* * *
—
On the roof, when the transaction was approved (Mrs. Chilman insisted on paying ten dollars), she said, “And how are you, Mr. Clay? You looking after yourself these days?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?” She came out a little further. “Try to make it always.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, lovely boy.”
She was about to close the window again, when Henry tried for more. “Hey, how come he gets to be lovely?”
Mrs. Chilman returned. “You’ve got a lovely mouth, Henry, but he’s the lovely boy,” and she gave them a final wave.
Henry turned to Clay.
“You’re not lovely,” he said. “Actually, you’re pretty ugly.”
“Ugly?”
“Yeah, ugly as Starkey’s arse.”
“You’ve looked at it lately, have you?”
This time he gave Clay a shove, and a friendly slap to the ear.
It’s a mystery, even to me sometimes, how boys and brothers love.
* * *
—
Near the end he started telling her.
“It’s pretty quiet out there.”
“I bet.”
“The river’s completely dry, though.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s pretty dry, too.”
She laughed and he felt her breath, and he thought about that warmness, how people were warm like that, from inside to out; how it could hit you and disappear, then back again, and nothing was ever permanent—
Yes, she’d laughed and said, “Don’t be an idiot.”
Clay said only “Okay,” and his heart was beating too big for him; he was sure the world could hear it. He looked at the girl beside him, and the leg slung loosely over. He looked at her highest buttonhole, the fabric of her shirt:
The checks there.
The blue turned sky blue.
The red all faded to pink.