operation. I was genuinely curious. But Eli began kicking under the table, wiping his hands together, and making a low keening sound. His face reddened.
“What’s the matter, Eli?” Mrs. Knox focused instantly on her son. She looked around his plate.
Eli didn’t answer, just kept making that sound and kicking his feet.
Jesse got out of his chair, walked into the kitchen, and came back with a wet paper towel. Quietly, he took each of Eli’s hands in his and wiped them, apparently removing squashed banana. Then, he felt around on the floor, and finding a spoon, he picked it up, wiped it on a napkin, and placed it back by Eli’s plate. Without any comment, he tossed the wet towel and returned to his chair. Eli continued fussing for several seconds, but then he stopped abruptly, picked up the spoon, and began eating again. With a mouth full of banana, he said, “Gonna see Bella. How now, brown cow?”
That made me smile.
Mrs. Knox asked, “What are you studying, Dobbs?”
“Computer science. I’m minoring in writing. I hope to get into computer game design.”
“Oh fascinating!” She looked impressed. “That sounds like fun.”
“From what I’ve heard, video game companies demand long hours, but I don’t mind that. As long as I can work on projects I’m passionate about.”
“Jesse’s gonna be a nurse,” Mr. Knox broke in. “That’s a good profession. There’ll always be jobs for a BSN. Anywhere in the world.”
Jesse glanced at me, looking a little embarrassed. I smiled. “Yeah, I’ve heard there’s a nursing shortage. I wish I had the guts for that, but I don’t think I could handle it.”
Mrs. Knox looked at Jesse fondly. She put down her fork and gave his hair a stroke. “Our Jesse has always been a good little helper.”
“Not so little now,” Mr. Knox grunted, and for the first time, I saw him smile.
Yeah. Jesse’s parents were kind of beautiful. Or they’d once been before life had given them a nice, hard kick in the gut.
After lunch, Jesse’s mom said she’d clean up if Jesse watched Eli, so the three of us went out to the barn with the family dog, who I’d learned was named Mack, at our heels. Bella, the brown cow, wasn’t in the barn, but she was out in the pasture. When Jesse called her, she lazily ambled toward the fence. Eli stood on the lower fence railing and held out a baby carrot. The cow walked up and took it with an alarmingly huge gray tongue. Eli clapped his hands and petted her head.
“Look, Dobbs!” Eli said. “She’s real.”
“She certainly is,” I agreed. “She has pretty eyes.”
Eli didn’t say anything.
“And shapely legs. For a cow.”
I glanced at Jesse who rolled his eyes but smiled.
“She’s the prettiest cow in the world,” Eli pronounced.
“Well, she needs a crown then, don’t you think?”
Eli looked at me like I was nuts. I glanced around. I spotted a holly bush by the barn and went over. I took out my handy-dandy pocketknife and cut some branches. I bent them to form a circle and wove the ends together to make it stay.
When I presented it to Eli, he grinned. “This isn’t a crown! A crown is gold.”
“Au contraire, little dude. A crown can be made of all sorts of things. This is a cow crown.”
Eli placed it on Bella’s head, looping it over one ear. Bella looked unimpressed. She tried to nose Eli’s hand, looking for more carrots. Finding none, she started walking along the fence, eating grass. The holly circle dangled.
Eli followed her along the fence line, chattering to her. Jesse and I stayed where we were and watched.
“Thanks for, you know, being nice to Eli.”
I gave him a don’t-be-weird look. “Despite what you might have heard, I reserve my venom for grown men.”
“Ah. That explains it. And here I thought you might have a kernel of decency.”
“Nope. Although, I can’t be mean to you today either. Not after you fed me sloppy joes and, uh, helped your mom at lunch.” My cheeks heated. That was such a lame thing to say even if I’d been thinking it. I tried to make up for the compliment. “You guys have a whole routine. You should take it on the road.”
He shrugged. “We’ve all learned how to get things done as efficiently as possible, I guess.”
And yet, you’re at Madison. “Bet she misses you when you’re gone.”
Jesse’s face tightened. “I got offered a good football scholarship to Madison, so it made sense. And my mom wanted