Don’t Let Me Go(61)

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’d ask you in, but—”

Grace interjected. Interrupted, really, though it was far from unwelcome.

“No, we gotta go,” she said. “I gotta take him to meet Felipe and then Mrs. Hinman.”

“He already met Rayleen?”

“Oh, yeah,” Grace said. There was something unusual hiding in the way she said it. A hint of subtext. But it was completely indecipherable based on the information Billy had to work with. “Oh, my God!” she shrieked. “Billy! You’re wearing tap shoes!”

“I am.”

“I didn’t even know you had those tap shoes. Those aren’t the ones you used to loan me. Oh, right. Never mind. I just got it. These are ones for grown-ups. So why didn’t you tell me you still had tap shoes?”

“I guess I thought it went without saying.”

“Wrong. Were you dancing just now?”

“I was choreographing some dance moves for you to learn for your big school performance.”

“Great!” she shouted. “Yea, yea, yea! As soon as I introduce Jesse to everybody I’ll come back down and we can get started. I think I feel better enough to start.”

“Nice meeting you, Billy,” Jesse said.

“Likewise,” Billy said, and made sure by his tone and facial expression that his new neighbor would realize he meant it sincerely.

He watched Grace drag Jesse to the stairs, holding one of his hands in both of hers. It made him feel just a little tiny bit left out.

“Billy doesn’t like people,” he heard Grace tell Jesse on their way up the stairs. “He’s…different. But he’s a good guy.”

? ? ?

Grace arrived back about twenty minutes later, and grabbed up her cat before doing anything else.

“Before I start dancing,” she said, “I have to tell you a secret.”

“How can you tell me if it’s a secret?”

“It’s not that kind of secret.”

“What kind is it?”

“The kind where you see something with your own eyes, and you know you want to tell somebody, but you know you don’t want them to tell the whole world.”

“And you figure I’ll be talking to the whole world in the near future?”

“Don’t be weird, Billy. I mean, don’t tell Felipe or Mrs. Hinman — and definitely don’t tell Rayleen.”

“OK, deal.”

They sat on the couch together, setting the stage for Grace’s momentous secret.

“You ready?” she asked, still squeezing the cat.

“More than ready.”

“Jesse likes Rayleen.”

“Oh. How can you tell?”

“It was so easy. Right from the time I met him I was saying, ‘You should come to our meeting, we’re having a meeting today and you should come.’ And he kept saying stuff like he had to unpack, and maybe everybody else would mind having him there because they didn’t know him. And then I took him to meet Rayleen. And then the minute we walked out of there, he said, ‘So what time is that meeting?’”

“Oh, right. What time is that meeting?”

“I don’t know. Whatever time I yell that the meeting is starting, I guess.”

“Well. Doesn’t that just give you all the power?”

Grace punched him lightly on the arm. “You pick a time, then. I just figured I was the only one who really wanted the meeting.”

“You can say that again.”

“So what did you think of my big secret?”

“Well. It’s not too surprising. Rayleen is a very attractive woman.”

“Yeah. She’s pretty. And she’s nice. But…”

“But what? There’s something you don’t like about Rayleen?”

“Oh, no. I like her all the way through. I was just gonna say that we don’t really know her that well.”

“We don’t?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I thought we did.”

“I just know she works on people’s nails at a salon, and that’s sort of all I know. Not that I know a bunch more about Felipe or Mrs. Hinman, but in another way I sort of do. It shows. With them it shows. But Rayleen doesn’t show much. The only thing I know about her because it shows is what she’s afraid of.”

Billy thought a moment, wondering if whatever Grace had observed about Rayleen showed to him, too. After all, he’d just noted that he prided himself on being a good judge of character. But as far as he had ever known, or even sensed, Rayleen wasn’t afraid of anything.

“And what’s that?”

“The county.”

“The county?”

“You didn’t hear me?”

“It doesn’t really make sense. She’s afraid of the county of Los Angeles?”

“Right.”

“What’s she afraid it’ll do?”

“Like, come and take a kid away.”

“Oh. Like that.”

“Yeah. Like that. Like maybe the county came and took her away when she was a kid.”

“Or maybe she had a kid and the county took the kid away. I guess if she wanted to tell us about it, she would.”