My first thought is that I’m a little surprised she mentioned me at all. The second is that in terms of lawns, she’s right. I have no idea what lawn care consists of, in the same way I don’t know exactly how eggs happen. The honest-to-God truth is I have no idea how many holes a chicken has, how some eggs have chickens in them and some not. I think growing up in the city makes you not question some of these basic things. “If you need any computer stuff done, maybe I could help,” I say.
He smiles. “I haven’t quite caught up with the computers,” he says.
It gets quiet, and again I am struck by how silent Montana is. You stop talking, and instead of a general buzz you get nothing.
“So what was my grandfather like?” I ask to fill the quiet.
He crosses his legs. “Good man,” he says. “He was funny. Very, very funny.”
“Nice,” I say. And then I flash on what my dad said yesterday, that his dad was an alcoholic too. Yeah, good man, I think.
He nods. “I worked with him for many years.”
“What kind of work?”
“He was a choir director.”
“Um, okay. Where?”
“At my church.”
“Do you think maybe he’s still —” I can’t finish the sentence, because there’s really no right way to ask the question. Alive? Out there?
He seems to get that. “I truly don’t know. A tragedy, really. For all of us.”
I nod, because obviously it has been hard. I mean, I vaguely remember Grandma Phyllis. She wore dangly turquoise earrings, and when we went to her house she always had those soft white mint candies with the pink stripes. I got a stomachache eating them once, and I’ve never liked them since. My mom has told me stories about her over the years, and it’s pretty clear she was an unhappy lady. And my dad, well. Forget about it. “I’m sure,” I say.
The pastor nods. “He was my closest friend.”
I worry that he might be about to get emotional, so I look away, and I say, “He sounds great.” A pause.
“So you work at a church?”
“You could come down, if you want. Rimrock United Methodist. It’s just down the road. I’ve been the pastor there for forty-one years.”
So I’m Methodist, I think, and the thought means absolutely nothing to me. I know it’s a brand of Christianity, but that’s about it. “I will,” I say, lying. I stand up. “This was really nice of you. Thanks a lot.”
“I hope you’ll stop by for a chat once in a while. You seem like a very nice young man.”
“I will do that,” I say, lying again. “Absolutely.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to say more. I think back to yesterday, and my dad saying something about tuna fish. “You’re the one who brings my dad food?”
He nods and smiles. He probably gets a lot of crap from my dad, and now here I am, running off as soon as he invites me to church.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to sound nicer than my dad probably does.
He nods again.
“Thanks,” I repeat out of sheer awkwardness, and then I duck out the front door and head to our place.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I’m in the shower when my phone rings. I hurry out and it’s a strange 406 number I’ve never seen before. I dry my hands as quickly as I can and pick up.
“Hello?”
A female voice says, “So you’re on a bus, and if you slow down to under twenty miles per hour, you’ll die.”
My face flushes. Aisha. She’s calling. Me.
“Oh no,” I say. “This is an unfortunate turn of events.”
“What do you do?” Aisha asks, her voice dead serious.
“Am I in Billings, or New York?”
“Let’s say Billings.”
“Do I ever have a shot at going back to New York?”
“Let’s say no.”
“I slow down.”
She laughs. “True ’nuf. Hey. You up for buying me a cup of coffee?”
“I could do that. In a few hours?”
“How about now?” she says, and silently I pump my fist five times.
Sweat drips from my eyelids as I walk into Off the Leaf, the nearest coffee shop to my house and the place where Aisha and I agreed to meet. I never thought I’d miss the noisy subway, but that was before a hot, last-day-of-June, late-afternoon, two-mile walk through Billings in which I saw not a soul. I’m going to need at least a bike to make this summer work.
Everything inside the coffeehouse is crisp, bright, hospital clean, and huge. You could place a regulation basketball court in here. It’s the antithesis of a hip New York café.
Also quiet. Unlike most coffee shops I’ve been in, there’s no music playing. Consequently, I can hear very clearly the four beer-bellied guys by the door bellowing about the Broncos, and the two middle-aged ladies in orange sweat suits reclining on a dangerously low pink vinyl couch. I glance around and there’s Aisha, positioned next to a metal-framed fireplace, waving wildly at me as if she’s trying to land a plane. I salute her and mouth, “Want a latte?” She nods her head enthusiastically.
One of the perks of being dragged to Billings against my will is that my mother gave me a bribe: my own credit card to use, for all expenses “that seem reasonable.” I’ve never had unlimited fundage before, but I guess Mom thinks I’m a responsible kid who won’t, you know, go buy a Jet Ski or something. She is not exactly made of money, but I’m pretty sure that so long as I don’t go crazy, I can do what I want this summer and it’ll be courtesy of the Bank of Mom.
“Whut can I git for ya?” asks the guy behind the counter. He looks like no barista I’ve seen in New York, ever. His belt buckle is bigger than my head, his hair is buzzed to within a centimeter of his scalp, and he has the confident swagger of a deeply unpleasant person.
“I’ll take me two of them there lattes,” I say, and he nods his thick-necked head in a way that makes it unclear whether he thinks I’m making fun of him or not. He takes my card and gives me a cowboy smile, which I return, and then I wait while the other barista, an alt-looking girl with black lipstick, makes the drinks.
I’m hanging out with Aisha, I think while I wait, allowing the words to swim around my brain. No big deal. I’m cool like that. I am a dude who hangs with girls who look like models.
My mom the therapist calls these affirmations. I call them lies, but whatever. There’s no turning back now. I’m going to make this work.
The Hollywood studio that created this ultramodern café and put it next to a place that appears to be named Casino Grand Liquor has filled it with random pieces that don’t make sense. Aisha is sitting in one of four comfy-looking leather chairs next to the fireplace, and they’ve put a shiny piano right up against one of the chairs, so that a pianist would have to fight anyone sitting in that chair for elbow space while playing. There are flat-screened TVs all set to Fox News, and a bunch of beanbag chairs strewn around as if this was hipster heaven.
It is not hipster heaven.
The lattes are taking awhile, so I walk over to Aisha, who pats the chair next to her facing the fireplace. A fire is burning, despite the fact that it is a Wednesday afternoon, the first day of July, and I am sweating like a pig. Aisha is wearing the same tank top she was wearing on Monday at the zoo. Not that I’m complaining; she looks unreal in it.
“You have any good misinformation for me?” I ask, attempting to air out my shirt a little.
“This place is really happening, for one.”
“I expect Kanye West to come in here any second,” I say back, and then the girl calls my name and I go get our drinks.