She stopped what she was doing, which was drying the cup by sailing it up and down so that the drops of water were flung out, and turned quickly to ask him: “What’d you do, burn yourself? Did you get some of it on you?”
His face had whitened a little, she thought. He shook his head, but he was too engrossed to look at her. He still had his hand to the pot, where he’d let it down. He was holding that envelope she’d addressed to her mother in the other, staring at it as though he were stunned. She saw at a glance what must have happened. The pot must have been squatting on it the first time, and the heat had made it adhere when he’d lifted it. He’d pried it off, and that was how he’d noticed whatever it was seemed to amaze him so.
She came back to the table, stood by it, and said: “What’s the matter?”
He looked up at her, still holding the envelope. His mouth was open; both before and after he’d spoken it stayed that way. He said, “Do you know someone there? Glen Falls, Iowa? Is that where you’re sending this?”
“Yes, why?” she said crisply. “That’s what it says on it, doesn’t it? That’s my mother I’m writing that to.” A little defiance crept into her attitude. “Why, what about it?”
He started to shake his head. He started to slowly rise to his feet as he did so, then changed his mind midway and sank down again. He kept looking at her for all he was worth. “I can’t get over it,” he gasped, and felt himself for a minute across the forehead. “That’s where I’m from! That’s my home town! I only came away a little over a year ago—” His voice went up a pitch in incredulity. “You mean you’re from there too? You mean the two of us — out of all the hundreds of little towns there are all over the country—?”
“I’m from there originally,” she assented warily. She left off the “too.” She sat down opposite him, with watchful deliberation. Suspicion was crackling like an electric current alive in her, generated at the first word he’d let out of his mouth. She was conditioned that way. She’d learned not to believe anybody, anytime, anywhere. That was the only way to keep from being taken in. What was this anyway? What was the angle? He’d got the name of the town from the envelope, it was there for anyone to see; so far, so good. Now what was he trying to build from that? What was the come-on? What was the frame leading to? A touch? A half-nelson on her affections, before she woke up and snapped out of it? One thing she gave it; it was a new gag, and she’d thought she knew them all.
Wait a minute, he was wide open. She’d get him. “So you’re from back in Glen Falls.” She stared at him searchingly. “What street did you live on back there?”
She timed him with her fingernails tapping the edge of the table. His answer beat them to the first tap. It spilled out before the starting-gun even. “Anderson Avenue, up near Pine Street. The second house down between Pine and Oak, right after the corner—” She’d watched his face closely. He hadn’t had to think at all; it came out spontaneously, like your own name is supposed to.
“Did you ever go to the Bijou movie-house, down on Courthouse Square, when you were there?”
This time there was a time-lag. “There wasn’t any Bijou when I was there,” he said blankly. “There were only two, the State and the Standard.”
“I know,” she murmured softly, looking down at her own hand. “I know there isn’t.”
Her hand was shaking a little, so she dropped it below the table. “What street is it where the iron foot-bridge crosses the railroad tracks — you know, to get from one side to the other of the ditch they run in?”
Only those who were from there, who’d lived there half their lives, could have answered that.
“Why, it doesn’t cross it at any street,” he answered simply. “It’s in an awkward place, midway between two streets, Maple and Simpson, and if you want to cross it you’ve got to go along a cat-walk till you get to it. People’ve been kicking for years, you know that yourself—”
Yes, she knew that herself. But the point was he did.
He said, “Gee, you ought to see your own face, it’s getting all white too. That’s how I felt before, myself.”
So it was true, and this freak number had come up.
She sat down, arms stiff against the chair-arms, and when she could speak again, she whispered: “Do you know where I lived? Do you want to know where I lived? On Emmet Road! You know where that is, don’t you? Why, that’s the next street over, after Anderson Avenue. It isn’t cut all the way through. Why, the backs of our two houses must have been facing one another, even if they weren’t directly opposite! Did you ever hear of such a thing?” Then she stopped and wondered, “How is it we never knew one another back there?”
“I came here a year ago,” he computed.
“And I came here five.”
“We didn’t move into the Anderson Avenue house until after my Dad died, and that’s a little over two years ago now. Before then we were on a farm we had out around Marbury—”
She nodded quickly, happy the enchantment hadn’t been shattered by cold cartography. “That’s what it was then. I’d already come away by the time you moved into town. But maybe right now, at this very minute, my folks already know your folks back there. Sort of backfence neighbors.”
“They must,” he said, “they must. I can see them now. Mom was always a great one for—” Then he stopped, and remarked with more immediate relevancy: “You haven’t told me what your name is yet. I’ve already given you mine.”
“Oh, haven’t I? It already seems like backing up a long way, doesn’t it? I’m Bricky Coleman. My real name’s Ruth, but everyone calls me Bricky, even the family. Gee, I hated it as a kid, but now — I sort of miss it. They started it—”
“I know, on account of your hair,” he finished it for her.
His arm crept out along the tabletop toward her, palm extended upward; a little hesitantly, as though ready to withdraw again if it were ignored. Hers started out from her side, equally hesitantly. The two met, clasped hands, shook, disengaged themselves again. They smiled at one another embarrassedly across the table, the little act completed.
“Hello,” he murmured diffidently.
“Hello,” she acknowledged in a small voice.
Then the brief glazing of formality evaporated again, and they were both fused once more by common interest in the bond they’d found between them.
“I think they must have met by now — back there — don’t you?” he suggested.
“Wait a minute — Williams, that’s a common name — but have you got a brother with a lot of freckles?”
“Yeah, my younger brother, Johnny. He’s only a kid. He’s eighteen.”
“I bet he’s the very one been going around with my niece, Millie. She’s only sixteen or seventeen herself. She’s been writing me off and on about some new heart-throb of hers, a boy named Williams, everything perfect about him but the freckles and she’s hoping they’ll wear off.”
“Hockey?”
“On the Jefferson High team!” She squealed the answer.
“That’s Johnny. That’s him all right.”
They could only shake their heads together, rapt with amazement.
“It’s a small world!”
“It sure is!”
Now she was the one doing the looking at him, boy how she was looking at him, studying him, learning him by heart, seeing him for the first time. Just a boy, a dime-a-dozen boy, plain as calico, nothing fancy about him. Just a boy from next door. The boy next door. There was one in every small-town girl’s life. And this was he. Here was hers now. The one who should have been hers; who would have been, if she’d stayed, waited a little longer.