“You’re the manager. You can’t miss one practice?” I asked.
“Do you even know Coach Chavez? You two’ll just have to lie low until practice is over. Then we can all go in search of the mighty Cameron together.”
“We’re big girls, Glitch,” I said, more than a little perturbed.
He choked on his cappuccino, coughed for like twenty minutes, then turned back to us. “Big?” he asked. “You’re barely five feet tall.”
“I meant age-wise.”
“You’re five-zero.”
“Glitch.”
“Five-nada.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Five-nil, zip, zilch … aught.”
I sighed long and loud, letting my aggravation ooze into the atmosphere. “What time is practice over?”
* * *
“This is so cool,” Brooklyn said as we eased up a path cleared of brush to Cameron’s front door. “We’re like the Three Musketeers, searching for truth and justice and the American way.”
Glitch snorted. “More like the Three Blind Mice, stumbling around trying to find a hunk of cheese in the dark. This is crazy. Cameron’s a tad psychotic, in case you haven’t noticed. And besides, the Three Musketeers were French. They would not have been searching for the American way.”
Even though Glitch knew where Cameron lived, it took us a while to find the small mobile home tucked into a forest grove on the valley floor. Its olive green exterior, camouflaged against the backdrop of evergreens, sat perched on cracked tires, deflated for years by the looks of them. Junk metal formed an intricate pile of rusting artifacts at one end of the house, glistening in the setting sun.
“I guess this answers my question about his home life,” Brooklyn said, her nose scrunching in distaste.
“Maybe.” But it didn’t really look like the stereotypical poverty-stricken household to me. Except for the junk metal, the yard was pristine, well kept. There was no trash, no overgrown brush, no empty beer cans or broken lawn chairs in the front yard as I would have expected. True, Cameron dressed like he lived in a perpetual state of poverty, but I felt his wardrobe was more a choice than a product of his upbringing. He liked grunge.
I raised my hand and knocked on the vinyl-covered door.
When it didn’t open immediately, Glitch asked, “Can we leave now?”
He really didn’t want to be there. Just as I was about to answer, a stocky dark-haired man opened the door. He wore a dirty gray T-shirt and held an unopened bottle of beer in one hand. He eyed us suspiciously at first, then allowed a small upturn of his lips to soften his mouth.
If this guy was Cameron’s father, he looked absolutely nothing like his son. Where Cameron was ridiculously tall, blond-haired, and blue-eyed, this guy was average height with black hair and brown eyes. His skin had dried to the consistency of leather—clearly having worked in the New Mexico sun all his life—and his thick arms and neck were nothing like Cameron’s lanky frame.
“Um, Mr. Lusk?” I asked in a whispery, uncertain voice.
“That would be me,” he said easily. “But I don’t have any cash if you’re looking to sell something. Don’t keep much around the house.”
“Oh, no,” Brooklyn said from behind me. “We were just wondering if Cameron was home.”
“Really?” he asked, surprised. “You came to see the kid?” He looked directly at me then, calm, knowing. “I didn’t figure he’d have let you out of his sight for anything.”
I stilled in bewilderment. “You know about that?” I asked. “About how he’s been following me?”
“Why don’t you kids come in.” His smile was gentle and reassuring, not unlike a serial killer’s, from what I’d read. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked as we stepped across the threshold.
The interior was actually very nice. Light beiges, ashen wood accents. It was all very warm and inviting. And a soft fire crackled in a wood-burning stove on the far wall.
“I’ll take a beer,” Glitch said, his tone completely serious.
The man laughed. “And I’ll take a one to five in the state pen. I don’t think so. There’s soda in the fridge. Help yourself.”
As Glitch shuffled to the kitchen, I checked out Cameron’s house in fascination.
“I know,” the man said with a smile. “You expected olive green carpet and gold filigree wallpaper. I get that a lot.”
Despite all efforts to the contrary, I felt myself blush. Clearly my surprise could’ve been taken as an insult.
“Please, sit down,” he said.
Glitch had grabbed an orange soda, our absolute favorite, for us to share, then sat beside Brooklyn on a small sofa. I sank down into a comfortably overstuffed chair, the kind you could sleep in for days.
“Sorry about my attire,” he said. “I was working on the house. Didn’t know I would have such auspicious guests.”
We should have called first. I knew it. Grandma said it was rude to just show up on someone’s doorstep uninvited, but I didn’t want to give Cameron a heads-up, so we went with a surprise attack. Not that it had done any good.
“You were working on this house?” Brooklyn asked.
“Oh, no.” He grinned as if the thought amused him. “I was working on Cameron’s house. We’ve been building a house for him since he was about, oh, eleven I guess. Good thing we started early, eh?” he added with a wink.