or kale. Then Ellen had done the dishes with Valerie and he had sat in the living room with Ralph and Ronnie and they had read the Cape Cod Times and he had read his book—he was trying to read a lot for his English, to ease himself into the swing of things when really he was just depressed, waiting for school to begin, waiting for his new life to begin. He was reading The Source, wondering what relics might possibly be found in the apparently thin ground beneath them, and then it was time for coffee and television in the den where they watched their favorite series, M*A*S*H, which was helping him to learn. It had a lot of sarcasm in it, every episode featured several sarcastic exchanges, and he was amazed by how the family looked at it so normally, as if there was nothing obvious about it, and after it was over, Ronnie had said, “I’m going out for a drive.” He’d turned to Jens and punched him lightly on the shoulder and said, “You want to come?” and Jens had stopped his face from souring at the thought of another too dark and too fast ride to one of Ronnie’s friends’ houses, where they’d sit in the mildewed basement and listen to Donna Summer and Boney M. and have one watery beer or at most two beers each and he’d have to nod his head to the music and pretend he liked it. “No, thank you,” he’d said, “but thank you.” They all laughed at him at that, and Ronnie said, “Crazy Dane,” and batted him on the shoulder, and shook his keys in his hand like dice, and said, “See you.” The remaining tufts of his dirty-blond hair had fluttered as he hurried from the house. In the den, Valerie had rolled her eyes and shook her head, and he couldn’t tell whether it was at him for not going or at Ronnie for, well, being Ronnie.
“Now what are you thinking about?” Valerie asked.
“Last night,” he said.
“I was going to tell you about Ronnie and me as little kids, but I don’t want to talk about the past.” Suddenly she rose and brushed herself off. “We should have a drink.”
He went with her to the cabinet in the living room where the hard stuff was kept. She got two little glasses and handed them to him, then took out a dark bottle and looked at it and returned it to the cabinet and then took out another one and inspected it.
“This one, I think,” she said, holding it up to him. “I don’t think you’ve tried this one yet.”
“Okay,” he said, though the thought of anything strong and fiery going down his throat and into his empty stomach nearly set him on the floor again.
“I think maybe we’re going too slowly. I think maybe we should be drinking faster,” she muttered almost to herself. “Where did we leave our beers?”
“On the kitchen floor. I’ll get them.”
“No—”
But he was past her and entering the kitchen, where he promptly kicked over both cans.
“That’s four.” She clapped her hands as if he were a zoo animal who had performed this feat unwittingly for her entertainment, which seemed to him probably correct. “Soon we’ll be swimming in beer. Soon the whole house will be flooded with beer.”
“I am so sorry,” he said, blushing, looking for a paper towel. He wasn’t sure they had paper towels in this country. “Excuse me.”
She set the cans on the table and reached out and he handed over the shot glasses. “We’ll have a shot and then we’ll clean this and then we’ll clean upstairs. We have so much time.”
“I am such an idiot,” he said, his face hotter than ever.
“We’ve come to expect it.” She patted him in a motherly fashion on his shoulder, three quick taps, then poured the shots. She peered at him and raised her glass. “To Ronnie,” she said, her expression instantly contorting and then returning to itself.
“To Ronnie,” he said.
When he downed the shot, it was like a blowtorch in the face. The shock ran up his nose and down his throat and spine and burned his stomach like it harbored lighter fluid.
“Very good.” She set down the glass and started wiping up the beer.
He reached around her narrow shoulders and plucked up the cans and stepped over the puddle and jammed them into the garbage can under the sink.
“You see,” she said, showing him the freshly dried