Today's market. Gordon glanced at his watch. He hadn't eaten yet. He wasn't used to being hungry. He couldn't seem to follow what she was saying. Every day for twenty-five years he had eaten at the exact same times. His stomach was growling. He pressed his knees together, clearing his throat and coughing to cover the ga.s.sy rumbling. Dennis had said not to be nervous, that she was very nice, and she was-easy to talk to, no pressure. Just sit back and let her do her thing, Dennis had said. That's all he wanted, he'd said, just to have Gordon see what was out there. He kept glancing at her. She was beautiful, long blond wavy hair. Everything about her was delicate: her turned-up nose, her perfect white teeth, her slender fingers on the wheel, her pink nails glistening in the light. She stopped the car, and he realized he hadn't felt carsick once.

"Here we are. Building sixteen. Dennis said to show you everything. Both ends of the spectrum," she said on their way inside.

"Which is how I do it anyway. At this point in the process you're being educated." In the closeness of the elevator, she smelled of flowers. Tiny white flowers. Her head didn't reach his shoulder.

She unlocked the door. Her voice echoing through the empty unit made her seem smaller. The kitchen was not only big enough for a table, she was saying, it even had room in the corner for a good-size wine rack. Or an office niche.

He wasn't sure what that meant.

"Do you have a computer?" she asked.

"No. No, I don't. But I learned. They had cla.s.ses. I mean, I know how to use one," he added, relieved when she didn't ask where. She didn't seem the least bit nervous. If she did know who he was, it didn't seem to bother her.

The long living room was as big as the entire first floor in his house. He kept wanting to tell her that so she'd laugh, but he hated to interrupt. Her voice was so soft, he had to bend and tilt his head to hear her. She had a wonderful laugh, surprisingly strong and rich for such a small woman. He had made her laugh before, trying to fit into her little sports car. To demonstrate the s.p.a.ciousness of the walk-in closet, she extended both arms and turned without touching the metal-gridded shelving. "Almost big enough to sleep in. Well, maybe for some people. Not for you," she added, laughing.

Actually it was, he realized. His cell had been about that size.

On the way back, she told him about an even nicer complex she would show him next time. It had a clubhouse with an Olympic-size pool he'd love.

"I don't swim!" He laughed and wasn't sure why, other than this lightness he was feeling.

"You don't know how?" She pulled in front of his house.

"No, I know how! I just . . . never do it much."

The purple Navigator cruised down the street with its brilliant hubcaps and booming ba.s.s. It stopped in the middle of the road. Gordon said good-bye and quickly got out of the car. He didn't want her to see anything as ugly as the incident last week. Feaster got out and lowered his sungla.s.ses with a sly smile as she drove by. "Hey, big man, that's nice. That is really nice," Feaster called as he swaggered over. "Hey, I just found out. You used to be from around here. But a long time ago, right?"

Gordon nodded.

Feaster lowered his gla.s.ses again. "You know Jacinto? JumJum, he's at the Fort."

"No."

"Yeah, well, JumJum and me, we were close. Like that." Feaster clasped his hands together. "Till he screwed up, and now it's just me." He smiled. "You need anything, big man, you let me know. I'm always around." Just then a car screeched around the corner, music blaring and honking its horn. Feaster waved for them to slow down. "Busy place, huh? But cool. Everything's cool. I make sure of that."

"My side's tight." Dennis tossed the rope over the roof of his Land Rover. Gordon slipped the end around his side of the ladder, then knotted it quickly. Mrs. Jukas watched from her window. "Happy, you old b.i.t.c.h?" Dennis said through a smile, and waved. When they were done, Gordon offered his brother a beer. He'd bought a six-pack of Harrington's for him. Dennis came in for a minute but said to save the beer for another time. He had to get home. Father Hensile was going to be there. It was Lisa's night to host PreCana cla.s.s, and it wouldn't do to have hubby dragging in late and half-crocked.

"Hey, the place looks good." Dennis sat on the couch. He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched out his legs. He asked about the condo. It was very nice, Gordon said.

"Well, that's good." Dennis grinned. "So you're interested."

"No."

"Jilly said you liked it, but you thought it was too expensive. Like I told her, I'm willing to help. You know that, right?"

"No."

"Well, I am."

"No, I mean that's not the point. This is fine. I'm fine here."

Dennis looked at him. "All right. I'm not supposed to say anything yet, but Lisa's going to talk to her father about a job for you at the brewery. You'd make three, no, four times what you're making at the Market."

"No!" Gordon said as the phone began to ring.

"That's probably Jilly," Dennis said, getting up. "I told her I was stopping here."

Gordon listened as Dennis answered the phone. He didn't want to look at any more condos, but he did want to see Jilly Cross again.

"No! You're not interrupting anything," Dennis a.s.sured her. "Oh, that's great. I bet he'd like that. Here, you ask him. He's right here." He handed Gordon the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?" Gordon's smile faded. It wasn't Jilly, it was Delores apologizing; she didn't want to bother him with Dennis there. She sounded nervous. If he wanted, he could call her back after his brother left. No, that's all right, he said, not wanting the burden of owing her a call. It somehow seemed safer talking to her with Dennis here. His brother looked on, smiling as Delores invited him to dinner Friday night.

"Oh. Well. I don't know. I don't know if I can." Sweat beaded his furrowed brow.

Dennis shook his head in disbelief. If the problem was work, Delores was saying, he could come after. Later would be better for her anyway. She was doing inventory at the store. Mr. Smick wanted everything counted right down to the last paper clip. Her voice trembled. So later would be good.

"Well, I'm not sure." He turned, shading his eyes from Dennis's frantic gestures.

"What're you doing?" Dennis paced around him and whispered. "Just say yes. Go! You want to be stuck here all the time?"

"All right," he said, wincing with her whoop of delight. That was great. Wonderful! That was just so wonderful, she was still saying when he hung up.

"Yeah! Way to go, Gordo!" Dennis let loose a flurry of jabs at his arm the way he used to. "You gotta loosen up! You gotta get out there! You gotta let life happen, my man!"

Astonished, he looked at his brother. The last thing on earth he'd ever do would be to let life happen.

"And the same when Jilly calls." Dennis shadowboxed around him, feinting jabs at his face, which he disliked as much now as when they were kids. "Trust her. She's a great gal. And she likes you, so let her show you what's out there in the world. What you been missing all this time."

CHAPTER 6.

After a long night's shivering refusal to turn on the furnace, Gordon hurried to work through the early-morning chill. With his first bills had come the shock of how expensive everything was. As he scuffed through the litter of faded scratch tickets in front of the drugstore, he considered buying one, but five dollars was too much to spend for a few seconds of hope. He had asked for more hours, but Neil had said he couldn't afford it.

Ahead at the corner, his young neighbor Jada waited to cross. Remembering the incident in front of her house last week and not wanting to embarra.s.s her, he pretended not to recognize her.

"a.s.sholes! You're supposed to stop," she muttered as cars whizzed by. "That's it, I'm going." She stepped off the curb.

"Look out!" he said. "They're still coming."

"What're you, some kind of crossing guard?" she said over her shoulder.

"There's too many cars. It's not safe yet." Traffic still unnerved him.

"Yeah, right." She was trembling. An empty bookbag hung from her bony shoulder. She wasn't wearing a sweater or jacket, just a thin T-shirt. Goose b.u.mps covered her arms. "So can I go now?" she asked with the last car.

He looked both ways. "Seems pretty clear now."

They crossed and she walked fast to keep pace. He glanced over, then looked again, startled by the incongruity, the strangeness, the hybrid confusion that was her exotic freckled face. Her tight curly hair was a pale rust color. Her green tilted eyes seemed almost lidless. She had a fine, hooked nose above a mouth so wide and full that it seemed to take up the lower half of her small face. Her skin was of indiscernible color, not white, brown, or yellow. Even her boyish, lanky stride seemed contradictory, wrong on so female a body, tall and skinny as it was.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing." He slowed down, wanting her to get ahead.

"How come you keep looking at me, then?"

"I was just wondering if you were on your way to school," he said quickly, uneasily.

"Well, yeah!" As proof she lifted the bookbag.

"Which one do you go to?" He slowed even more, and so did she.

"The Craig."

"Oh. Craig Junior High. I went there." And hated it, he remembered.

"It's middle school."

"What's the difference?"

"Don't know." She shuddered in the sudden biting wind.

"What grade're you in?"

"Sixth. Same as last year."

"How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

There were boys walking behind them. He had run out of questions. The Market was still two blocks away, with the Craig a block on farther. When they came to the Shoe Fix Shop, a small white dog darted out from the alley and ran snapping at their heels.

"You f.u.c.king mange! Get the f.u.c.k outta here!" The girl's kick sent the dog yelping into the street.

"Hey, what'd you do that for?" called one of the boys. They all wore jackets or sweatshirts under their sagging backpacks. "Yeah, Jada, you freak, what're you doin' kicking a little dog!" another yelled.

Without a word or break in gait, she hoisted her middle finger up over her head and kept walking.

"Freak! You freak!" they all jeered. "You crazy, f.u.c.king freak!"

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth curled in a snarl, yet she seemed amused by their taunts, if not proud, as they ran by screaming.

"Was that their dog?" Gordon asked.

"No!" she sneered. "It's Cootie's. Plus, he's not even a real dog."

"Looked real to me."

"Yeah, well, he lives in a box, all winter, him and Cootie-like, under the bridge! They even eat the same food."

"That's not the dog's fault, though, is it?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe Cootie'd have a whole better life if he wasn't stuck with such a friggin' loser dog."

Her logic made him laugh. "He could always give him away."

"Or kill him," she added.

He didn't know what to say.

"But the thing is, he can't. They're, like, stuck together. Like, like they got no choice, you know?" she said as they kept walking. "f.u.c.king pathetic, huh?"

"Who's Cootie?"

"The crazy one. He's always smoking. He wears this, like, ski-hat thing. Even in the summer he does. And he stinks."

"Oh, I've seen him around." Gordon stopped when they came to the Market. Cootie had been in the store the other day, trying to buy cigarettes with food stamps, but June made him leave. When he returned later with a bag of empty cans and bottles, she would redeem only a few, saying the rest were brands they didn't carry. While she sorted through the bag, Cootie slipped four packs of Camels into his pocket. June called the police, who told the old man to stay out of the Market. If he didn't, they would arrest him. Later that day someone dropped part of a cinder block from the loading dock onto the roof of June's old car. She called the police again. They said they couldn't do anything unless she could prove Cootie had done it.

"Well, anyway." Gordon stood by the door. "I've got to go work now."

"My friend works here. Thurman Dominguez. He hates it, but his grandmother, she said if he quits, that's it, he's out. And n.o.body else wants him."

"That's too bad. He's so young." Gordon wasn't surprised. The boy smoldered with anger.

"Not that young. Sixteen, I think. 'Least that's what he says. His mother moved to New York just to get away from him. Nice mother, huh?"

"I better go in." He started to open the door.

"That old b.i.t.c.h still work here?"

"Which one?"

"The one with the things." She poked two fingers into her nostrils. "The tubes."

"Yes, June. She's still here."

"f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h. She, like, kicked me out for life." Jada shaded her eyes to peer through the gla.s.s. "I don't see her."

"She's probably out back. Well, I better get inside and get started."