The Widower's Two-Step (26 page)

She greeted me without looking up. She swirled her brush to form a cluster of pale purple petals. There was a fingerprint the exact same colour on the side of her nose.

"You know they sell plants now," I said. "You can just buy them in stores."

Mother suppressed a giggle. I think that was my first indication maybe she'd been sitting in the heat and the paint fumes too long.

"It's trompe l'oeil, Jackson." Then she lowered her voice. "The Endemens are paying me."

I looked back at the Endemens' house. Mr. Endemen, a scruffy retired newspaperman, was sitting at his typewriter at the diningroom table. He was trying hard to look busy, but he kept sneaking sideways glances at us through the picture window. He was frowning, like the view hadn't improved since I'd arrived.

"I won't tell," I promised.

Mother finished her petals and looked up at me. She did a double take.

"Well ..." She raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry, I thought you were my son."

"Mother—"

"No, you look wonderful dear. What happened to your chin?"

"It's a bruise."

She hesitated. She had noticed something else too— that pheromonal afterglow that only mothers and girlfriends can detect, that aura which told her I had been Up To Something the night before.

Whatever conclusions she came to she kept to herself. She looked down at my ensemble while she stirred her brush through a pie tin. "I don't know if I'd've chosen the brown tie, but it's nice. I suppose conservative is best for an interview."

"A woman in purple overalls is giving me fashion tips."

She smiled. "I'm very proud of you. Would you like to take a medicine pouch for luck?"

"Actually I was hoping to borrow the Audi."

Mother tightened her lips.

She reached past me for her beer bottle. I stepped back so she wouldn't get paint on my black slacks. After she took a sip of Pecan Street Ale she looked up and down the fence at her work so far.

"Mr. Endemen wants grape vines along the top," she mused. "I think that's too much with the wisteria, don't you?"

I thought about it. "You get paid per plant?"

She sighed. "Artistic question. I shouldn't have asked you. I hope you want the Audi just to drive to UTSA?"

I gave her my best innocent look. "No ... I have some work to do afterward. It would be better if I didn't use my own car for it."

"Some work," she repeated. "Dear, the last time you borrowed my car for some work

..."

"I know. I'll pay you back for any repairs."

"That's not really the point, Jackson."

"Can I trade cars with you or not, Mother?"

She put down her paintbrush, then wiped her hands on a rag. She pulled her key chain out of her bib pocket with two fingers. "My hands are sticky."

I took the key off the chain. "Thanks."

Mother leaned in close to the fence and traced out a new curl in her vine. Mr. Endemen kept typing in the dining room, looking out the window from time to time to see if I'd gone away yet.

"So," Mother said, "are you nervous?"

I refocused on her. "About the interview?"

She nodded.

"No sweat," I said. "Sitting around with a bunch of professors won't be the worst thing that's happened to me this week."

Mother smiled knowingly. "Don't worry. You'll do fine."

She looked at my face again. For a minute I thought she might bring out a Kleenex, dab it on her tongue, and wipe my cheeks like she used to do when I was five. "I hope we'll see you tomorrow."

"You having your traditional costume party?"

I thought, after all these years, that I could keep the resentment out of my voice. I'm not sure I managed.

She nodded. "It doesn't mean we can't make it a double celebration, Jackson."

"I'll do my best."

"You'll come," she insisted.

When I left she was still deliberating whether or not to go with the grape vines.

The neighbourhood private security guy cruised past the front yard as I was opening my mother's white Audi sedan. He saw my dress clothes and for the first time in two years he didn't slow down or look at me suspiciously.

There was an Indian medicine pouch waiting for me on Mother's dashboard.

35

"I think that went just fine," David Mitchell told me. "Come in, come in."

WJ His office was on the third floor of the Humanities &c Social Sciences Building, just down the hall from the interview room. On the office door was a Peanuts cartoon of Lucy in the psychiatrist's booth with the little DOCTOR is IN sign. Professor Mitchell, a man on the cutting edge of humour.

His work space was messy but cozy, filled with crammed bookshelves and dented filing cabinets and dying potted plants. There was a Macintosh computer setup as big as a Hyundai against the back wall. A poster for the Houston Renaissance Festival above that. More Lucy and Linus cartoons were Scotchtaped around the room like hastily applied BandAids.

Mitchell offered me a seat and a Diet Pepsi from his private stash. I accepted the seat.

"Well," he said. "Now that we've grilled you, perhaps you have some questions of your own."

He nodded his head encouragingly. He'd done that all the way through the formal interview while his three colleagues—two elderly Anglo men and one Latino— stared at me and frowned and asked me over and over again what exactly I'd been doing since my postgraduate work. When they'd shaken my hand at the end of the hour they'd all looked worried, like they should've worn surgical gloves. Maybe Mother was right. Maybe the brown tie had been a bad choice.

I asked Mitchell some questions. Mitchell nodded his head a lot. He had silver hair and silver sideburns that were trimmed into the shape of fins from a 1950s automobile. His features were pinched and angular and his eyes were beady like a weasel's. A nice weasel. A good ole weasel.

Mitchell gave me some background on the teaching position that had opened up in the department.

Apparently old Dr. Haimer, who as far as anyone could remember had been teaching medieval literature since it was titled "Contemporary Authors," was finally retiring, midterm. Last week, in fact. His two teaching assistants had resigned in protest, leaving Haimer's classes in the hands of other T.A.s and a few American Lit professors who probably thought Marie de France was some kind of bicycle race.

"Medieval just isn't a very popular field," Mitchell told me. "Usually we'd have plenty of lecturers waiting to fill the position in an emergency, but—"

"Why did Haimer leave?"

Mitchell shook his head. "He opposed the establishment of more separate ethnic studies programs. Said it was fragmenting, that the curriculum should have one inclusive canon."

"Oops."

Mitchell looked grave. "He had good intentions. The fact is he said what was on a lot of our minds. But his vote was the only open dissent in the faculty senate. Word got out to the students. Boycotts started, protests on the Patillo, signs that read RACIST. Not the sort of public relations the provost wanted."

"So why me? You don't need another white guy."

Mitchell stared at me like I'd just made an inside joke. "Of course. The committee would prefer someone— 'of diverse gender and ethnicity,' I think is the going term."

"But?"

He shook his head, letting a little more distaste show. "I'll have to speak with Dr.

Gutierrez about that in the committee meeting, I'm sure, but let's talk about qualifi

cations, son. We need someone who knows the field, someone with a good background who can relate to the students. Someone young, a teacher more than a publisher. Technically it would only be for the rest of the year—a visiting assistant professor's position—until a more extensive hiring search can be conducted. But still, once you're in, once you make connections on the faculty—"

He nodded more encouragement, letting me get the picture. I got it.

We talked a little more about the interview process, about when I might come back to teach a demo class if the committee decided to go the next step. I wasn't holding my breath for that, but I said I could stay available. Mitchell nodded, content.

He opened the folder I'd given him and ran down my credentials and training from Berkeley. He started shaking his head and smiling.

"You're bilingual."

"Spanish and English. Middle English. Some classical Spanish and Latin, enough AngloNorman to get the dirty jokes in the fabliaux."

He whistled silently and closed the folder. "You completed a fiveyear program in three years. These letters of recommendation are extremely strong. How is it after all that you got into ..."

He looked for a polite word.

"Thug work?" I offered.

He chuckled. "Let's go with 'investigations.' "

"Just luck. And the fact that the only job I could get with my Ph.D. at the time was tending a bar on Telegraph Avenue. And the fact that a friend of mine introduced me to someone, a criminal lawyer who sort of—took me in."

Maia Lee probably would've laughed at that. "Took me in" was a nice euphemism for teaching somebody to break a window the right way, disarm a security system, do a skip trace, blackmail somebody with photos to keep a civil case from going to trial.

Maia's associates at Terrence &C Goldman had frowned on her methods until Maia made junior partner.

Mitchell was looking at me, still smiling but with a little more wistfulness in his expression.

"And the fact your father was a lawman," he suggested. "I suspect your mother is right—that had a lot to do with your career getting sidetracked."

I didn't answer. Sidetracked?

"So why would you go back to Academia now?" he asked.

I think I told him something about wanting an intellectual challenge and applying real world experience to the classroom, blah, blah, blah. My mind was pretty well disconnected with my spiel by the time someone knocked on the door.

Mitchell excused himself. He went into the hall and mumbled briefly with one of the other members of the hiring committee.

He came back in and sat down. He kept his face impassive.

"That didn't take long," he said.

I got ready to leave, to tell him thanks anyway.

Mitchell broke into a grin. "They'd like to see a demo next week. Dr. Gutierrez said you're the most refreshing candidate he's interviewed in a long time."

When I left Mitchell's office I had a little slip of paper confirming my demo lesson to the medieval undergrad seminar on Monday. I also had a dazed, sticky feeling, like somebody had already started wallpapering me with Peanuts cartoons and Scotch tape.

36

A red Mazda Miata was parked in front of 90 Queen Anne Street with its right tires over the curb. When I walked around to my side of the house Allison SaintPierre came out my front door and said, "Hi."

She was wearing white Reeboks, a pleated white skirt, and a white tank top that wasn't lining up with her bra straps very well. A terrycloth sweatband pushed her hair into bangs. Her smile was alcoholfortified. Tennis lesson day at the country club.

She was holding two Shiner Bocks. One bottle was almost empty. The other she gave to me.

"Damnedest thing," she said.

She leaned sideways in the doorway so I could pass if I wanted to do the mambo with her.

I stayed on the porch.

"Let me guess. My landlord let you in."

She smiled wider. "Sweet old fart. He picked up that envelope on the counter and asked me if I knew anything about this month's rent."

"Yeah, Gary has a thing for blondes. Rent money and blondes. Maybe if I brought over more blondes he'd ask less often about the rent."

Allison raised her eyebrows. "Worth a try."

Then she turned inside like her back was hinged to the doorjamb. I almost thought she was going to fall into the living room, but at the last minute she put her foot out and walked in. She said, "Wooo."

I drank some of my Shiner Bock before following her inside.

Allison had taken Julie Kearnes out of the cassette deck and put in my Johnny Johnson. She'd pulled an old Texas Monthly off the windowsill and left it open on the coffee table. The ironing board was down and the phone had been pulled out from behind it.

Allison sat on the kitchen counter stool and spread her arms along the Formica.

"Somebody named Carol called. I told her you weren't here."

"Carolaine," I corrected. "That's just great. Thanks."

She shrugged. Happy to help.

I looked for Robert Johnson but he'd buried himself deep. Maybe under the laundry.

Maybe in the pantry. Unlike my landlord, Robert Johnson didn't go much for blondes.

"You send Sheckly a getwell card yet?" I asked.

Allison had a happy drunk going that was about as thick as battleship skin. My question pinged against her, a small annoyance but not nearly enough to make her change course.

"One of his lawyers left me a message this morning— something about the medical bills." She was turning the tip of her right sneaker in time to the music. Back, forth, back, forth.

I waited.

"You're in my apartment for a good reason, I'm sure. Mind telling what it is?"

Allison appraised me while she bobbed her head, starting at my feet and working her way up. When she got to my eyes she locked on and smiled, approvingly.

"You look good. You should dress like that more often."

I shook my head. "This outfit reminds me of too many funerals."

"That's where you were this morning?"

"Close enough. Why are you here?"

Allison lifted her fingers off the counter. "You were listed in the book. I felt bad about you getting hit last night."

"You felt bad."

She grinned. " I'm not that terrible, sweetie. You don't know me well enough."

"The guys who know you well enough seem to get flesh wounds."

"Like I said, Tres, I grew up with four brothers."

"How many of them made it to adulthood?"

Her eyes sparkled. No making her mad today. "Maybe I was just curious. Miranda's dad called me this morning. He wanted to know if Miranda was with me last night."

"Yeah?"