Tilt - Alan Cumyn [54]
People were going to listen to Feldon, Stan thought. People might never believe Lily, but Feldon they would listen to.
And Kelly-Ann was coming any moment now to take Feldon away. The thought came to Stan suddenly, like sitting on a bruise he’d forgotten.
“Your mother is coming to get you,” Stan said on the walk home.
“When?” Feldon asked.
“Soon, I think.” The basketball fit like the whole world under Feldon’s arm. “But we’re going to stay in touch.”
“Will you come visit?”
“Yup. We’ll just figure out when.”
“And we could go fishing?”
Had Feldon really enjoyed fishing?
“Anything you want. We’re half-brothers. We can do it.”
Stan was going to get his driver’s license soon. He could go visit whoever he wanted.
He wasn’t a kid anymore.
—
At lunch they were dipping soldier fingers of toast into soft-boiled eggs when the phone rang. Feldon had yellow egg yolk dripping from the corner of his mouth, which Stan was about to wipe. Instead he walked to the phone. Probably it was Kelly-Ann, insane with worry about her son.
“Hello,” he said calmly, and tossed Feldon the kitchen rag.
“What are you doing home?” Kelly-Ann said in a very familiar way, as if . . . as if she was actually Janine, not Kelly-Ann.
Stan’s heart bounced like a basketball.
“I’m looking after Feldon.”
“Jason Biggs said you ran out of tryout,” she said. “And you missed biology. Stillwater said anyone absent was going to get zero.”
The test! Stan had completely forgotten.
“Did Biggs say I didn’t miss a shot?”
Feldon munched, munched his toast soldiers. The sun was slanting and even through dirty windows half of Feldon’s face was in shadows, half in bright light.
“What happened?”
So Stan told her all about it, and the rest as well —
his mother, the dramatic day at work. It was like he was back on the ladder again. The world didn’t matter. It was just . . . great to have her to talk to.
“Are you worried about your mom?” Janine asked. “What if she loses her job?”
Stan wasn’t worried . . . because of the way the sun hit the egg yolk that was still on Feldon’s face. It was hard to explain beyond that.
“Whatever happens is just going to happen,” he said. “It’s just a problem.”
“Of course it’s a problem! If your mother loses her income, and your father won’t help any . . .”
“No, I mean, it’s just a problem,” he said. What did he mean by that? The words slipped out. He would have to think it through later.
He had the sense that a lot of what had happened recently he’d have to think about at another time.
Feldon was nearly finished his soldiers. Stan checked the milk in the fridge. It smelled all right. His mother needed to do a proper shop for the whole week, not just grabbing stuff as she did from time to time on her way home. How much was in her bank account? He had no idea. But they were still going to eat. Weren’t they?
“Some things there’s no solution for,” Janine said.
He pictured her standing outside the school doors, the phone pressed against her left ear. He thought about leaning in and kissing the base of her neck. Just where the lizard sat.
How warm it would be.
“If you’re home alone looking after Feldon then maybe I should come over.” She said it just like that. Maybe I should come over.
Maybe this was where she was supposed to be.
Stan felt calm and yet his pulse steamed, as if he was driving for the hoop just a half step ahead of Karl Brolin.
“Come on over,” he said to Janine.
—
Come on over.
“A friend of mine is coming over,” he said nonchalantly to Feldon as he stood over the sink and scraped at the egg on the plate and the cutlery.
Maybe she could come over and Feldon might fall asleep and one thing might lead to another. Maybe he’d have a chance to lean toward the heat of her body — he could feel the heat of her, just thinking about it — and maybe he could . . .
Feldon was folding a business reply card from a magazine that had been on the counter. Tiny, precise movements.
Future neurosurgeon.
Confident fingers. The card was turning