Maurey kicked me with her foot. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“But the game’s not over.”
She swung her legs off the couch and bent down on a sock search. “I’m hungry.”
Wrong thing to say about the time Annabel brought in our third tray of homemade junk food. “I made coconut kisses.”
Petey yippied and made a run for the whatever.
Maurey said, “I want a malt. Get up, Sam.”
“Navy might pull it out.” Texas was up 28-6.
“Sam, this book makes me think of other things.” She sent me a heavy-duty meaningful move-it stare and I caught on.
“Yeah, a malt’s just what I need.”
The sky was the same color as the ground and low clouds hid the Tetons so it made GroVont seem like a town in an envelope. I was getting tired of off-white, maybe because winter in Grotina only lasts two and a half or three months and my body knew time should be up.
“Don’t you ever miss dirt?” I asked Maurey as we walked up Alpine.
“Is Lydia home?” Whenever I say something a woman doesn’t understand or want to hear, she doesn’t hear it. It’s not like she ignores me, more like migratory deafness.
“She’s down with a killer hangover. Her and Delores went into Jackson last night and she didn’t come home till dawn. She’d lost her shoes somewhere and about had frostbite.”
“So she’s at your house.”
“Dead asleep when I left. Hank called a couple times. I think she didn’t feel like a wholesome New Year’s Eve so they had a spiff.”
“Maybe she’ll sleep through it.”
I knew what “it” was so I shut up. Ft. Worth drove by in his new Ford pickup truck and waved at us. Then Soapley came by. Otis rode inside now, with his two good front feet up on the dash. I’d taken meat scraps to him several times lately and played with him some in the snow. Whenever Otis saw me he would wag his short tail and jump around, which made me feel bad because he didn’t know what I’d done. Soapley said it was okay. Otis didn’t remember he’d ever had more than three legs.
“Dogs only know how they feel right now,” Soapley had said. “They don’t know nothing about before or after.”
Soapley gave us the Wyoming road wave of four fingers with the thumb under the steering wheel.
“Is the leg still on your desk?” Maurey asked.
“I went to Kimball’s for Lydia’s cigarettes Friday and it was gone when I came home. I guess either her or Hank got rid of it.”
“It looked kind of gross next to the typewriter.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t seen all that much difference between a leg on a desk and a moose head on the wall. “It was starting to smell some.”
Dot drove by on her way to the White Deck. She pulled over and rolled down her window to ask if we wanted a ride. Dot had put on five more pounds since I met her. It was strange that I’d been in GroVont long enough to notice changes. I didn’t really like the idea.
“We’d rather walk, it’s a nice day,” Maurey said, which was a lie. It wasn’t a nice day, it was drab, and I’d rather have ridden.
“Chuckette Morris is having a party next Saturday night,” Maurey said after Dot moved on down the road. “You’re coming to it.”
Maurey had on this dark blue parka thing that made her hair look nice, as if her face was in a frame. It had giant caves for pockets and looked warm. Her parents had given it to her for Christmas.
I asked, “Why?”
Maurey glanced at me and smiled. “Chuckette thinks you have a cute nose. Weird, huh?”
“Chuckette told you this?”
“She asked me if you and I liked each other.”
“What’d you say?”
“I told her that was silly. Don’t look at me that way. She meant ‘like,’ as in the right way, as in boys and girls.”
“You like me but in the wrong way?”
“I like you as a friend.”
I thought that was the point. “As a friend is the right way to like somebody.”
Maurey put both hands in her parka pockets. “There’s two ways I can like, Sam—as a friend or as a boyfriend.”
“And the two ways never overlap?”
She laughed. “Of course not. I couldn’t talk like this to a boy I liked.”
What could I say? I was strung out on the girl I was sleeping with but we weren’t allowed to connect except on a deeper friendship level. I’d of had to be a grown-up not to be confused.
Maurey went on as if she didn’t know she was addling me. “She’s inviting four or five couples. Her mom is making fondue, that’s where you dip food into melted stuff.”
“I know what fondue is. Who will you be there with?”
She didn’t say anything for a few steps so I knew the answer wouldn’t be neat.
“Dothan Talbot.”
I stopped and she went on a ways, then turned back. “Don’t go all freaky on me, it’s just a date.”
“But he’s our mortal enemy.”
“He’s your mortal enemy.”
“Dothan cheered when John Kennedy died. He rubbed our faces in the snow.”
“He told me he’s sorry. He was jealous when he saw you sitting with me. He’s liked me since the fifth grade.”
“Do you like him, as in boys and girls the right way.”
She came toward me. “That’s not the point. Dothan’s sixteen and can drive a car. We could double with you and Chuckette sometime. You need to get out and meet people.”
“Me and Chuckette.”
“She’s got a lot of personality.”
In my room we undressed quietly so as to not wake Lydia.
“You remember when Delores was saying she gets wet just from talking about doing it?” Maurey asked.
“Kim Schmidt tore this T-shirt in gym a couple of weeks ago. Look at that.”
“I think I know what she means. I was reading
“Perfectly good shirt. I look like a hobo.”
“Then the author skipped like they all do, but now I know what happened next. And I got kind of excited.”
“You’re wearing a bra.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it, Sam. If you make a big deal I’m going home.”
“Do you need a bra?”
“A young lady of sexual experience must be aware of certain things.”
“If you’re doing it, you should wear a bra whether you need one or not?”
“I need one. Or I will soon. Look at that.”
“Where?”
“Don’t be a doof, Sam.”
“Let’s stand side by side next to the mirror and see if your chest sticks out more than mine.”
We tried and Maurey was right. She did have breasts. The one on the right was a tad bigger than the one on the left. We moved to the bed.
