“Is that a fact?” I said. “I can’t say that I rightly noticed.”

“Come in for a while, Nick. I want to talk to you.”

“I guess we better let it wait until tomorrow night,” I said. “It’s kind of late, an’—”

“Now! Tonight, Nick.”

“But Rose—I mean, Miz Hauck—will be waiting. I—’,

“Let her. I’m afraid it’s not the only disappointment she’s in for. Now, come in!”

She flung the door open and went in, and I went in after her. Her hand gripped mine in the darkness, and she led me back through the house to her bedroom. And it was a funny thing, her saying she wanted to talk to me, because she didn’t do no talking at all.

Or hardly any.

Afterwards, she lay back and yawned and stretched; kind of fidgeting because I never could see good in the dark, and I was slow in getting my clothes on.

“Will you please hurry a little, darling? I feel all nice and relaxed and drowsy, and I want to get to bed.”

“Well, you sure ain’t got far to get,” I said. “What was it you was wantin’ to talk to me about, anyways?”

“About your grammar, possibly. You’re no ignoramus, Nick. Why do you talk like one?”

“Just habit, I guess. Kind of a rut I’ve got into. English and grammar, I reckon, they’re like a lot of things. A fella don’t use ‘em—he don’t see no real demand for ‘em—and pretty soon he loses the knack. Wrong is right for him, an’ vicey versa you might say.”

Amy’s head shifted on the pillows, her eyes wide in her white face as she studied me.

“I think I know what you mean, Nick,” she said. “In a way, I’m a victim of the same process.”

“Yeah?” I said, pulling on my boots. “How you mean, Amy?”

“Or I’m beginning to be a victim,” she said. “And, you know, darling, I rather like it.”

I stood up, tucking in my shirttails. “Just what was you wantin’ to say to me, Amy?”

“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow night. In fact, I no longer think I’ll have anything to say then.”

“But you said—”

“And I said some other things, too, darling. Possibly you weren’t listening. Now, you run along now, and I do hope pore ol’ Miz Hauck ain’t too disappointed.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I sure hope she ain’t either.”

But I had an idea she was going to be.

12

The way I’d met Myra was at the state fair a few years ago. I was all dressed up like I always am when I go someplace, and even a god-danged fool could see I was doing plenty all right. Anyway, I reckon Myra seen it. And she didn’t look so bad herself then; she’d gone to some pains to pretty herself up. And I didn’t fight too hard when she latched herself onto me.

It was at this place where you throw balls at a colored fella’s head, and if you hit him you won a prize. I was just doin’ it because the fella that ran the place kept asking me to. It had seemed unobliging not to, but I sure didn’t want to hit this colored man and I didn’t. But I heard someone clapping her hands, and here was Myra, carrying on like I was the world’s greatest pitcher.