"How much longer? We've been out here, like, almost two years and when are we going to move back into the city? Would we be able to buy back the house on Crandall? It wouldn't have to be that house, although it would be nice, unless the new owners are, like, a bunch of psycho goths who've ripped out the walls and painted the ceilings black or something."
"Where did you get the idea we were moving back into the city?"
"I just figured, sooner or later, you'd see what a terrible mistake it was to move out here and we'd go back."
"What are you talking about?" I said, glancing over at Angie as I pulled away from a stop sign. "Who said this was a terrible mistake?"
"Well, first of all, the house is falling apart and -"
"The house is not falling apart."
"Mom said last night the ceiling fell right into the pasta."
"The ceiling did not fall. A small chunk of it fell because it was wet because there's a leak in the upstairs shower, which can be fixed, which does not mean the house is falling apart. And the builder has some two-year warranty or something, so don't worry about it."
Angie looked out her window and said nothing.
"I go to school with a bunch of losers," she said, finally.
I let that one hang out there for a while. "What do you mean, losers?"
She shrugged, a kind of like-this-needs-an-explanation? shrug. "I know you and Mom thought moving out here would mean you'd never have to worry again about schools, about drugs and all that shit. But you have no idea. We've got the Crips, and crackheads, and - I mean, look at Columbine. That was, like, the middle of nowhere. That wasn't some inner-city school or something. And look what happened there."
"What are you saying? That there are guys in long black coats waiting to shoot up the school?" I had shifted into parental overdrive.
"No, no, jeez, no, God, don't go all hyper on me. All I'm saying is just because we moved out of the city doesn't mean that there aren't still weird people in my school. There's weird people wherever you go. Just 'cause we've moved doesn't mean we're never going to run into crazy people again. It's really no different out here than anyplace else, at least from that point of view. But you don't have people willing to be eccentric."
"Okay, you've lost me. We've got weird, but we don't have eccentric."
"I mean, like, remember my friend Jan? The one with the boots, and the tears in her stockings, and the orange skirts?"
"And the thing in her tongue?"
"Yeah. Like, she barely rated a second glance at my old school, but if you moved her out here, where everyone's wearing their Abercrombie & Fitch, they'd think she was totally strange."
"She was totally strange."
"Yeah, but that's the point. She kind of was, but no one noticed? You could do that downtown, and no one really thought about it. Out here, there's this suburban thing, where you have to be borderline normal all the time."
In some inexplicable way, I knew what she was talking about.
"That's why, for example, Paul wants to get a tattoo," Angie said. "So he can be just a little edgy out here."
"Paul wants a tattoo?"
Angie glanced at me, realizing she'd broken a confidence. "He didn't tell you?"
"No. Not yet."
"You didn't hear it from me, but he's thinking about it. There's a place, in the plaza, that'll do them."
"He can't get a tattoo. He's not even sixteen yet. They wouldn't do it."
Angie rolled her eyes. We were almost to the school. "Is there more?" I asked.
Angie was quiet.
"Haven't you made any friends here?"
Angie shifted her chin around, a nod in disguise. "Not really. I had friends at Bannerman, like Krista, and Molly, and Denny, but I had to leave them because it wasn't safe there, we had to move to a neighborhood where everything would be okay." There was a mocking tone. "Well, so what if there was a flasher and a few hookers or some needles on the sidewalk? At least it was interesting."
"You know you're welcome to have your friends out here any time you want," I offered. "Invite them on Friday or Saturday, do a sleepover thing in the basement."
Angie looked at me as though I'd just stepped out of an episode of Ozzie and Harriet. "God, Dad, I'm not five. And, like, they just can't wait to come out here."
I stopped the car out front of the school. "I hate this place," Angie said, slipping out the door and closing it behind her.
o o o
Chapter 8
As I looked about the room, dumbstruck, Earl hurriedly pulled on a shirt and then ushered me up the stairs to the kitchen. He got two beers out of the fridge and motioned - actually, more like directed - me to take a seat at the table. He set his handgun on the table where I could have reached it if I'd wanted to. I didn't.
"What's this about a detective, Zack?" Earl asked. He did not look amused.
I was having a bit of trouble collecting my thoughts. "A police detective, he just left my place."
"What was he asking?" Earl took a nervous swig of his beer. "Was he asking about me?"
"No. He was asking about that guy they found down by the creek."
"Are you sure? You're sure he wasn't asking about me?"
"No," I said, more emphatically this time. "I'm telling you the truth. It was about the guy in the creek."