Читать книгу Mean Season - Heather Cochran, Heather Cochran - Страница 10

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What’s crazy is how it all worked out. The court system in the United States—or at least in West Virginia—really does work on precedent. I’d heard that, but this was the first time I’d seen it in action. I’d always liked that about law. The logic of it. Knowing, at least in some small part, what you might expect.

A lot went on, I’ll bet much more than I ever saw, and things fell into place. Lars and Judy hunkered down and sweet-talked the hell out of people. Lars spent a lot of time on his cell phone, and at least as much time cursing about how it hardly worked in Charles Town and Harper’s Ferry. Judy spent a lot of time on the phone, too. She called it “putting out fires” and I guess she did a good job of it. The fence got fixed, and the farmer paid for his inconvenience, and People didn’t get wind of Joshua Reed being arrested—though there was a notice in the Charles Town Register about a J. Polichuk. There was no mention of the cow.

Lars got Joshua’s arraignment pushed up to just a week after his arrest, and in the meantime, found a lawyer from Charleston who had previously clerked for Judge Weintraub. Judy kept me in the loop with phone calls, but Lars was over at the courthouse nearly every day, so on my lunch hour, I’d cross over from the other wing and catch up with how things were going. Joshua mostly stayed back in Harper’s Ferry—Judy had told me that Lars agreed to keep him as a client so long as all Joshua did that week was read and think, and that he showed up whenever and wherever Lars asked, acting polite and looking sober and sorry. Judy said she’d convinced Lars that Joshua was a good long-term investment.

There was one long meeting between the lawyer and Lars and Joshua and Momma and Judge Weintraub and the county prosecutor. It must have gone well because Lars looked relieved when they all poured out of the judge’s chambers. Judge Weintraub waved at me. I didn’t know the judge well, though I’d heard a few stories about him on account of working in the same building—how he’d worked at the state capitol a while, until his wife died and he moved north to Charles Town. Judge Weintraub’s leanings toward family made more sense once I found out that he’d been married, though he’d been a widower some years by the time of Joshua’s plea meeting. After the meeting, while everyone was still shuffling around, the judge asked my mother to come back into in his chambers for a moment. I assumed it had something to do with the temporary legal guardianship she had to take on. Momma had a short stack of forms to sign.

I never found out what Judy said to my mother to get her to agree to allow Joshua Reed to sit out his sentence under our roof. Momma didn’t seem too excited about the idea when I first mentioned it, what with him being a drunk driver and all. She put down her quilting and stared hard at me.

“You know what you’re asking? You really want for me to do this?” Momma asked.

“It was just an idea,” I told her. “I just thought, maybe.”

“You been with that fan club how long now?”

I reminded her that it had been seven years.

“I suppose you think this guy’s worth some trouble,” she said. “I’m not convinced of it, but maybe you know better.”

The next morning, Momma told me that she’d take a call from Judy, and whatever Judy said convinced her to go along. I always figured it had something to do with money.

So it was a week after the arrest that Joshua sat in the courtroom at the arraignment, frowning as Judge Weintraub asked for the plea and the Charleston lawyer said, “guilty.” And after that, it was over. At least, most of the legal part.

As Judy predicted, Joshua wasn’t too excited about spending ninety days in Pinecob, even if he’d be allowed to commute to the movie set once production started. But I got the impression that whatever Lars and Judy had on him, it was enough to make him simmer down and sit tight. Lars kept pointing out how lucky Joshua was, though I didn’t get the impression that he saw himself as lucky to live with me and Momma and Beau Ray, even when the other choice was the Jefferson County jail.

“Fuck that,” Joshua Reed said that morning in the Harper’s Ferry hotel, after he’d come back to the table by the breakfast buffet and Lars mentioned the house arrest idea. “You can’t be serious.” He looked at Lars, then Judy, then back to Lars. “There’s got to be another way. Can’t we—I mean, I—just pay a really big fine? Or, I don’t know, talk to high-school kids?”

Lars and Judy had shrugged. As it turned out, Judge Weintraub didn’t think that fining rich people was an effective deterrent (although he did slap Joshua with a $5,000 fine and the cost of the repaired fence and the cow’s vet visit). Judge William Weintraub believed in families and he believed in house arrest for ninety days for Joshua’s sort of a DUI. The terms of Joshua’s sentence were this: He would have to wear an ankle sensor so that the county police would know where he was at all times. He wasn’t allowed to leave the house without police supervision, except to go to required alcohol counseling classes, which in Pinecob meant AA twice a week over at Potomac Springs Senior High. And he lost his license for a year.

“Fuck me,” Joshua had said, leaving the courthouse after all the plea bargaining was done. “This is going to give me a rash.”

I think he meant the ankle sensor.

“Three months in fucking Pinecob. It’s a fucking bad dream.”

By the time Momma got back from the Y with Beau Ray—that first afternoon with Joshua Reed in the house— Lars and Judy were on their way to the airport, and Joshua was tucked behind the closed door to Vince’s old bedroom. I asked Beau Ray to keep extra quiet that afternoon. I thought Joshua might be sleeping, although I didn’t know. I could have walked in easy enough. There was no lock on the door to Vince’s room. Except for the bathrooms, there were no locks on any of the inside doors in our house. Dad hadn’t believed in them, and after he died—well, it would have felt disloyal to make an addition like that. The Gitlin family rule was that closed doors were as good as locked, so you were supposed to assume that the person who’d done the closing didn’t want to be barged in on. You were supposed to knock before walking in. Although, logically, I knew that he had to eat, part of me wondered if we would ever see Joshua Reed again.

“Leanne,” Momma said, “you come over here and help your brother put to right his playing cards.”

I’d been in the living room, comparing our own setup against the picture of Joshua’s “artist’s cottage” from the home decor magazine Judy’s assistant had sent me. The quilt that Momma had laid over the long couch hadn’t been cleaned in a while, so I’d hauled it out to soak in the laundry tub and replaced it with one I thought was prettier, made mostly of blue shirting. But even that didn’t look like something you might see in a magazine.

Don’t get me wrong, our house was fine and it’s not like we didn’t have room enough. Momma and Dad had moved in back when Tommy was a toddler and Susan, just a baby. So I’d been conceived there, and before me, Vince and before Vince, Beau Ray. Growing up, Dad was always the one with big plans—tearing out a wall to expand a room, adding another bedroom out back. But most of those plans never materialized. And after Dad died, Momma wouldn’t talk of renovations. As the seasons passed, that meant that the kitchen floors sagged a bit along one edge, and the basement tended to smell a little swampy. Ours just wasn’t a home decor house.

Beau Ray had rushed off to his room upon returning from “Move Your Body, Move Your Mind.” Even though I knew that extended periods of quiet were usually followed by the discovery of some sort of chaos—like the time he’d dunked all of his clothes in the bathtub or cut his hair in jagged layers or tried to repair an old model plane but only succeeded in pasting it to his arm with superglue—I hadn’t felt like checking in on him. Transitions home from the Y tended to be difficult, but that day had also been Raoul’s last before moving back to Mexico to be with his family. Raoul was a physical therapist’s assistant, and Beau Ray had worked with him for the previous two years. There had been a going-away party the week before, but there’s nothing like the very last day you’re going to see someone to make the loss hit home.

“Leanne, didn’t you hear me? I’m talking right at you,” Momma said. She sounded mad. “Beau Ray’s done mixed up all his playing cards, plus the ones from the game chest. I don’t know, just fix it!”

“Yes, Momma,” I told her, and I put the artist’s cottage picture inside the pages of the fancy Bible that Susan had given us the year before.

Beau Ray’s room was a mess of playing cards.

“Beau Ray,” I said to get his attention. I could see how Momma had probably taken one look and called for me. There were cards strewn across his bed, across the rug, across the dresser, everywhere. If there’d been anyone else to ask, I’d have kept passing the buck.

Beau Ray was squatting in the doorway of his closet, pretending to play solitaire. Sometimes, even though years had passed, I’d have these split-second moments when I’d forget all that had happened, that Beau Ray wasn’t exactly Beau Ray anymore, that there was a new person in our midst.

“What’s with all the cards?” I asked him.

He looked up at me, confused, and it all came back.

“Playing solidtare,” he said.

“Solitaire,” I told him. “But what about all these?”

“Playing twenty-eight pickup,” he said.

From the door, I could see that he’d mixed at least four different decks, four different designs including one from my room that had roses on the backs and gold around the edges. I don’t put too much stock in playing cards, but Vince had given me the rose deck when I was twelve, so they were not something I wanted to see torn up or stepped on.

“Looks like two hundred and eight pickup,” I said, doing the math.

“Two hundred eight pickup,” Beau Ray said. He threw his solitaire pile into the air. On the outside, it looked celebratory, the cards fluttering around him like petals and whirligigs. But he didn’t look happy.

“Momma says we’ve got to clean this up. Help me get the cards into a big pile, okay?”

Beau Ray nodded but didn’t move. I started gathering the cards into one pile and finally he shrugged, then helped a little. I told him that I wanted him to ask before he took the deck of rose cards, and even though I was trying not to sound mad about it, Beau Ray started to rock back and forth as he did when he sought to comfort himself.

“Beau Ray, it’s okay,” I said. “I’m not yelling at you. It’s just that they belong in my room—like this is your room and your cards live here, right?”

He nodded, but I knew that we’d be having the same conversation again about something else, some other thing he found and would take or break or both. I’d learned not to become too attached to things since Beau Ray’s fall. Nothing lasted.

Beau Ray was a good guy—at least, he meant to be. That he’d always been mellow, even back when he was functioning at normal levels, was a saving grace. I’d heard stories of people, brain-injured like him, full of adult-sized rage but without the ability to put it anywhere. So my brother marked Raoul’s departure by throwing four packs of playing cards in the air. That wasn’t so bad.

Maybe an hour later, I was in my room replacing the rose-backed cards in my desk drawer when Joshua opened Vince’s door. He stood in the doorway, stock-still for a moment, staring across the hall into my room. He looked both sleepy and mad, like a toddler roused too early from a nap. His dark hair curled out in different directions. Then he shuffled across the hall and stood at my bedroom door, frowning out my window toward the yard below and the street beyond. He looked down at his left ankle, where the gray plastic sensor with a locked band hung. He shook his left foot, and I could hear the plastic rattle and thud against his skin.

“So it’s not a bad dream,” he said. “Fuck.”

“You awake?” I asked him and then cringed to myself. It was a stupid question, given that he was standing before me, his eyes open. “You want to see the rest of the house now?”

Joshua shrugged. “I guess. Whatever. Why the fuck not?”

He hated us, I thought, if he could be goaded to feel anything at all. At least, he acted like he hated us, and as Judy had pointed out, Joshua Reed was a fine actor.

“Great. I’ll give you the grand tour,” I told him.

I thought about what Judy had told me to do—or rather, how she’d told me to act. But still I heard myself being nice to him before I knew if I wanted to be, before I’d even thought about what I wanted. No one ever noticed, I don’t think—that I tended to be nice as pie even when I didn’t mean it. But it was a quirk that bugged me, and I realized that if I were going to be aloof to Joshua, I’d have to become a better actress. I’d have to practice.

He’d already seen most of the upstairs, what there was to it. He’d seen his room, and mine, and the hall bathroom. Besides that, there was Momma’s bedroom and Susan’s old bedroom, which had years back been converted into the sewing room where Momma did all her machine piecing. I pointed out both rooms on the way downstairs, but Joshua didn’t seem to care. There was a lot of shrugging.

Downstairs, Beau Ray sat on the couch watching This Old House on television. He had quieted down and for that, Momma had given him a slice of cake. Momma sat beside him, stacking fabric squares. She nodded up at us.

“Joshua, this is my brother Beau Ray. Beau Ray, say hello,” I said.

Beau Ray didn’t look up.

“Beau Ray, it’s polite to say hello,” I said.

“Hello,” he said but still didn’t look up.

A streak of chocolate icing colored his face, across his mouth and cheek. I usually wouldn’t have cared about something like that, but I remember being a little embarrassed just then.

“Joshua’s going to be our house guest for the summer,” Momma said. “Isn’t that nice?”

Joshua looked a little uncomfortable. Beau Ray finally tore his eyes from the television set and glanced up at Joshua.

“Hey, man,” Joshua said.

Beau Ray’s eyes went wide. “That’s!” Beau Ray said. He pointed at Joshua Reed, then turned to me with an incredulous smile, mouth open, icing everywhere. “That’s!” he said again.

I had to smile back. Anyone would have.

“Yes. It is,” I said. “Remember how I was telling you? And you didn’t believe me.”

Beau Ray scrambled to his feet, his eyes locked on Joshua the whole time. Chocolate crumbs fell to the floor and got mashed into the carpet as Beau Ray rushed over and enveloped Joshua in a huge hug. Joshua looked at me like he could use some guidance.

“It’s!” Beau Ray said, hugging him close.

“Now, now, dear,” Momma told my brother. “Of course you’re excited but let the man alone!”

But Beau Ray was a lot beefier than Joshua, and he was holding on tight.

“It’s!” Beau Ray said again, laughing a little. His laughter shook Joshua up and down.

“It’s cool, man,” Joshua said, but I thought he looked sort of scared. His arms flapped a little—as much as they could pinned beneath the hug.

“Beau Ray, please let go of him. You’ve got the whole summer to hug him,” I said. I must have sounded serious because Beau Ray released Joshua, then came to my side. He poked me in the shoulder, like I hadn’t seen Joshua yet or if I had, didn’t realize the magnitude of amazement he warranted.

“Cool man,” Beau Ray said to me, poking me hard.

“Ouch. I know,” I said.

Joshua was catching his breath. He’d taken a couple steps away from Beau Ray and was wiping chocolate icing from his cheek.

“I’ll get you a towel for that,” Momma said. “You got some on your shirt, too. I’ll get the soap.”

“Really, don’t bother,” Joshua said, but she was already halfway to the kitchen.

“Beau Ray,” I said. “Have you cleaned your room? Because I want to show Joshua your room, but I want to make sure it’s clean first.”

“It’s clean,” Beau Ray said, still staring, as if Joshua might disappear if he looked away.

“Really?” I asked.

Beau Ray cast his eyes to the floor. The playing cards had been only the top layer of disorganization. I’d taught Beau Ray to throw all his things into the closet and shut the door if he couldn’t actually get them put away in time for company to see. I figured that’s what still needed doing.

“I’m gonna go clean my room,” Beau Ray said. “Cool man.” He smiled at Joshua and hustled off. Joshua stared after him.

“He was just excited to meet you. He’ll calm down,” I told him. “He’s the one I was telling you is disabled.”

“I see it didn’t stunt his size,” Joshua said.

“He used to play a lot of football,” I said.

“When did, you know, his head happen? You said it was a fall?” Joshua asked.

“I was thirteen,” I said, trying to remember. “It was January, so he was seventeen. So twelve years ago. He’s turning thirty this summer. You’ll be here.”

Downstairs, in addition to the living room with the TV and the two couches and Dad’s old reading chair, there was Beau Ray’s room and his bathroom, the dining room and the kitchen. Another set of stairs, near the door of the kitchen, led farther down, to the washing machine and the swampy basement with the Ping-Pong table that no one ever used, the computer Judy bought me, and my fan club filing cabinet. Joshua didn’t say anything as I showed him around. He sniffed a bit and frowned a lot, but he didn’t say a word.

Outside was the big backyard and smaller front yard, and between the front yard and the door, a covered porch with a clothesline and a rickety table. On one end sat half a motorcycle Tommy had abandoned a few summers back, and at the other, an old tire that Momma had fashioned into a marigold planter. We ended up out there after I ran out of things to show him inside. Joshua sank into our one porch chair, so I sat on the two-step stoop, looking out at the driveway, beyond which Joshua couldn’t go. For a while, he held his head in his hands, like he had the worst headache. I asked him if there was anything he needed.

“A drink,” he said.

“You mean a liquor drink or a soda or something because Lars told me he didn’t want—” I started saying, but he cut me off.

“No,” he said. “Nothing.”

“I usually go to the Winn-Dixie on Sundays,” I explained. “But if there’s anything special you want, let me know. I could make an extra trip.”

“What the fuck is a Winn-Dixie?” Joshua snapped.

I felt my cheeks go hot. Sandy was right, I thought just then. Joshua Reed was a butthole. Joshua was a butthole and this was day one of ninety. The summer stretched out farther into the future than any of us could see, like the bend in Prospect Street when you turned left. There was never any way to know what might be coming at you there, so it was best to take it slow. That’s what Dad had always said.

I didn’t answer him, and eventually Joshua Reed looked up at me. I still didn’t answer and he frowned, then looked a little ashamed, then broke out one of his smiles.

“Sorry,” he said. “Winn-Dixie?”

I took a breath and thought, okay, I’ll forgive him, the way you forgive a kid who is done with time-out, even though you know that he’s bound to start roughhousing again. I took a breath and thought, start slow.

“For groceries. It’s a supermarket,” I told him. “I guess they don’t have them in Los Angeles?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing I need. Wait. I’ll let you know. I can’t even think right now,” he said.

I looked at my nails. I was still sporting the polish I’d put on the night I first met Joshua Reed. It had begun to flake and crack, and I picked at it as I looked out into our driveway. A car rolled by. I didn’t recognize who it was, but I waved like I always did and whoever it was waved back. Joshua turned to me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, though I knew that his look carried something with it.

“You want lemonade?” I asked.

He kept staring into the street. I stood up.

“I could use a beer,” I said.

Lars had asked me not to serve Joshua alcohol so long as he was under house arrest, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t indulge, even if it was mostly for show. As I opened the screen door, Joshua buried his head in his hands again.

“Fuck me,” he muttered. And then louder, like he was really angry, he yelled it. “Fuck me!”

“Hey,” I said to him, walking back near. “About the swearing. You can’t be doing that. You can’t be swearing like that around the house.”

He turned to me. “What?” But I could tell he had heard me, because he sounded fed up. I suddenly got all nervous.

“It’s just…you can’t…you shouldn’t…not around the house.”

Joshua looked like he didn’t know where to begin. “People swear in prison,” he finally said.

“On account of Beau Ray,” I explained. I told him how Beau Ray had this bad habit—more annoying than bad, I guess—of mimicking. Especially with swear words. “We’ve all trained ourselves not to,” I told him.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” I said, and went to get my beer. From behind the screen door, I heard Joshua again.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered.

The house was quiet that night, but I didn’t sleep well. Joshua’s door was closed, and Momma had closed hers, too. As I padded down the hall, ready to crawl into bed, I wondered what Momma was really thinking. She’d been fairly closemouthed on the subject of Joshua up to then. All I knew was that she saw his house arrest as an extension of my fan club duties, as if Joshua were a hobby of mine I had to keep neat and in the right place, like the plastic horses I’d collected when I was little. She’d already told me that I’d be the one driving him to AA. I would also be the one to buy groceries and whatever else he might demand. That night, Momma had gone to bed before dinner, saying that she was tuckered and had a big day ahead. I wondered if it hadn’t been the arraignment and being civil to Judy and Lars and worrying over Beau Ray. Or maybe it was just having someone in Vince’s room after all that time.

I had always slept with my door open. When I was younger, it was so I could look into Vince’s room and see his feet sticking up under the covers and know that he would hear anything awful or scary and could rush to my side in seconds. Not that anything awful or scary ever happened—not that he could prevent at least. And after Vince left, I’d kept my door open so that I would be able to see if he came back in the night. And years after that, it was habit. But that night, that first night with Joshua, I’d closed my door, and with all the doors upstairs closed, it felt like a different house. Like my family wasn’t my own anymore. I wondered if we’d made a mistake.

Often when I couldn’t sleep, I called Sandy late at night. But that night, she was with her family at the beach—would be for the next week, too—and I was afraid I’d wake everyone. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I’d sit on the porch and listen to the crickets. But closing my door seemed so final, and I didn’t want to take a chance on running into Joshua while I was in nightclothes. So I stared at the ceiling and wondered how long ninety days would last. Start slow, I told myself.

I’ve been an early riser since forever—or at least since my teens. Usually I’m up around six. I don’t know where it comes from, since no one else in my family gets up so early. Beau Ray had long been one of those guys who’d sleep until noon in a bright room. And Momma was more of an eight o’clock riser—earlyish, but not early. But me, I’ve never even had to set an alarm. I could always tell myself “get up at five forty-five” or “get up at six-fifteen” and my body would obey (although daylight saving time would have me off-kilter for a couple days). So even though I didn’t sleep well, I still woke up by six-thirty that first morning after Joshua moved in.

I got up, got dressed and took Momma’s station wagon to SpeedLube for an oil change, and then I drove into Charles Town and it was still but seven forty-five. I had a key that got me into the county clerk’s office, no matter what the time, and I went to my desk and organized my things like I’d meant to do the day before, except the arraignment had gone longer than I’d figured. For the next eighty-nine days, I was only going to be working half-time, since it turned out that we would be getting paid for taking care of Joshua.

I hadn’t been thinking anything about money, I’d swear on Susan’s fancy Bible, when I offered up Vince’s room. Heck, I hadn’t even known it the day Momma signed the guardianship papers, though I think Momma might have. Momma had told me that Judy and Lars were fixing to pay her $200 a day for the use of Vince’s room and meals and laundry and not killing him (that last part being a joke). Judy said that it was like paying for a hotel, which they would have been doing had there been such thing as hotel arrest. Judy even asked Judge Weintraub whether he thought that was fair, and he said he didn’t see anything wrong with it.

Two hundred dollars a day was a lot more than I was making at the county clerk’s office. It was probably more than what Momma and I together brought home. And Momma said that if we were getting paid like that to take care of Joshua, we sure as hell better take care of Joshua, which meant she wanted me to be around more.

This is the way Momma would talk: “Leanne, I’m wanting you to stick around the house more this summer.” It sounds polite and all, but if I’d ever said no, all of that niceness would be gone and she’d start in with how ungrateful I was and didn’t I see how hard it had been for her, and I’d end up doing what she wanted anyway. I knew it, and she knew I knew it. But it still irked me because I also knew that it was awful convenient that Beau Ray would be watched over at the same time. And that screwed me, since summer was when Momma usually did more watching so I could take my extension courses. It’s like she had forgotten that I was the one she’d pushed to think about college, well, me and Vince. I remember wondering whether Vince had found his way to college, wherever he was, as I straightened my desk in case Mr. Bellevue assigned someone else to sit there on Mondays, Thursdays and Friday afternoons.

I saw that Mr. Bellevue had left a note for me.

Leanne, it read, I’m terribly excited for you!!! Enjoy this experience—but of course you’ll have to tell me everything! I’m sure it will be unique and memorable!!

By his use of exclamation points, I had to assume that Mr. Bellevue meant memorable in a good way. But President Kennedy’s assassination was memorable, too. And the space shuttle coming down in flames. And my dad dying, even that was memorable on a smaller scale.

Of course, I hoped the summer would be memorable in a good way. For heaven’s sake, Joshua Reed was going to be living in my house! He was there even as I folded up the note. He was there even as I walked out of the county clerk’s office. I wondered if he’d sleep late. I wondered what he’d want to do on his first full day under our roof. I had no doubt that after a good night’s sleep, he’d have relaxed some and feel more himself. Maybe I’d suggest that we rent a few movies. Maybe he’d let me listen to him practice his Musket Fire lines.

With the first, awkward night behind us, I felt hopeful. Ninety days was ample time to get to know someone. Sandy and I hadn’t needed a month to become fast friends when we’d met in the third grade. At the end of ninety days, Joshua and I might well be inseparable. We might have private jokes. We might realize that we both hate runny eggs and love Mounds bars. Maybe he’d introduce me to some of his friends—on the phone or if ever a few of them decided to fly in and surprise him for a weekend.

I knew that Joshua and I already had things in common. Like the fact that we’d both excelled in English in high school. And that we were both allergic to cats. And like me, he’d grown up in a small town, even farther from a big city than we were in Pinecob. Although he’d sure made it clear that he preferred city living.

In the parking lot, my keys fit in the car lock the same as usual. The steering wheel felt in my hands like it always did, as I spun it away from the municipal building. The road beneath the tires was smooth where I expected smooth, and the stoplight by the post office shone red, then green, as always. But back at my house, Joshua Reed was sleeping between the same sheets I sometimes slept between. How crazy was that? It felt like remembering a dream, the sense of everything just a step beyond belief. My house, but not my house. The feel of life, but not quite. Joshua Reed, movie star, was sleeping between my sheets.

I knew that a lot of women would have killed—or at least scratched and bit—for the chance to take my place. Back when I was sixteen or seventeen, I might have done the same. But at twenty-five, I wasn’t holding on to the crazy fantasies I’d harbored in my teens. And besides, I knew that Joshua was dating Elise, the Belgian supermodel with aqua eyes.

I looked into the rearview mirror. My eyes were as brown as ever. And anyway, I’ve always been one to respect an existing relationship. I don’t know what the feminine equivalent of chivalry is, but maybe you’d call it that. Sandy, on the other hand, would probably call it me not having the gumption to hold my hand out for what I wanted. But I knew what it felt like, someone moving in on your boyfriend when you’re not around. The same thing had happened to me with Howard Malkin. I wasn’t going to be like that.

It was around eight-thirty in the morning when I got back home, and Momma was making blueberry cottage cheese pancakes, which sounds weird, but they’re the best pancakes ever. She almost never made them, so it must have been Joshua who brought out the act. She told me to get Beau Ray up and to offer Joshua more coffee.

“Judy said we shouldn’t be catering to him,” I told her.

“Judy’s not here,” Momma said. “And Judy don’t make the rules in this house, so git.”

I’d bought a Charles Town Register on my way home, and I dropped it on the dining room table as I passed. Joshua looked up at me.

“Hey sleepyhead,” I said, at the door of Beau Ray’s room. I was glad to see that Beau Ray, at least, had slept with his door wide open. His closet door was open, too, and a huge pile of clothes and books and sporting equipment spilled out onto his floor. “Momma’s making pancakes,” I said. “You don’t want to miss pancakes.”

Beau Ray turned over. “Pancakes?” he asked and started to sit up.

“Blueberry. Come soon,” I said.

Beau Ray followed me into the dining room. He took a seat across from Joshua and smiled at him. Joshua looked up from the paper.

“Morning, Beau Ray,” he said.

“Morning, cool man Joshua Reed,” Beau Ray said. “Fuck me.”

“Beau Ray!” I snapped.

Joshua seemed surprised, then amused.

“Beau Ray, you know we don’t say that,” I said.

“Fuck me! Fuck me!” Beau Ray said. Joshua started laughing.

“It’s not funny,” I told him, but Beau Ray looked so pleased with himself and with Joshua that I found myself fighting a grin.

“Shh,” Joshua said to Beau Ray. “We don’t want your mother to hear.”

“Shh,” Beau Ray said back, nodding and winking.

Momma brought a plate of pancakes to the table. “Who’s ready for the first round?” she asked. “Morning, angel,” she said to Beau Ray. She kissed him on the head.

Beau Ray was already poking at the pancakes with a fork. “Yum. Pancakes,” Beau Ray said. “Fuck me!”

Joshua and I went silent.

Momma turned to me. “Leanne,” she said, frowning.

I shrugged and turned to Joshua, who started to laugh.

Momma looked pissed. “It’s not funny,” she said to him. “I don’t know how you live your life out there in California, but here, in this house, we don’t use bad language.”

“Fuck me,” Beau Ray said. “Cool man don’t use bads.” He giggled.

“See what I mean?” I told Joshua, who was still laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Momma said again, even angrier.

“I know,” Joshua said. But he wasn’t doing a very good job of looking sorry. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. It won’t happen again.”

“Joshua Reed say sorry,” Beau Ray said.

“I am sorry,” Joshua said to my mother.

He had found his focus and was wearing his apologetic look. I guess Joshua Reed always played guys who messed up, because I swear I’d seen that same look in every one of his movies. His eyes were wide open and sad, and his chin was tilted down, so that he was looking up at Momma through his lashes. After he spoke, his lips stayed slightly open, and the effect was a much younger, more innocent Joshua Reed. I couldn’t look away. It was a complete transformation. I don’t know whether Momma bought it, but she shook her head and left the room. Once she was gone, Joshua’s face returned to normal—or to the sour version of normal he’d worn from the moment he’d walked into our house. He took a bite of pancakes and turned back to the paper.

“I want to ask you,” Joshua said. Breakfast was over. Beau Ray had gone to take a shower, and Momma had left for work. “What’s the deal with the TV?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Is there something wrong?”

“Well, I couldn’t figure it out. Where’s the cable box? How does it work?”

I cringed. I’d forgotten to mention it, because it had never been a big deal before. But I had a feeling that it was about to become one.

“We don’t have cable,” I told him. “It hasn’t come up the road yet.”

Joshua blinked at me. “You’re kidding,” he finally said. “You’re not kidding?”

I shook my head. “There’s cable in Charles Town—but that doesn’t help you,” I said.

“You can’t get cable? Who can’t get cable?” Joshua seemed confused. “Then what about satellite? You could get a dish. Satellite.”

I shrugged. Sandy’s parents’ new house in Charles Town had cable, so I’d always gone there if I wanted to watch something that didn’t come in on one of our five stations.

“Maybe,” I told him. “Momma has this thing about TV. You’ll have to ask her.” I left it at that.

“Jesus. You live in the absolute sticks,” Joshua said. He sounded amazed, but not in a good way.

“You act like someone told you Pinecob was a big city,” I said. “No one told you that. I know I didn’t tell you that. Besides, you know what a small town is like. You grew up in Rackett, Texas. Population three thousand.” I knew this from his fan club biography.

“Don’t talk to me about Rackett. I left that rat hole as soon as I could,” Joshua said.

I swallowed hard. “Some of us haven’t had that luxury,” I said. I hated that I felt so shaky.

Joshua looked around the empty room, then calmly back at me. He didn’t look at all ruffled.

“Apparently everyone else had the good sense to leave,” he said. “I’m going to call about getting satellite TV.” He left the room. Me, I left the house and didn’t come back again until after dinner, if only because I could.

When I came back—I would have caught hell from Momma had I stayed out any later—Joshua was up in Vince’s room, reading one of the ten scripts Lars had left with him. I walked down the hallway and saw Joshua glance at me before he kicked his door closed. Momma was in her bedroom, lining up square after square of calico cotton.

“We’re not getting no satellite TV,” she told me, before I could say a thing.

“Okay,” I said.

“Joshua asked, but I just…” She paused. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Even if he pays, you know television is addictive. I don’t want Beau Ray watching more than he already does.”

“Okay,” I said. “It wasn’t my idea. I don’t care.”

“Okay, then,” Momma said. “Beau Ray said you were out all day. You told me you’d already cleaned things up at work.”

“I just had a few more things to do there,” I told her. It was a lie. I’d gone and watched the same movie twice at the Charles Town Cinema.

Momma nodded. “I’m going out Thursday night, so I’ll be wanting you around here then,” she told me.

“You’re going out? Who with?” I asked. Momma almost never went out. I tried to think of the last time she’d socialized and who it had been with. “The Williamses?” I guessed.

“No.”

“Church potluck?”

“I’m going out to dinner with Bill Weintraub,” she said. I didn’t recognize the name at first, and then it hit me.

“Judge Weintraub?”

“He seems like a very nice man,” Momma said.

“You have a date with Judge Weintraub?” I asked. “Or is it some sort of meeting about Joshua?”

“I’m going out to dinner with him,” Momma said. “That’s all.” And I could tell that she wasn’t going to say anything more.

On Wednesday, day three of the ninety, there was a knock at our front door. I was doing dishes in the kitchen, so I pulled off my gloves and went to answer. A tall, skinny woman was waiting outside. She wore sunglasses even though our porch was shady and it looked like a storm was about to blow in. Behind her, in the driveway, a big black car sat idling.

“Is Joshua here?” she asked. She took off her sunglasses then and blinked. “I mean,” she continued, “I know he’s here. Can I see him?”

I stepped aside and let her into the house. “I think he’s sleeping,” I told her. “Come on up. You’re his girlfriend, right?” I asked.

I knew who she was. She was the model for All-American Cosmetics, among other things. I’d seen her in magazines. Her name was Elise.

“And you are?” Elise asked, following me up the stairs.

“I’m Leanne,” I said. “I live here.”

Elise nodded. “Oh right. I heard about you,” she said. “The fan.”

“Fan club,” I said. “Here’s his room.” I knocked lightly. Elise stood beside me and knocked hard.

“What?” Joshua snapped from behind the door. He opened it then, looked at me, then at Elise. He smiled when he saw Elise. “Hey, baby!” he said.

Elise stepped into Vince’s old room, and Joshua closed the door. I stood in the hallway for a moment, feeling even more stupid when I realized I still had a dish sponge in my hand. Then I walked back downstairs and sat at the kitchen table.

They were in his room for about an hour. After that, I heard the door open and the stairs creak as they came back down.

“You want some lemonade?” I heard him ask. She must have nodded because he called out, “Leanne, bring us some lemonade, would you? We’ll be on the front porch.”

I went to the refrigerator, then stopped. I didn’t open it. Instead, I walked to the kitchen window and listened. Joshua hadn’t been in our house long enough to realize that where I stood was perfect for overhearing any porch conversation. I’d discovered that in high school—my mother would listen to all my dates as they were ending, so I’d learned to give kisses in the car, beforehand.

“Are you kidding me?” I heard Joshua say. “You’re just telling me this now?”

“Sorry,” Elise said. But she didn’t sound sorry. I heard her sigh.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this, Leesie,” Joshua said. “I thought you of all people would stick around. We talked about this!”

“It’s clear that you have some work to do on yourself right now,” Elise said. “And I need to focus on my career. I’m the All-American spokesmodel. I’ve got a responsibility there.”

“You’re not even American,” Joshua said.

“That’s not the point,” she said. “I’m sorry, Josh. It was good to see you, but I have to get going.”

“You kept the car running?” Joshua said.

“Of course. It’s hot out here,” she said. “Oh, don’t pout. It’s not like you and I were going anywhere long-term,” Elise said. “And you can’t go anywhere short-term.”

From the kitchen, I could hear a car door close, then the crunch of tires on the driveway. I could hear Joshua’s footsteps, back and forth across the porch. I went to the refrigerator and got out the pitcher.

He was sitting on the porch, staring out toward the street. I handed him a glass of lemonade and he took it, absentmindedly. He didn’t say anything.

The next day was Thursday. In the evening, Momma got to go out to dinner with Judge Weintraub, Beau Ray got to go to “Life Skills Training” at the Charles Town Community Center and I got to drive Joshua to his first AA meeting. He didn’t talk to me on the way there, and when I asked if he knew where to go and what room it was in, he handed me a piece of paper: Room 220.