Don’t Let Me Go(16)

“Hi, Billy!” Grace shouted. Well. It wasn’t shouting by Grace standards. But for anyone else it certainly would have been.

“Hey, Grace.”

“We came to ask you a favor!” Grace made favors sound fun, like ice cream cakes, or being the one who gets to whack the pi?ata with the stick.

Billy bent down to Grace’s level, hands on his knees, and, through the crack of the open door, addressed her in what could only be called a stage whisper.

“Grace, I thought we talked about this,” he said.

“Right. I know. But this is different.” Grace imitated his stage whisper, landing at just about the volume most people would use in normal conversation.

“How is it different?”

“Because Rayleen is really the one helping. You’d just be helping her help. Which is so much easier.”

“I’m right here,” Rayleen said, causing Billy to jump. “I can hear all of this.”

“I know,” Grace said. “I hate that, too. People do that to me all the time, like I don’t have good ears or something, but I can always hear them. You even did that to me, Rayleen, just today, and Mrs. Hinman did it, too. It’s silly, I think. I have very good ears. I hear just about everything. I mean, unless it’s so far away that nobody could hear it. I bet I even hear as good as a dog, but I don’t know for sure, though, because we’ve never had a dog. My mom says it’s hard enough just taking care of me.”

Rayleen sighed, and then said, to Billy, “May we come in?”

Billy sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm his heart.

“It’s a bit of a mess. I haven’t had time to do much with the place.”

“Sure,” Rayleen said. “Yeah. I can relate. My housekeeping staff has been on vacation for days, and I’m very unhappy with my current interior designer. So I know just how you feel. Let’s get real, OK? These apartments are all just about the same level of dump. And this is a little on the life-or-death side, or I wouldn’t be asking. We’re really not going to be doing much in the way of judging. I promise.”

Billy straightened, and, unable to think of any graceful way out, pressed the door closed, undid the safety chain, and opened his door to them.

“Do come in,” he said, his hands and voice shaking.

He perched on the very edge of his couch, working at the nail on his index finger with his teeth. Rayleen didn’t sit, just walked into the center of his living room and stood. And spoke.

“Grace needs a place to be for about two hours in the afternoon. Just until I can get home from work. And it’s probably just for a little while. I hope. But, look…it’s a big deal. Huge. The county opened a file on her. So if somebody comes by to check…well, she has to be supervised. I’ll just leave it at that.”

Meanwhile Grace was walking around his apartment, looking at the framed photos of Billy’s younger years. She didn’t appear to be listening, but Billy sensed that she was, anyway.

He tore more deeply than intended at the nail on his index finger, ripping it below the quick and drawing blood.

Grace walked up to where he sat on the couch and stood alarmingly close. Just inches from him. He froze in that closeness, pressing a finger over his torn nail to hold back the bleeding.

“What are you doing to your nails?” she asked.

“Biting them,” Billy said.

“Why?”

“It’s what I do when I’m nervous. What do you do when you’re nervous?”

“Nothing. Just be nervous, I guess.”

“Everybody has something.”

“Sometimes I eat candy when I’m nervous.”

“Aha! Classic case.”

“But sometimes I eat candy when I’m not nervous, too. So I’m not sure if that counts.”

Then she peeled away again, as if fresh out of interest, and headed in the direction of Billy’s kitchen.

Still not wanting to make eye contact with his adult visitor, Billy lit into a thumbnail.

Not a second later, Grace was back in his face, almost literally, shaking one finger at his forehead and chastising him.

“Billy Shine, you stop that biting your nails this very minute!”

Time stood still. Billy breathed in once, aware of the girl’s nose almost close enough to touch his. Then, without advance notice, he burst out laughing. To his further surprise, Grace launched into spontaneous giggles, as if his own laugh had infected her.

“Don’t spit on me or anything,” Grace said, wiping off her face.

Then Billy burst into another round of laughter, and Grace caught the giggles again, immediately. A stubborn case, this particular giggle fit. She had a hard time pulling herself together.

“OK,” Billy said, rising to his feet, a slight hint that the visit could be over now, or at least soon.

“OK?” Grace asked.

“OK what?” Rayleen asked.

“OK, Grace can stay here for a couple of hours a day for a little while,” Billy said. Then, unexpectedly, the next thing he said was, “Oof.”

Because Grace hit him full in the stomach with her whole self, throwing her arms around his waist.

He put one hand on her head, marveling at the slight warmth of her scalp. An actual live human being. How long had it been since he had touched another person, or been touched in any way? A dozen years? Fifteen?