Tangerine (30 page)

Dad stared at me for a few more seconds. Then he joined Mom in the kitchen and talked to her about the mailboxes and the spray paint. He said, "I bet kids from Tangerine High did it after yesterday's game. They were mad about getting blown out like that." He's probably right.

Mom brought me a cup of hot tea with lemon. All day long she and Dad kept looking at me and asking me how I felt. I kept saying, "OK."

That was true, and yet it wasn't. The whole truth is—I feel very weird. But I can't say why. I can't
remember
why.

Not yet.

Today was supposed to be the day.

Mom insisted that I stay at home, although I told her that I felt fine.

I thought all day about Erik. About Erik and Arthur. At 10:00
A.M.,
I thought to myself,
Erik and Arthur have no idea, at this moment, that they're going to face Luis again this afternoon. And that this time he won't be alone.
At noon I thought the same thing. And I thought it again at two. I wondered if Erik would walk through the kitchen door with his eyes swollen and black. Or with his nose broken. I wondered what kinds of questions Mom would ask him. And would he answer them? I figured that Erik and Arthur would take the time to make up a mutual lie—like they had gotten jumped by ten guys from Tangerine High School, maybe the same guys who had vandalized our neighborhood. That would sound a lot better than the truth—that their own teammates despised them so much that they helped a stranger beat them up.

Anyway, Erik did walk through the kitchen door, but something, obviously, had gone wrong. He went straight to the refrigerator and grabbed a can of soda. I looked right at his face. There wasn't a mark on him. It hadn't happened. Something had gone wrong.

I was disappointed, but still confident. Something had gone wrong. That was all. I sat down at the kitchen table and tried to think.
Could it still happen to Erik and Arthur? When? How?
Then it came to me:
Yes, it could still happen. It could happen on Friday, outside of the Senior Awards Night. If Luis asks me about another time and place, that's what I'll tell him.

Mom walked in with the phone. I hadn't even heard it ring. She said, "Not too long, please. I have calls to make before the homeowners' meeting tonight."

I pressed the button. "Hello."

"Hi, Paul? It's Kerri."

I held the phone out at arm's length. Then I shook my head, like a wet dog, trying to clear my thoughts. I finally said,

"Hi."

"Yeah, hi. I, uh, I figured you were never going to call me, so I decided to call you."

"Uh-huh. Look, I'm sorry. I've been meaning to call you." I held my hands out in a gesture that she would never see. "I just didn't."

"Well, that's OK. Do you want to talk to me now?"

"Sure."

"I guess the last time I saw you was at the soccer game. You guys have a really great team."

"Thanks."

"I think it's great that you have girls and boys."

"Yeah. It was great. Did you see the paper yesterday?"

"I sure did."

"Three girls from our team made All-County."

"I saw that. Yeah. Did you see that thing about planting a tree for Mike Costello?"

"Uh-huh."

"Are you going to go? It's Friday night."

"Oh yeah. I'm going."

"Because I'm going, too."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was a pause, then she said, "Joey's having some kids over to his house afterward. Would you like to come with me? As my date?"

I didn't hesitate at all. I said, "Sure."

"Great."

I added, "Thanks for asking me."

"Sure thing."

"Does Joey know that you're asking me?"

"Oh yeah. He knows. He says we can ride over there with him and Cara."

I had a sudden, crazy picture in my head. Could Joey be listening to this? Could he be on the extension? Mom came in and pointed at the clock. I said, "I'm sorry, I have to go. I'll see you at the gym on Friday."

"OK, great. Bye."

"Bye."

Mom said, "Who was that?"

"Kerri Gardner, from Lake Windsor Middle. We're going over to Joey's house on Friday night, after the ceremony."

Mom took in this information. She waited—I guess, for more. But I didn't say anything else, so she started making her calls to the homeowners. It didn't sound like too many were interested in her meeting.

Mr. Costello arrived first, at about eight o'clock. I answered the door and let him in. He gave me a friendly greeting, as usual. I claimed my seat in the alcove at Dad's IBM. I pulled up the "Erik—Scholarship Offers" file as Mom and Mr. Costello settled into the living room.

Dad has been working on the file again. He has added the names and phone numbers of scouts and alumni boosters from the three Florida schools—people like Mr. Donnelly and Larry and Frank. He has also noted that a "press packet" from the
Times
has been sent to those schools. He hasn't added anything more to the other page 1 schools, and get this—the page 2 schools are gone. Deleted. Trash-canned. The Houston schools, and any other noncontenders for the national title, are gone. They have no place in the Erik Fisher Football Dream.

I clicked out of the file and started listening to the meeting. Mom was taking notes as Mr. Costello rattled off a series of items: a Rolex watch, a diamond stickpin, a twenty-four-carat gold bracelet.

I logged off and walked into the great room. Mom didn't suggest that I leave, so I joined them. I asked, "What are you writing down, Mom?"

Mom looked at me with a pained expression. Was I being a pain? "These are items that were stolen from the tented houses."

Dad came in and sat in one of the folding chairs. He didn't say anything to us; he didn't even look at us. It was like we weren't there. He just stared straight ahead at the fireplace, like he was waiting for it to flame on.

The doorbell rang, so I went to answer it. I let in a group of four homeowners. Mom suggested that they begin the meeting right away since no other people were expected.

It was smaller and friendlier than most homeowners' meetings. The eight of us listened as Mr. Costello read the financial reports. Then he turned to the old business. "We have good news on a couple of fronts. All I can say is, thank God for that freeze. It killed off all the mosquitoes, so we were able to cancel that guy with the gas masks and the sprayer."

Mom said, "'Thank God' is right."

"The freeze also signals the end of the thunderstorm season. This is a fact that Mrs. Fisher and I have both brought to Bill Donnelly's attention. We have suggested a compromise to him—that he remove his string of lightning rods for now and put them back up next summer. He has agreed to think about it."

The man from the yellow Tudor asked, "What about the termites?"

"The freeze might have helped us there, too; I just don't know. Three houses have tents now, which makes a total of twenty-five so far in the development."

"And the robberies?"

Mr. Costello nodded solemnly. "There were two more robberies of tented houses since our last meeting. In both cases, robbers smashed a window, ran in, and ran out with cash and jewelry. The deputies say they have some leads, but that's all they're willing to tell us at this point."

The same man said, "I saw a guy sitting outside a tented house with a shotgun." Everyone reacted to that, and he continued, "He's one of your neighbors, Jack. He's sitting outside in a lawn chair, all night long, with a shotgun across his lap."

Mr. Costello said, "Thanks for telling me. I'll talk to him. If that doesn't do any good, I'll have the Sheriff's Department talk to him. We can't have that." Everyone agreed. "He's gonna wind up shooting some late-night jogger."

The woman from the white York asked, "What about the front, Jack? That's looking kinda run-down."

"The front is looking bad because of the freeze. Those plants are supposed to be cold-hardy, but nothing is going to come through a freeze like that completely undamaged."

The same woman asked, "Did the freeze kill off the rest of your fish?"

"No. We can't blame the freeze for that. Those koi are cold-hardy. That pond could freeze a foot thick and they'd be OK under the ice. We believe that some local person stole them and sold them."

I said, "I don't believe that."

They all turned and stared at me, as if they had just noticed that I was sitting there. Then they all turned back. They were about to ignore me and go on when I added, "That doesn't make any sense." They turned toward me again. "Think about it. How could some local person, some koi thief from Tangerine, stop at the front of our development, in that wide-open space, without anyone seeing him? How could he fish for, catch, and drive away with a string of big orange shiny fish with no one seeing him?"

Mr. Costello answered, "I don't know, Paul. Maybe because he does it in the middle of the night, when people are asleep. Anyway, it's the only theory we have. Unless you have a better one."

"The ospreys," I said. They all stared at me blankly. "The ospreys, the birds of prey, from those giant nests out on Route 89. They swoop down, snatch up the koi, and fly back to their nests. No one sees them; no one thinks about them; no one suspects them."

Mr. Costello seemed annoyed. They all did. He said, "You've seen this happen?"

"I've seen them flying west with the fish in their talons."

"How do you know they were our fish?"

"They were big and orange and shiny."

They all looked at each other. No one spoke. Finally, Mom said to me, "Paul, if you knew about this, why didn't you ever tell anyone?"

"No one ever asked me."

She looked at me with the pained expression again. "Is there anything else that we should ask you about?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know anything about the robberies?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Mom nodded. She believed me. The rest of them now seemed to be waiting for me to leave, so I got up. She winked at me and said, "Thanks. Good night."

As I started out, I heard one of the homeowners ask, "Did anybody see that
Eyewitness News
team report on the sinkhole? The one where they found out the county never surveyed the construction site? Why can't we get that
Eyewitness News
team out here? They can shoot pictures of the muck fire. We show them to the county and demand action." The guy looked around for support. Nobody moved. He added, "And if that doesn't work, we can sue the county."

Mr. Costello half smiled and pointed at Dad. "We'd be suing our host here."

Dad jumped to his feet and gestured for the crowd's attention. He looked absolutely frazzled. "I want you all to know something. I am determined to change things. That sort of nonsense, an unsurveyed construction site, will never happen again in this county. I can't change the past, but I'm putting some big changes in place—for now and for the future."

The homeowners listened, then turned to other matters. I continued on upstairs. I have to wonder about Dad, though. He was a wreck just now. He was coming unglued. What is going on in his head?

Luis Cruz is dead.

When I walked into first period this morning, there was a group of kids standing around and whispering. Henry D. came up to me and said, "Did you hear what happened?"

"No."

"Tino and Theresa were waiting outside yesterday for Luis to pick them up, but he never came. Theresa called home and told their father. He went out into the grove and found Luis lying there dead."

"Found him what?"

"Dead. Right out in the new grove."

I stared at Henry like he was crazy. "Dead? Are you saying that Luis is dead?"

"That's right. Their father called 911. Wayne was one of the guys on call. He said Luis was dead when they got there; that he had been dead for hours."

"Dead? Dead of what?"

"Wayne said it might have been an aneurysm, like a blood clot. He thinks Luis got hit on the head, it formed into a blood clot, and that killed him."

My mind was racing in circles. I finally said, "What? Someone hit Luis on the head and killed him?"

"No. Wayne said the sheriff's deputies don't think it was a murder or anything like that. They think Luis might have gotten hit on the head last Wednesday night, when all those frozen tree branches were breaking off. They think maybe one of the branches hit him on the head and started that aneurysm thing going. But they don't know anything for sure."

I put my hand over my mouth, afraid that I would throw up. I whispered, "He got hit on the head on Wednesday night?"

"They don't know that, they're just saying maybe."

"One shot to the head? Five ... six days ago? How is that gonna kill anybody?" Henry could see how upset I was getting. He didn't reply. "I mean, you see these guys in these kung-fu movies getting hit on the head a thousand times, and they keep on fighting. Right?"