Oil Change at Rath's Garage Page 2

  “Yeah,” he says. “Your mom wrote my name in it.”

  “Huh,” Matt says. He doesn’t pick up the book.

  Jack understands the boy’s reluctance. It has been months since Miriam’s name has been spoken. But she is always in his head. How can she not be? He looks at Benny and it is Miriam looking back — eyes the colour of the sky on its best summer day, freckles spattered like wildflowers, blonde hair so thick it is a field of hay. That face taunts him, never lets him forget about the life he had. That face keeps him firmly in the past, unable to move on no matter how far he runs.

  “You want to see the picture?” Matt asks. But he doesn’t close the distance, doesn’t hold the picture out.

  Jack’s fingers cramp from clasping the bottle. “I don’t want to see the fucking picture. Get rid of the fucking book, too.”

  Matt moves now, stands between him and Benny. He stoops, picks up the textbook, slides the photograph between the pages. He drops the book on the coffee table. Then he is shoving Benny back into the hall, away. Getting rid of the face that hurts like hell to see.

  “Christ, Matt,” he says.

  Matt shrugs, stands firm blocking the hallway.

  Jack slams his bottle down on the bookshelf. “I’m going out.”

  Allie Rutger holds a Kokanee in her hand. The beer has lost its chill and its fizz. Just like her. Too damned hot to get excited about anything. But her husband hasn’t clued into that yet. He is antsy, prowling from wall to wall in the small living room. The denim of his work jeans swishes with each long stride.

  “You want to go out now?” she says. “It’s late.”

  Doug stops behind the couch. She swivels to look at him. His face is grizzled, tired, but Lord, he is sexy. After all these years, her body still responds in anticipation. He’s been gone for close to a week and the girls are out and she wants to throw down right now on the couch and feel his body pressed against hers, and getting sweaty that way sounds good and . . .

  “Jesus, Allie, you an old woman or what?” Doug takes a long swallow from his bottle. This is at least the second beer he has cracked open since getting home an hour ago. His dark blond hair is plastered to his head, the ends sticking out like quills. “It’s barely nine. Marples is throwing a party. Got a new job, I heard.”

  “C’mon, Doug,” she says. “I have to shower. You have to shower. It’ll be a good hour before we can even leave the house.”

  “Nothing gets going until after ten anyway,” Doug says. He walks back into the kitchen, clanks his empty bottle on the table.

  She hears the whir of the refrigerator as the door opens, the smack of it swinging shut. She hangs her head. “Doug.”

  “What?” he says the word hard and short. He stands behind the couch again, bottle in one hand, the other hand stuck in his pocket.

  He hasn’t touched her since he got home. She should have taken something from Lyne’s closet. Some hot little number that pushes her tits out, offers her body up as a prize. “Let’s stay home. Have a party of our own,” she says. “You’re already on your third beer.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Doug swallows noisily, keeps his washed-out blue eyes on her.

  He is looking for an argument. She should have known that. The minute he walked through that door he was at the fridge, bitching that there was only one six-pack in there.

  “Okay,” she says. She pushes to her knees on the couch, fists his T-shirt and pulls him down for a hard kiss. When he doesn’t slip his tongue between her teeth, when he breaks the kiss and turns away, she is left breathless.

  Lyne cannot believe what she is seeing. Kennedy is practically sitting on Rick’s lap. Her hand is definitely above his knee. Well above his knee.

  “The fire is hot, isn’t it?” Kennedy says and undoes two more buttons on her shirt, slides her sleeves off her shoulders. She might as well not be wearing a shirt it is so undone. She sure as hell isn’t wearing a bra. And Rick’s eyes are nowhere near Kennedy’s face.

  “Little slut,” Lyne says. A few heads swing in her direction and then follow her line of sight. There are about thirty kids here tonight and everybody will be talking about how Kennedy got it on with Rick. And Rick is no longer her fucking boyfriend!

  “She is a little slut, isn’t she?” Brad Bishop says.

  Lyne forces herself to look away from Rick and the bitch. Bishop is flashing white teeth in a face that tries to be understanding.

  “I can help you out,” he says.

  “How?” she challenges. She wants to slap that concern away. Her eyes are back on Rick and Kennedy, Kennedy’s hand creeping up his leg, inching her way to his dick.

  “Here,” Bishop says. He opens his palm, displays little pink pills with stamped-on hearts. “Ecstasy.” He drawls out, “The love drug.”

  “I know what E is,” she snaps. She shuffles to look past Bishop. He slides over to give her a better view of the bitch’s hand between Rick’s legs, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. “Give me.”

  “You got cash?”

  “What the fuck, Bishop?” Who is this asshole to be toying with her? He’s offering her drugs and then pulling them back? She steps into his space, turns her face up to him, spits out fiercely, “What the fuck, Bishop?”

  “Okay, okay,” he says. “I’ll give you one. But I want something for it.”

  “What?” She needs the hit and she needs it now. Rick is looking all blissed out, eyes closed, Kennedy’s hand down his pants, Kennedy’s mouth sucking her mark into his neck. If she were to go over there now, he would tell her she’s getting worked up over nothing. Over-reacting, he would say. Kennedy’s just servicing him. He’s doing nothing. Well, fuck him! “What do you want?”

  “I want what the slut is giving your guy,” Bishop says. His lips are turned up, half smile, half sneer, his eyes roaming her body. She knows she looks good. Tight denim skirt falling just below her ass, see-through shirt with a lacy purple bra. She looks ten times better than that slut. Any other time, Bishop looking at her that way and she would tell Rick to smack him down. But Rick wants to play this game? She can play it, too.

  “You don’t touch me. Just me with my hand on your dick. Got it?” She licks her lips, looks over at Rick. She juts her chin to an open space on the log where Rick can see them. She wants him to see this. See what he’s making her do. “Give me the pill. Then unzip, sit down, and shut the fuck up.”

  Bishop swallows, focuses on her lips. “I’ll give you two for a blow job.”

  Jesus! Rick would go ballistic. And it would be too much to come back from. She doesn’t want to lose him. She just wants to make a point. “One. A hand job.”

  “Fuck. Fine,” he says. He places a single pink pill in her palm, puts one in his mouth, and shoves the rest back in the pocket of his designer jeans. He unzips, sits on the log and spreads his legs wide, bracing himself with his hands.

  Lyne watches him chew and swallow. She chews a little longer, then swallows. The buzz is instaneous, intense. She drops to her knees between his oustretched legs, grasps his dick. He is already half hard. But it doesn’t matter. She works him furiously.

  “Oh fuck,” Bishop says.

  She licks her lips. This isn’t enough. She needs more. She is about to take him in her mouth, when he is hauled up and she’s thumped on her ass.

  “That’s my girl, you fucking asshole!” Rick says.

  Lyne watches the fire, the reds and yellows and oranges climbing higher and higher in the black sky. She listens to the fused sounds of Rick’s fists thumping Bishop, of Bishop begging, of boys yelling, of girls screaming. This is a fight over her. The second fight today over her. She is so, so wanted.

  “Stupid boy,” Jack mutters. Cursing Matt for leaving the book on the table, Benny for finding it in the first place. “Stupid boys.”

  He falls down on the sofa. The quiet is soothing. The light from the streetlamp shines through the window, spotlights the engineering textbook. He flips open the cover. Miriam’s flowing handwriting stands out. It is in the middle of seven or eight darkly printed names. She used to chide him about his scrawl, always erased his name, rewrote it. She made him feel important, that she was proud of him. He shimmies to the edge of the sofa, traces Miriam’s handwriting with the tip of his index finger. His hand is surprisingly steady, solid.

  The corner of the photo is sticking out from the book. Where the hell is Matt’s head at? Why didn’t the boy at least put the photo away? Jesus Christ! But he can’t stop himself from pulling it out. He lays it down gingerly next to Miriam’s writing. How young he was! How little Matty was! Miriam’s two handsome men. The three of them. Such a perfect family.

  He slams the book shut. He’s not drunk enough for this. He should have stayed at the bar longer. Should have taken a bottle of tequila with him into a booth. Hell, should have brought a bottle home with him. Should haves. Way too many of those. Way too many.

  3

  IT IS SO FUCKING HOT that all Matt wants to do is take off his shirt. He would, but Lyne’s mother just joined her in the window. And while he is all for sticking it to that asshole Jeffries, stripping in front of someone’s mother is not his thing. He is not his father.

  So he throws the ball to Ben and feels his shirt paste to his body with the swing of his arm. He hopes Ben hasn’t noticed their audience. The kid is still tense from last night. He thought he had hidden that book, that photo. But somehow Ben found them. And Dad? Fuck. He never knows what Dad will do. He can’t ever remember being so relieved to have Dad head to the bar.

  Ben catches the ball. “She’s still watching, you know? And now her mom’s there.”

  Okay, so much for Ben not noticing.

  “I saw them.” He shrugs it off, catches Ben’s perfect throw. They
have precision gleaned from playing catch in too-small spaces.

  “Why are they watching us?”

  “Dunno, Benny.”

  “Ben.” The boy snarks the single syllable. It is hot but not too hot for Ben to complain about the baby name. Never too hot — too cold, too late, too early — for that.

  Matt pauses. “I think they’re watching you, actually.” Then he throws.

  “What?” Ben bobbles the ball.

  He laughs, deep and rich. “Why wouldn’t they be? You’re cute and smart and well, cute.”

  Ben snorts. His bangs, damp and heavy, still rise in the breeze he creates. He shields his eyes with his glove hand. With his other hand, he grips the ball as Matt has shown him with seam and fingers just right, and throws.

  Matt catches it easily. “Should have worn your hat, bro.” He lifts the brim of his Oilers cap to sweep his sweaty hair back.

  “Forgot.”

  “Go in and get it.”

  Ben eyes the door to their townhouse, shifts from foot to foot. “Nah. That’s okay.”

  “Ben,” he says softly.

  Ben slaps his glove. “Have you spoken to her yet?”

  “We’ve only been in school two days! Not even I move that fast,” he huffs. But that’s not true. Fast is how he operates because there is never any guarantee from one day to the next. Because Dad always keeps them moving.

  “Well, she’s totally your type.”

  His hand freezes over his glove. “I have a type?”

  Ben squints into the sun. “Well, every time I’ve caught you, you know, with a girl, she’s always blonde-haired and blue-eyed.”

  “How many times has that been?”

  He feels listless, energy zapped by the heat and stark reality of a little brother who knows too much. He has been doing it since grade nine, other things since grade six. Ben only stumbled on him, naked and going at it in their bedroom earlier this year. The look on Ben’s face was the same look the kid gets when they catch their father. It killed him. The guy who gets it on with girls is not who he wants to be to his little brother.

  “Okay, just once. But I’ve seen you enough times making out with a girl and they’re, you know, stacked.” Ben emphasizes his words with his hands. The gesture is funny, but not so funny because the kid is referring to him.

  He laughs but it is on the edge only, empty in the middle. The heat beats down. Ben’s words beat down. There are days he feels the weight of everything he has done — and not done. But feeling sorry for himself, for his poor decisions has never gotten him anywhere. Teasing Ben, though, that always helps. He smirks. “How do you know she has blue eyes, Benny? You’ve been checking her out?”

  “What? No!” Ben screeches.

  “Uh huh.” He winks at his little brother. Lyne does have blue eyes. Very nice blue eyes.

  “I haven’t looked!” Ben stomps his feet, sticks out his bottom lip.

  Matt laughs. The full sound.

  “So that’s the boy Rick got into a fight with yesterday,” Allie says. She steps closer to her oldest daughter to get a better look out the dusty picture window. A crack runs through the inside pane, splits the scene in two, the boys on one side, the rest of the street on the other.

  “How’d you know about that?” Lyne regards her fleetingly.

  Allie keeps her eyes on the boys, keeps her tone casual. “Heard Glory talking to Becca.”

  “Of course,” Lyne says, throws up her arms.

  She hates having to drag the full story out of her daughter. There was a time when Lyne couldn’t wait to tell her what was happening at school. When did that change? Probably when she discovered boys. Or maybe when boys discovered Lyne. Now Allie counts herself lucky if her eldest raises half-hooded eyes in her direction. Well, at least one of her girls still tells her everything. If she had waited long enough, Becca would have shared Glory’s story, embellished as only Becca can. Glory, though. Well, that girl stopped speaking to her about anything almost the moment Allie taught her to sound out words. Replaced by a book.

  “Well, anyway, it wasn’t much of a fight.” Lyne taps a slow rhythm with her red-painted nails on the window pane, works her way along the length of the crack.

  Allie clenches her teeth. It is a toss up which she hates more, that tone of voice or the silence Lyne uses to block her out.

  “Rick had Matt pinned against the locker and then I came and Rick found something better to do,” Lyne says.

  “And what was that?”

  “He started kissing me. Showed Matt I was taken,” Lyne says.

  She should have seen that one coming. Rick is like Doug was at that age. Always working hard to mark what he believed was his, always feeling threatened. “You need to be careful, Lyne.”

  Lyne whips around, eyes flashing. “I know, Mom! Jesus, I know!”

  Allie steps back, stares at her daughter. Where did that come from? “Watch your language, young lady!” And crap, where did that come from? She is sounding like her mother more and more every day. Something she swore she would never do.

  “I know. You keep telling me not to screw up. Hell, not to screw, period.” Lyne grits her teeth. “I’m not going to.”

  Is that what she keeps saying? Has she been so obvious with her fear? It terrifies her that Lyne will make the same mistakes. She turns away. She massages her neck, feels the dampness that has become a part of her body for the past few weeks. This far north in Alberta and mid-May, it shouldn’t be this hot. This hot, this early, it is never a good thing.

  “Look, Mom,” Lyne’s voice is softer now, but determined. “I know, okay? I know.”

  Allie swallows her sigh. This will get them nowhere. “What is that boy like anyway?”

  “Matt?” Lyne returns to the window. “He’s full of himself. He thinks he’s hot.”

  “Is that you talking or Rick?” Okay, so much for letting things slide.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lyne stares at her.

  “It just seems that Rick is awfully quick to let Matt know you’re his girlfriend. It’s like Rick’s worried about him. You said the boy hasn’t even been here a week.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lyne turns back to the window, clicks her nails against the pane. “Just look at him. He acts as if he owns the street!”

  Allie looks. But that isn’t what she sees. She sees a boy wrapped up in his little brother, a boy not hungry for attention. It is Lyne who is hungry for attention, Lyne who wants it all. And she remembers that feeling from high school, too.

  Matt tosses the ball up, catches it easily. “Jesus, it’s hot.” He pinches the ball in his glove, pulls both off his hand. “Come on, Benny, let’s get a drink.”

  “Ben, Ben, Ben,” the kid mutters, trails behind.

  Lyne and her mom are still in the window. Matt pulls down the visor on his hat, takes a moment to study them. They are almost the same height, same slim bodies, but the mom is slightly heavier in the hips, her hair slightly shorter. They are dressed similarly in cutoffs and cropped shirts, but Lyne’s clothes are tighter all the way around. Just the way he likes it. There is no denying Lyne is a hottie. And she knows it. She had no problem giving him extra attention when he was handing back her biology books. But yesterday? She didn’t even bother with him when Jeffries pushed him up against the locker. Yeah, she’s a bitch. So what the hell? Let her see what she’s giving up for her Neanderthal boyfriend. He drops his hat, slowly peels off his T-shirt. He is careful not to catch the ring on his leather-braided necklace.

  He twists on the outside tap, soaks his shirt under the cold water. He presses the wet shirt against the back of his neck, runs it along his chest, his stomach, up and down his arms. He won’t take another guy’s girl but he can fuck with her in other ways.

  “What are you doing?” Ben’s eyes go wide and the question comes out high.

  “She wants a show. I’ll give her a show.”

  “Her mother is there!” Ben’s voice pitches even higher.

  Upsetting his little brother isn’t what he had in mind. So maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. But he can salvage it. He twists his wet shirt, snaps it at Ben’s bare legs.

  “Ow!” Ben screams, jumps back.

  Matt grins.

  “You’re so dead.” Ben snatches the discarded hat, races for the spigot. He fills the hat, flings the water at Matt.