Stepcheck

by Max Christopher

“I see the picketers didn’t bring tomatoes today.” It was a woman I’d had before. Her nameplate said Mrs. Klape.

“Maybe I’m too quick for them.”

Mrs. Klape’s look said she knew better. “Is Stolen Valor there today?”

“The fake vet with the red face? Sure.”

The cramped office was hot and smelled like dusty oil, like a mechanic’s bay. A defeated old clump of potpourri, brown and curling, sat in a soap dish. It gave off no smell of any kind. There was no chair for visitors.

I closed the door behind me and stood facing the desk. “These people could be out earning their own money instead of interfering with other people’s.”

She shook her head. “Name of family, please.”

“Marcus.”

“Hours logged, please.”

I passed her the form.

“All hours were spent with or for the benefit of the Marcus family?”

“That’s right.”

“Will the mother verify this?”

“Here’s her statement.”

“Did you interview at least two other families to see if they might need you more than the Marcuses?”

“Here are the forms. Both rejected me for the reasons indicated.”

Mrs. Klape looked at the forms. “Children must do homework before logging on to social media. Outdoor exercise. Help with preparing meals. One book read per week.” She frowned up at me. “An entire book?”

“It doesn’t have to be long.”

“Who picks the book?”

“The child can pick the book. Something suitable to his or her age. Preferably not fanfic, but I made allowances when the children were very young. Fourteen and up, I expect at least a young adult book.”

“A child might be intimidated by the length.”

“The Great Gatsby is forty-eight thousand words.”

“Forty-eight thousand words? That must be six hundred pages.”

I smiled. “It’s less than two hundred.”

Mrs. Klape’s eyes narrowed. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

I pressed my lips together.

She swiveled her chair to face the scuffed grey file cabinet, muttering, “Why they can’t scan it all into the computer...?”

A bead of sweat ran down my back. I should have picked a different book.

“Here.” She thumped a manila file on the desk. Slipping a bumpy rubber fingertip cover on her right middle finger, she flipped through the sheets. Selecting one, she set it on the desk. Another. Another. I saw the names of families I’d interviewed. The backs of my knees tingled.

“Many families find your expectations too high,” Mrs. Klape said.

“I don’t think we do our children a service by encouraging lazi—”

“Only the Marcuses seem able to manage the load.”

“They’re good kids. Their mother—”

“The mother, Edith Marcus.” She looked at a sheet. “Thirty-seven. Old enough to remember when men—”

A kid in flipflops and sunglasses flung the door open with a whack. “Bertha, the Churning Gland beckons!”

Mrs. Klape said, “Which is what?”

“Only the most crucial music festival this season on this seaboard.”

“Huh.”

“The jewel in the crown being the triumphant return to the stage of Rich Corinthian Leather.”

“Didn’t that guy kill himself?”

“Found hanging in his closet with Jim Morrison’s concho belt around his neck. Apparently a publicity stunt.”

“Did you finish those reports?”

“The reports’ll keep. The stone groove grooviness of Rich Corinthian Leather will dry up and wither away.”

“Peaches, the auditor wants those by tomorrow.”

“I wanted a Porsche by twenty-three. I got an unpaid internship.”

“You’re scheduled for two more hours.”

“Which would be super interesting if I were getting paid.”

“The terms of your internship were made clear to you when you were—”

“Is that the fartlike sound of a toxic workplace I hear?”

“No, that is the sound of a woman who’s going to have to rush my own work so I can then finish yours. The auditor—”

“The auditor hurts my soul. She needs to lighten up.”

“The auditor needs to submit those reports, Peaches. Our budget negotiations for the coming fiscal year depend on them.”

“Is it my fault you started paying a boyfriend with money that could so easily go to your office help?”

“The two things are not related.”

The kid was already walking away. “Can’t hear you. Get another MBA candidate to work for free-ninety-nine per hour.”

Mrs. Klape stared after the kid, face red, jaw jutting. She took deep breaths and held herself still.

I started to close the door gently.

“Leave it,” she said, “we could use the air.”

I left the door open halfway. Down the hall an old air conditioner wheezed like a dying thing.

“One slap,” she said. “Not to hurt. Just knock that smirk off.”

“All part of a changing world,” I said, happy for this diversion. “We failed to teach them manners. Heh, I still get annoyed when the cashier where I get my coffee has those ear buds—”

“Ear buds?”

“I want to say, how do you concentrate on your job when you’re on the phone? Can it really not wait until your break?”

She looked at me.

“I mean, is it an emergency?” I said. “Are you talking a suicide in off the ledge?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The lack of manners today. The absence of boundaries. You’re at work, but at least half your head is somewhere else.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s just that I don’t know whether I’m the one being addressed half the time. The barista, or whatever they’re called now, looks at me and speaks. But what they say makes no sense. I expect to be asked my order, but they—”

“Here.” She tapped the manila file on her desk. “This is what we’re here to talk about. And my head is right here.” She tapped the file again. “I wonder whether your requirements are too high on purpose,” she said.

Pain stirred in my bowel like a snake waking up.

“The Marcus children are thriving,” I said. “Their grades are up. Their diets are better. Their mother has said repeatedly—”

“How long have you been residing with them?” she said.

“One year. It’s all in your records.”

“That makes you eligible for an increase in your stipend.” She slipped more sheets out of the file and began reading them. Her face puckered as if they smelled like something run over. “Tammy,” she said. “Freddy. Liam. And their mother, Edith.”

“Tammy went out for track this semester,” I said. “She doesn’t stink of weed all the time. Liam—” My throat squeezed shut. “Liam asked a girl—”

“Medical marijuana is a legitimate therapeutic tool,” she said. She didn’t look up.

“Tammy no longer needs it. We haven’t been to the dispensary in two months.”

“So the marijuana is sitting there.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Paid for by the state and going to waste.”

“Surely they can return it to stock and give it to somebody who needs it?” I said. “Isn’t the important thing that a girl barely into her teens no longer needs to smoke pot to get through the day?”

She didn’t answer. She read, breathing through her mouth.

Pain shot up my bowel to my stomach.

“Liam comes out of his room and has dinner with his family,” I said. “Freddy reads at his grade level now. Eight months ago he was two grades behind. He even takes a shower from time to time.” I forced a laugh. “That’s a relief, I can tell you.”

She kept reading, flipping between the pages.

“I gave Freddy credit for the classic comic version of Moby Dick,” I said.

“They made a comic of it?”

“Sure.”

“Which movie is it based on?” she asked. “Or is it that old cartoon with the boys in the orange diving suits?”

“It’s, ah, based on the novel,” I said. But she was back to frowning at her files, moving her lips. “Isn’t helping the kids the important thing?” I said. I rubbed the familiar spot on my abdomen.

She ignored me.

“Have the goodness to answer me,” I said.

Her head came up. “What was the question?”

“The kids. Surely my being part of that family benefits the kids.”

“I never said it didn’t. Don’t put words in my mouth.” She put the sheets down. “You seem to choose troubled families to interview.”

“What?”

“Families who are too far gone to be helped by the addition of a stepparent. Statistically.”

“I don’t—”

“If you are rehomed,” she tapped the sheets again, “you will have to fulfill another year before you are eligible for the increase.”

“I don’t care about the extra money,” I said. “I’ll waive it. Give me a form and I’ll sign it.” I tried to smile. “Hell, I’ll do it for free—”

“You wouldn’t be allowed to.”

“I love that family. I didn’t have to register. I could have flouted your authority.”

“But you did register.”

“I thought it was the right thing to do. A way of demonstrating my commitment to the Marcuses.”

“It was. And now you’re in the system. You and the Marcuses.” She looked at her watch, drew a breath and said, as if reciting, “The Step-Parenting Act was seen by detractors as a doomed attempt to restore the family. Since the amending of the act, partners no longer need to marry the biological or adoptive parent to be considered legal stepparents and so be eligible to be remunerated for their step-parenting activities.

“Men like you went from being live-in boyfriends to recipients of government stipends, whether or not the absent parent paid child support. In fact, certain lobbying groups are scandalized because the stepparents sometimes use their stipends to pay their own child support if they have children of their own.”

God keep me from strangling people who know you must listen to them, I thought. “I do not have other children. The Marcus kids are my children.”

“People waiving the stipend would throw the system into chaos. Those people protesting outside already think the money should go elsewhere. Val writes letters to the editor claiming step-parent stipends come out of what should be veterans’ benefits. Claims he was in some secret department that was scrapped without pensions when the administration changed.”

“Val?”

“Stolen Valor. We’ve taken to calling him Val around the office. He seems to believe the things he says. His letters are surprisingly articulate.”

Says a woman who thinks Moby Dick started life as a Saturday-morning cartoon, I thought. The pain in my gut was like a heating element turning orange. I pressed my palm to it as though to keep it from bursting through the skin. “I was never a live-in boyfriend. Edith’s first husband died on the job seven months before we met. It wasn’t until I’d been seeing her for a year that she agreed to look for a house.”

“Yes, it’s in here.” She lifted the manila file. She reached into it and drew out several photographs. One showed a blond seventeen-year old boy with a goofy grin. “This is Liam?”

“Our eldest.”

“He looks like Dennis the Menace grown into a teenage dreamboat,” she said.

“He even has the cowlick,” I said.

“My lord, the girls must dote on him. I just want to reach into the picture and tousle his hair.”

I wanted to lick my dry lips. “Liam is cripplingly shy. He’s only recently been able to talk to a girl, let alone ask one out. He thought he was too skinny.”

“Take him home and feed him chicken pot pie fresh from the oven. And I don’t even cook.”

I swallowed. “But he’s got his learner’s permit now, and he met this nice girl at—”

“You going to marry Edith Marcus?”

My mouth snapped shut.

She said, “You’d get a larger stipend increase. And it would eliminate this time-wasting charade of interviewing other families. It’s distasteful, don’t you find?”

“I take no pleasure in—”

“Single mothers — and fathers — are desperate.”

“Hence the boyfriend bucks and the girlfriend geetus.”

“I dislike those expressions so much.”

I didn’t care what she disliked. The pain was clawing my insides.

“Still, you can’t deny this is a golden age for deadbeats and layabouts.”

I looked at the picture of Liam and pressed my burning gut.

“Do you need the bathroom?”

“No.”

“What is it you do?”

“Security.”

“Nice living in that?”

“I told you I could do this for free. I regret bitterly my lack of foresight.”

“Marrying Edith Marcus would also spare the other families disappointment,” she said. “The false hope you give—”

“She said no.”

Mrs. Klape laced her fingers and looked at me.

“I could simply stop reporting,” I said. “Forfeit all payment and stay with the Marcuses.”

“That would be awkward when a legitimate state-sponsored stepfather showed up and put his shoes under your side of the bed.”

“Who do you people think you are?”

“Such a stepfather, being new, would cost the system less.”

I snorted. “Like getting rid of an experienced man and replacing him with some college brat.”

“He might, indeed, be an unpaid intern. There are rumors that those higher up are flirting with that idea. Let the kids get their feet wet with an easy family before we put them on the payroll and shove them into the arena.”

“That’ll go over like bottled bread.”

“What?”

“The Marcuses wouldn’t allow it.”

“You just said Edith refused you.”

“I’m beginning to see why the unpaid help would rather not put in a full shift.”

“A less demanding stepfather might be a relief. Maybe Tammy misses her marijuana.”

I glared at her.

She said, “You don’t want to go rogue. You don’t want to go to a different family. You don’t want another man replacing you. Or a woman.”

“Edith prefers men.”

“So did my husband, as it turned out after twelve years of marriage. He liked books too. I should have taken an interest in his library.” She sighed. “You know that other persons would like to occupy the position you enjoy presently with the Marcus family.”

“Now that I’ve done the work.”

We regarded each other. The air conditioner rattled and gasped.

She picked up the photographs and the sheets and slid them back in the manila file. She put the file back in the cabinet and opened another drawer.

“Here’s your check,” she said. “See you in three months.”

* * *

I slid onto the passenger seat beside Liam.

“How did it go?”

“Same.”

“How’s your stomach?”

“It’s fading now I’m out of there,” I said. “Anybody bother you?” Heaving tomatoes at me is one thing. Messing with my kids is another.

“And risk angering my scary Dad?” His grin punched my heart like a sweet little fist. “They know better. Shall we drive around for a bit? Give me some practice?”

“Sure.”

Stolen Valor detached himself from the string of picketers and walked toward the car.

“Spoke too soon,” I said. “Better drive.”

“It’s all right.” Liam waved. “See you later, Boris,” he said.

Liam was on first names with Stolen Valor? Whose real name was Boris, apparently. I tensed up, but he stopped ten feet from Liam’s open window, his red face seeming to reflect the late afternoon sun. “Remember what I said.”

“I will,” Liam said.

“You have a fine young man here, sir.”

“I know,” I said.

Liam put the car into drive and eased away. He steered it onto the main drag out of town and took the on-ramp. Then, with miles of clean highway ahead, he let it out. His blond mop went wild in the wind.

After six exits, I said, “We ought to be getting back.”

He took the next exit and got us back on the highway going the other way. It was cooling off. He put up his window.

“I didn’t know you knew — ah — that man. That Boris,” I said.

“I met him here, waiting for you before. Now we chat online.”

“I didn’t realize.”

He drove. His hands on the wheel were big and long-fingered. They looked capable. He’d grown so much in just two years.

“I’m signing up when I turn eighteen,” he said.

“What about your girl?”

“That was never going to happen,” he said. “You know that.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“There’s always home leave.”

“Yes,” I said. My stomach hurt.