Page 37 of Except Emerson (Detroit ABCs #7)

“Why?” I asked immediately. “Did it get raided by the police? IRS? DEA?”

He shook his head and wouldn’t say any more.

Levi looked over at me. “Emerson, would you wait in the car for a minute? I’ll be out soon.”

I took the keys. “Bye,” I told August, who nodded. It took more than a minute for Levi to reappear, and I started the car when he slid into the passenger seat.

“Did he tell you what’s happening?” I asked.

“No. No, I still have no idea but he’s acting exactly like he did when he almost got kicked out of high school.”

“What had he done back then?” I asked.

“He got into a fight. More than that,” Levi sighed. “He ambushed a guy who had been harassing him and there was a knife.”

Now my question changed: “They didn’t kick him out for having a weapon?”

“There were a lot of extenuating circumstances and he was able to show that there was no way to prove that the knife had come from him. Someone had broken the camera that covered that area of the building and the cellphone videos were inconclusive.”

“You sound like a lawyer trying to hide the truth,” I pointed out. “Was it his knife that he’d brought to hurt someone?”

There was a short silence before Levi sighed again. “Yeah. I’m sure it was, but he wouldn’t admit anything because he didn’t want to pull me into it.”

“Good!” I exclaimed. That was the nicest thing I’d heard about the guy.

“I only found out about the fight afterwards, when it was too late for me to help. Not that I would have jumped in,” he acknowledged, “but I would have talked him out of doing it and I would have physically stopped him if I had to.”

“It sounds like he did ok for himself.”

“Yeah, and that’s how he always handled everything. I had my parents and my sisters in my corner, without question, no matter what. But August was on his own except for me.”

“What did you say to him when I left?” I asked.

“I just asked him to please let me help. He said I couldn’t.”

Levi took out his phone again and started to text people. I recognized the name of his brother-in-law, Hunt, who had some kind of connection to the military and maybe law enforcement, and he called his mom as well.

“My dad was pretty wary of August but she got along with him,” he explained when they hung up. “She even talked to his mom a few times to try to straighten her out.”

“Where is that woman now?”

“I don’t know and I don’t think he does anymore, either. It was easier for him when she was locked up—”

“Like, in jail?” I interrupted.

“Prison,” he corrected. “It seemed like a load off his mind that she was at least somewhat safe there and not able to get into too much more trouble.”

I thought of August’s big house and the incredible pool, and how you might have assumed that his life was pretty amazing.

You never knew the depths of somebody, though.

I also thought of Vivienne and how she’d lost her dad.

Had they been close? I hadn’t been with my mother, but when she’d died…

that wasn’t the problem at hand, though.

“It shook me up when he explained that he’d bought that house for her,” Levi said, and it took a moment for me to connect that he was referring again to August’s mom. “He wouldn’t ever talk much about her but I guess he never gave up on the idea that she’d come around someday.”

“That’s pretty normal,” I said. “You have to hope that your only parent will be able to change.”

“She never did. If my mom didn’t love me…” He trailed off.

“She probably does love him, in her own way,” I countered. “It just isn’t the way that he needed, or that any kid would need. It wasn’t enough. That’s not a loss that someone could easily get over, and I understand why he bought that house.”

He put his palm on my knee and rested it there. “August acts like a gangster but he’s not.”

“But it seems like he’s hiding out. Why is he doing that?” I asked, and Levi said he wished he knew.

When we got home, he was preoccupied with checking his phone but I figured he was starving, because I was.

So was Coral. She was not pleased about how late she was eating this evening but she acted all right, with no hissing or hiding.

When we were all finished with dinner and were sitting together on the couch, she let me pet her, too.

“What are you worried about?” Levi asked.

“I was thinking that she might be angry because her dinner was delayed, but she seems ok,” I answered, and stroked her head.

“No, I mean besides the threat of a cat meltdown. Whatever is going on with August, I won’t get in trouble over it. I promise.”

“I was thinking about that, but also about Vivienne.” I told him about her second visit and how she, again, had tried to get me to leave Detroit. “I have no idea why she keeps coming around here.”

“I might have guessed that she was reaching out because she needed a friend, but you don’t usually tell people to go away if you’re trying to form relationship bonds,” he said. “Too bad, because I know you’re interested in more of those.”

“Your little sister texted me this morning,” I mentioned. “She wants to have lunch this weekend when she and her family drive down and she said that one of those Curran women might come. I think her name is Julia.”

“Juliet. If you make friends with one of the Currans, you have the chance to hook five other sisters, too,” he pointed out. “I don’t think that Vivienne is after friendship, though.”

“Look.” I showed him one of her videos, which she’d posted the weekend after my car accident with Grant.

It showed her and several other women partying next to her pool—her former pool, since she and Lance no longer lived in that house and she and Lance no longer lived together, either.

“She has plenty of friends. She doesn’t need me now and she never had any use for me before.

I thought that she didn’t care for me because I was so awkward and wrong about everything, but now I know that she actually hated me.

She told me today that they had a nickname for me because I was so ugly. ”

“Because you’re so ugly? Are you…what are you talking about, Emerson?” He tilted his chin so he could look down at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She said they made fun of my eyes and my hair. Once, one of their friends suggested that I had a genetic abnormality.”

“What?”

I nodded. “He said that I must have gotten some crazy genes to look like I did. I have the transcript,” I added, when Levi started to argue. “Grant was always trying to fix me because he was embarrassed in front of his friends.”

“That can’t be true. No, no way.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “He couldn’t have felt that way because no one could. And I think the gene remark was supposed to be a compliment.”

“I’m not bothered by how I look,” I explained.

“My mother was stunning and she considered it to be a burden. She wrote that my grandparents acted like her beauty was the only quality she had, the only thing that mattered about her, and then she described how it was hard for her to get the respect she deserved in her career. Everyone focused on her looks instead of her scholarship—at least, that was what she claimed. She also told me that I’d been lucky not to inherit it from her. ”

“You did,” Levi said. “I don’t know what she looked like, but you’re beautiful. No, it’s not very important in the long run, but you should know that.”

“Beauty is like having a nice car. It’s great if you have it, but if you have something else that works for you, then who cares?

” I asked. “Grant and his friends cared a lot, and they were worried all the time. We were out on a boat in Lake Como and Vivienne was so upset about the wind ruining her hair and that her foundation looked powdery. It was an amazing experience and she missed it. I spent a lot of time making sure I looked ok for Grant, too, because he was very invested in appearances…I shouldn’t have done that.

I should have told him to leave me alone. ”

He frowned. “If you really don’t care, then I’m not going to argue and try to convince you. But just know that I think you’re pretty—no, more than pretty. You’re stunning and—”

“Levi, don’t,” I told him. “You wanted me to cover up in front of August.”

“What?”

“At his pool,” I said. “You got a towel for me to cover up.”

And then he looked angry. “I know him too well,” he said.

“I knew how he was going to act with you and I didn’t think you needed that, not when you were so upset about Hernán leaving.

I knew he would come onto you,” Levi continued, but I shook my head.

“Yes, he would have and all the assholes in his crowd would have bothered you…and that would have bothered me,” he admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that why you and August were arguing after that day?”

“He made a few remarks about you. Nothing offensive but he did it because he knew that it would piss me off, and I told him that we should have some distance for a while. I used slightly different wording.”

This was all a surprise to me. “I shouldn’t be an issue between you and your best friend.”

“You’re not, not anymore. Can I see a picture of your mom?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, and I took out my phone.

I didn’t have any pictures of her, not that I had taken, and no one had taken any of me until I’d gotten around other adults.

“Here, I found one from when she was in graduate school,” I told him.

“She had won an award and they wrote it up in the student newspaper.” I passed over the phone and he studied the screen.

“She didn’t change much as she got older, except when she was dead. ”

“What? You mean, at her funeral?”

“I couldn’t afford a funeral and I don’t think she would have wanted one,” I answered. “She was a lot like me in how she couldn’t establish strong relationship bonds. When I saw her for the last time…I don’t…”

I stopped and we sat in silence.

Levi broke it. “Today has been stressful,” he said, and I nodded. He closed the picture on my phone and put his arm back around me. “What did you say was your third favorite movie?”

“ Roman Holiday .”

“I’ve never seen it and I don’t want to sit here and worry about August. I need a distraction.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said, and it was even better when he pulled me tighter and I put my head down on his chest, next to Coral. She didn’t mind.