Surface Tension by Mike Mullin

Author:Mike Mullin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939100276
Publisher: Tanglewood
Published: 2018-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

39

Betsy

A couple of days after the debacle on the Fall Creek Trail, Father comes home from work early. He’s got something of a grin on his face. Just the corners of his mouth are turned up, but for him that’s Cheshire Cat territory. It’s not the fact that I’ve got his favorite breakfast, a ham-and-cheddar omelet, keeping warm in the oven. He hasn’t seen that yet. Maybe he smelled it?

“What’s got you so happy?” I ask.

He gives me a sharp look, but the grin comes back almost immediately. “That problem we had? It’s pretty much fixed.”

I follow him into the kitchen, racking my brain for a way to get more details out of him without breaking his OPSEC rules. The rules are necessary, I guess, but right now they’re a real pain in my ass. “So the problem has, um, expired?”

“No, but it’s as good as solved.”

“What happened?”

“Best if you don’t know.”

Best for whom, I wonder, as I slide the warm omelet across the table toward him.

Later, when he’s asleep, I call around to some of the other brothers, trying to get info. Nobody will tell me anything. Joshua might talk to me—he’s been hitting on me pretty much since the day I turned sixteen. Eww. But even if he would talk, he’s in the backwoods of North Carolina.

I call Joshua’s cousin, Tobin, who’s also a member of The Sons of Paine, to ask if there’s any way to get in touch with Josh. It turns out there is. They have a burner cell in the cabin and normally get a bar of service from a tower in a town about a day’s hike away. It’s not supposed to be used except in emergencies, and I have to hint to Tobin that I’m rethinking my stance on Joshua to get him to give up the number. If that conversation gets back to Joshua, it’ll raise his hopes, and I feel bad about that because there’s no way I’m ever going to agree to so much as a date with him.

I try three times throughout the next day before I reach Joshua. “How’s your arm?” I ask when I finally get through.

“S’okay,” he says. “Bullet just grazed me. Going to be a heckuva scar there, but I don’t mind. Girls like scars, don’t they?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you ought to ask a girl.” I load the words with all the sarcasm I can muster.

“Aww, honey. I meant you. Do you like scars?”

“I don’t have an opinion one way or the other.” This isn’t the best way to start a conversation in which I’m asking for information, I realize. “It’s nice to hear your voice,” I say. “And I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, Betsy.”

“You know anything about what’s been going down in Indy the last day or so?”

“They don’t tell me nothing. And I’m stuck out here in the back of beyond.”

“Figures. Father won’t tell me anything, either. And I’m in the middle of it.”

“He’s got your best interests at heart.

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