“Ma’am, there are maybe four guys in here wearing that sweatshirt.”
She looked again. “Okay, right. Table by the window. With the blonde girl wearing silver sequins under the torn leather jacket.”
The woman behind the counter looked around, found the sequins. “That’s Morgan. Is Billy her friend on the left?”
My right, your left. “That’s him.”
The lady came around the counter with a portable phone. She handed it to Billy. He shook his head—there must be some mistake—but she had turned back to work.
When he had the phone to his ear, Corey said, “Billy, I’m outside. I wasn’t sure what to do. I need to see you right away.”
She could see him through the window, standing now, turning away from his friends. “What are you doing here?”
“Come out and turn left, you’ll see the truck.”
“It’s not my time to see you.”
“Billy, either you come out, or I come in.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
She watched him say something to his friends, then return the phone. He came out the door and walked to the truck. He was pouting when he opened the door and stuck his head in. “Why are you here?”
“Why?” she repeated. “Are you kidding?”
“You messed things up for me, big time. I’m doing okay now. Don’t mess me up again.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said gently, aware how wound up he was. She put a hand on the seat beside her. “Please sit. I want to talk with you. I need to.”
“If I do, will you leave me alone? Let me go back to my friends?”
She thought he looked wary and vulnerable. “Yeah. Sure.”
He hopped into the truck, closed the door, and sat against it, looking out the window.
Corey wanted to cry. “Billy, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, right.” He continued to stare out the window.
“What happened?” she asked. She could see he was biting down on his lower lip. “What happened?” she asked again.
Billy kept staring out the window.
When he didn’t respond, she touched his arm. “It’s me. Whatever happens to either of us, I’m still your mom.”
He finally said, “It’s no big deal.”
Right. His dad would have said that. “It is to me.”
“What’s that?” he asked, turning, pointing to her scar.
She touched it. “In prison, two women tried to kill me. One of them cut me with a shank. That’s—”
He raised a hand, interrupting, “I know what that is, mom.”
Okay. At least he called her mom.
Billy was looking at her scar. She watched his face soften, some kind of sea change.
She hesitated, unsure what was coming. What she remembered about being a teenager was the mood swings. Great mercurial changes because a boy didn’t notice her, or a sunrise was particularly nice. Hormones. She was wondering how she would have felt if her mom was in prison, if someone had tried to kill her there, when he finally broke the silence.
“Trouble follows you,” he said. A fact.
She put her arm around him. He leaned forward, head in his hands.
“And you?” she eventually asked.
After a minute Billy lifted his head. “It was fucked up.”
She waited. When he settled back beside her, she could feel her eyes well with tears.
He looked straight ahead, out the windshield. “At the first place they locked me in the basement if I broke any of their rules. They had rules like ‘No talking,’ ‘No excuses,’ ‘No eye contact.’ They said if I told Sally, or if I wrote you, they’d tell her I was locked up for stealing, and I’d go to jail. The second place, it was…I dunno…it was bad. They locked me out at night if I was late. Then I had to sleep wherever. I finally ran away. In juvie I got beat up twice. One time it was pretty hard.” He was working on his lip again. “And other stuff, you know.”
Other stuff? Jesus. What? And what had she done? She felt a great wave of worry building. She held on, eyes closed. When it broke, Corey let it wash over her. There would be better, easier, times for these questions. “What about now?”
“In this group home, at least I can come and go as I please, so long as I do the laundry she takes in. I play on this soccer team, the Chargers, and I met all these kids from Olympic. Those kids.” He pointed toward the café.
“How much do they know?”
“Not much.”
Something about this was off, but it wasn’t today’s business. She took a cell phone from her purse and handed it to him. “I want you to have this. My cell number is programmed in.” She showed him where. “They can’t keep you from talking with me on the phone. Call me anytime, about anything. I’m this close…” She held her thumb and forefinger so they were almost touching. “To getting you back. Please help me with this. Pretty soon you’ll be able to stay the night at the cabin.”
“Thanks for the phone,” he said.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I’m working on it.”
“Yeah.”
There was a startling bang on the roof of the pickup. Metal against metal. Then another. Corey turned, and there was Lester, bringing the brass handle of his cane down on the truck roof.
“No parking, “ he said, flashing some kind of badge. “Move along.”
“Get the hell away from me!” she yelled through the window.
“Move along, lady.” He brought the cane down again. When she opened the door and stepped out, he moved in closer. “Visiting day? Your case worker know about this? Your probation guy know?”
Lester loomed over her, a craggy colossus. His breath smelled of garlic. He wore an old-fashioned brown suit. She stood her ground, found his rheumy raisin eyes. “I’m not bothering anyone. So back off, creep.”
Lester winked at Billy, as if she hadn’t said a word. Then he made a pistol with his thumb and forefinger, pointing it over her shoulder at Billy’s head. “Pow,” he hissed, as he set his cane down on Corey’s instep. She gasped, turning away.
“In my pocket?” he asked, his cheek next to hers, his skanky garlic breath in her face.
When she turned back, Billy was gone.
Four
Every Sunday, Dr. Abe Stein’s mother, Jessica “Jesse” Stein, hosted a brunch at her Capitol Hill home. Her house had been built in 1921, and architecture students from the U still came to see the stonework that bordered the steep slate roof. It sat high on the hill, on a quiet stretch of Twenty Second Street, with views of Lake Washington and the Cascades. Jesse had been a kingmaker in Democratic Party politics, locally and nationally, for twenty-odd years. In 1995, Teddy Kennedy came to brunch, and her Sunday events became a local political institution.
Sam Lin, Abe’s elderly Chinese driver, eased Abe’s burgundy-colored ‘99 Oldsmobile with the neat white trim up onto the curb across the street from Jesse’s house. Sam barely slid the big Olds forward between two cars. “Frontward parallel parking,” Sam explained.