Deadroads by Riopelle Robin

Author:Riopelle, Robin [Riopelle, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Deadroads
ISBN: 9781597805131
Publisher: Night Shade Books[Start]
Published: 2014-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Lutie watched Baz leave; he was out the door in seconds and Sol let him go. Lutie made to stand and Sol lifted his chin, looked her in the eye. “Leave it alone.”

He seemed on the verge of telling her she’d done enough, and that was true, was more than true, but Baz had been the one to seek her out, hadn’t he? He’d been the one to turn the key, get all this in motion. So what if he was unprepared for consequences, that wasn’t her fault. Whatever lay between these two, that wasn’t her fault either. She stayed seated while Sol slowly picked apart his sandwich.

“You didn’t talk to your father for four years?” He didn’t volunteer anything, this one, and she wanted to keep him off-guard, not ask the obvious. It seemed safer.

Sol looked at her before answering. “We didn’t agree on a lot of things.” Like that was an explanation.

“Why was he in jail?” Her eyes narrowed. “Was that why you cut him off?”

His eyelids flickered, and a smile crossed his face briefly. “What makes you think the not-talking was my idea?”

“You’re joking, right?”

A full smile, a real one, bitter as the bottom of a staff room coffeepot. But no response. She waited, finally chose a fry from her plate. They were stone cold. After a while, he called the waitress over and asked for the check. The waitress wondered if everything was all right, when any idiot could see it wasn’t, and then she asked if she should package Baz’s meal to go and Sol smiled in a way that Lutie was coming to realize meant its opposite. The answer was no, but he said yes to both things.

“It’s a long story, and Baz shouldn’t be alone.” He stared at her, empty-eyed, unreadable. “He doesn’t know what he can do, he doesn’t believe it.” He paused, was very still. “At least, not before today. You put him in a lot of danger.”

“And you know what he can do?” she asked, pointedly. “You’ve worked that out and decided not to let him know? You let him loose, and he calls up what he calls up—”

Sol let out a huff, maybe of shock, maybe anger. She could take whatever he dished out, though. “Calls up? Like, lining up a bunch of cooperative ghosts to be your own special lapdog? You used him.”

It stung, sure, but it was beside the point. “He sings, and more than ghosts come. You know that.” She shook her head slowly, like a disappointed school teacher. “I’m not the one putting him in danger.”

He considered her, and she didn’t know what was going on behind the calm eyes and the beard, and the pressed-together lips, all his masks. He paid and she let him, then grabbed the white plastic bag that contained a Styrofoam box filled with food that no one in their right mind was going to eat, and stood. Lutie followed him down the aisle, past the stupid records and the goofy prints of old cars, pulling on her coat and finding her tuque in the side pocket.

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