Theo followed Auggie and Orlando down to the parking lot. The August day was boiling hot, the air shimmering over the asphalt, and sweat broke out on Theo’s face and back. The smell of hot tar came in on each breath. Theo felt dizzy from it.
Auggie kept his hand on Orlando’s arm, and when they got to the car, he gestured to his stomach and said, “Are you ok?”
“Yeah. It just hurt.”
“You don’t think you need to see a doctor?”
“He didn’t hit me that hard. He’s an asshole, but he’s not a monster. Come on, I want you to meet the rest of my family.”
“Maybe we should drop you off at Sigma Sigma,” Theo said.
Auggie glanced over, his expression impossible to read.
“No,” Orlando said. “I want to be there.”
Auggie was still looking at Theo.
“Orlando,” Auggie said slowly, “it might be easier to ask them some questions if you’re not there.”
“No,” Orlando said. “I’m going with you. Can we please go? It’s hot, and it smells like ass out here.”
So they got in the car, and Auggie followed Orlando’s directions out of town.
“Could you turn up the A/C?” Theo asked.
“It’s all the way up,” Auggie said.
“Of course it is.”
Theo had meant it as a joke, but Auggie glared at him in the rearview mirror.
They were driving past block after block of tiny frame houses, most of the houses with chain-link fencing, all of them with steel mailboxes that had wonky numbers running along the side. In one yard, some sort of terrier mix was chained up. The dog had run to the end of its chain, and now it stood on its hind legs, yapping at cars. In another yard, ancient patio furniture cooked slowly in the sun. A woman with the skinniest legs Theo had ever seen was sitting under an umbrella, drinking what looked like lemonade.
“That’s not how Wayne usually is.”
“Ok,” Auggie said.
“I mean, he’s always kind of a bully. But he’s just mad today.”
“I get it,” Theo said. “Jacob, my brother, he’s a complete prick. Of course, he’s a prick with the Bible in one hand, so it’s kind of a different tone.”
“Fer likes to give me shit,” Auggie said. “It’s just a brother thing.”
“Yeah,” Orlando said, resting his head on the window.
Auggie reached over and squeezed his leg. Then Auggie’s eyes went to the rearview mirror, and Theo realized that he’d been caught watching Auggie, watching him touch Orlando. Busted, Auggie’s eyes said. More sweat broke out across Theo’s back, across his chest, under his arms. He looked out the window. When he looked back, Auggie was still watching him.
Orlando took them out of the city, and they followed a narrow blacktop road behind a Baptist church, across a one-lane bridge, and over a wooded hill. On the other side, the ground sloped down into a field of chest-high Indiangrass. A storybook house stood in the middle of the field: frame with gray siding and blue shutters, a wraparound porch, dormer windows. Flowerbeds full of echinacea, catmint, and the billowing flames of bougainvillea gave way to a perfect lawn. A diamond cutting pattern was visible in the grass. Three cars were parked in the circular drive—two Audi sedans and a Mercedes coupe.
“You grew up here?” Auggie said.
“Yeah,” Orlando said, his head still resting on the glass.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Orlando said.
They parked in silence.
Instead of approaching the front door, Orlando led them around to the garage. He keyed in a code, and after the door had rattled up, they snaked past a huge gray Silverado and a Lexus crossover. The third bay of the garage held two four-wheelers. Orlando walked into the house, wiped his feet, and shouted, “We’re here.”
Theo had been in nice houses before. He’d been in nice country houses before. But the Reeses’ home wasn’t like any house he’d been in before. Some of the stuff was what he’d expected: high ceilings, wood floors, an open floorplan, granite and stainless steel in the kitchen, thick rugs and swimmable leather sofas in the living room.
What made the home different from everywhere else were the pictures. He recognized Wayne in several of them. Others featured another man. One, a newspaper clipping, had his name in the caption: Calvin Reese. He had a slimmer build than Wayne, but otherwise they could have been twins. Three girls with softened versions of the same family features filled the other frames. All of them were dressed in uniforms or sporting apparel. All of them had at least one picture that showcased them as part of a university team—Cal, for example, was featured with a Mizzou tennis uniform. Not a single picture of Orlando.
They found Orlando’s family in the living room. A middle-aged man with thick, salt-and-pepper hair bounced to his feet and shook hands with Theo and then Auggie. “Jerry Reese,” he said as they shook. “Reese Automotive.” Then he said it again for Auggie’s benefit. Orlando’s mother, Cathy, was trim, and her hair was dark—expensive coloring, Theo thought, because it looked natural and she didn’t have any roots showing. Then the three girls: Chris, the oldest of the girls; Pam, a middle child; and Billie, who was just older than Orlando. All three of the girls had dark, curly hair that they wore long, all three had the strong features that made them handsome instead of beautiful, and all three of them had the strong, firm bodies of athletes.
“We told Mom and Dad that we had to do this,” Chris kept saying, laughing between rounds like she was making a joke. “We told them we just had to do this.”
“No,” Orlando said. “Don’t lie. None of you wanted to do this.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Jerry said. “I never said it was a bad idea.”
“It’s just so much fuss,” Cathy said. “It’s a great deal of fuss when he’ll be back any day now.”
“We don’t know that, Mom,” Orlando said. “We need to make sure he’s ok.”
“Oh, Orlando,” Cathy said to the rest of the room, rolling her eyes like he wasn’t there.
“You know how it is with the youngest,” Jerry said to Theo. “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
Theo kept his mouth shut. He wanted to see how far this crazy train could run on its own.
“Don’t be rude, Orlando,” Billie said. “Offer them something to drink.”
“Yeah, Pee—” Pam said, and then she cut off, her face reddening.
“How about a beer?” Chris said. Her voice was deeper than her sisters’, and she rose from the couch with easy grace. “Theo will help me. Come along, Theo. Mom, I’ll freshen that up for you.” She took her mother’s glass, hooked Theo’s arm before he could say anything, and tugged him toward the kitchen.
“So,” Chris said as she filled her mother’s glass with fresh ice, “you’re the sleuth.”
“Not really,” Theo said.
“Grab something to drink for you and your—” She hesitated. “Boyfriend?”
“Friend.”
“But you are gay, right?” The question was delivered with a kind of frank wonder that almost made Theo smile. “You just don’t seem, you know.” She flopped her wrist, laughed, and reached past him to retrieve a bottle of Skyy vodka from the freezer.
“Very gay,” Theo said. “Extra gay. Like I got a double helping.”
“Would you ever consider fucking Orlando?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just theoretically, I mean. I know he’s a total wipeout with girls. He’s just such a loser. But I thought maybe gay guys had different standards.”
Theo forced a smile and opened the refrigerator. He was surprised—and pleased—to see four-packs of Perennial, a craft brewery in St. Louis that he liked. He took a can of their pilsner, and then he spotted a Coke and took that for Auggie.
“He can have a beer,” Chris said as she added tonic water to her mother’s glass. “Nobody’s going to say anything.”
“He’s nineteen.”
Chris beamed at him. “Oh God, you really have a thing for him, don’t you? I thought Orlando was just jealous.”
“I’ll take Auggie his drink.”
“Don’t run off; I wanted to talk. Just us girls.” Chris laughed. “Orlando didn’t really promise to pay you, did he? Dad blew his stack when he heard that.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I’m just helping because Auggie and Orlando asked.”
“It’s so silly. This whole thing is just so silly.”
“Orlando doesn’t think so.”
“Drama.” She sang the word in lilting syllables. “He’s just tired of not getting any attention. He thinks this is his chance to shine.”
“Is it true Cal has a problem with drugs?”
“Oh my God,” Chris said, laughing again. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you? You look way too old to be caught up in this kind of thing.”
“Where do you think Cal is?”
“Sleeping one off. Probably with that girl.”
“What girl?”
“Jessie something. Oh, you’re playing detective. You want her last name. Hold on.” She took her phone out and tapped the screen. “Jessie McEwen. If you want to talk about drugs, you should take a look at her. That girl.” She shook her head. “Can you believe she and Pam were friends in high school? Gross.”
It was getting harder and harder to keep the smile in place.
“Just think about it,” Chris said, taking the Perennial from Theo and popping it open. She slurped foam and then took a long drink before handing it back. “Preferably before you get dragged upstairs. You’d think the boys were still in high school, with how much time they spend in those old rooms.”
“Think about what?”
“Fucking Orlando,” Chris said with another husky laugh. “Honestly, I think Dad would pay two thousand dollars just for somebody to pop his cherry.”