saying when she wasn’t around to hear it. He would surely recognize the power of his own feelings for Jacy. But although the man was dead, Mickey could also picture the two of them perched on stools at the Acropolis, his father scarfing down forbidden cheesecake. So what’s all this about? he would ask. Not another fucking guitar, I hope.
A girl, Mickey would reply.
Okay, sure, his father would agree. That’s fine, but there’s this other thing.
What other thing?
This war.
It’s stupid, Dad.
They’re all stupid. That’s not the point.
What is?
The point is, if you don’t go, somebody goes in your place, capisce? Look around right here, this diner. Half a dozen guys your age in here. A couple right over there in that booth. Which one should go in your place? Point him out to me, because I can’t tell.
The point is nobody should go.
Yeah, but somebody will. Some poor bastard is going.
And you think it should be me.
No. In fact, I’d go in your place, if they had any fucking use for a middle-aged pipefitter with a bum ticker.
And he would’ve, too. Mickey was sure of it. More than anything else, he wished that his father was alive for Jacy to meet. Because then she’d have understood what she was asking him to do.
I’m sorry, Pop. I’ll try to make it up to you.
Except it’s not between me and you. It’s between you and you.
“So,” Mickey said, “do you want to spend tonight in Bar Harbor?”
“God, no,” Jacy told him. “I hate the fucking place.”
* * *
—
THEY SPENT THAT NIGHT in a run-down motel on a hill overlooking the Atlantic, not far from the Canadian border. Jacy, still in her Audrey Hepburn disguise, waited in the car while Mickey went inside to register, just as she had the night before. “They couldn’t care less,” he assured her, “it’s 1971.” Free spirit that she was, it seemed out of character for her to worry about what strangers might think. Was it possible he’d misjudged her? He’d always assumed she and Vance were having sex, but he didn’t know it for a fact. Was it possible Jacy was secretly chaste? There were plenty of girls like that in West Haven—especially the Italian ones from the neighborhood, girls who talked a good game and let on that there’d be sex galore, maybe even tomorrow, except tomorrow never came. It was hard to imagine that Jacy was one of these, but there was no telling. Nor, he reminded himself, did it necessarily follow that her decision not to marry Vance meant that she’d leap right into bed with him.
She certainly hadn’t the night before. Of course, they’d both been exhausted after a long day on the road, and their room had two single beds. But Mickey suspected it wouldn’t have mattered if there’d been a king. She’d gone into the bathroom, where he’d heard the shower running, but when she emerged she was wearing a long nightshirt and she’d immediately climbed into one of the twins, saying, “It’s all yours.” Meaning what? The bathroom? The shower? That he needed a shower? He took one, just in case. But when he came out, wearing a towel around his waist, the room was dark except for the reading lamp next to the empty bed, a signal that even he could interpret. That she didn’t want to have sex was disappointing, though this troubled him less than the fact that she seemed not to want any affection at all. No cuddle. No kiss goodnight. Was she afraid she’d get his motor running and then there’d be no way to turn it off? Or was she having second thoughts, great big ones? Maybe changing her mind about getting married had opened the floodgates of self-doubt and she wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Beyond exhausted himself, he’d fallen asleep before reaching any conclusions. Tonight, though, he had to wonder if it’d be more of the same. And the night after, too.
The room was cheap enough, but when Mickey checked in and pulled out his wallet to pay he was a few dollars short. So far she’d let him pay for everything—lodging, food, gas. He knew he was getting low on funds and meant to stop at some bank to see if he could cash a check, but it had slipped his mind. Back at the car, humiliated, he said, “Sorry, but I need to borrow five bucks.”
“Oh, right,” she said, but when he opened the trunk so she