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“Let’s see if you can fit your whole body inside my suitcase. ‘Kay?”
Tyler giggled and did as instructed. Of course he didn’t fit, not with the leg braces on, but when Vinnie helped him take them off, he fit just fine. Vinnie even showed him how he could close the lid, though he didn’t close it all the way tight. Tyler thought it was about the funniest thing in the world.
He heard the door open and he peeked out. The grumpy lady was back, but not with any pizzas. She’d only been gone a minute.
She saw him in the suitcase and he thought she was gonna have a hissy, the way her face changed. Her eyes got kinda big and her skin seemed whiter than usual. Although it was pretty white already. Dad would say she didn’t get enough sun.
She looked at Vinnie and then she was yelling, real loud. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? What are you doing, Vinnie? What are youdoing?”
“Oh, knock it off already!” Vinnie snapped.
He sounded mad too, so Tyler cringed a little deeper into that big suitcase. It was kinda like a cave. He could pretend he was a bear and hide out there if he wanted.
Then the lid was flung back suddenly, and he hid his face.
“Get out of there, Tyler. Come on.” The lady wasn’t yelling anymore. She even put a hand on his shoulder.
Tyler climbed out of the suitcase and sat on the bed. “We was just playin’ a game,” he told her.
She nodded. “I know.” Then she glanced at the suitcase again and frowned. She bent down and picked up a envelope. “What is this? Jesus, Vinnie, this is a one way ticket to South America.”
He eyes widened.
“Look, babe, once those charges are dropped, my accounts get unfrozen. I’ve got a guy ready to transfer everything overseas. And I’m gonna move just as fast as my money, cause you know they’ll have a whole new set of charges to file. I gotta get out while the gettin’s good.”
She blinked. “B-but... it’s only one ticket.”
“Yeah. But I’ll send for you once I get settled.”
She looked real sad, then, her eyes got all wet. “And what about Tyler? You promised me he wouldn’t get hurt.”
“Aw, I wasn’t gonna get hurt,” Tyler said, wanting her not to cry. “That suitcase is soft, and he didn’t close it all the way.”
Vinnie and the lady just stared at each other. Finally Vinnie said, “I return him, they file new charges. If they can’t find him for a while, that buys me a little time.”
She was quiet for a long time. Then she finally handed him the car keys and said, “I think maybe you’d better go get the pizza yourself. I’m not leaving him alone with you.”
“You defying me now?”
They were mad again. Tyler didn’t like it.
“You don’t wanna go,” Ang said. “Fine. I will, but I’m taking him with me.”
“Not in this lifetime, Angie.”
Tyler spoke up. “When my dad wants pizza, he calls and they bring it to us. Can we do that, maybe?”
They both turned their heads toward him. For a minute he thought they were going to yell, but then Vinnie smiled at him. “You’re a smart kid, you know that?” Then he crossed the room and opened a drawer, took out a big, fat yellow book and started turning pages. “Someplace around this town has to deliver.”
Tyler didn’t mention that he really ought to put his leg braces back on. He hated them. Instead he sat where he was, on the bed. The lady got a big shopping bag out of the closet and dumped it out on the bed, and Tyler thought it looked like he was having a birthday party. There was a remote-control race car, a video-game system, a pile of games for it, some books and a lot of other stuff.
“Wow!”
“This is all for you, Tyler,” the woman said. “Why don’t you pick something out and play for a while, huh?”
“Gee, thanks. And it’s not even my birthday.”
“Well, it’s almost Christmas, right?”
