I step into a cold night. The streetlights shimmer. The church lot is devoid of life.

Annie’s Kitchen borders King Edward Avenue—it’s not a neighborhood where you’d choose to raise a family. Clients of a nearby shelter scamper across three lanes of traffic to panhandle from cars stopped at the light. The only businesses doing well here are the Tim Horton’s on the corner and the needle exchange clinic.

Something tells me that after a few more shifts at the kitchen, I won’t have anything to worry about, but for now I pull my jacket tighter to my chin and crutch as quick as I can to the parked van. Fumbling the key FOB, I open the doors and then swoosh inside.

Before I can shut the door, a hand shoves it wide and then pushes me into the passenger seat. The door slams and I shout for help in anguish.

“Hey!” he yells. “Not here to hurt ya.”

I’d be more convinced of that if he weren’t sitting in the driver’s seat of my van. On the FOB, I try for the car alarm, but he snatches the keys away. I quiet for a second; feigning acceptance, I wait for my chance. When he relaxes and drops the hem of my coat, I kick my door open, then dive toward the pavement.

He catches my belt and then my hood. It strangles my scream as he hauls me in, backward, so that I lie on the seat.

“I said,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

My throat disagrees.

I struggle until I realize I can’t break his grip.

“What is it you want?” he asks, and the question halts my next shout for help because I was wondering the same thing of him. I assumed he wanted my car, my money, or me. Not answers.

“What do you mean?” I ask. My scalp presses at his leg; I’m completely vulnerable. He’s backlit by a streetlight and I squint up at him.

“You visiting our clubhouse, offices …”

It’s the guy from U Technical and A ZaZa. The guy with the ponytail and too-kind eyes for his leg-breaker biceps. His eyes are cold and hard now.

“I’m just looking for business,” I say. “Your … companies … used to bring work to my dad’s business, but we’ve had nothing from you the last few years.”

“Assured Destruction—I heard,” he says, rubbing his grizzled chin. “Well, we’s can’t do business no more.”

“Why not?”

“Just can’t,” he says.

“Do you know my dad?”

“No.” He glances away and I lever myself upright.

“I didn’t even tell you his name.”

“No.” When he turns back to me, there’s this look of pity on his face, a softening of his eyes.

“You’re here to scare me off?” I say.

“It working?”

The guy actually looks hopeful. What happens if he doesn’t stop me?

“A little. Yes. A lot.” And I don’t need to fake the shaking of hands and quaver in my voice.

“Good, don’t want to see no more of yous,” he says and reaches for the door handle.

I’m relieved but also panicked. This guy knows my dad, I’m sure of it. It’s the closest I’ve come to learning where he could be.

“Hey! Wait.” He pauses and glances back. “I want to know more about my dad.”

“Listen, kid, I’m not supposed to be here.”

This is it. This is my chance to track down my father.

“Then why’d you come? Where’s my dad?”

“I knows your dad,” he says and stares down at his hands.

“How? I don’t understand.” And now I have tears threatening because there’s so much anger in me. Anger that my dad never came back. That he doesn’t care. That he doesn’t love me. Mom may not love him anymore, but the day he left I was just another kid whose most important man in her life was her daddy. “Please.”

“Aw, no. No, no, no,” he says.

“Tell me!” And it’s my turn to beat on him. When it’s clear that my fists are doing little more to his shoulder than a decent massage, I curl into a ball. I expect him to leave, but he doesn’t.

“You really want to know, kid?”

I nod into my thighs, unwilling to trust my voice.

“No more visits from you after?” He grips my hair, a full clump of it, and wrenches my head around so that I have to face him. In the action, I see his capacity for causing pain. This is not a nice man.

“Yeah … deal,” I say.

He shuts the door and then reaches for the ignition.

The van starts and my eyes widen. What is happening?

Then he pulls the handle to drive.

“Remember when your dad got this,” he says.

It’s not the first time he’s driven the van. And I realize that this guy really did know my dad. My most fervent wish is about to come true. I’m about to find out about my father.

I’m scared out my skull.