I found myself holding my breath. A memory came to me, something I had never thought about before. It was me laying on the bed in my room, listening to my mother and father in the kitchen. She was begging him to come back. She was begging him and crying, and I was laying there, holding my breath, waiting for his answer. When he said he couldn’t, when he had left and the door was closed and the only sound was Mama’s crying in the kitchen, I started hitting the wall with my fist. I hit it and hit it until I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.

Aggie wouldn’t let Cal look away from her. She made him look her right in the eye. She held his head in her hands and looked him in the face until he stammered that he would go up to O’Donnel’s.

“Okay,” she said, “okay.”

Cal slumped across the bed, and Aggie stood and signaled me towards the door. We went there together and looked back at Cal on the bed. I saw his scrapbook on the floor, and I went back and picked it up and put it on the dresser.

I met Cal in front of O’Donnel’s office the next morning. I was there early and waited for him in the lobby. I spoke, but he didn’t answer. We got on the elevator and went up to the ninth floor.

O’Donnel’s office still impressed me. His secretary smiled at us like she was glad to see us or something. I smiled back, and she took the smile off her face real quick, like the whole thing had been a mistake.

“How you feeling?” I asked Cal as we waited.

“Feeling?” He looked at me. “I’m feeling okay.”

“It’s a nice day,” I said, trying to fill up the space between us.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t screw anything up for you.”

“I wasn’t worried, man.”

I could smell the liquor on Cal’s breath from the night before. I figured O’Donnel would, too. We waited a while longer, and then O’Donnel came out. He took a quick look at us and then went back into his office. A moment later his secretary came over, with that same smile. This time I didn’t smile, though.

“Mr. Jones, Mr. O’Donnel would like to see you now,” she said. She sounded like somebody making an announcement about a bus being delayed or something. “May I get you a magazine, Mr. Jackson?”

I said okay. Cal went on in, and I sat on the couch wondering what was going on. Now I knew why Mr. O’Donnel’s secretary was smiling. Anybody who could chump you off like that, with a smile on their face and making it sound like they were doing you a favor, had to be pleased with themselves.

It seemed like forever that Cal was inside with Mr. O’Donnel. Once Miss Smile went in and I tried to look past her into the office. No way. I couldn’t hear anything either. After a while I had to go to the bathroom. I went over and asked Miss Smile if they had one, and she gave me a key and told me to go outside and to the left.