Lost Boys Part 2

"And who is that?"

"Firstborn child and first son of the Junk Man and the Fish Lady."

Of all his regular answers, that was her favorite, partly because the first time he ever said that, he had this sly little smile as if he knew he was intruding into grownup territory, as if he knew that his parents' pet names for each other were older than he was and in some sense had caused him to exist. As if he had some unconscious awareness that those names, even spoken in jest, had s.e.xual undertones that he couldn't possibly understand but nevertheless knew all about.

"And don't you forget it," she said cheerfully.

"I won't," he said.

"Mom," he said.

"Yes?"

"Please can't I stay home just a couple more days?"

She sighed. "I really don't think so, Stevie. But I'll talk to your dad."

"He'll just say the same thing."

"Probably. We parents are like that."

The worst moment was at breakfast on Monday. The kids were eating their hot cereal while Step was downing his Rice Krispies, looking over the newspaper as he ate. "This is almost as bad a newspaper as the one in Vigor," he said.

"You aren't going to get the Washington Post unless you live in Washington," said DeAnne.

"I don't want the Washington Post. I'd settle for the Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake is still a two-newspaper town, and here Steuben can't even support a paper that puts the international news on the front page."

"Does it have Cathy? Does it have Miss Manners? Does it have Ann Landers?"

"OK, so it has everything we need to make us happy."

There was a honk outside.

"They're early," said Step. "Do you think I have time to brush my teeth?"

"Do you think you could stand to get through the day if you didn't?"

He rushed from the table.

"Who's early?" asked Stevie.

"Your dad's car pool. For the first week or so one of the men from work is picking him up in the morning and bringing him home at night so we'll have the car to run errands and stuff."

Stevie looked horrified. "Mom," he said. "What about school?"

"That's the point. You'll be riding the bus after today, but your dad's carpooling so I'll have the car to take you to school."

"Isn't Dad taking me for my first day?"

Too late she remembered that when Stevie started kindergarten, she had still been recovering from Elizabeth's birth, and it was Step who took Stevie to his first day of school.

"Does it really matter which one of us takes you?"

The look of panic in his eyes was more of an answer than his whispered "No."

Step came back into the kitchen, carrying his attache case - his jail-in-a-box, he called it.

"Step," said DeAnne, "I think Stevie was expecting you to take him to school this morning."

"Oh, man," he said, "I didn't think." His face got that look of inward anger that DeAnne knew all too well. "Isn't it great that I've got this job so I can't even take my kid to school on his first day."

"It's your first day, too."

He knelt down beside Stevie's chair. Stevie was looking down into his mush. "Stevie, I should've planned it better. But I didn't, and now I've got this guy outside waiting for me and ..."

The doorbell rang.

"Geez louise," said Step.

"You've got to go," said DeAnne. "Stevie'll be all right, you'll see. Right, Stevie?"

"Right," said Stevie softly.

Step kissed Stevie on the cheek and then Betsy was saying "Me too me too" and he kissed both the other kids and then grabbed his case and headed for the front door.

DeAnne tried to rea.s.sure Stevie. "I'm sorry, but this is how your dad is earning the money we live on now, and he can't very well ..."

"I know, Mom," said Stevie.

"We'll head for school and you'll meet the princ.i.p.al and ..."

Step strode back into the kitchen. "I explained to him that we had a crisis and tomorrow he'll find me waiting on the curb for him, but today I'm going to be late. Got to take my son to second grade."

DeAnne was half delighted, half appalled. She knew perfectly well that in his own way, Step dreaded going back to an eight-to-five job as much as Stevie dreaded starting a new school. "This'll really impress 'em, Junk Man," she said, smiling grimly. "Missing your car pool and showing up late on your first day."

"Might as well get used to the idea that I'm a father first and a computer manual writer eighth."

"What comes between first and eighth?" asked Stevie, who was obviously delighted.

"Everything else," said Step.

"You'd better call," said DeAnne.

Step got on the phone and she knew at once that it wasn't working the way he had so glibly a.s.sumed it would.

"Bad," he said when he was done. "They have a staff meeting at eight-thirty and they were planning to introduce me there and everybody has sort of scheduled everything around my being there on time this morning."

"But now your ride is gone," DeAnne pointed out, trying not to be mean about it.

Step was kneeling by Stevie's chair again. "I can't help it, Door Man."

"I know," said Stevie.

"I tried," said Step. "But the family really needs me to keep this job, especially since we moved all the way to North Carolina so I could get it."

Stevie nodded, trying to look game about the whole thing.

"I do my job for the family," said Step, "and you do yours."

"What's mine?" asked Stevie. He looked hopeful.

"Toughing it out and going to school," said Step.

Apparently he had been hoping for an alternate a.s.signment. But he swallowed hard and nodded again. Then he thought of something. "How will you get there now that your ride is gone?"

"He'll fly," offered Robbie.

"No," said DeAnne, "that's your mother the witch who knows how to fly."

"I guess we'll all pile into the car together and you'll take me to work on the way to taking you to school."

"Couldn't you take me to school on the way to taking you to work?" asked Stevie.

"Sorry, Door Man," said Step. "That would be backtracking. Geography is against it. The clock is against it. All of time and s.p.a.ce are against it. Einstein is against it."

When they got to Eight Bits Inc., Step leaned into the back seat and kissed Stevie good-bye, and even though Stevie was well into the age where parents' kisses aren't welcome, this time he made no fuss. While Step was giving Robbie and Elizabeth the traditional noisy smack, DeAnne looked over the one-story red-brick building where Step was going to be spending his time.

It was one of those ugly flat-roofed things that businesses build when they have only so much money and they need walls and a roof. That was actually a good sign, because it suggested that the owner of the company had no delusions of being in the "big time," spending all the company's cash from the first hit programs on gewgaws that would mean nothing at all when slack times came. If only we'd been so careful, thought DeAnne, when the money from Hacker Snack started flowing in. Not that we spent it on nothing. A Ph.D. in history, that was something. And helping out family here and there. And a beta-format VCR for which they could not find rental tapes in Steuben, North Carolina.

"Bye, Fish Lady" said Step.

"Good luck, Junk Man," said DeAnne.

She watched him go into the building. He was striding boldly, almost jauntily. She liked the look of him, always had. He exuded confidence without ever looking as if he wanted to make sure everyone else knew how confident he was, like a salesman who had memorized a book on power walking. But this time she knew that, for once, his confidence was a lie. Just walking into this building spoke of failure in Step's heart, despite the fact that the top people at Eight Bits had been so impressed that Step Fletcher himself had actually applied for a job with them. The very fact that they were so impressed was really a symbol to Step of how far he had fallen-he was now working for the kind of company that would never have imagined they could get someone as accomplished in the field as he was.

"Am I going to be late, Mom?" asked Stevie.

Step was inside the building now, and there was no reason to wait. DeAnne put the car in gear and pulled off the shoulder, onto Palladium Road. "You were going to be late getting into cla.s.s no matter what," she said. "We have to go by the princ.i.p.al's office and sign you in."

"So I've got to walk in right in front of everybody," he said.

"Maybe the door will be in the back of the room," said DeAnne. "Then you'll be behind everybody."

"I'm not joking, Mom."

"It's scary, I know," she said. "But the princ.i.p.al is really nice, and I'm sure she's picked out a wonderful teacher for you."

"Can't I just meet the princ.i.p.al today and then come to school tomorrow at the regular time?"

.Stevie, the other kids are going to notice that you're new, no matter what. And if you just showed up tomorrow, how would you know where to sit? You'd end up standing there feeling like an idiot. By going in today, you'll get a seat a.s.signed to you right away and people will explain to you the things you need to know."

"Still."

"Stevie, there's a law that says we have to have you in school."

"Wow," said Robbie. "You could go to jail for letting Stevie stay home?"

"Not really. But we abide by the law in our family."

"Daddy doesn't," said Robbie. "He drives too fast all the time."

"Your father thinks the speed limits all mean 'give or take ten miles per hour."'

"Will they put Daddy in jail?" asked Robbie.

"No. But they might take his license away."

"They almost did once before, didn't they?" asked Stevie.

"Your father had a year of probation once," said DeAnne. "But it was before any of you kids were born. He really is an excellent driver, and he always drives safely." Not for the first time, DeAnne wondered whether Step would change his driving habits if he could actually hear how the kids noticed his speeding. It was hard enough teaching children right from wrong without having to include ambiguities, like laws that Daddy felt he didn't have to obey because he didn't speed fast enough to get tickets. She could see herself explaining to her kids when they got to be teenagers and started dating, Now, you're supposed to be chaste, which means that you can do whatever you want as long as you don't do anything that will get somebody pregnant. But Step couldn't-or wouldn't-see the relationship between traffic laws and the commandments. "Laws of men and laws of G.o.d are two different things," Step always said, "and our kids are all smart enough to know the difference."

Ah well. Marriage meant that you had to live with the fact that your spouse's foibles would rub off on the kids. She knew how it annoyed Step that the kids had inherited her att.i.tude toward shoes-they just couldn't keep them on their feet. Step was always walking into a room and either stepping on somebody's shoes, tripping over them, or-when he noticed them soon enough-placekicking them into the hall or putting them under the offender's pillow. "The difference between civilized people and barbarians," he would say, "is that civilized people wear shoes." Step had to live with barefoot barbarians, and DeAnne had to answer questions about why Daddy broke the law all the time. Not exactly a fair trade-she couldn't see that there were any moral implications to bare feet-but she lived with it, grumbling now and then, and so did he.

To get to Western Allemania Primary School you had to drive past the high school, also called Western Allemania. Yellow buses had been herded into a large parking lot, waiting for the end of the school day. What she liked least about sending Stevie to this school was that the little kids had to ride the same buses as the high-schoolers-and the drivers were high school students, as well. The idea of a seventeen-year-old having the responsibility for not only keeping all the children on the bus alive, but also maintaining discipline-well, what could she do? The princ.i.p.al had looked at her oddly and said, "Mrs. Fletcher, that's the way we do things in North Carolina."

She drove down the hill into the turnaround in front of the school. Before and after school the turnaround was reserved for buses-parents who were picking up their kids had to drive on a completely different road to a small parking lot at the top of a hill about two hundred yards from the school and wait for their kids. She pointed out the hill to Stevie as she was getting Elizabeth out of her booster seat. "Whenever I pick you up, you go up that stairway leading to the top of that hill. I'll be there for you."

"OK," said Stevie.

"And if something ever happened, like the car breaking down, and I'm not there, then you head right back down to the school and go straight to the princ.i.p.al's office and wait there until I come in and get you."

"Why can't I just wait up there?" asked Stevie.

"Because this isn't a safe world," said DeAnne. "And what if somebody comes to you and says, 'Your mother asked me to pick you up and take you home'?"

"I don't go with them."

"There's more to it than that, Stevie."

"I get away from that person right away and head straight for the nearest person in authority."

"At school that means Dr. Mariner. And if you're not at school?"

"If the person is following me then I don't hide, I run right out into the open, where there are the most people, and if he comes near me I scream at the top of my voice, 'He's not my father!' Or 'She's not my mother! Help me!"'

"Very good."

"I know all that, too," said Robbie.