“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.”
&n
bsp; “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.”
Don't Let Me Go Page 23
