Chapter 43: A Food Truck, Cheap
Andrew came back from the alley in a decent mood, which he recognized was mildly absurd given that he'd just cornered a teenager to make a point, but the morning had gone reasonably well overall and the walk home was nice.
Christie was at the kitchen table when he got in, surrounded by the particular wreckage of a student who had procrastinated on a summer's worth of homework and was now paying the price. She'd known she was going to have to run again with Bonnie, so the assignments had sat untouched for weeks. Now school was three days away and the stack wasn't getting smaller.
She didn't look up when he came in. Her pen was moving.
Andrew made lunch.
"Food," he said, setting a plate next to her notebook.
Christie dropped her pen with the relief of someone being pulled from deep water. She rolled her shoulders and picked up her fork.
"I'm going to see your mother this afternoon," Andrew said, eating across from her. "You want to come?"
He'd been turning this over for a few days. He'd taken Christie in — that was a fact now, not a temporary arrangement — and Bonnie was her mother, and Bonnie was about to be transferred out of New York to a longer-term facility after sentencing. Whatever was going to be said between all of them needed to be said while there was still a chance to say it.
Christie considered the question with the same expression she brought to most things. "No."
"Okay."
That was the whole conversation. They finished lunch. Christie went back to her homework. Andrew washed his face, grabbed his jacket, and headed out.
Their relationship was what it was — practical, honest, no performance in either direction. She'd come to him because she needed somewhere that wasn't the system, and because her mother's judgment of character was the only reference she had. He'd let her stay because he wanted to, and because he could. Neither of them was pretending it was more complicated than that.
The facility was an hour and change by transit.
Bonnie looked better than he'd expected — more settled, the specific edge of someone running constantly finally having nowhere to run to. The bandage on her ear was gone. The torn earlobe had healed rough, a small notch of missing tissue. There was a faint scar along her cheekbone from the fall in the woods.
She smiled when she saw him through the glass.
"Christie went to your place," she said, through the receiver. Not a question.
"She rented the second bedroom." Andrew reached into his pocket and set the earring on the counter between them. "I heard you went back for it."
Bonnie's smile shifted into something drier. "Christie told you that. That kid is sharper than I was at her age." She leaned back slightly. "For the record — I was already boxed in when I turned back. Going for it or not, I wasn't getting out of those woods. Might as well have the earring."
Andrew looked at her.
"You seem okay," he said.
"Prison has a rhythm once you find it." She shrugged. Then she tilted her head, looked at the corrections officer stationed near the wall, and placed the receiver on the counter. Raised her voice slightly. "Officer — I'd like to request a private visit room."
The officer looked over, said nothing, and stepped out through a side door.
From down the row of visiting stations, two women who'd been waiting for their own calls started making noise — banging the counter, calling out. Bonnie turned a look in their direction that was about four degrees below room temperature. The noise stopped.
The officer returned with a colleague and stopped behind Andrew. "Sir, are you and the inmate requesting a private visit?"
Andrew looked at Bonnie, who was watching him with an expression of uncomplicated hopefulness.
He spread his hands. "Apparently."
"Follow me."
He was walked through a security door, patted down thoroughly — the officer was extremely diligent — and his wallet, keys, and the earring were sealed in a plastic bag. The earring he'd been carrying around for two weeks, the one with the dried bloodstain on the clasp. He watched it go into the bag.
The officer showed him to Room 105 and gave him a look on the way in that communicated several things without words.
Two hours later, a knock at the door.
Bonnie was pulling her jacket back on. "You going to visit me when they transfer me?"
"Probably not," Andrew said.
"What if I—" She leaned over and said something close to his ear.
Andrew cleared his throat. "I said probably not. We'll see where they send you."
Bonnie smiled — the real one, not the performance version — and walked to the door. She looked back once and mouthed something at him that wasn't for the corrections record.
He followed the officer back out, collected his belongings, and left the building.
In the parking lot he opened his wallet to check for the transit card. A folded slip of paper was tucked inside, sticking out slightly. He pulled it out.
A name. An address. A phone number. And at the bottom, a message that began with the letter F and ended with the word me, with no ambiguity about the words in between.
He looked back at the facility entrance. The officer was visible through the glass door, watching him with professional neutrality and the faintest possible smile.
He made an okay gesture. She nodded once.
He put the note in his pocket and walked to the bus stop.
Several days passed.
His phone rang at six in the morning.
Andrew surfaced from sleep and looked at the ceiling and considered not answering, but the ringing had a determined quality.
"What." He picked up.
"I have a food truck lead," Phoebe said. She sounded like she'd been up for an hour. "Client of mine is selling one. Practically new, already fitted out, and the price is very good. We need to go now."
Andrew sat up. "It's six in the morning, Phoebe."
"I know. I would've called at a normal hour but I'm supposed to go shopping with Monica this morning and I haven't told her I moved out yet, so things are already complicated on my end. If we don't go now, someone else might buy it."
He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face.
A fitted-out food truck in good condition at a reasonable price was not something you let sit. He'd been looking at the market for weeks — the numbers on new builds were ugly, and used vehicles in good shape didn't last long.
"Give me ten minutes," he said.
Phoebe drove with the confidence of someone who'd been navigating the city since before she had a license, which Andrew strongly suspected was the case. They ended up in a neighborhood he recognized — not far from the family services office, which was a coincidence he noted and moved past.
She pulled up in front of a narrow row house with a detached garage and knocked on the door.
The man who answered was in his forties, wearing the look of someone who hadn't slept well and had things on his mind. He recognized Phoebe, nodded, and started leading them toward the garage without much preamble.
"Your friend's looking to buy?" he said, over his shoulder. "Don't worry about condition — it's solid. I wouldn't be selling it otherwise."
"You can't sell it!"
The second-floor window banged open. A boy leaned out — maybe thirteen, fourteen — with a Band-Aid over one eye and fresh scratches across his cheekbone that had the specific geometry of fingernails.
Andrew looked at the window.
The boy looked back at him with an expression of intense hostility.
Something about the eyes, the set of the jaw.
Andrew looked at the boy's face for a moment longer than was probably polite.
"Get back inside!" The man's voice went up a register. The boy flinched and disappeared from the window. The man turned back, waving a hand. "Sorry about that. He gets attached to things. The truck is still for sale."
Andrew followed him into the garage.
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