Zero at the Bone by Michael Cadnum Read Free Book Online Page B

gave him a look, a shake of my head: I don’t know.
    â€œI get an answering machine,” said Dad. “I call American Shelf and Filing and I get a machine to talk to.” He said this like it was an outrage he was bearing with as much patience he could muster.
    â€œIt’s good they have an answering machine,” I said. “The phone could just keep on ringing. You wouldn’t like that.” Maybe I was taking Anita’s part, without thinking much about it. “Paula stays out to three sometimes.” I said it like this—not till three. Maybe I was signaling to everyone by speaking a little clumsily that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
    My mother turned her head in my direction.
    Paula had claimed to have stayed out with guys with motorcycles and Romanian accents, including one man years older than Paula who built skyscrapers, driving rivets. His favorite expression was “Don’t look down,” in a foreign language I had never heard of.
    â€œLast year I didn’t get home until two-thirty that time,” I said.
    â€œI remember,” said Mom, giving her words special weight.
    â€œYou both go to bed,” Dad said.
    Mom started to speak and he shook his head, and that was all anyone could say.
    â€œI wasn’t home until almost three o’clock that time,” I said.
    â€œYou got on the phone,” said Dad. “Oliver had a flat tire, and you called us twice, telling us you were okay.” Merriman and I had gone to San Jose to see a hockey game, and it took us half an hour just to find the jack.
    I had always wondered when Anita would do something like this. I had been expecting it in the back of my mind. Someday, I had come to believe, she would stay up all night and come home drunk. Or too happy, eyes bright with what Dad always referred to as Some Sort of Drug. As in: I think some of the people in the finishing room are on Some Sort of Drug.
    She had gotten good grades, except in math, returned her library books on time, learned to drive in about half an hour one Saturday afternoon. She had been too good, in the way kids are said to be good kids. It was time. Anita had finally decided to have a wild night, and I couldn’t really blame her.
    But my parent’s tenseness ate at me, even when I went back up to my room. I wanted Anita to come home, say she was sorry, give a normal excuse, and then we could all go to bed, after Dad got over his speech about responsibilty, fumed a little, paced around for a while, and finally gave her a hug.
    And I was afraid in a part of me that could not hear my own inner lecture. I lay down in the dark and tried to trust my parents to deal with this. I tried to trust Anita, too. She had kept her own address book since she was thirteen. Computers, Spanish verbs—it all came easily to her.
    So I knew she would be all right.

9
    An engine started up outside, a beefy rumble.
    It was still dark out. I got up in time to see Dad’s white Jeep veer out of the driveway. Gears clanked. The two headlights illuminated the sprawling junipers in the front yard while Dad pumped the clutch, trying to shift. Our front yard was in good shape. A man from Green Planet Garden Service dropped by to touch it up once a week. Round stepping-stones led out into the middle of the lawn.
    We have three cars, a twelve-cylinder Jaguar, a vintage MG, and the noisy Jeep. Each car is fun, and each has something wrong with it. We have money—a cabin at Tahoe, raw land on the north coast. But my dad’s life is crammed with projects.
    As Dad found first gear and accelerated, I caught a glimpse of his profile, portable telephone held to his ear. I could picture my dad following his plan, step by step. First, visit the place where Anita worked. There would be a night crew, security guards. Maybe Anita was still there, so involved in her work she couldn’t turn her head to look at the clock.
    Then he would cruise the BART