The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four (67 page)

"Oh, hey, you got a pet fag!" my thug said with loud delight. "I got no problem with fags as long as they're housetrained and don't try to hump my leg or nothing. You wouldn't do something like that, would you, pet fag? Hey, you got a name? You look like a Fifi. Right, guys?"

Fuckin' A, said the guys, high-fiving each other.

Phil Lattimore bent down so we were eye to eye. "Who said you could eat ice cream here?"

Would his buddies be in the car with him when it happened, would they be hurt? If so, they'd recover. The soonest any of them would pass away was thirty years from now; the goon on Phil's immediate left would die of blood poisoning. Another avoidable death. I Should make a note to phone him in three decades, two months, and six days:
Hey, if you get a splinter today, you'd better go to the hospital immediately because you'll die if you don't.

All this went through my head in a fraction of a second, before Phil straightened up and went on. "Any a you guys get a memo saying girlie and Fifi could eat here?"

The goon squad chorus didn't answer; instead, they all turned and went into Wiggins.

I turned to Ambrose, stunned. "What just happened?"

"A minor miracle." He pointed; a police car had just pulled into the lot. "Maybe they've been following him." We watched as the cops got out of the car and went inside. "Bunch of guys riding around on Saturday night. Could be trouble."

"It's not night yet," I pointed out.

"But it will be soon. Let's get out of here before Phil and the posse come back out. They're not gonna feel like hassling the waitresses with a couple of cops watching."

We threw our empty dishes away and got into the VW. Technically the car was his mother's but she had left it behind after moving out. His parents, like mine, both carried traits but, unlike mine, had gotten married. Despite splitting up, however, they still weren't divorced.

"You sure this isn't a pervy crush?" Ambrose grumbled as he backed out of the parking space. "Wanting to help that asshole—"

"I don't
want
to," I said. "I
have
to."

"Because?" Ambrose prompted as we approached the exit; it was right near where Phil Lattimore had parked his land yacht. "Or is that a deep, dark, pervy secret?"

"Because I said something to him about what I know."

Ambrose slammed on the brakes so sharply I flopped in my shoulder harness.

"You
told
Phil the Fuckhead that you know he's gonna have an accident tomorrow night?" My cousin's voice was half an octave higher than I'd thought it could go. "You really
are
fucking crazy!"

"I didn't mean to—"

"Don't you realize that he might think you threatened him?"

The idea of Phil Lattimore thinking I could threaten him was so funny I laughed out loud.

"You idiot," Ambrose said. "He could say you did something to his car! For all you know, he told his father or his mother—or maybe he's telling the cops in Wiggins right now."

"I don't think so," I said unhappily, looking at the side view mirror.

"OK, maybe not, but—"

"
Definitely
not. He—"

Phil Lattimore slammed up against the driver's side door and stuck his head through the window. "Hey, why're you sittin' here starin' at my car? What's goin' on, Fifi?"

Ambrose stamped on the accelerator and we shot out of the parking lot, barely missing an oncoming SUV.

"Don't talk," Ambrose said for the fifth or sixth time.

"I wasn't," I said, glaring at him.

"I thought I heard you take a breath like you were gonna say something."

"You were mistaken."

"OK. Don't talk any more now."

"Fine. I won't." I stared out the passenger side window. We were out in the countryside now, taking the long way back to my house. The really long, long way, all the way around town, outside the city limits; a nice drive under other circumstances. "Phil Lattimore would never in a million years believe me," I added under my breath and waited for Ambrose to tell me to shut up. He didn't so I went on muttering. "He wouldn't believe it if
you'd
said it. That's why we don't tell anyone outside the family anything—"

"
Shut
the fuck
up,
" Ambrose growled. "You think I spent my life in a coma? I know all that. Now I'm gonna drive you home and you're gonna tell your mom everything, what you know and what you said to Phil—hey, just what
did
you say? No, don't tell me," he added before I could answer. "I'm probably better off not knowing. If I don't know, I'm not an accessory."

"A
what?
" I said, baffled.

"An accessory to your threatening Phil."

"
He
threatened
me,
just because I wanted to use a payphone," I protested. "I only told him he was going to have a bad night."

"I told you not to tell me!" Ambrose gave me a quick, pained glance. "OK, never mind, just don't tell me any more."

"There isn't any more to tell," I said, sulking now.

Ambrose eased off the accelerator and only then did I realize how fast we'd been going. "Are you shitting me?" He looked at me again and I nodded. "Oh, for cryin' out—
that's
not a threat. We're gonna go home and forget the whole thing. And don't worry, I won't remind you."

"We can't," I said.

Ambrose shook his head in a sharp, final way. "We can and we will."

"I thought you said you hadn't spent most of your life in a coma. Don't you get it? I can't just turn my back. If Phil the Fuckhead is in the hospital for months and months, that's on me for not doing anything. If he ends up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, that's on me."

"He could also just walk away from the wreckage with nothing more than a scratch on his empty fuckin' head," Ambrose said. "Guys like him usually do."

"What about any other people in the accident? If they're crippled or—or worse? That's on me, too. And you. For not doing anything."

Ambrose didn't say anything for a long moment. "It could happen no matter what we do."

"Yeah, but we'd have tried. It wouldn't be like we just stood by."

"Shit." Ambrose turned on the radio and then immediately turned it off again. "But you don't know anything about any other people, do you?"

"I only know about Phil Lattimore getting badly hurt in an accident. If I don't try to do something about it, I might as well stand next to the wreckage and watch him d—suffer."

"And that's why you need to tell your m—"

"
No!
If I tell my mother, then I have to tell her what I said to him."

"But it's not that bad," said Ambrose. "It really isn't. If you're that scared, I'll tell her for you. You can hide in your room."

"Please, Ambrose, I'm begging you—do this my way. I swear I'll confess everything to everyone after it's all over, even if the worst happens. I just—I need to do this as a test. I'm testing myself."

Ambrose gave me a startled glance and I realized I was crying. "But it's not just you," he said. "You dragged me into it."

"And that's on me, too, making you share this," I said. "I know that."

"You
better
know it." His voice was grim. "If I had any sense, I'd take you straight home and tell your mom the whole thing. But I'm not a rat, because—" he took a deep breath. "Just between you and me, OK?"

I looked at him warily. "OK. What."

"I came into my own a year and a half before Aunt Donna gave me that party."

"You did?" I was stunned. "Why did you hide it?"

"Because I felt weird about it. Some of the things that people had forgotten—my father would have realized I knew some things that—well, it wouldn't have been good. But Aunt Donna found out."

"How?"

"She just asked me. I tried to lie by being evasive but I was too young and stupid to do it right. We had a talk and she promised not to tell on me. And she didn't."

I was flabbergasted.

"I know, everyone was suspicious anyway because of how well I always did in school," he said, chuckling a little. "You, too, maybe. But I hadn't come into my own when I started school and after I did, it didn't matter. I was already in the smart-kid classes and smart kids don't forget much. I get straight A's because I'm smart, too, and I study my ass off. Anyway, you can trust me. I won't say anything. But promise me that tomorrow night, when this is all over, you'll tell your mom."

"OK," I said.

"Good." He looked at me sternly. "Because it's not ratting you out if I make you keep that promise."

I got home and went straight upstairs to run a bath for myself. When I took off my clothes, I discovered I had gotten my first period and burst into tears.

My mother waited until I had quieted down before coming to check on me. To my relief, she didn't rhapsodize about becoming a woman or ask me any questions. She just put a new box of sanitary pads on the counter by the sink, gathered up my clothes and let me have a good cry in peace, up to my neck in Mr. Bubble.

The next morning, I came down to breakfast to discover that she had sent Benny and Tim off to Donna's for the day.

"Estrogen-only household, no boys allowed," she said cheerfully as she sat at the kitchen table with the Sunday paper. "We've got plenty of chocolate in a variety of forms and an ample supply of Midol. There's also a heating pad if you need it."

"Thanks, but I'm OK," I said. She started to say something else and I talked over her. "I'm going over to Ambrose's. Algebra."

She looked surprised and then covered it with a smile. "All right. It's your day, after all." And she wished I were spending it with her. So did I.

I started back upstairs to get dressed.

"Hannah," she called after me suddenly. I stopped. "No later than five. You've got school tomorrow. OK?'

Phil Lattimore would die at six-fifty-two unless I saved him. "OK."

"I mean it," she added sharply.

"I know," I said. "No later than five, it's a school night."

Her expression softened. "And if you decide to knock off the studying early, the chocolate and everything else will still be here."

"Thanks, Mom." I got two steps farther when she called after me again.

"Are you really having
that
much trouble with algebra that you have to spend all weekend working on it with your cousin?"

"You have no idea," I replied.

I'd gone another two steps when she said, "Just one more thing."

I waited.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me about?"

"Not yet."

"Leave it open," Ambrose told me as I started to close the door to his room. "New rule. All the time we're spending together is making my father nervous."

I blinked at him. "You kidding?"

Ambrose shook his head gravely. "I wish I were. He thinks it's more than algebra."

"But we're
cousins,
" I said, appalled and repelled.

"No shit. Just remember to keep your voice down and your algebra book handy for those moments when he just 'happens' to pass by on his way to the linen closet." He gave a short laugh. "You know, I thought that when I finally told him what we're doing, he'd be mad at me for hiding stuff from him. Now I think he'll just be relieved."

The day crawled by. Ambrose sat at his desk, tapping away on his computer while I stretched out on the bed, trying to ignore the mild discomfort in my lower belly. But after Uncle Scott went past a couple of times, he called Ambrose out of the room for a quick word. Ambrose returned with a request for me to sit up, preferably in one of the two straight-back chairs. I compromised by stretching out on the floor. "If your dad has a problem with this," I said, "I'll give him a complete description of how my first period is going."

Ambrose blanched. "I didn't need to hear that."

"Neither will he."

We finally went out for lunch at two, driving out past the city limits into the country again.

"Won't your dad worry about what we could do in a car?" I asked.

Ambrose shook his head. "Not in a Volkswagen."

I gave an incredulous laugh. "We could get
out
of the Volkswagen."

"And then what? I don't have enough money for a motel and he thinks I'm too hung-up to do it outside." He glanced at me. "Forget it. Grown-ups are fuckin' weird, is all. Every last one of them, fuckin' weird. Especially in our family."

Anxiety did a half-twist in my stomach or maybe it was just cramps.

"And we're giving them a run for their money right now ourselves," he added. "Skulking around so you can play hero single-handed for an asshole who wouldn't appreciate it even if he
did
know what you were doing. Fuckin' weird? Fuckin' A."

The moment hung there between us, a silence that I could have stepped into and confessed everything—the truth about my trait and what I was really trying to do. Then he went on.

"Anyway, I didn't want to talk about this before in case my dad overheard." He glanced at me; anxiety did another twist, high up in my chest where it couldn't have been cramps. "When you come into your own, you don't just get one of the family traits. They let you in on other things. Family things."

"Like what? Skeletons in the closet or something?"

Ambrose gave a small, nervous laugh. "Not just that. There are skills to learn, that go along with the traits."

"Skills?"

"Coping skills. There are ways to compartmentalize your mind so you don't get caught up in something you know when you're supposed to be doing something else. Some traits, you have to learn how to distance yourself. Mind your own business."

I bristled. "If this is a sneaky way of trying to talk me out of—"

"Relax. I should but I'm not."

"You never mentioned any of this before."

"I didn't think you'd want to hear it."

"I still don't."

"I know. But shut up and let me talk, OK? I promised you I'd help you and I will. I am. But I had to talk to somebody. So after my dad went to bed last night, I called my sister Rita and talked to her."

"You
what?
" My voice was so high that even
I
winced.