Spoonbenders

He nods, unsure where to look. She’s wearing a tight, spangly tank top with spaghetti straps and a black pleather miniskirt that barely reaches the tops of her thighs. He has a future memory of her underwear—a lime-green thong. He really needs to stop thinking of that lime-green thong.

She glances down at his lap. “Oh, you poor man,” she says. “I think you need the full treatment.”

He reaches into his pocket again and she says, “Not here. You have five hundred dollars?”

“And I have a room here,” he says. “Upstairs.” A clarification that’s probably unnecessary. He doubts they have guest rooms in the basement.

“Then what are we waiting for?” She downs the rest of her drink, then nods at the bill resting on the bar. “A twenty will cover my tab, hon.”

He takes out the wad of cash, thumbs through it. Finally he finds a twenty-dollar bill.

Cerise chuckles, leans in close. “You probably don’t want to flash your whole roll like that. This ain’t East St. Louis, but still.”

“You’re right,” he says. She doesn’t know that he’s going to give it all to her, in forty-five minutes.

They take the elevator up. She asks for the room number, and he tells her: “Three twenty-one.” She leads him there without glancing at the navigation signs, and as they get closer, he’s thinking of the room number like a countdown: three…two…

He lets her inside. She glances at the open closet, peeks into the open bathroom, and says, “You travel light.”

He doesn’t understand this comment at first, then thinks, Right. No luggage.

She puts her string purse on the dresser next to the TV. When she turns to him, she’s surprised. “Honey, you’re shaking.” Then she understands. He can see it in her face. She steps to him, and touches his cheek. “You have nothing to worry about,” she says softly.

But it’s what she says next that makes him fall in love with her. The words ring like chimes backward and forward through all the Buddys, across the years: sitting beside a cold window on a winter afternoon; arguing with his brother in high summer; lying on the grass on the last day of the world.

She smiles and says, “It’s all going to work out.”

Buddy crouches beside his bed. From underneath he pulls out a metal lockbox closed with a padlock. He dials the combination and slips off the lock. Inside are several white envelopes bound with a red rubber band looped two times around. Once, there were so many envelopes the rubber band could barely go around them. (Though he’d started out with a different rubber band. Then it got old and snapped, and he had to find one that was exactly the same color and thickness.)

All of the envelopes are addressed to Teddy, except one blue one that has Matty’s name on it. That one Buddy isn’t supposed to deliver until later. He takes the topmost Teddy envelope, and makes sure it has today’s date. Only one more letter to his father is left. His mission for Mom is almost over. He carefully puts the lock back in place and hides the box again.

With the envelope hidden in his shirt, he sneaks downstairs, trying to stay out of sight of the kitchen door, where Frankie is still yammering away at Teddy. Buddy slips out the front door.

As he remembers, a van is parked just down the street. A silver one, that will return here on September 4.

He puts the envelope in the mailbox and closes it with a silent sigh. One more secret duty nearing its completion.

Speaking of duty, he thinks, and turns toward the van. The man behind the wheel, a gray-haired black man, watches him approach from behind sunglasses. He probably thinks the glasses are sufficient disguise. After all, they have only met once before, at Maureen’s funeral, when Buddy was six years old. Buddy raises a friendly hand, as if greeting a stranger, and then walks up to the driver’s-side window. He makes a twirling motion, and the driver rolls down the window. There’s a passenger in a rear seat of the van, but Buddy doesn’t see his face. He won’t, until September 4.

The driver says, “Yes?”

Buddy does have an exact, clear memory of this moment, so it’s a relief to not have to worry about what to say. “Have you seen a teenage boy walk by here?”

The driver does not quite glance behind him, at the man in the backseat. Then he shakes his head.

Buddy says, “I sent my nephew, Matty, to the gas station for milk, and he should be home by now. It’s only four blocks from here, and I was getting nervous.”

The driver says, “We haven’t seen him.”

“Okay,” Buddy says. “Thanks anyway.” He turns and walks back toward the house. He’s feeling proud of himself, because not only did he deliver the letter, but he got through the conversation with the van driver perfectly, with all the words in the right order.

Behind him, the van starts up. It makes a three-point turn, and drives away.

“It’s all going to work out,” the World’s Most Powerful Psychic says to himself. He just has to keep doing his job—until it’s no longer his job.

11 Matty