“I’m not worried,” she said. “I think I can take care of one little girl well enough on my own.”
“Yeah, well,” said Knute, smiling, “I suppose you’ve managed before, more or less.”
“What do you mean you suppose? What do you mean more or less?” Dory said, grabbing the tea towel from the fridge door and swatting Knute with it. “More or less,” she growled. “My foot, more or less. Ingrate! Get out of here!” She snapped Knute with the towel. “Hey,” she said, “where are you off to?”
“Oh,” said Knute, grinning. “A little paperwork at the office.”
“Really? I’m impressed.”
“Nah,” Knute said, “I’m going to check out my flowers. Hosea and I planted millions of them today, all along Main Street. And they’re all red and white. We planted them so they’d look like Canadian flags. It was his idea.”
Dory began to laugh. “Really?” she said again.
“That’s right,” Knute said, lowering her voice and tugging at the front of her sweatshirt, “that’s right. We can all be proud of Algren, Canada’s smallest town. Well, Dory, I, uh, I, uh, I, uh, really better get going. You know how it is, places to go, people to see.”
“Yes yes, Mayor Funk,” said Dory. “Onward and upward. Don’t let me stand in the way of progress. Carpe diem.”
“Okey, dokey,” said Knute. “And give my regards to Tom. And, uh, thanks for the coffee, Dory, you always did make a fine cup of coffee.”
Dory shook her head. “Oh you,” she said. “Go already.” She was looking at the wall where the mirror used to be, before Combine Jo broke it. Hosea Funk, she sighed. Lord love him, what a funny man.
Knute walked out of the house and down the driveway. The night was warm and very dark. She felt like crying. She hadn’t done a good job of helping Dory with Tom, and it was already June. She hadn’t helped him get better or lightened Dory’s load. He’d taken to his bed and Knute was concerned that Dory might be thinking of joining him. How much longer could she renovate one medium-sized house? Knute cut behind the feed mill and around by the bank and the post office and walked towards the flowers. She could smell them, they were beautiful, and they shone under the only streetlight. Something small and black jumped out from the middle of the flower bed and disappeared. Then another followed, and another. She bent over to see what they were and was almost hit in the face with another one. The Algren cockroach! The bastards were eating her flowers! She stood up and frowned at the flower bed and then picked up a few pebbles from the road and threw them into the flowers. About twenty of the cockroaches flew up and took off in different directions. She picked up another handful of gravel and threw it in the flowers and was about to do it again when she heard a voice say “Hey!” and she nearly fell over from fright.
“You’re gonna kill them if you do that.” She turned around and saw Max coming toward her, stepping into the white glow of the streetlight.
“Good,” she said. “Damn it, I just planted these things this afternoon.”
“And now you want to kill them?” asked Max.
“I don’t want to kill the flowers, I want to kill the cockroaches. Look at them. They’re eating the flowers.”
“They’re not eating the flowers, they’re copulating in the fresh dirt you used for planting. They don’t eat flowers. The Algren cockroach is conceived in dirt. They love dirt.”
She picked up another handful of gravel and threw it at the flowers.
“And stop doing that, you’ll just hurt the flowers.”
Knute sighed.
“So this is your work, eh?” said Max.
“Part of it,” said Knute.
“Do you enjoy it?” he said. He leaned against the streetlight and folded his arms.
She looked at him and smiled. “Max,” she said, “were you with a lot of other women in Europe?”
He cleared his throat and took out a cigarette and lit it. He had a drag and exhaled dramatically and said, “I stopped counting.” Knute threw a handful of gravel at him and he laughed.
“What do you mean other women, Knute?” he said. “Other than who?” They grinned at each other. Two little shapes moved towards them in the dark, making clicking noises on the pavement.
“Hey,” said Knute, as the shapes came closer, “it’s Bill Quinn.”
“And a friend,” said Max. He moved his foot out of the way so the dogs could pass.
“I’m supposed to get rid of him,” said Knute. “He gave Mrs. Cherniski a heart attack.”
“You’re doing a great job,” said Max.
“Yeah, well, you would know.” Knute looked at her flowers and up at the sky. It would be nice if it rained. She knew Max was looking at her watching the sky. She knew he was leaning against the streetlight smoking a cigarette with nothing to do and nowhere to do it. She picked up another handful of gravel to throw at the cockroaches in her flower bed, and Max said softly, “Is there a place we can go?”
“Um …” she said quietly, “there’s …”
“You know what I mean,” he said, looking at his big boots, blowing smoke at them, and waiting for Knute to rescue him.
She still had Hosea’s office key in her back pocket. She could feel the outline of it through her jeans. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know.” Max looked up and opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. He put his hands up in front of him, palms outward, as if to ward off an assault. He smiled.
“I can ask,” he whispered. Knute reached out and took his hand. He closed his eyes for a second or two and put his arms around her. They stood that way for a while in the dark, on the deserted main street of their hometown. He smelled like hay and cigarette smoke and the back of his neck was as soft as Summer Feelin’s. He pulled his T-shirt out of his jeans and put Knute’s hands on his bare back.
She moved his hand to her back pocket and he took out the key and said, “Where’s the door for this thing?”
“Right here,” said Knute. “We’re leaning against it. It’s my office.” She smiled.
“Your office,” Max breathed. “You have an office?”
“It’s Hosea’s office.” Max had already opened the door and was pulling Knute up the stairs.
They made love on the top of Hosea’s shiny desk, and on the floor, and when they were finished they lay there naked, smoking cigarettes and talking. “I love you,” said Max. And she said, “You don’t really know me anymore.” And he said, “Well, there’s that.” And they laughed and acted casual about everything and tried not to make any promises or plans. They could never go back to where they’d been. And nothing seemed to be waiting for them down the road. So they were free. It was a sad kind of freedom but at least they knew it. They didn’t say it but they both knew Summer Feelin’ was the best thing either of them would ever have. They got dressed and stood beside each other, leaning on the windowsill and looking out at the purple sky. “Eggplant,” said Knute.
And Max said, “Just what I was gonna say.” Every few minutes he stuck out his lower lip and blew the hair away from his eyes.
“Remember that time you cut my hair outside that bar?” he said. “Remember that grey sweater dress you had on?” They took turns kissing each other gently and touching each other and then they went back to leaning on the windowsill and looking out. Neither of them wanted to go home.
“So, let’s see, what’s new … hmmmm,” said Hosea. He had picked Lorna up from the bus depot and now they were sitting at his kitchen table drinking herbal tea and trying to get to a spot in their conversation where they could feel natural with each other. “Well,” Hosea cleared his throat, “Max is back in town.”