Part 54 (1/2)
”That's you,” the woman who sold guns told Jay. ”It's going to be a while before they get to you, though. You want something to eat?”
”Yes.” He had not realized how hungry he was.
”I don't keep much besides beer in these places. Usually I just phone out. Pizza okay?”
He had not eaten pizza since college. He said it was.
”You've got to get out of here, 'cause I'll have to give the address. Why don't you go in the kitchen?”
A plastic model of a large artery enclosing a very small artificial heart stood in the middle of the room. He nodded and went into the kitchen.”Bring me a beer, okay?”
The refrigerator was white, as his mother's had been; he knew vaguely that no one had white refrigerators now, though he did not know why. It held beer in squat plastic bulbs and a deli container of potato salad. He opened a bulb over the small and dirty sink, afraid that the foam might overflow the bulb. When he could no longer hear her voice, he called, ”Can I come back in?”
”Sure.”
He brought her the beer, and she said, ”Pepperoni, hot peppers, and onions, okay? You can have a beer, too.”
He shook his head. ”Not until the food gets here.”
”Don't you think it's coming?”
It had not even occurred to him. He said, ”Of course it is,” and returned to the kitchen to get a beer for himself.
”I need to make another call. I got to call my baby-sitter and tell her I won't be back tonight.
But I'll wait till we see you.”
He nodded, careful not to look at her. A towering Christmas tree, shrunken by distance, disappeared into the ceiling. Little firemen in yellow coveralls and Day-Glo red helmets clambered over it like elves.
”I turned off the sound so I could call. All right?”
”Sure,” he said.
”Maybe you'd better turn it back on now.”
He did, getting it too loud then scaling it back. Reduced to the size of a child's battery-powered CUV, an immense float trundled through the room, appearing at one wall and disappearing into the other while doll-size women feigned to conceal their nakedness with bouquets from which they tossed flowers to the onlookers. Lee-Anne's voice said, ”... la tourista fiesta queen and her court, Phil. They say the fiesta is worth about three hundred million to the city of Orlando.”
Phil's voice replied, ”I don't doubt it. And speaking of money, Lee-Anne, here's a lady trying to collect some.”
A good-looking woman in a skintight orange jumpsuit rappelled down a mountain of air, bouncing and swaying. Jay said, ”I didn't see that.”
”They were shooting from a helicopter, probably,” the woman who sold guns told him.
It took about half a second for him to realize that by ”shooting” she intended the taking of pictures; in that half second, the swaying woman on the rope became the helmetless woman he recalled, shaking out her hair in the rear seat of the vanette. ”You have a great deal of money belonging to our Federal Government. One hundred thousand, if not more.”
The other woman said, ”He thinks it belongs to him.”
Then his own voice, just as he heard it when he spoke: ”It was paid me by Globnet.”
Their conversation continued, but he paid little attention to what they said. He watched Hayfa Was.h.i.+ngton's face, discovering that he had forgotten (or had never known) how beautiful she had been.Too soon it was over, and a woman in a spotless gingham ap.r.o.n coalesced from light to talk about lemon custard. The woman who sold guns said, ”You want to turn that off now?” and he did.
”I'm going to call my sitter, okay? You can stay, though. I won't tell her where I am.”
”I'll go anyway,” he said, and returned to the kitchen. Faintly, through the tiny dining nook and the door he had closed behind him, he heard her tell someone, ”It's me, Val. How are the kids?”
The card was in his s.h.i.+rt pocket, under the hunting coat he had been careful not to remove.
”Captain H. Was.h.i.+ngton, Fifth Airborne Brigade.” He turned it over, and discovered that her picture was on the reverse, and that her soul was in her huge dark eyes.
”Hey!” the other woman called from the living room. ”The pizza's here. Bring out a couple more bulbs.”
He did, and opened hers for her while she opened the pizza box on the rickety coffee table, then returned to the kitchen for plastic knives and forks, and paper napkins.
”If we eat in there we'll have to sit facing,” she said. ”So I figured in here. We can sit side-by-each, like in the car. It'll be easier.” He said that was fine, and asked about her children. ”Oh, they're okay. My girlfriend is sitting them. She's going to take them over to her house till I get back. Ron's eight and Julie's seven. I had them right together, like. Then we broke up, and he didn't want any part of them. You know how that is.”
”No,” he said. ”No, I don't.”
”Haven't you ever been married? Or lived with a woman?”
He shook his head.
”Well, why not?”
”I've never been rich, handsome, or exciting, that's all.” He paused, thinking. ”All right, I'm rich now, or at least have something like riches. But I never did before.”
”Neither was he, but he got me.”
Jay shrugged.
”He was nice, and he was fun to be with, and he had a pretty good job. Only after the divorce his company sent him overseas and he stopped paying support.”
”I've never had a job,” Jay said.
”Really?”
”Really. My friends call me a slacker.” He found that he was smiling. ”Dad called me a woods b.u.m. He's dead now.”
”I'm sorry.”
”So am I, in a way. We seldom got along, but well. . .” He shrugged and drank beer.
”I know.”
”He sent me to college. I thought I was a pretty good baseball player in those days, and a pretty good football player, but I didn't make either team. I tried hard, but I didn't make the cut.”
She spoke with her mouth full. ”Tha's too bad.”
”It was. If I had, it would have been different. I know it would. The way it was, I workedhard up until I was close to graduation.” The pizza was half gone. He picked up a square center piece that looked good, bit into it, and chewed and swallowed, tasting only the bitterness of empty years.
”What happened then?” she asked.