CHAPTER 10 THE INCIDENT AT KATE’S #2
“Sorry,” Dad says. “I was moving some of Grandpa Redwood’s stuff around and I must have gotten some of his things mixed up with mine.”
A second mention of Grandpa Redwood in the span of a few months when I can count on one hand the number of times my dad had ever spoken about him before strikes me as odd.
“What was Grandpa Redwood doing? Dancing around a firepit? This thing smells like smoke.”
He shrugs. “Maybe? Morticians have probably been caught doing stranger things than that, right?”
“Have they?” I ask. “I’m gonna need you to elaborate. Immediately.”
I expect him to laugh but instead he just looks a little sad.
“I feel like I should tell you more about him,” Dad says.
I’m caught all the way off guard. “What?” I ask. “Now?”
“Well, only, you know, if you want,” Dad says, stumbling over his words. “I know I don’t talk about him much. The kind of person he was—I don’t know—I feel like I should say something.”
“Uh, Dad,” I say gently. “Are you okay? We do not have to talk about the man if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly fine never knowing a single other thing about him if you don’t want to tell me.”
My dad gives a stiff laugh. “No, you’re right, I just thought . . . ? it’s silly.” He pulls the suitcase into his room and glances at his watch. “I’m going to pack so I can get out of here on time. Help your mom while I’m gone and double-check the supply order I put in, okay?”
He kisses me on the top of my head and nudges me toward the stairs.
The smoky smell still lingers in the hall as I make my way back downstairs. I catch my mom in the kitchen.
“Mom,” I say quietly. “Is Dad okay?”
“As far as I know,” she says. “Why?”
“He was talking about Grandpa Redwood,” I say. “He was being weird. Like he wanted to tell me something about him but then changed his mind.”
Mom looks a little concerned but then smiles. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he’s feeling a little sentimental?”
“I thought they didn’t like each other,” I say.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Mom says. “But if he isn’t ready to bring it up I won’t either. I can’t even say I know all the details.”
“All the details of what?” I ask. “Like, what happened between them?”
My mom gives a quick nod and pretends to look for something in the fridge, knowing good and well she doesn’t eat most of the stuff in there. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she says.
I don’t really believe her and now it seems like they’re both keeping something from me. I leave it alone for now but that strange smell is still stuck in my nose and my gut is telling me something is off.
In the late afternoon, my dad takes a Lyft to the airport and I’m about ready to sink into the couch for the evening when my mom starts gathering up her purse and putting on her shoes.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s get out of the house for a little bit.
” She stands in front of the mirror in the hallway and checks her lipstick, gently dabbing at the corners of her mouth.
Her hair is pulled into a bun at the base of her neck and she smooths it down, unnecessarily because not a single hair is out of place anyway.
“Where we going?” I ask.
“I need to get a few things from Kate’s.”
I don’t even pretend to hide my disappointment. “I thought we would go to H it smells like air freshener and freshly oiled wood.
“Hey, Kassie,” the clerk says to my mom.
“Hey,” Mom says back, smiling at the young woman behind the counter.
“You guys are on a first-name basis?” I ask. “The situation is more serious than I thought.”
“Oh, hush,” Mom says. “Rachel, this is my daughter, Meka. Meka, this is Rachel.”
Rachel reaches over the counter to shake my hand. Her jet-black hair is pulled back so tight it’s drawing the corners of her eyes up. Her thick black eyeliner is sharpened to a deadly point.
“Nice to meet you,” she says, smiling a little too hard.
“Same,” I say.
My mom immediately goes to a rack full of dresses and starts thumbing through.
“Do you have this in a twelve?” my mom asks, holding up a long black dress with little white polka dots scattered across it.
“Let me check,” Rachel says. She disappears into a back room and returns a moment later with the dress in my mom’s size. “Changing room’s open,” she says.
“Be right back,” Mom says to me.
I nod and she takes the dress from Rachel and disappears behind a curtain in a little alcove at the rear of the store.
Rachel returns to her post at the register and I wander the shop. I look through the racks of sweaters and overcoats. At the rear of the shop is a display with hand-beaded bracelets and I touch my wrist where the bracelet Noah had given me used to be.
“Mom?” I ask.
She pokes her head out from the dressing room. “You okay, baby?”
We exchange a glance that says no, I’m not okay.
“Okay, give me one second,” she says as she disappears behind the curtain.
The bell over the door dings as someone else enters the shop. I don’t turn around. I’m just trying to keep my legs from going out from under me when there’s a sharp intake of breath from behind me.
I instinctively turn my head toward the sound.
A man has entered the shop and is standing in front of Rachel.
Her eyes are wide and I’m wondering why she’s suddenly dropped the big smile she had for me and my mom.
She’s not even looking at the dude’s face.
Her gaze is directed toward the counter where the man’s hand is resting. In it is a knife.
“Hey, Mr. Lions,” Rachel says in a strained voice. “I—I haven’t seen you in a long time.”
The man huffs. “I’m on the goddamn sidewalk every day. Do you know how cold it is at night?”
His clothes are worn, he’s got on two, maybe three, layers of coats or sweaters, I can’t really tell.
His boots are laceless and his facial hair is long and unkempt.
He grips the knife so hard his hand begins to tremble.
I realize that I’ve seen him around. He’s always holed up in some doorway on the Commons and I think I’ve even seen him at Stewart Park a few times.
“I can call someone for you,” Rachel says. She takes a step back, reaching for the phone.
The man slams his fist onto the counter.
“Who can you call?” he asks. “Who is gonna help me? When I’m dead they can come get me just like the others.”
Rachel holds her hands in front of her. “Please, Mr. Lions.”
“They’re gonna get me!” the man shouts. “They’re gonna cut me up in little pieces!”
There are suddenly hands on me and my mom is silently pulling me into the changing room. She puts her hand over my mouth and shows me her phone—she’s dialed 911 and is holding the phone close to her ear.
The dress she’d been trying on is draped from her shoulders, like she was in the process of changing out of it when she grabbed me.
Her back is to the floor-length mirror hanging at the rear of the fitting room.
In the reflection is a jagged scar running almost the full length of her spine, ending just below her shoulder blades.
“We need help at Kate’s on the Commons,” my mom whispers into the phone. “There’s a man with a knife.”
There’s a loud bang and Rachel yelps. I almost step out of the fitting room but my mom grabs me by my jacket and presses her finger to her lips in a plea for silence.
“Ma’am?” the 911 operator’s voice echoes through the phone. “Ma’am. We’re on the way. Just hold tight.”
Heavy footsteps approach the rear of the shop. I stop breathing. My mom hangs up the phone and I feel like we’ve lost our lifeline. The bell on the shop door dings again.
I hope that means Rachel got out because it looks like me and Mom aren’t gonna be so lucky.
I push my mom behind me and her dress slips down a little farther, revealing another scar on her chest that snakes up from her sternum and branches out to the left.
She follows my gaze and quickly readjusts her clothing.
She gestures to the curtain and makes a pounding motion with her fist.
We’re gonna jump him? I silently mouth to her.
She nods.
He has a knife! I wordlessly scream at her.
She turns and slips her hand into her purse and pulls out a small cylindrical container that says Pepper Spray in bold letters on the side.
Maybe we have a chance or maybe this dude knifes us to death in the dressing room of Kate’s.
For a moment I think about how down I’d been right after Noah died.
I’m still down but I’m not feeling like I want to join him anymore.
I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind and I’d had to talk to a grief counselor about that too.
But no. I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t want to be so hopelessly sad anymore.
And now, right now, I don’t much feel like dying either.
I’m fully prepared to go upside this man’s head with a mirror, a can of pepper spray, and the wrath of a girl stuck in a changing room with her half-naked mother when suddenly there is a flurry of footsteps.
It sounds like somebody is running full speed from the front of the shop to the back.
There’s a muffled yelp, a loud thud, and a crash of glass.
The man’s hand suddenly appears under the curtain, limp and flecked with blood, the knife nowhere to be seen.
More footsteps and then the bell on the front door dings again.
I grab the pepper spray and yank the curtain open to find the man semiconscious on the floor.
The display table with bracelets is busted and lying in pieces.
“End . . . of . . . days,” the man mumbles. “Little . . . tiny . . . ? pieces.”
I glance toward the front of the store and see Rachel standing out on the sidewalk among a gathering of onlookers, none of whom came in to help us. My mom grabs her stuff and I pull her through the store and out the front door. Outside, she quickly puts on her coat.
“I called the police,” Rachel says.
“So did I,” my mom says.
Rachel nods. “Are you guys okay? I’m so sorry I just ran outside, I thought he was gonna stab me!”
“It’s okay,” my mom says.
“Actually, not okay,” I grumble to myself.
Rachel descends into a fit of tears as the police and the Ithaca Department of Public Safety escort the man out to a car. As they’re getting him situated, the knife falls out of his pocket and hits the ground with a soft thud.
“Nobody searched him?” one of the officers asks.
Another officer shrugs like he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. He picks up the knife and tests its weight in his hand.
“Ha!” he huffs. “It’s fake. Made of plastic or somethin’.”
“That doesn’t make any of us feel better,” my mom says angrily. She turns away from the officers and sighs. “They need to worry about why he doesn’t have a place to sleep and stop trying to just throw everybody in jail.”
Rachel leans in close to us. “Did y’all see the person who ran in there and punched Mr. Lions? They came outta nowhere.”
I almost pull out my phone to send a text to Cipriana and Caleb to tell them the wildest shit imaginable just happened when a police officer comes over to take our official statements.
When we’re done, we’re told that Ithaca PD will probably get in touch with us soon and that we should be expecting a call or a visit from them.
Rachel lets my mom in the store to change back into her clothes and then locks up and calls it a day.
Me and my mom head home, stopping to pick up our pizza along the way.
Mom goes on and on about how the city needs to allocate more resources for unhoused people and she’s also pretty worried about Rachel but my mind is stuck on the fact that Ithaca apparently has its own superhero now.