That sounds like you’re trying to rush me, she said.
I’m not rushing you, he said. Hell, I ain’t rushing a thing. He looked a little hurt at such a suggestion. I’m just saying he’s not a bad young fellow. I ain’t saying anything else. Now you two go on out for dinner and I’ll take care of Katie. It’ll be my pleasure. All I’m saying is this boy and me, we might get on together. And I’ll tell you something else. It looks to me like he flat thinks the world of you too.
Maybe he does, she said. But I’ve already made a fool of myself once. I’m in no hurry to do it again.
I know, honey. You’d have to feel that way. Of course you would. But that don’t mean you got to end up like me, either.
What about that woman you were seeing?
What woman?
Linda May. The woman that was here for New Year’s dinner.
That’s what I’m talking about, Raymond said. I don’t know nothing about this kind of thing. Maybe I sort of thought I was seeing her, but she sure as hell had no idea she was seeing me. No, all I want is for you to be happy.
I am happy, she said. Don’t you know that? And so much of that is because of you. Now do you suppose I ought to get ready so Del and I can go out tonight?
Yes, ma’am, I believe you should. I’m just going to get out of here and leave you to it.
VICTORIA PUT ON THE SOFT BLUE CASHMERE SWEATER that set off her black hair and put on a short gray skirt, and the boy was wearing a pair of good black jeans and a plaid shirt, and they drove out in her car to Holt to eat dinner and to attend the movie. After they were gone Raymond and Katie were busy in the kitchen. He warmed up some leftover ham and gravy, with mashed potatoes and creamed corn, and the little girl sat on her box on a chair at the table, and while they ate he looked across at her and listened. She was taking regular bites as she talked, and she went on without stop, talking about whatever came into her mind, with no need for Raymond to remark on any of it at all, though he paid heed to all she said, whether it was about a girl he didn’t know at her day care in Fort Collins or about some black-and-white dog that barked in the yard below their apartment. For dessert he got out a quart container of chocolate ice cream and they ate some of that too while she continued to talk, sitting on her box at the table like some miniature black-haired black-eyed church woman at some basement bazaar, like some tiny Presbyterian female starved for the sound of her own voice. Then they cleaned up the kitchen, and she stood on a chair beside him to help rinse the dishes, still talking, and afterward they went into the bathroom and she climbed onto a little wooden stool in front of the sink and brushed her teeth. Then he took her into the downstairs bedroom and she put on her pajamas and they both lay down in the ancient double bed and Raymond began to read. He didn’t read long. Three pages into the book he was already falling asleep. She poked him and touched his weathered face with her hand, feeling along his stubbled chin and the loose skin at his neck. He woke and turned to look at her, then squinted and cleared his throat, and read another page before drifting off again, and now she lay close beside him and went to sleep herself.
When Victoria and Del Gutierrez came home at midnight, the old man and the little girl were lying in bed under the bright overhead light. Raymond was snoring terrifically, his mouth wide open, and the little girl was burrowed into his shoulder. The book he had started reading lay off to the side among the quilts.
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