Fireside

Bo lived in a studio apartment tucked into a corner of the building over the taproom. AJ didn’t wake up when Bo pulled into the nearly empty parking lot at the back of the old brick walk-up, and stopped the car. Damn, now what? He hated to wake the kid after the night he’d had. God knew, sleep was a better place for the boy than being awake and fretting about his mother. But they couldn’t stay in the car all day.

“Yo, AJ, we’re here,” Bo said.

The boy didn’t respond.

Bo made plenty of noise getting out of the car and retrieving the bags from the trunk. He took the bags upstairs, hurried back down to check on AJ. He went around to the passenger side and opened the door. “Hey, we’re here,” he said again. “Come on upstairs and you can get some sleep.”

AJ was already getting some sleep. A fresh gust of arctic air caused him to shudder, but he didn’t wake up. Bo considered giving the boy a nudge, then decided it would be cruel to wake him from a sound sleep into a strange, cold world of worry. He reached into the car and released the seat belt. Bending low in a supremely awkward stance, he snaked one arm behind AJ and the other under his knees, and lifted him up.

The kid stayed sound asleep. Amazing. Also amazing—for the first time in his life, Bo was holding his son. Twelve years too late, AJ was in his arms, a deadweight. He was small, but not that small. Bo staggered a little, getting his balance on the icy surface of the parking lot. Damn. He could blow out a knee like this. And that would blow everything for him.

He moved slowly, carefully, waiting to feel some kind of connection to the bundle of humanity. Maybe now that he was touching the boy, it would happen.

Music pulsed from the taproom, interspersed with laughter and conversation. The afternoon crowd wasn’t too rowdy, but now Bo heard it with new ears. He instinctively hunched his shoulders as if to protect the kid from the intrusive noise. “Let’s get you inside, my buddy,” he murmured, and headed for the door.

The carpet on the stairs and in the hallway was grungy from winter boots; Bo had never noticed that before. He resolved to talk to Maggie Lynn about replacing it. Inside the apartment, he lowered AJ to the sagging sofa that occupied one wall, under a Rolling Rock Beer clock. The boy still didn’t waken, just sighed lightly, drew his knees up and turned his back.

Bo grabbed a pillow from his bed and pulled off the comforter, tucking it around the boy. Then Bo pulled the blinds and stood still for a few minutes, totally at a loss. Now what?

He’d never noticed before how small the apartment was, how cluttered. He listened to the noise of the tavern below. Was it always that loud? That obnoxious? Suddenly it bugged the shit out of him. He went to the fridge, grabbed a beer. The bottle gave a hiss of relief when he opened it.

He sat for a long time, sipping the beer and reflecting on his own childhood. He’d had a single mother, too. They’d lived in all kinds of places, none of them anything special. Where he hung his hat had never mattered much to him until now. Having the boy here made Bo flinchingly aware of the small, shabby digs. He knew for a fact he didn’t ever want to embarrass this boy, didn’t ever want AJ to feel ashamed of who he was or where he lived. Bo had been through that, and the vivid memories haunted him still.

Bo could afford a new place now. He just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Studying the kid, he wondered what the hell he was going to do. He thought about Coach Landry Holmes, the man who had taken him under his wing when he was about AJ’s age. Coach Holmes was, in many respects, more of a parent to Bo than Trudy Crutcher had ever been. Holmes had first spotted Bo playing sandlot baseball, pitching to kids on a field polluted with refuse that blew like tumbleweeds across the dying grass. They used old Circle K bags for bases and kept score with a stick in the clay-heavy earth.

Holmes had seen the strength and promise in that twelve-year-old’s pitching arm, and he’d made Bo his project. When Trudy got behind on her bills and the boys had to go into foster care, it was Coach Holmes and his wife, Emmaline, who took the youngsters home and fed them, made them do their homework and get their hair cut and go to church. The Holmeses attended their sports practices and games with more reliable frequency than Trudy ever did. That had been just fine with Bo, because whenever his mom showed up somewhere, she always created a stir. She wore her hair teased up high, and her shirt cut low. Looks like hers were impossible to ignore.

Yet despite the kindness of Landry and Emmaline Holmes, Bo felt completely unprepared to be a father. It was probably also why he felt so strangely disassociated. He vacillated between the urge to flee and take no part in this, and the opposing urge to protect this boy at all costs. He’d coasted for years, sending child support even when he couldn’t afford to, because it made him feel like he was doing his part without requiring an emotional investment from him. Yet now, out of the blue, here was a kid in desperate need. And Bo could no longer turn his back on his responsibility, could no longer write a check to make it go away. Well, actually he could, but even he wasn’t that big a jerk.

AJ was young and undersized for his age. But his presence here was huge. He was the proverbial elephant in the room. What a mess, Bo thought.

“I’ll do the best I can, kid,” he muttered to the boy.

Five

Kim thought she’d sleep for a week once her head touched the pillow, but little demons of worry prodded her awake at the crack of dawn. She lay motionless in a room that was both familiar and strange to her. The last time she’d slept in this bed had been years ago, yet the memories that haunted the shadowy corners and the folds of the drapes were as fresh as last night’s dream. This had been her heart’s home as a child, a place of clarity and peace. Her grandparents’ house, where she was the adored only grandchild, had always been filled with magic for her.

When she was small, she hadn’t understood why she loved visiting Avalon so much. As she got older, she realized it was because here, she was accepted for herself, unweighted by expectations and unbound by restrictions. According to her father, her Fairfield grandparents spoiled her.

Kim hated that word, spoiled. She hated the fact that her father had described her as spoiled and, years later, so did most of the men she’d dated, including Lloyd Johnson. Spoiled implied something irredeemable, past saving. Something smelly that should be sealed up tight and kicked to the curb.

She exhaled slowly, sitting up in bed and holding the quilt under her chin. Maybe she was spoiled. Maybe someone should kick her to the curb.

Come to think of it, that was exactly what Lloyd had done. She tugged her mind away from him. The truth was, she was sick of thinking about him. She was sick of herself. Sick of her problems, her dilemma, her life. Stewing about it was simply depressing and got her nowhere.

She darted a suspicious look at her cell phone. Its battery was dead and would not be revived until she bought a replacement charger and plugged it in. She was in no hurry to do so, knowing she’d discover a world of unpleasant voice mails. Maybe she’d simply get rid of the phone for good, start fresh with a new one. Did people do that? Did they dump their dead phones, never bothering to retrieve the messages? She found the notion deeply appealing. Maybe there was an invisible cloud of unheard messages hovering out there in the digital ether somewhere, never to reach their intended recipients.

The sound of antique plumbing groaned in the walls of the old house, reminding Kim that she was far from alone. In addition to Mr. Dino Carminucci, there were two other houseguests, and the house had room for two more on the top floor. She could barely get her mind around her mother’s surprise “project.” Unbelievable. Her mother ran a boardinghouse. Kim hadn’t even known people still did such a thing.

She wondered what her grandparents would think of Penelope’s enterprise. She turned in bed, resting her cheek on her elbow as she studied an old photograph of Grandpa and Grandma Fairfield. It was a studio portrait from the mid-’70s, the colors fading but the smiles as bright as the day it was taken.

“I wish you were here,” she whispered to them. Both had died too young; her grandmother had succumbed to cancer a year and a half ago. Since it was in the summer, Lloyd had come along for the funeral. Foolishly, she’d thought he would be a comfort to her. Instead, he’d insisted on staying at the Inn at Willow Lake instead of with Kim’s mother, claiming he didn’t want to impose. What Kim should have realized back then was how selfish Lloyd was, and how foolish she’d been to let him create distance between her and her mother.

“I’m back now,” she said to the memory of her grandparents. “I just hope I’m not too late.”

Closing her eyes, she sank into memories of the past. She always thought her love of sports had come from her grandfather. He’d been a huge fan and he didn’t discriminate; he loved all kinds of sports. As his sole grandchild, Kim became his favorite companion at games, both professional and amateur. She loved the excitement of the crowd and the elemental struggle of the contest, whether it was on a baseball diamond, basketball court or hockey rink. Mostly, she’d loved the feeling of sharing the experience with her grandfather, who adored her.

When she was twelve, he visited her in the city and gave her season tickets to the Mets, promising her a winning season. The next day, he had kissed her goodbye and gone home. There was no way she could have known she’d never see him again.

The chances of a golfer being killed by lightning were one in a million. The thing no one thought about was that one fatality. For him, the odds were overwhelming.

People said it was a blessing that her grandfather had died doing something he loved, and that it was a blessing to go instantly, feeling no pain, no fear. Just a quick cosmic wink, and no more Grandpa. Kim understood that they were only trying to make her feel better. She even tried to accept the blessing explanation. But for the life of her, she couldn’t buy into the concept.

After that, she used to beg her father to take her to games, but he was always too busy. She went on her own, taking the bus or subway to Shea Stadium or Madison Square Garden. Going to a game made her feel closer to her grandfather, even when she was on her own. Caught up in the high excitement of the contest, she missed him just a tiny bit less. Sometimes it even made the terrible ache of loss ease up, if only for a few minutes.

Lying there, remembering, she made a vow. Her love of sports was a gift from her grandfather, and there was no way she’d let Lloyd Johnson or anyone take it away.

It was tempting to turn her back on the light trickling in through the bedroom window, to pull the covers over her head and fall asleep. For days or months. Forever.

Unfortunately, every time she shut her eyes, she caught herself thinking about the night in L.A. Intellectually, she knew the problem was Lloyd, not her. Yet when she replayed the scene over and over in her head, she kept wondering if she might have done something differently, if she could have said the right thing, maybe the disaster would have been averted. As soon as she felt her thoughts heading in that direction, she gave herself a mental shake. She was not to blame for Lloyd’s ego and his nasty temper.

“All righty, then,” she said, flinging back the quilt. She caught a glimpse of her long red hair in the mirror over the dresser. Yikes. “On that note, we’ll get up and see what the day brings.”

She went downstairs to find a stranger in the kitchen, with the countertop TV playing cartoons. Well, not exactly a stranger. One of her mother’s boarders, Daphne McDaniel. Kim would have to get used to seeing strangers around the house.

“Wow, that takes me back,” said Daphne, turning down the volume as she eyed Kim’s Camp Kioga sweatshirt. “Coffee?”

“Thanks.” Kim accepted the steaming mug and took a grateful sip. She was wearing the ancient jeans and camp hoodie, thick socks and Crocs her mother had given her yesterday. Prior to coming downstairs, she’d hastily washed the sleep from her face and pulled her long red hair into a ponytail. “These clothes are left over from … a hundred years ago. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I, um, traveled light, coming here.” All her worldly possessions were in L.A., most of them in a storage unit off Manhattan Beach Boulevard. She’d given up her apartment in order to be with Lloyd. She would have everything shipped to her eventually, but she didn’t want to think about that just now.

She had a funny urge to unload on Daphne, although they’d only just met. A girl needed her girlfriends. In her world—former world—friends and enemies blended together and morphed from one role to the other. There was even a word for it—frenemies. You couldn’t always trust them. It struck Kim that she didn’t have many friends. There were coworkers, sure. But there was no one she could point to and say, this is my friend. She hoped Daphne would turn out to be more genuine.

“I’m going to need to run into town to grab a few things,” she said.

“Try Zuzu’s Petals in the town square. Best shop there is.”

Kim used to shop in boutiques haunted by movie stars in floppy hats, and women with more money than common sense. She now counted herself a member of that group and vowed to change. “Thanks. Did you go to Camp Kioga when you were younger?”

Daphne laughed, but not with humor. “Honey, I was never younger. FYI, I’m having my childhood now, because I missed it the first time around.”

Kim stirred a partial packet of Splenda into the coffee. She sneaked a peek at Daphne, who was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen island, eating FrankenBerry cereal from a bright yellow bowl. With daring facial piercings and pink-streaked hair, she looked like a punk rocker. In contrast to Kim’s buffed-and-polished L.A. friends, Daphne was refreshing—quirky, but genuine.

Daphne fished a clear plastic packet out of her cereal bowl. “Yes,” she said. “I got the prize. I love when I get the prize.”

Given the type of cereal she was eating, she wasn’t likely to have much competition.

She wiped the toy on a napkin. “Troll doll,” she said, holding it up like a tiny trophy. “God, I love these things.”