Have You Seen Luis Velez?(22)

Raymond was still terrified of them. But they had not so much as looked at him since he’d come inside, so it felt silly to be so afraid.

“So, where you live,” she said, “do you get what you need?”

Raymond swallowed a sip of tea through a sudden tightness in his throat. “I’m not really sure what you mean,” he said.

“I mean like breakfast. Do you have two parents?”

“Yes, ma’am. Three actually. My mom and stepdad. And then I see my father every other weekend.”

“Okay. So you have more than two parents. But none of them puts a good breakfast in your belly before you go out for the day? If I had a kid, I’d be covering all those bases. No offense to your folks. But really . . .”

“I think what they do is pretty normal,” Raymond said. Though, truthfully, he had no way to know. How do you gauge normal? To do so, you’d have to know how everybody else lives. “I grab a granola bar in the morning, then they make me a lunch to take to school.” Except on weekends, he thought, when he had to scrounge something up for himself. “And then they cook us a nice dinner every day. So, pretty normal, I think.” But when he was at his father’s he ate more. And better.

She was dishing breakfast up onto a china plate now. His breakfast or hers. He wasn’t sure.

“You know why I ask. Right?”

“Um. Not really.”

“You’re so skinny.”

“That’s just me. I could eat all day and never gain weight.”

“Then you should eat all day,” she said. “You’re a growing boy.”

She set the plate down in front of him. On it were two poached eggs, swimming in a golden sauce. Six spears of asparagus, also swimming. Both halves of a split and buttered English muffin.

“This looks great,” he said.

“Dig in. Don’t wait for me. Don’t let it get cold.”

He ate in silence while she dished up her own food. Stared down over the park and watched walkers and roller skaters and bikers glide up and down the paths. They looked like ants from this vantage point. The food was amazing. Rich and well seasoned. The eggs were cooked just right, with their whites completely solid, but with yolks that ran orangey, rich and liquid, when he stabbed them with his fork.

She sat down next to him and salted her food.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “It’s a lot of hospitality. Most people in the city, they don’t even let you in the front door. They figure, they don’t know you, and . . . well. You know.”

“I have the dogs,” she said, and left it at that.

Speaking of the dogs, they both sat at attention, staring. Shifting their gazes back and forth between Raymond and their owner as if watching a ball being lobbed back and forth over the net in a tennis match. Their tails wagged, making a swishing sound on the kitchen tiles.

“Bad boys,” the woman said. “No begging. Bed!” The dogs collapsed their ears and slunk away. “So, tell me about yourself, Raymond. That was your name, right? Raymond?”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m not sure what there is to tell.”

“You’re in high school?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m a junior.”

“What do you go out for?”

“Go out for?”

“You know. What will it say in your yearbook? You went out for sports? Or you were in the chess club? Or on the debating team?”

“No, ma’am. Nothing like that. I’m afraid the yearbook people won’t have much to say about me.”

“So what do you do when you’re not in school?”

“Well. These days I help out this old woman.”

“Millie.”

“Right. And before that . . . and when I’m not doing that . . . I like to read. I read a lot. Nonfiction, mostly. I read books about political leaders, and wars, and uprisings, and . . . well, history. But not only history. I like to read about the world. Learn more about it. But it can be the world the way it is now. You know. More like social studies. Like, for example, I’m not really religious, exactly, but I read about different religions. Because that helps you learn more about the way things are. The way people are. And why.”

He took another bite of breakfast. It was cooling off fast. But she had been nice enough to serve it to him. If she wanted him to talk, it seemed like the least he could do. He dug into the asparagus. He wasn’t fond of asparagus as a rule. But covered in that rich sauce . . . Raymond figured she could pour that sauce on a pile of cardboard, and he’d happily wolf it down.

“I’m Catholic,” she said.

“I figured.”

“How did you know?”

“Because you crossed yourself when you found out Millie wasn’t some woman your husband had been seeing.”

“Oh. Right.”

They ate in silence for a minute or two.

“You have a girlfriend?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. I’m not gay.”

“I didn’t mean any offense.”

“I didn’t take offense.”

“So you just don’t have a girlfriend now. But you will. The high school years are awkward. It’ll happen for you.”