Small Steps Read online

  “I guess it was worth the wait,” she whispered.

  30

  “You’re going to freeze. I can’t believe you didn’t bring a jacket!” She held both his hands.

  “It’s summer. It’s like a hundred degrees in Texas.”

  “You’re not in Texas. You’re here, with me.”

  “Well, you’re pretty hot too,” said Armpit.

  She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Come on, we’ll get you a sweatshirt or something at the gift shop.”

  She let go of one of his hands but still held the other as she led him into the boutique.

  He began looking through the sweatshirts, trying to find one that wasn’t too cutesy, but Kaira went straight to a charcoal gray wool jacket hanging on display.

  “You’d look great in this!”

  It was pretty sharp. Armpit felt the fabric, which was as soft as Kaira’s flannel shirt. He was about to try it on when he saw the price. Nine hundred and ninety-five dollars.

  He returned to the sweatshirts even though Kaira told him not to worry about the price. “You just charge it to your room. The tour will pay for it.”

  Armpit picked out a hooded red sweatshirt that said SAN FRANCISCO on it and had a picture of a cable car. It cost a hundred and twenty dollars, but that seemed like a bargain compared to the jacket. He charged it to his room.

  Kaira called him Little Red Riding Hood when he put the hood up, so he put it back down. “You want to take a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge?” she asked.

  “Sounds good.”

  The doorman whistled for a taxi, and Kaira asked the driver if he knew the way to the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “Never heard of it,” the driver said, then winked at Armpit.

  Armpit got in the backseat, and Kaira snuggled up next to him. “You take your own cab,” she told Fred.

  She felt soft and cuddly, like one of Ginny’s stuffed animals.

  As they pulled away from the hotel, Kaira asked Armpit for a fifty-dollar bill.

  Apparently she was used to being around people who carried that kind of money. For once in his life Armpit actually had several fifties in his wallet.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” she told the driver, handing him Armpit’s fifty. “The guy following us is a total doofus. As soon as you can ditch him, let us out, then keep on going to the bridge.”

  “I like your style,” the driver told her.

  “Me too,” said Armpit.

  Kaira sang, “I like your style/and the way you smile/just drives me wild.”

  Armpit didn’t know if it was a real song or if she just made it up on the spot.

  “You know, you got a really nice voice,” the driver remarked.

  The cab suddenly swerved across three lanes of traffic. Kaira laughed as she fell across Armpit’s lap.

  The driver told them to get ready. He turned a corner, then eased to a stop in front of a double-parked UPS truck.

  “Go!”

  Kaira opened the door and jumped out. Armpit only had one foot on the pavement when the driver hit the gas. He swung the door shut and grabbed Kaira’s hand to keep from falling.

  They crouched down behind the large brown truck as the taxi with Fred in it drove right on by.

  Jerome Paisley slipped the key card into the slot and was pleased to see the green light come on. He checked the hallway one last time, then opened the door to Armpit’s suite and stepped quickly inside.

  He wore a pair of latex gloves, the kind worn by surgeons. They fit tight, like an extra layer of skin.

  He took a quick look around the sitting area, then went into the bedroom, where Armpit’s clothes were strewn across the floor. He picked up a sweat-soaked sock, considered it a moment, then let it drop.

  He entered the bathroom. Armpit’s wet towel lay in a heap on the floor, next to the terry-cloth bathrobe the hotel had provided. The cap was off a tube of toothpaste, and some toothpaste had leaked out. A hairbrush lay next to the mirror.

  He picked up the hairbrush and removed a couple of strands of hair that were stuck to the bristles. He placed them in a plain white envelope.

  A used Band-Aid, crusted with blood, lay on the floor next to the wastebasket. He picked it up, smiled at his fat face in the mirror, then placed the Band-Aid in the envelope as well.

  He returned to the sitting area. Aileen was the one who had provided him with the extra key to Armpit’s room. She also had given him two keys to Kaira’s. He now placed one of them between the cushions on the couch.

  Before leaving, he took the knife from the fruit and cheese plate.

  They found themselves walking through Chinatown, his arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist. Racks of fruits and vegetables had been set out in front of small grocery stores, further blocking the already crowded sidewalks. Trucks were double-parked up and down the street. Traffic was at a standstill, and people moved in and out between the cars. Yet when Armpit and Kaira stopped and kissed by the pagoda on Grant Avenue, it seemed to each of them like they were the only two people on the street.

  They continued walking. Armpit was amazed by all the people and wondered what their lives were like. He felt like he was in a foreign country. Women grumbled in Chinese as they picked through vegetables and melons that he’d never seen before.

  “Look at those,” he said, pointing at green beans that were well over a foot long.

  “I don’t like veggies,” said Kaira.

  The insides of the stores seemed even more exotic and mysterious than the vegetables displayed on the sidewalk, but he couldn’t get her to go in one with him. She had been grossed out by a string of dead ducks hanging in a window.

  “I think it’s cool,” said Armpit.

  “That’s because you’re not a duck,” said Kaira.

  She agreed to stop at a store selling Chinese souvenirs because he wanted to buy something for Ginny. The silk slippers would have been perfect, but he didn’t know what size to get, and Kaira pointed out that slippers weren’t like T-shirts; they had to be an exact fit.

  Going through a rack of clothes, he came across a sweatshirt that was identical to the one he was wearing. The price was nineteen ninety-nine.

  “It’s not the same,” said Kaira. “It doesn’t have a hood.”

  “That’s one expensive hood,” said Armpit.

  “That’s not the only difference,” said Kaira. “Feel the fabric.”

  It didn’t feel all that different to Armpit, but he didn’t say so.

  He ended up buying Ginny a silk scarf that showed the Golden Gate Bridge stretching across a background of blue sky and green ocean.

  31

  “God, I can breathe again,” Kaira said. The crowds of people and the strong smells of Chinatown had gotten to her. “I could kill for a cup of coffee.”

  He believed her.

  They were now in the Italian section of the city, which Kaira said was called North Beach, but he didn’t see any sand or water. The streets were lined with Italian restaurants, cafés, bookstores, and other small shops. One shop sold nothing but old postcards.

  “It’s not a beach,” Kaira explained. “It’s just called that.”

  “Kind of like Camp Green Lake,” said Armpit.

  They went down into a basement coffeehouse. Interspersed between the tables, vertical wooden beams supported the ceiling. The wood seemed especially dark and rich, as if it had been absorbing coffee for the last fifty years.

  The girl behind the counter had a teardrop tattoo under her left eye. Kaira ordered a double cappuccino and asked for whipped cream on top.

  “The same,” said Armpit. He would have felt dumb asking for a Coke in a place like this.

  The coffee was served in cups the size of soup bowls. The eternally crying girl sprinkled powdered chocolate over the whipped cream. Kaira picked out some kind of twisted pastry that was big enough for them to share, then took her coffee and pastry and went looking for a table.

  “Nine dollars and twenty cents
,” said the girl behind the counter.

  Armpit was surprised by how cheerful she sounded. He paid with a ten and left the change in the tip jar.

  Kaira was emptying a packet of sugar into her coffee when he sat down next to her. The remains of another sugar packet lay in a small coffee puddle next to her cup.

  “Isn’t this place great?” she asked. “Beatniks used to read poetry and play bongos on that stage.”

  The stage was a triangular space in the corner, raised about a foot off the floor. It was empty now, but there were small posters attached to the beams, advertising various folksingers and poets who would be performing over the next few weeks.

  Armpit just hoped the beams were strong enough to hold up in an earthquake. If they’d been around since beatnik times, they must be strong, he thought. Either that or they were ready to break at the next little shake.

  He tried to take a sip of his cappuccino but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it without getting whipped cream on his nose.

  “I’d like to sing on a small stage like that. No flashing lights. No backup singers. No bloodsucking agents or business managers. Just get up there and sing, and then pass around a hat. People pay what they want.” Her eyes lit up. “You could be my guitar player!”

  “That’d be great,” Armpit agreed. “Except I don’t know how to play the guitar.”

  Kaira laughed. She tore off a piece of the pastry, dipped it in her coffee, and tasted it. “Oh, that is so good!” She dunked a second piece and fed it to Armpit.

  The pastry was good, but her fingertips were even better.

  “So, how’s Ginny?”

  “The same,” he said. “Great.”

  “You’re so good with her,” Kaira said. “I really admire that. I have a hard time around handicapped kids.”

  Armpit rarely thought of Ginny as handicapped.

  “Have you ever heard of the Make-A-Wish Foundation?” she asked him.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “In a couple of weeks I’m supposed to spend the day with a nine-year-old girl dying of some disease. I was her wish!”

  “That’s really nice of you.”

  He took a sip of coffee, then wiped the whipped cream off his nose with his napkin.

  “I dread it,” said Kaira. “I know, that makes me sound like an awful person, but I just get creeped out being around someone like that. My manager says it’s good publicity. I don’t know what she wants from me! I’m just a singer. It’s not like I can cure cancer!”

  “She’s not expecting you to cure her,” said Armpit. “Just look her in the eye. Let her know she’s real.”

  Kaira looked deep into Armpit’s eyes.

  “Just like that,” he said.

  She smiled and said, “You are so wonderful.”

  “No, I’m not,” he said.

  “Yeah, you really are,” said Kaira.

  He reached across the small table and held her hand. “There’s something I got to tell you,” he said.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Kaira said playfully. “You look so serious.”

  “It’s just that . . .” He wasn’t sure how to begin. “You know at the concert, how Ginny and I had counterfeit tickets?”

  A man wearing a shirt and tie and one pearl earring suddenly approached the table. “You’re Kaira DeLeon, aren’t you?”

  Kaira took a second, then admitted it. “This is my friend Theodore.”

  The guy didn’t even glance at Armpit. “My niece plays your CD all the time. The Fountain of Youth, right?”

  “Yep,” said Kaira.

  “Only one of her CDs I can listen to without throwing up!”

  “Uh, thanks, I guess,” said Kaira.

  “No, really. For overproduced commercial pap, it’s not too bad.” The guy stretched his arm in front of Armpit’s face and said, “I’m very honored to meet you.”

  Kaira shook his hand.

  He handed her a napkin. “Would you mind?”

  Kaira showed him her empty hands, but he gave her a pen.

  She signed the napkin.

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot. My niece will love it. Now will you do one for me?” he asked, handing her another napkin.

  “Sorry about that,” Kaira said once the guy left.

  Armpit shrugged.

  “So what were you about to tell me?”

  He wasn’t sure it was the right time anymore. Everyone in the café seemed to be looking at them.

  “About the concert?” Kaira prompted.

  Armpit took a breath. “Okay, here’s the thing. You know the letter you sent me?”

  Kaira laughed. “Yeah, I think I remember it. Talk about embarrassing!”

  “Right. So will you write me another letter? One that’s not so embarrassing?”

  Kaira smiled, then leaned close and whispered, “Maybe it will be more embarrassing.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean write one sometime this weekend. You don’t have to mail it. Just write it in your handwriting and give it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s this guy who wants to buy it for a hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “What?”

  That came out wrong. He wasn’t used to drinking coffee, and it felt like his brain was racing off in different directions.

  “Let me explain.”

  “Yeah, I think you better.”

  “See, I didn’t get the tickets from a scalper. Well, technically I did, but I didn’t buy them.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “See, I have this friend. And he was scalping tickets. We bought twelve tickets for your concert. I paid for the tickets, and he sold them, and we split the profit.”

  “You’re a ticket scalper.”

  “My friend is. Was. And he’s the one who gave me the phony tickets.”

  “Your friend?”

  “But now there’s this other guy who will tell the police unless I sell him your letter. So I was thinking if you wrote another letter that wasn’t too embarrassing, I could sell him that one, and my friend won’t go to jail.”

  “Why don’t I just write you ten letters? Then you can make a thousand dollars!”

  “You don’t understand. It’s not about money.”

  “No, you don’t care about money. Just want to keep your friend out of jail.”

  “Right.”

  “So how does this other guy know about my letter?”

  “My friend told him.”

  “You are unbelievable.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Maybe you should have your friend explain it to me!” She stood up. “You’re just another hustler. Anything for money.”

  “What do you know about money?” Armpit asked. “You don’t have a clue. You say you want to just sing in places like this and pass around the hat. You wouldn’t know how to live like that. Here, buy a jacket. Only a thousand dollars. Charge it to your room. You wouldn’t have a clue.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a clue?” asked Kaira. She stood up. “I just have one question,” she said. “Who was it who kissed me? You, or your friend?”

  She picked up her cup and tossed the contents at him, splattering him with coffee and cream.

  Several people applauded. A woman in red leather said, “You go, girl!”

  She did just that. Right out the door.

  Armpit sat there a moment, wiping himself with a napkin as he tried to figure out why Kaira thought X-Ray had kissed her.

  32

  It was a long walk back to the hotel. Kaira was nowhere to be seen, and he supposed she’d taken a cab. He doubted she had any cash on her, but when she got to the hotel she could probably call somebody to come down and pay the driver.

  He headed back up through Chinatown. He wasn’t exactly sure of the way, but he knew the general direction. The streets were steeper than he remembered, and after a while he had to take off his coffee-stained sweatshirt and tie it around his waist. He carried Ginny’s present in a
flat paper bag.

  He wondered whether he should try to talk to Kaira when he got back to the hotel, or wait a day, or maybe just fly back to Austin. It would be pretty weird spending the weekend in the hotel with her hating him and everybody on the tour knowing about it. Maybe just write her a note.

  He’d thought asking her to write the second letter was such a great plan, but now it just seemed so lame. What good would it have done? Detective Newberg was smart. She’d eventually figure out he was Armpit, whether Felix told her or not.

  He had tried to take too big a step, and the current had knocked him off his feet and was washing him away. All his efforts, at school and at work, were for nothing. X-Ray would most likely go to jail, and he probably would too.

  For what? The whim of a rich and famous girl.

  He had thought he’d made a real connection with her, but what did he know? It wasn’t that long ago that he’d thought he made a real connection with Tatiana. The truth was, half the girls at school could have easily won his heart. It wouldn’t have taken all that much; just a smile and he’d be hooked.

  But would he have thrown his life away for one of them, or was it just because Kaira was rich and famous? He had mocked her for wanting to charge a thousand-dollar jacket to her room, but maybe that was the reason he came to San Francisco, to live that kind of highfalutin life.

  No, it was more than that. At least, he thought it was more than that. He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t know nothing about nothing.

  And he had told her she didn’t have a clue! I’m the one who’s clueless.

  He took a deep breath. The cool ocean air mixed with the exotic smells of Chinatown. There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people, even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

  He stopped and bought some kind of steamed bun, still piping hot, from a Chinese vendor who didn’t speak English. The dough was made of rice flour, and it was soft and spongy on the outside. Inside was some of the best roast pork he’d ever eaten.

  He was reminded of the speech for Wilbur the Pig. “He’ll bring about world peace, and if he doesn’t, everyone will get a ham sandwich.”