His eyes roam all over the bus station. “I don’t know.”
I nod and push my glasses up my sweating face. “Can I write you sometimes? Just every so often?”
“If you want.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
My bus is going to leave in a minute, and so this is how it happens then. It isn’t anybody’s fault either. It just happens like this. His brother will need help with all that land, I know. And he wants to talk to them, that’s what he said on the way here. He wants to talk to them about his older brother and why he left. He said he’s worried they’ll be angry with him, that they’ll blame him, and I told him they won’t. They’ll see what I see. Someone loved him just enough, at just the right time.
I look up at him and the affection he can’t blatantly show me in the middle of the bus station is there. He’s holding me close, saying how much he’ll miss me, how much he wishes he could make promises, but there’s only hope.
It’s enough.
“I need to go now,” I say.
The toe of his shoe bumps against mine, rubs, and I press the toe of my shoe into his. His eyes flicker with a longing that I know he can see in me too. This is the best we can do, though, the best we can manage. I don’t think anyone would look twice if I hugged him, but I won’t just hug him and if we touch any more than this my bus will leave, the place will close down, and we’ll still be two fellas embracing each other like life rafts in the open sea.
“Well. Goodbye,” I say.
“Have a safe trip.”
And then I turn to go. I get on the bus. I take my seat. A cul-de-sac behind me, circling back to another beginning.
I gave him all I could. And maybe, just maybe, it was exactly enough.
One month later.
I get the counter wiped off, pushing crumbs into my palm.
There are a couple drips of milkshake left down at the end and then I’ll be done. Except there are still two couples hitting the same song on the jukebox that they’ve been playing all night. If I must hear the Del-Vikings for the eleventh time, I at least want to be halfway out the door.
“All right, you kids, let’s move on along now,” Mr. Meriwether says, as he comes around from the back.
The foursome rolls their eyes and one of the fellas says it’s only nine o’clock. Don’t we close at ten?
Mr. Meriwether opens the cash register and says the store stays open till ten. Soda fountain closes up at nine. I’ve noticed he just makes up things as he goes along. It’s just because he can. The soda fountain closes when he’s too tired to deal with teenagers anymore, or it stays open when there’s a mad rush like after a baseball game two nights ago. It was little league, and they spun around on the stools until they got dizzy and one kid vomited up a cream soda and yours truly had to mop it up.
“You wanna go see a picture?” one of the guys suggests, his buzz cut accentuating the sharp angles of his face.
“Sure!” the girls say in unison, but the other fella, who’s wearing a tie pulled loose by his date, makes a face.
“Let’s just go over to the park.” His eyes get wide and his brows waggle.
“Gee, I gotta be home by nine-thirty,” says one of the girls with a pout.
“Since when?” Waggle Brows asks.
Then there’s like this argument, and Mr. Meriwether goes over to the jukebox and emphatically pulls the plug. They get the hint and bicker all the way to the door and Mr. Meriwether follows, locking it with his big set of keys. He has keys for everything. A set of keys for each register. A set of keys for his safe. A set of keys for his office. A set of keys for his car. A set of keys to open and lock the front door. Another set to open and lock the back door. Another set to open a metal box he keeps on his desk. Another set for each door at his house. And there’s still a few more on the ring I’m not even sure about. He keeps them all in his pockets and it’s a wonder his pants don’t fall down.
I sweep behind the counter with a push broom, hoping he doesn’t notice I’m just dispersing the crumbs and other bits and not using the dustpan. But he goes back over to the register and pulls out two twenty-dollar bills. He hands them to me.
“What’s this for?” I stop sweeping.
“An advance for the weekend. I don’t need you Sunday. Billy can be here. Why don’t you take your auntie shopping?”
I look down at the money. “She doesn’t really like to shop.”
He glances at me. “A dame that doesn’t like to shop? My word, the world’s gone topsy turvy these days.” He counts out the rest of the cash. “Well, take that and buy yourself something nice then.”
I’ll just give it to Aunt Amy. So far, I’ve given her $150 for my “rent” but she doesn’t like for me to call it that. Nonetheless, she takes the cash and says she’ll put it in her rainy-day box, no matter how much I insist she use it for her bills or her groceries. I’ve figured out a way around it, though. She can’t object when I buy the groceries, and the other night I bought spaghetti. I tried to make it like my mother did, but it was terrible. Aunt Amy ate it anyway.
