While he was gone I moved farther down the bar. I ordered another beer. Toward the back, sitting at a table by herself, I saw Wanda Jo Evans. She waved at me and I walked back to her table and sat down in the chair next to her. Jack Burdette was standing over by the pool table talking to a circle of men, heavy, solid, massive, an imposing presence, standing there talking, gesturing with a full glass of liquor in one hand and a cigarette in the other, his face far above those other faces, florid now and animated, his eyes a little bit shiny. The men were all watching him while he talked.
“You’re looking lovely tonight, Wanda Jo,” I said. “Is that a new dress?”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes. You look terrific.” And she did of course. The dress she was wearing was a pale green color, which set off her hair, and it was made of a soft material which fell smoothly from the shoulder down over her breasts and hips. There were little buttons down the front of it.
She smiled. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
“I’m losing my hair,” I said. “Look at this.” I slapped myself on the forehead where my hairline had been. “If I don’t quit this pretty soon I’m going to be a walking cue ball.”
“Jack’s losing his hair too.”
“But he’s got more to lose. He could transplant some off his chest and nobody’d even notice.”
“I’d notice,” she said. Then she laughed. She’d drunk enough to be amused by the thought of that. “He is awfully hairy, isn’t he?”
“He’s the missing link,” I said.
We looked over at Jack where he stood beside the pool table. He was telling another joke or retelling one of his stories, and the men standing around him were waiting for the punch line. Jack had their complete attention. A barroom and a male audience were Jack’s element.
Wanda Jo turned back and began to twist a straw between her fingers. “I saw your wife and little girl on Main Street yesterday,” she said.
“Did you?”
“Yes. What’s your little girl’s name again?”
“Toni.”
“Toni. Well she’s cute. And she had the prettiest little dress on. I wanted to hug her.”
“She’s got some of her mother’s good looks at least. But she’s stubborn as hell. Maybe you could come over and help us out at nap time.”
“I would,” she said. “Just let me know.” She was serious. “Anyway I think you’re lucky.”
“Oh? I don’t know,” I said. Because I didn’t think of myself as being lucky. Not in marriage anyway. But of course Wanda Jo meant that I was lucky being a father. I would have agreed with her about that. At least at the time I would have. Toni was what kept Nora and me together.
“But I hope to have children myself,” Wanda Jo said.
“Do you?” I said.
“Don’t you think I’d make a good mother?”
“Of course.”
“I think I would. Only it’s getting so late. Sometimes I wish Jack would just hurry up and make up his mind. He says he will but then he keeps putting it off.”
“That sounds like him.”
“Did you know we were going to be married last summer?”
“No.”
“We were. I bought a dress and wedding invitations. But Jack decided he wasn’t ready yet.”
“I don’t suppose he was.”
Wanda Jo stopped twisting the straw and looked at me. “Of course he will eventually. I have to think that. Otherwise, what else is all this for?”
“He’ll come around. He’s just not done playing yet,” I said. Then I took her hand; I squeezed it and she smiled. But the smile didn’t last long; it didn’t change anything in her eyes. Afterward she looked unhappy again.
“Let’s have another drink,” I said.
So we talked about other things for a time and drank another round or two. And in the end Wanda Jo Evans became drunk while Jack Burdette went on talking to his circle of male friends.