Dead Ends (12 page)

“I am paying attention.” He massaged his cheek with his fingers.

Mostly, I threw soft punches—swinging fast but pulling up just before contact, so he could feel where I was aiming. But I put a little force behind the last one to wake him up.

“You're not,” I said. “You're not even trying.”

Billy dropped his hand, and I could see a tiny bruise turning his cheek from pink to blue.

“I'm tired,” he said.

“We only just started.”

“I'm
bored
.” He crossed his arms and pouted.

“Look,” I said, “I don't care if you learn this shit or not. If you don't feel like fighting today, we can just go home—”

“No!” Billy stamped a foot.

“Well, I have better things to do than hang around this crappy park with some idiot who can't even focus for two min—”

The blow to my gut came so fast, it knocked me clear off my feet. I landed hard on my ass in the sandbox.

Billy towered over me. “I'm not an idiot.”

I groaned and clutched my stomach.

Billy clasped his neck in pain. He'd head-butted me—so hard it had nearly taken the wind out of me. I had to laugh.

“Good move, Billy D.”

Billy just scowled.

I struggled to sit up and pointed to his neck. “If you're going to ram people like that, you need to bend all the way over and hunch your shoulders behind your ears. Like this.” I stood to demonstrate. “Then push off with your legs and throw your whole body into it.”

Billy was still frowning, but he imitated my position.

“Good,” I said. Billy was a natural shoulder-huncher. “Now let's try this. I'm going to go to punch you, and you do the spin-out like I showed you, but at the end of the spin, come around my side and do your head-butt.”

Focused now, he took a position in front of me, ready to do the maneuver.

I raised my arm in a fist but paused. “Hey, Billy D., I'm sorry I called you an idiot.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Then I swung. And in one lightning-fast move, my arm was flailing in the air, and the force of Billy's head was in my side, pushing me to the ground.

When I caught my breath, I got to one knee and gave Billy a thumbs-up. “Damn, you
are
the Karate Kid. You're like … the Karate Kid in part three, when he's already a rock star!”

Billy gave me a blank stare.

“Okay,” I said, standing. “We need to rent that movie. It's a crime that you don't know what I'm talking about.”

“It's a crime?” Billy's eyes widened.

“No, it's just an expres—never mind.”

“Again?” Billy asked, stepping in front of me, ready for another swing.

“Nah, I think you've got that move, man.” I took a deep breath and felt a sharp pain slide along one of my ribs. “I might need a minute.”

Billy plopped down on the edge of the sandbox and opened his backpack.
Good
, I thought.
Just read your atlas so I can heal.
But it wasn't the atlas he pulled from the bag.

“I want to show you something,” Billy said. The yearbook was in his hands.

I stared at the yearbook, trying to decide whether I was pissed or just exasperated. Of course he didn't take it back to the library.
Why would he? Because I said so?
I was fast learning, Billy did whatever damn thing he wanted, regardless of instructions from me or anyone else.

Billy opened the yearbook, and I noticed some of the pages were marked with tiny blue Post-its.

“Your mom was a sophomore, but none of the sophomores look like you.” Billy turned to the first Post-it. “But some of the juniors and seniors kind of—”

“I told you I'm not interested in some lame yearbook,” I interrupted. “We can't tell if someone's my dad just because he has the same color hair.”

“What if his hair sticks up like that?” Billy pointed to a picture on the page. The face under his finger was lighter than mine, and the eyes were too close together, but the chunk of hair standing up on the back of his head was hard to ignore. My hand went to my own hair automatically.

“And this one.” Billy flipped to a new page. “His chin is all big and pointy like yours.”

I had to admit, our faces were shockingly similar.

“But Billy—”

“And this one—”

“Billy!”

“What?”

“Yeah, they look like me. But don't you get it? If you look hard enough, they
all
look like me.”

This I knew from experience, from years of studying faces—in the grocery store, the Laundromat, the car wash. That guy's eyes—wide like mine. That guy's mouth—wearing my same scowl. Yes, I'd had years of practice seeing exactly what I wanted in the faces of strangers. But they couldn't all be my dad, and I'd figured out a long time ago that probably meant none of them were.

“That one doesn't look like you.” Billy pointed to a skinny face with acne and glasses.

I laughed. “Yeah, and for all we know, he's my dad. See how pointless this is?”

“It's not pointless,” Billy said. “We can look them up on Seely's computer and see where they live and—”

“I don't want Seely all up in my business the way you do, Billy D.”

“Fine.” Billy moved to slam the book shut, but I caught his hand.

A face had just jumped out at me. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, but something was familiar.

“That one.” I pointed to the page. “I know that guy … I think.”

Billy's eyes lit up. “He looks like you. I marked this page because he looks like you! Dane, it's him. It's him!”

I couldn't figure out how Billy managed to bounce up and down even when he was sitting.

“No, it's not,” I said, but there was no conviction in my voice. The face
was
familiar, but I couldn't lock on to a solid memory—just flashes like you get when you wake up from a dream, and it starts flying away from you, so you can only hold on to a few trails.

“We can find him, Dane. We can use Seely's—I mean, we can use the library computer. I'll say we're doing homework. I'm good at lying, so—”

“We don't have to do that,” I said quietly.

“Yes, we do. You have to find him, Dane. You have to—”

“Stop!” I held up a hand. A memory teetered on the edge of my mind, and I couldn't reel it in with Billy making so much noise.

Billy stopped talking, but he continued to hop around in his seat on the edge of the sandbox.

Finally I said, “I think I already know where to find him.”

Billy went still. “You do?”

I ran a finger along the name next to the photo. “I know this name.”

Vince Martinelli.

As in Martinelli's Pizza and Pasta.

I closed my eyes. Spaghetti and meatballs. A white shirt with a marinara stain Mom never could get out. The man again—adding extra meatballs just for me.

I hadn't been to Martinelli's since I was a kid, but we went so often back then I could remember everything about it. It had the old checkered tablecloths and the broken tiles on the floor. It always smelled that amazing way that could make you hungry again, even if you'd just stuffed yourself full.

More flashes now—that face on the other end of a seesaw, on this very playground … the inside of a car with no air-conditioning, a melting ice-cream cone dripping onto the seat, and the man laughing and telling me not to worry. But none of them were as clear as the restaurant memory.

Why did Mom stop taking me to Martinelli's?

I looked at Billy. “You feel like getting a pizza?”

A part of me had hoped Martinelli's would be closed. I'd dragged Billy onto the bus without stopping to think about what I was doing. On the ride over, I had time to process it. So what if the guy's face was familiar? That could just be because we used to eat at his place a lot. So what if I maybe looked a little Italian? I could also pass for Greek or even Hispanic from some angles.

By the time we got to the stop, it was Billy dragging
me
off the bus. He'd gotten all pumped up when I'd explained to him where we were going.

“Like a stakeout?”

“Sure, like a stakeout.”

I thought again about what kind of lame crime shows Billy must watch on TV. Then I thought about how lame this whole
trip was and tried to turn around, but Billy had taken the reins. He even offered to buy the pizza with the credit card his mom had given him for emergencies. The rumble in my stomach agreed with Billy, so it was two against one, and now here we were, sitting at one of those ugly checkered tablecloths, trying to be discreet.

Well,
I
was trying to be discreet. Billy was craning his neck around like some spineless bird, trying to see over the back of the booth into the open kitchen.

“Sit down,” I barked.

Billy sat. And bounced.

“Dude, relax. You're making me nervous.”

Billy leaned across the table. “Do you see him?”

I pulled my water glass out of the way before he could knock it over. “No, I don't see him. Sit back. Don't make a scene.”

“Stop telling me what to do.” Billy pouted. But he sat back and buried his face in an oversize menu. “Can we get pepperoni?”

“Whatever. I don't care.”

I hadn't touched my own menu. I was too busy scanning the kitchen myself. I just didn't have to wiggle around like a jellyfish to do it.

Finally, I saw him. He wasn't dressed in the ugly red-and-white uniform everyone else was wearing. He had on jeans and a T-shirt and work boots—just like the ones I wore. I swallowed hard.

He walked from table to table, asking the guests if they liked their food, whether they had a good weekend, and what else he could do for them. When he approached our booth,
my hand twitched right into the glass I'd moved away from Billy. Water and ice skated across the slick plastic tablecloth. I watched the flow speed to the end of the table, where it spilled right off the edge and onto the man's boots.

“Whoops!” The man—Vince Martinelli—laughed and shook a cube of ice off his toe.

“I'm sorry—shit—I mean, shoot—damn, I'm sorry. Sorry.” I scrabbled for a napkin and sort of wadded it up and threw it down at his boot.

Billy just stared at me, openmouthed. His expression proved I looked as crazy as I felt.

“No problem, no problem.” The man pulled a rag from the back pocket of his jeans and pressed it onto the table to stop the waterfall. “We've got more H-2-O where that came from.” He motioned to a waitress to bring a fresh glass of water. Then he turned back to us—to me—and squinted. “Do I know you?”

I don't know if he asked because he recognized me or because of the psychotic way I was staring at him. I coughed to cover up my speechlessness.

“He's Dane Washington,” Billy said.

I turned my stare to the traitor across the table.

“Don't think I know … oh my God.” The change in his voice forced me to look up. “Are you Jenny Washington's kid?”

Whatever anger and fear had been controlling my face and making me mute melted away to something almost like excitement. My heart was pounding. I might have started bouncing like Billy.

“Yeah, yeah, that's my mom! Jennifer Washington.”

Ugh.
What an eager little puppy dog I was. When I spoke again, I tried to sound only half interested. “You know her?”

“
Oh
yeah, I know her.”

My leg jumped like a jackhammer—the puppy wagging its tail.

The man pulled a chair up to the end of our booth and sat, leaning forward with an elbow on the wet table and a smile on his face. “Know you, too.”

Pet me! Pet me!

“You do?” I faked a yawn.

“Sure. Your mom and I dated for a long time after I got back from college—almost a year. You were pretty little—just started kindergarten, I think—so you probably don't remember, but we had some fun, you and me.”

I knew I should return his smile, to make some encouraging expression, but I could feel all the hope sliding off my face. The flashes of memories joined the hope, snaking down to my stomach, where anxiety unraveled and melted along with everything else. All of it slid down my body and settled in my shoes—into my boots, which looked just like this guy's … apparently the
only
thing we had in common.

The man said we could call him Vinnie and told some long story about how he was young when he dated my mom and didn't want to settle down. His eyes were sad and far away, so I didn't have to worry about my face showing any appropriate reactions. I barely even listened. Mom had had lots of boyfriends over the years, and none of them ever felt significant—to
either one of us. So this guy was just one of those—nobody special.

“Well, anyway.” Vinnie cleared his throat. “It sure is good to see you, Dane. You tell your mom I said hi.” He started to stand up.

“I remember you, too,” I blurted.

Vinnie sat down slowly. “You sure? You were pretty little.”

“Um—just like—this place,” I fumbled. “And ice cream and little stuff like that.”

Vinnie smiled, sharing my memories, but then he raised an eyebrow at me. “That why you're here? Something I should know?”

I was about to say no and let Vinnie get back to work when Billy opened his trap.

“Dane is looking for his dad.”

I kicked him under the table.

Vinnie let out a long whistle. “Wow. And you thought …”

“No, I didn't. And I'm not looking for anybody. I just thought … I mean … It's not like that. Look, don't tell my mom—”

“Whoa whoa whoa.” Vinnie held up a hand to silence me, then lowered it to my shoulder. “I'm not telling anybody's mom anything, okay? I haven't talked to Jenny Washington in a long time, and I won't be tracking her down to tattle on you. But can I give you some advice?”