Page 6 of Laying Low

Reg felt his cheeks heat.“The whole reason we have the teacher display is for you and me to show we teach because we can do,” he recited, and she gave him a grave nod.

“Now I have an entire shelf devoted to my sculptures, front and center, and you need to get your display boardout hereand not back by the men’s bathroom.”She ruffled his hair with a manicured hand tipped with scarlet polish.“Come on,mijo—what’s the worst that can happen?A parent will look and say, ‘He volunteers his time?Why isn’t he making a living from this?’”

Reg rolled his eyes.“You know,” he said, trying not to whine, “it’s like having people gaze at your soul or something.It’shard.”

“I know, my love,” she said, and her eyes held nothing but kindness.“But your soul is so pure.I know we live in a harsh world, and sometimes it’s hard to see a silver lining for ourselves, for our students.Remember, artists and true art give us hope that even if our souls are chaotic, there’s still beauty or kindness or strength or nobility there.Even if there’s the sad things—the loneliness, the greed, the pain—art lets us see the human in the sad.”

Reg nodded, letting out his nervousness in a sigh.

“Fair,” he mumbled.“I’ll go get that corkboard.”

“Put it right next to my shelf,” she said.“There’s more than enough room.”

When he returned a few moments later, she was dusting one of her abstract ceramic sculptures, but she stopped to help him position the board exactly so.They were trying to get the exhibits set up before school got out and the art club kids showed up to decorate and set up the refreshment table and the collection for donations.

The principal—who had begrudgingly allowed them the exhibition between after-school sports events—hadn’t allowed them to charge admission to help pay for art club supplies, but theyhadmanaged to make it a fundraiser by selling refreshments and asking for donations.

But Reg and Adelle Barerra’s artwasfor sale, and Adelle was hoping that would bring in enough for the art club supplies and facility use for the next year.

“So,” Adelle asked as she and Reg made one last tweak to the boards, “is your friend coming?”

Reg ignored the heating of his cheeks and nodded happily.“Yeah—he’s on his way.He actually volunteered to stop by my parents’ house to help with my brother’s snake.”

“Muffin?”Adelle raised her eyebrows again.

Reg grimaced.“She’s a really nice snake,” he said in Chance’s defense.“And his friend had to get rid of her because his mother kept walking into his room and freaking out.But she’s super smart.She figured out how to get out of her habitat, and she’s rooming with Marcus.Did I tell you that?”

“No,” Adelle said, picking up her dustcloth and nodding for him to continue.“By all means….”

“Okay, so Marcus is still recovering from the plane crash in the desert,” he began, and she nodded.Everybody knew about the plane crash in the desert.Except the FBI, who knew that there hadbeena plane crash in the desert, and that two of their operatives and an asset had been injured, but werenotaware that they’d been injured trying to ensure Dean’s boyfriend’s safety after he witnessed a murder.

Dean may have been a G-man, but he knew better than most that sometimes, what your government didn’t know couldn’t get you killed.

“Is he doing okay?”she asked, and Reg sighed.

“Don’t tell anybody,” he said, “especiallyDean, but I think he’s depressed.It’s one of the reasons Chance thought he’d be happy to take care of Muffin.You know, because snakes are cool.”That had been so hard.Marcus was, well,beautiful,Latino, and pretty much a sculpted god made of confidence and charm.But the plane crash had shattered his left leg, and Marcus hadn’t wanted his family to see him like that.Taking up residence in Reg’s parents’ basement might have seemed a little drastic, but over the years it had become a haven for the friends of the Royal children who hadn’t been able—for one reason or another—to go home and feel safe.Renovating the space to accommodate a man in need of physical and occupational rehabilitation had been no more than “a neat project” for Reg’s father and Connor Dodge, their new tenant.Marcus had access to the first floor, the backyard, the swimming pool, even a little concrete track Connor had laid for Marcus’s electric cart so he could get some air and some exercise holding himself upright, even with his leg propped up.

It wasn’t the venue, Reg had thought often in the past month, but the circumstance.Marcus was used to being, well, likeDean.An action hero.Somebody who dove in and out of danger and recovered in mid-stride.

But a plane crash was a big deal, and even Dean wasn’t back to work yet.Marcus was chafing bitterly at being a burden on his friend’s parents, even though the Royal family didn’t find him a burden at all.

“Sure,” Adelle said in response to the “snakes are cool” remark, although her tone indicated that wasn’t the word she’d use.He ignored the tone—snakeswerecool.

“So Marcuswastaking care of her, making sure she ate her little frozen rat pop?”

“You feed her frozen rats?”They had given up any pretense of working by now and were leaning back on the table that was soon to be decorated for the bake sale.

“Well, we thaw them out and then put them, still wrapped in plastic, in a coffee cup full of hot water—sort of like a sous-vide machine, right?”

“Which, God willing, I will never have cause to use after this.”

Reg gave her a look that said “Be nice!”that he’d learned from his older sister and was rewarded by hearing his old art teacher laugh.

“I’ll hold my peace now,” she promised.“But go on.You feed her rat pops, and she seems very content.”

“And we keep her warm and spray her off in her enclosure—and it’s pretty big.It’s a six-foot by three-foot tank.I mean, that’s a lot of room for a three-foot snake.Anyway, so it’s working.Marcus really is cheered up by the snake, and then—well, we all saw her testing the habitat for weaknesses, and two days ago, Marcus was concerned because she was able to lift one of the sliding panes up with her head.We figure she unlocked the slider by doing that and then, you know, pushed it open and escaped.So now the entire family… I guess they held a meeting, and I’m not sure who told them, because Marcus, Anthony, and I were trying to keep it a secret, and the only consensus we could arrive at was to find the snake before Mom found out she was missing.”

“And again,” Adelle said, “this is more than fair.”