seen. I didn’t even know she was interested in birds.
She pointed to a picture of a bluebird and said, “My mother used to say that when you see a bluebird, it brings you happiness. I always used to look for them.”
There was no circle around the bluebird. She turned the page.
“This one, the purple finch, is our official state bird,” she said.
“It’s pretty,” I said. I wasn’t looking at the picture, though; I was looking at her. That’s when I realized, like a light bulb going on over my head, that she had been telling me about the movie because she wanted me to ask if I could take her to see it. She must have gotten the idea from Elsie.
She told me she’d bought the book some weeks or months before, along with a bird feeder and some seeds. She got the feeder out of the closet to show me.
“I was going to put it outside my window,” she said, “and I was pretty hepped up about it at first, but then it seemed kind of stupid. It’s too dark in the alley. The birds won’t go there. Anyway, I don’t know how to put it together.”
“The birds will come,” I said. “It’s not always so dark in the alley. I can drill holes in the brick for the screws and make a hanger for it, and we’ll put it outside your window. You put some seeds in it, and pretty soon a bird will come to it, and then the other birds will come too.”
“Do you think I might get a bluebird? Oh Willy, I’ve never seen a bluebird!”
“Sure,” I said. “There’ll be lots of bluebirds; all kinds of birds; blue, red, yellow, all different colors. When do you want me to put it up?”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. How about tomorrow morning?”
“Okay,” I said.
When I was standing at the door to leave I asked her if I could take her to see the movie. It was playing for only one more night.
“I’d love to,” she said.
“I’ll be over in the morning to set up the bird feeder.”
“I’m glad you came over, Willy.”
“Me too.”
“I’m not afraid now,” she said.
“I’m never afraid of anything,” I said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Goodnight, Willy.”
I don’t know how it happened, if it was that she started to hold her right hand out for a handshake or what, but we were standing close and her right hand came up and I took it in my left hand and then she took my right hand in her left hand, so that we were holding hands, and then our hands sort of floated up to our shoulders. She was looking up at my eyes and I was looking down at hers, and my eyes must have been saying please, because hers were saying yes. Then we let go of each other’s hands, and hers moved up my arms and around the back of my neck, and mine went down and around her waist. Then we were kissing, but it was only a few seconds and she pushed against my shoulders and sort of slipped away from me.
She put my hands by my sides, patted the front of my tee shirt, and let out a deep breath.
“Well,” she said. We were still looking at each other’s eyes.
“So,” she said.
I tried to hold her again but she wasn’t so sure. My hands were all over her and she was sort of pushing me away.
“Willy, I’m not who you think I am,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve made so many stupid mistakes and I don’t even know if I can stop making them. I still haven’t got everything straightened out.”
“It’s the same with me,” I said. “None of that matters now. It’s only now and tomorrow that matters.”
I didn’t want to leave, and I never wanted to hurt her.
“Nancy, could I … would you mind if I asked you if I could …?”
Just then Mr. Winkley knocked a pot off the table and ran under the bed.
“Oh, that cat,” she said. She put the pot back on the table looked under the bed and told him he was a bad cat. Then she came back.
“Now where were we?” she said.
I want to stay with you tonight, I almost said. If I had just said it out loud, everything would have turned out different, but I didn’t say it.
“We were saying goodnight,” I said.
“Goodnight, Willy.”
“Goodnight, Nancy.”
I left.
I couldn’t sleep so I went out for a walk. I walked around for about an hour and all I could think about was Nancy. I remembered the suitcase under her bed, and her saying that she wasn’t going anywhere. Sometimes at The Morpheum you’d be friends with somebody and then they’d leave in the middle of the night and not even say goodbye, and you’d never know what happened to them. I was afraid that when I went to Nancy’s room the next morning, she’d be gone.
I hadn’t really spent all of the money that Elsie had given me for the hinges. I’d only told Howie that because I didn’t want him borrowing it. I still had a little over two dollars, and that was enough for two movie tickets, a drink, and some popcorn.
When I woke up the next morning Mr. Winkley was meowing outside my door. He made for me to follow him to Nancy’s room. She had never let him run loose like that before. He started meowing again and I picked him up and put my hand over his mouth so that Elsie wouldn’t hear. I knocked and called Nancy’s name but there was no answer. I tried her door and it was locked. I didn’t want to think that she had left in the middle of the night without taking Mr. Winkley. I knocked on Gladys’s door and called to her.
“Gladys!”
“Pipe down out there!” she said. “People are trying to sleep!”
“I’m looking for Nancy. She’s not in her room.”
“Yeah well I haven’t seen her.”
The Colonel stuck his head out from his room, which was right next to mine. With his flat-top haircut and thin face, his head sticking out sideways looked like a triangle.
“Willy,” he whispered, like he had some secret to tell me. He looked up and down the hallway to make sure nobody else was out there, and waved for me to come over. I thought maybe he knew where Nancy was.
“Come here,” he whispered. “I have something to show you.”
We went in and Mr. Winkley hopped up on the Colonel’s bed and went to sleep. It turned out the Colonel just wanted to play chess. He’d invented
