Sara Jaffe - Dryland

I said, I really don’t know. Then I said, I bet he might. Do you want to come?

Erika said, I told you I was going to get over skaters.

Out the window was the big red house on a street where there weren’t any other houses. The Vietnamese restaurant. An older white guy left the restaurant carrying a plastic bag of food. Erika already seemed so locked-in to her crush, and I hadn’t even known it was happening. Her excitement hummed off of her. I loosened the drawstring on my hood. I said, I met this cute guy, too.

Erika said, What? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. She said, Who?

I said, You don’t know him. He works downtown. I said, But he’s really a landscaper.

Erika said, Jules! How old?

We should have still been talking about the Pale Tadpole. I said, I don’t know. Ben was old, as old as if not older than my brother. He wore that bead around his neck. I imagined saying, No one has a necklace like that anymore, and having it make me feel something.

Erika said, Where does he work? We should go there sometime so you can show him to me!

I said, He has a weird schedule.

Erika gave me a knowing nod. She said, I think PT seems mysterious, don’t you? I like how he bends back the cover of the book like that, so you can’t see what he’s reading.

ON SATURDAY MORNINGPledge lay on my bed at my feet. My clock radio played the classic rock station. An Eric Clapton song came on. Wonderful Tonight always got confused in my mind with the dead son song. Maybe they started the same way, or they had the same melody. They both started with guitar. In my mind the lyrics or the ideas behind the two songs merged so that Wonderful Tonight, which was the song that was playing on the radio, became about how Clapton’s wife or girlfriend had fallen out the window, which was what had happened to his son in the other song. Wonderful Tonight overall was cheesy but there was something that got me about the line where she asks Do I look all right? and he answers so nicely. It made me feel something. Romantic. I could see the woman at the top of the stairs, in a blue dress, backlit.

Pledge jumped up and starting barking and then the doorbell rang. She was psychic that way. My dad’s voice and another male voice spoke, and then the door closed and both their voices moved outside. I got up and went to the window and in the yard, patting the shrubs, were my dad and Ben. Ben wore a puffy vest and a wool cap like PT’s. He and my dad were laughing, or smiling repeatedly. I put on my slippers and my hoodie over my pajamas and brushed my teeth. Erika would freak out to know that the landscaper had shown up at my house. I put on jeans and regular shoes and looked at my hair.

Outside, it was weakly sunny. Ben was standing by the bushes with a notebook and pencil. He said, I could definitely see you going with some viburnum here. They’re good in winter. When he saw me, he raised his hand in greeting like we were old pals. He said, Nice to see you again, Julie!

My dad didn’t seem bothered or surprised that Ben was there. He seemed interested in the idea of viburnum, as if he had any idea what viburnum were. I said, I didn’t think he was going to call.

My dad and Ben laughed. Ben said, That’s what I told him on the phone. But it turns out you guys could use some landscaping.

My dad said they’d come in for coffee in a bit. My mom was out grocery shopping. I couldn’t remember if I’d added Agree and cereal to the list or had just thought about doing it. When I was a kid I’d gone grocery shopping with my mom and I’d helped decipher the things my brother had scratched on the list. Every kind of on-the-go food: Pop-Tarts, granola bars, Hot Pockets. My hunch was that my mom didn’t know about Ben coming over. Did he have to present some kind of landscaper’s license, or did my dad just take him at his word? Ben should have realized I didn’t mean it when I said he should call. My mom might drive up from shopping and see them in the yard, imagining viburnum, and be surprised by them standing around like that, laughing on the lawn as if they were related.

I microwaved my tea and poured the last Rice Chex crumbs into my bowl. I dumped Raisin Bran on top of it. With milk it looked disgusting, floating mixed bits, and I thought of Ben coming in and seeing me eating it. I got up and dumped it down the disposal. I sat down and wished I hadn’t dumped it.

Ben and my dad came up on the back deck. My dad made a motion for me to open the sliding door. Ben stamped his boots and asked my dad if he should take his shoes off. My dad, in a dad-voice from a sitcom, said there was no need. He offered Ben coffee and poured him a cup. Ben asked if he could also have some water and my dad got him a glass from the tap. The water was cloudy with bubbles and my dad apologized for the water pressure. He said he had to grab something upstairs and that he’d be right back down.

Ben drank his water first. He downed it in one gulp, without waiting for the clouds to settle. He wrapped his hands around the coffee mug. He asked, Do you drink coffee? You’re young.

I said, I drink tea, and hoisted my bag of Lipton.

Ben said, Jordan didn’t like coffee. I remember that.

I said, I’m just drinking tea this morning. Ben threw around my brother’s name so loosely.

Ben said, What are you up to today? Do you do that whole weekend practice thing?

Ben needed to keep his voice down. Nobody had invited him over here to talk about swimming. I didn’t know anything about weekend practices, if they happened, and if they did, how I was supposed to find out about them. Would anyone have told me if we had one? I said, Not today.

Ben said, Yeah, I never knew how Jordan could do it. Total devotion, right?

Devotion was a word from a song on the radio. I squeezed out the water from my tea bag. Ben seemed too at home in my house, at my table, drinking from my mug with hot air balloons on it. I said, Where do you live?

Ben said, Over in Southeast. Near 20th and Morrison.

I said, But you went to high school with my brother.

Ben said, My parents lived over here. But I crossed the river as soon as I could.

I said, Why?

He said, The east side is more my speed. More my kind of people.

I wanted to drill Ben with questions until he disappeared. I said, What are your kind of people?

Ben laughed. He looped his hair behind his ear. He said, Are you trying to get at something?

I didn’t like the way he laughed as if he knew more than I did about a question I had been the one to ask. I was just making conversation. I could have been reading the paper and making him drink his coffee in silence. I said, Where do your parents live now? Maybe his parents were dead.

Ben said, Arizona, of all places. You ever been there?

I said, No.

Ben said, I get it, if you like the sun. But it’s super dull there. Nothing’s happening.

Whatever he meant by that. Ben sat with his hands around his coffee cup as if he were as comfortable in our kitchen as he’d ever been in any room. Ben talked to me as easily as if I were, what, his friend, and he was too old to talk to me like that. He could have been in the kitchen in the past with my brother, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about it. If Ben thought our freezer would be stocked with Hot Pockets, he’d be wrong. Everything he said had a wink to it, and he didn’t care whether I understood or not. I said, What’s that necklace you’re wearing?

Ben’s fingers went to it. His body got still. He said, Oh, a friend gave it to me. And then he was quiet.

The toilet flushed upstairs.

Ben said, Oh hey Julie, don’t think I forgot about that R.E.M. tape.

I said, It doesn’t matter. Then, because the way he’d touched the bead made me think that he missed my brother, I said, Thanks. He turned the newspaper around to get a look at it.