“Gordon. Are you okay? Juan.”
Puppy had never used this feature. He didn’t know anyone who ever had. Friendship was somewhat suspicious in Grandma’s House. If it was a prelude to forming a partnership and raising children, then official engagements was the way. But people who remained friends for too long suggested they really didn’t want familial relationships. They were taking the easy way out, abdicating their duties as members of a Family. There were no honorary “aunts” and “uncles.” Godparents had been banned for more than thirty years as undermining the family structure since too many of these unofficial relatives were just that, good friends. Where was the incentive to connect? Friendship wasted emotions. Friends couldn’t really love; pointless, circuitous relationships delaying the necessary.
They’d all believed in friends equaling brothers and sisters, once. Those flaming war posters of broad-shouldered men and women clutching rifles beneath the slogan Defend The Family, a hook-nosed bearded Allah feasting on the naked flesh of a child. But they weren’t really brothers and sisters, or even cousins. They’d just washed ashore off the beaches of Morocco, Spain, Britain, Italy. Bloated swollen bodies unrecognizable except for the stench of defeat. With the shame came the stigma. Maybe real brothers and sisters would’ve fought harder.
They’d actually learned something from the Allahs and their seemingly infinite tribes. Only blood mattered. Under Grandma, America became the bloodstream. All of them, the red and white blood cells. Family, real family. Everyone was a mother and a father. Breed like rabbits and, if you couldn’t, adopt the ME orphans.
Can’t, Frecklie had written.
“Why?’
Frecklie’s embarrassment deepened. Puppy lifted his chin.
“Why?” he repeated.
The kid hesitated, then choked his throat with both hands.
“Your Mom?”
Frecklie choked again. Puppy pulled his hands away before he blacked out. Damn DV parents.
“Why?” Puppy asked.
The teen hesitated a little longer, then reluctantly ran his finger across his throat and pointed at Puppy.
He almost asked why again. “I only met her for like four minutes. What could I possibly have done to make her hate me?”
Frecklie tapped his temple and rolled his eyes about the mysteries of mothers.
Puppy stretched out his tight legs across the sidewalk, thinking. “You like the job?”
The kid nodded.
“Want to keep doing it?”
He nodded more emphatically.
“What about your friends?”
Frecklie tapped his chest and then walked his fingers along the ground. They are with me.
Puppy eased himself up. “Where’s your Mom work?”
Frecklie waved his arms in alarm.
• • • •
PUPPY WALKED DOWN the two steps and was buzzed into the basement of the red brick building on East 164th Street, centered amid the rows of traditional artisan workshops. Clothes, shoes, hats, socks, underwear, scarves, all handmade.
Humming sewing machines sang behind a wide oak door at Ruby’s Dresses. An old woman with gray hair squinted up from the folding table, which served as the front desk.
“Are you picking something up?”
She gestured at the neatly packed brown packages of clothes wrapped with string, sitting five feet high in the corner next to rolls of cloth covered in transparent plastic.
“No, ma’am. I’d like to talk to Mrs. Rivera.”
“About?” The old eyes shaded slightly.
“Her son.”
A few moments later, Beth leaned against the back door in the alley, giving him nowhere else to stand except by the black garbage cans, a suggestion that was where he belonged. She rubbed her thin neck slowly.
“What did you do to Ruben?”
“Nothing.”
“Because I’ll kill you if you hurt him.”
He held up his hands. “I want to talk about the job.”
Beth sneered slightly. “There’s nothing to discuss, Mr. Nedick.”
“Puppy.”
“Mr. Nedick.” Her hands were dotted with scabs. She blushed and shoved them into her jeans, angry he’d noticed. “My son had the one experience. I thank you. That’ll be enough.”
“You signed the contract.”
“A mother can always renege for the protection of her son.”
“How the hell am I hurting him?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Beth turned to go back inside. Puppy touched her elbow. Beth’s look could’ve melted him down to the bone.
“He likes the job.”
“He’s sixteen. He likes many things, not all of them good.”
“What’s wrong with taking tickets at a baseball game?”
“It was a robot job.” Her brown eyes darkened. “There could be trouble.”
“No, it’s all worked out. Third Cousin approval.”
“Oh, a Third Cousin approved?” she said sarcastically. “That makes everything okay.”
“Just this.” He tapped his heart and waved his hands outward. I was a DV, too. That agitated Beth even more.
“Means nothing,” her voice was low.
“Meant enough that I hired him. And more DVs.”
The woman paused a moment and he pressed on.
“I don’t even know if Frecklie will work out.”
That got Beth defensive. “Why not?”
“I said I’d give him ten games as a trial. There’s more than just taking tickets. It could be a bigger job. We’ll see.”
“You’re saying my son can’t do a job at a baseball place? Where no one goes?”
“We had our biggest crowd yesterday,” he shot back, touting the first double-digit attendance in a year.
Beth’s nostrils flared suspiciously. “You hired him because he was a poor little DV?”
“No. Because I was desperate. Robots quit. I needed people. Who the hell wants to work at a baseball place?”
His honesty held her a moment. Beth’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t take advantage of him.”
“He’s already acting like he’s the boss.”
She fought away the creeping smile. “Five games. Then I’ll decide.”
“Ten games. Then we’ll decide together.”
She glared. “Five. Or get yourself a ‘bot.”
He searched for some heroic stance; there was none. He nodded. “What’s with this attitude?”
Rivera sneered as if
