Small Steps - Louis Sachar [19]
Kaira didn’t know what to think now. Aileen just seemed to be someone who really had her act together. So besides the fact that Aileen would be betraying Kaira’s mother, Kaira just couldn’t imagine someone as smart and as cool as her being involved with someone as gross as El Genius.
Before Aileen started going along with Kaira’s mother on her shopping sprees, Kaira’s mother usually came home looking all gaudy and ridiculous. When Aileen went with her, the stuff she bought actually looked pretty good on her.
Aileen had good taste. At least in clothes.
Well, if El Genius really was cheating on her mother, then maybe that wasn’t all bad, Kaira decided. Maybe her mom would divorce the freak!
She listened to Janis sing the blues, her voice filled with suffering, yet tenderness.
“Maybe we can meet Janis while we’re in Texas?” she said.
Duncan and Tim B laughed.
“We’ll all be meeting Janis someday,” said Cotton. “But it won’t be in Texas.”
Janis had died of a drug overdose over forty years ago. She was only twenty-seven at the time.
“Hey, Kaira, ever hear of the Beatles?” asked Duncan.
“Who?” asked Kaira.
“You got to be kiddin’ me,” said Duncan. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Kaira shrugged.
Cotton laughed. “She’s playing with you, man.”
Duncan wasn’t so sure.
When they arrived at the hotel in Houston, Aileen was there to give them all their room keys and schedules. She had arrived earlier and had already gotten everybody checked in. They could just go right to their rooms. Their luggage would be brought up.
“You’re Rhoda Morgenstern,” she told Kaira as she handed her the key.
Kaira studied Aileen’s face for some hint of betrayal, but her expression gave nothing away.
Even in her high heels, Aileen was shorter than Kaira. Everything about her was small: her waist, her feet, her ears, her mouth. She was stylish, efficient, and compact, like a cell phone.
“Do you know who Rhoda is?” Aileen asked.
“Mary Tyler Moore’s best friend,” said Kaira.
“Actually, Mary Richards’s best friend,” said Aileen.
It was a game they had. Aileen always registered Kaira under an assumed name so she wouldn’t be hassled by fans. Aileen chose characters from old TV shows, but Kaira hadn’t been stumped yet.
She watched too much TV.
11
X-Ray picked up Armpit at school; then they drove to South Congress Avenue in search of a barbecue joint called Smokestack Lightnin’. Somebody by the name of Murdock wanted two tickets.
“I don’t feel comfortable on someone else’s territory,” X-Ray had said.
“How come he couldn’t meet you at the H-E-B?”
“Said he couldn’t get away. Works from six in the morning until midnight.”
Armpit thought that sounded a little suspicious.
So did X-Ray. That was why he wanted Armpit along.
“I got to be at work at one,” Armpit reminded him.
“I’ll get you there,” X-Ray assured him.
Congress Avenue was called that because at its north end stood the majestic state capitol building, with its dome and white columns. This was where the Texas congress met, but only every other year, so they couldn’t cause too much damage.
Just south of the capitol was the financial and theater district, and then the Congress Street Bridge, which crossed over Town Lake. A colony of more than a million Mexican free-tailed bats lived in the cracks and crevices on the underside of the bridge. Several fancy hotels lined the banks of the lake—which actually was not a lake at all but a river—and tourists would gather at sundown to watch the bats swarm out from under the bridge as they went in search of food.
They kept the mosquito population under control.
“Is Murdock his first name or his last?” Armpit asked as they drove across the bridge.
A girl wearing