Only In His Sweetest Dreams(5)
“Right.” She dragged her gaze to Zack.
The young man cleared his throat. “I, um, spoke with the faculty and the judge, and, um, worked out a way for me to stay in school.” He rubbed a hand against his thigh. Sweating, not surprisingly, with the way the residents here resisted the cost of air conditioning. “I’ve, uh, written this apology.” He withdrew a folded envelope from his back pocket and offered it to Mercedes.
“Hardly sufficient,” Mrs. Garvey murmured in the background. “A letter doesn’t repair damage—”
“Oh, Ma’am, that wasn’t us,” Zack said.
“Did he just interrupt me?”
Mercedes turned to see Mrs. Garvey direct the question to Mrs. Yamamoto.
The board had taken their usual seats behind the table. Mrs. Garvey’s narrow cheeks flushed and she sat with her spine very straight, fully adopting what Mercedes privately thought of as her Stork On A Nest pose. Her gaze moved to the notebook in front of Mr. Dolinski. His pencil was poised but not moving, which seemed to displease her. Mrs. Yamamoto hunched over her knitting and Harrison leaned back, eyes closed, napping.
“Hooligan,” Mrs. Garvey muttered.
L.C. shifted, scraping his boot on the tiled floor.
Mrs. Garvey tensed and lifted her nose, but kept her gaze on the notebook, tapping the page. “Write down that due to the extensive damage to the duplex—”
“—that has been neglected for years,” Harrison murmured, rousing himself enough to open one eye at Mr. Dolinski. “Write down that I interrupted her, too.”
Mrs. Garvey made an impatient noise. “The windows were smashed, they left foul messages, and they intended to start a fire.”
“Don’t forget the sodomy they were planning, Edith.”
“Matches were found, Harrison.”
“Two of the guys smoke, Ma’am,” Zack said. He had his hands deep in the front pockets of his chinos. “No one was planning on starting a fire. I, uh, wasn’t planning on doing anything. Just some of the guys saw the hole in the fence and wanted to look around. I tried to stop them.”
Mrs. Garvey frowned at the notebook and said, “He’s wasting our time.”
“I don’t lie, Ma’am.”
Mercedes lowered the eloquent, seemingly sincere apology she’d been reading and walked it over to Harrison. He patted his chest and came up with his glasses.
Mrs. Garvey leaned forward to look past Mr. Dolinski to Harrison. “The police said they had all been reprimanded and the Dean expelled them for the semester.”
“That’s right, Ma’am, but the school is willing to let me finish out the year if I write a formal apology, serve community hours, and take care of the repairs to your building. I’d really like to do that, Ma’am. Finish the year.”
Mercedes felt something in her melt. She remembered her first community hours. The dollar-store earrings she had shoplifted had not been worth the six weeks of litter pick-up, making her forever averse to repeating that particular crime. Of course she’d wound up in a stolen car that other time, but she hadn’t stolen it. Those hours had been even more boring, working in an insurance office, taking calls and filing, but she’d come away with skills that had ultimately helped her on the job front. Serving hours worked for the right kids.
Still speaking to Harrison, Mrs. Garvey said, “In my day, we didn’t allow criminals off the hook by writing lines.”
“It was my idea, Ma’am,” Zack said. “Well, the repairs part. The Dean suggested a hundred community hours and that I serve them here.”
Yes. Mercedes mentally had him painting the main lounge, mowing the lawn, and reading the book club novel aloud before Mrs. Garvey could say, That’s absurd!
“That’s absurd! Let a jailbird into our homes?”
“Mrs. Garvey.” Mercedes forced a tight smile. “If it’s just the one incident, I’m sure he would appreciate the opportunity to turn himself around.”
Looking among the board members, Mrs. Garvey muttered, “I’d like to know if it is just the one incident.”
“Then why don’t you ask him?” L.C. scratched the stubble beneath his chin. “Rather than talking around him like he’s not here.”
Mrs. Garvey flared her nostrils. The rest of the board swung their gazes to Zack.
Please don’t help, Mercedes tried telegraphing to L.C., but only got a hello-there stare that slithered heat from behind her breastbone down to her pelvis. Her heart gave another skip of response and she jerked her gaze to Zack.
He shifted his weight, seeming uncomfortable.
“Is this the only time you’ve been in trouble with the police, son?” Harrison asked.
“Well, there was this one other time—”
“Why in hell would you bring that up?” L.C. asked.
“Language,” Mrs. Garvey murmured, touching the broach on her sweater.
“I just told them I don’t lie.” Zack waved his hand at the board.
“It didn’t count,” L.C. said.
“Now we’re playing horseshoes. How could an arrest not ‘count’?” Mrs. Garvey asked Mrs. Yamamoto.
Mrs. Yamamoto set her knitting in her lap and tilted her head questioningly at Zack.
“He was trying to take the rap for his old man,” L.C. explained.
“Oh, jeez!” Zack rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “You’re supposed to just look at the repairs with me, all right? I don’t need your help with this.”
“Apparently you don’t need help at all,” L.C. said. “Sounds to me like they’ve made up their minds and don’t want anything fixed.”
Zack’s sigh rang with impatience.
Mercedes’s feelings of affinity for the young man grew. She knew exactly how it felt to parent one’s parent. She was just about to go to bat for Zack, despite his convict father, when Zack spoke again.
“Look, that first incident was a big misunderstanding. Dad was accused of something he didn’t do and I— Well, I can give you the name and phone number of the officer involved. He’s my stepdad now.”
“He was only aspiring in that direction when he arrested me,” L.C. drawled. “Which had more than a little to do with why he cuffed me.”
Harrison snorted. Mr. Dolinski scratched his upper lip. Mrs. Yamamoto lifted her knitting so she could titter behind it.
Mrs. Garvey frowned. “I don’t follow.”
Mercedes knew that could be the kiss of death for Zack. He’d come so far, too.
She opened her mouth to plead his case but a huge noise, like a redwood coming through the wall, crashed in the next room. A high-pitched scream trailed it.
The kids!
Chapter 3
Mercedes bolted out the door, cursing herself for being no better than her sister when it came to those kids, but she was just an aunt. She didn’t know the first thing about being a mother and— Oh, God. Blood.
The armchair was on its side along with the side table, the wooden legs of both in the air. One leg had broken off the table, revealing a bent nail.
Ayjia clutched her chin. Scarlet stained her fingertips while tears rolled down her cheeks and frightened sobs shook her skinny little body.
“What happened?” Mercedes knelt and Ayjia allowed her hand to be drawn away long enough for Mercedes to wince at the sight. “Did that nail cut your chin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dayton, what happened?” Mercedes asked.
He shrugged and scowled. “I dunno.”
Above her she heard a feminine gasp. “Mercedes, why are these children here?”
“My sister was delayed.” Mercedes used her most cheerful, Everything Is Normal voice. “Ayjia needs the first aid room.” Scooping the girl onto her hip, she said to Dayton, “Could you pick up the crayons for me?”
“Where are you going?” Dayton’s brows came together.
“Just down the hall.” Mercedes pointed, staying focused on Dayton so she wouldn’t have to meet the gaze of her employers, pretending she couldn’t hear Mrs. Garvey muttering to Mrs. Yamamoto.
“I specifically asked her if this would turn out like last Christmas. She said it wouldn’t, but she’s used all her vacation time. What are we going to do?”
Dayton glared at Mercedes with betrayal for suggesting leaving him in a roomful of strangers, while Ayjia sobbed and tucked her head into Mercedes shoulder, leaving a hot, wet patch. Mercedes didn’t dare look to see what damage her bloody chin was doing to the white blouse she’d borrowed from Porsha’s closet for this meeting.
“I’ll leave the door open,” Mercedes told Dayton. “Bring everything in when you’re done.”
“I’ve got it,” Zack said, bending to scoop crayons. “He can go with you.”
Dayton gave Zack a dark look and edged toward Mercedes.
“Thank you.” Mercedes smiled, definitely wanting to help that young man. Of course, that’d be a little tricky if she lost her job. Not that she was willing to get into that right here and now. How lousy a person did it make her that she was relieved to have an injury to deal with, so she could motor down the hall and avoid a confrontation with Mrs. Garvey and the rest of the board?
The first aid room was cooler than the rest of the building since the door was left closed and it lacked windows. Mercedes sat Ayjia on the counter and touched her chin, drawing her attention off the jar of cotton swabs and up, revealing the cut.