Eleven and Holding (7 page)

Twee giggled. “My mom just told me that Ainsley is grounded for a month. She went and had her eyebrows tattooed on. She was gone for hours, and by the time she got back, her eyebrows were puffed up like two raccoon tails. Ainsley blew her probation curfew big-time, but my aunt doesn't want your mom
to know about it. I think my aunt is more scared of your mom than my cousin is.”

I stood up, slinging my backpack over one shoulder. “I won't tell. My lips are locked. C'mon. We better go. And don't forget about tomorrow. You've got Jack duty, bright and early.”

Twee shot me a look. “I know. I'll be there!” She zipped up her sweatshirt with great concentration. “Any chance of you ever planning to tell me about your date with Switch tomorrow?”

I dropped my jaw ready to protest—then stopped. Voilà! My alibi. Even though I was older than Twee, she was the one who was interested in boys. She just assumed I was too. I liked boys okay, but I liked them best on the basketball court. I loved kicking soccer balls against their shins, too.

I dragged up my most pitiful, guilty look. “O-kay, okay, I'm sorry! I should have told you.”

She crossed her arms. “Where you going to meet him?”

“Jet Park,” I lied.

“What time?”

I put my arm through the other strap of my backpack with extreme care, like it held a couple sticks of dynamite, while my mind raced ahead sorting the details. “I'm supposed to meet him around
seven. I'm gonna do his newspaper delivery with him. You know, to the old folks.”

“Uh-huh. You're going to go with him while he steals papers. Very nice. What's next on the crime spree?”

“Cut it out, Twee. It's not the bad kind of stealing.”

“It's still wrong, Macy,” she said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes with a sharp upward gust. “And you know it.”

“Yeah? Well, what about that time we got someone else's order at Galaxy Burger? Remember? You sure snarfed up those fries that weren't even ours.”

“We were, like, eight years old. And that's different. But never mind. What time are you going to be home? And what are you going to tell your mother?”

“Twee, you've gotta help me here,” I pleaded. “I'm going to be gone all day. We're going to Raging Falls with some other kids.” I was on a roll with the lying thing now. “Some kid's dad is driving us. So, I can't say I have to come home early. I don't want to sound like a total baby. What am I going to tell my mom?”

“That you'll see her in juvenile court?”

“Twee! Come on. Help me out. I promise if you cover for me, I'll devote every second of the rest of the week—heck, the rest of my life—to finding Mr. McDuffy.”

“Mc
DOUGALL
!” she yelled.

I shoved her toward the library exit. “Shhh! Okay, relax—Mr. McDougall. Doesn't matter what I call him. What matters is we find him.”

“You cross your heart that you'll help me? And you won't fall so madly in love with Switch tomorrow that you'll give him our important clue? And you absolutely have to take the lip gloss I gave you? But don't let him kiss you on your first date!”

I made a giant cross over my heart and nodded, holding my breath.

“Well, all right,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “But we still have to think of something to tell your mom.”

I bit back a big smile of relief. Yes! Twee was on board.

She unlocked her bike from the rack, thinking out loud. “What's something your mom always wants you to do that you don't want to do?”

“Floss?”

“Yeah, well, we can't tell her you'll be gone all day flossing. Something else. Something that she'd have a hard time checking up on.”

I strapped my pack on the back of my bike with a bungee cord, trying to smoosh the contents down. “Well, we just have to cover the day part while she's
at work. Then we can tell her I'm going to be with you for dinner and stuff. She won't ever check about that.” I pulled an empty soda can from my pack and crumpled it. I tossed it overhand in a high arc toward a large garbage container on the curb. “Three points!” I cheered as it landed dead center.

“I wish you'd recycle, Macy. That's such a waste.”

Our heads swiveled toward each other at the exact moment. Our eyes met, and we locked gazes. We grinned.

“The Green Angels,” we said in synch.

“Do you think she'd really buy it, Macy? You're so terrible about recycling.”

“It's perfect! Those kids get up at the crack of dawn, and sometimes they're out all day. It's the last week of summer. I bet they've got something going every day: trail cleanup, litter, hazardous-waste disposal, making jewelry out of old batteries—you name it.”

“You know,” she said, looking thoughtful. “If we could get her to believe you're interested, it's the perfect cover for us too, for when we go to Los Robles together on Thursday. I've been wondering what we were going to tell our folks.”

“Right, right!” I said, faking some enthusiasm. Trying to keep all the schedules straight in my mind was giving me brain lock.

Schedule A: what Twee thought I was doing.

Schedule B: what Mom was going to think I was doing.

Schedule C: what I was actually doing.

“We're still going on Thursday, aren't we?” I could hear the small flame of hope in her voice that I had changed my mind.

“Well, I'm going for sure,” I said. “You don't have to go at all.”

“You're not going off after your dad without me. Don't even think about it.” She passed me a look that I could hardly meet.

Twee and I saw eye to eye on just about everything except my dad. Well, him, and Switch. I think it started back a couple of years ago. It was the summer that Nana was so sick. Dad had just gotten out of the army. He and I had been spending a lot of time together, and I think Twee might have been a little jealous. She got real bent at him one day when the three of us went hiking up in the foothills. Dad was in one of his really stellar moods—singing and playing fun car games with us. Twee was very quiet and kept hanging on to the door. My dad drives a little fast, maybe, but he's a real pro. He can drive jeeps, giant trucks and tanks—just about anything on wheels. You couldn't be any safer.

We hiked for hours—my dad is in excellent shape. Twee was having a hard time keeping up.

Afterward, we were really exhausted and hungry. Dad forgot to pack a lunch. We stopped at this little grocery store on the way home, and Twee was the only one with any money. Dad borrowed it from her and bought us sandwiches but didn't get any food for himself. He bought a couple of beers and a cigar. That really burned her up. I paid her back later, because my dad forgot, but she'd been sort of frosty about him after that.

Twee patted my arm as she buckled on her helmet. “I'm going to Los Robles with you, got it?” she said.

Knowing her as I did, I knew she was already plotting what she was going to do to talk me out of this trip on Thursday, even if it meant slashing the bus's tires and hog-tying the driver.

I nodded past the topic, quick as I could. “See you tomorrow at six forty-five, okay? I want to try to get out of the house before my mom wakes up.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you get caught for this—”

I held up my hands. “I know! I know! You didn't know anything about it!”

“It will be a miracle if either of us actually makes it to the new school year next week. We'll probably both end up in jail,” she muttered.

I watched as she pedaled off. Twee was the most loyal person in the world. Which meant lying to her made me feel like a complete louse. But I'd make it up to her. I was going to find that dog if it was the last thing I did this side of twelve.

T
wo hazel eyes stared at me unblinking from the top of Aunt Liv's headboard. Miss Doodle purred like a brand-new moped. But she's fooled me before, and I had the scars to prove it. I wasn't going to be duped again by the meanest cat that ever lived.

“Okay, nice and easy—” I whispered over my shoulder.

Aunt Liv stuffed a giant towel in my hand. “Here! Don't forget the gloves,” she whispered back.

I stuffed my hands into her gardening gloves, like a doctor headed off to surgery. Miss Doodle yawned wide, but her eyes never left me.

I took a steadying breath. “We're going to have to distract her so I can throw the towel over her.”

Aunt Liv grabbed a lipstick from the top of her
dresser. “Got it!” She plucked off the cap and moved to the other side of the bed. “Miss Doodle! Lookie, lookie here!”

Miss Doodle turned her head, eyes riveted on the end of the tube. She adored lipstick. If cats could drive, Miss Doodle would be a permanent fixture down at the MAC lipstick counter at the mall.

I scootched the towel up closer. Her head snapped back toward me. She hissed like a snake, her mouth all fangs.

“Yoo-hoo, Miss Doo-dle!” Aunt Liv sang. “Over here— Look! Mama's putting on lipstick!”

Miss Doodle turned back toward Aunt Liv, and her mouth dropped open slightly. She'd be drooling in a second and then be putty in my hands.

In one swift move I threw the towel over the top of her and then grabbed her well-padded neck. I dragged her toward me, limp as a newborn lamb. That was the nice thing about this weird cat. The minute you covered her, she was had. You could probably wear her on your head all day as a turban, and she'd sit up there like a perfect angel.

Aunt Liv held the kitty carrier door open wide, and I loaded my hostage into her temporary cell. Aunt Liv slammed the door and stood back. Miss Doodle puffed up like a wild jungle cat, growling and
spitting in my direction. I gave her my best werewolf imitation, baring my teeth.

“Oh, thank the gods!” Aunt Liv said, collapsing on the bed. “That's done for another year. Thanks, Macy! If it wasn't for you, this poor cat would never get to the vet. I just don't have the heart for it. I feel like such a traitor as it is.”

“You're just like Dad,” I said. “He couldn't ask a fly to leave the room without worrying he'd hurt its feelings.”

She was just like my dad in other ways, too. They both loved to play practical jokes, particularly on each other. Aunt Liv was a DJ at a local country Western station—Mustang Sally was her radio name. One time she announced on the air that Dad was trying to get in the Guinness World Records by buying up more boxes of Girl Scouts cookies than anyone on record. She gave out our address on the air, and by the end of the day, Girl Scouts were arriving at our house by the busload from all parts of the county.

Aunt Liv's life was like one of the sad country Western songs she played all day— She'd never met a cowboy who didn't eventually ride off without her. But she never gave up.

Miss Doodle made one last swipe at me through the cage, snagging my pant leg.

“Ouch!” I winced and then moved the carrier a safer distance away.

Aunt Liv propped herself up on an elbow on the bed. She wore long beaded earrings that swung back and forth. She clicked her tongue, and an entire herd of cats jumped up next to her. Aunt Liv was the local rescue mission for lost, abandoned, and abused cats. I suspected cats all over the country carried her address in their little kitty suitcases when they went out into the world. They had all been hiding until Miss Doodle was safely captured.

I pulled a small calico kitten on to my lap. She began to give my hand a complete wash and polish with her prickly tongue.

“Hey,” Aunt Liv said, giggling as a tabby stood on its hind legs and tried to bat her earrings. “Remember the time your mom and dad went to New York and left you with me? And you got that nasty ear infection, and I had to put those drops in your ears?”

“Yeah,” I cut in. “You chased me all over the house until I wore out and hid in the closet.”

“Uh-huh—and you absolutely refused to come out!”

“Well, I finally did,” I said.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Not until I agreed to pay you a dollar to do each ear.”

I sighed and leaned against her. “You would have made a terrible mother, Aunt Liv, but you were always a great babysitter.”

She kissed the top of my head. “Thanks, sugar. And you are the best niece in the universe. Your mom and dad are very lucky to have you—so is our little Jack Man,” she added.

I put my hand next to hers, palm to palm. My hand looked like an oven mitt compared to hers. But I never felt self-conscious with Aunt Liv about anything. She always made me feel like everything about me was perfect. “I miss Dad so bad,” I said. “Have you heard from him?”

She pulled a kitten off her back. “Not for a bit,” she said, her voice giving me a tiny sidestep.

I tried to speak but couldn't get out what I wanted to say. I wasn't even sure yet what I wanted to ask her. I peeled at a hangnail until she grabbed it and kissed my fingers.

“What's up, Mace?”

I stared into her eyes, searching for a clue, searching for anything she might know. Then the blurt— “Aunt Liv, is Mom going to divorce Dad?”

She tilted her head at me, first to one side and then the other side.
Trying to buy some time,
I thought. “What makes you ask that?”

“Something's not right. He's never stayed away this long before.”

“Have you talked to your mom about it?”

“I haven't asked her if they're getting a divorce, if that's what you mean.” I pulled my knees up under my chin and then ducked my face behind them while I spoke. “She's always so busy with work, or Jack, and whenever I bring Dad up, she says the same thing: ‘Your father is very busy with some very important work right now.' She's like a broken record!”

“Well?” Aunt Liv asked.

My irritation with Mom was like a hornet, and once it got away from me, I lost control of it. I couldn't sit still anymore. I got up and buzzed around the room. “Dad's always been busy with ‘important work,' but he's always found time to come home. I think he probably doesn't want to come home because she always nags at him, and to her, nothing he does is ever right!”

I paused at her bookcase and picked up my favorite picture of her and Dad from when they were kids. They were sitting on the green stools at Nana's, drinking enormous milk shakes. Dad had a big dark gap in his smile where he was missing teeth.

Aunt Liv waited, silent.

“I don't think she loves Dad anymore,” I said in a rush, all the words run together like a long snake that
had been waiting to get out.

Aunt Liv pulled me back onto the bed next to her. She smoothed out the shoulders of my shirt and gave me a squeeze. “Macy, I know it's hard to be a kid and understand what's happening with your parents. I remember how that feels.” She paused. “I do know your mom and dad love each other, and you, very much.”

“Seems like Mom only loves Jack these days,” I said, and then felt embarrassed by how pathetic that sounded.

“You know,” Aunt Liv said, her voice soft, “when Gum was born, I was four, and I was so thrilled. It felt like about five Christmases all rolled into one.” She picked up a comb from her bedside table and dragged it through my hair. “But when I started to see how Nana looked at him, like she had just given birth to the Messiah—” She faded off a moment, remembering. “Well, I turned into one of those really wicked characters from the fairy tales. I started plotting Gum's death!”

“Really? You wanted to
kill
Dad?” I asked, amazed and relieved. My occasional what-if-there-were-no-Jack fantasies worried me.

“Oh, absolutely! Anything to get rid of him. I got an idea from some story Nana was reading to me about this baby in a tree that gets carried away by
this big old bird. Remember that giant old oak tree we had out back at Nana's?”

“The one with the tire swing?”

“Mmm-hmm. That's the one! Well, I figured if I could just climb up high enough with him, this bird from the story would swoop down and pick him up. I even told Nana I was going to do it!”

“What'd she say?” I said.

Aunt Liv chuckled. “She took me out back and looked up at the tree with me. Had me point to the branch where I was going to take him. Then she told me to make a muscle.”

“She told you to make a muscle?”

“Yep! And I was very nervous and made the best one I could. Nana gave it a good squeeze and then nodded, all serious. Told me that I'd need to wait until I was six before I was strong enough to climb that high while carrying a baby.”

A smile found my mouth.

“And then, of course, by the time I was six, I was pretty crazy about him. Wouldn't let anyone lay a hand on my baby brother.”

“I know,” I sighed. “Jack drives me insane, always following me around, getting into my stuff, but I love the little stinker.”

“And you do see how he looks at you, don't you?”

Like I was his personal superhero. It made it so hard to stay mad at him. “Yeah.” I grew quiet.

She hooked my hair behind my ear—just like Switch had done—where it fell over my face.

“Your mom's having a hard time right now, sugar. You might want to give her a break. She's got the world's busiest little boy, a very sad girl missing her dad, and an enormous job taking care of lots of other people's kids—”

“And no husband around to help her,” I added.

“Well, right, not around right now,” she agreed, her voice full of regret and . . . something else that I could feel and hear but couldn't quite get.

I gave her a long look. I adored Aunt Liv for a million reasons, but one of them was that every now and then, I could see Nana looking at me right through her eyes. I swallowed around the small hot stone in my throat.

She laid her forehead on mine a quiet second, and then she looked cross-eyed into my eyes. Which always made us giggle.

She gave me a quick peck on the lips. “Okay, you!” she said, revving up. “We've got a kitty to deliver, and then I owe you one Super Stellar Galaxy Cheeseburger Combo!” She pulled a soft sweater over her head, which muffled whatever she was saying about the new
cute night manager at the Galaxy Burger. “Just give me five minutes in the little cowgirls' room, okay?”

“Take your time,” I said, pulling off all the kittens that clung to me like burrs. I just remembered I hadn't done part of what I wanted to come here for. I had a short but serious snoop to do.

I ducked into her home office and eased back the roll top on her desk, keeping one ear cocked for the bathroom door opening. I made a mental apology to her and began rummaging through her private things. I had to believe she would do the same thing if she were in my shoes. She had a ton of letters and bills piled up on her desk, and a very old cup of coffee that had grown what looked like a mushroom on its top surface. I scootched the mug to the back.

There was a large pile of contest and sweepstake entries and various other junk mail, and I quickly scanned through it all, looking for Dad's familiar handwriting anywhere. I had a crazy hope I'd find a letter he'd written to Aunt Liv, explaining why he wasn't coming home. The two of them had always been really close. I couldn't imagine he would keep anything from her. Of course, he'd probably email her or call her, not write a letter.

I sighed. Nothing.

My eyes lit on a pile of phone bills, and I grabbed
the top one. Looked like last month's bill. I dug through it until I got to the long-distance-calls page. I took a quick look around the door to make sure Aunt Liv hadn't come out. I scanned the list of calls. She had four calls to Los Robles—long, expensive ones. Looked like once a week, too. I turned back the page of her wall calendar and compared the dates. All the calls to Los Robles were on Saturdays, all at around three p.m.

I grabbed a pen and jotted down the number on the inside of my hand. The number was familiar. Very familiar, like maybe one I'd just studied less than two hours ago at the library.

If I wasn't mistaken, it was the number to the Los Robles Department of Veterans Affairs.