High Noon in Sandbridge

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Dr. Huang had given Scooter his sister’s keys. They rode strange in his pocket, heavy and weird. Mace had apparently been fond of keychains, because dozens of them glittered pointlessly from the ring, which held only a few keys. House, car, mailbox. Another key, probably to a storage unit or a shed.

“Something will need to be done about her car,” Scooter said. They’d just bought that car for her birthday last year. Andy had bitched a little at that. But Scooter reasoned a few hefty gifts from time to time might sweeten Mace’s temper. It had been used, a previous lease model, with less than thirty thousand miles on it. Scooter didn’t want it. And he wasn’t sure he was prepared to bring it back to Virginia and see anyone else driving it around either.

Billie was sitting between them in the cab, scowling at her hands that she had bunched into little fists on her thighs. God only knew what she was thinking. Scooter didn’t know the first goddamn thing about kids. Melissa’s boy, Jordan, was the only one Scooter had really known since he graduated high school; sometimes when Melissa’s mom was ill, Jordan ended up running around in the restaurant or playing with Trick. D’ante had a niece and a nephew, but Scooter had only met them once or twice.

Oh, God. He coughed and then asked, “How are your guinea pigs doing?” More pets. Well, they could live in whatever room Billie wanted and they’d train Trick to stay out. Hopefully.

“Fine,” she said, and then after a minute volunteered, “Squeaker bit Mouse on the butt last week and Mouse got mad and chased him all over the cage.”

Scooter managed to dredge up a smile for that. “Well, that sounds like it was funny. Poor Mouse though. I remember Squeaker had some big teeth.” God, he didn’t know anything about rodents either, except that he didn’t like when they got into the kitchen. Jason was rather terrified of them, and everyone joked about it, that Jason was like an elephant and didn’t want to squash them, but Jason was always the first one to suggest putting out live traps as soon as they found evidence of scat near the bread bags. “We’ve got a dog, you know. Sometimes. He’s Jeff’s dog really but we share him sometimes.”

“Mom says we can’t have a dog,” Billie reported. “She says they take too much work.”

And for a full time, sixty-hour-a-week plus nurse, a dog probably was way too much work. Mace…Mace shouldn’t have had to be there all the time. Guilt pummeled at Scooter with thick, heavy blows. If Mace had agreed to come home, help him with Dockside, they’d have made it worth her while, but she didn’t want to. And they’d deliberately sort of stuck it to her, helped her out, but made sure she had to keep working, even though they could have—Scooter cut that thought off. Not helping. Not helpful.

“Some dogs are a lot of work,” Andy pitched in. “Trick’s pretty easy though. We just have to take him for a walk a couple of times a day and make sure he gets food and water. And he’s great for hugs.”

“And brush him out sometimes,” Scooter said, “and give him a bath, but he’s pretty good about baths. And there are a lot of us at Dockside who take care of him. Me, an’ your Uncle Andy, and Jeff and Debbie, and Jason and Kat. And D’ante, too, sometimes.”

Billie bit her lip and went back to looking at her fists. Andy looked over her head at Scooter with a sympathetic grimace.

Scooter pulled out his phone and tapped.

I suck aat this

A moment later, Andy almost jumped out of his seat when his phone buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at it, and typed an answer one-handed.

New text from Andy

Me 2. Well figuer it out. just gonna suck 4 a bit.

“What grade are you in now?” Scooter asked. It was April. At least school would be over soon, and…he’d already had words with the local grade school. Three days was all the time off students were given for bereavement, and then Billie could have another five days off as unexcused absences, but unless they wanted to let her fail for the year, she had to be in school in Virginia by next Monday. Or they’d have to go up for a hearing at the school board, which Scooter knew from listening to other people b***h about it was not likely to get them any grace.

“Second,” Billie said, as if it was the most obvious thing possible and why was he even asking?

“Doin’ better than me,” Scooter confessed. “I got held back a grade, so I was still in first grade when I was your age.”

Andy raised an eyebrow. “Did you? I didn’t know that.” Andy, of course, was probably in f*****g high school or something when he was seven, the asshole.

Billie’s eyes were round. “How come? Mom says y’only get held back if you’re bad.”

Ugh. Mace would say that, wouldn’t she? Not that it wasn’t the f*****g truth. “Kinda was,” he admitted. “Used to fight all the time. Got in a lot of trouble. They held me back a year on the theory that I wasn’t mature enough for school yet. Thought being a year older would sort me out.” Hadn’t. And then there was Jason, who was getting into fights all the damn time. It was lucky either of them got through high school at all. If it wasn’t for No Child Left Behind, they probably wouldn’t have.

“Oh.” Billie considered that. “I fight sometimes. Sorta.”

“What for?” Andy asked.

She fidgeted a little. “Because Derek is a giant poop-head.”

“Yeah?” Scooter snorted. Oh, God, Mace would have loved that; another kid who was a scrapper. Not, he reminded himself firmly, that he should in any way encourage that sort of behavior. He was supposed to parent now. Sort of. If Billie would let him. “What did he do?”

“He pushed me on the playground even if the teacher said she didn’t see it,” Billie said, angry. “And he stole my good pencil. And he cuts in line at lunch! And he called me a boy!”

“Well, Derek being the obvious exception,” Scooter said, “there’s nothing really wrong with being a boy.”

“But I’m not one!” Billie said, obviously seething. “He said I was a boy in a dress! And he checked out the book I wanted on library day just ‘cause he knew I wanted it. He doesn’t even like Treehouse Mysteries!”

“He certainly sounds like he’s going out of his way to be a poop-head,” Andy said solemnly. “I can see why it’s hard to keep your temper.”

“My teacher says it’s because he likes me,” Billie grouched, curling in on herself even more.

Scooter scoffed. “Oh, that’s such garbage. You’re nice to people you like. You don’t hurt them, or call them names, or make them miserable, that’s not…” He glanced at Andy. Scooter had very strong feelings about abuse and what sort of horrible people engaged in it. Andy had been on the run from an abusive boyfriend when they’d met. “That’s not how you demonstrate affection, and you shouldn’t ever…ever have to accept that.”

Andy caught Scooter’s eye and smiled warmly. He knew what Scooter was thinking about, obviously. “Well, sometimes teasing looks like that. Like our friends Kat and Jason. They tease each other a lot. But if it’s just teasing, then if you tell them you really don’t like it, then they’d stop. That’s how you tell. So I have to agree with Scooter here, I don’t think Derek is teasing you because he likes you. I think he’s just being mean.”

“That’s what I told Ms. Meachum,” Billie pouted. “She said to just ignore him, like that ever works. So I bit him.”

“Ow,” Scooter said mildly. “You should probably not do that. It’s bad for your teeth. And there are a lot of germs in the human mouth, like, really. Loads. You break skin and he could have gotten an infection.” Yeah, he was gonna be a great parent; he could just see getting dragged into the principal’s office to explain to someone why he was encouraging his niece to kick people in the back of the knee instead.

“Good!” Billie said vindictively, crossing her arms. “He deserves it.”

“But then you might have to go to the dentist, to get your tooth put back in, too,” Scooter pointed out.

“Hmp,” she huffed, obviously not convinced. Thank goodness Derek wasn’t going to be a problem for much longer. But if hanging around Jason had taught Scooter anything, it was that there was always another Derek.