A Chance of a Lifetime (12 page)

All those endorphins released by running were supposed to make a person feel better, but Bennie wondered…If Calvin took off, would he ever stop?

“Come on, kids,” Justice called back. “Elizabeth made her special strawberry cake this morning. I've held out as long as I can.”

When Calvin didn't automatically move, Bennie walked to him, then did a slow circle around the car, noticing dings and dents and rust, two missing windows, and cracks in every other one. The front passenger seat was nothing but foam, the cover long since worn away, and the headliner hung like a drape in some belly dancer movie. “Yep, this is your car.”

He glared at her across the roof. “It was, until that punk stole it.”

“The punk returned it, so unless you collected from the insurance, it's yours again.” She touched the antenna, broken in half and dangling. “Could you actually get an insurance company to cover it?”

He scowled again. “You're not funny, Benita.”

“What kind of help did he give you?”

Calvin rested both hands on the roof. “He didn't give me any damn help at all.”

“He seems to think he did.”

“Yeah, well, he stole my stuff. Does it really matter what he thinks?”

She studied Calvin a moment, curious about his anger—to be honest, still shaken a little by it. Outbursts were more her style. Her temper flared, she pitched a fit, and then everything was fine again. But even she had never been that angry before. Except once, when J'Myel had died, when she'd screamed with fury at God.

“He returned the car,” she pointed out again, her tone mild. “Though he doesn't look old enough to have a license.”

“He had
my
license.”

The image of the tall, skinny Latino kid passing for a tall, skinny black man made her want to smile, but she restrained it. “I'm heading inside to meet Diez. I'll try to leave some cake for you, but you know how I love your mama's made-from-scratch strawberry cake. Don't wait too long, or you'll get nothing but crumbs.”

 As Bennie had done, Calvin circled the car slowly, his breathing shallow. Of all the outcomes he'd considered to his run-in with Diez, this had never occurred to him. What kind of thief drove two thousand miles to return the car he stole? How did he plan to get back home to Tacoma? Steal someone else's car? More likely, he wouldn't go back. Didn't seem anyone there had given a damn about him.

Calvin didn't care about the car, or the money, or the wallet, though it had sentimental value. He'd accepted two months ago that everything was gone. Given that he'd just tried to kill himself and brought a premature end to his Army career, the possessions hadn't mattered.

But now he was home. He was getting treatment. He was starting over. He was running into family and friends. None of whom, outside of his parents' house right that very moment, knew what he'd done. Who knew if Diez would keep his mouth shut? Who knew what he was telling Bennie and Mama right now? The kid was a thief. He couldn't be trusted.

He returned the car.
Bennie's voice echoed in Calvin's head. Calvin had figured Diez had long since sold it for food, a place to sleep, drugs. He'd known the night they met that the kid was homeless and hungry. Runaway or abandoned, it didn't really much matter. A kid too young to take care of himself was doing his damnedest to do just that.

And he'd saved Calvin's life.

Wearily, Calvin rubbed at the ache between his eyes, then slowly walked once more around the vehicle. It didn't look any worse for wear after its time in the kid's possession, if that was even possible. So it had a few thousand more miles on it. Calvin had always thought it would be cool to watch the odometer flip over to 500,000 miles. He was that much closer to it now.

Shading his eyes, he looked through the window. The front floorboard held piles of wrappers from McDonald's cheapest hamburger, while a ball cap and his old PT clothes occupied the front seat. The backseat held a pillow and two thin blankets, a flashlight, a pack of batteries, and a pile of community magazines, the kind they offered free inside the entrances of restaurants and stores. There was also an extra pair of shoes, some socks, and a container of baby wipes. Clearly Diez had been living in the car.

In terms of material comforts, Calvin had lived a few tougher places, but not by much. But damn if he was going to let himself feel sorry for the kid.

 Frustration bubbled inside him, tempting him to turn onto the street and walk until there was no place left to put his feet. He wanted to run away, but if the past couple years had taught him anything, it was that there really wasn't any such thing. Wherever you went, there you were: never away, just someplace else.

The key was learning to cope in the place where you had to be.

Sometimes he had great hope for his learning. Others, it was overwhelming in its neverendingness.

Going into the house took narrow focus and a stubborn need to be in the same room with Diez to monitor what the kid might say. Calvin forced one foot in front of the other, climbing steps, crossing the porch, walking through the door. They were scattered around the room with Diez on the couch between Elizabeth and Gran, and everyone held a dessert plate with a heaping slice of strawberry cake. There was an instant of silence, all eyes turning his way, which ended when he closed the door.

“Have a seat, Calvin,” Mama said, “and I'll fetch you some dessert.”

“Thank you, Mama, but I can help myself.” He glanced once at the look on Diez's face, part smug, part something else, before heading to the kitchen.

Not everyone was scattered around the room, he realized belatedly. Bennie stood at the kitchen counter, using Elizabeth's engraved silver cake server to transfer a slice of three-layer cake to a dish. He'd wondered earlier whether her skirt was long and full, whether her shoes were sensible. Every man who'd seen her today had been rewarded, because the skirt clung to her hips before ending above her knees, and her shoes had little substance with wicked heels that made her legs long and lovely.

Tomboy Bennie, whose wardrobe had consisted of jeans, T-shirts, shorts, and ball caps with only the occasional church dress, had found the woman within her, and she was breathtaking.

His old buddy Bennie. Breathtaking. Wow.

“That boy out there sure knows how to talk,” she said, apparently knowing without looking who had joined her. “And eat. This is his second piece of cake.” She pivoted then, holding the plate, licking a bit of pink frosting from her fingertip. Aw, man, it'd been a long time since he'd tasted frosting from a slender finger. “It'd be my guess he doesn't eat regularly.”

“Yeah, me, too.” When he approached the counter, she moved to one side, giving him room to claim his own piece of cake. Her fragrance remained in the air, sweet and tantalizing.

“Does he have family in Tacoma?”

“Don't know.”

“How did you meet him?”

He gave her a sidelong look. “What'd he say?”

“That it was a long story. One you're not planning to share, either, are you?”

“Nope.” Maybe someday, after more treatment, more healing, more living, maybe then it wouldn't be such a secret, but today was a long way from someday.

After setting his plate and fork on the kitchen table, he took the milk from the refrigerator, filled a glass, then wordlessly offered the carton to her.

She scoffed. “Yeah, you go tell the kid who just drove cross-country by himself that he should drink his milk. I think he's real happy with the Pepsi your mom gave him.”

Calvin would have liked to believe he could have done the same at that age. Truth was, he would have hated it after the first day or two. He'd been taught independence, but he'd also loved the comfort of his own bed at night and the security of his parents down the hall. Didn't seem Diez knew much about either.

With a faint smile, Bennie left the kitchen, her heels clicking on the wood floor. Calvin sucked down a big swallow of milk, topped off the glass, then turned and stopped. The man of the hour—the thief, the boy—was standing just inside the doorway, holding an empty glass. “What?” Calvin prompted irritably. “You couldn't get one of the ladies to get you a refill?”

“They offered. I told them my hands ain't painted on.” Diez circled wide toward the kitchen table. Calvin made a similar move in the opposite direction, giving him access to the refrigerator.

“You're welcome,” Diez said after removing a can of pop from inside.

“I didn't say thank you.”

“I know. Just 'cause you forgot your manners doesn't mean I don't know mine.” He opened the pop and poured it into his glass. “I brought your car back without a scratch on it. Not that you would've noticed a new one.”

“It took you long enough.”

Diez shrugged, lifting only one shoulder with a touch of arrogance. “I didn't plan to keep the car. I tried to find you at the post, then finally heard you'd been transferred out. There wasn't enough money in here”—he pulled Calvin's wallet from his hip pocket—“to pay for the trip, so I had to stop when the cash ran out until I made some more.”

Made some? Or stole it?
But Calvin didn't ask. The kid said
made
; he probably did earn it. There were ways—unscrupulous bosses looking to hire on the cheap, day laborer jobs, panhandling, hell, even picking up plastic bottles and cans.

Looking as if he knew exactly what Calvin was thinking, Diez scowled and tossed the wallet to him. “It's all there but the money. Your driver's license and your military ID and the pictures. That Bennie…she sure grew up, huh?”

Calvin didn't check the contents of the wallet. He just slid it into his own hip pocket and immediately got that old comfortable feeling that came from carrying it there for eleven years. “When are you leaving?”

Diez rubbed the toe of one shoe on the floor and avoided Calvin's gaze. “Soon. Your mom asked me to stay for supper.”

Not his problem, Calvin reminded himself. He hadn't brought this kid into the world, hadn't invited him into his life. If he was homeless, that was
his
problem, his parents', society's, but most definitely not Calvin's. “Where are you going?”

Damn.
Where had that come from?

“I dunno. South, I think. I miss the warm weather.”

“How're you going to get there?”

The kid's discomfort disappeared behind a big grin. “I know how to hitch a ride. I used to do it with my dad. Well, sort of my dad. He was my brothers' dad, but not me or my sisters'. Anyway, he'd take me with him sometimes when he was too broke for the buses.”

“So you intend to hitchhike from here to someplace south to do what?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“You don't have many answers.”

Diez lifted his chin. “I got plans. They're just none of your business.” Turning on his heel, he returned to the living room with his pop.

Calvin waited a minute, picked up his cake and milk, and tried to will himself to go to the kitchen table to eat, but it didn't work. When he moved, he walked down the hall and turned into the living room. He sat on a wooden chair Justice had dragged in from the dining room, nearest the door and a quick escape if needed.

It was Mama that interrupted the light chatter that felt like it would go on forever. “Where's your mama, Diez?”

Everyone's gaze swiveled to him, including Calvin's. The kid's skin darkened, and his eyes shifted from item to object before finally meeting Mama's. “She's in Tacoma.”

“Where?” Mama's voice was low and doubting. Calvin knew from experience that it was damn near impossible to get anything past her. She had a sixth sense about people, when they could be trusted or they couldn't, when they were being truthful or when she needed to just send them on down the road. No teenage boy was going to outwit her.

“With my brothers and sisters.”

“And she just let you up and take off to Oklahoma all by yourself? You don't look like you're anywhere near sixteen.”

Diez's fingers clenched around the fork as he took a huge bite of cake. When he was able to speak again, he said, “She don't mind. I look young for my age, on account of being so skinny.”

Calvin scraped the last bit of strawberry frosting from his plate, sucked it off the fork, then said flatly, “You look young for your age, on account of being only fourteen.”

Elizabeth's and Gran's eyes widened, and a scowl came across Justice's face. His gravelly voice went into lecture mode. “You can't just take off and drive a car that doesn't belong to you cross country at fourteen. It's too dangerous. Son, you can't even legally
drive
at fourteen.”

Mama rolled her eyes at the comment. “And yet he did it, Justice, and here he is, safe and sound.” She sat in Elizabeth's favorite glider, ankles crossed, hands folded in her lap. “Did your mother run out on you or you on her?”

If Calvin could expend the energy to feel sympathy, now would be a good time. Diez's face was flushed and hot, and he was struggling to maintain the smug, smirky behavior that was all Calvin had seen from him. He leaned forward, set his dish on the coffee table, then held his pop in both hands and tried for a casual shrug. “A little of both, I guess. She went to rehab, my brothers went to their dad, and my sisters went into foster care. The group home they put me in, because of my age”—he shot a scowl at Calvin—“wasn't really my kind of place, so I checked myself out.”

Calvin glanced around the room, checking out the sympathetic/aghast/heart-hurting looks on everyone's faces. He was in a roomful of parents and one would-be parent, good people who couldn't help sympathizing with every child less fortunate than their own. They were already wondering how they could help Diez, and Calvin would bet for sure the first step would be letting him spend a night or two here in the Sweet house. He didn't like the idea—
hide your valuables, keys, and money
—but he knew how much sway his opinion would have in the face of Elizabeth's fearsome mother instincts.