I try to choose my words carefully.
“You remember saying that you were jealous of Rainey McCorkle?”
There is silence on the other end for a moment.
“Yes?”
Amy asks, her voice no longer so friendly.
“She’s getting married,” I say casually, “next month.”
“Poor Gideon!” Amy says instantly.
“No wonder you’re shit-faced. Who’s she marrying?”
“I’m not shit-faced,” I say shakily.
“A doctor who is five years younger. Some guy named Dennis Stanley.”
“I know Dennis!” Amy says.
“He’s a wonderful man and a fantastic doctor. A hunk, too! God, I’m impressed with your old girlfriend. She’s getting a real prize. Cheer up. It’s not like you lost her to a vacuum cleaner salesman.”
“Was he your boyfriend, too?” I ask sourly. If he’s so great, why doesn’t he have a better name?
Amy laughs.
“You sound so pitiful! He was the head resident at St. Thomas and testified in a couple of rape cases when I was at the prosecutor’s. He didn’t go to medical school until he was in his thirties.”
I crumple me empty beer can I am holding. I couldn’t have gotten into med school even if I owned it.
“A late bloomer,” I say, as though this were a terrible indictment.
“Gideon, would you like for me to come over and spend the night?” Amy asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“That would be very nice.”
Amy laughs again.
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
“I’ll time you,” I say, looking at the clock over the kitchen sink.
“That won’t be necessary,” Amy giggles.
“Why don’t you take a shower?”
The idea of anything touching my skin, even if it is cold water, makes me wince.
“Do you have some ointment for sunburn?” I ask, bringing my left hand to my chest. It feels like pie crust.
“I fell asleep for a little while outside.”
Amy’s reaction is swift.
“Oh, Gideon, you didn’t pass out in this sun, did you?”
“Just took a little nap,” I whimper. I feel terribly thirsty.
“Have you got some juice or something like that?
All I’ve got is beer.”
“I can tell,” Amy says.
“You’re probably so dehydrated that you’re about to go into shock. Drink as much water as you can. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She hangs up before I can answer her. I ease over to the sink and rinse out a glass and fill it up with tap water.
Good of’ Amy. I haven’t been very nice to her lately. I should have called her when I wasn’t drunk. Poor women. They’re such suckers for us. They deserve to be in a better species. The water tastes good. I wish I had thought of it a couple of hours ago. I look through the kitchen window and see the beer cans scattered around the lawn chair. They look terrible. Get that white guy out of the neighborhood before he turns it into a slum. I laugh at my little joke and look at Woogie, who is lapping up his own water.
“Hey, boy, are we having fun or what?”
He won’t even look at me and goes off to the couch after he finishes. At least he had enough sense to lie in the shade.
Amy arrives about thirty minutes later with a quart of orange juice and an overnight bag.
“Oh, Gideon!” she wails.
“You look like you’ve been electrocuted!”
“Damn, it’s November! It shouldn’t be this hot.” I look down at myself again. My knees look like stoplights.
While I take off my clothes, Amy runs the tub full of water and helps me get into it.
“This is what it must be like to be old,” I complain.
“If you keep this up,” she says, taking my arm, “you’ll never find out.”
The water feels good. It is cool but not freezing. I lie back against the porcelain and sigh.
“Maybe we can make love later.”
Amy looks down at my shriveled penis which is limply floating in the water.
“Unless you can think of a way to detach it,” she says, giggling, “I don’t think you’re going to be terribly interested.”
Thirty minutes later Amy turns down the sheet and helps me into bed. Amy has rubbed so much Benadryl cream and Aloe into my skin that I feel like a greased pig.
Grateful beyond words, I watch her while she arranges the water and juice on my nightstand. Why is she here?
This hasn’t exactly been my finest hour. If the situation were reversed, I don’t think I would be playing her nursemaid. I sink back onto my pillow.
“This Florence Nightingale business is a side I haven’t seen before, Gilchrist. I think I like it.”
She sits down on the bed beside me and rubs cream into my feet. Even the soles are tender.
“I have a masochistic side. Most women do. I think it must be genetic.
Here I am doing everything but changing your diapers while you’re trying to turn yourself into a brisket because of another woman.”
What do I say? She is correct, of course. If I had a decent bone in my body, I would have called anybody except her.
“I could have called Clan, but I don’t think he would have been of much use.”
Amy laughs at the thought. From long acquaintance, she knows Clan is as helpless as I am.
“He might have brought you a gun, so you could have done the job right.”
I look down at my cooked flesh and wonder if I’m the one who has the masochistic streak. Rainey and I haven’t had a real romantic relationship in more than a year. Still, true feeling dies hard. I admit it to myself outright for the first time: I did love her. Yet, we could never make a commitment.
To her credit, she has moved on to another man who obviously inspires more confidence.
“What bothers me,” I admit to Amy, “is that I didn’t really even know she was seriously dating somebody. I just kind of figured everything would finally fall into place some day, and we’d end up together.”
A melancholy expression comes over Amy’s face.
“You miss the boat mat way. Even the dumbest dog will leave if you won’t feed it.”
“I know,” I say, growing more sober by the moment. I know she is telling me that she isn’t going to take care of me indefinitely. I don’t even know if I want her to try.
“You don’t know shit,” she says, putting away the Benadryl. She bends down and searches through her bag and withdraws a pink nightie with poodles on it.
“Don’t even think about saying a word about this gown. I grabbed the first thing I saw.”
I grin. Poodles aren’t Amy’s style. Yet, how do I know?
I haven’t given her a chance. For all I know she may sleep with a security blanket and her thumb in her mouth.
I seem to be floating through life more and more these days. Why? It is as if when Rosa died, I quit trying. She made everything so simple, or at least it seemed that way.
Something tells me that it probably wasn’t, and I just don’t want to remember how life really was. I watch as Amy pulls her T-shirt over her head. As unselfconscious as a two-year-old child, she slips out of her sandals, shorts, and bra and pulls the gown over her head. I feel a stir between my legs but it flickers and dies. As the old saying goes, tonight, at least, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. She eases into bed beside me, and watches me sleep.
“Good Lord!” Julia exclaims when I walk in the next morning.
“Did you fall asleep in your oven?”
“Just got a little too much sun” I say, checking for my messages.
“Shit!” she whistles.
“It looks like you laid out drunk all afternoon.”
As usual, Julia is revealing more of her own skin than is appropriate in a law office. Behind the counter that separates her from our clients, her lime sherbet colored skirt has crept up almost to her panty line, revealing two nicely tanned legs. I’ve seen belts wider than her skirt.
“I get to take off occasionally,” I mutter as I walk down the hall.
In my office I dial Dade’s number, waking him up. Instantly I wish I had called his parents first.
“I don’t want to take a lie detector test,” he tells me after I have explained why I called.