Light from a Distant Star (15 page)

Holding his bleeding nose, Becker lurched toward his truck. Charlie did what he later said should’ve been done right off the bat: he grabbed Becker’s keys from the ignition. So now Becker had two choices. He could either load all his goddamn pipe back onto the truck and get his keys back, or Charlie was calling the cops. Mindful of their mother’s anger, Charlie sent the kids home, so they didn’t actually see the rest: Max loading the asbestos-bound pipe back onto the truck. He had to. Becker had a broken nose and dislocated jaw.

I
T WAS ONE OF THOSE SLOW SUMMER DAYS, CLOUDLESS AND HOT
, with just the gentlest breeze swaying the pink-and-white hollyhocks against the barn. Even the birds sounded lazy. Max was coming for the old recliner in their barn, the one Nellie’d had her eye on for Dolly, but no matter. Charlie needed it, and besides, it wasn’t looking as if she’d be with them much longer anyway. The broken window had been bad enough, but now her mother was even more suspicious. According to Lizzie, at the salon, her niece was living a very secretive life. No one knew what was going on. None of her relatives had heard from her. Every call to her cell phone went straight to voice mail. And yet whenever Nellie ran into Dolly, she was her old self, sweet and always interested in what she was doing.

She’d been talking to Nellie through her kitchen window. It was trash day and Henry had pulled a moldy blue tarpaulin from someone’s barrel. He wanted to use it as a temporary roof on the tree house. With his arm feeling better, work had resumed. Nellie’d been helping him, but every time she suggested anything, he scoffed, so finally she just quit, she was telling Dolly as she watched for Max’s truck. She was supposed to unlock the barn. Now that her mother knew he was an ex-con, Nellie figured she was afraid he’d take more than the chair. They hadn’t told her about the fight with Becker. Henry was dying to but knew if he did, they’d never be allowed back to the junkyard.

“You guys ever sleep up there?” Dolly asked.

“That’s the plan,” Nellie called over Henry’s banging hammer. “If he ever gets the tarp on right.”

“Yeah, but then you can’t see the stars. And that’s the best part, laying
there with your eyes wide open. I did that once,” she said with a smile of shivery delight.

“Sleep outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you camping?”

“Kinda. Sorta. It was on a boat. Out on the deck. I never saw anything like that before. We just laid there. It was, like, the stars, you could almost reach up and touch them. They’re way closer over the ocean.”

“They’re not closer. Just brighter. Cuz there’s no light pollution.”

Nellie knew by her quick glance that Dolly thought she’d made it up. Especially the part about light pollution. She’d noticed that before, how when Dolly was unsure of something, she’d look hurt, almost afraid.

“Well, anyway,” Dolly said to end the conversation. Somehow, Nellie’d made her feel bad. Before she could close the window, Nellie invited her to come on out and see the tree house. Within moments Dolly was following her up the rickety wooden ladder, built just narrow enough to pull up after them. For protection if need be. Word had gotten back that Bucky was after them.

“No!” Henry protested, seeing Nellie climb in. “You don’t want to help, then—”

“Hey, cutie!” Dolly giggled, hoisting herself up next and in. Henry glared at his sister as Dolly walked from side to side. He had nailed tall posts into the four corners so that even with the tarp on you could stand up. “Cool! This is so cool. My first tree house! I never been in one before. You did this, made it yourself?” she asked Henry, who blushed and nodded. And she wasn’t just saying things to make him feel good. She was really impressed. And delighted. You could always tell with Dolly. Everything showed. She asked if they ever ate up here. Just crackers and stuff, Nellie said. Her mother was afraid food would attract skunks and raccoons. Dolly said she’d love sleeping up here some night. Her mother hadn’t let them yet, Nellie lied. She knew her mother would say no and then Dolly’s feelings would be hurt. She said it would make her mother too nervous, between rabid animals and prowlers. A house on Tremont Street had been broken into last winter.
But that was in broad daylight, Henry said. But they never caught the guy, Nellie said, which meant he was still out there, looking for his next victims.

“Why would he break into a tree house?” Henry asked, logically enough but with a dismissive scowl.

“Yeah, especially this one,” Nellie snorted. “No roof, no door.” She didn’t like being shown up in front of the only adult she could impress.

“Then leave!” Henry snapped. “Why’re you even up here, then?”

“Nice, Henry. That’s really nice.” She rolled her eyes for Dolly’s benefit. “God, he’s so anal.”

“Nossir! He’s just a really hard worker. I see you out here every day, Henry, tryna make this the best tree house ever, and guess what? It is! Hey, maybe your mom’ll let you sleep up here if I’m here. I mean, with you guys.” Then she lay down and stretched out. She told them to come lie down and see if they’d all fit. Nellie lay down next to her. But not Henry. Looking down at them like that, he reminded Nellie of her father. “Come on,” Dolly coaxed, patting the rough board next to her. “We gotta see if this’ll work.”

“That’s okay,” Henry mumbled. He seemed embarrassed for them. Her brother wasn’t one to cave in easily, Nellie knew, even if the pesterer was an adult. Even then, he had scruples.

Laughing, Dolly raised up on her elbows, a position that made Nellie realize for the first time just how big her supposedly fake breasts were—Ruth claimed to know by their perfect roundness. “I don’t bite, you know, and I like little boys. Specially ones as cute as you,” she teased in a breathy whisper.

In his full body slouch, Henry was about as miserable as Nellie’d ever seen him. His face was red, his shoulders so hunched they almost curled, one into the other, and he couldn’t look at her.

“How ’bout tonight?” Dolly said she’d ask their mother, and if it was all right, they’d meet up here when the sun went down. She’d bring the snacks, bug spray, and some blankets. But they’d need a flashlight, which she didn’t have. That was easy enough, Nellie said. Because of the store they had a ton of flashlights.

“Three,” Henry muttered and began nailing a corner of the tarp onto the post.

That’s when Nellie heard Max’s truck backing into the driveway. She climbed down the ladder and hurried toward the barn with the key. Max jumped down from the cab. Nellie hadn’t seen him since the fight. Something was different about him, but at first she wasn’t sure what. The first whiff of sweetness came as she was unlocking the padlock. Cologne. He was clean shaven with his hair combed. Instead of his faded T-shirt he had on a regular shirt, tight and shiny black, with small silvery buttons. She really wanted to tell him he looked nice but was afraid he might take that to mean he usually didn’t. She asked where Boone was.

“Back with Charlie.” He followed her into the barn.

The recliner was just inside the door, where her mother had asked her father to put it. The more her mother was learning of Max, the less she trusted him, no matter how good he was to Charlie. Nellie’d seen the effort it had taken her father to drag the big old chair, so when Max just picked it up and hoisted it into the back of his truck, she was impressed. She followed him as he clamped the truck gate shut, then slipped the cotter pins into place. She asked if he’d gone fishing again with Charlie. Been a while, he said. Charlie hadn’t been up to too much lately but maybe tomorrow.

“Said he’ll give it a good try, anyway. See what happens,” he added, looking toward the house.

“Can I come? I’ll be real quiet. I wouldn’t say two words, really. I mean, I know how important it is when you’re fishing, being quiet, that is.”

Max seemed amused. “Well, you tell
him
that, then. He’s
your
grandpa after all.” He smiled and tried to cover his mouth, his two broken bottom teeth jagged and discolored.

“When’re you leaving?” She was elated by the possibility of finally going fishing.

“After lunch, maybe. One or two.” Squinting, he peered past her.

Dolly was climbing down the ladder from the tree house.

“Hey, Nellie! We’re gonna go get ice cream!” she called, waving both hands in that little girl, wait’ll-you-hear-this way she had as she came closer. “I just told Henry. We’re gonna walk down to Rollie’s and—“oh, hi,” she said as if only just recognizing Max. She folded her arms.

“Hi,” Max said, grinning and quickly covering his mouth. “The other night. At the club. You were—”

“Yeah, I had to go,” she said. Her face was white.

“You were the best one. That was good dancing.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway,” Dolly sighed, and for a moment no one spoke. It was obvious she didn’t like him talking about her job. Or at least, not in front of a kid.

Saying she had to call her mother about going fishing, Nellie excused herself and ran into the house. She winced when Frederic answered. He sounded annoyed. Her mother was in the middle of a process, he said, and couldn’t come to the phone. When Nellie came back out, Dolly immediately stopped talking. Max looked upset. There was an uneasy silence. Henry watched from the tree house.

“Hey, guess what!” Nellie blurted, never at a loss for words herself. “Tomorrow I’m going fishing. Max said I could.”

Dolly stared at him. “Maybe Max oughta find some other fishin’ buddy,” she said in a low voice. “Somebody a little older.”

“Well, my grandfather—” Nellie said quickly because if Dolly went there wouldn’t be room for her.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Max broke in.

“—he’s going too,” Nellie continued.

“Whatever you think,” she answered with a smirk.

He just stood there looking at her, head nodding, almost panting, it seemed, as if something inside was going way faster than he wanted. He turned suddenly and jumped into his truck, shifted into reverse, then sped backward out of the driveway.

“Creep,” Dolly said, as he peeled down the street.

“No. Max is nice,” Nellie said.

“Yeah, right, staring at my boobs the whole time,” she said.

No, he wasn’t
, she wanted to say. He kept looking down at the ground because he was quiet. That was all. A man of few words, but a nice man, before it had turned into something else. There was no denying he’d left angry, though Nellie wasn’t sure why. And thinking back, later, when every word and detail would seem so freighted with meaning, she would understand that the fancy shirt and sweet cologne had been worn to impress Dolly.

T
HEY DID WALK
down to Rollie’s. Henry didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stay home alone, so in the end he had to come with them. Nellie and Henry were still in shorts, but Dolly had changed into a lacy blouse and ruffly skirt, the same bright yellow as her purse, and very high heels. Seeing her so dressed up made Nellie feel bad for her. They were only going for ice cream, but Dolly was excited. The whole way there she never stopped talking. Everything seemed to fascinate her. Kitty Lowry’s three-legged dog, Rusty, chained to his sagging porch, barking and lunging at them was “just the most bravest thing,” and the straggly pink-and-lavender petunias in the shaded stone planters in the park were “just, like, so precious,” she sighed, leaning to smell them. She broke one off. “Shit!” she cried, recoiling from the sticky stem. She spit on her fingers and rubbed them furiously on her skirt. Her heels kept sinking into the grass, so now she was carrying them. Henry looked at Nellie, each poker-faced glance conveying the weirdness of it all.

“Hey, let’s go sit on it,” Dolly said, heading barefoot toward the Civil War cannon in the far corner of the park. She hoisted herself up sidesaddle on the long, black barrel. Nellie and Henry watched from the path. Only little kids ever sat there. “C’mon!” she insisted, holding out her hand.

“That’s okay,” Nellie said.

“C’mon, Henry!” she called. “C’mon up here!”

“No, thanks.” Bitter enough about this roundabout route for ice cream, he groaned as Dolly tapped a cigarette from her pack. Her eyes glazed over as she lit it. After each long drag, she blew smoke straight at them. They stepped off to the side. Coughing, Henry covered his nose and mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was almost as if she’d forgotten they were there. Finally she gave a deep sigh and flicked the butt into the grass. Henry rushed over to stamp it out, which seemed to break her spell.