Twenty

I WAIT AT the park until he shows, sitting on a bench where I can watch the street, refusing to budge when one of the girlfriends turns up with her boy. She glances at me, sits on the opposite bench, and makes herself busy with her phone, apparently acknowledging my right to take up space now.

Kincaid appears, so far away that I’m not even sure if it’s him at first. He jumps off the sidewalk, coasts in the breakdown lane, then jumps back over the curb before repeating the whole process. Even with the skill involved, there’s a weird, unsteady rhythm to it, like he might lose control at any moment and bite pavement.

He sees me and comes over, dropping down on the bench so close that our thighs touch. I’m aware of the other girlfriend watching us from the corner of her eye. “This, here?” He gestures to me, on the bench. “Prime example of kismet. I was just thinking about you.”

Whiskey bristles the air between us. “Well. You’re . . . aromatic today.” I watch as he laughs, nodding slowly, like his head feels so light it might drift away. “Wasted, huh?”

“Yes.” His own solemnity makes him laugh again.

“It’s three o’clock.”

“That late already? Shit.”

“Any chance I could get some coffee into you? Maybe try to talk?” I can’t catch his gaze. “Kincaid?”

He comes back to the moment. “Yeah. Definitely. Whatever.” Stretches, groans, rests back on the bench, eyes closed, feeling the thin autumn light on his face. “Wherever you want to go, Clarabelle.”

We end up at Song’s. He kept his eyes closed during the ride in the Suburban, neither of us speaking, me glancing over at him now and then, wondering how to begin, thinking about those marks on the dirt, the impression of a sleeping body.

Even at an off time on a Saturday, quite a few booths are taken as we seat ourselves in Song’s dining room. Kincaid opens the paper napkin and gets to work folding—first halves, then thirds. I watch him, the feeling of the nightmare coming over me again, shifting, unreal, like déjà vu. If he makes an origami moth, I might scream.

Daisy appears eventually, holding menus to her chest as she watches Kincaid, engrossed in art, his face inches above his work. She glances at me. “I’m guessing this is one of those savant things.”

“Can we have some coffee?”

Kincaid looks up. “Tea. Please. For me.”

When I change my order to ask for the same, Daisy goes, not bothering to leave the menus. She knows if we’re eating, it’s buffet. I found a couple loose dollars in the center console of the Suburban, and I have a little left over from the cash Ma gave me this week.

After we get our food, I settle back into the booth and sip some tea. I understand the appeal, particularly for Kincaid; they lace it with so much sugar here that my body gets an instant buzz. The origami sits half-finished, creation unrealized. Time to wade in. “So. I’ve been thinking about the fortune you gave me. How you made me think you knew what it said before I even opened it. But you didn’t. You guessed. What are there, maybe three basic subjects? Love, money, fate. Right? When you asked me how I liked my fortune, you watched my reaction, then picked the one you thought would be most likely to bother me. Fate.”

He eats an egg roll, hopefully sponging some of the demon from his system. “Says a lot about a person. Those three subjects. You’re already lucky in love.” I laugh. “Don’t give a shit about money. It’s just fate that gets you. Facing the unexpected.” He studies me. “Why?”

I fold my arms on the table. “I guess because I’m scared of it. I hate the idea that we can’t control our own lives.”

“Is that what the fortune said?”

“Well, no. Not exactly.” I glance up, catch his intensity as he conducts a two-second postmortem of my expression. My mouth moves in a reluctant smile, and I shake my head. “I’m giving you everything you need to play me, aren’t I?” His smile broadens, and he sits back against the booth, caught. He seems better now, back in the moment with me. That’s when I drive in my first nail: “Do you live on Lorimer Street?”

Kincaid’s smile fades. His brows are still raised, eyes on me.

“Down at the end? The brown house?” Nothing. “Nevers. That’s your last name, right?” He doesn’t speak.

“Jesus, Kincaid. I just want to know you. Why do you make it so hard?” Shake of his head, his gaze finding the exit behind me. “You don’t go home sometimes, do you? You stay out all night.” I’ve got him, wings pinned to a board, but it doesn’t feel good, no payoff for making him feel this trapped. “I found your bed. Out in the marsh.”

He holds still, but maybe I’m picking up some skills from him, because my answers are all there, in his silent exhalation, the set of his mouth. He wants out of here, away from me, and maybe I’m ruining what we have, but I can’t stop now. “You really sleep there? God. That’s crazy.” Silence. “Your parents don’t even care? Did they kick you out?”

More silence. As good as a yes. “She doesn’t know.” Pause. “She doesn’t want to know.”

She. No dad. I try to keep my voice level. “Is that what you meant, when you talked about being scared so much? You meant sleeping out there, alone. With nothing. How long have you been doing this?”

He rubs the side of his head distractedly, one of his braids surfacing, the end coiling on his shoulder, fastened with a plain rubber elastic. “Since summer. It wasn’t bad, at first. Anyway. I’ve got what I need.” He touches his coat, where the inner pocket lies, heavy with whatever’s left of the bottle. “I sleep okay.”

“Kincaid. That’s how people freeze to death. Can’t you stay with Trace, Moon, somebody?”

He shrugs, looking out the window. “Sometimes I do. But it’s not like their families need another problem.”

I exhale heavily, trying to control my frustration, not show how much it hurts, thinking of him alone in that makeshift shelter, just trying to get through till morning. “The night Ivy went back out there. Did you see her?”

He leans on his elbows, rubbing his eyes with both hands. “See all kinds of things. Hear things. Half the time I never really know. . . .” I can fill in the rest: he doesn’t know what’s real, and what’s some bad dream brought on by too much fire demon to drive out the chill.

“If you saw Ivy, we have to tell the cops.”

“No. I mean . . . I don’t know. Maybe there was something.” Shuts his eyes, gives his head a slight shake, loosening a memory. “Like a light. But it was there, and then . . .” Breathes out, opens his eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t even that night. It all kind of blends, you know?”

I reach across the table and take his hand, squeezing his fingers, which somehow still feel cold to me. “Why did your mom kick you out?”

He pulls his hand back. Bounces in place a little, ready to move. Because as long as you keep moving, nobody can pin you down, right? “Want to go? I can pay for us.”

I sit back, folding my arms, forcing myself not to keep pushing as he digs money out of his wallet, tossing it down where Daisy can see it the next time she wanders through. I add two extra dollars to the tip, as if that will somehow raise us in her estimation.

When we get back into the car, I begin, “The money,” focusing on fastening my seat belt, remembering how he went into the house, coming out a minute later, before his mom could follow. Enough time to get into a purse.

He stretches his legs out in the space under the dash. “I go home sometimes, take what I need.”

“Think she wants you to have it?” I shift into drive, glancing over when he doesn’t answer right away.

“I don’t know what she wants. But she doesn’t want me there with her. She said so.”

“During a fight?” I glance at him. “Everybody says stupid stuff when they’re mad. I’m sure if you just talked to her—”

“She changed the locks.”

And I’ve got nothing. “Really?”

He nods slowly. Then he reaches over without looking, sliding his hand from my knee, along my inner thigh, between my legs, and my pulse is there, meeting his touch. I’ve learned so much, gotten so many answers, but somehow it comes back to this, the two of us, and I move into his gentle pressure. “I just want to be with you.” His voice is quiet.

I breathe out, trying to focus on the road. “Where can we go?” Not the woods. That’s cold estrangement to me now; we deserve better.

“I have a place.” He rests back, doesn’t move his hand. “You know how to get there.”

My stomach is churning by the time we reach the end of Lorimer and the little house. There’s no car in the drive this time. “You’re sure she won’t come home?”

“Not anytime soon. She works Saturdays.” He’s got my jeans unbuttoned, edging the zipper down.

“But the locks . . .”

“Only so many places to hide an extra key.”

The street is hushed, the daylight beginning to fade as we go inside together, Kincaid letting us in with the key he pulled out from the gap under the front steps, holding my hand the whole time. She didn’t leave any lamps on. We shouldn’t be here, I think, but don’t say. This is his home; and there’s nowhere else for us to go.

As we pass through the dim kitchen, I get a quick impression of the private nature of his mom’s life. Bare surfaces; a spoon rest by the electric kettle, a jar of instant coffee; small plate and fork in the dish rack. Faint odor of dust.

He leads me upstairs. He has a room, of sorts; a bed with a metal frame, a bureau and trunk, a few personal things left around like whoever once slept here has moved on, left for college or something. There’s a closet door by the window, a mosaic of treetops visible beyond the glass.

We don’t turn on the light. Our coats drop to the floor. He peels my jeans down over my hips, easing me back onto the bed, his lips finding my ear, kissing harder down my neck. The coverlet is cool beneath me, the mattress soft, broken in. I help him pull off his shirts—he wears three, two thermals under a T-shirt—and then mine falls beside them.