The Truth of the Matter by Robb Forman Dew

that he could look down from his slouched position and read.
    Dwight put his small stack of books on the table beside the rocker. “Looks like you’re reading for the pleasure of it,” Dwight said, gesturing to the books he had just put down along with a notebook and a fistful of sharpened pencils.
    “No, not really. Well, I guess I am,” Claytor said. “This book’s assigned, but I’ve gotten interested in it. Probably I’m going to have to read it again. I forgot to take notes about forty pages ago.” Claytor righted himself, closing his book by grasping it so that one finger held his place. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. He was earnest and spoke softly as if he might be overheard. “Can I ask you something? Do you have a minute?”
    “Sure,” Dwight said. “Fire away. I don’t know that I’ll be much help, but I’ll be glad to give it a shot.”
    “It’s just that I don’t know what to do, Dwight. Probably I can’t do anything. I don’t think there’s anything
to
do!” Claytor admired Dwight more than any other man he knew, with the possible exception of Uncle Robert. And Claytor was wrung out by the several years of his secret, overwhelming devotion to and desire for his cousin Trudy Butler.
    Dwight listened with careful attention and was surprised. “But you haven’t even been dating anyone else! I’d been wondering why. You aren’t giving yourself a chance. You need to give yourself a chance to . . . overcome this. Well, I suppose that’s a little dramatic. After all, it’s only Trudy. Good Lord! You’ve known her all your life. We all love Trudy. But I think you’ve confused perfectly natural feelings for her. . . . There’re some terrific girls at school. There’re some terrific girls right here in town.”
    Claytor looked at Dwight despairingly and moved his head just enough to signify the impossibility of what Dwight proposed.
    Dwight tried not to sound annoyed. “You’ll get over it. Trudy will, too. After all, you hardly see each other except over school breaks. You probably shouldn’t come home so often. You could find some sort of summer job at school. Don’t brood about it! Nothing’s worse, and it’s just Trudy, anyway. It’s probably mostly a habit —”
    “It’s not a habit,” Claytor interrupted. “If you’d ever felt this way about anyone, you’d know that it’s about as far from being a habit as anything can be. It’s nothing I could change by just making up my mind to do it. I thought you’d pretty much fallen for Cleo Morris. You spend a lot of time —”
    “Oh, Lord, Claytor! Cleo’s just . . . She’s just a friend. We’re just friends. We like each other, but not . . . I don’t want to feel the way you do about Trudy! I like so many girls. Any girl with a sense of humor. A girl to flirt with. To have fun with. I don’t want to feel serious about a girl right now. Good God! And I don’t want any girl to feel serious about me. I don’t have time. I have so much debt. . . . And it seems to be pretty miserable, anyway. It doesn’t seem to me that you and Trudy are having any fun.”
    Claytor considered this for a little while and sighed. “I guess you’re right. I should stay away from here when Trudy’s home. And you’re right, too. We’re not having fun. Not fun, exactly.” Claytor sat quietly for a moment, still perplexed, but then he smiled a defeated thanks at Dwight and went back to his book.
    Dwight, however, had trouble concentrating on his own reading. Trudy as an object of desire had never crossed his mind, and as he sat on the porch reading, trying to break through to the meaning underneath the clotted text of Peterson’s
Honor or Justice in America: The Making of American Law,
his mind drifted back to the idea of Trudy and Claytor. It was an impossible situation; he couldn’t think of any satisfactory resolution to offer Claytor. And, oddly enough, the rest of that