Homesick for Another World(35)

“My new neighbor’s nice,” Jeb said to his nephew once they’d sat down to eat in the breakfast nook. Jeb took for himself only one strip of bacon, one dry piece of toast. “Single gal,” he went on, “right next door. I’m sure she could use a friend her own age.”

The nephew ate a forkful of eggs. His face was thin and bearded. He wore a small gold hoop in one ear. “What’s she look like?” he asked, head tilted skeptically. “Truthfully. Head to toe.”

“Oh, please,” Jeb said. “You’re not one to be picky. Looks a bit like Lou Ann.” Lou Ann had been the nephew’s high-school girlfriend. “She has that kind of tan.”

“I’ll meet her,” said the nephew. “But I’m not saying I’ll take her out. I don’t need any drama.”

“What drama? You should be so lucky,” Jeb said. “A sweet gal. Comes with baggage, of course, as they all do.”

“Kids?” the nephew asked. “Forget it.”

“No, no kids. Emotional issues, more like,” Jeb said. “You know women. Stray cats, all of them, either purring in your lap or pissing in your shoes.”

“Amen to that,” said the nephew.

“She is pretty. Something special about her. A gal who might be worth suffering for, if you ask me. Anyway, you’d be so lucky,” he repeated. He pulled the nephew’s empty plate away. “Go over there and introduce yourself. Or better yet, bring her this piece of mail.” He put the plate in the sink and went to the kitchen drawer, where he’d been saving a letter the postman had misdelivered. It was a notice from a university library across the river. The girl was late in returning a book and the fee was multiplying day by day. “I meant to give it to her yesterday,” Jeb said.

“But it’s Sunday morning,” the nephew said.

“Never mind,” Jeb said. “She’s up. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have a visitor.” He put a hand on the boy’s muscled shoulder as they walked to the front door. “When you see her, tell her I send my regards.”

The nephew skipped through the front yard, kicking updust, and jogged across the crumbling sidewalk onto thegirl’s front lawn. Her yard had no fencing around it, just thick, overgrown grass, small evergreen bushes, piles of damp mulch spread sloppily around two crooked saplings. A few empty flowerpots sat on the stoop. The nephew rangthe doorbell, then knocked, his chest heaving with impatience. When the girl answered, Jeb ducked back into thehouse to watch the scene through his living room window.

She wore her frayed denim shorts and a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The nephew stood agog for a moment, then handed her the letter. As they spoke, the girl flapped the letter in her hand. She dug her finger under the seal of the envelope, failing to notice that it had been opened and reglued by Jeb. The nephew looked expectant, scratched his ear, put his hands in and out of his pockets. The girl shrugged and flipped her hair and smiled. Finally he backed down off her front steps. The girl waved the letter, then shut the door. Jeb watched her silhouette through her papered windows. He kneaded his shoulder with his hand. It was all gristle and sinew. He peeled a soft brown banana. He listened to his nephew drive away.

? ? ?

In the early afternoon, Jeb was in the backyard, dragging a rusted lawn chair across the dirt. He sat in a spot from which he could see the girl doing dishes through her open kitchen door.

“Beware the storm!” he yelled when she finally walked out to the porch and sat on the warped wooden back steps. “I love this time, the calm before.”

She looked at Jeb through the chain-link fence. He was just sitting there, facing her yard as if it were a TV set. “Hey,” she said. The soft, warm wind tousled her long, loose hair. She gathered it in her fingers, then turned her back to Jeb to light a cigarette.

“Say,” Jeb said, dragging the chair closer to the fence. “I don’t mean to pry, but may I say how pleased I was to hear you made a new friend in my young nephew. Been a while since he had someone special in his life.” He winked. “I wish you both well.”

“It’s not a big deal,” the girl said, picking a fleck of tobacco from her tongue. “We’re just having a drink together.”

“Now, now,” said Jeb. “I don’t want to poke my head in. I respect y’all’s privacy.”

The girl stood. “There’s nothing to be private about,” she said. “It’s not a date or anything. You could come with us if you wanted. It’s the same to me either way.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t intrude like that.” Jeb furrowed his eyebrows, shook his head. The girl looked so beautiful in the wind and the strange pink light of the sun through the pale clouds. He watched her shirt flatten against her body in the wind. “You don’t need an old man getting in your way,” he said.

Holding the cigarette in her teeth, she wrestled her hair down again and twisted it into a braid. Her armpits were gritty with tiny hairs and flecked with white clumps of deodorant. “If you want to join us, I don’t mind. I don’t care,” she said flatly.

“If you insist,” Jeb said. “Come over to my side, why don’t you? We’ll toast you the Alabama way, and then y’all can go off wherever young folks go. You do drink whiskey, don’t you?”