It’s because he’s smooth as silk. Attractive. He’s the epitome of cool and don’t-give-a-damn as he sits there and eats. He winks at the waitress back, and I understand the game he’s playing. He glances over to me, brushing ketchup from his lip, as if he’s making sure, and I get it. A fella like me can be overlooked. But him? No.
“You good, pal?” he says.
I blink. Not realizing I’d been staring. “Sure.” I take a bite of a french fry.
“You need to get back?”
I shake my head, although I don’t really know if that’s the truth. I didn’t tell Aunt Amy I was going anywhere. Or that I wouldn’t be back for dinner. I stare down at my plate and feel a pinprick of guilt.
He lights up a cigarette, and I see the waitress has moved onto another guy down the counter in a suit. He’s as handsome as Asher, only he’s a square and a half. I wink at the waitress as she passes by me again, but she doesn’t see it.
Asher takes a puff, exhales. “You want to go for a ride or something?”
I look over at the square. “Ride to where?”
“Does it matter?”
I turn to Asher. There’s a grin forming on his lips.
I feel myself grinning back. “I guess not.”
I hold onto his hips lightly as we ride down a side street, unsure of how close I’m allowed to be now. He doesn’t seem to mind it. That waitress could be right up against him, her breasts pressed to his back, and no one would think twice. It would look as classic as a silent film, natural as a long stretch from sitting all day, and she was pretty. Her hands were small, and she was light on her feet. Asher could take her dancing, dip her at the end of the song, and people would clap. She could kiss him, and it wouldn’t matter if anyone saw. I want to hate her. I want us to be friends.
Asher slows and parks by an abandoned building. It looks like it used to be a store. It’s small and squat with red shingles. There’s a rusty Coca-Cola sign on the front and torn drapes in the two front windows that makes it look like it has droopy eyes. One window has a hole in it.
Asher approaches it like he’s going to shake its hand, flicking a cigarette onto the concrete. He turns to me. “You want to see inside?”
I hesitate. “Are we allowed to?”
“Probably not.”
I follow along then as he pushes open the door. It tilts a little, scraping the floor. There isn’t much to see. A pile of bricks in one corner. Collapsed shelves with cobwebs and dirt. A faded sign with a finger pointing, the print illegible. Bottle caps scattered here and there, a wooden carving of a squirrel with a nail stuck through one eye, and a busted countertop with the register still there, the bottom drawer open like a lopsided jaw.
But Asher smiles at it all, looking at everything as if it’s all brand new. He reaches down and picks up one of the bottle caps, tossing it in one hand as he looks at me. “What do you think?”
I nudge a foot against a broken shelf. “About what?”
“I just think places like this are kind of neat.” He smiles at me. “Neato.”
I smile back.
“It’s like,” he braces his arms against a door frame, “people used to come in here, you know? Maybe every day. Maybe for years. And they’d get their shit and go over here.” He goes behind the register, mimes taking some cash. “Pay for it. Walk out that door and be on their way. Like the most mundane thing in the world, something everybody does, so ordinary and routine. And then one day, somebody shut the place up, and none of those people came back.” He pauses. “I’d ride past here and I’d think: why don’t they just tear it down? It’s just sitting here, doing nothing, taking up space. Forgotten.” He pauses again and looks out of the window. “And then I stopped one day, looked around, came inside. It made me start to wonder things, you know?”
I lean against the wall as I listen to him, the stale air making sweat bead under my shirt. “What kinds of things?”
He walks from around the counter, his gaze still fixed out of the window. “Just stuff. Where all those people went. If they’re still around.” He crosses his arms. “How something can just be left behind and forgotten. Something that was alive in some way. To a few people. At least for a little while.”
I look around the place and try to picture it. Kids coming by for candy. Ladies coming by for cold cream. Shiny new toys in the window. Glossy ads on the walls. The shopkeeper in his white apron behind the counter, sweeping up after closing with a wooden broom.
It’s sad, in a way. I look over at him again, lost in thought. I go stand beside him by the window to see if I can see what he does, but I don’t see anything except an empty lot, overgrown and underused.
I don’t want to make any sudden moves, though. It isn’t just that he’s smooth and cool, I see. I don’t know if I’ll ever measure up. I don’t know why he’d spend his time with a fool like me. But this side of him is a surprise. I feel like I’m spying, only this time in plain view.
And he’s inviting me to watch.
He turns his head just then, a look on his face as if he’s just remembered I’m here.
One corner of his lips lifts. “Real silly, huh?”
