“How come?”
“How come? If you don’t know, who does?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s your fault, you blockhead. You’re making me spacey.”
Then came a period of relative quiet, interrupted by the ring of Wyatt’s cell phone. He reached down to the floor, groped the phone out of the pocket of his jeans, checked the number on the screen: his mom. “Have to take this,” he said.
“Why?” said Greer.
He held his finger over his lips, pressed the answer button. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Wyatt. How are you doing?”
“Great. Uh, fine. I’m all right.”
“Well, good. You sound happy.”
“Yeah, you know.”
Greer got a mischievous look on her face and reached for him under the covers. Wyatt left the bed, stood by the window.
“Where are you?” his mom said.
“In Silver City, Mom-you know that.”
“I meant now-are you at ho-at Dub’s aunt’s?”
“On my way.”
“In the car?”
“No.” Wyatt didn’t like lying to his mom, or to anyone, really. “At a friend’s.”
“So you’re making friends?”
“Uh-huh.” Wyatt felt Greer’s eyes on his back. He turned. She was sitting up in bed, making no attempt to hold up the sheets. Her finger made a quick pattern in the air: QA? He almost laughed.
“That’s great, Wyatt. And school?”
“Fine, Mom, everything’s fine. How’s Cammy?”
“She misses you.”
“I miss her, too.” Greer’s face changed; he saw a new expression on it, new to him, at least-eyes narrowed, two vertical grooves on her forehead, just above the nose. She came close to looking ugly, surely impossible for such a beautiful girl. Had he mentioned Cammy to her? No. Wyatt held his hand down, palm to the floor, at about Cammy’s height level. Greer’s face returned to normal. “And how are you doing, Mom?”
“No complaints, except for…” She went silent for a moment or two, maybe choked up. Then she cleared her throat and went on. “Except for you being away, and all. How are you doing for money, by the way?”
“Fine.”
“You sure? I could send you a money order.”
“Don’t need it, Mom. I can always get a job.”
“Schoolwork comes first.”
“I know.”
“But, uh, speaking of jobs-there may be some news about that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Too early to say, so maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up at all.”
“Come on, Mom.”
His mother took a deep breath; such a close-up sound-she might have been right there in the room. Wyatt moved nearer to the window. Outside, it was raining even harder, water spewing out of the drainpipes on the houses across the street. “Promise to keep it under your hat,” his mom said, “but Rusty may have a job lined up.”
“Yeah?” That had to be good. “What kind of job?”
“A good-paying job. Not like at the foundry, and no benefits, but good-paying for times likes these. Rusty’ll be-if he gets it-driving a truck for Secondary Metals Services.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re out of Fort Collins, but the route’s all over the place.”
Wyatt didn’t get it. Fort Collins was three or four hundred miles from East Canton. “You’re-we’re moving to Colorado?”
“Oh, no, certainly not now. I’d have a hard time getting a better job than what I’ve got now, and this is the worst possible time to sell the house. For now-this is if it all comes through-Rusty will be back home every second weekend, maybe a bit more often after they see him settling in. So, uh…”
Silence. The implication was pretty obvious: if Rusty got the job, he’d be pretty much moving out for the next while, meaning there’d be no reason for Wyatt not to move right back in. “Sounds good, Mom. When will you know?”
“Any day. I’ll call soon as I know.”
Another silence.
“I’ll let you go.”
“Okay, Mom. Bye.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too. Say hi to Cammy.”
“You can say hi yourself. She’s right here.”
There was a little rustling sound, followed by Cammy. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Wyatt?”
“Yeah?”
“Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me. Who does it sound like?”
“It’s raining.”
“Here, too.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Not sure. I-”
His mom came on. “Okay, Wyatt, take care.”
“Bye.”
Wyatt clicked off, turned to Greer, still sitting up. She didn’t have a single tattoo on her body. That surprised him, surprised him in a good way, although he couldn’t have explained why. There was just the eyebrow ring; maybe the absence of tattoos made the eyebrow ring’s statement more special, or powerful, or something: he couldn’t take it any further, and as for what the statement was, he didn’t know that, either.
“When will your mom know what?” Greer said. “If you don’t mind me being nosy.”
“Rusty’s trying to line up a job.”
She thought about that, nodded. “Have you got any pictures of Cammy or your mom?”
He sat beside her on the bed, ran through some pictures on the phone.
“Who’s that?”
“Dub.”
“And that?”
“Just this girl I used to know.”
“She’s pretty. What’s her name?”
“Didn’t really know her that well. She was in my English class.”
“You like the apple-cheeked blond type? That’s not me.”
“I like your type. Here’s Cammy.”
“She’s adorable.”
“And here’s my mom.”
Wyatt’s mom hated having her picture taken. This one showed her all dressed for work, makeup on, having a last sip of coffee by the stove and trying to wave Wyatt off at the same time. Greer gave the photo a careful look. “She has beautiful eyes. They’re just like yours.”
