Mourning Becomes Cassandra (29 page)

He took a long sip of tea that would have burned my tongue and replaced his cup precisely on the table. His eyes flicked up to mine. “I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about you. What’s this about you working on a video game?”

I blinked at him. I was used to his general evasiveness by now, the way he would neatly deflect personal questions, but he had never before resorted to feigning interest in his interlocutor. I wondered if that particular word combination, “let’s talk about you,” had ever issued from his mouth before. What next? He must really want out of his own head tonight.

“James is a video game producer for a little company called Free Universe,” I replied at last, “I’ve been doing some writing for them on various games in development. One of his current projects is called
Tolt
, one of those fantasy-world kind of games, and they had me do some voiceover work for them as the—er—‘Snow Goddess.’”

Daniel’s fingers drummed on the table: tap tap tap. “Is that what he was playing for you when you came home? Your voiceover?”

I nodded. “Are you much of a video game fan, beyond Rock Band?”

He shook off my question. “And how did you meet James? Church?”

“No-o-o, though he goes to my church. He goes to the evening service, like Joanie and Phyl. And he also goes to the singles group on Wednesdays like they do. I met him because we’re both serving as mentors at Camden School.” I anticipated his next question. “Camden School is an alternative high school for at-risk youth.”

“‘At-risk’ in what way?”

“Oh, the works. Drugs, alcohol, criminal records. Whatever might get them thrown out of public school.”

“Comprehension is beginning to dawn on me,” Daniel said, sounding amused. “This would explain some of the odder conversations we’ve had. What on earth made you think you could tackle these things?”

I sat up straighter, a little indignant. “Of course I didn’t think I could tackle these things. I don’t know anything about them—hence the ‘odd conversations’ with you. Camden School has counselors and teachers to help the kids with that stuff. I’m more like Nadina’s friend and encourager. And she’s mine,” I added thoughtfully.

“Was it because of…Nadina…that you asked me about felony vandalism that one time and hard drugs?” His steel-trap memory really was impressive. It must help him out with all that law business. Speaking of which, from the way he could ask questions when he wanted to, he might have missed his calling as a prosecutor. This totally uncharacteristic barrage was freaking me out a little.

“No on the vandalism,” I answered. “That was because of Kyle. Kyle is James’ student. His case is unusual. But yes on the hard drugs. Nadina is more of your stereotypical Camden School student—lots of substance abuse and risky behavior.”

“So knowing nothing about drug abuse or risky behaviors, what made you want to be a mentor?”

I hesitated. A truthful answer to the question would far outstrip his interest level, but there was no help for it. At least this wasn’t as embarrassing as our sex talk.

“I’ve been up and down emotionally the last few months,” I began, “and one weekend I was in church and the pastor talked about getting outside ourselves by serving others, and that sounded like a good place to be—outside myself. I tried to—to pray, and then a girl from Camden School stood up and talked about the mentoring program. As you pointed out, I’m totally unqualified, and I didn’t want to do it, but for some reason I felt like I was supposed to. I…resisted for a while…ignored the feeling, but then I happened to run into Kyle at the library and got sucked in. You might call it coincidence, but I chose to see it as an answer to prayer.”

His eyes gleamed at me. “How do you know what I would call it? I may have gone with ‘power of suggestion’ followed up by ‘coincidence.’”

I smiled. “All right, but then we would disagree on who was doing the suggesting. You might say the student or the pastor or the circumstances or my own head, but I might say it was God making the suggestion, through those avenues.”

He didn’t respond, and given his odd mood I didn’t know what else to talk about. I was about to get up, put my dishes in the sink, and call it a night, when he said abruptly, “So does James know you’re widowed?”

I gawped at him. “Do
you
?” I demanded. Daniel had never mentioned or referred to my marital status, ever. And after months of his ceaseless bantering and flirtation, I had begun to believe he actually didn’t know about my Tragic Past, if only to excuse behavior I couldn’t understand. Who would make a favorite hobby out of trying to make some poor widow blush whenever you saw her?

Daniel waved this away impatiently. “Of course I do. Joanie told me before you moved in.” He waited for me to answer his question.

Well, then! I suppose if he’d known all along I was struggling with grief, his subsequent behavior meant only that he was, as I had often thought, insensitive, incorrigible and thoughtless. “If you knew, why do you always talk to me the way that you do?” I demanded.

I pushed his question aside for a second time, distracted by his implied criticism of James. “He hasn’t flirted with me from day one, like you have. And—and he isn’t just trying to get a rise out of me to amuse himself. He actually likes me—or thinks he does,” I ended lamely.

The blue eyes locked on mine. “What makes you think I don’t like you?”

Now I was mad. “There you go again, Daniel. Knock it off!” Grabbing our mugs and tea paraphernalia, I dumped them in the sink with a clatter. When I turned to leave, he was right next to me, the silent snake.

“Does he know you’re a widow?” he asked for the third time.

“Yes!” I hollered in frustration. “He thought I was married until a few days ago when Nadina said Tr—said my husband was dead.”

“Yes.” I crossed my arms defensively over my chest. “It’s no big deal—James is kind of a serial dater like you, not that it’s any of your business. I’d give it a couple weeks. Now I’m going back to bed. You’re kind of freaking me out, Daniel. You’re not behaving like yourself.”

“In what way?”

“Being nosy about my life!” I laughed shortly. “I’m not used to it. I thought we were fine being permanent acquaintances. I stay out of your life, and you stay out of mine.”

“You don’t think we’ve gotten to know each other a little better than that?”

“Not really, no. I mean, we can converse on lots of subjects, but I don’t really know you, and you don’t really know me. If you think you’d like to be friends now, that’s great. Keep me posted. But I’m going now because this conversation is just too strange—maybe because we’re having it in the middle of the night and I’ve banged my head and you’re worried about something else. Good night, Daniel.” It might have been cowardly, but I fled. If he had wanted to open up about whatever was bugging him I would have forced myself to listen, but if he just wanted a distraction—well, that’s what books and television were for.

“That’s five bucks each, and don’t be thinking I’ll be letting you in for free just because I know you.” Nadina cracked her gum and grinned at James and me from behind the ticket table outside the gym. It was the Camden School Cougars’ first home basketball game and we were there to cheer Kyle on.

James reached for his wallet, but I slipped Nadina my money before he even had it out. “Dutch,” I reminded him, ignoring his aggrieved sigh. “And I’ll meet you in there in a sec.” Pulling up a chair, I joined Nadina and Sonya, recently returned from Bellingham.

“How did you manage to get time off of Petco and the rink?” I asked. “And why on earth are you wearing Blaise’s nametag? She didn’t fire you again, did she?”

“Nah,” said Nadina, patting the plastic ‘BLAISE—I’m here to help’ on her chest. “She bitched about me asking for today off and complained about how hard she has to work to make up for all the slackers, but I just pretended not to hear. You tell me I should try to look at things from the other person’s point of view, so today I’m seeing what it’s like to be an evil old hag who tries to kill everyone else’s buzz.”

I rolled my eyes. However useless I was in every other area of Nadina’s life, at least she had minded me about asking for her job back. I would’ve liked to have been a fly on the wall for Nadina’s sackcloth-and-ashes speech; Blaise had gruffly agreed to give her another chance, albeit not with opportunities anytime soon to assist Perky Katie the Dog Trainer.

“I’m glad you kept your cool,” I said. “You don’t have to take on every person who irritates you.”

“What’d I tell you?” Nadina turned to Sonya. “Cass is totally about me behaving myself.”

Sonya had only recently reappeared at school, although she’d come home from Bellingham right before Thanksgiving, and Nadina swore up and down that, instead of drinking together, they’d gone to the movies once, and Sonya had come with some other Camden School kids to the rink. In any case, I was glad to see the two of them helping out at a school-sponsored event.

“Thanks for the cookies you guys sent,” said Sonya. “I hid them so I wouldn’t have to share.”

“Good, they were all for you,” I responded. “Louella was telling me on Sunday how you thought the place served too many vegetables.”

“Everything there had to be good for you,” put in Nadina sarcastically. She had complained to me on our last walk that Sonya had started going to Mass with her grandmother and had gone so far as to mention God a couple times, not even in a swearing context.

Sonya’s only reply was to bite off another hank of her licorice whip. Seeing the open Costco tub of them next to her, I assumed she was making up for lost time diet-wise, and could only hope the spiritual effects might prove more lasting.

When another group of parents and mentors and other school affiliates crowded up to pay their entrance fees, I waved to the girls and went on into the gym. The teams were still warming up, and I smiled a little to see lanky, sloping Kyle lumbering through the drills. Not only was it odd to see him moving faster than usual, but I had never realized when he wore his regular clothes how very pale he was; in his green-and-silver team uniform he looked as pasty as Murray.

It was more crowded than I expected in the gym—it looked like most of the students and staff were there, as well as some parents and mentors—and it took me a second to spot James, chatting with the middle-aged couple next to him. When I took the seat he had saved me, he turned to give me his warm smile. “Cass, I’d like you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Bateman, Kyle’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Bateman, this is Cass Ewan, she’s a mentor to one of Kyle’s classmates.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, holding out my hand to shake, “I’m delighted to meet you. I’m a huge fan of Kyle’s.”

Knowing so much about Nadina’s family situation and how it had impacted her life choices, I didn’t know what to expect from the Batemans. Kyle was in so many ways a normal, smart, functional kid—his crazy actions the one-time anomaly, rather than the rule. I did remember, however, that Kyle hadn’t expressed much fondness for his dad, the first time I met him months ago.

Mr. Bateman looked every inch the hard-driving businessman, from his thatch of thick, gray-streaked black hair above shrewd eyes to his thickening waistline and pristine Johnston & Murphy cap-toe lace-ups. I could imagine him twenty years ago, in high school himself, most likely the very sort of jock who stuffed people like James into lockers. After an appraising glance, he gave me a friendly-enough nod, but he held himself rather aloof from the people surrounding him.

It wasn’t hard to figure out which parent Kyle resembled most: his mother was a long-limbed, pale, quiet creature, with hair exactly Kyle’s shade of brown and her son’s light blue eyes. Smiling faintly at me, she pulled her sweater closer around her shoulders.

“We were talking about some of the finer points of Kyle’s diversion agreement,” explained James.

“How much money does he have to repay?” I asked, deferring to Mr. Bateman, as I imagined the whole world naturally did.

He made a disgusted face. “In the neighborhood of two thousand dollars, which is more than that damned teacher’s computer equipment was worth, if you ask me. Damned Bellevue High trying to update their equipment on my son’s dime, after they’ve already kicked him out and hurt his chances of getting into any decent college.”

Much as I liked Kyle, it seemed to me hard to blame the school for narrowing Kyle’s college options. “At any rate, I am glad that this won’t go on his record,” I said peaceably. Mr. Bateman only harrumphed, staring straight ahead at the court, where the game was beginning, but Mrs. Bateman gave me another timid smile, and I suspected she agreed with me.

Stretching an arm along the back of my chair, James said, as if returning to an earlier point, “Well, we’ll be glad to have him as an intern at Free Universe. He’s a great tester for our games, plus our sound designer says he has a natural knack for that kind of work. He’ll only manage a few hours a week, but in a year’s time it could put a dent in that two thousand dollars.”

Mr. Bateman sighed but managed a gracious nod. “My wife and I appreciate you taking Kyle under your wing and giving him some work he’ll like. But that kid! Of course he has a knack for that stuff. There’s nothing he can’t do—if he hadn’t been such a blasted idiot about that damned computer teacher.”

“How much community service does he have to do?” I asked. I was hunching forward a little so I wouldn’t touch James’ arm, something he didn’t fail to note, though he did nothing beyond raise a teasing eyebrow. “Does he have to wear an orange outfit and pick up trash along the freeway?”

“Hundred hours,” grunted Mr. Bateman. “Ninety-nine more god-blessed hours than it took him to do the damage.”