The Other Americans(29)

He flipped the passenger-side mirror closed. “Wanna get a drink?”

“Not tonight.”

“What? I smell that bad?”

“A shower wouldn’t kill you. But no, I’m just tired.”

“All right. Thanks again, dude.”

I pulled out of the lot and headed home. A heaviness had settled on me, the kind that I knew would keep me up all night. Maybe I should go on a hike, I thought. Tire myself out. Clear my mind. I drove past my street corner and continued down the highway toward the national park. I was waiting at a red light when I saw Nora walk into McLean’s.





Nora




I had gone to the cabin to escape squabbles with my family, but the cabin presented a challenge of its own: it was so quiet that it seemed to me I could hear the beating of my own heart. I wasn’t used to the desert, at least not anymore, and after a while I got into my car and went looking for a place to get a drink. I’d never been inside McLean’s, and it surprised me to see how busy it was at barely six in the evening. I took a seat at the bar. A couple of tourists in hiking clothes and wide-brimmed hats were huddled over a single menu, debating whether to get plain or garlic fries. Three seats down, a man in blue overalls was scratching at a lottery ticket with a house key. Across from me, a couple of bearded men were conversing quietly over their beers. The bartender was mixing cocktails and didn’t look up when I tried to catch his eye.

“Nora,” a voice called from behind.

I swiveled on the barstool and my purse fell out of my lap, spilling its contents—keys, mace, some change, a tube of lipstick I didn’t remember buying, an enameled pill box, my cell phone. It was a fantastic mess and Jeremy Gorecki stood over it, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said, picking up my things from the floor. “I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”

“It’s okay.” I took the purse from him and zipped it up. “What are you doing here?”

“I was about to get some dinner. Want to get a table?”

“I was only getting a drink. Or hoping to anyway.” I glanced at the bartender, who was refilling a beer for one of the old men and paid me no notice. “All right.”

I slid off the stool and followed Jeremy to a table by the window. In a T-shirt and jeans, he looked younger than he had in the button-down shirt and pants he wore when he came to the house. As a matter of fact, he was a year younger, I realized; I’d been held back that one year in kindergarten. When he motioned to the waitress, she came over right away, pulling out her notepad from her apron. She was a blonde, busty woman in a tank top and black jeans, and spoke with a smoker’s gravelly voice. “What can I get you, hon?” she asked him sweetly. He opened his palm toward me.

“Could I have a gin and tonic, please?” I asked.

“Sure thing. Anything to eat?”

“No, just the drink. Thank you.”

“I’ll have the burger, medium, with fries,” he said. “And a glass of water.”

“Coming right up, hon.”

The waitress left. I slipped my purse off my shoulder and hung it on the arm of my chair.

“How are you holding up?”

A question I had been asked by my roommate and friends a few times already, and for which I still had no answer. Since my father’s death, it was as if my life had stopped and I remained stuck in the same moment, the same place. “I’m not,” I said with a shrug.

“I’m so sorry, Nora. I know how devastating this is.”

There was so much kindness in his voice. For a moment, my eyes pricked and it seemed as though tears were finally coming, but somehow the feeling passed. I rested my chin on the heel of my hand and looked out of the window for a while. The sky was the color of peach. Cars passed now and then on the highway. A delivery truck pulled up in the middle lane and the driver climbed out to deliver a package. How odd, at this late hour. “He left me all this money,” I said, turning to look at Jeremy. “Can you believe it? Me, the fuck-up.”

“You’re not a fuck-up.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know fuck-ups. Trust me.”

The waitress came back. “Here’s your gin and tonic. And here’s your hamburger, hon. Ketchup and mustard are right there. Can I get you two anything else?”

“No, I think we’re good,” he said.

“You didn’t want a beer with your burger?” I asked.

He squeezed ketchup on the side of his plate. “I don’t drink.”

“At all?”

“No.” After a moment of hesitation, he said, “I get really bad insomnia. It was taking five or six drinks to get me to sleep, and after a while even that many weren’t enough. I didn’t like where I was headed, so I stopped.”

“And the insomnia is gone?”

“Well, no. It comes and goes.”

I stirred the ice with the little black straw and took a big sip, all the while watching him. He sat with his back straight and ate quickly, though nothing about his composure suggested he was in a rush. It was so strange running into him at McLean’s. I hadn’t thought of him in ten years, and now I’d seen him twice in a week. It struck me that this was yet another consequence of death, that it disturbed long-established patterns, even something as insignificant as this. Outside, the delivery truck was gone, leaving a clear view of the strip mall across the street. A woman was closing up the nail salon, testing the locks with both hands before walking away to her car. “Isn’t that where the ice-cream parlor was?” I asked, pointing to the salon.