Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler Page 0,23

might be, I don’t know, running away from home or something. He wouldn’t tell his mom his whereabouts, and I felt like he was putting me smack in the middle of things. I said he’d have to get in touch with her or leave, one or the other. So he left.”

“Where’d he go?”

“I have no idea,” Micah said. “But anyhow! Enough about him. The reason I called is, Ada’s asked us to supper tomorrow. The whole family’s getting together to meet this girl Joey’s engaged to. Can you come?”

“Oh…I guess not, Micah,” Cass said.

“You guess not?”

She was silent for a moment. “As a matter of fact,” she said finally, “I’m wondering if we should stop seeing each other.”

Something hit him in the concave place just below his rib cage.

He said, “What? Why?”

“Why do you suppose?” she said. “There I was, on the verge of losing my apartment. I call and tell you I’m about to be homeless. But did you offer me a place to stay?”

“Stay here?”

“In fact,” Cass said steadily, “what did you do? Quick-quick invite the nearest stranger into your spare room.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Micah said.

“Okay, maybe it was subconscious. Maybe you didn’t stop to ask yourself why you did it. But face it, Micah: you made very sure to arrange things so it would be awkward for me to move in with you.”

“That never even crossed my mind! I didn’t even know you were willing to move in! Is that what this is about? You all at once think we ought to change the rules?”

“No, Micah,” she said. “I know that you are you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying that the you that you are might not be the right you for me.”

Micah was silent.

“You can see why I would be wondering, right?” she said.

“Well,” he said. “I guess there’s no point arguing, if that’s the way you feel.”

Another silence.

“Well…okay. So, goodbye, then,” she said.

She hung up.

Micah slipped his phone into his pocket and then sat there awhile, doing nothing.

* * *

—

While he was hauling the recycling to the alley that evening, he started getting mad. This was unfair! No, he had not engineered Brink’s stay, either consciously or unconsciously. And anyhow, so what if the spare room was occupied? Presumably she’d have slept in Micah’s room anyhow, in Micah’s double bed, the way she always did when she stayed over.

Besides: if she’d wanted to move in with him, why hadn’t she just said so? Why was she so quick to break up with him at the first excuse? It was almost as if there were something else she hadn’t talked about. She hadn’t given him a chance to defend himself.

He hated it when women expected you to read their minds.

He scowled down into 3A’s recycling bin, which was overflowing with those transparent plastic clamshell containers that the DPW forbade.

How he and Cass had met:

He’d been on a tech call, one December morning a few years back. A charter school off Harford Road, Linchpin Elementary, was having trouble with the Wi-Fi connection in two of its classrooms, and one of those classrooms was Cass’s.

Micah did notice, when she answered his knock, that she was attractive—nearly as tall as he was, with a friendly, open face—but the main thing on his mind right then was installing the booster he’d brought. So straightaway he started traveling around the perimeter of the room, stopping from time to time to consult the signal on his phone app. Meanwhile, Cass—Ms. Slade—stood by her desk discussing something with two little boys. Or they were discussing something. She was just listening, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Well,” Micah heard her say finally, “I can understand your feelings. However, I don’t believe you’re considering both sides of this.” Then she gave a single clap of her hands, causing the boys to look startled. “Class,” she said, raising her voice, “may I have