Page 22 of A Week Away

For a moment, Cass looked like he might try to argue me out of the aisle seat but then gave up. He put his backpack under his seat and then flopped into it. I took my place on the aisle.

Once the plane took off and we reached altitude, I said to Cass, “Okay. If you won’t tell me about yourself, why don’t I tell you about you. You’re mature for your age, too mature. You’re smart but you only get B’s. Your teachers always say you don’t live up to your potential. You don’t have a lot of friends. You like girls, but you’re afraid of them. You don’t know what you want to be when you grow up. You thought finding your dad would fix the things that are wrong with your life. Trust me, it wouldn’t have.”

He glowered for a few seconds before he said, “I’m not afraid of girls. Just the really pretty ones.”

The woman next to the window had obviously heard most of that since she repositioned herself as though she were trying to get away from us. I decided to be a bit more careful. Or at least polite.

Our lunch was Salisbury steak and soggy fries. The sitcom they showed wasMad About You. I tried to read the mystery I’d bought but didn’t get very far. I tried to stick to innocuous questions. I asked the kid, “Do you like living in Detroit?”

“I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Novi. It’s a suburb.”

“Do you like school?”

“Who likes school?”

“I guess you’re not thinking of going to college.”

He frowned and said, “No. I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid. I also don’t think going to college is stupid.”

I didn’t go to college, but that was mainly because if you grew up in Bridgeport in the sixties you didn’t. I was busy trying to fit in, trying to be like everyone around me, so it didn’t even occur to me that Icouldhave gone. Some days I wonder who I might have been if I had gone to college. Hopefully not the kind of guy who was a magnet for trouble.

“Do you have a lot of friends?”

He turned and looked at me full on. “Do you wanna know my favorite color? It’s green.”

I didn’t talk to him after that. Not until the plane landed. And even then, I didn’t really say anything until we got out onto the concourse.

“When does your mother get home?”

“Tomorrow night.”

I had the sinking feeling this would take a few days, so I said, “I’m going to need to rent a car and find a hotel.”

He shook his head. “I have a car.”

“That’s great, but I still need to get from my hotel to wherever we’re going.”

He shook his head. “We have an extra bed in our junk room. You can stay in there.”

“And when your mother comes home are you going to introduce me as your pet private detective?”

He shrugged and said, “No. I’m going to introduce you as Dominick Reilly. My father.”

CHAPTERSEVEN

September 14, 1996

Saturday afternoon

The car had fins. A mint condition, two-door, tomato soup red 1958 Plymouth Belvedere sat on the second floor of the Big Blue Deck. The parking garage was directly across from the terminal we’d come from. As we got close to it, I asked, “This is your car?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not really what I was expect?—”

“My grandfather left it to me. He made it. I mean, not all of it. Some of it. He worked on the Plymouth line. My mother wanted to sell it, but Aunt Suzie wouldn’t let her have the title. She pays the insurance for me.”