She had gotten dressed up—a long fitted skirt and an open- necked white blouse and when she hugged Isaac he could smell perfume on her neck. She did not look like someone from the Valley. Isaac noticed she was wearing makeup—unlike her. Then he saw how she hugged Poe, the light touch at Poe’s waist. He felt a surge of confusion and wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“What’s our plan,” she said.
“I think a drink wouldn’t kill us,” said Poe. He was standing at his full height now, grinning self- consciously, blushing, he couldn’t take his eyes off Lee. Nothing good is going to come of this, Isaac thought. He regretted not asking Harris to take them home.
“We really have to go,” he said quietly.
“We can get one drink,” Poe insisted. “We can all just visit a minute.”
“What’s wrong?” said Lee.
“Your brother’s just tired.”
Poe nodded to Lee and started ahead of them down the street, then stopped to smoke a cigarette while they talked.
“Well,” she said to Isaac.
“I’m fine,” he said. He wouldn’t look at her.
“You wanna talk?”
He didn’t answer.
“Buddy,” she said.
“Since when do you call me ‘buddy’?”
After standing there a minute Lee seemed to make a decision. She turned and began walking quickly to catch up to Poe. Isaac followed slowly after them.
7. Poe
Lee was walking ahead and he caught up and stayed close to her, he didn’t care if Isaac followed them or not, he accidentally brushed against her and she let him and, as for Isaac, he’d always been like this, he was afraid of everything. Small wonder how they’d treated him in school, he was Ralph Nader Junior, an old fucking man. Harris could have locked them up but he hadn’t, he’d taken care of things, old Harris had definitely taken care of it. Everyone knew Harris didn’t give two shits about dead bums he’d burned all those old houses down hadn’t he, he’d burned down an entire block of houses where the bums were living, Serbiantown it was called and Harris he had burned the entire thing, it had gone all night, eight- alarmer. He did not give two shits about a dead bum in a factory. Anyone could tell you that much.
Lee had gotten all fixed up to meet him. Eight months now she hadn’t called, it had never been anything but fun and games to her and now she was married. He had heard it from Isaac, she had not even bothered to tell him. Only—here she was looking her very best, she didn’t wear much makeup but she was wearing it all tonight, she had taken care to look her best for him. Turning heads walking down the street like this, they know she’s in a different league, they would never recognize her. A giddy feeling overwhelmed him, he wanted to grab her up and hold her, hold some part of her in his mouth. Even being this close to her, if he could keep this feeling it would be enough.
They passed Howie’s, there was no way they were going in there, Christ knew the things his friends would say in front of Lee. He decided on Frank’s Tavern instead. A slightly older crowd, usually, though not by too much. Inside it was dark and humid and people were dancing. Empty drink glasses everywhere. Isaac sulking back behind them. Go on, Poe thought. Lee brushed his hand it was not accidental, he took her hand and squeezed it, in the crowd no one could see him, he looked at her she was blushing, she had that crooked smile, she only smiled that way when she couldn’t help it. He would ignore Isaac, he decided, for the entire night. For his entire life. Inside the bar it was the aftermath of a wedding, a young couple, he recognized a bunch of people, spotted James Byrne across the room and turned quickly the other way. Jimmy Byrne who used to bring his girlfriend to the games only she started coming by herself, she used to give Poe rides home, they would park in the bushes. Did Jimmy know? Poe wasn’t sure. Jimmy was one of those types who got his permit to carry a handgun as soon as he turned twenty- one, he used to pass the permit around at parties so everyone could look at it.
Everyone was dressed up, all the girls in church clothes and their boyfriends in new shirts. Getting a thrill rubbing on each other. Someone left their baby in the stroller, it was sitting there by itself, watching things.
“It’s like old times,” Lee said, but Poe wasn’t sure if she meant good or bad. They decided she would have a better chance of getting a drink and he watched her make her way to the bar, they were all jostling, she crossed her arms she was very small, a few dark hairs coming out of her ponytail, she looked, he didn’t know, she looked like she was from someplace else, from Spain, she looked like a girl in a bar in Spain, a girl from a picture. He almost went in after her but he made himself stand there. He leaned against the wall, hands in pockets, took them out, crossed his arms, finally he put his hands behind him. She brushed her hair behind her ear and turned back and smiled at him. He smiled back at her and they looked at each other for a long time, across the room. He felt as if he could breathe and breathe and still never get enough air. His neck was tingling and he didn’t want the feeling to go away, and then there was a commotion, the bride and groom came downstairs from some secret place, the bride’s dress no longer on quite right and a cheer went up and the bride looked down and the groom raised his hand in the air like some kind of general, big deal Poe thought we all know you fucked her. But when he looked at Lee, he got a sick feeling—she had just been a bride herself. He was sick, literally sick for a second, he could feel things rushing up from his stomach and he took a swallow of someone’s beer, someone’s half- finished beer just sitting there, to push it back down. Look at you he thought you are not thinking right you should not even be here with her. She’d gotten sidetracked in the people dancing and she caught his eye and waved for him to come out and dance but he wasn’t sure now, he didn’t know what to do he just stood there. She was only doing it to be nice.
Isaac was standing in the corner with his arms still crossed. Poe went over and clapped him on the shoulder. “Relax,” Poe told him, but even to him his voice sounded strained and uneven and Isaac wouldn’t look at him. “You want a beer?” Isaac still wouldn’t look at him. He turned back to Lee. She was dancing. She danced with a fat older man in his baggy church suit, sweat pouring down his face, it was Frankie Norton’s dad, Frankie who was still away at Lehigh. Then she danced with a freckled kid who looked about fifteen and then a guy in Marine Corps dress blues who was taking it a little easier. Lee and the marine danced for a while, it seemed like a long time, he twirled her around slowly. Poe hated this song it was Faith Hill, he hated new country. The marine tried to put his white hat on Lee, being playful. Then Frankie Norton’s dad came back and handed her two beers and Lee stopped dancing and pushed her way back to Poe. He could see the marine sizing him up from across the room and then the marine turned away, Poe saw he had a scar across the back of his head where the hair didn’t grow, a surgery scar. They had done something inside his head. After graduation a lot of people had signed up and three kids from the Valley had been killed in the last month alone. One of them was a girl he’d fooled around with, she was a little weird, everyone thought she was a dyke. He’d fooled around with her a few times but he hadn’t defended her. She was driving a truck and an IED got her, it was what got all of them over there. All she’d done was join the Reserve. He hoped the Arabs that did it were dead, hoped they’d been gutshot by some hucklebuck sniper who’d grown up with a deer rifle in his hand, hoped those Arabs thought they were safe and meanwhile that sniper was judging his windage and boom—they were holding in their guts. Christ, he thought, what happened, a second ago you were happy.
Lee handed his beer over and said: “They wouldn’t let me pay for drinks.”
“You got that on someone’s SSI,” Isaac told her. “Or their welfare.”
Lee got a look on her face. Poe wanted to throw Isaac through the window. She opened her mouth to say something but the marine had come over next to her. He didn’t look more than twenty or twenty- one, short brown hair that looked as soft as a boy’s, acne on his neck and temples.
He said: “You ain’t gonna sit out long, are you.”
“I’m finished dancing,” Lee told him.
“Come on.”
“I came to see my friends here.”
He looked over Poe. Then he took her hand up lightly.
