Erik was always moving. He picked things up, looked at them closely but distractedly, put them down again. He fidgeted in elaborate ways, doing improvised prestidigitation with a can opener or spatula, balancing a saucer on one finger, flipping the cap of the soy sauce bottle into the air and vanishing it with a one-handed swipe as fast as a cat’s. It seemed to me his nervous intensity was mounting.
One night we were sitting at my kitchen counter, empty dinner dishes still in front of us, and he explained his state to me.
“I hope the elder sister recognizes the self-control the younger brother has shown,” he said as preamble. “As a sign of his maturity and determination.”
“In what way?”
“Annie, I spent seven years in the pen. I got out and drove here and started planting hops. I’m sitting here having dinner with my sister.”
“And …?”
“‘And?’” He laughed and shook his head at my stupidity. “I want to get laid! Jesus H. Christ!” He stood and looked at the ceiling and spread his arms like an opera tenor belting out his passion. “I want to get laid!” he bellowed to the gods. “I want a woman!”
When I stopped laughing I told him I couldn’t help him there. “Unless … maybe you and Cat? I mean she showed a certain—”
“Cat? Cat? Get real! Cat’s been my other big sister since I was ten years old. Hey, I can get a little kinky, but not that kinky!”
“I can’t think of a local source for available women your age. They don’t carry them down at the feed store.”
“I’m hip. So what are my options? Where are the good bars within a fifty-mile radius?”
“You’re asking me? I haven’t been in a bar in years.”
At that, he frowned. “Speaking of which. A subject in its own right.”
“What?”
“What about you? I never saw you as the nun type. You’ve been up here how long now? Two years? And you don’t want some romance?”
“I came off a really bad one, Erik. I’ve been giving it some time.” This conversation was getting uncomfortable for me—I didn’t need a reminder of the void in my life. “That said, yes, I want some romance. But it’s different with me now. I’m older. I want different things from a relationship.”
He kept a suspicious frown on me. “Not sex?”
“I didn’t say that. Just not only. For you it’s simpler.”
“What about Will?”
“Huh?”
“He’s got a little something going for you. Haven’t you seen the way he looks at you when we’re all together? Very attentive? Responsive?”
“I haven’t noticed,” I lied. “Has he said something to you?”
“No,” he admitted. Then he went on, picking up momentum: “But he’s good-looking, seems like a decent guy, and he’s close to hand—”
“We were talking about your love life, not mine.”
“He told me his divorce has come through.”
“I heard. Let’s get back to bars within a fifty-mile radius.”
“How about Burlington? College town, right? They say college girls go wild for ex-cons.”
We laughed. Who knew? Maybe they did. I couldn’t help him with this, but I was beginning to suspect I’d be seeing less of him.
We both were yawning by the time we finished the dishes that night. I figured Erik would head over to his side, but instead he sat at the counter again with a small, thoughtful frown.
“What we were talking about earlier. Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“It’s something Pop once said. A man-to-man comment, not the father-son wise advice thing? Just an observation. About women.”
“Okay …”
“This was before I left home, I was what, seventeen. We were going on some errand, nice day, spring. Yeah, that’s right, I was on my way outta there, and he wanted to buy me a watch, like a goodbye present? We stopped to get ice cream from a woman who had a cart there; then we sat on a bench and ate our cones. Pop watched the ice cream woman as she served other people. She was late twenties, early thirties, an old lady by my standards at the time, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her, either. She seemed to glow. I mean, she was sort of pretty, but when I did that kind of assessment a guy does, you know, up and down, the inventory, like hair, breasts, hips, legs, checking off the … her …”
“Virtues.” I was enjoying his difficulty explaining this.
“Yeah, virtues. She was pretty, but you couldn’t say what ‘part’ of her was pretty. The checklist didn’t apply to this woman. And anyway, she was wearing a big apron so you couldn’t even get, you know, a good sense of … But she was sexy and alluring as hell. Totally alive in her moment. What’s the word? Vibrant, that’s it. It was in the way she smiled when she talked to her customers—she meant it! The way she rang up a purchase and handed back the change. You wouldn’t think serving ice cream is sexy, or like ballet, but every move she made was
