Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

restaurant in town. I work at Sammy’s.”
    A waiter. The bright white shirt and black pants were waiter’s clothes. And he had a waiter’s air of patience and alertness.
    “I’m Jinny Lockyer,” she said. “Helen. Helen is—”
    “Okay, I know,” he said. “You’re who Helen’s going to work for. Where’s Helen?”
    “In the house.”
    “Didn’t nobody ask you in, then?”
    He was about Helen’s age, she thought. Seventeen or eighteen. Slim and graceful and cocky, with an ingenuous enthusiasm that would probably not get him as far as he hoped.
    She had seen a few like that who ended up as Young Offenders. He seemed to understand things, though. He seemed to understand that she was exhausted and in some kind of muddle.
    “June in there too?” he said. “June’s my mom.”
    His hair was colored like June’s, gold streaks over dark. He wore it rather long, and parted in the middle, flopping off to either side.
    “Matt too?” he said.
    “And my husband. Yes.”
    “That’s a shame.”
    “Oh, no,” she said. “They asked me. I said I’d rather wait out here.”
    Neal used sometimes to bring home a couple of his Yo-yos, to be supervised doing lawn work or painting or basic carpentry. He thought it was good for them, to be accepted into somebody’s home. Jinny had flirted with them occasionally, in a way that she could never be blamed for. Just a gentle tone, a way of making them aware of her soft skirts and her scent of apple soap. That wasn’t why Neal had stopped bringing them. He had been told it was out of order.
    “So how long have you been waiting?”
    “I don’t know,” Jinny said. “I don’t wear a watch.”
    “Is that right?” he said. “I don’t either. I don’t hardly ever meet another person that doesn’t wear a watch. Did you never wear one?
    She said, “No. Never.”
    “Me neither. Never ever. I just never wanted to. I don’t know why. Never ever wanted to. Like, I always just seemed to know what time it was anyway. Within a couple minutes. Five minutes the most. And I know where all the clocks are, too. I’m riding in to work, and I think I’ll check, you know, just be sure what time it is really. And I know the first place I can see the courthouse clock in between the buildings. Always not more than three/four minutes out. Sometimes one of the diners asks me, do you know the time, and I just tell them. They don’t even notice I’m not wearing a watch. I go and check as soon as I can, clock in the kitchen. But I never once had to go in there and tell them any different.”
    “I’ve been able to do that too, once in a while,” Jinny said. “I guess you do develop a sense, if you never wear a watch.”
    “Yeah, you really do.”
    “So what time do you think it is now?”
    He laughed. He looked at the sky.
    “Getting close to eight. Six/seven minutes to eight? I got an advantage, though. I know when I got off of work and then I went to get some cigarettes at the 7-Eleven and then I talked to some guys a couple of minutes and then I hiked home. You don’t live in town, do you?”
    Jinny said no.
    “So where do you live?”
    She told him.
    “You getting tired? You want to go home? You want me to go in and tell your husband you want to go home?”
    “No. Don’t do that,” she said.
    “Okay. Okay. I won’t. June’s probably telling their fortunes in there anyway. She can read hands.”
    “Can she?”
    “Sure. She goes in the restaurant a couple of times a week. Tea too. Tea leaves.”
    He picked up his bike and wheeled it out of the way of the van. Then he looked in through the driver’s window.
    “Left the keys in,” he said. “So—you want me to drive you home or what? I can put my bike in the back. Your husband can get Matt to drive him and Helen when they get ready. Or if it don’t look like Matt can, June can. June’s my mom but Matt’s not my dad. You don’t drive, do you?”
    “No,” said Jinny. She had not driven for months.
    “No. I didn’t think so. Okay then? You want me to? Okay?”

    “This is just a road I know. It’ll get you there as soon as the highway.”
    They had not driven past the subdivision. In fact they had headed the other way, taking a road that seemed to circle the gravel pit. At least they were going west now, towards the brightest part of the sky. Ricky—that was what he’d told her his name was—had not yet turned the car lights on.
    “No danger meeting anybody,” he said. “I don’t think I