Whatever, it gave me confidence, even if it might be false confidence. I sprinted behind the Gorets’ house next door. My goal was to move from house to house and sneak up on the car from behind. Three houses to go. No reason to stall. I peeked out from behind the Gorets’ azaleas and dashed to the Greenhalls. They owned a farm up north and were never home.
A minute later I was hiding behind a bush maybe ten yards away from the black car with the tinted windows. Now that I was this close, I could make out the license plate. A30432. I took out my cell phone and checked the plate number Ema had texted to me. The number was the same.
No doubt now—it was the same black car.
I glanced out from the bush. The car’s engine was off. There were no signs of movement or life. The black car could be just parked and empty.
So now what do I do?
Do I just approach and start slamming my palms on the window, demanding answers? That seemed somewhat logical. It also seemed kind of stupid. Do I sit here and wait? For how long? And what if the car drives off? Then what?
I was still hunched behind the bush, trying to decide what to do, when the decision was made for me. The front passenger door opened and the bald guy stepped out. He still wore the dark suit, and despite the hour, he even had the sunglasses on.
For a moment the man stood perfectly still, his back to the bush. Then he slowly turned his head and said, “Mickey.”
Gulp.
I had no idea how he had seen me, but it didn’t matter now. I stood up. He stared at me from behind those sunglasses, and in spite of the heat, I swear I felt a chill.
“You have questions,” the bald man said to me. He spoke with one of those exaggerated British accents that almost sound phony. Like he’d gone to some fancy prep school and wanted to make sure you knew it. “But you’re not yet ready for the answers.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, still with that accent, “just what it sounds like.”
I frowned. “It sounds like something you’d read on a bad fortune cookie.”
There was the hint of a smile on the bald man’s face. “Don’t tell anyone about us.”
“Like who?”
“Like anyone. Like your uncle.”
“Myron? What would I tell him anyway? I don’t know anything. Who exactly are you? Or, as you put it, us?”
“You’ll know,” he said, “when the time is right.”
“And when will that be?”
The man slid back into the car. He never seemed to hurry, but every moment was almost supernaturally fast and fluid.
“Wait!” I shouted.
I moved quickly, trying to reach the car door before it closed. “What were you doing in that house? Who are you?”
But it was too late. He slammed the door shut. The car started up. Now, as I semi-planned earlier, I slapped the tinted windows with my palm. “Stop!”
The car started to pull out. Without thought I jumped on the hood. Like you see in the movies. But here is what you don’t see in the movies: there is really no place to grab on to. I went for that area near the windshield but my fingers couldn’t get a grip. The car moved forward, stopped short, and I went flying.
I managed somehow to land on my feet, stumble, and stay upright. I stood now in front of the car, daring them to run me down. Even the front windshield was tinted, but I stared through it toward the passenger seat, trying to imagine I was eye to eye with the bald man. For a few moments, nothing happened. I stayed in front of the car.
“Who are you?” I asked again. “What do you want with me?”
I heard the passenger window slide down. I was tempted to go to it, but that might be a sucker move. Maybe the man just wanted me to move out of the way so he could drive off.
“Bat Lady said my father is still alive,” I shouted.
And, to my surprise, I got a reply. “She shouldn’t have said that.”
My heart stopped. “Is he?”
There was a long silence.
“Is my father still alive?” I demanded.
I put my hands on the hood, my fingers digging into the metal almost as though I was going to lift the car and shake the answer out of it.
“We’ll talk,” the man said.
“Don’t give me that—”
And then, without warning, the car flew into reverse. I fell forward onto the street, scraping my hands on the pavement. When I looked up, the car spun around and disappeared around the bend.
chapter 10
IT WAS TWO FIFTEEN when I slipped quietly back into the house. My cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Ema: home. happy?
Me: Ecstatic.
I started tiptoeing toward the basement door when I heard voices coming from upstairs. At first I figured that it was the television, but no, one voice belonged to Myron. The other—hello—was female.
Hmm.
I moved toward the stairs. The light was off in Myron’s bedroom, but it was on in the office. The office, as Myron had told me maybe a million times, used to be my dad’s bedroom, and before Myron moved to the basement, he and my father had shared it. Myron often regaled me with stories of the lame stuff they used to do together in that room—play board games like Risk and Stratego, trade baseball cards, set up their own Nerf basketball leagues. Sometimes, when no one was in the house, I would go in the room and try to imagine my father as a child in there. But nothing ever came to me. The renovation had stripped the room of any memorabilia. It looked like an accountant’s office.
I moved upstairs and stopped by the door. Myron was on the computer, video chatting—at two in the morning? What was up with that?
“I can’t come now,” I heard Myron say.
A woman’s voice said, “I understand. I can’t either.”
Who was Myron talking to? Wait—was he trying to hook up online? And neither of them wanted to make the trip to the other’s town? Oh, gross.
“I know,” Myron said.
“Carrie isn’t ready,” the woman said.
Uh-oh. Who’s Carrie? Another woman? Oh, double gross.
“So what do we do?” Myron asked.
The woman said, “I want you to be happy, Myron.”
“You make me happy,” he said.
“I know. You make me happy too. But maybe we need to be realistic.”
They no longer sounded like strangers trying to hook up. They sounded like two people with broken hearts. I peeked into the room again. Myron had his head lowered. I could see a raven-haired woman on the screen.
“Maybe you’re right,” Myron said. “Maybe we do need to be realistic.” He raised his eyes to meet hers on the screen. “But not tonight, okay?”
“Okay.” Then the woman said in the most tender voice I’d ever heard, “I love you so much.”
“I love you so much too,” Myron said.
I didn’t know what to do here. I had no idea who this woman was or what they were talking about. I hadn’t asked Myron if he had a girlfriend or anything, mostly because I didn’t much care.
Whatever, I came up here because I heard voices. I didn’t feel good about eavesdropping like this. I took two steps back and quietly padded back down to my bedroom in the basement. I got ready for bed and slipped under the covers.
I wondered about how sad Myron and the woman sounded. I wondered who Carrie was and why Myron couldn’t be with her right now. But I didn’t wonder about it very long. In the morning, we would fly to Los Angeles and see my father’s grave. I figured that thought would keep me up the rest of the night. Instead I dropped off in seconds.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m still getting to know them, but as far as I can tell, my grandparents are the coolest grandparents in the history of the world.
Ellen and Al Bolitar—my grandmother likes to joke that they’re “El-Al, like the Israeli airline”—greeted us at LAX airport. Grandma sprinted toward Myron and me, arms wide open, hugging us as though we were innocent men just released from serving an unjust prison term, which is to say, like a grandmother should. She hugged us with everything she had and then she looked us over, inspecting us to make sure that everything was how it should be.