Page 43 of Edge of Ruin
“Like you did?” I said bitterly.
“Hey, don’t hold this against me. Come on, chin up. You’re, what, sixteen? Seventeen? You’ll be fine. You’ll land on your feet.”
“Fourteen,” I corrected him, my voice toneless.
“Fourteen? Jesus, kid. I thought you were older.” Freddy tugged on his beard, looking distressed that I was not older. “Tavia’s number is on the fridge, okay? And your mom—where is your mom, again?”
“The ashram. In India,” I reminded him.
“Oh, yeah. The ashram. Damn. I guess Tavia is your best bet, kid. Oh, hey. You could always call Mrs. Margaret Moffat. Your mom and Tavia and I stayed with her one summer when we were kids, in Silverfish. Dad was working the carnival, and Mom had to go into the TB hospital, so she took us in for a couple of months. Nice lady. Baked great cookies. Call her if you get in a tight spot. But try Tavia first.”
I stared at my feet, mouth trembling. Uncle Freddy tousled my hair. “Sorry, Jackie. But you know how it is.”
“Yeah,” I said. I knew exactly how it was. I knew better than anyone.
And after a flurry of packing and a rough, sweaty hug, I had stood in the driveway and watched Freddy’s taillights disappear into the dark.
I’d tried calling Aunt Tavia in L.A. A guy answered, and said she hadn’t lived there in four months, and no, he didn’t know where she was. He’d heard somebody say she’d gone to Baja. But it might have been Boulder. Or Bali. Then the guy told me that I seemed stressed and should practice “letting go.” “Hanging on” caused all the suffering in life. In fact, if I would tell him the date and hour of my birth, he would be happy to provide me, for a small fee, with a mantra calibrated to attain the serenity of non-attachment, and also?—
I hung up on that babbling prick. Then I took the tattered envelope off the fridge, and dialed the long string of numbers written on it for the ashram.
The guy who answered spoke only Hindi, and had then passed the phone to someone else who must have been speaking German. I struggled with that for a while, repeating my mother’s name, and then hung up on that guy, too.
I stared at the phone. Finally, I picked up the receiver, dialed information for Silverfish, and asked for Margaret Moffat.
“I have an M. Moffat in Silverfish,” the operator had said. “Do you want the number?”
“Sure.” I wrote the number down, folded it, stuck it into my jeans.
I had no idea what to do next. I had wandered around the empty house as night deepened. The quiet terrified me. I wondered when the police would come, and what could happen to me if they found me there. If they would put me in jail, too.
At dawn, I had filled my knapsack with as much stuff as I could carry, tied a rolled blanket onto the top, and headed out onto the road.
“... okay?” I jolted out of my memories. Vivi’s face was close to mine, her gray eyes wide with worry. She patted my shoulder.
She tried again, louder. “Are you okay, Jack?”
I focused on the faint pattern of freckles on her perfect, narrow little nose. Like a constellation of stars. “Uh, yeah,” I said. “Sorry. I was someplace else for a while.”
She touched my cheek with her knuckles, a shy, tender stroke. “No place good,” she said. “You had that look on your face.”
I shook myself to alertness, embarrassed. “What look is that?”
“Sad,” she said simply. “Can I make you some tea?”
“Coffee,” I said, rousing myself. “Tea doesn’t do it for me. Sit down. Stay with your dog. I’ll make it.”
“No, no. I’ll do it.” She pushed me back down. “It’s the least I can do. Thanks so much for helping. It would have been a lot worse alone.”
“It’s nothing,” I muttered.
“Not to me and Edna it’s not.” Her smile was so warm and bright.
I followed her into the kitchen, just to stay close. Taking every sneaky opportunity to touch her, brush against her, sniff her scent as we put the coffee on together.
When it was done and poured, we sat across the table from each other. I reached out and grabbed her hand. We’d hit another smooth patch, and I was going to ride it for as long as I could. “I’m sorry for what I said in the?—”
“Don’t,” Vivi broke in. “You apologized the last time you insulted me, and the time before that. Every time, I let down my guard and let you do it again. Let’s establish a rule. No insults. No apologies. Okay?”
