today.”
“I see.”
My phone buzzed with a text. It was from Ishmael. I glanced up and frowned at him. He widened his eyes and nodded at the phone, urging me to read.
Text Conversation
Participants: Gideon Hofstadt, Ishmael Hofstadt
IH: go with her
GH: Where? To visit Oswald?
IH: yea
IH: see what hes up to
IH: keep tabs or whatever
GH: Why don’t YOU go?
IH: youre the smart one
IH: youll get more info
GH: You just want to keep your Sunday free.
IH: arent i supposed to talk to people
IH: like spread more alien gossip
IH: ill be rly busy
Event: Father Revolts (Cont.)
Maggie’s head whipped back and forth between Ishmael and me. “Are you two texting each other?”
I put down my phone. “No.”
“You guys are so weird.”
“Be nice to your brothers,” Mother muttered distractedly.
I glanced at my phone again. As much as it pained me, Ishmael was right. One of us should keep track of Oswald. Keep track of his movements…and maybe of his methods too. A small, perhaps traitorous, part of me still thought I might learn something from him.
“Mother,” I said. “Could I join you today?”
She looked up from her planner with an expression that wasn’t outright shock, but was very close. “Of course you can.”
“Where’s Oz staying anyway?” Ishmael asked.
“Well, your father wouldn’t let him stay here—which would have been the hospitable thing to do. So he’s out on Crescent Road.”
There were no hotels on Crescent Road. There wasn’t much of anything.
“Is he sleeping in a field?” I asked. Based on J. Quincy Oswald’s snazzy clothes and high-end car, that struck me as incongruous.
“Not in the field. He rented an RV.”
“Why not stay in town?” He could surely afford a room at Doe Lake Resort, the closest thing Lansburg had to a luxury hotel.
“That would be fine for him,” Mother said. “But he wants to be close to everyone else.”
“Everyone else?”
“The people with him. The other distributors.”
I met Ishmael’s gaze across the table.
Oswald had brought people with him. Or maybe they flocked to him after the fact. I thought back to the seminar, the rapt faces gazing at him, cheering and crying, their expressions of awe and worship.
Maybe he had a contingent of people who followed him everywhere.
Yes, that seemed right. I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to me already. Of course J. Quincy Oswald had groupies.
Interview
Subject #4, Victor Hofstadt (Father): Kids should have time to be kids. That’s what I always thought. I grew up with a single mom who worked sixty hours a week. I got a job to help her as soon as I was old enough. Baseball was my only break, and I guess that’s why I loved it so much. I wanted my kids to have better lives than that. I wanted to take away their hardships, do everything for them, give them time to chase their dreams. I didn’t realize that by giving them so much, I’d lose myself in the process.
Event: A Visit to Oswald’s Camp
Date: Oct. 1 (Sun.)
The field where J. Quincy Oswald set up camp was on the opposite side of Lansburg. Mother and I passed through the center of town on the way there.
More people milled around downtown than I’d ever seen before. Reporters carrying notebooks and wearing pristine hiking boots with their business suits, presumably planning a trek into the field to see the crop circle. Seekers with wild hair and rumpled clothes from nights spent sleeping in tents. The usual senior citizen tourist groups, curiously watching the news broadcast that was underway directly in front of the lava lamp.
I had done this.
I’d drawn these people to town. I’d given their lives interest and meaning, if only for a short while.
The tourists and UFO hunters and camera crews might never know I was the one who’d lured them to Lansburg, but that was beside the point. For once, I felt more like a god than a starfish.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Mother said, pulling me from my reverie.
I glanced over. Her expression was firm and I immediately tensed. Here it was. The lecture I’d been waiting for, where she admitted she was angry about the havoc I’d caused.
“There’s a distributor in Pittsburgh on my downline.”
Or not.
“She has a son who’s a little older than you,” Mother went on. “He’s studying for a culinary arts degree.”
“Okay…and?”
“He’s a nice boy. Very smart. And handsome.”
Suddenly, I knew what she was getting at.
“No, Mother,” I said simply. “I told you before, I don’t need you to matchmake.”
It had been a while since she’d done this, and