The You I Never Knew Part 6

"Christ-"

"Sam, I was young. Scared. I grew up with cameras shoved in my face every time I sneezed. I didn't want that for Cody, and I didn't want anyone to go snooping through records-"

"-and finding the name of a mongrel cowboy."

"Quit putting words in my mouth. I didn't know what to do."

"Didn't he want to know, just for him? Jesus, a name wouldn't have sent him off the deep end."

"A name's just... a name. And maybe I was afraid-" She stopped, wis.h.i.+ng she could reel in the words.

"Of what? What were you afraid of?"

"That maybe he'd get mad at me one day and go off looking for you." The confession rushed out like air escaping a balloon. "Since school started this year, he's been... in rebellion."

Sam hesitated, took a sip of coffee. In his face she saw more than she wanted to see-interest, understanding. Compa.s.sion. "The kid's mad at the world, Mich.e.l.le."

Ouch. He had seen that so quickly. "We've had rough times before. We've dealt with trouble. This year... is more difficult than most." d.a.m.n. She knew she should keep her thoughts to herself, but with Sam, it was hard. Years ago he'd had that effect on her, and it hadn't changed. He still drew truths from deep inside her, made her say things better left unsaid.

"So what's going on?" he asked. "Is he having trouble in school?"

All right, thought Mich.e.l.le. You asked for it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. "His last grade report was awful. Up until this year, he's been an A and B student. Now it's Cs and Ds. At first I thought it was a normal, predictable rebellion, but I don't see the end of it."

"Is he hanging out with his regular friends?"

"Not as much as he used to. He's got a girlfriend, and they're pretty exclusive."

"So what are you doing about his problems?"

"I'm working on it, Sam! Do you think this is easy? Do you think you could do better?"

"Is it my turn to take over? You had him the first sixteen years, I get the next sixteen?"

"I didn't bring him here because he's a troubled teen. I brought him here... to see my dad." She didn't feel like discussing Gavin's health with Sam. "My father's never met Cody." She got up from the table and went to the door. She was afraid. She was angry. And G.o.d help her, she felt an old, old yearning unfold in her heart, a burning ache she thought she had buried forever. "What time should I pick him up?"

Outside, Cody and the dark-haired man were loading bales of hay onto a flatbed truck. It was startling to see her son doing physical labor. It had been ages since he exerted himself doing anything more strenuous than lifting the telephone receiver.

"He'll be done around five, I guess," Sam said. "Edward can give him a lift over to your father's place."

"All right." Taking her jacket from a hook outside the kitchen door in the mudroom, she shrugged into it. "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"You won't... say anything to him, will you?"

"h.e.l.l, no, I won't say anything. I don't even know the kid." He held open the door for her. He was as tall as she remembered, and broader in the shoulders and chest. His face was more deeply carved with character. His scent, G.o.d, why did she remember it so perfectly? Perversely, she had an urge to touch him, just once, but she resisted.

" 'Bye, Sam."

" 'Bye." He followed her out onto the porch and waited while she got into the Range Rover. "Hey, Mich.e.l.le?"

She rolled down the window. "What?"

"That doesn't mean we're not telling him."

She leaned back against the headrest, closing her eyes. "d.a.m.n. I was hoping for a quick getaway."

"No such luck, Sugar. Tell him. I want him to know exactly who I am."

"But-" She opened her eyes. "All right. I'll tell him."

"When?"

"I'll... figure out the right time. Sam, I've got a lot on my mind. My father isn't well, and the next few days might be pretty difficult."

He stared at her for a long time. She couldn't read him. Didn't know him anymore. Yet that stare was as compelling now as it had been the first time she had met him. "All right. But I want him to know, Mich.e.l.le. Soon."

Chapter 8.

Cody felt like a c.o.c.kroach in his grandfather's house-gross, unwelcome, and out of place. After shoveling horses.h.i.+t at Lonepine all day, he wanted to shower for about nine hours and then crash facedown in his bed.

Instead, they were having dinner with Legendary Actor Gavin Slade. That was how Gavin was always referred to: Legendary Actor. Elder Statesman of Western Cla.s.sics. In capital letters, like the guy was a walking headline or something. Lately, instead of showing him with his arm around some bimbo with big t.i.ts, the fanzines showed him alone on a horse, his cowboy hat pulled low over his brow. The headlines announced that he'd been in touch with aliens.

Cody liked the bimbo pictures better. It was pretty bizarre, thinking about his grandfather getting laid by women younger than his own mom, but it was even worse thinking about his grandfather dying of kidney failure. Mostly, he tried not to think of Gavin at all. It wasn't like Gavin thought about him all the time.

Cody had tried his best to weasel out of dinner, but he hadn't gained much sympathy from his mom. After crunching that cowpoke's trailer last night, he'd used up most of his goodwill points with her. Not that he had many to begin with. Since last summer she'd been driving him nuts, hovering over him, waiting to pounce the second she caught him doing something she disapproved of.

He'd tried a minor whine-I'm too tired, I worked like a dog today-but all he'd gained was the Look. That cold jackhammer of a stare still affected him sometimes, although he was getting pretty good at ignoring her lately.

When he was little, he used to be moved by the Look. He used to want to do just about anything to please her. Little by little over the years, he'd figured out that there was no way to please his perfectionist mother. No way to win a smile that wasn't sad at the edges, or to get praise from her that didn't demand things he didn't even know how to give.

So he quit trying, and he wasn't even sure she noticed. She was so lame, she and that loser Brad. All Brad cared about was making the almighty buck and showing off to the world that Cody's mom was his lady, like she was some sort of bowling trophy with b.o.o.bs.

That was the only good thing about coming here. It gave him a break from Brad the loser.

"Hiya, Cody." Gavin Slade came into the living room. Unlike Cody, he looked exactly right in his surroundings. Jeans and a red corduroy s.h.i.+rt and cowboy boots. Big white hair that made his eyes look bluer than the heated swimming pool on the patio.

"Hi." Cody hadn't decided what to call his grandfather, and it would be too dorky to ask. Jamming his hands into his pockets, he pretended great interest in the objects arranged on a lighted gla.s.s shelf by the wet bar. After a couple of seconds, he didn't have to fake it anymore.

Holy s.h.i.+t. He was looking at an Oscar statue.

"That's pretty cool," he said, pointing to it.

"You think?" Gavin hooked a thumb into his back pocket like he was posing for a picture or something. Except he didn't even seem conscious of the pose-it was the natural way he held himself. "I guess so. I liked that movie. The Face of Battle. You ever see it?"

Only about a zillion times.

"I think maybe I caught part of it on TV once," he lied.

"It's about a misfit, a real loser. n.o.body cared whether he lived or died. After a while, he quit caring, too. And in the end, that's why he was able to save his battalion. He quit looking for guarantees, and he made the sacrifice."

Cody pictured the scene in his head. It was one of those film sequences the experts always showed when they were going over cla.s.sic movies-the moment Gavin's character stood alone on a tank-destroyer turret, the only volunteer of his battalion, shooting through a deadly hail of sniper fire at a 77mm tank gun. Like the image of Gary Cooper in High Noon, Gavin Slade's Face of Battle moment had put him on the pages of the film history books. The memorable image showed a close-up of a face filled with n.o.bility, anguish, and the wisdom of a man who knows he is about to die. It had become one of the most famous movie stills ever published.

"How come you stopped making movies?" Cody asked.

"It was always a job to me, to tell you the truth. A job I liked most of the time, and either loved or hated the rest." He had this intent way of speaking, leaning forward and lowering his voice so you had no choice but to listen. "The business is brutal, Cody. You live and die by the box office. Your looks and your image are everything. Sometimes you don't get a minute of privacy, and other times you can't buy attention for yourself. I got sick of the roller coaster. As soon as I could afford to retire, I got out of acting. I still coproduce things here and there, but it's pretty low-key. Haven't seen a film on the big screen in ages."

"Mom said the movie theater in town is closed down."

"That's a fact. They were going to tear the Lynwood down, so I bought it."

A spark of interest flashed in Cody. "Yeah?"

"I'd like to reopen, for old time's sake. One screen, maybe show some independent films."

"That'd be cool." Cody studied the other objects in the case-a baseball autographed by Joe DiMaggio, the stub of a ticket to a Beatles concert, a display of prize rodeo belt buckles, and photos of Gavin posing proudly by his vintage airplane. Pretty radical stuff, he decided.

His perusal drifted to a framed picture of his mom on a horse. "When was that taken?" he asked, to fill the silence.

"First summer after high school," Gavin said. "I invited her to spend a year up here before starting college. She studied painting with a local artist."

"She never finished college," Cody said, hearing contempt in his own voice. He didn't care. All his friends' parents had degrees and stuff. His mom had, well, her job. And him. And lame-a.s.s suspicious Brad who lived in fear that Cody and his friends were going to help themselves to uppers or painkillers from his sample cases.

He looked at the picture, taken in a pasture with the mountains in the background. Slender and suntanned, long legs and bare feet, her head thrown back with laughter, she looked pretty amazing. For the past couple of years, his friends had been giving Cody a hard time about his mom. She was a lot younger than most moms. She looked like a shampoo ad or something. It was kind of cool sometimes, having a mom who was a babe, but mostly it was embarra.s.sing as h.e.l.l.

"I still have that horse," Gavin said.

"The one in the picture?"

"Yeah, that's Dooley. Your mom learned barrel racing on him."

"He must be pretty old."

"Twenty-something. Do you ride, Cody?"

"Not horses."

Gavin chuckled, showing perfect teeth. And his eyes-they had that crinkly, twinkly look Cody recognized from old movie posters. He didn't trust this guy. How did you know he was being sincere when he was an actor?

"I guess that'll change now that you're here," Gavin said. "Or maybe I'll take you flying once I pa.s.s my physical and get my license renewed. You interested?"

"We're only staying until you get through with your recovery period." Even that was too long for Cody. Worse, he had to enroll in the local high school here in Noplace, Montana. He had stormed for weeks in rebellion, but his mom was adamant. He got a minor reprieve this week-it was winter break in Noplace. But pretty soon he was going to have to be the new kid. A fate worse than death. "Mom says a few weeks or so. Then we're out of here."

Gavin's grin stayed fixed in place. But the movie-star gleam in his eyes dimmed as if Cody's words were a light switch that suddenly turned it off. "Let's go see if supper's ready."

Cody felt kind of s.h.i.+tty as he followed his grandfather into a big dining room with fancy crystal and china laid out. What did the old man expect? Instant bonding, like on those long-distance phone commercials? He and Gavin Slade were complete strangers. After this transplant thing was over, they probably wouldn't ever see each other again.

Grandfathers made friends with grandsons when they were little and cute, not when they were sixteen, wearing a ponytail and combat boots. Not that Cody wanted to cozy up to the old man, anyway. It was gross, thinking about his illness. He had some kind of fluid bag attached to a tube going inside him, doing the work his kidneys were supposed to do. The very idea of it made Cody want to hurl.

His mom joined them in the dining room. She was smiling in a nervous way. Her gaze kept darting from her father to Cody. "Hi, guys," she said.

Gavin held a chair for her. It was corny but kind of nice seeing the old guy do that. Once, Cody had tried holding a chair out for Claudia. "What, like it's going to get away from me?" she'd asked, then cracked up. Cody had laughed, too.

Dinner was about the best thing that had happened since his mom loaded him into the car at the crack of dawn yesterday. Prepared by an Asian nutrition expert named Tadao, it consisted of pasta with fancy sauce, fresh bread, a bunch of grilled veggies, and a big salad of exotic fruit.

After shoveling away about nineteen pounds of food, Cody glanced up to see both his mother and his grandfather watching him. Neither of them had eaten much. Gavin was on some sort of low-protein diet. He couldn't eat things that made his kidneys work hard because they didn't function at all anymore.

"You must've worked up an appet.i.te out at Lonepine today," Gavin commented.

"It's good," he said, and sucked down a whole gla.s.s of milk.

"Be sure you tell Tadao you enjoyed it," his mom said.

s.h.i.+t. She was always doing that. No matter what it was-having a good meal, talking on the phone, whatever, she had to add her own little goody-goody twist on it. Her own little adjustment or correction. This morning he'd expected her to totally humiliate him in front of that girl, Molly. But for once his mom had shown mercy.

She'd seemed kind of fl.u.s.tered around Sam McPhee, like she couldn't quite decide what to make of him. Cody wasn't sure what to make of the guy either. He was okay, but Cody thought it was totally bogus of him to make him pay off the trailer damage with slave labor.

He helped himself to more milk from a cut-gla.s.s pitcher, feeling a slight sting from the blisters on his hand. Blisters, for chrissakes. He was pretty sure he'd never given himself blisters before. Especially not by shoveling horses.h.i.+t.

He got the idea from that Bliss guy that Lonepine was some kind of hotshot horse breeding and training ranch. It was cool, working in a barn where a mare was about to give birth any minute. When it was time to go today, Cody had felt a twinge of disappointment. He wouldn't have minded seeing the horse being born. It would have given him a good story to tell Claudia.

Maybe the manure story was funny enough. But honestly, he hadn't felt much like laughing. There had been a moment, when he was alone in the barn, with the smells around him and the light falling between the rafters, that an odd feeling had settled over him. Maybe it was the quiet or the sense that he was totally alone; he didn't know. But it had felt kind of pleasant.

"It's nice to be together with the two of you," Gavin said suddenly, pressing his palms on the table as if he never planned to eat again.

"We let too much time go by," his mom said in a quiet voice.

"I know, Mich.e.l.le," Gavin said. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you how many times I picked up the phone, but I never knew what I'd say-"

"Let's not do this, Daddy. Let's not drag up all the old regrets. We can't get back the years we lost. We can only go on from here."

Cody did his best not to roll his eyes. This was just what he'd been hoping to avoid-a big emotional scene where they go "I'm sorry I'm sorry" all over each other and then drag him into the middle of everything as The Grandson You Never Knew.

"Can I be excused?" he asked too loudly.

They both looked at him as if he had a booger hanging out of his nose.

"I told Claudia I'd call her."

"Girlfriend?" Gavin asked.

"Yeah." Cody felt about two feet taller just saying it. He loved walking through the halls at school, hearing everybody whisper: He's going out with Claudia Teller....