As soon as Josie slipped inside, Richie crossed his arms over his chest. “My sister has this thing about strays. A few times a year, she’ll pick one up, give it some food, shelter, a place to work, but it never lasts. They always fuck it up.” He buried his foot in the sand as if to say, I’m here to stay, and you’re only temporary. Part of Bastien wondered if he’d whip it out and piss all over the side of the hut just to prove his point. “And you’re no different, just another beach bum preying on good, sweet-hearted people like my sister.”
Bastien’s stomach swelled with anger, and he did what years of hearing accusations and insults much more cutting than any skinny Dickie could hurl his way had trained him to do: he affixed his gaze on a point just to the side of Dickie’s right ear. Any farther and the person he was trying not to hear would notice, and quick. A slap in the face had taught him that. It had branded the message along with so many others along his left cheek. He absentmindedly rubbed his cheek, sand scraping across his face as his eyes settled on the ocean. The waves seemed to surge in time with the anger churning in his gut. He breathed deeply. He couldn’t release his anger, not on this fool. It’d been with him, simmering for so long, that if he let it erupt now, he’d probably send Dickie to the hospital.
A seagull braved the roiling waves, splashing into the water, disappearing for a moment, and then reemerging, soaring up, up, up triumphantly.
The truth of it was, all that anger scared him. That’s why he’d left. At first he thought putting distance between himself and his parents would be enough to quell the heat building in his belly, but he’d discovered after only a few hours outside of Acadiana that he was just running from himself.
And all that running only made him tired.
“You don’t have to worry about me, no,” Bastien said, unsure whether or not Dickie had finished proving the point he seemed to so enjoy making.
“God, you talk funny.”
Bastien nodded, tucking his board under his arm. “That’s for true,” he said, leaving Dickie behind him, cross-armed and pinch-faced, as he walked to the hut.
14
TATE
“Tate! Damn, boy, it’s good to hear your voice again. How’s it going up there at your, wait, what are you calling it?”
“Our Fortress of Sauvietude!” Tate said, laughing at his own joke.
“That’s it. Damn queer name if you ask me, but if you and Foster like it, that’s all that counts,” grumbled Tate’s grandpa.
“G-pa, queer doesn’t mean weird anymore. You know that, right?” Tate said, leaning against the cool glass side of the phone booth and grinning into the ancient black rotary dial dinosaur.
“Old dog. No new tricks,” G-pa said. “But we’re not talkin’ ’bout me. How’s the air wrangling goin’?”
Tate blew out a long, frustrated breath. “We’ve been working on it for two weeks now, and let me tell ya, G-pa, Foster’s a lot better at it than I am.”
“Well, boy, get used to that. Women are better at everything that counts. All we can do is hitch ourselves to a good one and try to keep up. Your mama was the best of the best, and your daddy had the good sense to hitch himself to her.” G-pa had to pause and clear his throat before he could go on. “Your Foster sounds like she’s a good one, too.”
“She is. Or at least she is sometimes. It’s hard to get close to her, G-pa.”
“From what you tell me she rightfully has trust issues. Give it time, son. You’ll win her over—if that’s what you want to do. Is it?”
Tate shuffled his feet, kicking at the pea gravel that littered the little concrete slab on which the phone booth sat. “Yes. No. I dunno.”
“Better make up your mind. The good ones don’t have much patience for yes, no, and maybes.”
“She’d freak if she knew I call you,” Tate admitted.
“Boy! You haven’t told her?”
“No, sir.”
“Tell Foster. And fast. Didn’t you say she has air cannon hands?”
Tate grinned into the phone again. “Yes, sir. She sure does.”
“Sounds like something you need to remember next time you think about lying to her,” G-pa said.
“I didn’t lie to her! I just didn’t tell her, that’s all.”
“An evasion is little different from a lie. You want my advice?”
“Always, sir,” Tate said.
“Come clean. Tell her the truth, and explain that the two of you are still safe. You’re calling me from a pay phone to my landline—a number that’s not published and is registered in the name of a trust that’s buried under mounds of corporate paperwork and red tape meant to keep people from knowing it’s me. It’s safe to call me. And not because I knew you’d need to hide from a mad scientist and his evil minions.”
“Yeah, it’s buried so no one knows the retired biology teacher and coach is filthy rich,” Tate added.
“Yep, yep, yep. I realized years ago, when they discovered oil on my land, that folks act stupid when they find out you have money. So I decided way back when that folks just don’t need to find out.”
“I’ll tell her, G-pa. When the time is right,” Tate said.
“You know when’s the right time to tell the truth?” G-pa asked.
“When?”
“Always, boy.”
“I hear ya, G-pa.” Tate sighed heavily. “Want to know the whole truth?”
“’Course.”
“What I want more than anything is to figure out exactly what caused those tornadoes and how to stop it from happening again. Did you find out anything for me?” Tate neatly changed the subject to a stranger, though more comfortable one.
“I did! Well, first I found out that I hadn’t completely forgotten the biology I taught too many years ago for me to admit. Guess the old dog still has it.” G-pa chuckled.
“G-pa, of course you still know your stuff. You taught for, like, six decades.”
“Well, not quite, but it sure felt like it. There’s nothin’ like high school kids to keep you feelin’ young while they’re really makin’ ya old. I have a theory that teenagers are really energy vampires, but we’ll discuss that another time.” G-pa paused. “Where the hell was I?”
“You said you found something—something about what was done to us?” Tate prompted.
“Yes and no. Those equations you read to me—they’re really somethin’. Lucky I still know my way around the Texas A&M MSL.”
“MSL?”
“Medical Science Library, boy,” G-pa muttered. “Get with the program. It’s also lucky I know my way around the Dewey Decimal System and can research by looking through actual books and journals instead of the goddamned internetathon.”