ready.”
“I’m not going to do anything,” Luke said.
He had his hand over his face like he was trying to hide.
She said, “You better not. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” She told him he had been charged with an MIP, minor in possession of alcohol. He’d be given a court date and would be on probation for a year. He’d have to do community service and attend alcohol awareness classes.
She told him his driver’s license was restricted and he would have to submit to random alcohol testing. She told him he would have to report to a probation officer once a month and that he might have to spend time in the Oakland County Jail.
He looked stunned.
She got up and went over and put her arms around him.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said.
He had tears in his eyes.
“I’ll help you,” Kate said. “We’ll get through this. Just promise me you won’t do anything else.”
“I won’t,” Luke said in a voice that was barely audible.
He dried his eyes on his shirtsleeve.
She hoped not.
DeJuan was in the woods behind the house when he saw the Land Rover fly in, screech to a stop. Somebody in a hurry. Rich lady got out, ran in the side door. Not two minutes later she ran back out. Fired up the Rover, blew down the driveway.
He parked Scarface at Covington School, went across an athletic field, hopped a fence, walked through yards from there to McCall’s, no one give him a second look. DeJuan in his dark blue DTE Energy uniform, carrying his meter reader.
His first instinct was to go stealth-under the radar. But when he went to check out the ’hood, saw a DTE truck and a sister, woman of color, walking through yards, reading meters, and a bulb went on in his head.
Now he was in the backyard of their French provincial manor home designed by some dude name Wallace Frost in 1926. Googled it. House had a slate roof. Leaded glass windows. Had a pool out back-still covered in late May. Tennis court. Gardens. It was some spread. Kind of crib DeJuan hoped to have someday.
He was on the side of the house in plain view when Mrs. McCall drove in again, got out with the kid. Something going on. Could feel the tension between them. DeJuan wondering what the little man done to upset his moms. Thinking of a statistic he read. Something like: every ten seconds in America, some kid was fucking with his parents.
Rich lady glanced over at him on her way in the house. He waved, said, “How you all doing today?”
Kate went to see Luke’s psychiatrist. She paced back and forth in front of Dr. Fabick’s maroon leather couch, stopping over without an appointment, telling the receptionist she had to see him.
Fabick was wearing jeans, running shoes, and a white shirt and tie, sitting behind his desk, solemn eyes fixed on Kate, thumbs and fingertips pressed together, giving her his concerned psychiatrist look.
“Mrs. McCall, what Luke tells me in these sessions is confidential. It’s how we build trust-”
Kate cut in. “He’s in trouble. He needs help.”
“Mrs. McCall, if you’d let me finish,” Fabick said. “I also told Luke if he tries to harm himself that confidentiality would be compromised. Please sit down.”
Kate sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Tell me why he’s drinking.”
“Luke is trying to escape, withdraw. What he experienced was traumatic. His destructive behavior is a way of lashing out. He’s angry. He’s carrying this tremendous guilt, and doing what he did today is his way of punishing himself. He’s reliving what happened over and over.”
“How is he going to get better?”
“Therapy. I wouldn’t discount the likelihood of long-term psychological effects. It could take years for Luke to resolve his feelings.”
“Tell me something positive,” Kate said. “Will you?”
“In our last session,” Fabick said, “I was encouraged. I thought Luke was making progress. But it’s not unusual in this kind of a situation for the patient to take a step forward and then take two steps back. That’s exactly what I think has happened.”
“What does that mean?” Kate wanted to grab his tie and pull him over the desk.
“He’s regressing, getting worse.”
“No kidding,” Kate said. “How’d you figure that out?”
She got up and walked out of his office, wondering what the hell to do now.
TWELVE
Kate studied her face in the makeup mirror. She followed the curve of her mouth, putting on lipstick, a dark red shade, pressed her lips together to make it even. She opened her mouth and checked her teeth, rubbing off a fleck of color with a Kleenex. Now she dusted her cheekbones with blush and stroked on a little under her eyes.
Jack had called that morning and invited her out to dinner. She told him she couldn’t but then, in a moment of weakness, invited him over. She felt bad the way she treated him at lunch, giving him a hard time after sixteen years. Maybe he had cleaned up his act. When he told her about his real estate job, he was enthusiastic and sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Now, five hours later, she regretted it and wanted to call it off. She tried the number Jack had given her, heard Jodie’s voice on the answering machine and hung up. She was just going to have to get through it.
Kate thought about the night they met: at Jacoby’s, after a Tigers game. They were standing next to each other at the crowded bar, Kate trying to get the bartender’s attention. They started talking and hit it off-both on dates. Kate out with a guy named Bert Hulgrave who went to Notre Dame and wore a golf shirt with the collar turned up in back, which bothered her, and he ate hotdogs with nothing on them-no mustard-which bothered her more.
Jack asked for her phone number. She gave it to him while she waited for a pint of Harp for her and a Miller Lite for Bert and was excited when Jack called that night at two in the morning, saying he couldn’t wait to talk to her.
Kate told him guys usually held off for a few days-what was the rule, seventy-two hours? — so they didn’t seem too interested or desperate.
He said he didn’t care about bullshit like that and they talked till four thirty and met seven hours later at the hydroplane races on Belle Isle. He kissed her as soon as he saw her and said, “I’ve wanted to do that since I turned and looked at you in the bar last night.”
Kate said, “Do you hold anything back?”
He said, “I try not to.”
They watched Tom D’Eath pilot Miss Budweiser through the course on the Detroit River, had a beer and went back to Kate’s and made out, both of them anxious to hold and touch each other, like they were meant to be together.
Kate was nineteen when she met Jack, going to be a sophomore at Michigan. They dated the rest of the summer and when she went back to Ann Arbor, sharing an apartment with Stephie, her freshman roommate, Jack would spend four or five nights a week there. They were inseparable for two and a half years until Kate knew she had to get away from him and joined the Peace Corps.
Now he was back and she was concerned. She liked it but didn’t like it.
Maureen came in the kitchen with her coat on. “God, it smells good in here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to stay, I just want to meet him.”
