Читать книгу The Trouble with Talent - Kathy Krevat - Страница 11

Chapter 2

My cell phone buzzed the next morning as I was stirring chopped bison for a new cat food recipe that I was already pretty sure Trouble wouldn’t like. But being in new product mode had me trying all kinds of strange things.

Trouble took turns sitting on her windowsill perch surveying the neighborhood and dropping down to twist around my ankles. Finish already and let me taste test!

Another early call? That couldn’t be good. I glanced at the screen and then immediately whipped off my gloves and grabbed it. Only bad news would make my head chef Zoey call me on a Sunday.

“Zoey? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Quincy got in a fight last night!” I couldn’t tell if she was proud or upset.

“What?”

“I’ve had like ten people text me saying they heard he was in a fight on Main Street, right in front of Happy Aprons Grocers,” she said. “Like, actually punching someone.”

I couldn’t imagine easygoing Quincy fighting. “Who? Why?”

“Something about his granddaughter,” Zoey said.

My stomach sank. “Did you talk to him?”

“I’ve texted him a couple of times and he hasn’t responded,” she said.

“Oh man,” I said. “Let me try calling him.” Quincy was one of the few people I knew who woke up earlier than I did.

“Then call me back and tell me what’s going on!” Zoey asked.

“I will,” I said and hung up before hitting the button for Quincy.

“I’m fine,” he said by way of answering.

“Oh good,” I said. “What happened?”

“I asked Franny if she liked her oboe teacher and she told me he was mean and she wanted to quit,” he said.

Oh no. This was so my fault. “So what’d you do?”

“I went to his house to have a little talk with him and saw him driving away. I followed him to the grocery store.”

“Happy Aprons?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “How did you know?”

“’Cause everyone is talking about it!” My voice rose an octave.

He sighed. “Everyone should mind their own business.”

“But why did you punch him?” I still couldn’t believe mild-mannered Quincy could do such a thing.

“He was insulting,” he said.

“Just tell me everything,” I said.

“I introduced myself and told him that Franny would not be coming back,” he said. “He lost his nut and yelled, ‘Good riddance.’”

“Okay.” I drew out the word, knowing there had to be more.

“He said that the only reason he took her as a student was because I was…”

“Rich?”

“Yes!” He sounded outraged. “And that Franny didn’t have an ounce of talent and it was a waste of his time to work with her.”

“Oh.” I thought how I’d feel if someone said that about Elliott. “I would’ve punched him too.”

Trouble meowed. Me too.

“Damn right,” he said. “He went down like a sack of potatoes. Cried like a baby.”

I stayed quiet for a minute. “He could sue you.”

“Let him.” But he sounded unsure. “Don’t worry. This will blow over.”

“I hope so,” I said. I heard someone yelling in the background and thought I recognized his wife’s voice.

“I gotta go,” he muttered quietly into the phone. “See you tomorrow.” He hung up.

Trouble meowed again. It’s not blowing over.

I was about to call Zoey back to tell her what I’d learned when the front doorbell rang. I looked through the kitchen window to see who was on the front porch.

It was Yollie. Uh-oh.

I put the pan on the back burner and turned off the stove, then took a few deep breaths and answered the door.

“What did you do?” It was Yollie, angrier than I’d ever seen her. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she had pulled her hair back into an unruly ponytail. As a hairdresser, she usually made sure to look her best in public.

“I had to tell Quincy,” I said. “I didn’t know he’d punch the guy.”

“That guy is the only chance Steven has of getting into a conservatory!” she said. “You ruined that for him.”

I tried to calm her down. “Yollie, Benson won’t connect Quincy to Steven.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “Benson is not an idiot. You’re publicly connected to Quincy. He’s going to figure it out and then refuse to teach Steven anymore. He can’t change teachers in his senior year. He’s so close.” She sounded like she was going to cry.

I had to try reasoning with her one more time. “But Steven is so talented. He’ll get in no problem.”

“You have no idea how it works!” she yelled, waving her arms around. “Steven needs Benson’s recommendation or he won’t even get an audition. Music is his life!”

Oh man. What did I do? “I didn’t know,” I said, my voice quiet with embarrassment. “Should I go apologize to Benson?”

“No!” she shouted.

“Okay,” I said. “What can I do?”

She shook her head, taking a few breaths. “I guess an apology is worth a try. But I have to go with you to make sure you…”

Don’t screw it up even more? “I understand,” I said. “Should we go now?”

She looked at her watch. “It’s too early to bother him.”

But not too early to yell at me.

“I’ll pick you up at eleven,” she said. “He doesn’t have students then.”

“I’ll be ready,” I said and watched her walk stiffly back to her car.

Trouble sat in the middle of the kitchen, probably waiting impatiently for her taste, but her expression said I told you so.

I texted Zoey back to let her know that Quincy said he was fine and would see us tomorrow, so she wouldn’t badger me for more information. Quincy would fill her in if he wanted.

She texted back. I couldn’t wait anymore and called him. It went right to voice mail. Is he mad at me?

I texted back. He hung up fast because his wife was yelling at him. Maybe wait a few minutes.

She texted back a laughing emoji.

I opened the door into the dining room and saw the mayhem as a result of the previous day’s costume marathon. The earlier explosion of material, paint, and glitter was beginning to come together in costumes that were approaching Lani’s designs.

Lani and I had become best friends years before, when she designed costumes for Elliott’s first junior theater group. I’d made the mistake of thinking that since I’d sewn one Halloween costume, I could handle being on a costume committee. Little did I know that the more experienced stage moms signed up right away to fill the volunteer slots for ushering and backstage monitoring—the costume committee required real work and long hours of measuring, fitting, sewing, and glue-gunning fake baubles onto anything from princess dresses in Cinderella to Egyptian tombs in Aida.

My dad was still sleeping and I needed advice, so I texted Lani. You up?

Yep, she texted back. Call if you want.

I told her the whole story, grateful that she totally backed me up about confronting Benson.

“I would’ve punched him in the nose.” Her indignation on my behalf made me feel momentarily better.

“You aren’t far off.” I filled her in on Quincy’s one-sided fight and Yollie’s visit.

She was quiet for a minute. “Oh man, that’s tough,” she said. “I guess you have to suck it up and apologize. I bet he’ll come around if you throw around words like ‘creative genius’ and not understanding his ‘creative process.’”

“Shoot,” I said. “You’re right.”

“I’ll be over soon to pick up a few costumes,” she said. “You can practice falling on your sword.”

“Have you met the goats yet?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No!” she said. “But I’m willing to put these costumes aside for a visit.”

“Let’s go see them when you get here,” I said.

Ten minutes later, Lani arrived on her bright pink Schwinn cruiser with a flowered basket on the front. She bounced the bicycle up the porch steps and leaned it against the wooden rail.

“How are you going to take costumes home on that?” I asked.

She slid off her pink backpack that she’d decorated with painted flowers, and held it up in a “Ta-Da!” fashion. “They’ll squish in.” Then she took a deep dramatic sniff. “I smell coffee.”

I reached for a Meowio travel mug with paw prints running across it from behind the rocking chair and handed it to her. “Bless you, my child,” she said and took a sip. Lani suffered from chronic indigestion and her wife Piper was a pediatrician who didn’t allow coffee in their house because it sometimes caused a flare-up. As a fellow caffeine addict, I understood that the risks sometimes outweighed the costs, especially where coffee was concerned.

We were on our way to the farm when we saw Joss and Kai walking toward us with the goats on leashes. The goats didn’t know what to make of that, pulling this way and that, and getting the leashes tangled around their legs. Their bleating sounded like complaining today.

“That looks fun,” I said when we were close enough to talk. “I never knew goats could be leash trained.”

“They can,” Kai said. “But it’s going to take a lot of work.” She looked up at her dad, as if assigning the job to him. “Did I tell you that Percy and Pegasus are Nigerian Dwarf goats? My mom thought they were Nubian goats, but they’re Nigerian goats. When they get bigger, we’re going to milk them and make cheese. Isn’t that cool?”

It was so cute how earnest ten-year-old girls could be. “That is definitely cool. I love goat cheese.”

“And they’re really smart too,” she said. “I’m going to teach them tricks!”

Lani dropped down to sit on the ground and both goats climbed on her. “Oof,” she said, as Pegasus jumped off and caught her in the side. Then he gently butted his head against her as if to apologize. “It’s okay. You’re just a baby, aren’t you? Trying to figure out how all of those legs work.”

Percy seemed to take to the leash better. He crawled right into Lani’s lap, curled up and put his head on her knee as if going to sleep.

“I think Percy needs a nap,” I said, and reached down to pet him behind his floppy ears.

“He likes cozy things,” Kai said. She bent over to gently scold him. “Percy, it’s time to go. You need your exercise.”

Kai was as cute as the goats.

* * * *

Yollie texted me right at eleven and I came outside to join her in her car, trying not to feel like a teenager who was being forced to apologize for something that was not my fault.

Tension seemed to radiate from Yollie’s body, as if she still wasn’t sure this was the right move. I didn’t bother with small talk, worried that anything I said would make her blow up.

She parked in Benson’s ten-minute parking zone, the car jerking to a stop as her nerves got the best of her. “Sorry,” she said, and took a deep breath.

Her agitation was contagious, and I had to force my shoulders to relax as we walked up to Benson’s house. Clouds had moved in, getting darker gray as the day wore on. While everyone was hoping for the first major rainfall of the season, I couldn’t help but think of them as an omen.

Yollie took the lead and knocked on the door.

No answer. She knocked again and I felt a wave of relief when no one answered.

“Well, that’s anticlimactic,” I said.

She frowned.

Okay, I got it. No joking allowed. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m nervous.”

She didn’t respond.

“Should we try the garage?” I asked.

She tipped her head, listening for music, but the garage was silent. “I guess. It doesn’t seem like he’s practicing.”

We walked down the driveway, the scuffling of the leaves now just sounding sad. The sky blue door seemed to beckon us, like a candy house in a fairy tale.

I smelled a whiff of rotten eggs and ignored it at first. Then the scent grew too strong not to say something. “Is that gas?” I asked.

Yollie nodded. “Natural gas, right?”

We stuck our noses in the air like bloodhounds, trying to track down where it was coming from. The scent grew even stronger as we moved closer to the garage.

“Is it going to blow up?” I asked.

She looked uneasy. “The concentration has to be crazy high to do that,” she said. “I called the gas company once when we had a small leak and they told me that.”

We stopped and eyed each other nervously, the smell of gas a clear warning. “This seems pretty concentrated,” I said, wanting to hold my nose and run away.

“What if he’s in there?” she asked. “That can’t be healthy.”

I reached for the doorknob.

“Stop!” she said quickly. “What if the door makes a spark?”

My heart raced. “I don’t think that’s the way it works.” I might have been trying to convince myself. “Okay.” I pointed down the driveway. “You go down there and call 911. According to one online video I’ve seen, a cell phone can start a fire.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’ll go peek in there and see if he’s okay.” The idea of Schrödinger’s cat popped into my head. Right now that blue door was Schrödinger’s door. We didn’t know if anyone was even inside the garage, let alone affected by the gas.

Yollie ran halfway down the driveway and pulled out her phone. After listening to the message, she clicked a button, which sounded cartoonishly loud. “Hi, I’d like to report a gas leak.”

I ever so slowly turned the door knob, the creak it made sending me into a tizzy. An intense smell of gas swooshed over me as I pulled open the door.

Two feet in black biker boots that I recognized were splayed on the floor. They were connected to two legs, and the rest of Benson.

“He’s in here!” I said. “Hold the door for me!”

She took a few steps toward me, and then stopped to throw her phone to the ground before running back to me. She held the door open with one foot, straining to see inside. “Hurry! That gas smells awful!”

He was face down but it was definitely Benson. I grabbed him by the ankles, pulling him as fast as I could outside, his head bumping on the one step to the driveway while Yollie held the door open. I pushed aside the thought that his face would definitely be bruised.

Yollie searched for something to prop the door open, her head turning back and forth wildly, but there was nothing close enough for her to reach. She let it close and squinched up her face as it met the doorjamb. I realized I was mirroring her expression.

I breathed a sigh of relief as she came to help me. “Turn him over!” Her voice was urgent.

I followed her orders, and she grabbed him under his arms as we awkwardly made our way down the driveway. “He’s bleeding!” she said.

We shuffled away from the garage as fast as we could while carrying his full weight. I made the mistake of looking down at him. His shirt was soaked with blood.

I heard sirens approaching and felt a wave of relief that everything would be okay.

Then the air around us seemed to contract and my heart stopped.

The garage blew up in a flashing burst of light and the loudest boom I’d ever heard, and the sky blue door hurtled toward us.