Small Steps (Holes 2)

“She’s not a golden goose!” he declared. “I’m the golden goose. She’d still be singing in her church choir if it weren’t for me. I made her who she is, and I can find someone else just as easily.”

His plan was to stay with Kaira’s mother for a couple of years to avoid suspicion, then divorce her and live with Aileen. But those weren’t Aileen’s plans. She had no intention of sharing her money or her life with that self-absorbed maniac.

Which was why in addition to needing to book a ticket for Theodore Johnson, she planned to book one for herself: first to Portland, then to Costa Rica. The name on her passport was Denise Linaria.

One thing for certain. She did not want to be anywhere near San Francisco when Theodore Johnson got there.

The concert that night was in an outside amphitheater, nestled in the foothills. Kaira waited on a patio offstage. The ocean air was cool and foggy. She could smell the flowers that bloomed around the Santa Barbara Mission.

She couldn’t believe she’d be seeing Theodore again in just three days. Aileen had booked the ticket. It almost made her like Aileen again.

More than once she had thought about telling her mother about Aileen, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to hurt her mother. As much as she hated to admit it, the sad truth was that she, Kaira, needed El Genius. Despite all her bluster, deep down she knew there was no way she would ever fire him. She’d be lost without him.

Once the concert started she was able to shut out all thoughts about her mother and El Genius and just disappear into the music. Out in the open air, her voice seemed to float all the way up to the stars. And nobody noticed, not the band, not the audience, when this time she really did sing:

“Save me, Armpit!

A damsel in distress.”

26

Uncharacteristically, Jack Dunlevy wore a jacket and tie. Armpit told him he looked sharp, but Jack just grumbled something about not having enough neck room. He had to go to some kind of meeting at the mayor’s office.

They were at a house where two months earlier they’d installed a sprinkler system. Now there was a leak. “It’s somewhere on the right side of the front yard,” his boss told him.

“My right, or the house’s right?” Armpit asked.

“What?”

“I mean, is it on the right when I’m standing in the street facing the house, or when I’m standing at the front door facing the street?”

“Just find the damn leak and fix it!”

He was edgy about the meeting and his clothes made him uncomfortable. Plus the homeowner wouldn’t be paying him for this, no matter what caused the leak, but he still had to pay Armpit.

He left for his meeting, and Armpit looked over the area. There was no easy way to find a leak. He would just have to dig along every inch of pipe.

And he was just about to do that when a mountain laurel planted near the corner of the house caught his attention. He hadn’t remembered that mountain laurel being there the last time.

He realized, of course, that he’d worked at forty houses, at least, and couldn’t remember every plant in every yard. Still, he had to start digging somewhere, so he started there.

It took him less than twenty minutes to find the leak. Whoever had planted the mountain laurel had cut a gash into the sprinkler line with a shovel.

He sawed off a two-foot section of the damaged pipe, then attached a new piece. He had to let the glue dry before he could test it, so he was sitting in the shade when a car pulled up.

He assumed it was someone coming to see the homeowner, so it took a moment for his brain to register that the guy getting out of the driver’s seat was Felix and the guy in the cowboy hat was Moses.

Moses pulled a third person out of the back seat—X-Ray. X-Ray had a large bruise on his right cheek, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His shirt was ripped.

Armpit rose to his feet. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

“Everything’s cool,” X-Ray said as Moses shoved him along. “They just want to talk to you.”

There was something wrong with X-Ray’s mouth, and he spoke with a little bit of a lisp.

“Where are his glasses?” Armpit asked.

Moses pulled X-Ray’s glasses out of his front shirt pocket, held them a moment, then dropped them on the lawn.