something. It wasn’t fair, putting people like that in charge of kids. It meant that nerds like Ronnie Ho ended up getting away with murder.
He rolled up off the sofa, leaped over the coffee table and froze up against the window. Mr. Valdez across the road was flat on his back on the drive under his Pontiac, “giving head to her front end” as Kevin had said to Ronnie. Jamie wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but he could tell by the way they laughed that it had something to do with sex. That was a whole world he wasn’t looking forward to. It sounded like going to high school. You had to leave all your old friends and routines and get bused across town to some new place where they were all bigger than you and everything was for real.
Some guy on a bike cruised past, turning to look at the house, holding Jamie’s eyes for a moment. Cool ATB, Cannondale or Bridgestone, he couldn’t be certain, but eighteen gears for sure, the seat high and the bars wide, like bucking a bronco. Jamie had seen stuff like that in the catalogs, and downtown you saw guys riding them, but he couldn’t imagine who’d have one around here. People had that kind of money, they’d trade in their car. Still, Jamie made an effort to keep up on product availability, even though all he had was the hand-me-down BMX Kevin had stopped using when Dad gave him a nearly new Giant for his birthday.
A muffled, whumping beat started up downstairs, making the floorboards shake. Jamie turned around, eyeballing his mom. She sat holding the baby like a sack of groceries, gazing moodily at the TV, where some guy in a suit and hat and mustache was talking to a woman having a weird hair day. For a moment, Jamie thought his mom wasn’t going to get it. It wasn’t like the music was loud enough to drown out the TV or anything. Then she looked up, caught his intent stare. He didn’t need to say anything. She reached for the phone.
“If you’re not up here in fifteen seconds, Kevin, I’m phoning Viacom and canceling cable.”
She tossed the portable down on the sofa dismissively. Snoop Doggy Dogg’s punchy rap immediately faded to a murmur. Jamie turned back to the window to hide his smile. Kevin would sooner have his wiener cut off than TV. He’d won. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to play with Kevin and Ronnie, but they sure didn’t want to play with him, and now they were going to have to.
Another bicyclist passed the house, going the other way this time. A different bike, nothing fancy, one of those old-fashioned drop-handlebar numbers. The guy was different too, older looking, with a beard and kind of long greasy hair, like that boyfriend of Mom’s who hadn’t worked out. The only thing the same was that as he passed, he turned to look at Jamie, as though he’d known all along he was standing there. It was kind of weird.
Footsteps clomped heavily up the narrow stairs from the basement. Jamie’s smile grew, then disappeared as he turned around to watch the payoff. Kevin slunk moodily into the living room, shoulders hunched, scowling at his mom, ignoring his younger brother. Three paces behind came Ronnie Ho, looking polite and concerned as always. What a jerk!
“I’m so sorry we didn’t come right away,” Ronnie said in his smarmy voice. “We were kind of locked into the game.”
Jamie’s mom smiled. She thought Ronnie Ho was “so polite.”
“That’s fine, Ronald. But listen, I need some quality time with the baby and Jamie is driving me up the wall. Can’t you guys do something with him?”
“Like what?” snarled Kevin.
After Ronnie’s smarm, Kevin sounded even more in-your-face than usual.
“Oh gee, I don’t know!” his mother exclaimed girlishly. “Whatever you guys do.”
“He’s just a
“So are you,” snapped his mom. Her voice had hardened right up. No more buddy-buddy stuff if he wasn’t going to buy into it. Kevin stared back at her angrily. Ronnie Ho stood looking on with an embarrassed smile, pretending that nothing was going on, or if it was then he hadn’t noticed. Jamie bet Chinese people would rather commit hara-kiri or whatever it was than throw a scene like this in front of guests. Well, screw ’em, bunch of F.O.B.s! This is America. Deal with it.
“Come on, guys!” their mother exclaimed wearily. “Go chase each other around in back or something.”
“It’s too cold.”
“Watch TV.”
She stood up, cradling the Accident.
“There’s nothing on but a bunch of dumb shows and crappy movies,” said Kevin, looking pointedly at the glowing screen in the corner.
“Well, let Jamie play your video game,” Mom suggested.
“He’s no good.”
“That’s because you never let me play,” Jamie protested loudly.
“Listen, I don’t care
She disappeared into the bedroom with the baby. Kevin looked at Ronnie Ho, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Hide-and-seek! What planet did this woman live on? Kevin had long since moved on to sardines, where one person hid and everyone had to find them and then hide in the same place, which gave you a chance to kind of rub up against some of the good-looking babes. Hide-and-seek was for little kids.
“Or maybe you’d rather clean that room of yours?” his mother yelled threateningly from the next room.
Kevin leaned over and whispered something to Ronnie, who nodded.
“OK, we’ll play hide-and-seek,” he called back.
“You won’t play fair!” retorted Jamie. “You’ll make me be it and then goof off somewhere I can’t find you!”
“OK, you hide,” Kevin replied.
He beamed innocently at Jamie. Too innocently.
“You won’t come looking for me!” Jamie protested loudly.
He knew there had to be a catch, and he was determined not to be suckered by the older boys.
“Yes, we will,” replied Kevin. “And I bet we find you right away.”
“Oh yeah? How much?”
“A dollar.”
“A
Jamie thought furiously. He was still sure it was a scam, the way they’d whispered to each other, but he couldn’t figure it out. And a dollar was a dollar.
“How long have you got to find me?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Ten.”
“OK, fifteen.”
“Shoot, you can search the whole house in fifteen.”
“That’s the deal,” his brother said. “Take it or leave it.”
Jamie reflected for a moment. Then he nodded.
“OK.”
Kevin smiled swaggeringly at Ronnie Ho.
“We’ll be downstairs in my room,” he told Jamie. “We’ll give you a couple of minutes to get hid. C’mon, Ronnie.”
They disappeared. A few moments later the rap was up to strength again, making the floorboards quiver underfoot. Jamie set a fifteen-minute timer on the el-cheapo digital watch his dad had got free at some gas station and passed on to him. Then he headed for the stairs. Through the open bedroom door, he could hear his mom cooing and murmuring to the baby. The way she carried on, you’d have thought she’d
Jamie started down the cramped, twisting stairs leading to the basement. He was careful to avoid the second and fifth steps, which creaked. When he was far enough down he checked the door to Kevin’s room. It was closed. He carried on down to the bare concrete floor of the basement. To his right, a door lay open into a utility room housing the washing machine, dryer and freezer. Straight ahead was the rec room containing the half-finished bar his dad had been building as part of a project to turn it into a den, even though he’d never even got around to carpeting the basement. Empty liquor bottles gathered dust on flimsy glass shelving. To the left was Jamie’s room, and next to it Kevin’s. They had the music on again in there, a strident twangy thumping beat that would cover any
