Billy
Billy locked himself safely back into his apartment, feeling as though he’d run at least three marathons in as many days, without benefit of one single night’s sleep in-between.
He washed his face, nursing the staticky exhaustion in his midsection. He changed back into his pajamas, pulled all the curtains closed, and tucked himself into bed, prepared to sleep the day away.
Not ten minutes later he was startled by a pounding on his door.
It didn’t only scare him because of its suddenness. It was troublesome because nobody pounded any more. Grace and Rayleen signal-knocked, Felipe knocked gently, Jesse knocked like a gentleman, Mr. Lafferty was dead, and Mrs. Hinman didn’t come around. And Grace’s mom was still loaded. At least, so far as he knew.
“Who is it?” he called, his voice embarrassingly tremulous. He had no energy left for…well, anything.
“Rayleen,” Rayleen’s voice said through the door.
Billy walked to the door, unlocked it and opened it wide.
“No signal-knock today.”
“Oh. Sorry. Right. I guess I forgot. So, is he gone?”
“Is who gone? Oh. You mean Jesse.”
“You bet I mean Jesse.”
“He’s up in his own apartment. Why?”
But Rayleen just stood there, not offering anything in the way of answers.
“Care to come in?” Billy asked.
She did.
“You seem upset,” he said, because somebody had to say something.
“Do you really think he did that because he cares about you?” she asked, finally, settling herself on his big stuffed armchair.
Billy wondered if she had forgotten she was allergic to cats, or if she was just too upset to trifle with such an issue.
“I do,” Billy said. “Absolutely.”
“You don’t think he might’ve come along as a way of getting to me?”
“No. I don’t. Because when he first volunteered to help me, he had no idea I hadn’t been going out by myself.”
“Oh,” Rayleen said.
Billy watched an uncomfortable shift take place in her. She’d come in angry, and that anger had been serving her well, and providing a safe place for her to rest. Billy could see that, and feel it. Now he’d snatched it away, like pulling the sheets out from under her in her sleep. It was hard to watch her struggle to regain momentum.
He sat down on the very edge of the couch.
Rayleen dropped her face into her hands.
“I hope it won’t upset you, what I’m about to say,” he said. “But I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re so bent out of shape about this. I mean, if you don’t want to date him, why don’t you just say no?”
A long silence. Rayleen did not remove her face from her hands.
Finally she said, “But what if ‘no’ is the wrong answer?”
“Ah,” Billy said, placing his hands on his knees and levering to his feet. “I’ll just make a pot of coffee.”
? ? ?
When he arrived back in his own living room with the two mugs of coffee, all prepared to ask Rayleen what she took in hers, he found her curled into his big easy chair with her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, her face buried.
She was crying.
“Hey,” he said quietly, sitting on the ottoman near her knees. “Hey, hey. What’s wrong? You’re scaring me. Don’t scare me. Don’t forget I’m supposed to be the emotional one.”
Rayleen’s face emerged and she smiled sadly. Just a hint of a little smile. Her make-up was slaughtered, mascara smeared on to her cheeks.
“You don’t have the monopoly,” she said.
“No, but I still do it better than anybody else. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I just have issues with men, is all. I’m not trusting. It’s a very old leftover from when I was nine and got myself thrown into the foster-care system. And that’s all I’m going to say about that, because…well, because that’s all I’m going to say about that. I don’t talk about that time.”
Billy could hear the hoarseness forming in her throat. Maybe from crying, but probably not. Probably from the cat. He wondered if he should remind her, the way she and Grace were nice enough to remind him when he was so upset he didn’t realize he was standing out in the hall. Oh, but that was in the old days, wasn’t it? This morning he’d stood by Grace’s school, though not for long.
He set Rayleen’s mug on the arm of her chair.
He sat quietly for a moment, warming his hands on his coffee cup. Not because they were cold, but because his own coffee, with his own cream, in his own mug, hadn’t changed. Wasn’t even in the process of changing. So he stayed as close to it as possible.
“You get along fine with Felipe and me,” he said, knowing he had to say something.
“You and Felipe aren’t trying to get any closer.”
“True.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“So don’t.”
“But I keep thinking about what Jesse said. About Lafferty. How we should use him as a reminder to be less afraid. And I keep thinking…oh, my God, can you imagine ending up like Lafferty?”
“You couldn’t. Don’t even stress about that. It couldn’t happen. You’re not that mean.”
“But I’m that shut off from everybody.”
“No. That’s not true. You’re not. Look what you’re doing for Grace.”
Rayleen laughed ruefully, then sniffled. Billy jumped up and brought her a box of tissues.
“I guess what I meant is, I was that shut off. Until she came along. And now I’m in this sort of no-man’s-land in-between. And it’s really uncomfortable.”
“I hear you,” Billy said.
“Oh. Right,” Rayleen said. “Right. You do know. I forgot. Here I am thinking you have no idea how scary this is. But I guess you do. I guess you know it’s about as scary for me as walking down to Grace’s school is for you. God, Billy. What do I do? What would you do if it were you?”
Just for a split second, Billy allowed himself to step into the imaginary role of the lucky human about to date Jesse. Then he stepped out again, in self-defense.
“Well, I just walked down to Grace’s school. Does that answer the question? Look. Don’t make it so all-or-nothing. Don’t try to decide whether to marry him. Just go out for coffee with him. Just go out with him once. You know. Have a conversation. No more for now.”
“Oh. Yeah. OK. I could do that. Huh?”
Billy sipped his coffee, calming the live wire in his chest that wanted him to be alone. So much strain for one day. He didn’t answer, thinking she had answered herself.
“Oh, wait. No. I can’t do that,” Rayleen nearly shouted, sounding relieved. “I have Grace in the evenings.”
Billy cocked one eyebrow at her.
“Right. Like you couldn’t leave her with me for three hours to go on a date.”
“Shit,” Rayleen said, and dropped her face back into her hands.
“My God, Rayleen, you’re as bad as I am. Look, if I can walk down to Grace’s school, you can go on one date with one very nice guy.”
She looked up from her hands.
“You know what? That’s actually true.”
“And here’s another thing to consider. Jesse’s really good at calming terrified people.”
Rayleen laughed. It was a wonderful sound. Natural and unforced. Light, like something that could float halfway to the ceiling. Clear, like Jesse’s singing bowl when you struck it.
She leaned forward and threw her arms around Billy and held him tightly. Too tightly, but he didn’t complain.
“You’re so damn sweet, Billy,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said. “You do know you’re in an apartment with a cat, right?”
“Oh, shit,” Rayleen said. “What was I thinking? I thought it was just the crying. I have to go. Can I take the coffee? I could use it. I’ll bring the cup back.”
She kissed him on the cheek and hurried out.
Billy sighed and put himself to bed again.
He may or may not have dozed briefly. It was hard to tell.
? ? ?
Mrs. Hinman came knocking at about half past noon.
It was a small knock, not much greater in volume than a mouse inside a wall. But she spoke to him through the door at the same time. Because she’s a kindred spirit, Billy thought. She’d hate it just as much if someone came to her door unannounced.
“It’s just Mrs. Hinman from upstairs,” she said.
Billy sighed, rose, and pulled on his robe. He opened the door for her.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I wake you from a nap? My apologies. So long as you’re up now, may I come in?”
I’m sensing an agenda, Billy thought. It just isn’t natural for Mrs. Hinman to seek out my company. And humbly, at that. Something must be up.
“Please do,” he said, standing back and opening the door widely.
It didn’t pay to argue, he’d decided. You can bemoan the fact that your once-peaceful sanctuary has turned into an intersection on a busy human freeway, but there isn’t much to be done. Just sigh, open the door, and let them talk until they seem done. It’s easier that way.
Mrs. Hinman limped into his living room carrying a folded garment of some sort.
Billy pointed to the chair, but she did not take the suggestion.
“I made this for Grace,” she said, unfolding the garment.
It appeared to be a wrap-around tunic, in Grace’s favorite blue, with a sash to tie it around her waist.
“She’ll like that,” Billy said.
“Do you really think so? Oh, I certainly hope…She didn’t exactly pick it out. But it just seemed so…Grace. It can be worn as a dress, just by itself, or it can be worn over jeans, or especially I thought it might be nice if she made it into an outfit with tights. I thought it might be a good outfit for her dancing, maybe even something she could wear for her big performance, though I don’t know. Maybe she has to wear a special costume for that. Do you know? Has she talked that over with you?”
“Sorry, no,” Billy said. “She only talks to me about the dance aspects.”
“I’m knitting her a sweater, too, to take the place of that old one she wears nearly every day. It’s in terrible condition. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”
“Hard not to notice,” Billy said. “You can see her elbows right through it.”
A silence fell, during which Billy noted that she was still not sitting down, nor was she telling him why she was telling him all this.
“Why don’t you bring it by after she’s home from school?”
“Well, all right,” she said. “I suppose I could.”
But she didn’t move toward the door.
Just as the silence was becoming unbearably awkward, she said, “I was hoping to have a little talk with you.”
“Got it,” Billy said. “Have a seat. Would you like me to put on a pot of coffee?”
“Oh, no. Not for me, thank you. I go to bed very early. If I drink coffee after noon, it just keeps me awake.”
She still did not sit down.
“Have a seat, at least,” Billy said, feeling the strain of their combined discomfort.
“Hmm,” she said. “I have a bit of an issue with that. My knees are going out on me. And sometimes when I sit down, it’s very difficult and awkward to get up again.”
“I’d be more than happy to give you a hand up,” he said.
“Oh. All right,” she said, heading tentatively for his sofa. “I don’t much like to ask for help. I’m not very good at it. But I guess I didn’t ask in this case. You volunteered, didn’t you?”
She eased herself down carefully, causing Billy to wince from the conveyed sense of her pain. He sat on the other end of the couch.
“I wanted to ask you,” she said, “about all your years of not going outside. I feel I need to understand that better.”
Billy instinctively sat back on the couch to distance himself from her. The cat came ambling into the room, and Mrs. Hinman recoiled.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Can you take him away? I don’t like cats at all.”
“She lives here, though,” Billy said, knowing, as it came out of his mouth, that it sounded and felt more honest than his usual communications. He must have been too exhausted to guard that gate. “I’ll hold her, though, if that’ll make you feel better.”
He snapped his fingers to the cat, and she came to him, and he scooped her up and pressed her to his chest.
“So, where were we?” Mrs. Hinman asked, though Billy doubted she had forgotten. “Oh, yes. About your not going out.”
“The thing is,” he said, “that’s more or less in the past. I’m working through that. I just went out this morning, in fact. I walked all the way down to Grace’s school. That’s ten blocks away.”
“Lovely,” she said. “That’s very good. But I still need to ask you about the time when you didn’t go out at all.”
Billy took a deep breath, and geared up to do something he almost never did: speak rudely to someone.
“I think I’m going to choose not to talk about that,” he said. “It’s a little on the personal side, and it bothers me to be judged for something I’ve worked so hard to overcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
He rose to his feet, cat in one arm, and extended a hand to her.
“Please,” she said, purposely not looking at the hand. “Please…let me try to ask this again. I’ve obviously made a mess of it, and offended you, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Please let me say it again so you understand me better. My knees are going out, and I live up two flights of stairs. And one of these days pretty soon I just won’t be able to get up and down them. Maybe I can do it for another year or two, or maybe it’ll be the day after tomorrow. Probably closer to the latter, I’m afraid. And then, I’ve been thinking, what will I do? Will I die? I have to eat. How will I get food in to me? How will I get my mail, pay my bills? Take the trash out? And then I thought, well, that young man downstairs has been doing it for years, and he’s still alive. So I thought you might be willing to give me some pointers. It’s life or death for me, you see.”
Billy bent his knees and sat down on the couch again, closer to her this time.
“I’m not that young a man,” he said quietly. “I’m thirty-seven.”
“That’s young,” she said, more relaxed now. “You just don’t know how young it is. How do you get your groceries in?”
“I have them delivered. There are services in LA that will deliver anything to anybody. Trouble is, not all of them will come into neighborhoods like this. And even the ones that will, you have to pay them extra.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“It is. I have to eat a lot less to make up for it.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Hinman said. “I’d hate to have to eat any less than I already do. I realize this is absolutely none of my business, and you’re well within your rights to throw me out of here on my ear for asking…”
“My parents. My parents write me a small check every month. It goes into my bank account as a direct deposit.”
“Ah. So that answers two questions. Now I also know how you get out of going to the bank. I thought maybe you got one of those checks the government gives people who’re too…nervous…to work.”
“I’m sure I’d qualify,” he said. “But my parents have spared me the indignity of having to find out. Or maybe it’s their own indignity they’re trying to avoid.”
“How do you take out your trash?”
“I tip the delivery men to do it.”
“Ah. But you must have needed the doctor.”
“No. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been healthy.”
“I’d need the doctor, though,” she said.
And Billy didn’t — couldn’t — argue. Instead he made a confession.
“It’s not the doctor that’ll get you. At least in my case. It’s the dentist. I’m starting to get a little toothache. But I’m sure it’ll get bigger. Even if you could find a doctor who makes house calls in this day and age, I bet you can’t get a house call from a dentist.”
“Hmm,” she said. “What about bills?”
“What bills? All the utilities are included in the rent. And the rent can be done by a monthly automatic withdrawal.”
“Not the phone.”
“I haven’t got a phone. I used to have a phone. But it got expensive. And I had to keep a checking account, just for the phone. So now I order my food in person each time the delivery man comes.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Hinman said, sounding more frightened again. “I think I’d have to have a phone. Not that I ever call anyone. But what if there was an emergency?”
“I think there’s one thing you’re forgetting, Mrs. Hinman,” he said, and watched her turn her eyes up to him in perceived helplessness. “You have neighbors. Don’t you think Felipe or Jesse or Rayleen would run to the supermarket for you? Don’t you think you could just pound on the floor if there was an emergency, and someone would come running? Maybe somebody will even be willing to trade apartments with you, so you can stay independent a few years longer.”
Mrs. Hinman wrung her spotted hands in her lap, creasing the blue tunic. “Now why on earth would they want to do a thing like that for me?”
“Because we’re neighbors?”
Mrs. Hinman laughed doubtfully. “We never were before,” she said. “Not to the point where we looked after one another.”
“But now we are,” Billy said.
A long silence, during which Mrs. Hinman seemed flummoxed by the concept of neighborliness.
“Well, I should let you get back to your nap,” she said, “but I just can’t tell you how much better I feel. I’ve been beside myself with worry, and now it all seems silly. I should’ve known Grace would care enough to make sure somebody looked after me. It’s still a surprise that anybody else would, but I guess I’ll get used to the idea. Listen. Don’t tell the others we had this little talk, all right? It’s very hard for me to say I need help, or even let anyone see that, so let’s just keep this between you and me for now.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
He rose, and held out a hand to her, and she lumbered to her feet with a deep grunt, nearly pulling him over. He walked her to the door.
On her way out, Mrs. Hinman said, “Grace changed everything, didn’t she?”
“That would be understating the case,” Billy replied.
“Go back to bed.”
“I will.”
“Thank you. More than I can say. You’re a very nice young man.”
She waddled toward the stairway.
“Want help getting up the stairs?” he asked.
“Not yet. But thanks for asking. That time will come soon enough.”
Billy closed the door, set down the cat, and put himself back to bed.
? ? ?
Grace came bounding in at the usual three thirty.
“Oh, you’re in your pajamas,” she said. “I’m used to seeing you dressed now. Are you OK? I’m going to put my tap shoes on right away and work on my dancing. I really need more practice on those triple turns. What do you call them?”
“Buffalo turns,” Billy said.
“Do you think they named them after the animal or the city?”
“I don’t know for a fact,” Billy said, feeling more bowled over than usual by her energy. “But it seems like a tricky move for a bison. So I’ll go with the city.”
“It’s tricky for me, too,” she said, already lacing up her tap shoes. “I keep ending up on the rug. If I could just get that down I’d have the whole routine pretty good.”
“Two more things I want you to work on.”
“Oh,” she said. “There’s always more, huh?”
“Only if you want to be good. Only if you want to shine.”
“OK. What?”
“I want you to relax your upper body more. So it doesn’t seem like you’re holding yourself so stiffly. And you need to smile.”
“I do?”
“Absolutely. It’s de rigueur.”
“In English, Billy.”
“It’s indispensable.”
“English!”
“You have to do it! But work on the turns first. I’m just going to make myself a nice bed here on the couch and watch you.”
Grace skated carefully across the rug into his bedroom and fetched the afghan off the end of his bed. She covered him up with it, and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
“Tell me if I look like I’m smiling,” she said.
Then the deeply satisfying sound of the tapping put Billy right to sleep.
? ? ?
“Rayleen is late,” Grace said, startling him awake.
“Maybe one of her clients was running behind,” he mumbled, trying to sound as if he’d never been asleep.
“I don’t think so,” she said, sitting on the couch against his hip. “I’m pretty sure I heard her come in at the usual time. But that was like twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh. Maybe she’s talking to Jesse.”
“Why would she go talk to Jesse? She hates Jesse.”
“Hmm,” Billy said. “Not sure. Everything changes.”
Grace raised her eyebrows and stared at him. “Something happen that I don’t know about?”
“I might’ve had a conversation with Rayleen about it.”
“You fixed it!” she shouted, excitedly. “You’re magic, Billy! You fixed it!”
“I didn’t do a damn thing,” he said. “She just needed to talk it out.”
“Oh, now I can’t wait. Now I’m all excited, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. I have to dance now. I have to dance when I’m excited. Watch me. I’m going to do those Buffalo turns now. Watch me and see if I end up in the right place, and if I smile. Don’t fall asleep this time.”
Billy sat up as a way of behaving more like a proper audience.
Grace shuffle-skated across the rug and took her position. But before she could even lift a tap shoe, someone knocked on the door.
“Rayleen’s here!” she shouted, and ran for the door, skidding perilously.
She threw the door open wide, blocking Billy’s view.
“Oh, it’s not Rayleen!” he heard her shout. “It’s Jesse! Hi, Jesse!” Then, after a slight pause, “Billy, he wants to talk to you!”
“I’m in my pajamas,” Billy said, but it didn’t help.
Grace had already grabbed him by the elbow and begun dragging him to the door. He finger-combed his hair as best he could with his one free hand. This was not the way he wanted to be seen. But it was too late. He found himself standing in front of the open door, looking into Jesse’s face, which was even more open and soft than usual.
Billy waited for Jesse to say something.
Instead Jesse threw his arms around Billy and held on tightly. Squeezed him. Billy felt tears at the backs of his eyes, as if tears were being squeezed out of him. Then Jesse let go just as suddenly.
“Gotta go,” he said. “Gotta get ready. Thank you.”
Then he bounded up the stairs two at a time and disappeared.
“So what was that all about?” Grace asked, tugging on his pajama pants.
“Not sure.”
“He seemed happy.”
“He did.”
“You think it means he has a date with Rayleen?”
“It might.”
“I sure hope so. But you still have to watch my turns.”
Billy closed the door and sat on the couch, once again prepared to serve as an appreciative audience. Grace raised one foot and tapped it back down again. And someone knocked on the door.
“Damn it!” Billy shouted. “It never stops. I just can’t seem to get my old, quiet life back again.”
“You really sure you want it?” Grace asked as she shuffled to answer it. “I don’t think it’s Rayleen. It wasn’t the signal-knock.”
“Sometimes she forgets when she has a lot on her mind,” Billy said.
Grace threw the door wide, blocking his view again.
“It’s Rayleen! Billy! She wants to talk to you!”
Billy sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He could feel how little energy he had to get up and walk to the door. He did it anyway.
“I have to talk fast,” Rayleen said. “I have to get ready. I’m taking you up on your offer to watch Grace. Here. Take this twenty.”
She pressed a bill into his hand.
“You don’t have to pay me to look after Grace.”
“No. I know. It’s not that. It’s that I know your food supply is kind of tight, and I thought you guys could order a pizza on me.”
Wow, Billy thought. When Rayleen said she was going to talk fast, she wasn’t kidding. He’d never heard so many words per second tumble from her lips.
In the background of his apartment, he heard Grace piping about the joys of pizza.
“Grace can come over to my place and order it on my phone,” Rayleen rushed on. “If I’m already gone by then, she has the key. But here’s a piece of advice. Don’t tell her to get whatever she wants. Tell her she wants cheese and pepperoni, period. Otherwise it’ll never fit into that twenty. Her bedtime is nine o’clock. So probably I’ll be home by then, but if for some reason I’m not, maybe you could just put her to bed on your couch and I’ll come get her in the morning. OK?”
But before he could even say whether it was OK or not, she had grabbed him into a bear hug and kissed him on the cheek.
“Gotta go,” she said. “Thank you. I think.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said as she disappeared into her own apartment.
Billy pulled a big, deep breath and shut the door. Grace looked up at him expectantly.
“Are they going out on a date?”
“Apparently.”
“Yea, yea, yea,” Grace sang, jumping up and down and swinging her arms over her head in a dance-like way. “We get a pizza and they get a date, and I’m happy, and this is my Happy Grace Dance,” she sang, just before slipping and falling on her butt.
“And that last move was your Sad Grace Dance, right?”
“Got that right,” she said, still down and rubbing her butt. “You’re magic, Billy. Not magic magic, but like Jesse is magic. Because you make stuff happen. Like you made that date happen.”
“I didn’t do anything. I just listened. She just needed to talk it out.”
“So? That’s how you made it happen. It’s still magic.”
? ? ?
“We studied the stars in school,” Grace said. “Like space, and the solar system and black holes and stuff. It was freaky. It was really weird.”
They lay on their backs on Billy’s tiny front patio, looking up at the stars. At least, the dozen or so that could be seen in spite of the smog and the city lights.
“What was weird about it?”
His exhaustion had mellowed him, making him feel deliciously sleepy and almost safe. He savored the feeling of the night air on his face, and his own lack of panic.
“Well, first of all, my teacher said space goes on forever. But that’s impossible.”
“How do you know it’s impossible?”
“It just is.”
“Maybe it’s possible, but it’s one of those things our brains aren’t good at grasping. Look at it this way. You’re in a space ship. And you’re traveling out and out and out. Looking for the edge of space. For the place it stops.”
“Right. And there has to be one. Somewhere.”
“So what’s on the other side? When you find the place where space stops, what’s on the other side of it?”
They lay quietly, side by side, for a minute or so.
“Nothing,” Grace said, around the time he thought she might have dozed off.
“But that’s all space is. Nothing. So if nothing ends, and there’s nothing on the other side of it, then that’s really just more space on the other side.”
“Aaagh!” Grace shouted. “Billy, I think you broke my brain. OK, let’s say space goes on forever, even though it doesn’t really make any sense. My teacher said there’re supposed to be billions of stars. Or trillions or something. So, look up there. Where are they all?”
“The city lights wash them out. If you’re out in the desert or up in the mountains you can see a lot more.”
“I’ve never been out of the city. Have you? Have you ever been up in the mountains or out in the desert?”
“Yes,” Billy said. “Both.” He could hear distant music. He’d heard it all along, he realized, but had only just then become conscious of it. It sounded Middle-Eastern. Someone was having a party somewhere. Everyone, everywhere was having a life. Even him. Even Billy. “When I was dancing, I used to travel all around the country.”
A long silence. Billy listened to the music and felt warmer than he should have on a cool night like this.
Then Grace said, “What happened, Billy? What happened to you?”
And he didn’t even feel the urge to fight it. It was bound to find him sooner or later, and tonight seemed as good a night as any.
Still, they lay in silence for a long time.
“It’s a little hard to explain,” he said at last. “But I’ll try. I’ll try. I’ve just always had panic attacks. And I know you want me to tell you why, but I don’t know why I have panic attacks and other people don’t. I’m not sure if anybody knows that. I grew up in a weird, scary house, but other people did, too, and they don’t all have panic attacks. But I’ve had them ever since I was…oh, I don’t know…maybe even your age. Maybe first or second grade. But then they just kept getting worse. For years I could keep them away by dancing. Or keep them at bay, anyway. As long as I danced regularly. But then after a while I had to literally be in the very act of dancing to stop them. So I’d have panic attacks when I traveled, and on the way to the theater. And then during curtain calls. So I started going to fewer auditions. But when I was inside, I was always OK. So I just started staying inside. Like I told you before, it gets to be an addiction. You want to be OK right now, so you trade that for having a good life in the long run. It’s a bad trade, but people do it all the time. That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now. That’s what your mom is doing. And that’s what got me. There’s really quite a lot of it going around.”
Billy wondered if Grace had understood any of that. But she was a smart kid, so he figured she probably understood enough. As much as she needed to.
Billy heard her snore lightly, so he scooped her up and carried her in and laid her down on the couch, covering her with the afghan, which had never been put back on the bed.
He looked at the clock. Ten fifteen.
It brought a little pang of pain to his gut to think of Jesse and Rayleen out together, talking, or looking into each other’s eyes, or whatever they were doing. But he brushed it away again. They had a right to find happiness, if indeed it was there for them. It benefitted Billy nothing if they failed.
Just as he was climbing under the covers, Grace spoke to him from the living room.
“Billy?”
“You OK?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to tell you something.”
“All right. What?”
“You can’t tell anybody.”
“OK.”
“I’m going to be a dancer when I grow up.”
Billy breathed three times, consciously. As much as he could bring himself to believe in prayer, he prayed that the life would not wound her beyond repair.
“Why wouldn’t you want anyone else to know that?”
“Because they wouldn’t believe me. They’d think I was just being a stupid kid. But you believe me, right? You believe I can really do it, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do. But, like I said last time you asked, you’re going to have to work incredibly hard. But I believe you can, if you want it badly enough.”
“I do. I want it bad. And it’ll all be because of you. You’re the one who taught me to shine.”
“There’s a lot more to it than I’ve taught you so far.”
“I know. But you’re not done teaching me. Are you?”
“No,” Billy said. “I’m not.”