by Harry Mazer
“Uh-huh.” Still looking at Lee.
“Running makes me feel good. It makes anybody who does it feel good.”
“So I hear.” She reached across Lee and tapped Benny. “Right, fatso?”
Willis was ready to like Dore. That was the whole idea. He kept trying. “Running does something good to your brain.” He felt like he was talking to the back of her head. “You ever hear of endorphins? It’s a natural high. Better than drugs. Cheaper, too. You ever hear of Aaron Hill?”
“No.” She looked around briefly. “I run when I feel fat,” she said.
“You don’t look fat to me.”
That got a smile out of her. As it happened, that was the high point of the evening.
After a while, he took his arm away and sat dipping into the tub of popcorn between them and watching the people still coming into the theater.
The movie was about college kids, a boy watching a girl and getting rebuffed. Willis identified with the boy. Just like him and Dore. Sometimes he imagined himself in college. The only way he’d ever get there would be on an athletic scholarship. A runner. They’d say about him that no miler like him had come along since Aaron Hill at Villanova. The girls wouldn’t be running away from him, either.
He often wondered what would’ve happened if he’d done things differently. What if he’d gone out for the track team in high school? Would he be in college now? He should have been on the high school track team. But in junior high he’d run in a school race once, and it had been a disaster.
His father had come to see him, but he’d been drunk and had run out on the field, cheering for Willis. The thought of it, even now, knotted Willis up. He’d never run in a race again.
After the movie, the four of them stood outside the theater, trying to decide what they were going to do next. “Let’s go bowling,” Lee said.
“You want me to break my fingernails off?” Dore showed her long pink nails. “I just spent an hour putting them on.”
“How about roller skating, then?”
“Not me,” Benny said.
Willis stretched out.
“How about you, Willis? Any bright ideas?” Lee said.
He looked at her. Just being near her made him weak through the middle. Oh, god, he felt like he was in junior high. She was waiting for him to say something. “Let’s all go out for a run.”
Dore snorted. “Sure. In my high heels.”
“I think it’s a nice idea,” Lee said quickly. “It’s something different, anyway.”
“Lee,” Dore said, “did you hear Chuck’s latest moron joke?”
“Who’s Chuck?” Willis said.
“The store manager at Fairview, where Lee and I work,” Dore said, as if anyone with half a brain would’ve known that.
“I’m a cashier,” Lee said, “but Dore is a big cheese.”
Dore and Benny groaned.
“What’s the joke?” Willis said.
“The joke,” Dore explained, “is I work at the cheese counter. Cheese department. Big cheese. Get it?”
Yeah. He got it.
“Now, do you want to hear a real joke? Are you ready?” Dore looked at him, really looked interested for the first time all evening. “How do you keep a moron in suspense?”
“How?” he said, and the minute he said it, he knew he’d stepped into the trap. How do you keep a moron in suspense? He was the moron, because he’d asked, and Dore was just looking at him, and Lee and Benny were laughing.
“Willis, you fell for it.”
“Funny, funny, funny.” He showed his teeth. He wanted to spit something clever back. What he wouldn’t have given for a comeback remark.
“Come on, you guys, let’s do something,” Lee said. “Let’s go dancing, Benny.”
“Benny doesn’t like dancing,” Dore said. “Anyway, my feet hurt.”
“Your poor little feet,” Benny said. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
“I knew things were going to end up that way,” Lee said.
“Why don’t we pick up some beer and pizza and go over to Willis’s house?” Benny said.
“My house? I don’t have a house. It’s just one room.”
“That’s all we need.”
“It’s a mess.”
“That’s okay. The girls will clean it up.”
“Fat chance,” Lee said.
Benny kept nodding his head to Willis, sending him signals. Agree, agree, this is a great idea. “Come on,” Benny said, reaching into Willis’s pocket. “Where’s your key, old buddy?”
He didn’t want them in his house. Lee maybe, once he cleaned it up, but not Benny and Dore, looking at what he had and making jokes about it. “My dog is sick.”
“You still talking about that dog? I don’t think you have a dog.”
“Cut it out, Benny,” Lee said. “Can’t you see he doesn’t want to do it? Let’s do something else.”
They finally went for hamburgers and fries. Willis kept watching Lee, but when she looked at him, he looked away. She was Benny’s girl, but if she wasn’t … maybe it could happen. She was paying attention to him, too. He couldn’t believe how much she was like the girl he dreamed about. And she was nice. He liked everything about her—the way she looked, the way she dressed, how easy it was to talk to her. What if Dore and Benny got together? Then he and Lee could team up.
When the food came, he saved one of his hamburgers for Zola.
“Is that for later, when you get hungry?” Dore said.
He looked at her suspiciously. Why did the little moron take home a hamburger? “It’s for Zola,” he said.
“Who’s Zola?”
“Someone I live with.”
That got her attention. “Someone you live with? Well, if you live with somebody, what are you doing here?”
“She likes me to go out once in a while and have some fun.”
“Oh,” Dore said, and turned to make a face to the others.
Zola was waiting for him when he got home. She pulled herself to the door like a kid pulling a wagon.
“Glad I’m home, aren’t you? Or is it the hamburger?” He knelt down and broke off pieces and let her take it off his hand. She kept looking at him between bites. When everything was gone, she licked his hand. He had more enthusiasm from Zola in five minutes than he had from Dore all evening.
Twelve
Saturday morning in the rain, Willis jogged over to Fair-view on East Broadway to shop. That was where Lee and Dore worked. He was hoping he’d spot them. Well, not them. Lee.
Fairview was an enormous market, with eight checkouts, but no Lee. He saw Dore over in Gourmet Cheese. She wore the Fairview red jacket and a little white cap. He didn’t think she saw him. Just as well. Lee was working in another department, or maybe she was on a break. He wheeled a cart around, taking his time. In the pet department, he picked out a white leather collar for Zola, to match her eyebrows.
He bought a few more things—milk, dog food, and a stack of frozen pizzas that were on special. He threw in a couple of packages of frozen bagels. He liked them with cream cheese and lettuce. At the checkout, he looked for Lee again.
Nearby, a woman was giving out free lasagna samples in little paper cups. The girl from the newsstand was there. He saw her take one cup, then another. There was something a little embarrassing about it. Willis never took samples. He didn’t like people giving him things and then expecting him to buy their products.
He unloaded his cart. A moment later, someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Hello, Willis.”
He glanced around. “Oh, hi!” He’d never win any Academy awards for that performance.
“Remember me, Willis?”
“Sure,” he said, but he’d forgotten her name.
“Sophie Browne.” She smiled, as if she knew and forgave him.
Bits of green stuff stuck to her teeth. Compared to Lee—no, how could he compare her to Lee? No cool, no makeup, no beauty. Fat mouth like a kid’s. But friendly. Too friendly.
She struck him as being really naive about guys. She didn’t know what space meant. She came right up to him until she was practically leaning on him. And she was looking into his basket.
“Ten,” she said, counting the pizzas. “You must really like pizza. How long does it take you to eat all those?”
“How’s the hand?” he said.
“All healed. I kept your bandage on for three days, but then it got too dirty.”
The way she said it, your bandage, her eyes shining at him, and all that intensity focused on him made him feel like the healer of all times.
“It healed just the way you said it would.”
“That’s good.” Dr. Welby turned to see if the line was moving. “Is that all you’re buying?” he said. She had a bag of nuts and a plant. “Why don’t you go ahead of me?”
“Oh, I don’t mind. My day off. I’m not going anywhere.”
He made room for her in front of him, anyway.
She held out a bag of pink pistachios. “Want some?”
“Pink is not my favorite color.”
“You don’t eat that part.” She cracked one and put the empty shell in her pocket. “What I can’t stand are the ones that don’t open. You can’t bite them open, and if you hammer them, you just make a mess.” She laughed.
Too much smile. She was all right, but she was too eager. She stood too close. She needed someone to take her aside and talk to her, tell her the facts of city life. When a girl met a guy she hardly knew, she could smile and say hi, but that was all.
“Don’t you think this is a beautiful begonia?” she said.
“I don’t know one plant from another.”
“Every plant is different. Even two pots with the same plant. One is a little tender and shy and the next one is bushy and sort of pushy. You’d know what a nut I am about plants if you saw my place.”
Was that an invitation? It sure sounded like one. If she went around inviting guys, somebody was going to accept, and she might not be too happy about that. He stacked the frozen pizzas together at one end of the counter.
“Isn’t there somebody who cooks for you?” She got all red.
She was definitely making moves on him. “No, I do all the cooking. For me and Zola.”
“Zola?”
“Zola’s my dog,” Bighearted Willis. He should have let her wonder, but she wasn’t a Dore. Still, he should have kept his mouth shut, because she was off again.
“Oh, Zola!” Her whole face opened up—she was shining, really shining. “Now I remember, Zola’s your dog! You told me about her. I should have remembered, the name is so unusual. I’d love to meet her. I love dogs.”
He almost laughed, she was so obvious. She wants to come up and meet Zola? She might find more than one animal living up there. Somebody ought to tell her the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf.
“My dog’s name is Jupiter. He’s a boxer,” she was saying. “And before Jupiter there was Orion, and before him …” She was checked out and she still lingered, telling him the names of all her dogs, their connections and genealogies.
She finally left. He gave her a wave good-bye. So long, see you around. You’re a nice kid, Sophie Browne, but not exactly my type.
When he left the store, she was waiting for him outside. Not just standing there, pretending to wait for the rain to let up. Waiting for him. “Hi! I thought we could walk together.” No subtlety. No finesse.
“Sure,” he said. What else could he say?
She did most of the talking. Now it was about her job and her boss and where she lived, and about a little kid named Jessie.
He had to admit it was flattering to have a girl so interested in him. And it was easy. He wasn’t worried every moment what Sophie thought about him. He knew. Not like Dore and her little moron jokes. “I was out running this morning,” he said.
“In the rain?”
“Rain or shine. It’s got to be really pouring to keep me in.”
“Do you run a lot?”
She gave him that shining look, and he started telling her about running. The same stuff he had tried to tell Dore, but this was completely different. Sophie was listening, the way nobody had ever listened before. Once he got started, there was no stopping him. He had a lot to say about running.
“This is my corner,” he said at last. He’d meant to leave her a lot sooner.
“Where do you live?”
He pointed over his shoulder. “That way.”
“Jefferson Street?”
“No.”
“Central Avenue?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you when I’m at the newsstand.”
Standing there, he had an impulse to tell her things. Give her advice. She came from the country and it showed. “Listen, I want to tell you something.”
“I bet you want to tell me how to get home. You’re right! I don’t even know where I am.”
“You know, you shouldn’t talk like that. What if I was some creep?”
“Willis Pierce! You’re not a creep.”
Okay. He gave up. “Where do you live?”
“Turner Avenue.”
“You have to go back to the market,” he said, “and keep going on up East Broadway.”
“Just point me in the right direction. That’s what my daddy used to say. Point me in the right direction and turn me loose.”
He went over the directions with her again.
“I’ve got it. Maybe, sometime, you’ll introduce me to Zola.” She had this little, eager smile on her face, and then she left.
Thirteen
Sophie Browne, she said to herself, you like him too much. You waited for him, you put yourself in his way, you hung on to him. And he still didn’t like you. Not enough. He didn’t even remember your name.
Maybe he’s just shy.
Shy? He talked, didn’t he?
He’s nice.
Nice? You don’t know that. You don’t know what he is. You don’t know anything about him. Like he said, he could be a creep. You’re thinking about him too much. You are. Even when you say you’re not, you are. Example. Taking out the garbage. What happened?
I met Martin.
Right. And what did he say?
How you getting along, kid?
And you said, Perfect.
And he said, You meeting people?
And you said, Every day, and you gave Martin an extra big smile.
And Martin said, You’ve got a million-dollar smile, Brownie. He thought the smile was for him. But all the time you were talking to him, you were wishing it was Willis you’d met at the garbage, and the smile you were smiling at Martin was really a smile for Willis.
It was true. She thought about Willis all the time. Too much. Did he think about her? Then why didn’t he stop at the stand once in a while? Why did he run past? Why didn’t he like her when she liked him so much? What if he never liked her? Maybe he wouldn’t, but she didn’t want to think about it.
Every day at work, she looked for him. Even when she sold papers so fast she hardly had time to look up, she knew when he passed. She felt it, like a shiver down her back. One day she walked away from a customer, left the stand unattended to catch a glimpse of Willis’s white cap disappearing down the tunnel entrance. That was bad. What if Carl had come by? She could have lost her job.
She arranged the coins in the money box, frowned at her hands. Cool down, Sophie. There’s too much heat in you.
She knew it. She wanted. She wanted Willis. She didn’t understand herself. She’d had crushes, had liked boys before, but never like this. She traced a finger across the scar on her palm. He’d seen her hands like this, plain and dirty, and he didn’t like them. Was that it? Had he taken an instant dislike to her when he saw her hands?
Pat always wore gloves when she worked and rubbed in cream every night and took care of her nails. Those bright-red fingernails. She was always after Sophie to do something with her hands. Do what?
Men liked pretty women. Pretty, cool women with clean hands and long fingernails. She wasn’t pretty. Her shoulders were too broad, hips too wide, her face too plain. If she was any kind of pretty, she was un-pretty. She was herself, just Sophie.
She wasn’t cool. She was eager and she said things, and sometimes people laughed at her. She laughed with them, because what difference did it make. But sometimes she wished she was cool and could remove herself and retreat into herself and look out and watch and not let anyone in. She wished she could be like the pasture pond in the first light, when everything was still and its surface was smooth as dark glass.
If she was like that, she’d watch Willis. He wouldn’t know she was watching, and he’d wonder about her and he’d be curious, because she’d be hidden and secret and mysterious. Then he’d stop by the stand and he’d say, Sophie? And she’d say, Yes? And he’d say, Sophie? How are you doing? Sophie!
And she’d smile and say nothing.
Fourteen
Don Porter, the old bird who lived downstairs, stopped Willis in the hall to complain about Zola. He had thin, slicked-back hair and a big, battered nose. “Your dog is walking on my head. You’re not supposed to have dogs in this house.”
Willis didn’t know about that. He just looked at Don.
“Well?” Don said.
“Well, what?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Willis pushed past him. If Zola was making Don crazy, he supposed he’d have to move, but he wasn’t telling Don that.
It had been rainy and damp all week, and he hadn’t taken Zola out much. Maybe that was the trouble. Zola needed her exercise, too. She could stand now. One back leg was still weak. He took her out on the new leash and gave her a walk on her three good legs. Then they sat on the steps. Zola kept turning and sniffing the air like it felt great to be alive.