“A lot of kids in my class have them,” CJ said.
“What do your friends use their cell phones for?” Alex asked.
“Most just text. But they can also call home,” he rushed to add before Jenkins had the chance to respond, an indication CJ had rehearsed this seemingly spontaneous speech. “Like Anna Potts got sick the other day at recess and called her mother. And I could call you if, like, Dad forgot to pick me up from soccer again.”
“I didn’t forget,” Jenkins said. “I lost track of time.”
“That’s a responsible answer,” Alex said to CJ. “But I would not want you to be on your phone playing video games or texting your friends when we’re having family time, or when you should be doing homework. Perhaps we could make a deal that you could use the phone for emergencies and have a one-hour privilege to use it at home. Is that an agreement you could live with?”
“Sure.” CJ smiled—a clear indication the boy had expected to be shot down, which Jenkins would have done if his wife had allowed him to speak. Jenkins was anti-technology. He thought cell phones turned anyone under eighteen into zombies. Kids no longer knew how to interact or to play. Not to mention cyberbullying.
“Why don’t you let your dad and me talk about it after dinner? We’ll make a decision together. If you’re finished eating, you can clear your plate and get started on your homework.”
CJ carried his plate, glass, and silverware to the sink, then went to the family room, where they kept the computer.
“Why’d you kick me?” Jenkins rose from his chair and gathered dirty dishes. He called out to the Alexa on the kitchen counter and asked for country music to keep CJ from eavesdropping on their conversation. Keith Urban’s voice filled the kitchen.
“Because he’s growing up,” Alex said, keeping her volume soft. “He wants to talk with us, not be talked to. He asked in a reasonable way, and we can respond just as reasonably, and maybe get something out of it.”
“You mean a reasonable way to say no.”
“I would feel better connected if he had a phone with him. You did forget to pick him up that one afternoon.”
“You show up late one time, and the jury here gives you the death penalty.” Jenkins wasn’t ready yet to have a teenager. It only made him feel older than he was, but there was no stunting CJ’s age or his growth. With a mother five foot ten and a father six foot five, he was the tallest in his class and 115 pounds. His feet outgrew shoes before he wore holes in the soles. His voice cracked now and then, and he’d experienced his first pimples. Jenkins knew the difficulties the boy would soon face, if he had not already, being dark skinned in an almost all-white community. Jenkins had dealt with them himself when he arrived on Camano. People were guarded upon meeting him, some more than guarded. CJ would be perceived as an outsider and a threat. It would not be an easy talk for CJ to hear, but it was one that had to happen, as well as the talk every man needed to have with a son going through puberty. When CJ jumped in the car after soccer practice, Jenkins had to lower the window to air out the body odor. At home one evening, Jenkins had asked Alex what they should do.
“Don’t include me in this. The birds and the bees talk is your responsibility.”
Deciding there was strength in numbers, Jenkins found a sex education class through the local hospital. Afterward, he took CJ to a 1950s drive-up hamburger joint, figuring his son might have questions he didn’t want to ask in front of his peers.
“I was just wondering how long it took. You know, the intercourse part.”
Jenkins struggled with an appropriate answer. He finally talked with CJ about respect for the woman and concluded that the act lasted perhaps ten to twenty minutes.
CJ looked relieved. “Thank God,” he said. “I thought it took like a week. I was wondering how the people got the chance to eat.”
Jenkins nearly snorted strawberry shake through his nose. Upon their return home he told Alex, “We keep buying him pepperoni pizzas and I think we’ll have a few years before we have to worry about sex.”
“Charlie?” Alex stood at the kitchen sink giving him a funny look.
“Huh?”
“I asked if you wanted cleanup duty or Lizzie duty.”
He looked at Lizzie, who sat in her high chair covered in macaroni and cheese. Someday he’d wonder when she had grown up. “I think you mean cleanup duty or cleanup duty. I’ll give Lizzie a bath.”
“No bath,” Lizzie said. “Cookie.”
“Cookie?” Jenkins reached to tickle her belly sticking out from her stained undershirt. “You already have a Buddha belly. You want a bigger Buddha belly?”
Lizzie frowned and pounded the tray with her sippy cup. “No bath. Cookie.”
“I think she’s going to be a judge, the way she swings that cup like a gavel,” Jenkins said to Alex. He removed Lizzie from the chair, holding her at arm’s length. Pieces of macaroni fell to the floor, where Max, their aging pit bull, awaited and eagerly gobbled them up.
Jenkins flipped Lizzie onto her stomach and flew her from the room, making airplane noises. Once he put the bubbles in the bathtub, Lizzie’s protest ended. She splashed and kicked, then didn’t want to get out. He wrapped her in a large white bath towel, put her in a nighttime diaper and pajamas, read her three picture books, and lowered her into her crib with a bottle of water.
“Good night, baby girl,” he said.
“Buddha.” Lizzie laughed.
Jenkins tickled her stomach. “Buddha belly. Buddha belly.”
He shut the door and went downstairs. CJ wore headphones while he worked at the computer in the family room. Jenkins caught Alex’s attention and motioned to the sliding door to the porch. “I’m going to check the horse pastures. Got a fence down. Care to join me?”
“CJ?” Alex tapped their son on the shoulder to get his attention. CJ removed one of the earphones. “Dad and I are going for a walk. We’ll only be gone a few minutes.”
“You know, this is another reason for me to have a cell phone. It would be easier to keep track of you both.”
The boy was laying it on thick. Maybe he would be a plaintiff’s lawyer—or a politician.
Alex and Charlie walked the pastures and discussed CJ getting a phone, ultimately concluding they could do it on a trial basis and see how responsibly the boy behaved. A few more minutes passed in silence, both of them enjoying the evening. Summers, it remained light in the Pacific Northwest until late, but darkness began to fall earlier as September progressed, and Jenkins felt the chill of fall fast approaching. A breeze rattled the maple trees’ leaves and caused the pines to shimmer, and the rain the prior night had softened the ground. Jenkins filled Alex in on his talk with Lemore while he fixed the pasture fence a horse had knocked down.
“Could their silence be related to the FSB operation to find them?” Alex asked.