It was in the late afternoon when the man Lester had warned her about finally came rolling up the drive, his face staring up through mirrored sunglasses like he was some giant housefly. He leaned in close to the windshield and Nadine could see there was someone next to him, a kid, it seemed. When the car came to a stop and the man climbed out, the kid did not follow.
“You Otis?” Nadine asked. She stayed a safe distance up on the porch, her arm firmly around the post.
Lester pushed through the door behind her. “You dirty son of a bitch,” he said, stomping past her, down the steps and straight over to the man, clapping him hard on the shoulder. “Christ almighty, you smell like an outhouse.”
“It’s been a hell of a time,” Otis said.
Lester nodded at the kid in the passenger seat. “I see you got company.”
“Yeah, well. Things kind of spun out.”
“That’s a detail I’d have liked to know about ahead of time,” Lester groused.
Otis said, “I guess it slipped my mind.” And then Lester reached up and smoothed a thumb over Otis’s forehead, over the crusted patch over his eye. Otis winced, and slapped Lester’s hand away.
“Looks like you had a conflict,” Lester said. “That slip your mind, too?”
Finally, the passenger door swung open and the boy climbed out. He was a skinny thing, mostly arms and legs, barely a teenager, if at all. His face was a mosaic of freckles and dirt, and he stood there as if he was waiting for someone to tell him what he ought to do next.
Nadine took the steps to the bottom of the porch and motioned to him. “You want something to drink?”
Otis said, “I’ll take a beer.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Nadine said. The boy said nothing, and Lester hooted a laugh, and punched Otis in the shoulder again.
Nadine said to the boy, “Come on in with me.” And when he didn’t move, she walked toward him and put out her hand. And though he was too old for hand holding, he reached over and took hold of hers.
They went up to the porch together and she gave him Lester’s seat, and then she went inside and pulled a Coke from the cooler, still halfway cold. He took it without hesitation, offering a quiet “Thank you” as he popped it open, drinking down nearly half the can in one take. Nadine took the seat next to him and tapped him on his knee. “What’s your name?” she asked, and when he told her, she said, “I have a sense, Rodney, that you and your dad are in some kind of trouble.”
“He’s not my dad.”
Nadine nodded, a pinch of relief at that bit of news. “What is he, then? To you, I mean?”
“He’s nobody. Him and my mom”—Rodney stammered. “They’re”—and then his voice trailed off.
Down the slope at the car, Lester and Otis stood at the open trunk, Lester with his hands on his hips and Otis touching that bloody patch on his head.
“What happened to him?” Nadine asked.
Rodney shrugged. He took another drink and looked back at Nadine. There was something hiding in there, in those eyes of his, something that he was holding onto tightly. She knew that look. Hell, she’d been there—desperate to share the burden but terrified to hand it over. He leaned in close to her, a wary glance toward the car.
“Can I call my mom?”
“Nadine!” Lester was at the front of the car now, thumbs hooked in his trouser pockets like an old farmhand. “Go to the garage and pull out that big green suitcase for me, would you?”
Nadine got up and took the steps down from the porch, and she did not turn to go up the path to the garage, but went to Lester instead. He dropped his head back and let out a rattled sigh. “Here we go.”
“He wants to call his mom,” she said. She looked down into the car’s trunk, at the mounds of linen in there. They looked like pillowcases, lumpy and knotted. At the edge of the space was what looked like a kid’s suitcase, the red stitching of a cowboy and his rearing pony over a white panel. Lester stepped between Nadine and the trunk.
“He does, does he?” Lester looked back at Otis. “I don’t suppose that’s an option?”
“I’d say it ain’t a good idea. Not right now, anyway.”
Nadine kept her focus on Lester, not saying anything at first, just dipping and craning her neck to try and catch his eye. Finally he looked up at her, and cocked his head.
“You heard him,” he said with a half grin. “Not a good idea.”
“Is that so?” she said, then she turned to Otis. “You kidnap him or something? What’d you do to him?”
Otis drew his chin back, as if she’d slapped him across the face. “I didn’t do nothing, lady,” he said. “I didn’t do nothing,” he repeated.
“He’s just a little kid, Lester.” Nadine leaned in real close to Lester, almost to the point of touching. “Can’t you see he’s scared out of his gourd?”
Otis cut in. “I said he’s fine,” he snapped. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of everything.”
Nadine looked over her shoulder at the boy, who leaned back in Lester’s chair now, his eyes closed, the empty Coke can lying on its side at his feet.
“Just like you’ve taken care of everything up to now?” she said.
“Lady, you don’t know shit from shine-ola.” At that, Lester swung his arm from his side, cuffing the back of his hand squarely against Otis’s forehead. Otis stumbled back, catching himself against the rear fender of the Bonneville.
“Goddamn, Lester!” he hollered. “Like I don’t already got issues with my head!”
“Don’t forget who here is the guest, and who’s the host,” Lester said. “You’d be wise not to get on the wrong side of this woman here.” And with that, he said, “Suitcase, Nadine,” then moved on back to the open trunk and started moving who-knows-what from one place to another inside there.