Evvie Drake Starts Over(3)

“Jerry Orbach.”

He frowned. “In Dirty Dancing?”

“In Law & Order.”

“Fine, Jerry Orbach.” He paused. “My point is she’s bullheaded, which I think is great, but I don’t want to be bailing her out of jail when she’s nine.”

Evvie smiled again. “I can’t wait for her teenage years.”

   “She can come live with you.”

“Oh, no. I’ll do periods and bras and birth control, but I live alone.”

“Well, for now,” he said. “I meant to ask you, are you still thinking about renting out the apartment?”

She chewed on a piece of bacon. “Maybe. Eventually.”

“You’re not using it, right?”

“Not except to lie on the floor in the middle of the night and contemplate my existence.” He stopped chewing and his eyebrows popped up. “I’m kidding,” she said. He wouldn’t understand. He’d just worry. “I never go in there.”

“I was thinking, you know, it’s money you’re leaving on the table if you let it sit empty. Finance-wise.” The logic was impeccable. It was probably a trap.

“I suppose that’s true,” she said suspiciously.

“It is true.” He pointed. “Your sleeve is in the syrup.”

She dabbed at a sticky dot on the cuff of her shirt. “Do you want me to rent it to someone in particular? Are you evicting Rose now?”

“Ha.” He didn’t laugh. “No, I think the kids should be at least ten before they’re fully independent.” He took a slug of coffee. “By the way, before I forget, Rose has a dance recital a week from tomorrow, and she told me to tell you that she’d like you to come over and do ‘the hair with the swirly braids.’?” Rose was seven, and she did not trust her father with her recital hair or her Matchbox cars.

“She’s a planner, that one.”

“The other day she called me ‘Father,’?” he said. “Like we’re on Little House on the Prairie.”

Evvie frowned. “That’s ‘Pa,’ though.”

“Who am I thinking of? Who’s called ‘Father’?”

“Priests,” she said. “And Captain von Trapp.”

“So can I tell her you’re coming?”

“Of course,” Evvie said. “Now tell me who you want to stash in the apartment.”

“Right, right. I actually have a friend who’s going to be in town for a few months, and he’s looking for a place to live.”

   She frowned. “What friend? Somebody I know?”

“My friend Dean.”

Her eyes got a little wider. “Baseball Dean?” She knew one of Andy’s friends was a pitcher, but she’d never met him.

“Not anymore,” he said. “He retired recently. He’s going to come up here and take it easy for a while. Enjoy a little of our fine salt air and all that.”

“I always forget professional athletes retire in different decades from normal people. What is he, mid-thirties? And he retired? Must be nice.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. Which you would know if I didn’t steal all your issues of Sports Illustrated.”

“I probably still wouldn’t read them,” she admitted. “There’s a new one at the house, by the way.”

“I know,” he said. “Dean’s in it.”

She snapped her fingers. “Wait. Baseball Dean is the head case?”

Andy squinted at her. “He’s not a head case. He lost his arm. I mean, not his arm arm; he lost his pitching arm. He has both arms. And he’s not crazy.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Well, he was a very good pitcher, and then all of a sudden, he was a very bad pitcher. Other than that, no idea.”

Just then, Diane Marsten stopped by the table. She ran the thrift store Esther’s Attic, which had been her mother’s before it was hers. Diane often ate at the Compass on Saturdays with her husband, sometimes in the unsanctioned company of her little dog, Ziggy, who didn’t seem to be around to thumb his tiny nose at the health code today. “Morning, you two.”

“Hey, Diane,” Andy said. “How are things?”

“Can’t complain.” This, Evvie knew from experience, was not true. Diane turned and put a hand on her shoulder. “Good to see you out and about.”

Evvie shot a look at Andy, then screwed on her smile. “Thank you, Diane. It’s good to see you, too.” Diane provided a few updates about neighbors with ailments (politely vague to the point of futility, like “troubles with his system”) or personal issues (same, like “the business with the one daughter”), then went off to enjoy her French toast. “Honestly.” Evvie sighed.

   “She cares about you, Ev.”

“I know. I know. But they all…hover. ‘Out and about,’ she says, like I had the flu. They act like all I’m doing is”—she switched to a hard whisper—“sitting at home grieving.”

“She said it was good to see you.”

Evvie shook her head. “It’s the sympathy. It’s all the pats on the arm, all the soft voices. That tree-planting thing at the clinic is in a couple of weeks, and it’s going to be even worse then. Everybody’s just going to sit there and watch me cry.”