Chapter 15

"Okay, kiddo—try not to kill us. Your mom will be pissed at me if you do."

Erica had asked Will to drive her to the mall, but her true intention had been to talk him into letting her take the wheel of the BMW. On the way to the mall, he had steadfastly refused, but an hour of shopping had worn him down sufficiently to give in, which had probably been her plan all along. On the way out of the mall, he had tossed her the keys, and now he strapped himself into the passenger seat of his own car, which was an entirely unnatural feeling.

"Don't worry, Uncle Will. Dad let me drive the old truck a bunch of times, and I never put a scratch into it." Erica adjusted the seat to fit her much smaller frame, and then fiddled with the mirrors until they were set to her satisfaction.

"Yeah, well, with that piece of junk it didn't really matter," Will grinned. "There were so many scratches and dents in that thing, it was a wonder they gave us anything in trade. They probably had to spend more than they allowed for trade-in credit to make it look like a car again."

They drove out of the parking lot onto the busy intersection in front of the mall, and Will was pleased to see that Erica checked her mirrors and used her turn signals like a veteran driver. It looked like Bob's instruction had been thorough, and Will relaxed a little when they made it through the intersection without incident.

"Student driver, pardon me! Student driver, coming through!" Erica chanted, mimicking a swerve through traffic without actually turning the wheel.

"Very funny. Watch for your on-ramp over there," Will said.

"You mean the one with the big blue sign that says 'I-40'?" she said, and changed into the proper lane.

"That'd be the one. Remember to step on it and merge at highway speed. Don't stop at the top of the on-ramp—if you run out of space, you can always accelerate in the breakdown lane if you have to. Better to do that than to get rear-ended at sixty miles an hour."

She accelerated as instructed, and Will gave her an encouraging nod.

"Little faster. You have over two hundred ponies under the hood. Let 'em stretch their legs some."

Erica did as instructed, and the BMW leapt forward as she pushed down on the gas pedal.

"Whee," she said when they had reached the top of the on-ramp, and safely merged into the afternoon traffic.

"Yeah, it'll get out of its own way," Will agreed. "You can hit ninety in a flash and not even realize it, because the ride is so smooth. I've collected a nice sample of speeding tickets in this thing."

"I bet," she said. "Probably not a good idea for a first car, huh?"

"Definitely not a good idea for a first car."

"At my school, there are a few of these in the parking lot every day," she said. "In the student parking lot. One of the seniors even has a brand new Corvette."

Will shook his head in disgust.

"Stupid, stupid. A car like that, for a sixteen-year-old? That's just asking for trouble. Might as well hand them a bottle of bourbon and a loaded thirty-eight."

"Yeah, we have a bunch of seniors wrapping themselves around trees every year," Erica said. "I mean, a Corvette is a cool ride, but I'd rather not end up in one of those traffic safety videos, you know?"

Will looked at her and ruffled her hair gently.

"You're wise beyond your years, little niece. In ten years, you'll be driving the nice car, and Captain Corvette is either going to be in a coffin, or in a jail cell."

"Or making tons of money in his new job because his daddy paid his way through Harvard," Erica mused dryly, and Will snorted a laugh.

"Another cynic in the family. We seem to breed more than our share."

Later that day, it was Will's turn to be the student, when Claire took him to the shooting range.

When she had told him that she went there once or twice a month, he had asked her to bring him along. Will and Bob had grown up in downeast Maine, and guns were not an uncommon item there, but only Bob had retained their early interest in firearms. Will owned no guns; Bob had about a dozen rifles and pistols, including the old revolver their father had left behind when he had skipped town for the warmer shores of Florida. Their mom, ever the pragmatist, had sold or pawned every last one of their dad's possessions after it had become obvious that he wouldn't come back, but that old revolver had pulled night stand duty until both of them had left the house as adults, and most likely longer than that. Some years back, when Kate moved into her current condominium complex, she had given the old gun to Bob as a keepsake, the only material evidence that their father had existed.

Now, Will found himself in the booth at Lane Ten in the local gunstore-and-indoor range, taking instruction from Claire on how to use the two handguns she had brought.

As he watched, she reeled out a silhouette target to the floodlight spot marking seven yards. Then she took the small revolver she carried around in her purse, swung the cylinder out to verify its loaded status, snapped it back into the gun, and then took careful aim.

Her first shot hit the silhouette almost dead center, and he watched as she shot four more rounds into a tight cluster around the first one. He gauged the size of the group as she opened the cylinder again to dump out the empty cases, and he determined that he could have covered the holes in the paper with a silver dollar.

"That's pretty good," he said. "Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

"That's not all that great," she said with a smirk. "Some of the girls who come here on Ladies Night can do that at twenty-five yards all day long. At seven yards, they'll just make one ragged hole."

Claire handed him the revolver, cylinder opened, and gestured to the box of cartridges on the little tray in front of them.

"Your turn. Just remember the safety rules I told you earlier. Keep that finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot, and don't ever let that muzzle cover anything you're not willing to put a hole into."

"Got it," he said, and took the gun.

He hadn't held a handgun in fifteen years or more, and the weight and heft of it felt a bit foreign to his hand. The grip was made of smooth wood, with finger grooves that didn't quite line up with his fingers.

Claire watched him as he pointed the revolver at the target, lined up the sights, and then pulled the trigger. The recoil was surprisingly sharp, and the slick wood grip made the gun shift in his hand slightly. He put the sights back onto the target, and fired four more times. When he put the empty revolver down on the tray in front of him, Claire reached past him and hit the switch that reeled the target back in towards the booth.

"Not bad," she proclaimed. "All five in the center ring, and two in the orange even. You sure you haven't done this before?"

"A long time ago," Will said. "Our dad taught us to shoot out in the woods by our house in Maine when we were kids. Last time I fired a gun, I was maybe nineteen."

"It's like riding a bicycle," Claire said. "You may get rusty, but you don't forget the basic skills. I'll need to take you to the range with me more often, and you'll be a crack shot in no time."

"I don't expect to get into any gunfights any time soon," Will laughed. Claire picked up the revolver, opened the cylinder, and dumped the empty cases out with a practiced slap of her palm on the ejector rod. She gave Will an admonishing look.

"Nobody ever does, Will. Nobody ever expects to be in a car crash, either, but you still wear your seat belt, don't you?"

"Your neighborhood seems pretty safe, though."

"People rarely live where they work," Claire replied. "Criminals commute, too. Besides, I have an ex with a violent disposition and an ability to read. I have an unlisted number, but nobody can stay totally anonymous these days, not with the Internet and all that stuff. You can find damn near anyone if you know where to look. The other day, I found my name in a property tax document for Knox County. It was on their freaking web page as a PDF, right there for anyone to download."

She loaded the cylinder with fresh cartridges, smoothly filling the chambers one by one.

"I'm not spoiling for a fight, you know, but if that son-of-a-bitch comes looking for one, I won't roll over and let him kick me down the stairs again. Not in this lifetime."

When she snapped the cylinder shut again, the metallic sound seemed like an exclamation mark.

In the evening, they had dinner at the Liebkind house. It had become somewhat of a habit for them to go over to Bob's place for dinner at least twice a week. Claire usually volunteered to cook, and lately she had successfully circumvented Christa's protests by bringing fresh food items that were both highly perishable and beyond Christa's ability to cook them. This evening, Claire had once again stopped by at the seafood place, bringing home four rainbow trout complete with heads.

"Ew," Erica said as she watched Claire prepare them by dragging them through her self-concocted panade, heads and all. "Aren't you going to take the heads off at least?"

"Nope," Claire said. "You take them off with the spines just before you eat the fish. I'll show you how to do it. Plus, they look so much more appetizing when you leave them whole."

"I'm not sure I want to eat something that's still looking at me," Erica said. "I mean, cows probably feel more pain than fish when you kill them, but at least a steak doesn't have eyes."

Erica had greatly expanded her culinary horizons since Will had started bringing Claire home. Her former opposition to beef had wavered quickly in the face of Claire's ability to whip up gourmet dishes on short notice, and the other day, Will had caught her snatching a strip of uncooked bacon out of the fridge and snacking on it. She had disposed of the evidence by quickly sticking the remnant of the bacon strip into her mouth when she saw Will standing in the hallway, but he had flashed a knowing grin to let her know that she had been busted.

"You'll see," Claire said. She held up a trout by the tail and wiggled it in front of Erica before dropping it into the hot pan. "They taste awesome. So tender they fall apart on the fork."

"Did you get a quote on the wheelchair lift yet?" Will asked Christa when she walked into the kitchen.

"Oh. Oh! Better than that," she said, her eyes sparkling with sudden excitement. "Bob was actually walking a little bit on his own today."

"That's awesome," Will said, raising his voice on the last word to be heard about Erica's excited squeal. "And you don't come running through the door with the news?"

"Well, he was walking on one of those contraptions in rehab, where they hold one arm, and he pushes himself with the other on the handrail. He says he feels fine on the right side, but the left one is still totally out of commission, so he had to kind of do this shuffle where he was dragging the other foot, but he made it all the way along the rail."

"So they're saying he may not need a wheelchair?"

"If he keeps up his progress, they're saying he definitely won't need a wheelchair by the time he gets out," Christa said.

"That's fantastic news," Claire said, beaming with the rest of them.

"How's his speech? When I stopped by last week, he sounded like he'd had a fifth of bourbon and a knock on the head with a beer stein."

"Getting better every day. I can understand him a little better every time I'm there. Of course, that may just be my imagination, or the fact that I'm getting used to the way he's speaking."

"Hell," Will said with a smile. "If he can get it to where he only sounds like he's had half a fifth, nobody's going to be able to tell the difference."

After dinner, Will stepped out in front of the house for some fresh February air, braving the cold concrete and sitting on the front step of Bob's home just like he had done at Thanksgiving. As he sat, nursing his drink and watching the occasional car drive down the cul-de-sac, he heard the front door open behind him. When someone stepped out and walked up to sit next to him, he expected Claire, but it was Erica who joined him on the front step, soda can in her hand.

"Hey, kiddo," he said, and she smiled at him in reply. He held up his bottle of Shiner Bock, and she touched it with her Diet Pepsi.

"Cheers," he said.

"Can I ask you something?" Erica asked.

"Sure thing."

"When did you have your first girlfriend?"

He chuckled and turned the bottle in his hands to look at the label.

"My first girlfriend? Probably that girl in summer camp, back when I was twelve. Rebecca was her name."

"No, I mean your first real girlfriend. I mean like, heartbreak and drama kind of girlfriend. The first one you made it past first base with."

"Hey," Will said, eyeing his niece warily. "Are you sure you want to be talking about this kind of stuff with your uncle?"

"Oh, don't worry, Uncle Will," she smiled, and patted his arm. "I don't want to know the sordid details. I'm just curious. How old were you?"

"Fifteen," he said after a moment of deliberation. "Natalie Cimiotti. She lived on the other side of Bangor, over by West Broadway in one of those huge Victorian places. Her mother didn't like me at all, but I think that's precisely why she went out with me." He chuckled.

"Actually, 'going out' is a much too fancy term. I rode my bike across Bangor about a hundred times for our little dates. She'd sneak out to the drugstore a few streets from her house, and we'd make out in the back by the dumpster."

"Did you ever get caught?" Erica asked, and he shook his head.

"Nope, but I guess she got bored with me, because she dumped me after a month."

"Ouch," Erica said. "A month, huh?"

"Yeah, but what a month it was," he smiled.

"So ... how old were you when you first ... you know, did it?"

Will shot his niece a surprised look.

"Whoa, what's up with you tonight? I don't recall you ever broaching that subject. What's going on?"

She shifted uncomfortably on the front step, avoiding his gaze.

"Well, the thing is ... I'm sort of wondering whether I'm retarded in that respect, you know? I mean, I haven't even had a real boyfriend yet. Not even like your summer camp thing."

"You don't go to summer camp," he pointed out.

"Yeah, whatever. You know what I mean."

He smiled at her sudden coyness, and bumped her shoulder with his own.

"You're fifteen, kiddo. There's absolutely no rush when it comes to that stuff. Don't think for a second that you're abnormal just because you haven't kissed a boy yet."

"I've kissed a boy," she volunteered. "Maybe just a little more than just kissed."

Will gave her a scandalized look, and she blushed a little.

"Yeah, well, you disclosed your youthful indiscretions, too. If you tell mom or dad, I'll stop speaking to you for a year."

He made a zipper-across-the-mouth gesture, and she smiled grimly.

"There are some boys at your school that don't completely repulse you, huh?"

"No, most of them do. There's this one boy ... he moved here from Vermont last year, and we just kind of hit it off. He's not even in any of my classes. We met at soccer practice. Our coach has us play against boys every once in a while. She says they play differently, and that it'd make us better players if we can learn to hold our own against them."

Will nodded, and she brushed a strand of auburn hair behind her ear before continuing.

"Anyway, he's a really good player. When I play defensive midfield, he usually gets past me. When I do offensive, he can take the ball of my feet most of the time, even though I'm quicker than he is."

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A Bettered Life

Michael Lindgren

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