by Harry Mazer
As they passed the stands, the moon came out from behind the clouds. The track and the stands were illuminated. A light full of shadows filled the stands with silent, cheering fans. Fans everywhere, on the edge of the field and on the hillside and in the shadows of the houses.
And then Aaron Hill was moving up on Willis. He was roused, he was going to crush the challenger. Willis heard him coming. The slap of Aaron Hill’s footsteps, his breath like a hammer in Willis’s ears. He was gaining, gaining, gaining. Willis felt the air trembling behind him.
He turned. Looked.
There was nobody. The track was empty. He was alone.
Then, beyond the finish line, he caught a glimpse of something moving. A shadow. Something black, glittering in the fading moonlight, disappearing past the fence.
Twenty
Sophie liked the way Willis looked in his gray sweats and the white Raleigh bike cap. They were in the diner across the street from the stand, and he had Zola in his arms. “My treat,” Willis had said when he stopped at the newsstand.
She wished he’d given her more notice. She had just finished work, and she was wearing her green cords and a baggy black sweater with the sleeves pushed up.
“I’m not very hungry,” she said now. “I’ll just have a soda.”
“No, no, no. I want you to eat something, a real meal. Like the meal you made me.”
They looked up at the menu board. “Zola recommends the open beef sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes,” Willis said. “No, wait.” He bent to listen to Zola. “She’s just changed her mind. She wants you to have the knockwurst with sauerkraut. And a nice gooey dessert, too.”
Right on cue, Zola put a paw on Sophie’s arm and looked appealingly at her.
“You taught her that, didn’t you?” Sophie said.
“Sophie! Don’t you think she’s got a mind of her own?”
Sophie took big, warm Zola in her arms and sat her on a chair between them. Willis set a hot dog in front of Zola. She put her paws up on the table and sniffed.
“This is her first time eating out,” Willis explained. “Her table manners aren’t too good.”
Willis ate fast, head down. Sophie liked the way he ate. When he ate, he ate, no nonsense. Sophie pushed the food around on her plate and fed Zola. She was too excited to eat. She and Willis were sitting close together, taking turns petting Zola. Sometimes their hands met, their fingers brushed against each other, but it was accidental.
Willis hadn’t hugged her when he met her, caught her hand, or touched her. Nothing.
She kept wondering—was he glad to be here? Or was it just a duty? Payment in kind for the meal she had made? She’d noticed how careful he was about keeping things equal. The quarter he was so careful to pay back. And the cookies he didn’t want to take. And now this meal.
He put his arm across the back of her chair, and she leaned back and thought about the kiss. Was he thinking about the same thing? “Did you run today?” she said.
“First thing this morning.”
When their eyes met, he smiled. He looked sad till he smiled. He had a sweet smile.
“There you are, Sophie.” It was Carl, her boss. He’d been at the stand, checking the week’s receipts. “I thought you were in here.” He took a chair from the next table and sat down and started talking business. “I’m increasing the morning paper order, so you double-check on Monday, make sure the count is right.” He looked at Willis. “Who’s your friend?”
She introduced them. “Willis, this is Carl, my boss.”
They shook hands across Sophie. “Your girlfriend’s a helluva good worker,” Carl said. “Sales have gone up since she’s been on the job. Hey, look at her blush. I didn’t know girls still did that.” He put his arm around her. “I could use ten Sophies.”
Sophie was blushing. She got along well with Carl. He was like a big, plainspoken country man with a big belly and a big voice.
“Willis?” Carl said. “Willis Pierce? I used to know a Pierce. In real estate. Any relation?”
Willis shook his head.
“Where do you work? I’m always looking for good people. Young people. With me, maybe you start low, but I give you responsibility, you’re on your own, and you can work yourself up.”
“I’ve got a job,” Willis said. “I work in Continental.”
“What do you do there?”
“I’m in shipping.”
“Shipping! What do you do, put labels on packages? Where’s that going to get you? Where are you going to be ten years down the road? That’s what you want to think about.” Carl tapped himself on the head. “The brain. It’s a wonderful tool. Use it.”
Sophie watched Willis. Did he see what a character her boss was? There was a pained look on Willis’s face. He was looking blankly at a Greek travel poster on the wall. Stone houses and mountains. She nudged Willis with her foot and smiled, telling him with her eyes, It’s only Carl talking.
“George,” Carl called. “Three beers.”
“Not for me,” Willis said.
“Free Lowenbrau? I’m buying. You don’t turn down a good beer. Bring him one,” he said to George. And then he said to Willis, “Once you try it, you’re never going to drink that soda stuff, that baby sugar water, again.”
Willis stiffened. Sophie saw it, saw the change in him. He didn’t say anything, but she knew something was wrong. Then he looked at her. And what a look he gave her—as if he blamed her. For what?
The beer came. “Drink up, Sophie.” Carl patted her shoulder. “You know what?” he said to Willis. “You don’t smile enough. People who work for me smile. Look at that smile on Sophie.”
Was she smiling? She didn’t feel like smiling. What was wrong with Willis? It was like a gate had fallen between them. She leaned toward him. She wanted to put her arms around him and say, What’s the matter? What happened? Why are you hurting? She wished Carl would leave so she could be with Willis.
But it was Willis who pushed back his chair, took Zola under his arm and walked out.
Twenty-one
Willis and Zola stopped a few doors down the street from the diner, outside Stankey’s Bar. The late-afternoon shadow lay across the front. Willis was furious at Carl, furious at himself. Why had he walked out? Who had chased him? That bigmouthed boss of Sophie’s had moved in on them, just sat down and taken over.
“I should have told him this was a private party.” Zola looked up. “I should have told him, Sophie’s not working now; she’s on her own time.”
Inside the plywood entry, the door to Stankey’s was open. It was dark inside. The dark, malty smell of beer spilled out, and for a moment he was twelve again, watchful, angry, uncertain, waiting on the street for his father to come out.
He looked back for Sophie. Where was she? She should have come out with him. Instead, she just sat there and watched him go.
“Willis.” It was her. He almost cried out, he was so glad to see her, and then he walked away.
“Willis!” She caught his arm. “Why’d you leave?”
He shook her off. “You had your boss. What’d you need me for?” He couldn’t forgive himself for how glad he was to see her, and how ashamed and angry he was at himself for walking out instead of telling Carl off.
“‘Look at Sophie smile,’” he mimicked. “‘There’s nothing nicer than young people smiling.’”
“I work for him,” she said in a quiet voice. “That’s the way he always is. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You work for him! Does that mean he can paw you? He had his hands all over you.”
She stepped back. “He did not.”
“And you sat there like a frog and let him. Why’d you stay? Why didn’t you leave when I did?”
“You just got up and left! I didn’t know why you left.”
“You didn’t ask, either.”
“You could have been going to the john.”
“With Zola?”
“Okay! You could have been coming right back, for all
I knew. I came out to find you. I only stayed there a minute with Carl.”
“A minute too much.”
“What’s going on, Willis? Why did you call me a frog?”
“I didn’t!”
“Willis. You just said it. I heard you.”
“I don’t mean half the things I say.”
“Which half am I supposed to believe?”
“You figure it out.”
“Willis. Willis.” She was smiling. “Oh, I know what it is with you. You’re jealous. You’re jealous of Carl.”
“Jealous?” he shot back at her. “Of what?”
It was like a slap in her face.
She stepped back, her hands up. She looked wounded. What had he done? What had he said?
Sophie was turning away, her eyes moving past him, and he was turning. In a moment, they’d walk away from each other, go their separate ways, and they’d never see each other again.
“Sophie … Sophie.” It was all he could say. He didn’t want to go on with this fight, and he didn’t know how to stop it. “Sophie …” He held Zola out to her. “Sophie.” He looked at her. “Sometimes I say things.”
She stood there, half hidden, next to a telephone pole. He tried to take her hand. She moved away. He followed. They went around the pole. “Just now you looked at me as if you hated me,” she said. She began crying, wiping her face and holding back the tears, and not letting him near her.
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t … I never …”
She sat down on the curb and blew her nose, and he sat down next to her with Zola between them. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he tried to put his arm around her, but she wouldn’t let him.
She got up. “I’m going home now.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
“I don’t care.”
They walked along in silence. After a while, he said, “We were having a good time in the diner.”
“Yes.”
“Before he came, I mean. I was having a good time.”
She nodded.
“How about you?”
“Me, too. Carl didn’t have to come in.”
“Well … We should have gone someplace else, where he couldn’t find you.”
“He could have waited for another time.”
“Well, he wanted to talk to you. I shouldn’t have been so jumpy.”
She smiled a little smile. “You wouldn’t drink his Lowenbrau.”
They walked the rest of the way holding hands. They were like two tired swimmers who had just come out of a heavy sea. Their bodies ached, they were slow, their limbs were heavy and slow.
At her house, he wanted to go up with her. Did she want him to? “Well … good night,” he said.
“Good night, Willis.” She petted Zola. “Good night, Zola.”
He turned away. He felt a heaviness descend on him. He could hardly move, but he kept walking. On the other side of the parking lot, he turned back.
“Soph?” He stood at the foot of the stairs, then started up.
“Willis?” She was there, waiting. Their hands caught and they held each other. Not talking. Just holding.
Twenty-two
Unexpectedly, Willis’s parents came to visit, arriving late Saturday with enough groceries to hold Willis for a month. They were on their way to Quebec to visit his father’s family. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?” Willis said. He put a box of cereal on the top shelf. “I’ve got to meet someone.”
“You mean you’re going to walk out on us?” his father said. “We just came.”
Willis was shocked at how wasted his father looked. He’d always been spare, but now he looked skeletal, the tendons in his neck showed, and his jacket hung on him like it was sizes too big.
His mother kissed Willis. “Who do you have to meet? A girl?” While she unloaded the bag, her eyes took in the room. “Where’s your furniture? This is it? It’s nothing but an empty room. What do you need a dog for? Is he trained? I smelled dog as soon as I walked in. What’s he doing?”
“She, Ma.”
Zola was showing off, chewing on one of Willis’s old sneakers. She brought it to Willis’s mother and dropped it at her feet.
“Nice doggy,” his mother said nervously.
“Zola’s being friendly. She likes you, Ma.”
His mother sat down. “Do you have some tea, Willis?”
He put the kettle on and showed her where the tea bags were, then rinsed a cup for her. “Ma, you want to make the tea? I’ve got to make a phone call.”
He called Brenda from the Cleantown Laundromat. The dryers spun like pinwheels. A child answered the phone. “Who dis?”
“Get your mother. I want Brenda.”
“Who dis?”
“Call your mother. Is this Jessie?”
“Who dis?”
He finally got Jessie off the line, and Brenda came on. “Oh, is that you, Willis? Sophie’s right here.”
“Hi,” Sophie said. “I’m right here at Brenda’s waiting for you. Where are you?”
“My parents just walked in. They’re on their way to Canada and they’re staying overnight with me. So I guess we won’t go to that movie tonight.”
Next to him, a man was folding underwear at a long table. Something about the man reminded him of his mother—the way his hands were busily doing while his eyes were miles away. That was his mother, always two steps ahead of herself, always anticipating the worst and girding herself for it. What would she say when she saw Sophie?
“Do your folks want to meet me?” Sophie said.
“They just walked in. I came right out to call you.”
“Did you tell them about me?”
“I haven’t had a chance.”
“You’re going to tell them, aren’t you?”
“Sure I am.” Why was she pushing? Why did he sound so defensive?
“Should I come over?”
“I don’t know. They’re tired. My father … they drove all day. They’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning.”
“You mean I won’t see them? I won’t meet your parents?”
“Did I say that?” He shifted the phone to his other ear. Everything he said came out wrong. “Look, Soph, I’ll come over and get you. Now. In my car!”
On the way back, Sophie was too nervous to appreciate the car. “Willis? Do you think they’re going to like me?”
“My parents? What do you mean?” Was he always this way? Asking a question when he was asked a question? He didn’t know what his parents were going to think. He was wondering the same thing. Sophie was no dazzler. She wouldn’t make anyone sit up and pay attention. When his parents met her, it would be like meeting somebody they had always known. Like meeting the neighbor across the hall who comes in to borrow a cup of sugar and ends up sitting down in front of the TV.
So what was wrong with that? Was he worried that they were going to judge her? Or him? Find her deficient and accuse him of settling for less than the best? Did they want to see him with someone like Lee?
“They’re going to like you,” he said. He blew his horn at the car ahead. “You haven’t got reindeer antlers coming out of your head, Sophie.”
“Do you think I’m dressed okay?”
“You don’t have to fuss for my parents.”
“Oh, I hope they like me.”
Neither one of them should have worried. Willis’s parents took to Sophie right away. She did exactly the right things. Gave his mother a big smile and said, “So you’re Willis’s mother!” And then she sat down with his father and started talking about welding.
“My dad taught me and my brother both to weld,” she said. “If you live on a farm, Mr. Pierce, it comes in handy. Dad would never let me do the overhead stuff, though. He was always afraid I’d set my hair on fire.”
“You weld?” Willis said. He’d never heard any of this.
His father laughed at him. “She’s going to teach you, Willis, eh? We had one woman welding where I worked. S
he had been there since the war. A grandmother, and she welded.”
“I remember her,” his mother said. “They wrote about her in the newspaper.”
His father started playing with Zola, and his mother went into the kitchen to cook supper. Sophie went in to help. “Willis, where’s your dishes?” his mother asked. “This is all you’ve got? Two plates and one spoon?”
Sophie found some forks and four cups. Willis got a saucer from the bathroom. “Look, Ma, another dish.” He didn’t tell her it was Zola’s.
The four of them ate together, sitting with their plates on their laps, Willis and Sophie on the floor and his parents on his mattress.
“Make believe we’re camping out,” his father said. “Like the old days.” His father looked like a ghost, with his sunken cheeks, but his eyes still shone.
It was late when Willis came back from taking Sophie home, but his parents were waiting up for him. His father wanted to know what Willis was doing and who he was working with. He knew Miholic, the foreman. “Does he still run around like he’s on roller skates? I knew him when he didn’t know enough to tuck his shirt in. What did he promise you? Are you going to get upgraded? Are you bidding on jobs?”
“There aren’t that many jobs right now. I’m lucky I’m working, Pop.”
“I know, but still you bid on jobs, eh? Get experience. Get off that labor grade.”
His parents were concerned about his future. What about those posters on the wall? Why didn’t he have a chair to sit on? What about Sophie?
“You’re going around in rags,” his father said. “How can you go with a nice girl like that, the way you’re dressed?” He stopped to catch his breath. “When you’re young,” he continued, “you think you have all the time in the world, but you don’t, eh? The important thing is to have a trade and be with a good woman.”
Later, changing the sheets on his mattress, his parents got really jolly. “At least we don’t fall out of bed,” his father said. He was a long time in the bathroom. Willis talked to his mother, who was in her nightgown. She was having another cup of tea.
“How is he, Ma?”
She shook her head. “The doctor says he’s doing all right, but if you ask me, he had a bad winter. Everything hurt him. The least bit of cold and he’s in misery. He’s better now that it’s warming up, but next winter …” Her downturned expression, the lines in her face, her hand ending the conversation—everything said there were things she didn’t want to talk about.