“Of course I do,” I said. “You’re my Star Wars guy. How are you, Jeffrey?”
“Good.” He nodded. “I’ve already done all my school for today.”
“Isn’t that great,” I said, smiling at May as she drew closer. “Most kids, they’re probably still in school now, will be for a couple more hours.”
“I know,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I got recess, though, so I could play with other kids.”
I nodded my understanding. May, a smile still evidently beyond her, said, “Hello, Mr. Walker.”
“Zack, please,” I said. “Nice to see you again. Picking up a few groceries?” A keen observer, that’s me.
May Wickens nodded. “We need a few things,” she said flatly. “Jeffrey likes to come with me when I shop. It’s nice for him to get away from the house.” She paused. “Nice for all of us.”
There was something about her eyes. A pleading quality. They were tired, and sad, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why, losing her boyfriend earlier in the week. But there was more than mere grief in May Wickens’s eyes. She had the look of a hostage who doesn’t expect the ransom will ever come.
“I’d just like to say, once again, thank you for dinner last night,” I said, putting the image of the impaled mouse aside for a moment, “and tell you how sorry I am about Mr. Dewart.”
May’s eyes looked down. “Thank you,” she said. She seemed to be wanting to say something else, her lips parting, then closing.
“Jeffrey,” she said, “why don’t you go pick out a cereal and maybe some cookies?”
“Sure,” he said, and scurried off.
I leaned in a bit closer. “Are you okay?”
She raised her head, looked to the side, avoiding direct eye contact. “I, I just…”
I waited. I was about to put a hand on her arm, up by the shoulder, but held back, not sure whether that was the right thing to do, especially in a place as public as this grocery store.
“What is it again that you do, Mr. Walk—Zack?”
“I’m a writer,” I said. “I work for The Metropolitan. I write features, mostly. And I’ve written some books.”
“So you work for a newspaper?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I should be talking to you.” Her eyes darted up and down the grocery aisle.
“I’m not interviewing you,” I said. I gave her my friendliest smile. “We’re just talking. That’s all.”
“I just, I wish I had someone to talk to.”
“Sure. Listen, would you like to go get a coffee? Lana’s is just a couple of doors down. It’s good coffee, and I can recommend the coconut cream pie.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I’d be happy to buy you a coffee. I’d even like to, if it wouldn’t upset you too much, ask you a couple of questions about Mr. Dewart, about Morton. I mean, there’s been so much activity around our place related to what happened to him, but I don’t feel that I know a single thing about him.”
“Maybe, if we went quickly,” May Wickens said, her eyes still scanning. “Let me, let me figure out what to do with Jeffrey. He can’t know, he’ll tell them, I mean—”
“Sure,” I said. “If you don’t want to be seen leaving with me, I’ll just head over and meet you there.”
Suddenly, Jeffrey was back, dumping two boxes of sugary cereal and a bag of Oreos into May’s basket. “What else can I get?” he asked.
“Very nice seeing you again,” I said to May, and then to Jeffrey, “You take care, okay? You get any more cool Star Wars stuff, you show me, okay?”
“I’ve got a Millennium Falcon,” he said.
“And a Han Solo figure?”
“Yup.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “You take it easy, okay? And take good care of your mom. She’s had a tough week.”
“Sure thing,” Jeffrey said.
I got to the checkout and tossed a local paper and a magazine onto the conveyor belt with my few items. While the cashier was ringing them through, the white-coated Mr. Henry reappeared with his clipboard.
“Would you like to sign our petition to—”
And then he recognized me as the son of a bitch who wouldn’t sign it the last time I was in.
“Oh, you,” he said, still looking like he was picking up a bad smell off of everyone around him.
“Still not interested,” I said.
“So you don’t care that our parade, this town’s traditions, are being hijacked by special interests out to promote their agenda?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Those gays, and the lesbians. They want to ruin our parade.”
“I see,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You’ve heard about those starving kids in Africa?”
He nodded.
“Global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer and how the polar ice caps will probably all melt someday and we’ll all be underwater?”
He nodded again, but his eyes were narrowing.
“Crack babies? The shortage of safe drinking water in the next few years? Rogue nations with nuclear bombs? You’ve heard of those things?”