Leo didn’t know how much more he should read. This wasn’t mother stuff, it was woman stuff, and she had put in so many details he thought he might get hit with something very private before he knew he was on it. But how could he stop? He looked over the pile, then took out the other notebook and any paper with writing on it. Most of those looked like poems. Some were written on pieces of grocery bags, others on napkins or envelopes, and two were on the backs of paper plates. He thought the words must have come out of her as unexpected as a sneeze so she had to reach for whatever was closest.

The other notebook was only half written in. It was white with metal spirals and on the cover in ballpoint was his father’s handwriting: Memoir Book #2. There were no other notebooks, just photographs and poems, which Leo stacked back neatly in the Heywood Paper Products box. He finished his second Coke and went back to the fridge for another. How men could drink whiskey, he didn’t know. On the way back to his room he stopped in Jim’s. He stood at the foot of the small double bed and stared at the wedding day portrait over the headboard. Katie Faye was looking deep into the camera with just the shadow of a smile on her lips. Her gown made her seem pretty skinny. Her breasts were small, like Allie’s and her mother’s. Katie Faye appeared so damned serious in most of her pictures, in practically all from her wedding. Serious and weak, that’s how Leo had always thought of her. But he was very mistaken, Katie Faye was funny and strong. Damn. He walked back into his room and sat on the bed with the notebook. He leaned back against the wall and kept reading.

Jimmy was tardy meeting me at American Flyers so our actual date didn’t seem to begin until after the movie, which I remember Detesting with a big D. I’m afraid I made the mistake of expecting something close to what Charles Dickens had built out of words in his gorgeous book. This I told to Guitar Jimmy as we left the theater, something I recall immediately regretting for every manner of reason, the first being I wanted to kiss him, and my teen-age idea of a romantic date was a wordless face-gazing one culminating in lips colliding. Also, I didn’t want to be disappointed in anything he might have to say and thereby not want to kiss him at all. And thirdly, I didn’t want to sound like the snob I knew I was.

But, it was too late. I’d already said it. We were walking down Las Lomas for an eatery on Texarkana. It was a warm September night. Jim was looking dapper and squarely built in his uniform. I wore ruby-red lipstick, my hair was folded in a demi-bun just above my neck, and Gram had lent me one of her old cotton dresses, circa 1910. It had tiny lavender wagon wheels printed all over it; it hugged my waist and left my breasts pockets of air.