"All right," he meant to finish, and then he looked up from his hands, looked into her dark eyes again, and what he saw there made it impossible to finish for a moment.
There was a weary sadness in her eyes... or was it loneliness?
Maybe both. In any case, those were not the only things he saw in them. He also saw himself.
You're being silly, the eyes looking into his said. Maybe we both are. You're seventy and a widower, Ralph. I'm Sixty-eight and a widow -How long are We going to sit on Your porch in the evenings with Bill McGovern as the world's Oldest chaperone? Not too long, I hope, because neither of us is exactly fresh off the showroom lot.
"Ralph?" Lois asked, suddenly concerned. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," he said, looking down at his hands again. "Yes, sure.
"You had a look on your face like... well, I don't know."
Ralph wondered if maybe the combination of the heat and the walk up Up-Mile Hill had scrambled his brains a little. Because this was Lois, after all, whom McGovern always referred to (with a small, satiric lift of his left eyebrow) as "Our Lois." And okay, yes, she was still in good shape-trim legs, nice bust, and those remarkable eyes-and maybe he wouldn't mind taking her to bed, and maybe she wouldn't mind being taken. But what would there be after that?
If she happened to see a ticket-stub poking out of the book he was reading, would she pull it out, too curious about what movie he'd been to see to think about how she was losing his place?
Ralph thought not. Lois's eyes were remarkable, and he had found his own eyes wandering down the V of her blouse more than once as the three of them sat on the front porch, drinking iced tea in the cool of the evening, but he had an idea that your little head could get your big head in trouble even at seventy. Getting old was no excuse to get careless.
He got to his feet, aware of Lois looking at him and making an extra effort not to stoop. "Thanks for your concern," he said. "Want to walk an old feller up the street?"
"Thanks, but I'm going downtown. They've got some beautiful rose-colored yarn in at The Sewing Circle, and I'm thinking afghan.
Meanwhile, I'll just wait for the bus and gloat over my coupons."
Ralph grinned. "You do that." He glanced over at the kids on the scrub ballfield. As he watched, a boy with an extravagant mop of red hair broke from third, threw himself down in a headfirst slide... and fetched up against one of the catcher's shinguards with an audible thonk. Ralph winced, envisioning ambulances with flashing lights and scream laughing.
"Missed the tag, you hoser!" he shouted.
"The hell I did!" the catcher responded indignantly, but then he began to laugh, too.
"Ever wish You were that age again, Ralph?" Lois asked.
He thought it over, "Sometimes," he said.
"Sit with us awhile."
Too strenuous. Came on over tonight, "Mostly it just looks "I might just do that," she said, and Ralph started up Harris Avenue, feeling the weight of her remarkable eyes on him and trying hard to keep his back straight. He thought he managed fairly well, but it was hard work. He had never felt so tired in his life.
Hearing sirens, but the carrot-top bounced to his feet.
Part I LITTLE BALD DOCTORS CHAPTER 2
Ralph made the appointment to see Dr. Litchfield less than an hour after his conversation with Lois on the park bench; the receptionist with the cool, sexy voice told him she could fit him in next Tuesday morning at ten, if that was okay, and Ralph told her that was fine as paint. Then he hung up, went into the living room sat in the wing-chair that overlooked Harris Avenue, and thought about how Dr. Litchfield had initially treated his wife's brain tumor with Tylenol-3 and pamphlets explaining various relaxation techniques.
From there he moved on to the look he'd seen in Litchfield's eyes after the magnetic resonance imaging tests had confirmed the CAT scan's bad news... that look of guilt and unease.
Across the street, a bunch of kids who would soon be back in school came out of the Red Apple armed with candy bars and Slurpies.
As Ralph watched them mount their bikes and tear away into the bright eleven o'clock heat, he thought what he always did when the memory of Dr. Litchfield's