Free You Could Be Home by Now by Tracy Manaster Page B

name. No wonder Nicky was paying attention. “He’s the most fantastic kid. I’ve got a Facebook group for him going.” Despite the call from her parents, who were thrilled about it in a yes-I-know-it’s-important-to-you-but-we-said-no-Internet-Lily-we’ve-had-it-up-to-here kind of way.
    Nicky’s stylus scribbled briefly. “And the grandma? It’d be great to get intel on her.”
    Boom. The word intel made her loathe him again. The kind of word Rocky would pick up from one of those video games where he pretended to be a soldier. And then there was Mona Rosko: her bare, clean house, her quiet boy, her daughter who actually served. Her hair, a coiling curtain of gray. The golden wasted length of her eyelashes. The fluid arc of a hammer brought unerringly down. “She’s strong,” Lily said. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
    Nicky scrawled. She could read his notes upside down with no trouble. No caps for Rosko.
    â€œShe’s doing her best, you know? Her daughter’s stationed in Afghanistan. Someone’s got to look after the kid.”
    Afghanistan, Nicky wrote. That, he capitalized. She wasn’t saying this right.
    â€œShe’s strong,” she tried again, and then, “real.” Lily mimed Ms. Rosko with the hammer. Nicky looked at her like she was having a fit. “You don’t get it. If you’d seen her on Channel Twelve, you’d get it.”
    Nicky smirked. Rocky II: the return. “I don’t think you were watching the same Channel Twelve as the rest of the world.” He fiddled with his phone. It was embarrassing how much she missed the solid, connected palm-feel of her own. Nicky tilted the screen toward her, shading it with his hand. “Footage from yesterday. Leaked, I guess. Obviously they couldn’t air it.”
    The reporter from last night, hair bobbed at chin level to make her eyes pop. And beside her, the putty-colored face of Per-Vet Thales. “Wait,” he said, “I have something to say.” He shut his eyes, then bugged them out. Beside him, the reporter gave a brief, conversational nod. The per-vet inhaled. “That Mona Rosko is a vinegary old cunt.”
    A quick pan back to the reporter. You could pinpoint the moment she processed the word. “Sir—”
    â€œAnd you’re a cunt, too. I apologize for saying it, Miss, but it’s true. And you—” he pointed a tuberous finger at the camera—“you’re a cunt for listening.” He brought a hand to his mouth for an improvised megaphone. “All you neighbors! All of you are cunts for even caring about this.” His voice pitched high and mincing. “But we have rules. ” Something in his throat shifted. His voice was baritone now, but still whiney. “But he’s a little boy and we have to be nice to him.” His face contorted; his eyebrows wriggled like a pair of tortured caterpillars. A fly zoomed into the frame. It came to rest on his cheek and he swatted it away, his hands huge and pawlike. The fly made its erratic way toward the camera and then back onto his face. He didn’t notice, even when it crawled over the bridge of his nose. “We know the little boy’s safe, and he’s a cunt, too. We all are, because nobody cares about the real problem, about children who—” His throat worked horribly, like he was struggling for air. His skin had gone from putty to meat. The fly turned small circles on his left cheek. “Tenaya Alder, sixteen. Last seen wearing cutoffs and a green T-shirt. Mimi Asencios, sixteen. Last seen wearing her Pizza Hut uniform.” The fly edged toward the corner of his mouth. Benjamin Thales had gone completely robotic, his voice glazed and metallic. “Christy Aves, sixteen. Last seen wearing khakis and a red parka. Lisa Balish, almost sixteen. Last seen wearing her boyfriend’s letter jacket. Meghan Bagnall—”