“Yeah, desert heat,” she says, walking toward the side of the house. “You got to love it.”
I follow her as she wanders to the fence line and peeks into the backyard. There are a few neighbors outside in their yards and driveways, and one of them, a heavier guy with a visor on his head, watches us like we’re about to rob the place.
“What if someone calls the cops on us?” I ask as she swings her leg over the fence.
She shrugs as she grabs the top of the chain link fence and hoists herself over it onto the grass. “Then they call my uncle and he can tell them that they’re crazy,” she says as she lands on the other side and wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.
I glance back at the neighbor guy still eyeing us and then put my leg over the fence and climb to the other side, brushing the dirt off on the back of my shorts. The backyard has a Jacuzzi in it, along with a flower garden and a gazebo that has a bunch of wind chimes hanging on it.
“Is your cousin married?” I ask as we round the corner of the house. “Or single?”
“He’s single, thirty-four, and from what I remember he takes up all these weird hobbies, like collecting wind chimes.” She nods at the collection of them singing against the gentle, hot breeze.
“What’s he do for a living?”
“He works at a bank.”
“A bank.” I sidestep a large flowerpot. “That sounds…”
“Boring,” Lea says, grinning over her shoulder at me. “Yeah, Brandon is pretty boring, which is why it’s good we’re staying with him. He’ll keep us out of trouble.”
I smile as she strolls up to the sliding glass door. “You are the best friend ever.”
“You know we’re going to have to get friendship bracelets or something and then push them together every time you say it,” she jokes as she cups her hands around her eyes and peers through the glass.
“Sounds like a plan,” I joke back, walking up to a flowerpot beside the door. I lift it up but there’s no key under it. “Okay, no key.”
“Hold on.” Lea comes over and crouches down beside me. Then she rubs her hand across the bottom of the flowerpot, pulling at something. When she pulls back she has a key in her hand.
“Ta-da,” she announces, holding the key up as she picks some tape off it and straightens her legs.
“Bravo.” I clap my hands.
She grins, pleased with herself, as she presses her hand against her chest. “What can I say, I’m a genius.”
I glance at the sliding glass door, which obviously doesn’t take a key. “All right, genius, now figure out where the key goes.”
She pauses, looking around the back of the house as she taps her lip. “Huh, that’s interesting.”
“Is there a garage door?” I ask, stepping to the corner of the house.
“I’m not sure.” She follows me. “He just moved into the house like six months ago so I’ve never been here.”
I backtrack to the fence and find the door to the garage. Lea nudges me out of the way with her elbow so she can put the key in the lock. It fits and the door opens up.
“Hell yeah.” She raises her hand in the air as she grins proudly.
We high-five and then step inside the garage, which doesn’t have a car in it, just shelves and boxes and a couple of four-wheelers. I can’t help but think about my garage back home filled with boxes of my old stuff, a lot of it connected to Landon. I was planning on going through my things when I got there this summer, because I can now. I was going to make an album with the photos and some of Landon’s sketches. I have to make sure I do it, after I’m done taking care of stuff here. It’s important.
After we go into the house and unlock the front door, Lea and I unload the trunk of the car and put all our stuff in the guest room at the back of the house beside the den. It’s a nice place, clean carpet, tile floors, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The furniture is plain, but not trashy, and there are a few photos hanging on the wall in the living room, one of which Lea tells me is of her dad and her uncle.
“Your dad kind of looks like you,” I tell her and then take a drink from a glass of water, parched and sweaty after being out in the heat. In the photo are two guys, one short and one tall, but their facial features are the same, one’s just a lot younger—Lea’s uncle. It looks like they’ve just gone fishing and Lea’s dad is holding up a fish, looking proud of it. He actually seems really happy, all smiles and pride, and I want to ask her when the picture was taken, how long before he decided to end his life, but I’m not going to because it’ll bring up painful emotions for her. I know, because whenever someone mentions Landon’s name I still feel a sting in my heart.
“Thank you,” she says, then turns away from the photo and plops down on the brown leather couch. She kicks her feet up on the coffee table, picks up the remote from the armrest of the sofa, and aims it at the flat-screen mounted on the wall. “How about we watch a little Ridiculousness?”
I set my glass of water down on an end table, then cross my arms over my chest and walk to the sofa but don’t sit down. “I don’t want to seem crazy or anything, but I really want to go see Quinton before I do anything.”
The television screen clicks on and she glances outside at the sun setting, the sky a palette of colors and the city nearly glowing in the distance. “Nova, it’s getting late…maybe we should wait until morning. I mean, you haven’t even called your mom and told her we got here and you know she’s going to worry.”
“I know.” I sit down on the back of the sofa. “I was actually going to wait to do that until I talked to Quinton first…see how long I’m going to be down here, so I can give her a better idea.”
She sets the remote down on the sofa cushion and turns around to face me. “And how exactly are you going to determine that?”
“I have no idea.” I run my fingers through my dry, limp hair. “I honestly have no idea what the hell I’m doing. All I know is that I have to do…something.”
She presses her lips together, contemplating. “From the papers I printed from the Internet, it sounds like meth addicts can be super moody.”
“I think that’s the case with all drugs, not just meth.”
“Yeah, but meth addicts are worse.”
“I sort of guessed so.” Actually, I didn’t. Actually, I have no idea what I’m doing. Shit, what am I going to say to him when I first see him? Why haven’t I planned this out more? Jesus, Nova.