Something Is Out There (17 page)

“Who?”

He shrugs exaggeratedly, meaning it to be sardonic. “I wouldn’t know that.”

“N-nobody.”

“Well, you’re imagining things, I guess.”

“Don’t insult me, boy.” Her gaze is direct and cold. “You got something on your mind y-you don’t want to t-talk about. That’s fine. But don’t—lie to me about it. I ain’t s-stupid.”

He gets up and walks past her to the door. The telephone is ringing in the house. “It’s personal,” he says. “So can we please drop it?”

“Like it’s r-radioactive,” his mother says.

It’s Max on the phone. “Can you pick Jenny up at the dealership? She took the car in there to get it inspected and they found a problem with the water pump. Says it’ll take at least two hours and that she’ll wait for it, because she knows I don’t want to stop work on the boat. I hung up before I realized I could call you. You don’t mind, do you, man? I mean, I can’t do anything anyway unless you drive the truck over here. And she’s sitting there with two hours’ dead time. You’re not doing anything right this minute, are you?”

“Sean and I were going to go play ball in a while. And I got a call about a carpentry job. Supposed to go over there and talk about it.”

“Big job?”

“Apartment complex. Twenty stories high. Swimming pool on the roof. Helicopter pad for emergencies. Twelve billion dollars for the oak floors and framing alone and more than that for all the roofing and wiring and painting. You working on the boat today or coming with me?”

“We’re millionaires.”

“Just about. You coming?”

“How ’bout you tell me what it really is.”

“Kitchen cabinets. And maybe knocking a wall out. If we get the bid.”

“I’m coming with you—so please pick Jenny up. I don’t
want to interrupt things now. She’ll be waiting for the car in the maintenance and repair shop.”

“I told Sean I’d take him to play ball.”

“You’ll have time for that,” Max says. “Come on—it’s for a good cause.” This has been his phrase over the past year, to excuse himself. “I can’t keep track of the time here, anyway,” he adds.

“I’ll be there. But I’ve got to shower and dress.” He hangs up. It’s fifteen minutes to nine. His mother has gone out into the little garden in back. He sees her there from his bedroom window. She’s put on a big floppy cloth hat. She bends, with the help of her cane, and pulls a weed out, then straightens and gazes toward the pond on the other side of the road. Lately, all her movements have this faintly pensive feature, as though she’s trying distrustfully to commit everything to memory. Often, in midmotion, she pauses, as if listening for a sound she can’t be certain she heard. Walker watches her awhile, and then he hears his little brother moving around in the other room. He gets out of his clothes, showers, dresses, makes his bed, puts his dirty clothes in the hamper in the hall. In the kitchen, he makes coffee, and takes it out on the front porch, where he finds Sean sitting on the top step, tying his tennis shoes.

“Don’t tell me,” Sean says. “You have to go over there.”

“I have to pick Jenny up in town.” Walker rejects the enticement of this chance to be alone with Jenny. “You want to ride along?”

“Whatever.”

Their mother comes around the house from the garden, and as she nears them, Walker tells her where he and the boy are going.

“Well, tell them—I said ‘H-hey.’”

He finishes the coffee, and she walks over and takes the empty cup from him. Habit. Living at home is hard sometimes.

He taps the horn as they make the turn out of the drive, and Sean waves to her from the back window. The morning has remained cool and bright, with little breezes and the scent of new grass and flowers in the air. Walker leaves the windows open. His younger brother climbs into the well behind the front seat, lying back on his neck, wrapping weighted leather bands around his wrists: he’s readying himself for shooting baskets. The bands will improve his strength; he wears the same sort of thing around both ankles. He’s exactly five feet tall, and hopes to grow much taller, though Walker and Max have both told him he probably won’t, that he’ll have to learn to take advantage of being small. It’s Max who got all the size and strength in the family—the only son to inherit those genes of their father.

“I’ve got an idea,” the boy says, concentrating on getting his wrist wrapped tight. “Let’s go over to Max’s tonight and burn the thing to the ground.”

“You’re just mad because we’re picking Jenny up instead of playing ball.”

“You’d tell Max to pick her up himself if it wasn’t for Jenny. You like being around Jenny.”

“Okay, maybe. Yeah. I like her. But if I didn’t like her I’d still do it for a brother.
You’re
a brother, and as a brother I’m suggesting that you shut your stupid mouth.”

Sean concentrates on the wrist bands.

“Okay, little bro?”

“Okay,”
he says. “Take it easy. I think she’s hot, too. God.”

In Midtown, there’s a flea market going on, and traffic is slow. They wait behind a line of cars going up past the courthouse. The traffic moves, and they travel forward a few feet. The air smells of exhaust. Everything is stopped again. Sean
gets to his knees, folds his arms on the seat back, and rests his chin on his forearms. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Well, then we’ll be late,” Walker says.

“You don’t have to be mad at me anymore.”

“Quit breathing down my neck,” Walker says.

A little later, Sean says, “You do think Jenny’s hot, though.”

“Yeah,” Walker tells him. “And? You? What’re you telling me?”

“You know.”

“Hey,” Walker turns to glare at him. “If you think you’ve got a handle on something why don’t you shake it and see what happens?”

Two blocks before they reach the dealership, they see her.

She’s talking to a man in jeans and a cowboy hat and boots. They’re standing by a small red car. “Get a load of Disco Bill,” Sean says, as Walker slows the truck.

Jenny is clearly very surprised, even upset, to see them. She moves quickly away from the man, who stands there motionless, watching them pull up in the truck.

Walker reaches over and opens the passenger side door. She glances back at the cowboy and then gets in.

“What’re you doing here?” she says.

“Who’s the cowboy?” Sean wants to know. “He looks like Disco Bill.”

The cowboy has gotten into the red car and is already backing out of his space. Jenny glances back at him and then rights herself, smoothing her denim skirt in her lap. “Try not to be such a teenager, Sean.”

“Where were you going?” Walker asks her.

“Nowhere. God. I walked Bill to his car.”

“Oh, God,” Sean says, laughing. “That’s
freakish
. His name
is
Bill. It’s Bill. Oh, God. I totally got it right on the nose.”

“Who’s Disco Bill?” she says, trying to look over the seat at him. There’s a shine across her forehead. “Some cartoon character you watch on TV all day?”

“I called it,” Sean laughs. “Disco Bill.
That
guy’s Disco Bill. It’s perfect. Oh, ha—perfect.”

She turns back around, folding her arms and staring out the windshield. Walker has come to the corner, and is waiting to turn. He looks over at her, at the side of her face. “So who
is
Bill,” he says.

“A friend I met working in the antiques store, okay?” There’s a brittleness in her voice. “Is that okay with you? I mean, do I have your permission to make a friend?”

Sean is still congratulating himself behind them. “I so totally called it. I got it. I freakin’ called it. Disco freakin’ Bill.”

“Who the hell is Disco Bill?” Jenny says. “And shut up.”

“I made it up. That’s what I’m telling you. Disco Bill. I made it up and the guy’s name is Bill. It’s too good.”

“Shut up, Sean,” Walker says. “Christ.”

Jenny pushes the hair back from her flawless face. “I swear, it’s exhausting. Everything’s a joke with him.”

Walker makes the turn, and drives for a time without looking at her and without speaking. The image of her reaction at the sight of the truck plays across the surface of his mind, and then sinks into him.

“Those were actual cowboy boots,” Sean says. “Right?”

She gazes out the passenger window and doesn’t answer.

“Who is he, really?” Walker says, watching the road.

“He’s just a guy,” Jenny says. “He works across the street. In the computer store.”

“Well, and he’s so dressed for
that,”
Sean says.

“Sean, please. Really. I’m not in the mood.”

The traffic is heavy going out of town, too. They sit behind
a smoking charter bus. The truck’s engine begins to shake, idling roughly, as though it might stall.

“Hey, but you do need cowboy boots in a computer store, right? I mean you gotta look the part,” says Sean.

They are all silent for a moment.

“Does he have a medallion on his chest? I didn’t look—”

“Sean—if you—”

“It really needs a medallion.”

“Why’re you—” She turns and glares at him, then shakes her head and faces front, apparently having decided that whatever she was going to say is pointless.

“Really,” Sean says. “I know what the fashion-conscious geek is wearing these days in the computer stores.”

The traffic moves a little, and as Walker edges the truck forward, it stalls. He restarts it, gives it gas, and a cloud of exhaust billows out behind them.

“You’re welcome,” Sean says as someone behind them honks a horn. “We aim to please.”

“Is this one going to break down, too, now?” Jenny says.

“It needs a tune-up,” says Walker, grinding the gears. “Everything falls apart at once.”

They’re moving again. And now some cool air comes in the window.

“Let’s get a movie,” Sean says, lying back in the well behind them.

Walker looks over his shoulder at the boy, then glances at Jenny. Her hair is blowing across her face, but he can see that she’s crying.
What the hell?
She looks out the window. The traffic is thinning out a little now, and he picks up speed. They’re quiet again. Walker takes the back road toward the Highpoint house, and as he approaches a country store, pulls into the lot and stops.

“What,” Sean says.

“Anybody want something cold to drink?”

“I’m dying,” Sean says.

Walker opens his door and steps from the truck, holding the seat up for Sean to climb out. “Here.” He gives Sean a ten-dollar bill. “I want a mineral water.” He looks in at Jenny. “You want anything?”

She shakes her head.

Sean is staring at her now, though she’s looking down, and her dark hair hides her face.

“Go on,” Walker says to him.

“I’m going to get a couple hot dogs, too. It’s my God-given right.”

“Help yourself, Sean.” Walker says. “Jesus, you can be annoying.”

The boy starts across the lot, jumping and fake-shooting an imaginary basketball, watching his own shadow on the asphalt. Walker gets back into the truck. Next to him in the seat, his sister-in-law wipes the tears from her eyes and sniffles. “I’m sorry,” she says.

He’s quiet, expecting her to go on. He wants to reach over and put his hand on her face.

She dips into her purse and brings out a handkerchief. The makeup around her eyes has run down her cheeks. She sniffles again. “I bet I look like a raccoon.”

“You’re fine. What’s going on, Jenny?” The moment feels dreamlike, fantastic. He feels rage climbing his spine about the computer store cowboy, and understands that the rage is for himself, and not his brother. All this surges in him, and stops his speech.

She turns the rearview mirror and tries to get the mascara off.

“Were you getting into his
car?”

She frowns at herself, wiping the dark makeup from her eyes.

“God,” Walker begins. He might start crying himself.

And now she turns to him. “I wasn’t getting into his car.” And the crying starts again. “God—I’ve got to quit this before Sean—” She stops, sniffles, wipes at her eyes again.

He watches her. There’s more, but she’s clearly holding back whatever it is. “Jesus Christ,” he says.

“What?” she says. “It’s been a bad day. Leave me alone.”

He draws in air and hears himself ask, “Is that guy somebody important to you?” His own voice sounds terribly thin to him, someone else’s voice.

She sits back, clutching the handkerchief; her eyes are wild. She’s looking out at the lot, where three men are crossing. One of them is talking and the other two are laughing. It’s a joke. Walker has a moment of seeing this as separated out from everything else he has ever seen or observed in his life. He knows that he’ll never forget it as long as he lives: three men laughing at a joke walking across a parking lot and it was when Jenny sat next to him, crying because he caught her with the computer salesman. He can’t breathe, thinking this, watching the men move on by. His sister-in-law says, “You mean
Disco Bill?
He’s a
friend
. Okay? It’s just that Sean—everything’s a comedy act to Sean, that’s all. I just get tired of it.”

They’re quiet a moment.

“You don’t have to run to Max with it, you know? The guy’s just a friend.”

“You acted so weird seeing us.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You were upset. I saw it, Jenny.”

“What do you want me to tell you? You want me to say something that isn’t true? I’m not having a good day. God! Sean gets on my nerves, okay?”

“Me, too.” Walker says. And when she doesn’t respond he says, “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life. Movies, magazines, dreams, just watching people in the street.”

She says, “Oh, Walker.”

He’s astonished at the soft worry in her voice, the obvious wish to believe him. “Really,” he says.

“You’re sweet.” She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands.

“I mean it,” he says. “I’m not being sweet.”

She glances at him, then leans over and peers at herself in the rearview mirror again, wiping the makeup from her cheeks. “I’ll be all right.”

“You can tell me,” he hears himself say. He gazes at the smoothness of the backs of her hands. Something is about to change forever. He wants to kiss her.