I swallow. “Hello, Randall. I’m Paris. Glad you made it.” I feel ugly and fat, and I should’ve combed my hair even if no one was coming over. That’s the problem, no one hardly ever comes over except Dingus’s friends. Why is that, Paris?

“I think there were a few fatalities, sorry to say. But. I’m here. You have a beautiful home,” he says, looking around.

I can’t even believe myself. Getting all giddy over some stranger who’s here to look at my yard. Get a grip, Paris. Please.

“You want to show me your yard?”

“Sure,” I say, and point toward the French doors that lead outside. “I’ll be right out.” I’m too hyper right now. I need to calm down. But the good news is that this hasn’t happened to me in years. His being married doesn’t concern me. In fact, I hope he’s happily married. I’m just grateful to him for making me feel some level of excitement. I need to contain this feeling, trap it somehow. So—I pick up my purse and get out a pill and then decide to break another one in half. I take them both.

I walk out through the open doors and just stand there watching this man walk around my yard. He’s up at the top of the slope, standing next to an evergreen that looks like it’s got tuberculosis. He must be about six feet, maybe five eleven. Chocolate brown. Not more than thirty-four or -five at most. God knew exactly what he was doing when he made this one. His wife is one lucky woman.

When I step outside, he yells: “You want to tell me some of your ideas, and then I’ll tell you some of mine?”

“Sure,” I say, as I stand inside a puddle of sunshine. The heat feels good. For the next hour or so, I think I’ll pretend that the only thing on my mind are flowers and ponds and koi and evergreens and shrubs. But tonight, when I close my eyes, I’m almost certain that this is the man who’ll be lying in bed next to me. That’s how it’s been. That’s pretty much how it is.

Puff On That

He beat me. But I didn’t feel bad like I thought I would. As a matter of fact, it was sorta like playing myself, because my son is smart, maybe even smarter than me. But it’s cool. They say each generation should be an improvement over the next, and he’s living proof that it’s true, which is why I guess I actually feel better about losing to him.

He’s still sleep out there on the couch, and I’ve already been up and out this morning. I tracked down Woolery and got most of my money, enough to get the parts for my car, and even though it hurt me to pay it back all at once, I sent Miss Loretta the sixty I owed her and Luisa her forty. My buddy Silas spent all morning helping me get my car running, and now I’m just smoking a cigarette, waiting for Jamil to wake up so I can take him home. We were up till almost three o’clock, and I’m glad all I had in the house to drink was the rest of that forty, ’cause I just barely got a buzz. It was nice waking up with a clear head instead of the lead head I’m used to. I ain’t got cotton mouth either, which means I could actually tongue-kiss somebody if somebody was here for me to tongue-kiss. I might have to try this more often.