Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [85]
“I’m thirty-one.”
“Seven years older than me. And what did you say you did?”
“I’ll show you.”
He drove Billy to the bakery and parked in the back alley. It was getting close to twilight. After Cooper had unlocked the back door, Billy walked into the dark bakery kitchen and began to sniff. “I like this place,” he said. “I like it very much.” He shook some invisible water off his hand, then ran his finger along the bench. “What’s this made of?”
“Hardrock maple. It’s like the wood they use in bowling alleys. Hardest wood there is. You can’t dent it or break it. Look up.”
Billy twisted backward. “A skylight,” he said. “Cooper, your life is on the very top of the eggshell. You have grain from the earth and you have the sky overhead. Ever been broken into?”
“No.”
Cooper looked at Billy and saw, returning to him, a steady gaze made out of the watchful and flat expression he had first seen on the young man’s face when he had met him a few hours before. “No,” he repeated, “never have.” He felt, suddenly, that he had embarked all at once on a series of misjudgments. “What did your father do, Billy?”
“He was a surgeon,” Billy said. “He did surgery on people.”
They stood and studied each other in the dark bakery for a moment.
“We’ll go one more place,” Cooper said. “I’ll get you a beer. Then I have to take you back to the shelter.”
Cooper’s dog, Hugo, came out through the backyard and jumped up on him as he got out of his car. A load of wash, mostly Alexander’s shirts, flapped on the clothesline in the evening breeze. Cooper heard children calling from down the street.
“Here we are,” Cooper said. “We’ll go in through this door.”
Inside the house, Christine was sitting at the dining-room table with two legal pads set up in front of her and a briefcase down by the floor. Behind her, in the living room, Alexander was lying on the floor in front of the TV set, his chin cupped in his hands. He was watching a Detroit Tigers game. They both looked up when Cooper knocked on the kitchen doorframe and came into the hallway, followed by Billy, whose hands were in his pockets and who nodded as he walked.
“Christine,” Cooper said. “This is Billy. I met him at the shelter.” Billy walked quickly around the table and shook Christine’s hand. “I brought him here for a beer.”
Christine did not change her posture. Behind a smile, she gave Billy a hard look. “Hello,” she said. “And welcome, I guess.”
“Thank you,” Billy said. Cooper went out to the kitchen, opened a beer, and brought it back to him. Billy looked at the bottle, then took a long swig from it. After wiping his mouth, he said, “Well, my goodness. I certainly never expected to be here in your home tonight.”
“Well, we didn’t expect you, either, Mr.—?”
“Bell,” Billy said. “Billy Bell.”
“We didn’t expect you, either, Mr. Bell. You’re lucky. My husband never does this.” She looked now at Cooper. “He never never does this.”
Cooper pointed toward the living room. “Billy, that’s Alexander over there. He’s in the Alan Trammell fan club. I guess you can tell.”
Alexander turned around, looked at Billy, and said, “Hi,” waving quickly. Billy returned the greeting, but Alexander had already returned to the TV set, now showing a commercial for shaving cream.
“So, Mr. Bell,” Christine said. “What brings you to Ann Arbor?”
“Oh, I’ve always lived here,” Billy said. “Graduated from Pioneer High and everything.” He began a little jumping motion, then quelled it. “How about you?”
“Oh, not me,” Christine said. “I’m from Dayton, Ohio. I came here to law school. That’s where I met Cooper.”
“I thought he was a baker.”
“He is now. He dropped out of law school.”
“You didn’t drop out?” Billy glanced at Christine’s legal pads. “You became a lawyer?”
“I became a prosecutor, yes, that’s right. In the district attorney’s