Page 26 of Catch a Kiwi
He took my hand in his. Gently, because it was the one with the stitched palm. “I would expect nothing less. And one more thing.”
Oh, boy. “What?”
“Go take a nap. You’re killing me here.”
11
NOT THE TRUE DHARMA
Summer
He really did go off within twenty minutes to buy a car. With Delilah, even though I told her, “You should stay and rest.”
“Nope,” she said. “I rested already. Here’s a crazy thought.Youstay and rest. Whoa, right? Quit being a martyr and let me do something for a change! When you were my age, you were the main breadwinner. You think I don’t know that, but I do. Well, I’m capable too. I keep telling you.”
“I am not a martyr,” I said. “I’m twelve years older, that’s all, and I promised to take care of you.” Feeling about forty, too serious and too weighed down, and so aware of Roman watching us. He’d given me a pair of flannel PJ bottoms and a T-shirt, since my filthy clothes were in the washing machine again along with all the garments I’d managed to rescue. Both the PJ pants and the T-shirt were miles too big, of course, and way too hot for the day, but I wasn’t wearing that dress shirt again with nothing under it. Just no.
“You are exactly a martyr,” Delilah said, “and I’m sick of it. Stop taking care of me, all right? I’ve got a scholarship andloans for college. I’m a legal adult.” Her voice was rising. “I have a fucking right—” I narrowed my eyes, and she slapped a hand against her thigh and said, “What? People swear when they’re passionate. It adds emphasis. And don’t tell me again how we got fired because I swore. I learned, OK? Have I done it since then? I was out of my element. Now I’m back in it.”
“Don’t do it anyway,” I said. “Roman doesn’t want to hear it, and neither do I.”
“Oh, please. Roman swears.”
“No,” Roman said. “Not that word, not around your cousin, you notice? Manners, eh.” He had a hip against the kitchen counter and his ankles crossed, the picture of calm amusement, not a man whose house had been infiltrated by mud and infested by guests.
“Fine,” Delilah said, “but if you do it, I’m calling you on it.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “And ditto.” He shoved off the counter and stood there, relaxed and still, the power all but vibrating off him all the same. “Ready to go? If we don’t get the car, Summer can’t buy those dehumidifiers. What happens to her sense of responsibility if my house ends up covered in mold?”
“I’m ready,” Delilah said. “And Summer? Take a chill pill. And a shower. And a fu— a friggin’nap.”
Roman
“Right,” I told Delilah as I reversed the still-filthy car up the drive. “Second half of the story, please.”
“I’m not allowed,” she said. “Summer found out I told you—you weren’t supposed totellher. What are you, an idiot? I told you, verbal diarrhea from the concussion! Do youunderstand her atall?Aren’t you supposed to be good with women? You look like a guy who’s good with women.”
That was about as much as I got out of her on the drive to Dunedin, though I learned that they’d been working their way around the country for the past ten months, mainly serving in cafés and doing cleaning in the smaller sorts of motels. “Not in the cities,” Delilah said. “Too expensive, and they have no campgrounds. We have one of those DOC memberships. You pay a couple hundred bucks and camp free for a year.”
“You’ve been in that campervan for ten months?” I asked. “It seemed pretty basic.”
“Yeah, but it’s New Zealand. You wouldn’t believe how many people have invited us to take a shower at their place and do our laundry. They ask us to dinner, too. Of course, Summer turns down the single guys, even if they’re old enough to be her dad. Pretty paranoid. I’m amazed she agreed to stay with you. She has to be desperate. I hope shehasmore than ten thousand dollars. It’s not like she’s spent much, or has a gambling problem, but everything’s so expensive here. Food. Gas. And I told you—if there’s a responsibility gene, she’s got two copies. It’d be a recessive gene, though, clearly.”
I thought about how to answer that and decided on, “I’m amazed I offered, so I reckon we’re even. No shower in the van, eh.”
“Just a solar one, which means a trickle of barely-lukewarm water from a five-gallon plastic bag that’s never going to get you clean. I thought the mobile home we used to live in was crappy. I didn’t realize that you might not even have a shower. But it hasn’t been too bad, I guess. We’ve done a lot of hiking, and I’ve done some swimming, too. We’ve even earned some money. Not enough to buy a new campervan, of course, but?—”
“How long are you staying?” I asked.
“It was supposed to be a few months. Didn’t work out that way, because Summer said she might as well stay, and I don’t have much to go back to, either. Plus I couldn’t exactly leave her alone, could I? She says she’s fine, but—” She stopped, then went on, “I’m on a working holiday visa, which is only a year, so I do have to go home before the end of May and get a place to live and another crappy job until college starts. Good thing I have so much experience at that. Summer’s British, though, so she can stay three years if she wants to. I’m not sure why she’d want to—I mean, it’s nice here and all, but it’s not exactly a career builder, being a waitress, and she was always super ambitious—but for now, I’m just going along.”
“Keeping her company.”
“That’s the idea. So, listen. She says she doesn’t need my help to buy the car, but she’s going to be almost broke and totally stressed.Ihave ten thousand dollars left, though. I know—who knew? So we can get something halfway decent and say it cost maybe seven or eight thousand, and she’ll still?—”
I said, “I have a better idea.” And kept driving.
When we pulled into Zephyr’s carpark, though, and I opened the door and said, “Now we take an Uber,” Delilah said, “Oh … kay. Not a used-car lot. Well,thisseems safe. I guess human traffickingwouldmake you rich.”
