The Kid On The Bike - 15. Chapter 15

Owen wasn’t entirely pleased. He didn’t exactly shout, “You did what!” but the feeling was there. Everyone in the station knew that while he liked and respected Noah, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with his longtime best friend Don being gay.

“He knows he believes in it ideally,” Don had told Elena, “but watch him tense if I even accidentally touch his shoulder.”

So Don bringing sex into what was supposed to be a drug investigation, especially one involving a teenager, wasn’t what Owen expected.

“Still, what’s a better way to keep track of Henry Chang,” Elena pointed out, “and to and prove he’s as innocent as I say he is, than for us to become friends?”

“Not too close friends,” Owen cautioned in front of the group.

“Oh, come on,” Don said laughing. “You know me better than that.”

Owen just looked at him. “It’s not what I was expecting,” he repeated.

“Us, either,” Elena insisted. “In fact, before we even went to the Scotts’, Don told me he wasn’t going to bring it up – though he and I had talked about it in the station, after he’d pointed it out. But Henry Chang mentioned it first. And though he wasn’t as open with us as he had been with me the night before – and he never said anything about his own interests – you could tell this was something he wanted to talk about. And something he’d never had a chance to discuss with an adult.”

Don confirmed that by nodding, and Owen studied both of them with his mouth screwed up. “It’s not what I was expecting,” he said for the third time. “And the kid still could be selling drugs.”

When that brought laughs from everyone, Owen finally retreated. “OK. OK. OK,” he admitted. “The kid’s a little saint, and I’m the rear end of a horse. But it is my job.”

“And we love you for it,” Don assured him, the word ‘love,’ coming from Don, making Owen flinch in just the littlest way.

“One more thing,” Elena added, “that bit of proof that you wanted. I’m only guessing at this, and there’s no way I’m going to push it to the end, but I think this whole thing has been about sex.”

“Huh?” Owen said. Then he grinned. “Now that, you’re gonna have to explain.”

“Well, think about it,” Elena went on. “Fifteen-year-olds and sex. It’s an easy connection.”

“As it could be for any age,” Rob cracked.

“But think about Henry Chang,” Elena went on. “The first time I saw him, on his bike across a street, I thought he was a cute kid. Later, when I saw him closer up, I realized he was more than that – there was something adultly sexual about him. And I can’t be the only one who noticed. A high school girl could. Or a boy.”

“You think this is about a break-up?” Jae asked.

“No,” Elena replied. “Think about Henry Chang for a minute – and his parents. They’re all about thinking things out. And he’s had enough going this year to keep him from getting involved if he wasn’t interested.”

“Then he’s a better man than I am,” Don joked.

“But this girl he mentioned showed interest,” Elena continued. “At least, he told us that, and lets say we take it as true.”

Owen kind of smirked, studied the ceiling, and rolled his eyes.

“And say that boy did, too,” Elena proceeded. “But not in the girl – in Henry Chang. And he said ‘No.’”

“So the boy started a rumor?” Owen asked. “In revenge?”

“That’s just a guess,” Elena said smiling. “You could take it other ways, too, and that’s what threw me. I’d been thinking in terms of the girl, but that’s not the first way a girl would get revenge – by starting a drug rumor – at least, I wouldn’t. There are so many easier, more personal ways.”

Jae laughed, and the men looked at her. But Elena continued to smile.

“But when I thought about it in terms of a boy – especially one who’s gay but might not be so openly – well, then it could work.”

“In so many ways,” Don added, “ especially when you even start to try and think like a teenager.”

“Always a challenge,” Ike confirmed, and everyone laughed.

“Instead of revenge, it could be a friendly dare,” Don continued, “‘Come on. Relax. Open up – or I’d start this dumb rumor that you’re dealing drugs.’ Or it could be Henry Chang who’s interested in the boy. But not just yet, so he wants to protect that for later. Or it could be the boy’s older, and more experienced, and Henry Chang’s afraid of making a jerk of himself. Or it could be the boy’s slightly younger and less experienced, and Henry Chang knows they both need to wait another year-or-so.”

“Or it could be a teacher,” Elena suggested.

“Whoa!” Owen blurted.

“There are some very young teachers at Waldron High,” Elena explained. “Barely twenty-one. And as I said, Henry Chang seems more mature and more sexual.”

“If it’s a teacher, we’re going straight to the school board,” Owen insisted.

“As I said, we don’t really know,” Elena went on. “This is all guessing. So I wouldn’t panic.”

“Yet,” Owen shot back. “Which is my call.”

“Absolutely,” Elena agreed, trying to ease Owen down. “But we’re just trying to clear the boy of a drug charge, not dissect his sex life. So one thing at a time.”

At that, Owen laughed and agreed. Then he seemed to think while everyone waited. “Yeah, we could go to Maureen with your guesses, and she could go to the school board, and they’d all then laugh it off together. You should even be able to keep the second boy – no matter his age or the circumstances – out of it and give Henry Chang back his privacy – which he deserves.” He nodded at Don and just barely smiled. “In fact, we could even suggest there was a girl involved. Then the whole thing would disappear.”

“That’s not sexist?,” Ike questioned.

“Of course, it is,” Owen said grinning. “But it would both put us on the side of the angels and be neutral enough to sneak by. I don’t think the board would even wonder about ‘Which girl?’ – where they might stupidly worry about ‘Which boy?’”

Don grinned at that, but Elena noticed that Owen didn’t look directly at him.

“In any case,” Owen concluded, “I think we’re safely out of this. So, as usual, thanks to you all.”

And everyone laughed and cheered.

After the lunch meeting broke up, and everyone headed back to work, Elena told Don, “We should be fine. More importantly, Henry Chang should be.” And they both seemed relieved.

Still, and despite what Elena had told Owen, she tried one last time to find any other source for the high school rumor and locate any other possible drug dealer. She thought that might make the rest of their suggestions easier for Owen and the board to accept. So hiding under the cover of telling Maureen that Henry Chang was in the clear, she eased back into asking a few questions. Though when she filled Maureen in, she didn’t her tell anything else that she and Don had found out. It simply wasn’t hers or the school’s business.

Beginning positively, she said, “We can’t find anything that puts Henry Chang in the middle of this besides the fact he’s an Asian boy. Besides, it seems that one rumor is all we ever had – one story, from one security guard.”

“But we all heard it,” Maureen pointed out. “The teachers... the other guards... the staff. And I’m sure some of the students did, too.”

“Did you ask them?”

Maureen just smiled. “You know what that would set off. And how many parents would be yelling, ‘Invasion of Privacy!’”

Elena accepted that because Maureen, like Owen, had her job to do. “But I think that’s what we have going here,” she assured the principal. “One rumor, perhaps started by one jealous, or angry, student, and purposely fed to one bored and willing-to-listen security guard. Then, the absolutely well-intended guard passed on of the story, and it spread into something that was never true.”

“I hope you’re right,” Maureen allowed.

“I’ve got to be,” Elena reasoned. “Because – well, have you heard anything else? Can you tell me something new? Something provably real that we can look into? If not, you can comfortably report to the school board that there’s nothing more serious going on here than some of the kids smoking pot – as normal, and maybe always, and fairly harmlessly. And they’re probably in the privacy of their homes, or their friends’ homes, or somebody’s car. And some of them – maybe very occasionally – lift a prescription pill or two from their parents’ medicine chests to experiment with.”

“That could still be dangerous.”

“Yes, it could,” Elena admitted, “especially pain killers. But that’s still not like someone’s selling drugs, and especially not Henry Chang. And you don’t seem to be able to give me the name of even one student who you can prove has been selling – or who there’s been a specific complaint about.”

Maureen conceded that. And whether she’d heard no more rumors, so had none to offer, or whether she was tactfully, and possibly unwisely, keeping them quiet, she let Elena go back to Owen and honestly tell him, “There’s nothing more to be found. Plus,” Elena added, “Maureen followed up this morning and said the school board’s comfortable knowing we did out work, and they appreciate it.”

“Good,” Owen said. And Elena felt that anything else she and Don had found out Owen was choosing to ignore.

But Henry Chang didn’t. Two days after the weekend, Don showed up to work, and after running through ordinary business, he pointed Elena towards the small conference room they sometimes used for private discussions. “Henry Chang called me Sunday night,” he began, “maybe after thinking about my offer for a couple of days. And last night, Noah and I took him out for dinner in Northampton.”

“Why there?” Elena asked.

“Well, the Scotts live halfway there, so it was easy to pick him up. And he said he’d feel more comfortable.”

“He didn’t want to run into friends?”

“Or maybe anyone else.”

Elena considered. “Still, people are in and out of Northampton all the time. He probably wasn’t any safer.”

Don smiled. “I know that, and probably so did he. And Noah and I offered Amherst or even Springfield. But Henry said Northampton would be fine.”

“‘Henry?’” Elena questioned the familiarity, and Don smiled again.

“After the things he, Noah, and I talked about, if he had a baby name that only his grandmother cooed, I’d feel comfortable using that.”

Elena laughed. “That bad?”

Don laughed back. “Well, there’s so much he didn’t know, not on a actual level. He’s read a lot, but mostly online.”

“He said it ran in his family.”

“Well, he didn’t want to bring books into the house, even here, away from his parents. He’s said there’s no telling what Pop-Pop gets into.”

Elena grinned. “I wonder what Pop-Pop would make of pictures of people having sex. I wonder if he can even read.”

“He might think it’s perfectly normal.”

Elena agreed. “That’s true. He certainly was interested in me.”

Don seemed to question that, but Elena just waved it away. “What else did Henry Chang say?” she went on.

“Henry,” Don corrected.

“I’m not ready for that.”

“Well, you need to be. Because he’d like to have dinner with us.”

“You and me?”

“You, me, Noah, and Kris – if you can bring him along.”

Elena quickly replied, “You know I always keep family out of work. We all do.”

Don smiled and offered, “I think we may be expanding the idea of family.”

Elena considered, then said, “OK, I’ll talk with Kris.” And two nights later, she felt their dinner had gone smoothly. It was again in Northampton, again at Henry’s choice, and he insisted on paying, as it turned out he had before.

“But I had two drinks,” Noah had objected, “and Kris had at least one. You know how expensive they are.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Henry said.

“He is a working man, Noah,” Don pointed out. “Though that” – he indicated the check – “is about a month’s pay.”

“Or a tenth of my allowance,” Henry kidded. “Sometimes less.”

“Weekly?” Don jokingly pried. Henry just grinned.

“I’m not gonna tell you,” he insisted. “You’d just be embarrassed.”

“Got you,” Kris said laughing, and he gave Henry a thumb’s up.

And that’s the way Elena felt dinner had gone. It never got into anything sexual or to further family stuff. And thinking about it as she and Kris drove home, she felt it was mostly a way for Henry to assure her, and all of them, that he really was “the nice kid” she’d defended.

“You ready to have him around occasionally, if he wants that?” she asked her husband.

“Anytime,” Kris offered. “You know I love the girls. But it would be great to have a visiting son.”

Don felt pretty good about it, too. And when he and Elena reported to Owen, which they needed to do, Don had added, “When Noah and I were talking about Henry after our first dinner,” – he knew better than add that he and Noah had been in bed – “we wondered if Henry would feel more comfortable living with us, rather than with the Scotts. But we decided this gives him a balance – and less to explain to anyone at school. It also gives him one more set of parents.”

“That’s something you should check with his real ones about,” Owen cautioned.

“We will – when Henry decides he’s comfortable.”

“He’s still a boy,’ Owen reminded them. “And adults usually make better decisions.”

“We know that,” Don said grinning. “And so does he.”

So Owen shut up. And later, when Don was again alone with Elena, he added something else.

“Actually, towards the end of our dinner – the first one – Noah offered that to Henry. He asked, after all that had been said, if Henry would feel more comfortable living with us. I had all kinds of warnings going in my head, but Noah gave me one of his calming looks – you know the ones – and I relaxed. I simply trust him.”

“So do I,” Elena admitted. “But your warnings were probably good.”

“Anyway, Henry seemed to think about it then said, ‘No – I like things as they are.’”

“‘It might let you relax a bit,’” Noah had pointed out. “‘You might not have to work as hard – to keep yourself distracted, if that’s partly what this is.’”

“‘I like to work,’” Henry had said. “‘It makes me feel older.”

Elena considered that, and then said, “Good.”

Don grinned. “Yeah. Because right after that, I said to Noah – who you know has never had kids but comes from a huge, tight family – ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like raising teenagers?’”

“You’re thinking of Scoot?” Elena joked.

“Yeah – whew!” Don grinned and Elena thought he seemed to be remembering all those years in a moment.

“The big thing is that Henry’s safe,” Elena pointed out.

“You don’t think he always was?”

“Maybe – until we got involved. But any way you look at it, what you said is right – this gives him more sets of parents. His own. You and Noah. Kris and me. Ervin Scott and Pop-Pop. In that whole batch, he’s got to get some good answers.”

Don seemed to think about that and then laughed. “Yeah, though it’s what I told Noah last night – ‘It looks like I’m raising a teenager again.’ And then I asked, ‘So tell me. Why in hell do we want to do that?’”