or foe? The guy lifts his hand and with long fingers starts scratching Lucky’s chest. In reply, Lucky gives the guy’s shoulder a long lick, as though it is delicious.
Tracy emerges from somewhere deep within to say, “Hey, James.” She’s got her voice flattened out, but she’s nervous, Fern can tell. She doesn’t bother making introductions, just shifts her gaze down and starts pushing Vaughn back and forth a little in his stroller.
“Hey,” James says in reply—to Tracy at first, but then he widens his focus to take in Fern and the baby.
“Fern,” she says, introducing herself, lifting her hand in a wavelike gesture she immediately regrets. She suspects she looks as though she’s wiggling a puppet.
He kind of notices her, kind of doesn’t. She figures his distraction has something to do with him and Tracy, nothing to do with her, but she feels dismissed nonetheless. She is not very adept at being cool; she falls way short of negotiating the complex grid of attitude. So she retreats from the conversational volley; she leaves it to the two of them. They seem to be making a point of how little they have to say to each other.
How has Tracy been?
She’s been fine.
He’s been fine, too. He’s working as a bike messenger between law firms down in the Loop. It’s pretty good money, but he almost gets killed in traffic about five times a day. He has nightmares about getting “doored.”
She’s taking some time off from school.
Neither of them mentions Vaughn, although while he’s talking, the guy brushes his hand casually through the baby’s hatlike crop of hair, which prompts Tracy to start fussing, yanking Vaughn out of his stroller, onto her lap. James looks over at Fern with a kind of click in the back of his eyes. There’s something about the look that makes her edgy in return, but not until he has waved in response to his friends, who are leaving, their boards under their arms, and made a quick set of goodbyes so he can catch up with them, and she has watched the way he moves in his long shorts the whole way out of the park, does she begin to figure out that this edginess has something to do with attraction.
“Anything you want to tell me?” she says to Tracy.
“An old acquaintance. Mr. Nice Guy. Not my type. Too broody.”
It occurs to Fern all of a sudden that the awkwardness between him and Tracy might be that James is Vaughn’s father. She’s not sure where she has come up with this. Maybe their eyebrows; there’s something similar about the way they wave up a little at the ends. But it’s more than that. Before she became a psychic, she almost never had premonitions or suspicions or forebodings. Now she has them all the time. Occupational drift, but disconcerting nonetheless. She’s not sure she wants to know so much, opening doors onto people’s secrets.
Fern waits for Tracy to come forward with this piece of information about the guy, James, but she doesn’t say anything, just plays a silent game of patty-cake with Vaughn.
After a longish moment, Fern says, “I kind of liked him.” She feels like she’s throwing herself on a grenade.
But Tracy only looks at her and then back at the path down which James is disappearing, and says, “Yeah. You might.”
Almost There
NORA AND HAROLD go on a neighborhood garden walk. He found the tour advertised on a flyer tacked up somewhere, the same way he ferrets out church pancake breakfasts and VFW spaghetti dinners. For Harold, the city is a limitless universe of galaxies and he’s a tourist in all of them. This makes him both delightful to know and exhausting to be around.
Nora asked Jeanne along (too busy with her article) and Fern (something else to do, that sad smile of regret, she’s so adept at these, at making them look as false as possible). Later, Nora heard her on the phone with Tracy, discussing their lack of plans. Nora knew the garden walk wouldn’t attract Fern’s interest, but she thought maybe with Harold as
Tracy emerges from somewhere deep within to say, “Hey, James.” She’s got her voice flattened out, but she’s nervous, Fern can tell. She doesn’t bother making introductions, just shifts her gaze down and starts pushing Vaughn back and forth a little in his stroller.
“Hey,” James says in reply—to Tracy at first, but then he widens his focus to take in Fern and the baby.
“Fern,” she says, introducing herself, lifting her hand in a wavelike gesture she immediately regrets. She suspects she looks as though she’s wiggling a puppet.
He kind of notices her, kind of doesn’t. She figures his distraction has something to do with him and Tracy, nothing to do with her, but she feels dismissed nonetheless. She is not very adept at being cool; she falls way short of negotiating the complex grid of attitude. So she retreats from the conversational volley; she leaves it to the two of them. They seem to be making a point of how little they have to say to each other.
How has Tracy been?
She’s been fine.
He’s been fine, too. He’s working as a bike messenger between law firms down in the Loop. It’s pretty good money, but he almost gets killed in traffic about five times a day. He has nightmares about getting “doored.”
She’s taking some time off from school.
Neither of them mentions Vaughn, although while he’s talking, the guy brushes his hand casually through the baby’s hatlike crop of hair, which prompts Tracy to start fussing, yanking Vaughn out of his stroller, onto her lap. James looks over at Fern with a kind of click in the back of his eyes. There’s something about the look that makes her edgy in return, but not until he has waved in response to his friends, who are leaving, their boards under their arms, and made a quick set of goodbyes so he can catch up with them, and she has watched the way he moves in his long shorts the whole way out of the park, does she begin to figure out that this edginess has something to do with attraction.
“Anything you want to tell me?” she says to Tracy.
“An old acquaintance. Mr. Nice Guy. Not my type. Too broody.”
It occurs to Fern all of a sudden that the awkwardness between him and Tracy might be that James is Vaughn’s father. She’s not sure where she has come up with this. Maybe their eyebrows; there’s something similar about the way they wave up a little at the ends. But it’s more than that. Before she became a psychic, she almost never had premonitions or suspicions or forebodings. Now she has them all the time. Occupational drift, but disconcerting nonetheless. She’s not sure she wants to know so much, opening doors onto people’s secrets.
Fern waits for Tracy to come forward with this piece of information about the guy, James, but she doesn’t say anything, just plays a silent game of patty-cake with Vaughn.
After a longish moment, Fern says, “I kind of liked him.” She feels like she’s throwing herself on a grenade.
But Tracy only looks at her and then back at the path down which James is disappearing, and says, “Yeah. You might.”
Almost There
NORA AND HAROLD go on a neighborhood garden walk. He found the tour advertised on a flyer tacked up somewhere, the same way he ferrets out church pancake breakfasts and VFW spaghetti dinners. For Harold, the city is a limitless universe of galaxies and he’s a tourist in all of them. This makes him both delightful to know and exhausting to be around.
Nora asked Jeanne along (too busy with her article) and Fern (something else to do, that sad smile of regret, she’s so adept at these, at making them look as false as possible). Later, Nora heard her on the phone with Tracy, discussing their lack of plans. Nora knew the garden walk wouldn’t attract Fern’s interest, but she thought maybe with Harold as
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