him had been assigned to her, and that evidently involved sitting somewhere in a civilized fashion. “This house is too damn big now. Is it okay if we stay in the kitchen?”
“Of course,” he said, marveling at how steady he sounded. She was two years older and an inch or two taller, and usually when he was with her he felt about twelve. Twelve or thirteen. Now she leaned against the dry sink and he leaned against the counter and they sipped their beers just once. He looked at the floor, he couldn’t look at her anymore, it was too hard, it hurt to look at her, like it was wrong to look at her, like really she needed to be however she could be and not have to be looked at. A single American ant traveled along over the American kitchen floor, weighted by a speck of a bread crumb.
“You didn’t even really know him, did you? You don’t really know any of us.”
“Yes,” he answered, but it came out a whisper, an intake of breath. That was the way the Danes said yes, breathing in at the same time as the word came out. It was meant as a form of encouragement, used mostly to signal to the one who was talking to keep going.
She looked at him queerly. “What the hell was that?”
“My … my breathing slipped.”
A laugh escaped her mouth and she immediately covered it with a hand. Her eyes had a certain brightness even though they were brown, and her brown curly shoulder-length hair fell wherever it wanted. Her face was pale and thin and narrow, and her chin came to a delicate point. He hadn’t seen her laugh by mistake before.
“What are you looking at?” she asked without accusation.
He felt his face redden. Was this really happening, or would he wake up soon? That was the way it usually worked. He didn’t masturbate—he supposed his parents had somehow kept him from it before he was truly conscious of the possibility; they’d somehow conditioned him—and so he had wet dreams, lots of them, and lately, unfortunately, they involved Valerie and he always woke right after it was too late to stop whatever was happening to him.
“Sorry,” he said. He looked at her with true apology and she smiled back at him without any threat or meaning whatsoever, as if maybe she didn’t even know what he was sorry for.
“You have trouble sleeping, don’t you?” she observed. “Almost every night I hear you get up and go to the bathroom.” How did these people appear to know everything, when he knew nothing? Had he run the water so long that she could tell he was cleaning himself up? She seemed to be mocking him in that way she sometimes couldn’t help but have, the way that said, I have all the experience and you will never have any. His face felt so hot he could no longer feel it.
“You don’t look so good,” she said, and he couldn’t tell whether she was amused or concerned or both. How could anyone be both? How could Ronnie be dead and they be standing here drinking beer on such an eerie Sunday morning? Suddenly, she reached across and felt his forehead, rested her hand there. “You’re hot,” she said, and took her hand away matter-of-factly. “God, everything’s so crazy I don’t know how it can all be real.” She wiped one eye and then the other. He glanced around and down at the floor. “Maybe we could sit on the floor? I don’t know how to explain it but I don’t want to sit in the breakfast nook.” Her hand waved at the arrangement.
“Nook,” he said.
“Yes, breakfast nook. That’s what it’s called.” She sat on the floor cross-legged. Gingerly, as if he thought he might injure himself, he sat down across from her.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said, “but for the first time I think I’m glad we have a small kitchen.” She sipped her beer. “I feel like we’re little kids.”
He nodded and drank seriously from his beer, or he nodded seriously and drank from his beer. It was only his second and really watery, but he was seventeen and he weighed fifty-five kilos and he hadn’t eaten since yesterday evening’s dinner, when they had squeezed into the “nook” and Ellen had brought her chair out to sit at the head and they had the usual ground beef and ketchup and something that was green like broccoli