LITMIR.BIZ

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“maybe.”

       Back in his truck, he adjusted the rearview mirror and looked into his own eyes. Who are you? he asked silently. And what have you done with Jesse McKettrick?

      “I COMPLETELY BLEW IT,” Cheyenne told her mother the moment she stepped into the house that night.

       Ayanna sat on the old couch, her feet resting bare on the cool linoleum floor, crocheting something from multi-strands of variegated yarn. “How so?” she asked mildly.

       The sounds of cyber-battle bounced in from the next room. Mitch was playing a video game on his laptop. Mitch was always playing a video game on his laptop. It was as though by shooting down animated enemies he could keep his own demons at bay.

       “Jesse flatly refused to sell me the land,” Cheyenne said.

       Ayanna smiled softly. “You expected that.”

       Cheyenne tossed her heavy handbag onto a chair, kicked off her shoes and sighed with relief. “Yeah,” she said.

       “Want something to eat?” Ayanna asked. “Mitch and I had mac-and-cheese.”

       “I had soup,” Cheyenne said.

       Her cell phone played its elevator song inside her bag.

       “Ignore it,” Ayanna advised.

       “I can’t,” Cheyenne answered. She fished out the phone, flipped it open and said, “Hello, Nigel.”

       “Have you made any progress?” Nigel asked.

       Cheyenne looked at her watch. “Gosh, Nigel. You’ve shown amazing restraint. It’s been at least an hour and a half since the last time you called.”

       “You said you were on your way to have dinner with McKettrick,” Nigel reminded her. They’d talked, live via satellite, during the drive between Lucky’s and the Roadhouse. “How did it go?”

       Ayanna sat serenely, crocheting away.

       “He said no,” Cheyenne reported.

       “Just like that?”

       “Just like that.”

       “We’re doomed.”

       “Take a breath, Nigel. He agreed to look at the plans—on one condition.”

       “What condition?”

       “I have to look at the land. Tomorrow morning. I’m meeting him at his place at 9:00 a.m.”

       “So we’re still in the running?”

       “Anybody’s guess,” Cheyenne said wearily, moving her purse to sink into the chair herself. “Jesse’s direct, if nothing else, and as soon as he knew what I wanted, he dug in his heels.”

       “Maybe you shouldn’t have sprung it on him so soon,” Nigel mused. Cheyenne could just see her boss’s bushy brows knitting together in a thoughtful frown. She wondered if he’d ever considered investing in a weed eater, for purposes of personal grooming.

       “You didn’t give me any other choice, remember?”

       “Don’t make this my fault.”

       “You’ve been breathing down my neck since I got off the plane in Phoenix yesterday morning. If you want me to do the impossible, Nigel, you’ve got to give me some space.”

       “You can do this, can’t you, Cheyenne?”

       She felt a surge of shaky confidence. “I specialize in the impossible,” she said.

       “Come through for me, babe,” Nigel wheedled.

       “Don’t call me babe,” Cheyenne responded. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother smile. “And don’t bug me, either. When I have something to tell you, I’ll be in touch—”

       “But—”

       “Goodbye, Nigel.” Cheyenne thumbed the end button.

       Sounds of intense warfare burgeoned from Mitch’s room.

       With another sigh, Cheyenne tossed the cell phone onto a dust-free end table and rose from her chair. “You know something, Mom?” she said, brightening. “You’re amazing. You’ve been in this house for a few hours, and already it feels like home.”

       Ayanna’s eyes glittered with a sudden sheen of tears. “I want to do my part, Cheyenne,” she said. “I know you think you’re in this alone, but you’re not. You have me, and you have Mitch.”

       Cheyenne’s throat knotted up. When she spoke, her voice came out as a croak. “Speaking of Mitch—”

       Ayanna set aside her crochet project and stood, pointed herself in the direction of the kitchen, which, unlike those in the condos Cheyenne and Nigel planned to build, boasted none of the modern conveniences. “I’ll make you some herbal tea,” Ayanna said. “Might help you sleep.”

       “Thanks,” Cheyenne said and crossed to push open the partially closed door to her brother’s room.

       Mitch sat hunched over his computer, a refurbished model, bought with money Ayanna had probably saved from the checks Cheyenne sent every payday. He seemed so slight and fragile, slouched in his wheelchair, with a card table for a desk. Once, he’d been athletic. One of the most popular kids in school.

       “Hey,” Cheyenne said.

       “Hey,” Mitch responded without looking away from the laptop screen.

       She considered mussing his hair, the way she’d done when he was younger, before the accident, and decided against the idea. Mitch was nineteen now, and his dignity was about all he had left.

       When the deal was done, she reminded herself, she’d buy him a real computer, like the one she’d seen at McKettrickCo when she’d stopped in looking for Jesse earlier that day. Maybe then he’d start hoping again.

       “I wish we could go back to Phoenix,” he said.

       She sat down on his bed. Ayanna had brought his blankets and spread from home, put them on the rollaway that had been old when Cheyenne had left for college. Oh, yes, Ayanna had tried, but the room was depressing, just the same. The wallpaper was peeling, and the curtains looked as though they’d been through at least one flood. The linoleum floor was scuffed, with the pattern worn away in several places.

       “What’s in Phoenix?” she asked lightly, though she knew. In the low-income housing where he and Ayanna lived, he’d had friends. He’d had cable TV, and there was a major library across from the apartment building, with computers. Here, he had an old laptop and a rollaway bed.

       Mitch merely shrugged, but he shut down the game and swiveled his chair around so he could face Cheyenne.

       “Things are gonna get better,” she said.

       “That’s what Mom says, too,” Mitch replied, but he didn’t sound as if he believed it.

       Cheyenne studied her brother. She and Mitch had different fathers; hers was dead, his was God knew where. Ten years ago, when she’d left Indian Rock, he’d been nine and she’d been seventeen. When Ayanna had followed her second husband, Pete, to Phoenix, dragging Mitch along with her, Cheyenne had been in her sophomore year at the University of Arizona, scrambling to keep up her grades and hold on to her night job. Mitch had written her a plaintive letter, begging her to come home, so the two of them could stay in this run-down shack of a house. He’d loved Indian Rock then—loved the singular freedoms of growing up in a small town.

       She’d replied with a postcard, scrawled on her break at Hooters, telling him to get real. She wasn’t about to come back, and even if she did, Ayanna would never agree to let them live alone, with Gram gone. You’ll like Phoenix, she’d said.

       “I’m sorry, Mitch,” she said now, after swallowing her heart. It was true that Ayanna wouldn’t have let her children stay

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