turned on for heat while we go through the papers. I don’t want to do it alone. If Ma can pull Pammy into whatever storm she’s got brewing, then I can have Columbus. He’s not much, but he’s the best I’ve got.
He says something dumb about how bushy my hair is, but I just ignore it. He’s in a mood due to the lack of KFC, and I wonder for the first time in ages how things are going with his mall retail worker.
All his lame jokes disappear as he reads over my shoulder.
“Three years ago,” he says, frowning, “your mom took out life insurance on your dad for a hundred thousand dollars?” He looks at me. “You guys have a hundred thousand dollars?”
He can hardly believe it, and neither can I. Three years. She got an insurance policy three years ago.
Maybe it’s nothing, but if it’s so nothing then why did she hide it from me but tell Pammy? “I don’t know. Maybe it takes them a while to pay the money or something. Maybe they have to investigate to make sure you didn’t murder the guy.”
Columbus is on his phone now. “Okay, says here that if you have the policy for two years, you just get the dough. Almost no questions asked. It’s not even worth the effort for the insurance company to pursue it unless it’s millions of dollars.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Online forum. Hey,” he says, “didn’t your dad have an accident in Trinidad last year? Someone attacked him?”
Columbus is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I wasn’t going to bring it up, because it looks so bad and I’ve never been this confused in my life. “Kidnapping.”
“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
I clear my throat and try again. “He thought someone tried to kidnap him. At his garage.”
“He thought or someone did?”
I shake my head. It’s anyone’s guess.
“But that’s weird, right? At the two-year mark, he’s attacked?”
“It’s Trinidad,” I say. “Shit like that happens all the time.”
He reads some more on his phone. “Says here that if someone is murdered then you can’t get the money. Maybe your mom had a feeling something bad was going to happen or—”
I see the exact moment he gets it. That it could have been more than a bad feeling or some kind of mystical premonition crap. That she could have wanted something bad to happen.
Made it happen.
“Shit,” he says, looking pale and scared.
“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay? About this insurance stuff. Please?”
“Who would I tell?”
“Just don’t mention it to Pammy.”
He’s confused. “Why? What does my mom have to do with any of this?”
“Just promise me. Please, Christopher?”
Two pleases in a row and his real name. This is unheard of for me. I never ask him for anything and I haven’t called him Christopher since the first day I met him, ten years ago, when he and Pammy moved next door to us.
“Okay,” he says. He must think he has something on me now, because he leans over and kisses me. His lips are dry, but it’s not a bad kiss. I let him for a minute, until it becomes almost clear I’m not kissing him back. Maybe on a different day, I would have but I’m too shook by what I’ve just read.
Plus, it’s not like kissing Jason at all.
It reminds me of how much I actually liked kissing Jason, who I don’t really want to be thinking about right now because he hasn’t called in a while. Hasn’t even come to the gym. We texted a few times, but he only says he’s busy with school and first year is even tougher than he thought it was going to be. I feel stupid, but I push it aside. Everyone knows this is why you don’t date college guys when you’re still in high school.
Columbus is the one to pull away. I guess he must feel how distracted I am. “Sorry.” He gives me a too-bright smile.
We share a joint because we need something to help us get over that moment and it works because, after a minute, I can tell he really is sorry he kissed me. I make him drive me to a copy centre and then back to the bank. We go slow and the both of us grow increasingly paranoid, but for different reasons. There’s someone else at reception, a man this time. He checks something on the computer and says, “You were just here.”
“Yeah, I forgot something.”
He takes