The Shadow of Seth Read online

  It was the last day of September, but the air was still warm. I threw the keys to Azura and jumped down to the beach. She followed. We climbed up the nearest pile of concrete and sat facing the rhythmic waves.

  “You come here a lot?”

  “I come here. Cars drive by, but no one seems to ever stop, so you get the beach all to yourself.”

  “You bring many girls down here?”

  “Me? Nah. I’m more of a loner.”

  Azura laughed. “A what?”

  I didn’t repeat the word, since it didn’t seem to work too well the first time.

  Azura said, “That why I don’t see you much at school?”

  “What are you talking about? I go.”

  “Yeah, but I never see you at games. Or dances.”

  I broke off a bottlecap-sized piece of concrete and handed it to Azura. “You get right to it, don’t you? That stuff is not really my thing.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Too many phonies, I guess.”

  She laughed. A rough laugh with that rough voice of hers. “You should come with me to Janine’s party this Friday. We get all the phonies in one big room.”

  “Sounds awesome. You see that piling sticking out of the water? I’ll give you fifty bucks if you can land your rock on it.”

  She stood up, trying to balance on the uneven surface. She put her left hand on my shoulder for support, leaning her legs against me. Her body was warm. She threw. Her bit of concrete hit the top of the piling and bounced into the water.

  “Pay up.”

  “No, no, no. You only hit it. You didn’t land on it.” I stood next to her and threw. My rock missed the piling altogether.

  She said, “I did better than you, though. That should be worth something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Go to the party with me.”

  “No way.”

  That bottom lip came out again. “Then answer a question.”

  “Depends on the question.”

  “What are your parents like? Start with your mom.”

  “My mom? Man, you really are nosy.”

  “I am. Always have been. I hate small talk.”

  “But you like the phonies.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Describe your mom to me.”

  “Can’t we talk about something else? Ask me my favorite color.”

  “C’mon.” She sat down like it was story time.

  I sat down next to her, wondering what she was going to think of me, wishing I had a different story to tell. “All right. My mom’s forty-nine percent free spirit and fifty-one percent cleaning lady.”

  “Be serious,” said Azura, sticking out her bottom lip.

  “That was serious, Miss Nosy. Those are the two sides of Mom’s personality. At night, she cleans a handful of buildings for the same low-paying clients. And she does it without fail. She takes cleaning seriously. She’s good at it. Too bad she isn’t good at being a stockbroker or something that pays better. But she is good at cleaning. The rest of the time, she’s way harder to pin down.”

  “Your mom sounds complicated. But you haven’t really told me much, other than what she does. Tell me what she’s like.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then how about your dad?”

  “My who?”

  “What’s your dad do?”

  “You ever notice how people always ask, ‘What’s your mom like?’ But with Dads, they say, ‘What’s your dad do?’ Doesn’t matter, though. I don’t have a dad. See, my mom is a cleaning lady. It’s her job to keep everything immaculate. Even my conception.” Azura just looked at me. “That was a joke,” I said, “but I really don’t have a dad.”

  I wondered why Azura was so interested in me. But I liked that she was. I found myself telling her what I’d rarely told anyone. Mom had been a teenage runaway from Spokane. She’d followed a cute college boy back to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma when his Spokane summer job ended. That boy dumped Mom when school started, but not before he’d introduced her to a visiting philosophy professor. Apparently, the professor had used his philosophy to justify having sex with a minor. Eve got pregnant and the professor suddenly ended his visit and disappeared. And there I was, the sixteen-year-old kid of a single, thirty-three-year-old mother.

  Now, once a month, a blue envelope arrived in the mail, never with a return address, usually with postmarks from one of three different cities: St. Louis; Pensacola, Florida; or Taos, New Mexico. The envelopes contained two hundred fifty dollars for rent, groceries, and basketball shoes, and a note.

  “He sends you money and writes you notes, but you don’t know who he is?”

  “I have no idea who he is.”

  “You always lived in the same place?”

  “No.”

  “Then how’s he know where to send the money and the notes?”

  “Don’t know. And they’re not regular notes. He just writes me questions. Riddles. When I was little, it was silly stuff like, ‘How many animals did Moses take on the ark?’”

  “How many?”

  “Serious? Zero. Noah had the ark. Moses had the ten commandments.”

  “Wow. That’s a really dumb joke. And kind of a cold note.”

  “I just got an envelope today. This time the note said, ‘The world is dirty. So what’s the point of staying clean?’”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Sounds like a sweet guy. He’d get along great with my dad.”

  “Yeah, what about your dad? What’d he do to get that rich?”

  “You want to know what he does, not what he’s like?”

  “No. I want to know what he did.”

  “He just had to be born. But now he’s an investment banker, whatever that means.”

  “It means money. That’s enough.”

  “Maybe for you it is. Not for me.”

  “That’s because you have so much.”

  She sighed, then broke off her own chunk of concrete and threw it into the water, this time aiming at nothing. “Now we’re supposed to either get into a conversation about how I should be happy because I’m rich, or that money doesn’t buy happiness, right?”

  “Go for it.”

  “I like having money, if that’s what you’re asking. But—never mind.”

  “Never mind what?”

  Azura broke off another chunk of concrete and threw it at the piling. She hit it square on the top, even from her seated position. “You should totally be paying me for my throwing skills.”

  “I can’t afford to. I’m poor, remember?”

  “Yeah. Let’s talk about you. When you’re not in school, what do you do?”

  “I keep busy. I run errands for some of Mom’s customers, like Nadel.”

  “Who?”

  “Nadel of Nadel’s House of Clocks. The guy fixing your old clock. Known him since I was a baby. Closest thing to a grandfather I have, I guess. I also cook a little bit at Shotgun Shack. You ever eaten there? No. I’m sure you haven’t.”

  “You know how to cook?”

  “I do. What can I get you? Fried chicken, perhaps?”

  “Sounds kind of good right now. Are you going to be a chef someday?”

  “Never thought about it. Just because I like it doesn’t mean I want to do it for a job.”

  “But you do it for a job now.”

  “Yeah, but not much of one. I do it as much for fun as for money. I like cooking. The precision of it. I like being precise. And I spar, too.”

  “Spar?”

  “I box. I work as a sparring partner for some of the boxers ChooChoo manages.”

  “You any good?”

  “Compared to who? I’m not pro good, but I bet I could
kick your butt. You wanna try it?” I punched her playfully on the chin, but she flinched and did not laugh. I wondered if she’d been hit before. I went in for a clinch and soon both my fists were behind her back, unclenching and pulling her close. She let me, for a second, then started play-punching me again. I laughed. That laugh felt good, but it felt temporary, too. What was I doing here with Azura? There was no way this rich girl had room for me in her life. Maybe for a day—a week, tops—but that was it. Then she’d get distracted by some shiny thing and leave me in her designer dust.

  All this played through my brain, fighting against the soft scent of Azura’s perfume. I pulled back. “Look, I got some stuff I gotta do. And you should probably get back home before Daddy calls the National Guard.”

  Azura frowned. “You’ve got stuff? Are you serious?”

  “I should go.”

  “Then let me drive you.”

  “I can walk.”

  “Did something just happen that I missed?”

  “I’m gonna go.”

  “We just met this morning, so why do I feel like we just broke up?”

  I didn’t answer, but I jumped down from the concrete pile and started walking east along the beach. I didn’t turn around, because I didn’t want to see the look on her lovely face—sad, pissed, happy, or heartbroken.

  It was a long walk home. When I got there, it took me an hour to fall asleep.

  Four

  I awoke at three a.m. when a huge hand shook me gently by the shoulder. It took half a minute to wake-up enough to realize that ChooChoo was kneeling next to me, quietly whispering my name. His gentleness scared me.

  “Y’ gotta come downstairs,” he said. His wet eyes caught the tiny bits of light in the room.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your mom. She’s—”

  “She’s what?”

  “Dead. In her car. Out front.”

  I quickly pulled on some clothes and stumbled after ChooChoo through the dark gym. I could see colored lights flashing through the front windows. Blue meant police. Red meant ambulance.

  Mom’s jeep was parked crookedly along the curb. Her body was inside, slumped over the steering wheel. Three police cars and an ambulance had blocked off MLK. Bright bursts of light illuminated the scene. I slowly realized they were from a camera held by a cop taking pictures of the scene inside the car, his camera flash going off like lightning. I vaguely heard the crackly police radio voices, reciting numbers and words. ChooChoo waved a weak hand and a plainclothes cop walked over to us, but I couldn’t focus my eyes enough to see him clearly.

  “I’m Detective Carlyle,” the cop said. “You must be Seth.” Carlyle spoke in a soft, lazy voice that he probably thought sounded comforting. “Sorry about your mom.”

  I barely heard him. I brushed past him to the driver’s side of the Jeep. I pushed the photographer out of the way and pulled the door open. Then I stopped because I didn’t know what to do next. Mom was still in her cleaning clothes—a men’s white shirt and her old blue Dickies. I touched her hand. It was cold. I wanted to lift her head up from her awkward position, but I didn’t want to see her face, now that the life was gone out of it. It wasn’t my mom in that car. It was a ghoul and I didn’t want to look at it anymore.

  Detective Carlyle came over and made sure the photographer and police were done. They pulled Mom’s body out of the car and onto a stretcher, covered it with a blanket, and slid it into the ambulance. I watched through the fingers I held over my eyes. Carlyle turned to me. “Did your mom have any health problems you know about?”

  I barely managed a shrug.

  “Did she use drugs?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Carlyle rubbed his eyes and stared toward the closing ambulance doors. “Look, we don’t need to talk about this anymore right now. I’ll connect with you again tomorrow. But you shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “Not like this, you’re not. I’m serious. You need to be with someone.”

  “Okay okay.”

  He turned to talk to ChooChoo and I noticed that tears were streaming down the big boxer’s face. Not down mine. Crying didn’t make sense to me. None of this did.

  Mom’s keys were still in the ignition. I jumped in the Jeep and slammed the door. Carlyle reached for the door handle, but I locked the car, then drove up on the sidewalk to get around the police cruisers. Carlyle’s sleepy eyes followed me as I drove by him. A uniformed cop began running toward me, but Carlyle grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.

  I had nowhere to go, but I wasn’t looking for a destination. I just wanted to get away from that scene. I drove without direction, only occasionally registering a familiar landmark. Dock Street, sailboats, the Spar Tavern. I finally found myself on Carr Street and its beautiful Old Town homes with their water views. Mom had cleaned many of those homes over the years. Now she was dead and these rich people would never notice. And if they did, they wouldn’t give a damn.

  The world had tipped and it felt like I was sliding off the edge. I didn’t know what to feel about Mom. Was I supposed to miss her or be mad at her? I was used to both situations. She was letting me down again. She was gone. She was dead and I didn’t even know how she died. Was I heartbroken? Should I weep or curse? I pulled over to the nearest curb and turned off the engine. I leaned against the steering wheel, then pulled back as if it was electrified. The last thing to lean against that wheel was my mom’s corpse. I jumped out of the car and slammed the door.

  I found I’d parked in front of Azura’s house. I’d needed someone and ended up at Azura. It was four a.m., but I walked up to the porch and knocked loudly on the door. I didn’t care if I woke the whole house. An upstairs window lit up, then another. I heard a mile of footsteps before the front door opened.

  The maid stood there, tying the belt of her robe. She said nothing, but I could see the confusion in the wrinkles of her forehead. Why was this delivery boy here in the middle of the night? Before she could say a word, she was pushed out of the way by a man who must have been Mr. Lear, Azura’s father.

  “What in God’s name?” For someone who’d just rolled out of bed, his silver hair looked great. But red was showing through the tan of his face.

  “I need to talk to Azura,” I said.

  “Not tonight, you don’t. Who are you?”

  “Could you just get her for me?”

  “You need to leave before I call the police.”

  I thought about leaving. I thought about pushing my way inside. Then I heard more footsteps. The father turned and told someone to go back to bed. I heard Azura’s sleepy voice asking what was going on.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” Mr. Lear said. Azura saw me, then rushed past her father, grabbed my arm, and ran with me down to the Jeep, while Mr. Lear shouted behind us.

  We drove back to Ruston Way. While I was driving, Azura kept asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t make the words come out. Finally, I stopped the car and told her what had happened. She said nothing, but her arms opened and I fell into them. I pretty well soaked her in tears.

  “Seth?” Azura’s voice finally broke our silence. “Do you want to tell me now?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About her.”

  I was quiet for ten seconds then whispered, “Sometimes she was around. Sometimes she was gone all day. Sometimes she was sober. Sometimes she was so happy that she danced up and down the stairs to our apartment. And then sometimes she was so blue that she couldn’t pull her head up from the couch cushions.”

  “Seth—”

  “No. Listen. When I was in grade school, she’d show up for parent-teacher conferences halfway through or not at all. I got so sick of missing the conferences that I just started going on my own, from about fourth grade on. I’d come home angry from the conference and
she’d wonder what I was so mad about. ‘Oh honey,’ she’d say, ‘I was just living in the moment. You’ve got to learn to live in the moment.’ I hated those words. ‘Hey, Mom. How about, if every now and then, you tried living in one of my moments?’ And then, just when I was about to commit to hating her forever, she’d take me on a weekend up to Seattle and we’d stay in a waterfront room at the Edgewater and eat piroshki and dim sum from Pike Place Market and see a movie on the big screen at the Cinerama and then go out to a fancy restaurant just for dessert and it would be magical and I would totally love her.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “Sure. Then I’d hate her again when I found out that our weekend burnt through all the money for the entire month. ‘Don’t worry,’ she’d say, with that wobbly-headed smile of hers. ‘It’ll all work out. You just need to learn to live in the you-know-what.’”

  “What’s a wobbly-headed smile?” asked Azura. “I don’t know what that looks like.”

  “Sure you do. Old people have it. Or people with Parkinson’s. Shaky people. Shaky old ladies who look at you and smile while their bobble heads are bobbling around.”

  “She had Parkinson’s?”

  “She had shaky.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Young. Seventeen years older than me. So, uhh, thirty-three. She looked older than that most days. Her name is—was—Eve and she had thick black hair that was usually tied up in a knot on top of her head.”

  “That must be who you get your hair from. Yours kind of piles up on your head, too, Was she tall?”

  “I’d say she’s about five-six.”

  “Then your dad must be tall, because you’re what—six one?”

  “Five feet eleven-and-a-half. ‘A fingernail shy of six feet,’ Mom used to say.”

  “You look taller. How tall’s your dad?”

  I ignored the question. “Mom was pretty when she didn’t look tired. Maybe even beautiful. The skin was always dark around her eyes—partly from being Italian, but partly from the way she lived. And her hands looked way older than the rest of her. Dry and cracked around the knuckles from all those years of dipping them in bleach water. And she was always doing this thing with her tooth.”