A few minutes past eight, his front buzzer rang. The girl was there in black rubber boots and a glossy yellow raincoat, its hood hovering stiffly over her darkened face.
“Is he here yet?” was how she greeted Jeb.
“Welcome, welcome,” Jeb said, holding the door open. The girl stepped inside and took off her raincoat. Water dripped all over the floor. Jeb took a step back. The girl’s dress was disappointing—not quite a housedress, but pastel, floral, cheap cotton, with short sleeves. He happily noted the appearance of earrings—small silver hearts. She smelled of coconuts, of fruity cocktails, tropical breezes, white-sand beaches. He took the girl’s raincoat and hung it on the rack by the door.
“I guess I should take these off too,” the girl said and bent over to loosen her foot from her boot. When she lost her balance, Jeb caught her forearm in his hand. She hardly seemed to notice. Jeb blushed at the sensuousness of her flesh—soft around the bone, like the arm of a baby. He tried not to squeeze her too tightly. When she righted herself, he let go. Then she bent and balanced and pulled the other boot off, giving the old man a glimpse of her hanging cleavage.
“I’m sorry to report that my nephew is running late,” Jeb said, locking the front door. “He has been detained due to the rain.” He inhaled the smell of her, searching his mind for the words. “Piña colada,” he exclaimed, waggling a finger. “Your perfume. Am I right?”
“It’s only moisturizer,” the girl said, straightening her dress. “How late will he be?”
“Just a few minutes,” Jeb said. “He says we shouldn’t wait on him.”
It was dim inside the house. Only small flame-shaped bulbs glowed faintly in the sconces in the front hall. Jeb showed her into the living room. The ceiling lamp there gave off a sputtering, weak light. Jeb’s eyes were two black shadows when he stood under it. His face looked like a skull. “Come sit,” he said, coaxing the girl with a hand at the small of her back. She allowed him that, to be hospitable, it seemed. She was thicker than she looked, Jeb thought. Strong but small, like a bulldog puppy. Tough bitch, he said to himself. “Kick back a bit.”
The girl sat on the couch, holding the hem of her dress down as she crossed her legs. “Your house is just like mine, only in reverse,” she said.
Jeb went to the end table, picked up the Kenny May, and poured them each a few fingers of whiskey. “I don’t have any ice, I’m afraid,” he said, holding a glass out to the girl. Outside, the storm churned. Over the love song on the radio they could hear twigs and branches snapping, the rush of the wind through the leaves, rain splashing against the house.
“To new neighbors, new friends,” Jeb said.
They raised their glasses and drank. The girl made a face and sniffed her whiskey. Jeb looked out the window, grinning. He was well aware that when he felt jubilant, he acted strangely. He could seem too eager, too effusive. He could disclose too much. He tried to hold himself upright, rigid, but he couldn’t keep himself from speaking what was on his mind. “Pump and dump. You’re familiar with the expression?” he asked. “That’s what my nephew calls it. That’s what he likes to do. The storm may have saved you from that humiliation. Thank God for Mother Nature.”
“Jesus,” the girl said, snorting. Men never ceased to amaze her—sly dogs, all of them, nasty creatures. “Christ,” she said. She drank more whiskey. “The kid just asked me out for a drink. I’m no whore.”
Jeb bent at the waist, lowered his head. “I guess your enthusiasm had him fooled,” he said, and winked. Then he straightened himself again and tried to keep from smiling.
The girl tapped her fingernails against her glass and let herself sink back against the old plaid couch. Its springs had been flattened over the decades. The upholstery smelled of Jeb—bitter, like dry rot, and slightly chemical. The rough fabric of the cushions scratched the girl’s arms. She closed her eyes, and sipped her drink. She was tired. It was hard work to get her house in order, and she was doing it herself by now. She was glad to have the distraction, away from her thoughts, the cold jabs each time she longed for Trevor’s hand to touch her, his lips to kiss her neck, her cheeks, her thighs. Sinking deeper into the couch, she thought that if Trevor were to come back she’d let him do whatever he wanted. Maybe she’d even let herself get pregnant. But the idea was like a bad taste in her mouth. She made a sour face. Jeb watched her diaphragm rise and fall under the thin fabric of her dress. She seemed edgy, irritated, her eyes twisted and barbed.
“I’m sorry, dear. Did I offend you?” he asked.
The girl looked straight up at him. “You’re trying to get to me, aren’t you?” she said. Jeb’s eyes cowered and darted back and forth between her crossed, luminous knees and the rumbling windowpane. “I see your game. You’ve trying to shame me for being young and pretty. You want to make me apologize for all the other girls who didn’t like you. You just can’t stand that I’m right next door reminding you of all that. That’s it, isn’t it? Pump and dump,” she scoffed. “Nothing you say can hurt me. See if you can do it. I dare you.” She chuckled and sipped her whiskey, then placed the glass on the coffee table.
“You never know with young women these days,” Jeb said. “It’s a rough, wild world out there, and girls, women”—he knew the distinction was an important one to make for the girl to feel respected—“they just give themselves away for free. It breaks my heart. Low self-esteem, they call it.” He clucked his tongue, shook his head, then brought his hand to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said, speaking softly, as though he were about to cry. He stooped forward over the coffee table, picked up the girl’s glass, and moved it to a coaster.
“But I haven’t done anything,” the girl maintained, rolling her eyes. “There’s nothing to get upset about. Jesus. I already told you, I see your game. You’re trying to get me to cry on your shoulder, make me out to be the screwed-up one, like that’s why I don’t want to fuck you. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
When Jeb was excited, his heart fluttered. “Like a pigeon in a burlap sack,” he’d told the doctor.
“And what do you mean ‘for free’?” the girl went on. “You think it’s better to sell yourself? What is with you men, you always see everything as this and that? Like everything is for sale.”
“Pardon?” Jeb said.
“Give and take. Like life is some bank account you’re trying to fill up. And like every girl’s a whore.”
“My dear, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No kidding,” the girl said. She pursed her lips tight, wrinkling her chin. Jeb thought she looked rather ugly that way. She held her breath. She seemed somehow to be on the verge of combusting. Beneath the coffee table, her bare foot was jiggling like a bobblehead. A bolt of lightning cracked and flashed. “Is your nephew coming, you think?” she asked, her voice suddenly soft and innocent.
“No,” Jeb said.
“Oh,” she said.
But still the girl remained seated. She even adjusted her posture to make herself more comfortable, leaning forward so that her skin did not touch the rough fabric of the couch. He was quiet. He watched her lips tighten, then unfurl as she sipped her whiskey.
Jeb swallowed back some phlegm, moved stiffly to the couch, and sat down. His hand rested on the cushion between him and the girl. His pinkie finger grazed the soft fabric of her dress. If he’d wanted to, he thought, he could easily have pinched the flesh of her thigh.
“These are some photos,” he said, turning to an old cigar box on the coffee table. He flipped the lid of the box open. The girl bent over to look at the photographs inside, slid them around in the box as though she were shuffling puzzle pieces. Jeb looked again at her tanned, dewy cleavage.
“What year was this?” she asked, picking up a photo. It was a small school portrait of Jeb as a boy. His face was fat, his eyes cold and tortured, his striped tie wrung tightly around his neck.
; “Age nine,” Jeb pronounced. He shook his head gruffly, as though to wake himself up. “If my age is an issue for you,” he began to say.
“Why should I care how old you are? What’s it to me?” She flipped another photo around, stuck it out so Jeb could see it. It was a photo of him as a young man, skulking beside his father, a dark, mean figure in a gray sacklike suit. In the photo Jeb had thick red hair. “Your hair’s so white now,” she said, looking at the photo again.
“They called me Red Jeb when I was young. Say that six times fast.” He laughed. “People sometimes think I’m an albino, if you can believe that.”
“Of course I can believe it,” the girl said. “I’d believe almost anything in this world.”
“And occasionally black folks think I’m an albino black, if you can believe that. I suppose it’s a compliment. It isn’t catching, my vitiligo. It’s perfectly harmless. In some cultures it’s considered a mark of the divine. If I went to those countries, people would stop and pray to me in the street, I guess. Saint Jeb.” He said, and laughed again. “Nowadays, of course, I just look old. Children can be cruel—”
“Can I use your bathroom?” the girl asked, interrupting him.
Jeb looked down at her knees. The blue tint of her veins showed through her skin. He faked a cough, composed himself, then bent over the photographs again, wetting his finger not on his tongue but on the fat, spittley lip hanging down between his frown lines. “You know where it is,” he said.
Jeb listened to her heavy step as she crossed the front hall to the bathroom beneath the stairs. In her absence, he looked at the photos and thought back to a failed romance from long ago. He’d thought he was in love, but after only one intimate rendezvous, the woman had sat on the toilet and dismissed him completely. “You’re too uptight,” she’d told him. “You have no imagination.” His heart fluttered again as he remembered how her thighs had swayed when she rose to wipe herself. Then the toilet flushed. He listened for the sink faucet to run, but it didn’t. The girl came back.
“I like the wallpaper in your bathroom,” she said. “And the old sink.” She sat down again. Jeb had placed a photo on top of the pile for her to see. It showed a skinny woman in a sun hat and a bikini sitting in a beach chair by a pool. “Who’s she?” the girl asked.
“My wife, may she rest in peace.”
“She’s very pretty,” the girl said politely. She leaned over to the end table and poured herself another tumblerful of Kenny May.
“She had a chipped tooth,” Jeb said. “But she was pretty enough. A strange gal. Never could tell what she was thinking. Had strange habits, as do we all. And strange obsessions. She liked to buy all sorts of fancy things. Lace and silk stuff, you know? Lingerie. Tell you what,” Jeb said, smiling now. “She left drawers full of that stuff upstairs. I’d be happy to show you. It’s all very nice.”
The girl put her glass down.
“Strange woman,” Jeb continued. “Kept a diary every day of her life, made me swear I’d never touch it. When she passed, bless her dear heart”—he put his hand on his chest, sucked in air at a stutter for a moment, looked up at the ceiling—“I found the diary and I read it, and it was all about bowling. Bowling this and bowling that. Had me laughing and crying at once. That’s love.” He put his hand on the girl’s knee, then looked out the window. The storm raged and clattered. The lights flickered, but they didn’t go out. The pale, swollen, spotted hand on the girl’s knee was inert, like a fat, sleeping lizard that could at any moment awaken and claw up her soft thigh.
“Get your nasty paw off my leg,” the girl said flatly. She picked up his pinkie finger and craned his hand up and to the side. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said under her breath, letting go.
Jeb ignored her. He swayed his head in painful reverie. “Oh, my sweet Betty Ann. She left a closet full of clothes, too. Great dresser,” he said. “Real style. And you know me, so sentimental, I couldn’t part with those nice dresses. I always thought maybe one day someone would have a use for them. Like you, for instance. Hey!” In a comic pantomime, he exhaled as though struck by lightning, sticking his arms out in front of him and letting his head loll and his tongue dangle from his mouth. “Here’s an idea,” he said. His face brightened. “Do you like old things? Vintage, as they say? I’ve got skirts, tops, and the dresses. Shoes too. You’re welcome to try anything on. Just up the stairs.” The fleshy wrinkles around his mouth deepened as he grinned.
The girl looked at her drink. “If the kid isn’t coming, I should just go home.”
“But you’ve only just arrived.” Jeb opened his hands, flittered his fingers. He reached across her lap for the Kenny May, filled both glasses, although neither was empty. Outside, the storm paused for a minute. They sat listening, waiting to see if it was really over. Then the rain started up again.
“I don’t believe you ever had a wife,” the girl said after a while. “And this whiskey tastes funny.” She set her glass on the coaster. “It tastes cheap,” she said.
“Lie down for a bit,” Jeb said, not getting up off the couch. “Take a load off. Stretch out if you like. Mi casa es su casa. I know a drop of Spanish. And French. Voulez-vous? Comment ça va?”
The girl yawned and shook her head. “I’m not lying down with you,” she said.
“But these dresses,” Jeb said. “They’d fit you perfectly. Let me bring one down so you can see it. My wife was quite the fashion plate. And just your size. Shall I bring one down? It’d be such a pity to throw them all away. You can come up and look through them yourself, if you like.”
“No, thanks,” the girl said. She was only pretending to be bored, it seemed, fingering the lid of Jeb’s cigar box.
“It’s all just sitting there, waiting to be revived,” Jeb said. “Take whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to me.” A bolt of lightning flooded the room with pale blue light.
“If I wanted to be fooled into your bedroom, you wouldn’t have to ask twice,” the girl replied. “I already told you, I see your game.”
Jeb looked up at the ceiling. The loose, spotted skin of his throat flapped as he ground his jaws. “So you’re not interested,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’ve gone and changed your mind.”
“Changed my mind?”
“I was only trying to be courteous, neighborly. And here you come, wanting to be comforted.”
“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” the girl said sarcastically. Her mismatched eyes crinkled in derision, Jeb thought.
“You’re lucky I’m not a creep,” he continued. “I could do anything I wanted to you, you know. A young girl, drunk on my couch. You should be more careful. My wife—” Jeb gasped suddenly, dabbing pretentiously at invisible tears. “God bless her soul. She was a good woman. An honest woman. No tease or hussy like you find nowadays.” He stared down at the girl’s bare feet on the hardwood floor and licked his lips. Still the girl did not get up.
“I’m not feeling well,” Jeb said, leaning back against the couch and closing his eyes. The girl turned and moved closer. The scent of coconut made him queasy. The hand she placed on Jeb’s bony shoulder was warm and damp through his thin T-shirt. He froze. He felt her weight shift on the couch, heard the springs whine, and then she was on him, straddling him,her breasts shoved up against his chin. Jeb could barely breathe.
“Is this what you were hoping for?” she asked, watching his face for his reaction.
Jeb kept his eyes shut, licked his lips again. The girl could smell the stink of his breath, like a sick cat’s. She sniffed his mouth, wincing happily. Their faces were only a few inches apart. “I was hoping . . .” Jeb began to say. The load of her body against him ground at his bones. He felt himself blush, harden. He lifted his hands.
The girl just laughed and hopped off him before he could touch her. Her dress had been hiked up in the maneuver. Jeb watched her thighs tremble wit
h the impact of each step she took across the living room floor. In the hall she laughed to herself some more, put her boots on, and whipped her raincoat off the rack.
“Let me see you to your door,” Jeb called out. But she was already gone.
An hour later, the nephew called again. “My whole damn building lost power,” he complained. “I can’t even watch TV.”
“You could have spent the night here,” Jeb chided him. “I had a fine time with the neighbor girl without you. But I don’t think you’d like her much. Sort of a dud, if you ask me. A fish in a bucket, as they say. No fun for the hunt.”
“I’ve got other girls,” the nephew said and hung up.
In the morning, pale mist filled the air like smoke. The girl’s house was obscured by the fog. Jeb awoke on the couch, got the Kenny May, and assumed his position in the basement once more. A small drop of water trickled from the crumbling concrete wall down to the floor. He drank. All he heard from the girl’s house was drawers and cabinets opening and shutting, the faucet running, and then her radio dial crackling up and down, landing finally on bright, snappy pop songs. She listened to one after another, singing merrily along as though she were completely innocent, as though nothing at all had happened.
• • •
Days passed. Jeb spent them sitting at his kitchen window. He watched the girl carry cans of paint into her house, smoke cigarettes on the front steps, pick up debris from the yard, drag bags of trash to the curb. Her figure appeared now and then through the wispy drapes of her bedroom when she opened or shut the window. The mail came. The sun rose and fell. Jeb neglected the dead leaves that had blown from the girl’s yard into his. He didn’t want the girl to see him out there raking. She was a tramp, a tease, nobody worth his time, he told himself. He read the Sunday paper and fried his bacon while the girl painted and cleaned and hammered at her walls. Despite his neighborly instincts, he refrained from going over to offer his help or counsel.
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