Edge by Michael Cadnum Page A

telling Rhonda Newport what had happened to my car.
    â€œI thought Bea could drive me down to the lot,” I concluded.
    â€œThey towed it back?” she asked in a just-checking tone.
    â€œWe left it there beside the street,” I said, feeling like I had to defend the cops.
    â€œHauled it right back, maybe fifty yards,” she said, showing exaggerated exasperation, letting me know how she felt.
    I knew that she was just being nice, expressing sympathy, but I had put the frustration out of my mind and I didn’t want to wake it up. I had dropped by the parking space the night before, prompted by Mom when I had to admit that I had lost track of my car’s actual location. At first I had been certain the vehicle had been stolen again, but the cop computer showed it right back in space 209. The lot was closed at that hour late Sunday night, and I would have to come back in the morning.
    â€œBea’s gone,” said Mrs. Newport. “She’s working on the brand-new speed bag down at the Pit. One of those real tiny ones.” She indicated the dimensions with her hands, the size of a child’s head. “She said she was learning to patter-punch.” She rolled her eyes as she said this: my daughter the pugilist.
    The Volvo was parked in front of my house. I had made the long walk over to Bea’s place, because if I drove down to the cop parking lot, I would be in possession of two vehicles. For the moment I wished all the cars in the universe would evaporate. I imagined my dad’s Mercedes, an older E-class four-door, now totaled because the car had kept rolling for half a block, wiping out a line of parked cars before something stopped it. At least, this was how I pictured it. The cops had a witness, and he would detail what had happened.
    What had stopped my father’s car? The back of a truck, perhaps, or a fire hydrant, a white, gushing geyser. And Dad was so careful, waxing the car twice a year so the Turtle Wax would not build up and obscure the shine. Always wax on a cloudy day, or in the garage, he had taught me. Spread wax in bright sun and it dries too fast. He used saddle soap on the leather seats.
    â€œYou look like a young man badly in need of a waffle,” Rhonda Newport said. A pink bathrobe was sashed hard around her middle, and she had done something with her hair, a pink ribbon dangling. Her moccasins made no sound on the kitchen floor.
    An appliance gleamed on the kitchen counter, a stainless steel jewel box with a dial on top of the lid. She released a catch, and the hinges opened silently to expose a dark grid smelling faintly of hot cooking oil. “A wedding present,” she said. “A Krup limited edition. The Rolls Royce of waffle irons.”
    â€œWhat a nice wedding present,” I said, like someone learning of an ancient, exotic custom.
    â€œIf you bought one now it would be Teflon,” she said.
    I made a little face: Teflon, how awful, although I didn’t know anything about it.
    â€œI have a quart of batter in the fridge,” she said, letting her hip lean into me. “And you look hungry.”
    She was already unpeeling the end of a half stick of Challenge butter, the wrapper uncrinkling. She sliced off a yellow segment and poked the butter down into a coffee mug. She put it into the microwave and we both watched the mug, with its hummingbird decorations illuminated in its prison, rotating on the glass turntable as the microwave clock counted down to zero.
    â€œYou didn’t tell Bea I was coming,” I said.
    â€œWhy would I keep a secret from my own daughter, Zachary?”
    Any number of reasons, I almost said, before I could think. I added, “It wasn’t much of a secret.”
    â€œYou could take a cab,” she said. “The phone is over there, under the corn husks.”
    I tried to remember which bus line ran downtown, and if it still ran from up in the hills. There had been cutbacks lately. I