Bob likewise ordered the Lumberjacker. Ida quietly asked for cottage cheese and a cup of coffee; June raised her hand and said, “No, Ida. That is not your order. You will order more. Yes, you must.” She turned to Bob: “She cheats herself at breakfast and thinks she’s getting one over on someone, God in heaven, for all I know. But then at about eleven o’clock she becomes monstrous because she’s so miserable at the emptiness of her stomach.” She collected the menus into a stack and handed them up to the waitress. “My friend will also have a Lumberjacker, thank you.”
“The Little Lumberjacker,” said Ida, and the waitress went away. In a short while they were served, and they all ate well, and happily. June asked Bob if he didn’t want a nap after all the syrup, and Bob said he didn’t.
“You wish to begin your labors now, then?”
“Yes.”
“All right, here’s my thought. Ida and myself will retire to the hotel to plot out our day of rehearsals. Certain of the scenes do not feature the boys as players, and we have learned that the boys can disrupt when they are idle, especially when we’re setting up a stage. And so, while we are setting up, you will show the boys the town, all right? Yes?”
The bill came and June lay down money for the group, then passed Bob a dollar. When the waitress returned to make change, Bob set his dime on the tabletop and asked for a newspaper and a cigar, and the waitress looked to June, who looked to Ida, who, looking at Bob, said, “Cat’s-eyes and aggies, indeed.”
Later, out front of the diner, June and Ida and Bob stood by with the dogs, now leashed. June told Bob that their names were Buddy and Pal and said, “I hope you understand Ida’s and my need of these animals. They are not pets. They are the entirety of our lives, beyond our relationships to one another and ourselves and our work.”
“Well, it’s all one thing,” Ida explained. “But the thing cannot be without their input.”
“Yes,” June agreed. She asked Bob, “Will you be careful and good?” And Bob said that he would be, and June told Ida, “Bob understands.”
Bob took the leashes into his grip and the women walked toward the ocean, the hotel. Once they rounded the corner, the dogs looked up at Bob. They were not distressed; perhaps they were curious about what should come next. Bob giddy-upped the leashes and he and the dogs crossed the road to stand before the dead printer’s storefront. The suicide note still was taped up, an eerie document that Bob did read fully through. It struck him as levelheaded when he considered its proximity to the author’s act of self-murder by hanging. Friends of my community, it began. There followed a sort of curriculum vitae: where he was born, schooled, which church he attended, and how he came to work in his field. He wrote, I found many answers and comforts in my profession, but not every answer and not every comfort. In particular I could never find the answer to the question of why; and if a man cannot answer this question, there shall be no lasting comfort available to him.
Next to the printer’s was the movie theater, dark now, the ticket booth standing empty beside the entrance. After this came the post office. It was a very small post office with a single employee sitting behind the counter wearing the somber look of a man wondering where the magic had gone. A customer was leaving just as Bob passed so that they collided with one another, and the man set his hand on Bob’s shoulder and told him, “Watch yourself, son.” This person’s stature was such that he blocked out the sun; Bob, peering upward, saw he wore a gun belt and badge and realized that this was the sheriff. Bob lowered his face to obscure his guilt-ridden runaway’s eyes, pulling the dogs along and ducking into the corner market, which sat beside the post office. Bob was afraid the sheriff would somehow intuit his status as lawbreaker, follow him into the market, and apprehend him; but the black-and-white patrol car rolled slowly past and pulled onto the highway, heading south. Bob relaxed, then, and began a perusal of the contents of the market. It was the sort of place that endeavored to answer every possible need for the local citizens: fresh venison, jumper cables, fabric by the yard, and bait worms all were available for purchase. The aisles were cramped, the merchandise stacked in listing bales.
Behind the counter sat a brooding young man of twenty years. His hair was slicked back and he wore a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled near to the shoulder that he might display the sculpted musculature of his arms. He was reading a magazine laid flat on the counter, his eyes scanning left to right. One of the dogs growled at him and the young man looked up. “Get those mutts out of here.” He pointed to the door and resumed his magazine reading.
Bob left and sat down on the bench out front of the market, to bask in the sun’s warmth and to listen to the ocean and feel the wind coming in off the surface of the water. The dogs became infected by Bob’s restful demeanor and curled up on the pavement. Bob was looking up at the southern face of the hotel across the road and noticed Alice pacing slowly in his room. She moved in and out of view, talking to herself and trailing smoke from her cigarette and making little gestures of explaining with her hands. She didn’t look unhappy; but what was she doing? Bob stood and crossed the road with the dogs. He picked up a piece of the white pea gravel and tossed it against the window. Alice opened the window and leaned out on her elbows. She took a drag off her cigarette and said, “Well?”
“What are you doing in my room?”
“My job.”
“But you’re just walking around in there.”
She flicked her cigarette away; it soared over Bob’s head and landed in the road behind him. “Look, Mr. Sneaky,” she said. “You can’t just jump into scrubbing a floor. You’ve got to sort of ease into it, okay?”
The window beside Bob’s opened up and there was Mr. Whitsell. He was squinting hard in the sunlight and waving or wagging his pale hand. “Have you forgotten me, young man?” he asked. “Have you forgotten my needs?” Bob said he hadn’t, and patted his coat pocket to show he had the newspaper and cigar on his person. Mr. Whitsell asked, “Do you have a thought for when you’ll deliver these things? The news will not be fresh by the time it arrives, is my fear.” He leaned out the window to look at Alice, who was leaning out the window to look at him. “I like a womb-warm, just-born newspaper,” he said, then turned back to Bob. “Shall we rendezvous in the conservatory?”
“Okay,” Bob said.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
When Bob didn’t move, Mr. Whitsell paused. “Now now?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Whitsell ducked his head back into his room and shut the window and drew the curtains. Bob returned his attentions to Alice, who was standing straighter than she’d been, and she wore a stricken expression, her gaze aimed above and behind the place where Bob stood. Bob turned and saw the young man in the T-shirt leaning coolly against the brick exterior of the market, smoking and looking up at her. They both were breathing through their mouths and staring at each other with what appeared to be hostility, but which Bob later understood was likely more on the order of simple lust. Whatever was happening between these two, Bob knew there was no place for him in the equation, and he led the dogs away, following the gravel moat around and to the front of the hotel and climbing the five blue steps. Mr. Whitsell was waiting for him in the conservatory, eyes shining, panting from his second-floor descent. He took the paper and cigar up in his arms and stepped to the rear of the room, vanishing wholly into the overgrown foliage. Bob soon heard a rhythmic creaking over the floorboards and thought it must have been that Mr. Whitsell had a rocking chair hidden away back there.