I went last, she said.
I don’t think so.
Yes, I did.
I thought I went last.
No, it was me.
He took up the dice and tossed them out on the board, then counted the moves and advanced his man seven places.
There, she said. You owe me five hundred dollars.
Let me see it.
She showed him the card with the details printed on the back, showing the figures in dollars if someone landed on the property.
All right, he said. He removed the rubber band from his bundle of pink and green and yellow money and counted the bills out on the table and handed them to her. When did she start smoking? he said. I didn’t know she smoked.
Who?
Your mom.
She just started. She stinks up the house with them.
You ought to get some of her cigarettes sometime.
What for?
So we could smoke out here.
I don’t want to. She looked across at him and then down at the board and gathered up the dice and rolled and went forward nine squares.
Count again, he said.
It’s right.
You just missed me.
I know. I’m going to buy it. How much is it?
He looked among the cards and found the right one. Four hundred dollars, he said.
She counted out the money and he put it in the bank. Go ahead, she said.
He rolled. He moved his man around the corner and took out two hundred dollars from the bank.
You want to buy it?
I don’t have enough money.
You want to borrow some from the bank? You could mortgage.
I don’t like to mortgage.
What are you going to do then? Make up your mind.
I’m thinking about it. He looked across at her. Isn’t your dad ever coming back?
I don’t know. Maybe. But I might go up there.
Alaska?
Why not?
I’d like to go to Alaska, he said.
It’s cold, she said. But it’s different up there.
What do you mean?
It is. It’s not like down here. My dad says you have to know what you’re doing up there. You’ll freeze if you don’t. And they have Kodiak bears up there.
Are you going to roll or not?
She rolled and counted out her moves.
You landed on me this time.
I know that. How much?
Two hundred dollars.
Is that all? That’s easy. She tossed the bills across to him. They floated out onto the board like yellow leaves and he took them up.
It gets dark all winter up there, he said. It hardly ever gets light up there in the wintertime.
Not all winter, it doesn’t.
Most of it, he said. For about four months.
I don’t care, she said. I might go anyway. It’s your turn.
IN THE AFTERNOONS THEY WENT TO THE SHED AFTER school and sat and talked and played board games and contests of cards, and they lit the candles and wrapped up in blankets. And late one afternoon at the end of November they came back into the house in the cold early dark, and her mother was sitting with a man in the kitchen. They were drinking beer from green bottles and smoking cigarettes out of the same pack. Mary Wells had put on lipstick for the first time in weeks and half of the cigarettes in the ashtray were stained from her red mouth. She heard them come in at the front door. Come out here, Dena, she called. I want you to meet someone.
They came into the room and Mary Wells said: This is Bob Jeter. This is a friend of mine I want you to meet.
Bob Jeter had a thin face and a dark mustache and dark goatee. His blond hair was much lighter than his beard and she could see his pink scalp shining through his hair under the kitchen light.
Your mother didn’t tell me you were such a beautiful young lady, he said.
She looked at him.
Aren’t you going to say hello? her mother said.
Hello.
And who’s this? Bob Jeter said.
This is our neighbor, DJ Kephart.
DJ. Well DJ, how are things at the radio station?
The boy glanced at him and looked away. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Okay, Mary Wells said. That’ll do. You two can go out now.
When they were out in the living room DJ whispered: Who’s that?
I don’t know, she said. I never saw him before. I don’t know who he is.
IN THE EVENING AFTER SUPPER, AFTER BOB JETER HAD left the house, Dena said to her mother: What’s that man doing here?
Her mother looked tired now. The bright glassy-eyed look she’d had before was gone. He’s a friend of mine, she said.
What’s he want here?
He’s a friend, like I said. He’s a vice president at the bank. He makes loans to people. I was talking to him the other day about our circumstances since your father isn’t coming back.
He might come back.
I doubt it. I don’t know anybody who even wants him to.
I want him to come back.
Do you?
Yes.
Maybe he will then. But tell me what you thought of Mr. Jeter.
I don’t see why he had to stay for supper. Doesn’t he have his own house?
Yes. He has his own house. Of course he has his own house. He has a very nice house.
LATER THAT NIGHT WHEN SHE WANTED TO CALL HER father, before she got on the phone, her mother said: If you get ahold of him, you tell him I had a friend here today. Tell your father that.
I’m not going to say that.
You are, or else you won’t talk to him at all.
Mom, I don’t want to.
Tell him I had somebody visiting here this afternoon. He’s not the only one who knows people. That’s something he ought to know, up there in hotshot Alaska.
22
THE PUBLIC DEFENDER ASSIGNED TO HIM WAS A YOUNG woman with red hair. She was three years out of law school and she’d been in possession of his police record for no more than an hour when she came to the Holt County Courthouse on the morning of the docket day to consult with him. She was carrying a stack of files under her arm, and they met in a little bare conference room down the hall from the courtroom, with a sheriff’s deputy waiting outside the door guarding another inmate. Hoyt was wearing his orange jailhouse coveralls and he looked pale and seedy after a month of confinement. She set her files on the table and sat down across the table from him.
Hoyt watched her flip through his police record. You’re about like the rest of them, ain’t you, he said. You want to know what I want, bitch? My number one priority is to get the fuck out of this goddamn place.
She looked at him closely for the first time. You can’t talk like that in here, she said. Not to me you can’t.
What’s wrong with the way I talk?
You know exactly what’s wrong with it.
Hell, he said. I was just getting a little excited there. I’m out of the custom of having any company. He grinned at her. I’ll try to contain myself.
She stared at him. Do that, she said. She closed his file. So, I don’t expect you want to go to trial. Do you.
I don’t know. You tell me.
I don’t think you do.
Why’s that now? I got things I might want to say. I have a right to be heard.
You’re certain of that?
Why wouldn’t I be?
Because your case probably wouldn’t go to trial for two months. Maybe longer. Depending on when it could be heard. Which means in the interim you’d go back to jail. You don’t have bail money, do you?
No, I don’t have no bail money. Where would I get money? They’ve had me locked up for twenty-nine days.
Then you don’t want to go to trial.
I said I didn’t.