He’d tried to become a strict but understanding father, but even so, Jacquie’s warmth had enabled Salvatore to avoid getting involved with the “ushy gushy” stuff. “Hey, Son?” he said now.
“Yeah?” said Joe.
“Thanks for earlier. For your sister.” He cleared his throat, then made himself speak again. “I appreciate—”
“That cat costume was pathetic,” said Joe. “You gotta do better than late-night Primin’。”
Salvatore closed his eyes, delight coursing through him. His nerdy son’s transformation into a cool dude still seemed funny. “Late-night Primin’！” he said. “Is that a thing?”
“It honestly shouldn’t be,” said Joe. “Unless you’re Primin’ ice cream.”
“Fist bump?” said Salvatore.
“Oh my God, Dad,” said Joe, rolling his eyes but smiling. Salvatore was happy to play the innocent sap. He hoped that Joe knew nothing about the dark places where Salvatore spent his hours, the violence, the recent scourge of opiates in Austin.
It was a strange thing to be a parent. You spent so much time creating an alternate universe for your children’s imaginations, convincing them everything was fine, whispering lies into their ears at bedtime: Nobody could get into this house! I will protect you! If anyone tried to get into this house, my friends at the station would be here in seconds and arrest the bad person before you even woke up!
Salvatore knew better than anyone how truly dangerous every moment was, but also how precious. It was saving him, minute by minute, to cultivate in his children a belief that they were safe, a belief he understood was false. These were kids who had lost their mother—they knew it was a sham, too.
“Dad?” said Joe. “Dad? You OK?”
“I’m here,” said Salvatore.
“Later, Dad,” said Joe.
“I love you, Son,” said Salvatore.
“OMG,” said Joe, slamming the car door.
Well, thought Salvatore, at least he hadn’t said FML. He’d seen that on some teenager’s Instagram and googled it. “Barton Springs closed on Mondays,” the kid had written. “FML.” It meant “Fuck My Life,” Salvatore learned.
He watched Joe walk toward the school’s entrance. Salvatore’s eyes narrowed, monitoring a group of tall kids with their hoods up pushing each other and laughing. He saw a girl with sad eyes leaning against a tree. But what could he do? He couldn’t save every sad girl.
As soon as his son was safely past the metal detectors and into his school, Salvatore put the car in gear and headed downtown to the station, to see what morning mayhem awaited him.
-2-
Call ME, Whitney Brownson, and Let Me Change Your Life!?
SOUTH AUSTIN NEIGHBORHOOD PROFILE: BARTON HILLS
Welcome to BARTON HILLS, the best neighborhood in Austin, Texas! I’m Whitney Brownson, and I welcome the opportunity to show you around the place I have called home for twenty years! My children all went to the EXEMPLARY-RATED Barton Hills Elementary School, walking these tree-lined streets, and I love living near hiking trails into Austin’s famous greenbelt, right next to Barton Springs Swimming Hole, where my fifteen-year-old son is a lifeguard this summer! Where else could you find a home in the middle of a city where you could walk to both Uchi Japanese sushi restaurant （my personal fave） and a swimming hole with a rope swing? It’s the best of other worlds! Let ME help YOU find YOUR DREAM HOME!
Quick facts about BARTON HILLS:
? Barton Hills is home to several attractions including the Barton Creek Greenbelt nature preserve and the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum. Just north of the neighborhood are Barton Springs Pool, a natural spring fed by Barton Creek, and the 361-acre Zilker Park.
? Established in the 1940s and 1950s with construction continuing through the 1970s to the late 1990s, Barton Hills contains many different styles of single-family homes. In the 1940s, noted Austin-based architect A. D. Stenger designed and built a group of contemporary mid-century modern homes in a section of land bound by Arthur Street and Ariole Way.
? Average home cost: $790,000 and rising! Get your piece of paradise NOW!
? Urban but safe; in the middle of everything with room for your family!
Call ME, Whitney Brownson, and Let Me Change Your Life!?
-3-
Whitney
WHITNEY HEARD A CAR drive slowly around her cul-de-sac and woke with a start. It was 89 degrees already （according to her Apple Watch）， her central air humming like a beehive gone mad. Whitney rose, her pajamas whispering as she went to the window and pulled back a velvet curtain. The car was gone.
Whitney peered out for a moment, watching the sun blazing through the trees, shooting darts of light through the worn-out leaves. No matter how much Rod watered the trees, summer was tough. Some of the newer homes on Whitney’s list had Astroturf instead of grass, which struck Whitney as a frightening portent. When she’d been a lonely child, she’d spent entire days on her lawn with imaginary friends, the grass cool and ticklish on her bare feet. Whitney hated the thought of generations of kids growing up playing on Astroturf—or worse, only playing indoors, with their freaky VR headsets. She was glad her own twins had grown up with a yard. They were fifteen now, and Whitney scarcely saw her neighbors’ younger children. Where were they? Where were the shrieks and whoops and trampolines?
Whitney knew she wouldn’t be going back to sleep. She was a light sleeper on the best of occasions and hadn’t napped in years. In their king-sized water bed （water beds were coming back, Whitney believed）， Jules snored lightly. Above the bed was a giant photograph of Whitney performing Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, her dark hair pulled into a symmetrical bun, thin pink lips lifted only slightly at the corners. Her skin was pale, made even more so by the powder she wore to hide any damp evidence of exertion. Balanchine had famously said that Allegro Brillante “contains everything I knew about the classical ballet—in thirteen minutes.” In the photograph, Whitney was at the height of her career—her hip problems would make her retire within the year, before her nineteenth birthday—but she didn’t know it yet. Her face is triumphant; she is leaping with such power, her toe shoes five inches off the ground.
Whitney closed her eyes. She could still hear the Tchaikovsky. Reflexively, she held the heart-shaped locket she always wore around her wrist—it had been her sister’s, and Whitney never took it off. She liked to place it between her thumb and forefinger and run the pads of her skin over its cool, smooth surface.
Jules still used Old Spice deodorant, like a teenager, though he was a decade older than she. Whitney put her face close to her husband’s and breathed in.
Her lion. She’d once adored his authority, had allowed him uncontested rule over their company and family both. Obeying Jules made her feel protected. But even the wisest king needed to be watched and, if necessary, usurped.
Old Spice. Whitney and Jules’s son, Xavier, used the same deodorant, which had rebranded itself as a kind of joke, targeting ironic millennials （Whitney supposed） with funny names on the containers, like Wolfthorn. Whitney, Liza, and Annette had taken their boys to Target a few months before. （They’d always gone together on Saturdays; it was more fun as a team.） They passed the baseball and Pokémon cards. The women had spent so much time lingering while the kids perused over the years—Target should install a wine bar by the Pokémon cards, Annette had joked. Or at least a bench.