I shrugged, uncovered the receiver, and gave the boy our room number. After a few minutes, there was a tentative knock on the door.
Tolliver answered it, looking quite grim and intimidating. Actually, he was probably just aggravated at the interruption to his game watching, but Tolliver is a tough-looking guy, and when he's unhappy, he tends to look a little dangerous. If the two teenagers had been dogs, the ruffs on their necks would have been standing up. Like many teenagers, Victor and his friend Barney were strange combinations of tentative and aggressive.
Victor was wearing a tight knit shirt, which allowed us to see just how much he'd been hitting the gym. He didn't have his father's magnetism, but he did have a pair of big blue eyes that worked almost as well. His blond friend Barney was taller, narrower, but still a substantial hunk of immature male. Both were wearing school jackets, jeans, and Pumas. Victor's 'Tommy' polo shirt was green-and-white striped, and Barney's Ralph Lauren was golden brown.
'So, uh, you doing okay?' Victor asked me. 'This is my friend Barney.'
'I'm fine, thank you,' I said. 'Barney, I'm Harper Connelly. This is my brother, Tolliver Lang.'
'Hey,' said Barney. He looked at us furtively, and then back down at his shoes. He and Victor were sitting close together on the love seat, while Tolliver and I were in the chairs.
'Can I get you anything to drink?' I asked politely.
'Oh, no, no thanks. We just had a Coke down in the car,' Victor said.
There was a small, awkward silence.
'Look, dude, I want to talk to your sister,' Victor told Tolliver. He had on the most manly face he could muster.
My mouth twitched, though I did my best to look neutral.
'Go right ahead,' Tolliver said seriously. 'Were you wanting me to leave the room?'
'No, dude,' Victor said anxiously. He looked at his friend Barney, who shook his head, to reinforce Victor's denial. 'No man, stay here.'
The teenager turned his head to me. 'You were in Nashville, so you know how bad that was,' he said. 'I mean, you know that was really awful.'
I nodded.
'So my mom—my stepmom—flipped out for a while.'
'Flipped out how?' I sat forward, focused my attention on the young man. Not completely to my surprise, Barney took Victor's hand. Victor looked startled, but not at having his hand held by another male. He was just surprised Barney felt it was okay to do that in front of us. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Victor squeezed Barney's fingers in a tight grip.
'She was all… using pills, you know? She got really strung out. Felicia was having to drive over to Nashville from Memphis all the time to make sure the house was running okay.'
'That must have been really hard,' I said, trying to sound both gentle and encouraging.
'It was,' he said simply. 'My grades went way down, and I was missing my sister, and it was really bad. My dad tried to keep going to work, and my mom would get up and try to clean the house or cook, or just have lunch with friends, but she was crying all the time.'
'The loss of a family member causes all kinds of changes,' I said, which was just about meaningless. It couldn't begin to cover the 'changes' the sudden absence of a sister could cause, as I had good reason to realize. I had no idea where Victor was headed with this, but I found myself increasingly curious, curious enough to provide conversational lube to keep the talk going.
'Yeah,' he said simply. 'We sure had a bunch.' He seemed to gather himself. 'You know, that morning? The morning she was—gone.'
'Um-hm,' I said.
'My dad was in the neighborhood,' he said in a rush. 'I spotted his car a couple of blocks from the house.'
I didn't sit upright and shriek, 'Oh my God!' but it was definitely an effort to stay in my relaxed position. 'He was?' I said, quite calmly.
'Yeah, because… I mean, I did go to tennis practice,' Victor said. 'But after that, my friend I had in Nashville; I mean, it wasn't anything like Barney, but I did, um, have a friend, and he and I hooked up, and then I needed a shower, so I thought I'd run home, but when I went past the house I saw Dads car at the stoplight two blocks away, and I thought he might notice something. I mean, what was there to notice? But parents, you know.' Victor shrugged. 'So I just went back to the park and hit some balls, met some other friends who'd come to play. The courts were only ten minutes away from home and I even parked in the same spot when I went back, so it was pretty easy for me to say I'd never left.'
We were both shaken by this little account.
'Of course, I couldn't say anything,' Victor said.
'I can see that it would be hard to get into that,' Tolliver said.
'Yeah, you know, one thing would lead to another, and then I'd have to tell them. About me.'
And the world revolved around Victor, of course. 'So they don't know yet,' I said.
'Oh, God, no!' He and Barney rolled their eyes at each other. 'Dad and Mom would freaking flip out.'
'My mom is cool about it, which is awesome,' Barney said. I was glad to confirm he had vocal abilities.
I'd meant that Victor's parents didn't yet know he'd seen the car, but of course Victor had interpreted my question his own way.
