Casey turned bright red. “I have not.”
I glanced out the window. The fire was still burning, looking like it might spread to a wad of leaves nearby. I had to do something, so as Mrs. Melvin crossed the room, eyes closed again and still sniffing, I panicked and flung the rest of my Coke out the window, most of it hitting the glass with a splat but thankfully enough getting to the edge of the roof where it somehow, miraculously, doused the fire. I thought we were home free until I turned around to see Mrs. Melvin, hands on her hips, looking at me. Just past her was Casey, who threw her hands up in the air and shook her head, surrendering.
“Yes you have,” she said, walking past me to the open window and glancing out at the smoldering gutter. “Look at that. You’re setting fires and still lying to my face.”
“Mom,” Casey said quickly, “I didn’t ...”
Mrs. Melvin walked to the door. “Jake, get up here.” Parenting in the Melvin household was a tag-team affair. Any conflict had to be dealt with in tandem, attacked from both sides. I heard Mr. Melvin pounding up the steps before he appeared in the doorway in jeans and loafers. My father called Mr. Melvin the consummate frat boy. He was forty-three but looked eighteen and was about as whipped as any man could be. One look, one call from Mrs. Melvin and he snapped to attention.
“What’s going on?” He had a newspaper in his hand. “Hello, Haven. How’s it going?”
“Good,” I said.
“We have a situation here,” Mrs. Melvin said, directing his attention out the window to the gutter, which was still smoking a bit and thus providing the proper dramatic effect. “Your daughter has taken up smoking.”
“Smoking?” He looked at Casey, then out the window. “Is something on fire out there?”
“It’s that 4-H camp, Jake, where she picked up every other bad habit this summer.” Mrs. Melvin walked to the dresser and opened the box on top, taking out the pack of cigarettes. “Look at this. There are probably birth control pills in here too.”
“Mom, please,” Casey said, “I haven’t had sex yet.”
“Haven,” Mr. Melvin said quietly, “maybe you should get on home to dinner.”
“Okay,” I said. This was the way I always seemed to leave the Melvins’ house, under some sort of duress. Things were always exciting over at the Melvins’. During the divorce I’d spent most of my time there, sitting on Casey’s bed reading Teen magazine and listening to arguments and situations that blissfully had nothing to do with my world whatsoever.
On my way out the door I saw Casey’s brother, Ronald, on the porch petting the Melvins’ cat, a hugely overweight tabby named Velvet. Ronald was only five, not even born when I’d met Casey the day they moved from New Jersey all those years ago.
“Hey, baby Ronald,” I said.
“Shut up.” He hated his family nickname now. At five, he was beginning to resent anything with the word “baby” attached to it.
“See you later,” I said.
“Haven?” he called after me. “How’d you grow so much?”
I stopped at the end of the front walk to face his shock of Melvin red hair and his toughskin cutoffs, the cat shedding a cloud of hair all around him. “I don’t know, Ronald.”
He thought for a minute, still petting. He had the freckles, a faceful plus the ones Casey had lost once she hit fourteen. “Vegetables,” he said slowly, pronouncing it carefully, then added, “probably.”
“Yeah.” I hit the sidewalk in full stride for the one hundred and fourteen squares of cement, cracks and all, that led to my own front walk. “Probably.”
I saw Sumner again later that week at the mall, during my midevening break from Little Feet. It had been a long night, too many tiny shoes to put on smelly feet, too much pressure to move the socks, always the socks. I bought a Coke and took a seat facing the stage in front of Dillard’s, now complete with its fall decorations, big leaves in all different colors, with black silhouettes of glam-looking girls interspersed. I was studying the sign sitting center stage that said FALL FASHION PREVIEW! FEATURING ... THE LAKEVIEW MALL MODELS AND FASHIONS FROM YOUR FAVORITE MALL MERCHANTS ... COMING SOON! with a hokey tear-off calendar counting down the days, as if anyone was that excited about it.
It was almost eight o’clock, which meant I had one more hour of Little Feet before I could leave. The mall was clearing out now that it was prime time, and I tossed my cup and was heading back to the store when I saw the little mall golf cart heading erratically my way. The horn was beeping. Loudly.
It whizzed right up in front of me, dodging ferns and benches and the fountain, skidding to a flourishing stop. Sumner, the Lakeview Mall Security Man. The uniform was too big, rolled up at the cuffs, and his name tag said Marvin. He was grinning at me.
“Hey there. Want a ride?” He extended one arm across the passenger seat, “Price Is Right” showcase style. “It’s better than walking.”
“Are you supposed to drive people around in that?” I asked, sure I’d never seen Ned, the other guard, taxiing the help up and down the mall.
“No.” He grinned. “But you know me, Haven. I call it my Chariot of Love. Now get in.”
So I did. He waited until I was settled, then turned us around and hit the gas, and we zoomed down the center of the mall with Yogurt Paradise and Felice’s Ladies Fashions and The Candy Shack whizzing by in a blur. Sumner was laughing, barely dodging obstacles and people, yet managing to look official whenever we passed anyone who appeared to be important.