I wanted to go. I didn’t even want to top that damn can of grout. And I certain sure didn’t want to drive that go-devil of hers. I wanted just to sit in it on the shotgun side and watch her get in, see her skirt come up a little, see her pull it down over her knees or not, watch her hair shine.”
He trailed off and suddenly let off a sarcastic, choked laugh. That laugh of his sounded like a shotgun loaded with rock salt.
“Just call up Megan and say, ‘You know ’Phelia Todd, that woman you’re halfway to being so jealous of now you can’t see straight and can’t ever find a good word to say about her? Well, her and me is going to make this speed-run down to Bangor in that little champagne-colored go-devil Mercedes of hers, so don’t wait dinner.’
“Just call her up and say that. Oh yes. Oh ayuh.”
And he laughed again with his hands lying there on his legs just as natural as ever was and I seen something in his face that was almost hateful and after a minute he took his glass of mineral water from the railing there and got outside some of it.
“You didn’t go,” I said.
“Not then.”
He laughed, and this laugh was gentler.
“She must have seen something in my face, because it as like she found herself again. She stopped looking like a sorority girl and just looked like ’Phelia Todd again. She looked down at the notebook like she didn’t know what it was she had been holding and put it down by her side, almost behind her skirt.
“I says, ‘I’d like to do just that thing, missus, but I got to finish up here, and my wife has got a roast on for dinner.’
“She says, ‘I understand, Homer-I just got a little carried away. I do that a lot. All the time, Worth says.’ Then she kinda straightened up and says, ‘But the offer holds, any time you want to go. You can even throw your shoulder to the back end if we get stuck somewhere. Might save me five dollars.’ And she laughed.
“ ‘I’ll take you up on it, missus,’ I says, and she seen that I meant what I said and wasn’t just being polite.
“ ‘And before you just go believing that a hundred and sixteen miles to Bangor is out of the question, get out your own map and see how many miles it would be as the crow flies.’
“I finished the tiles and went home and ate leftovers—there wa‘n’t no roast, and I think ’Phelia Todd knew it-and after Megan was in bed, I got out my yardstick and a pen and my Mobil map of the state, and I did what she had told me ... because it had laid hold of my mind a bit, you see. I drew a straight line and did out the calculations accordin to the scale of miles. I was some surprised. Because if you went from Castle Rock up there to Bangor like one of those little Piper Cubs could fly on a clear day-if you didn’t have to mind lakes, or stretches of lumber company woods that was chained off, or bogs, or crossing rivers where there wasn’t no bridges, why, it would just be seventy-nine miles, give or take.”
I jumped a little.
“Measure it yourself, if you don’t believe me,” Homer said. “I never knew Maine was so small until I seen that.”
He had himself a drink and then looked around at me.
“There come a time the next spring when Megan was away in New Hampshire visiting with her brother. I had to go down to the Todds’ house to take off the storm doors and put on the screens, and her little Mercedes go-devil was there. She was down by herself.
“She come to the door and says: ‘Homer! Have you come to put on the screen doors?’
“And right off I says: ‘No, missus, I come to see if you want to give me a ride down to Bangor the short way.’
“Well, she looked at me with no expression on her face at all, and I thought she had forgotten all about it. I felt my face gettin red, the way it will when you feel you just pulled one hell of a boner. Then, just when I was getting ready to ‘pologize, her face busts into that grin again and she says, ‘You just stand right there while I get my keys.