Vicious

“No! I don’t want to go in there!” he protested. He tried to wriggle free from her grasp. He started crying. “Please, Mom! Please! I want to go in the boys’ room!”

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered. She took a deep breath. “Okay, fine, fine. The boys’ room it is. I haven’t got time for the pain.” She led Mattie to the other side of the little chalet hut. He went back to holding himself in front. Susan paused at the men’s room doorway and cracked it open a few inches. “Excuse me!” she called. “Is anyone in here?”

“Yeah! I am!” someone answered.

Susan could hear water running—and then, a hand-dryer roaring. She stepped back from the door and glanced down at Mattie, who was doing an I-have-to-pee dance. “Hold on, sweetie. I can’t take you in there just yet.”

The door swung open, and a handsome young man almost bumped into her. He drew back for a moment. “Um, excuse me….”

He was about eighteen. Susan guessed those two kids in the store were his friends. His short, dark brown hair was messy and wind-blown—and somehow looked perfect. It gave his boy-next-door good-looks a sexy edge. About six feet tall, he had a lean, solid build. He wore a leather jacket over a black T-shirt and olive cargo pants. For a moment, he blocked the doorway and gaped at her.

“I’m sorry, but is there anyone else in there?” Susan asked. “I want to take my son in.”

“Oh, go for it,” he said, nodding. He stepped aside. “If you’d like, I’ll stand guard out here, make sure no one goes in.”

“Thanks a lot.” Susan started to lead Mattie past him.

He touched her arm. “Um, someone wrote a nasty message on the stall divider,” he whispered. “You might want to—avert his gaze.”

“Thanks,” Susan said. Then she took Mattie inside the men’s room. The young man hadn’t told her that the place stank or that someone had thrown a roll of toilet paper—now yellow—in one of the urinals. But thanks to the young man’s warning, she managed to distract Mattie so he didn’t see “SUCK MY BIG DICK” carved on the wooden stall divider. Mattie was just learning to read, too, so she was grateful for the warning. While Mattie did his business, Susan thought about Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, saying how he wanted to go around erasing all the Fuck yous so little children wouldn’t see them. It was sweet of that young man to warn her about the graffiti, sweet of him to stand guard, too.

After all that panic and drama, Mattie didn’t go number two. He didn’t even tinkle much. Susan kept his attention diverted from the stall divider while he washed his hands at the sink. When they stepped out of the men’s room, she found the young man standing by the door.

“Thanks, you’re very nice,” Susan told him. She nudged Mattie. “Can you say thank you?”

“Thank you!” Mattie said, squinting up at the young man. “Do you play football?”

He smiled at Mattie. “I’m on my high school’s lacrosse team. It’s almost like football, but much cooler. Are you a Huskies fan?” He nodded at Mattie’s sweatshirt.

“The Huskies rule!” Mattie announced, though he’d never seen a Huskies game. It was just something he’d picked up from the other boys at Yellowbrick Road Day Care.

The young man smiled at Susan. “You from Seattle?”

She nodded. “Yes. We rented this house for the weekend, and I’m not exactly sure where it is. Are you from around here?”

“No, I’m from Seattle, too. But my family has a cabin not far from here. I’m staying there with some friends. Anyway, I know the area. Where are you headed? Maybe I can help.”

“Birch Way,” Susan replied. “It’s a house on the water, number twenty-two Birch Way.”

The young man just stared at her. His smile faded.

“Do you—do you know where that is?” she asked, a bit puzzled by his sudden, somber reaction.

He nodded glumly and cleared his throat. “Sure. Just keep going north on Carroll Creek Road for about fifteen minutes. Birch Way will be on your left. Look for a red mailbox. Number twenty-two is the only house on that road. It’s pretty isolated.” He seemed to work up a smile. “I’m one of your closest neighbors. My family’s cabin is a little over a mile away.”

“So this house, is it nice?” Susan asked. “Is it okay? I mean, the way you looked at me when I mentioned the address—”

“No, it’s fine,” he said coolly, cutting her off. “There are a lot of rental houses around here, and that’s one of the loveliest.”

Susan gave him a puzzled smile. It struck her as odd that this high school lacrosse player would use the word loveliest. It seemed rehearsed, as if he had been told to describe the house that way to people. Susan automatically tightened her grip on Mattie’s little hand.

“Well, I should take off,” he said after a moment. He glanced toward the gravel lot at the front of Rosie’s Roadside Sundries. “My friends are probably waiting for me. Nice talking to you. Enjoy your weekend.” He smiled at Mattie, made a fist and shook it. “Go, Huskies, right, dude?”

“Go, Huskies!” Mattie enthusiastically agreed, shaking his little fist, too.

Susan watched the young man retreat up the pathway, toward the parking lot in front of the store. She could hear his friends talking, and the girl laughed about something. As Susan retreated toward the store’s back entrance, she heard car doors shutting and the motor starting up, and then the sound of gravel under tires.

Inside Rosie’s Roadside Sundries, the nice woman with the Lucille Ball hair—who turned out to be Rosie herself—let Mattie run wild in the small play area. Susan picked up a few things for the weekend. Allen had probably already stocked the house with groceries and supplies. But Susan figured she ought to give Rosie her business, after they’d used her bathroom and play area.

“I’m staying the weekend at this house on the water,” Susan told Rosie at the counter. The plump older woman was ringing up her items. “It’s—um, Twenty-two Birch Way,” Susan said. “Do you know it?”

“Oh, yes, that’s a very nice house,” Rosie answered, momentarily distracted. She donned a pair of cat’s-eye glasses dangling from a chain around her neck to read the price sticker on a box of Ritz crackers. She kept them on while totaling up the sale. “You’ll like it there, hon. That’ll be twenty-one-oh-five.”

Mattie didn’t want to leave the play area, but Rosie assured him he was welcome to come back and play there any time. She opened her till drawer, fished out a quarter, and handed it to Susan. “That’s for a ride on Seabiscuit outside—for my new little buddy there.”

With a bit of prompting, Mattie thanked Rosie, and then they headed out of the store. The coin-operated pony was pretty tame, rocking Mattie very gently. Still, Susan put down her grocery bag to keep ahold of his arm while he rode the pony. Mattie squealed with delight. He’d only been on the pony for half a minute when Susan noticed a red MINI Cooper turning into the store lot. The car pulled up a few spaces away from hers and parked.

“Gimme up, gimme up!” Mattie squealed. He must have meant giddyup.

Susan turned to him and smiled. “Pretty fun, huh, sweetie? Yippee-eye-oh…” She glanced over toward the car once again. The driver hadn’t gotten out of the front seat yet. Susan couldn’t see him because the late afternoon sun reflected on the windshield. But then some clouds moved in front of the sun, and Susan noticed the driver, sitting alone in the car. She saw his handsome face, the dark hair parted to one side, and the rugged five o’clock shadow. He stared back at her, unsmiling.

It was just a few fleeting seconds, and then the glare on the windshield wiped his image away. Susan could no longer see him, but she still felt his eyes on her. She remembered his cocky grin as he’d sat down next to them forty-five minutes ago. Well, you certainly have him well-trained in case you’re ever separated, he’d said. You folks are a long way from home.

“Yippee!” Mattie sang out, kicking the toy pony’s flanks. “Gimme up! Gimme up!”

Susan tightened her grip on his arm. “Um, honey, that’s enough for now,” she said, pulling him off the pony in midride. “We need to get a move on. Allen’s probably waiting—”

“NOOOOOOO!” he screamed, his legs kicking in the air.

“Enough of that,” she said firmly. Susan managed to grab her grocery bag while wrestling with him. “The pony needs to rest up. He’ll give you two rides tomorrow.” She carried Mattie to the car.

Susan hated turning her back to the stranger in the MINI Cooper, but she had to put down her bag and strap