before his sixteenth birthday. “The cost of having an inexperienced driver would send my insurance premiums through the roof. Add to that gas and upkeep, and you have a major expense-more than what you’re making stocking shelves for Madeline. Your legs work. Your bike works. Use ’em.”
A.J. grumbled about it, but that was the end of the discussion until a week later. It was almost time for his shift to start. He had ridden from school to the store and was in the process of locking up his bike when a man who was standing nearby, smoking a cigarette, spoke to him. “Hey, kid,” he said. “Aren’t you a little old to be riding a bike?”
A.J. felt a hot flush of anger. He was tempted to lip off at the guy. What business was it of his what mode of transportation A.J. used? Then he noticed the plastic bag sitting on the sidewalk at the guy’s feet. The Walgreens logo was clearly visible, and that meant he was a paying customer. Being rude to customers was something Madeline didn’t tolerate in her employees-not at all.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” A.J. muttered.
He started to shoulder his way past the guy and go inside, but the man with the cigarette wasn’t done with him. He dropped the still-smoking butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with the sole of his shoe.
A.J. wanted to say something to him about not using the sidewalk as an ashtray. After all, he’d be the one who would have to come out later with a broom to clean up the mess.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you look like your old man?” the man asked.
A.J. stopped in midstride. “You knew my father?” he demanded.
The guy grinned at him. “What’s the matter? Do you think I’m dead? Is that what your mother told you?”
For a long moment, A.J. was too shocked to speak. He looked the man full in the face, and then he saw it The resemblance to his own face was right there, especially in the eyes. All the things he had wondered about over the years-the questions he had long ago given up asking his mother-went roiling around in his head. He knew his father’s name. One day while his mother was at work, he had gone searching through the strongbox she kept on the top shelf of her closet. There he had found his birth certificate. On it, A.J.’s father was listed as James Mason Sanders. A.J. had tried Googling the name several times, using Andrew’s computer. He had found someone with that name who had gone to prison on charges of counterfeiting back in the mid-nineties, but he hadn’t been able to ascertain if that James Sanders was his father or even if his father was still alive. Now, to A.J.’s amazement, the man was not only alive, he was standing right there, laughing at him.
“She didn’t say you were dead,” A.J. said when he found his voice. “She said you were unreliable.”
Busy lighting another cigarette, James Sanders let loose in a burst of laughter that ended in a fit of coughing. “Unreliable,” he said, grinning. “She got that right, didn’t she!”
“What do you want?” A.J. asked.
“Wanted to see you, is all,” James said. “Wanted to know a little about you. Have you worked here long?” He nodded toward the store entrance.
“Three months,” A.J. said. “One of Mom’s friends is the manager.”
“That would be Bethany, maybe? Bethany Cole?”
A.J. shook his head. “Her name’s Ms. Wurth.”
“Oh,” James said, nodding. “That would be Maddy. She and Bethany and your mother were always great pals. Called themselves the Three Musketeers.”
A.J. glanced at his watch. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got to clock in.”
“Sure,” James said. “Go ahead. It might be best if you didn’t mention me to your mother-at least not yet. But about that bike. Shouldn’t you be thinking about getting yourself something with four wheels? Do you even have a license?”
“I’m taking driver’s ed, but Mom and I can’t afford a car-not the car itself or the insurance,” A.J. said bluntly. “I’m trying to save money for college.”
“There you go, then,” James said, blowing a cloud of smoke skyward. “Suit yourself, but don’t work too hard.”
A.J. hurried into the store. He made it to the time clock on time, but just barely. He was working on clearing out the back-to-school display and restocking the shelves with Halloween merchandise when Madeline stopped by to check on him.
“Who was that you were talking to outside?” Madeline Wurth asked. “I noticed that guy hanging around. I was about to tell him to move along when you turned up.”
A.J. flushed. Anything he told Madeline would go straight to his mother. “Just a guy who was lost,” A.J. mumbled. “He got Seventh Street confused with Seventh Avenue. I told him he needed to be on the other side of Central.”
“Easy mistake to make,” Madeline said.
Summoned by a page from the pharmacy, Madeline Wurth hurried away, leaving A.J. restocking the shelves and struggling with his conscience. Yes, he had lied to Madeline; with his mother, it wouldn’t exactly be lying. He was just leaving something out-something she probably didn’t want to know about in the first place. Besides, A.J. reasoned, if there were almost sixteen years between visits, it didn’t seem likely that James Sanders would be showing up again anytime soon.
But that assessment was wrong. A.J.’s father had turned up again the very next week. A.J. came home from work on the day of his birthday, expecting that he and his mother would go out to have pizza, just the two of them. That was how they usually did it. As he rode his bike into the carport, he wondered about the strange car-a silver Camry-parked in the driveway behind his mother’s Passat. On the window of the passenger side was one of those AS IS, NO WARRANTY stickers. Even before he opened the front door and smelled the cigarette smoke, he could hear the sound of raised voices. Quietly, he opened the door and slipped into the entryway, staying just out of sight of the living room, where his mother and James Sanders were arguing.
“After doing nothing for all this time, you’ve got no right to do this now,” Sylvia declared hotly.
“Look,” James was saying, sounding conciliatory. “That’s what I’m trying to do here-make up for lost time.”
“You think that will make up for sixteen years of being an absentee father? You don’t raise a finger in all that time, but now you think you can walk in here and give him a car for his birthday? Just like that?”
“He’s a good kid. He gets good grades. He works hard. He deserves to have a car.”
“I don’t know how you know about his grades or where he works, but A.J. and I have already discussed the car situation. Between insurance and gas, it would be more than we can afford.”
“That’s what this is for,” James said.
A.J. heard the sound of something-an envelope, maybe-landing on the coffee table.
“What’s this?” Sylvia asked.
“The title’s in there, and so is the bill of sale,” James answered. “It’s all in order. I called an insurance guy and found out how much it’ll cost to insure the Camry with an inexperienced driver. There’s enough coin of the realm in there to pay the insurance costs for the next three years, as well as a hundred dollars a month for gas money.”
“You can’t do this,” Sylvia objected. “It’s not fair. Is this even real?”
“The money, you mean?” James replied. “Now who’s not being fair?”
Afraid that his mother might be about to hand the envelope back, A.J. decided it was time to stage an appearance. After quickly opening the door, he slammed it shut. “Hey, Mom,” he shouted from the entryway. “I’m home.” When he entered the living room, he stopped short. “Sorry. I didn’t know we had company.”
He was relieved to see that his mother, seated on the couch, was still holding the envelope. James, standing by the window, wasn’t actively smoking a cigarette, but the room reeked of secondhand smoke.
He turned toward A.J., holding out his hand in greeting. “So this must be A.J.,” he said with an easygoing grin. “Glad to meet you. I’m your dear old dad.”
A.J. glanced at his mother, staring at the envelope as if mesmerized. At last she raised her head and looked at A.J., giving an almost imperceptible nod. A.J.’s heart skipped a beat because he recognized the look of abject defeat lining Sylvia’s face. The nod implied affirmative answers to both questions-yes, this was his father, and yes, she was going to let A.J. keep the car.
