Tony’s fingers had left faint bruises.
“No one’s whacking me,” Helen said.
“That’s a theory you don’t want to test.”
She tossed her two-tone hair. “My ears are pierced already, so no big deal.”
Kalisha was sitting on her bed with Avery beside her, his butt on a folded towel. She was stroking his sweaty hair. He was looking up at her dreamily, as if she were Princess Tiana. Helen tossed Luke the clothes. He wasn’t expecting it and dropped the underpants, which were imprinted with pictures of Spider-Man in various dynamic poses.
“I have no interest in seeing that kid’s teeny peenie. I’m going back to bed. Maybe when I wake up I’ll be in my room, my real room, and all of this will just have been a dream.”
“Good luck with that,” Kalisha said.
Helen strode away. Luke picked up Avery’s underwear just in time to mark the swing of her hips in the faded jeans.
“Yummy, huh?” Kalisha’s voice was flat.
Luke brought her the clothes, feeling his cheeks heat. “I guess so, but she leaves something to be desired in the personality department.”
He thought that might make her laugh—he liked her laugh—but she looked sad. “This place will knock the bitch out of her. Pretty soon she’ll be scurrying and flinching every time she sees a guy in a blue top. Just like the rest of us. Avery, you need to get dressed in these things. Me and Lukey will turn our backs.”
They did so, staring out Kalisha’s open door at the poster proclaiming this was paradise. From behind them came sniffling and rustling clothes. At last Avery said, “I’m dressed. You can turn around.”
They did. Kalisha said, “Now take those wet pj pants into the bathroom and hang em over the side of the tub.”
He went without argument, then shuffled back. “I did it, Sha.” The fury was gone from his voice. Now he sounded timid and tired.
“Good f’you. Go on and get back on the bed. Lie down, it’s okay.”
Kalisha sat, dropped Avery’s feet on her lap, then patted the bed next to her. Luke sat down and asked Avery if he was feeling better.
“I guess so.”
“You know so,” Kalisha said, and began to stroke the little boy’s hair again. Luke had a sense—maybe bullshit, maybe not—that a lot was going on between them. Inside traffic.
“Go on, then,” Kalisha said. “Tell him your joke if you have to, then go to fuckin sleep.”
“You said a bad word.”
“I guess I did. Tell him the joke.”
Avery looked at Luke. “Okay. The big moron and the little moron were standing on a bridge, see? And the big moron fell off. Why didn’t the little one?”
Luke considered telling Avery that people no longer talked about morons in polite society, but since it was clear that polite society did not exist here, he just said, “I give up.”
“Because he was a little more on. Get it?”
“Sure. Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“To get to the other side?”
“No, because she was a dumb cluck. Now go to sleep.”
Avery started to say something else—maybe another joke had come to mind—but Kalisha hushed him. She went on stroking his hair. Her lips were moving. Avery’s eyes grew heavy. The lids went down, slowly rose, went down again, and rose even more slowly. Next time they stayed down.
“Were you just doing something?” Luke asked.
“Singing him a lullabye my mom used to sing me.” She spoke barely above a whisper, but there was no mistaking the amazement and pleasure in her voice. “I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but when it’s mind to mind, the melody doesn’t seem to matter.”
“I have an idea he’s not exactly too intelligent,” Luke said.
She gave him a long look that made his face heat up, as it had when she caught him staring at Helen’s legs and busted him on it. “For you, the whole world must not seem exactly too intelligent.”
“No, I’m not that way,” Luke protested. “I just meant—”
“Ease up. I know what you meant, but it’s not brains he’s lacking. Not exactly. TP as strong as he’s got might not be a good thing. When you don’t know what people are thinking, you have to start early when it comes to . . . mmm . . .”
“Picking up cues?”
“Yeah, that. Ordinary people have to survive by looking at faces, and judging the tone of voice they’re hearing as well as the words. It’s like growing teeth, so you can chew something tough. This poor little shit is like Thumper