World And Town Part 39

"Hattie." He sits back down. "Hattie. Come on." He squeegees the lower edge of her left eye with his thumb. "Hattie." He does the right eye. "Hattie." He cradles her face in his rough hands, the way he had the dogs' a moment earlier, and suddenly it leaves the rest of her body; all her being is in her jaw, her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. "Hattie. Hattie. Come on. Can lactose intolerance really be that bad?"

She laughs, crying. The palms of his hands are strafed and wrinkled now, but his fingers are as supple and intelligent as ever; he inhabits them still. And when he pulls her up out of her seat toward him, she finds that she remembers their touch and tease. She remembers his shoulders and ears and smell, too; she remembers his mouth and press and-goodness-his incorrigible stealth.

"Don't you have any d.a.m.ned tissue?" he says.

"No," she says; but of course she does.

"Hattie," he says. "Miss Confucius."

She blows her nose.

"I've missed you."

"Well, I haven't missed you."

He laughs and kisses her again-his tongue, like his hands, full of sly provocation. "That is completely bu du."

Of course, even now, if she thinks about it, she is not sure she can forgive him that I don't see what more I could have done. And what about Jill Jenkins? And why would she want to be involved with a man who seems to fight with every woman he's with?

But that would be, like, rational.

She is standing between his legs; he is nuzzling her neck; she is exploring some of the new territory that is his great smooth scalp. Her fleece is riding up. He has found her soft place. And whatever she remembers or doesn't or wants to say or can't, her every afferent nerve is on fire-her every Meissner's corpuscle. They're leaking neurotransmitters by the bucket, and not one synapse cares what she thinks anyway.

Grace and Greta come to visit again, bringing-surprise!-Beth and Candy, who got the report from, who else, Judy Tell-All. They've brought ca.s.seroles mummified in tin foil-Candy's enchiladas, as well as a miso orzo thing.

"Kind of an experiment," says Beth. "To tell you the truth, I have no real idea what miso even is."

"I'm sure they'll love it," says Hattie.

Everyone's cheeks are pink; and how is it that they all wear hats with pompoms? In any case, they are still exchanging cus.h.i.+ony hugs-all that winterwear-when an enormous piece of machinery starts slowly down the drive. Its link belts leave tracks in the h.o.a.rfrost.

"Is that a backhoe?" asks Grace.

Sophy is already out on the driveway, with Gift-Sarun, too. Mum is on the crate steps with no jacket on.

"It's an excavator," says Candy. "A backhoe's got the bucket in the back."

And so it is-an excavator, with Carter at its controls. He sits forward in the seat, his green jacket tenting behind him, and manages to steer the thing around the end of the trailer. He stops opposite Chhung's station and slowly raises the bucket; the thing looks like a Tyrannosaurus rex missing its upper jaw. Just as people start to smile, though, the bucket comes slamming down; Chhung, brace or no brace, jumps clean out of his chair. Carter swears. He raises the bucket once more, but down it comes slamming again, hitting the ground with a clank-rock.

"d.a.m.n!" he says.

Anyway, no one is hurt and the engine is off now, and by the time people gather at the pit, Carter and Chhung are chatting so amiably, they hardly seem of different heights.

"We're going to get this ditch of yours dug," Carter's saying.

Chhung looks ready to pa.s.s out with weakness and shock. His eyes ricochet as Carter, leaning down, puts a hand out to steady him. Then, another. Chhung rests his gloved hands on Carter's sleeves for a moment; his blue knit hat matches, oddly, Carter's eyes.

"Eq-sca-vay?" says Chhung, regaining his balance. "How you say again?"

"Ex-ca-va-tor," says Carter.

"Eq-sca-va-ter," says Chhung.

He sways, his eyes going; Carter extends an arm again, but Chhung doesn't take it. Instead, he suddenly rallies and says, "We have that in Cambodia, too." Everyone stares, stunned, as he proceeds to take off his gloves, stash them in a jacket pocket, and nonchalantly produce a pack of cigarettes. He offers one to Carter, who doesn't smoke but gamely takes the thing and puts it to his lips nonetheless. Chhung lights it with a lighter, then lights his own. Both men coolly puff, the picture of camaraderie; their motions sing a kind of song. Chhung's eyes are steady. Then Carter starts to hack and cough; Chhung, reaching up, pounds him on the back with a fist.

"Too srong?" He grins.

Carter hands back the cigarette, lit end high. "For me, yes," he says, his face scrunched up. "Way too strong. How do you smoke those things?" He waves at the air.

Chhung, amused, pounds Carter on the back some more. "Easy," he says. Then with bravado he places both cigarettes in his mouth and, a cigarette dangling from either corner, smokes them at the same time.

"Most impressive," says Carter.

Chhung emits an enormous cloud of smoke. He does not seem to intend this for Carter's face; still, Carter has to step back.

"Sor-ry!" laughs Chhung. "O.K." He pats Carter on the shoulder and looks around-belatedly registering the crowd, it seems. Then he removes the cigarettes from his mouth-a two-handed operation-taps the ashes from their ends, exhales another mighty cloud of smoke, replaces them, and, to everyone's surprise, gives a clap. No one reacts. He looks around again and raises his hands a little higher; the tips of his cigarettes flare as he claps a second time, loudly, looking around.

That's when people realize it's a cue. A third cloud of smoke emanates from Chhung as he takes Carter's arm; they raise their hands up high, like the Cinderella doubles champions of a most fantastic tennis tournament. And finally, with a small amazed roar, people start to clap and hoot and cheer.

Success! The whole town is giddy. Not that Chhung won't need support; already people are talking about an anger management course that addresses substance abuse, too-kind of a twofer. It's in the city, but people are organizing rides for him via a sign-up at Millie's. As for the holidays, Grace volunteers for Thanksgiving, Hattie for Christmas; other people plan to teach them to make wreaths and gingerbread houses, and to take them caroling. Sledding, too, if the snow ever comes.

"Only in America," crows Greta.

"People have always been reborn here, but not people who've been reborn before," says Hattie. "I mean, generally."

The walking group laughs. Beth hangs two toothpicks in her mouth, one in each corner, like Chhung.

"Though it's always been a question, hasn't it," says Greta. "Whom America can be America for. And who keeps America, America."

Hattie would love to hear more about what she means. But other people want to talk about whether Carter can be made mayor. Riverlake's never had a mayor before, but maybe it's time to change the town charter, they say. Greta shakes her head: Would they be talking this way if Carter were a woman? Well, never mind. In the meanwhile, he has a new nickname-Professor Excavator.

Hattie laughs.

Sarun's still in his brace, but when Hattie goes to drop off some food, he starts talking about what he's going to do when he's out of it-get a job, maybe. And Sophy's making plans, too. She asks, in a mysterious voice, to borrow a turkey roaster; Hattie diplomatically doesn't ask why. Another few days, and it'll be time to raise the subject of school. In the meanwhile, Sophy's tuning up her guitar in the living room, so that Hattie hears, as she leaves, not only Sophy playing and singing, but Sarun laughing and crooning, too. He sounds pretty wack.

All of this renders Hattie more or less completely unprepared for Everett's obstinacy. A horse lost may be better than horses gained, her father used to say-warning her, as he liked to, not to be lulled by apparent reality. One must always be prepared to find oneself unprepared, he taught; and yet Hattie, his slow student, finds herself both unprepared and unprepared to be unprepared for the climb to Everett's hut.

She has to stop to rest every ten rungs or so-her ankle; Carter, too, shakes his head. It's true Everett has a good ten or fifteen years on them. Still, only a madman would live atop such a climb; he might as well be living on a fire tower. They unzip their jackets. At the top of the ladder is a makes.h.i.+ft pulley and a platform piled with firewood. The door has a deer antler for a handle.

A Robinson Crusoe charm to it all, anyway.

They knock, perspiring.

Huge as he's always seemed, Everett appears even huger in his doorway-so huge, Hattie wonders if this is a standard-size doorway he's got, or a made-up size. Anyhow, he fills it-has to duck a little, in fact, so as not to b.u.mp his head.

"Well, well," he says. "Thought I had me a bear." Nothing cherubic about him today. He has a stubble you could scrub an oven out with, and his wiry half-gray hair, too, looks like something with a practical application.

"Do you mind?" asks Carter.

" 'Course not," says Everett. "Come on in. Don't mind the mess."

The hut is lined with foil-backed insulation, and there are frying pans hung up neatly enough on nails along the studs. Below these on the fiberboard floor, though, sit a chair, an unmade camp cot, a folding table, and a camp stove, as well as scattered stuff: Everett's clothes, his hat, his dishes, a jar of peanut b.u.t.ter, a loaf of bread, some cereal, some water, some coffee, the remains of various ca.s.seroles, and numerous bottles of liquor. The place reeks of smoke, since his woodstove will back up, he says, depending on the wind; that's why he has a window propped open even in the cold. Hattie nods-she knows what a woodstove can be-even as she glances out the other window, which really does look right straight at Ginny's window shade, sure enough. Carter and Everett chat. It's late afternoon; a whiskey bottle's open, but Everett seems sober, if subdued. He is wearing two wool lumberjack s.h.i.+rts-one white-and-black check, one red-and-black-a layered look, with a blue sweats.h.i.+rt underneath. REX REALTY, reads the sweats.h.i.+rt, COME SEE THE KING. The I in KING is dotted with a small gold crown.

"Hold it right there," he says. "You're telling me you want to pay the damages?"

"I am," says Carter.

"But you didn't do nothing."

"Good point." Carter's nod is less cursory than usual, more congenial. "Maybe we should sit down."

"Be my guest."

Everett sits on the chair, spilling out over its arms; what with the chair legs so skinny, his legs look to be holding them up rather than the other way around. Carter and Hattie perch on his cot, slipping their jackets off and nesting them around their b.u.ms.

"I'm only doing it for a girl," says Carter.

"Hattie?"

They all laugh.

"Do I look like a girl?" says Hattie.

"I wouldn't have guessed boy," says Everett.

More laughter.

" 'Course, I've done a few things for her myself, now," says Everett. "Shoveled her out every now and then."

"All the time," says Hattie. "You shoveled me out all the time."

"Well, if I'm not an official member of the Hattie Kong fan club, please sign me up," says Carter. "But the girl I meant is Sophy Chhung."

"The Cambodian girl?" says Everett.

"Precisely."

"She need help?"

"She lit the mini-mall fire."

"No kidding." Everett looks surprised but not entirely. "What for?"

The wind s.h.i.+fts; the window shuts; ragged sheets of smoke leak out from under the top plate of the woodstove. Hattie rubs her eyes.

"She seems to have gotten the idea that she could pin the crime on her brother and get him locked up in jail," says Carter. "Where she wanted him, for some reason." He coughs into his elbow.

"She thought it was G.o.d's plan," supplies Hattie, starting to hack, too. She can feel a rawness in her nose and throat. "She thought Sarun was ruining things."

"What things?" Everett props the window back open; the air clears. "Sarun's her brother?"

Hattie nods and explains about the Chhungs, as well as about Sophy's conversion, and her relations.h.i.+p to Ginny.

"So Ginny thought, Great. Use the girl to bring me down, what the heck." Everett nods a bit to himself.

"Exactly," says Hattie.

"But now what, right?" says Everett. "The girl's guilty, but you don't want her charged. You don't even want Sarun and his friends charged. 'Cause in the course of their getting cleared the truth might sneak out."

"Exactly," says Hattie again.

"On the other hand, we're trying to make sure you get your damages," says Carter. "Because your site was burned down and you definitely deserve compensation."

"But Ginny's the one who owes me." Everett's jaw tightens. "Not you. Ginny."

Carter glances at Hattie. "At some level," he says, but then stops.

And Hattie, too, hesitates. Should they start explaining how they owe him, too, actually-Carter, especially? On the one hand, they certainly contributed to the situation-hedging as they did, hemming and hawing when they should have been intervening. On the other, Ginny's sins were sins of a different order-sins of commission. And truth to tell, Hattie feels it, too-that Ginny was wrong, that Ginny should pay. Kept you around when it was convenient but kicked you out when it wasn't, after all.

"Ginny should pay," says Everett, as if reading her mind.

"Probably," allows Carter.

"But you're hitting for her. What for?"

"Because it'd be hard to prosecute her successfully," says Carter.

"Much as we wish we could," says Hattie.

"Why?" demands Everett. "Ain't she guilty?"

"Because she didn't actually do anything," says Carter.

"She was just an influence," says Hattie.

"An influence," says Everett.

"And influence is hard to prove," explains Hattie.

"All we have is Sophy's word," agrees Carter. "It's 'he said, she said.' "

Everett stands and paces as much as a man his size can in such a small s.p.a.ce. His head barely clears the ceiling. "Ginny's getting off."

"Probably."

"She's getting off."