style="font-size:15px;"> “The Andes Mountains?”
“That’s right,” her mother said.
“Navajos can go up high,” Jo said. “That’s why they use them on skyscrapers.”
“That’s the Mohawks. The Navajos go down low.”
“You’re just saying that,” Jo said.
“Harry, what are you up to now?” came a voice, and Harry bowed his head so he could murmur, “Owner,” undetected.
A man came climbing up to them, pushing through the sand with huge leisurely strides. He was dark and handsome and everything about him was big. He was dressed for an African safari. Harry jumped away and ran zigzagging toward the back of his truck. Harry’s leaping off like a chased animal was sudden and bizarre, and it made Beth’s mother and Jo laugh. The man smiled and ducked his head in greeting before veering toward Harry. They were on top of a hill with nothing around for shade. Beth was starting to feel like a shiny nickel in the sun, shinier and shinier and more beat up. She watched Harry tear things from his truck. She wondered what was going on with him.
The man took off his African safari hat and wiped away his sweat with a bandana. He wiped his eyes, which emerged wide open yet wearied. He scoured each of his fingers, twisting them through the bandana, and when Harry still hadn’t finished, he walked over to Beth’s mother and Jo and offered them his scrubbed-clean hand. “My name’s Jimmy Splendid,” he said. “How do you do?”
“You’re the man in charge,” her mother said.
“I’m the man in charge.” His voice reminded Beth of the voice you would use to a sick baby. He said how do you do as if the words were there there now. The tone didn’t seem at all to fit what he was saying yet it did make Beth, languishing in the heat, feel a little better. Maybe the man was just tired and this was his tired voice.
“Here it is!” Harry cried out.
Jimmy Splendid signaled to a group of men, and they came over to get the fan belt. They were Navajos, dressed all in mismatched white men’s clothes.
“I’ve got two of them,” Harry said.
“We’ll take both,” Jimmy Splendid said.
Harry began talking fast and excitedly about the stuff unloaded on the ground. The rush of his words wasn’t like salesman patter, more like someone trying to beat the buzzer. The buzzer was probably someone always saying shut up to him. Beth wondered who in his life this buzzer had been. Maybe his grandfather? She liked Harry. She didn’t have to think of him as an adult at all.
Harry was rushing to say that he had several of these portable compressors by dad and would be delighted to unburden himself of them. He’d come a long way by dad to deliver just a fan belt. Jimmy Splendid interrupted him here and said, “Not just any fan belt, Harry. My fan belt.” Well, yes, Harry knew that of course, that’s what he meant. And two fan belts at that, Jimmy Splendid added, and no he didn’t need any compressor bits. “Not the bit,” Harry began. “Don’t need ‘em,” Jimmy Splendid interrupted. A blush reddened Harry’s face, and the dirt streak on his cheek brightened into war paint. Jimmy Splendid looked up from a gold cigarette lighter he had taken out to study and said, “All right, have the boys go through their tool sets with you. We’re short on stoop labor supplies.”
“You can always use a shovel,” Harry said.
“We can always use a shovel,” Jimmy Splendid agreed.
“People don’t . . .” Harry paused. “In the midst of all the . . . Shovels are important,” he finally said. He scurried off with the Navajos. Beth saw Charlie take a step toward Harry and the group of Navajos, but Harry was so nervous and excited he forgot about Charlie and about how maybe he’d like to tag along. She could guess how bad Harry would feel if he figured it out later.
Jimmy Splendid lingered behind. Under the strong sun the gold cigarette lighter blazed in his hand. He began working on it with a key-chain screw. He said something like, “Think I’ll catch my breath for a minute,” and her mother answered something like, “Might as well.” His head stayed down, aimed at the cigarette lighter, but his eyes were watching them. Beth knew that trick; everyone in her class at school knew it.
After a good spell, he lifted his head. “Well, I find myself not quite understanding this situation,” he said.
Nobody answered him. Beth might have liked to answer him, but she had no idea what he was talking about.
“How about you?” he suddenly asked Beth, and she felt her face about to burst into flames. Everything about Jimmy Splendid had a frightening authority. Even his handsomeness was authoritative. His face laid down the official rules of handsomeness and all these other faces were breaking the rules.
Jo came over and put a hand on each of her shoulders. “Young man,” Jimmy Splendid said, turning to face Charlie. He walked over and held out his hand. Charlie looked at it, and then slowly reached out to shake it. “There you go.” Charlie began to pull out of the handshake, but Jimmy Splendid wasn’t done. He held on to Charlie’s hand. “And are you taking care of these women?”
“I guess,” Charlie said. He watched his hand, waiting for Jimmy Splendid to let go. He sneaked a helpless glance at Beth.
“Quiet,” Jimmy Splendid said. “Right? Quiet and observant.”
“He doesn’t miss a thing,” her mother said.
“So you’re the man to ask,” Jimmy Splendid said. “And what’s the name of this man to ask?”
“Charlie,” her mother said.
“Charlie. And you’re Charlie’s mom.”
“Yes I am.”
“Charlie’s got good hands,” Jimmy Splendid said, finally letting go. “You know what I do, Charlie—”
“No,” Charlie said.
Jimmy Splendid chuckled. “Before I hire a man, I shake his hand and I take a study of that hand in the palm of my own, and I find out what I need to know. Charlie, whenever you want, you’ve got a job with me.”
What Beth liked about her mom was that she didn’t step in when Charlie declined to respond to this.
“I guess what I’d really like to know, Charlie: Would I have a job with you?”
Charlie didn’t answer for a few moments. “We’ll see,” he said.
Jimmy Splendid laughed heartily and flipped the cigarette lighter in his hand. He probably didn’t have much chance to enjoy himself if some exchange like this, which made absolutely no sense to Beth, was giving him so much delight. He reached in his shirt pocket and still chuckling pulled out a metal case and snapped it open for Jo who said no thank you and her mom who quickly plucked a cigarette. Her mother avoided cigarettes. Meat and cigarettes. She avoided meat because there were too many things that could go wrong, even a little thing: Suppose the cow had the flu? Vegetables didn’t get the flu or get herniated or cough up blood. Her reason for avoiding cigarettes was that they clogged up the lungs. Who runs into a house filled with smoke?
Avoiding
