handcuffs,” Joshua said, and shook his head in disappointment. “What a waste.”
On the way back to his house, Joshua stopped short as if he’d just remembered there was someone sitting high in the tree next to him. He shielded his eyes from the sun.
“C.S. Lewis depicts hell as this bureaucratic hole where everyone is forever concerned about his own dignity and advancement, and everyone constantly lives with deadly serious cases of envy, self-importance and resentment. What do you think?”
Peter was lost after the word depicts. He found it difficult to maintain eye contact but saw that Joshua had no such problem. His eyes were wide and white and danced like pitched Wiffle balls.
“I don’t know,” Peter responded.
Joshua nodded slowly, as if he was digesting Peter’s nonanswer. “I like someone who is man enough to say ‘I don’t know.’” His hand scrambled in his pocket and he pulled out a lighter.
“You smoke?”
“I’m twelve-and-a-half.”
Joshua nodded again, satisfied with the answer. He pointed up at him. “Good man. Promise me you never will.”
Peter was too confused to answer. He was always being told by adults not to do things, just not at the precise moment the person was doing the exact thing they were telling you not to do.
“What is your name, young man?”
“Peter.”
“I’m Josh.”
Peter nodded, making the mental note of calling him Josh instead of Joshua.
“Okay, Peter. Another question. Why is Wonder Woman hiding behind the tree?”
In his panic, Peter had forgotten all about CJ.
“She’s my sister. I think she might be afraid of you, but I’ve never seen her scared of anyone,” Peter said, which was the truth.
“I’m not scared,” a small voice said from the tree’s trunk.
Joshua’s smile was thin and showed no teeth. “Last question. Don’t your grapes hurt from sitting on that tree limb for so long?”
Peter didn’t have time to process and reply to the question. His mother called to him and CJ from the front door.
“I have to go,” Peter said, apologetically.
“I know,” Joshua answered.
Peter hopped down from the tree and ran after CJ. They scooted in past their mother, who stood stiffly in the door, pointing inside the house. She didn’t watch as her children approached but stared curiously beyond them at the shirtless, long-haired neighbor, even after the screen door closed.
Day 59
The sun started its climb, backlighting Willow Creek Landing in soft tones of peach and pink. The low moans of tired air conditioners drifted from up and down the block. Since the drought started, the predawn hours had grown as a popular time for leisure and social activities, and many walkers and joggers now dotted the streets.
Peter sat on the living room couch, still in his pajamas, somewhere between the state of sleep and wakefulness. His father was leaving on another one of his business trips, and Peter always liked to see him off.
In addition to his growing number of lists, Peter kept a running tab of three additional things, all on his desk calendar in his room. For each day of rainless sunshine, he drew an orange circle under the date, which was now fifty-nine in a row and counting. He drew a black circle on the days he had seizures. And recently he’d started keeping track of the days his father was away on business with blue circles, which wasn’t as consistent as the orange circles, but not too far behind either.
“The fruitcakes are up early,” Nick noted, peering over the couch and out the window facing the street.
Peter didn’t need to look; he knew his father was talking about Mr. James and Mr. Terry, the neighbors across the street. His father was always calling them a variation of the word fruit: fruit sticks, fruit platters, fruit loops, etc.
Nick rolled his eyes. Dressed in pressed khaki slacks and a plain black T-shirt, arguably a size too small, he felt confident in what he called his “business travel” attire. In one of the many men’s magazines he devoured religiously—especially now that he could actually afford a $300 pair of brown leather loafers—he’d read that “confidence radiation” was mandatory in a CEO, and a CEO was what he was since he’d opened his business, though he only had four employees. He checked his confidence radiation level as he caressed his freshly shaven head and patted his abs. The constant maintenance to look good was a necessary evil, especially now that he was pushing forty, but he read he couldn’t radiate confidence with a horseshoe hairline and a doughy body. He packed his salmon dress shirt with a matching tie in his carry-on for his trip to Colorado.
“I guess the Fruit Roll-Ups think they’re above everyone else,” Nick said, nodding to the window as he zipped his carry-on and threw it over his shoulder.
This made Peter rise from the couch and nose close to the window.
Mr. Terry’s short and portly frame scooted back and forth across his lawn like a plastic duck in a shooting gallery. Sweat pasted his fire-engine red silk pajamas to his body.
“He said he had very expensive flowers in his garden that he had to water or they’d die,” Peter said, trying not to sound too much like he was defending him.
“He’s not watering his very expensive flowers, Peter.”
Sure enough, at closer look, Mr. Terry held a garden hose discreetly lodged into his ribcage, dragging behind him like a tail. His head swiveled up and down the block, further indicting himself and his actions. It sure seemed Mr. Terry was fully aware of breaking the county’s moratorium on water usage that had been enforced since the drought had caused the water reserve to sink dangerously low.
Peter refused to hold this against him. He liked Mr. Terry.
“And how do you know about his very expensive flowers? What, are you buddies now with the fruits?”
“No,” Peter said, with such force that he felt an instant and solitary guilt, betraying two of the small number of people in Willow Creek who were friendly to him. He couldn’t help it. Anytime his father spoke with such disdain, Peter’s response was knee-jerk.
Abby appeared behind them, her hair messy from sleep and still in her robe. She yawned and shuffled to the kitchen for coffee.
“What day you coming back, Nick?”
“Friday, if nothing pops up.”
“Are you expecting things to pop up, Nick?” she asked, her voice quickly losing the early morning lubrication.
Nick looked away from the window to stare coldly at his wife’s back. “Don’t start with me now, Abby. The taxi will be here any minute.”
It
