give him gas if you do it like that.”
Travis says I need to rock him a little when I hold him, rearranging Jack in my arms. “Didn’t you take care of your brother when he was little?”
“Not really. Is it the teething thing? Should I put my finger in his mouth?”
Deena smiles and sighs, taking off her coat. “It was nice of you to offer,” she says. “Really. Just the idea of getting to go out was good.” She takes Jack from my arms, and right away he stops crying, the redness leaving his face. He gazes up at her with adoring eyes, sucking on the bottle that she holds at the correct angle, his tiny hands resting on her arms.
When Deena came to pick me up, she had been playing a regular rock station from Wichita, but when Travis starts the engine, he switches the radio over to country.
I point at the radio. “When did this start?”
He smiles, sheepish. “You ever hear that joke about what happens when you play a country song backwards?”
I shake my head. It is cold, even in the car, but he isn’t wearing a hat or gloves.
“The dog comes back, the wife stops cheating, and all the beer reappears in the fridge.”
“You guys had a dog?”
“You can’t take it literally.”
“And Deena’s not cheating either.”
“This is true.” Once we are on the highway, he asks me to hold the steering wheel while he lights a cigarette. I’m not a big fan of this maneuver, but I do it. I have to get close to him, my arms crossed over his, and I can smell his shaving lotion, alcohol and mint.
“You see my mom lately?” he asks.
“Yeah. Jackie O had to have surgery or something. She’s wearing this little doggie cast around one of her legs.”
He laughs, taking the wheel again. “I know. I’ve heard all about it. That dog will outlive us all.” He looks at me quickly, then back at the road in front of him. His face is changing, still handsome, but growing older maybe. He looks tired.
“Are you and Deena doing okay?”
He glances at me. “Why? What did she say?”
“Nothing. Really. I just wondered.”
He shrugs. “I guess. I mean, it’s okay. Jack’s a cutie, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
Ten seconds go by without either of us saying anything. I count them off in my head.
“How’s school?” he asks.
“Okay.”
He rolls his eyes. “You can talk about it, Evelyn, really. It’s fine.”
“Well, you know. It’s the same, more or less. I’ve got Duchesne for English.”
“AP English, right?”
I give a little nod, but say nothing.
“College-bound now, huh? Well good for you, Evelyn. Good for you.” When he pulls into the parking lot of Treeline Colonies, he shuts off the motor and turns toward me. I wait for a moment, looking at him, because I think maybe he wants to say something. But then I think I am imagining it. Maybe he is just waiting for me to get out.
“Bye,” I say finally, opening the door. “Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“No big deal. Thanks for trying, though.”
He waits there until I have unlocked the apartment door, the Datsun idling in the parking lot. When I walk in, I hear my mother laughing. Samuel is in his pajamas, sitting in his beanbag, and my mother sits on the floor beside him. They are watching Roseanne.
“Evelyn, honey, you’re already back? Sit down and watch this for a minute,” she says. “It’s really good. You’re just like Darlene, I swear. It’s like you’re on TV.”
I sit down on the couch and try to watch. The studio audience is laughing, and my mother is too, but I can’t concentrate. I don’t even hear what Roseanne says, or what Darlene says back. I have to read fifty pages of Crime and Punishment by tomorrow, and I think maybe this is what’s bothering me, buzzing inside my head so I can’t hear the television.
I brush my teeth and change into my pajamas. Two of the cats are asleep on my bed, and even when they see me standing there, yelling at them and clapping, they don’t move. I have to scrunch in on one side of my own bed.
Even when I am tucked under the covers, my book in front of me, a glass of water by my side, I can’t read. Sometimes you can feel it when someone is watching you, even if you are turned in the other direction. I don’t understand how this works. You shouldn’t really be able to feel