Now she’s seventeen, and it’s old enough, I think. But she’s got this innocence, still. It’s not she’s stupid — she’s on the honor roll, she wants to be a writer — but Joe and I were over there a couple months earlier, at the beginning of summer, right when him and Tina were starting up. They went off to buy some beer and Nancy and I waited in her room. Nancy was sitting in this shiny beanbag. She had cutoff short-shorts on, and every time she moved, her thighs made the sticking sound that you know it’s leg-on-vinyl but you imagine leg-on-leg. I had it in my head it was time to finally do something. I lay down on the carpet next to her, listening, and after a little while I said, “What kind of name is Nancy for you, anyway?”
Nancy said, “Actually, I think Nancy’s a pretty peculiar name for me. But I always thought that was because it’s mine.”
See, I was flirting. I was teasing her. It was my voice she was supposed to hear, not the words it said. But it was the words she heard, and not my voice. It was an innocent way to respond. And I didn’t know what to do, so I told her she was nuts.
She said, “No. Listen: Jack… Jack… Jack… Does it sound like your name still?”
It completely sounded like my name, but I didn’t say that because hearing it was as good as “Yes” in my ear and I wanted her to keep going. I wanted to tell her I loved her. Instead, I said it. I said, “I love it.” She said, “Jack… Jack…Jack. I’m glad, Jack Jack.”
If she didn’t have innocence, she’d have heard what my voice meant and either shut me down or flirted back at me.
When we got to their house on the day of the nodding guy, she was sitting on the stoop with a notebook, wearing flip-flops, which made it easy to admire the shape of her toes. Most people’s toes look like extra things to me, like earrings or beards. Nancy’s look necessary. They work for her.
Joe went inside to find Tina.
Nancy said, “What’s with the grapefruits?”
I said, “We intimidated a man. It’s all words.”
“I don’t like that spoon,” she said. “I clink my teeth. It chills me up.” She was still talking about grapefruits.
“They’re not for you,” I said. “They’re for your parents.”
“What’s all words?” she said.
I said, “You don’t say what you mean. You pretend like you’re talking about something else. It works.”
“A dowry goes to the groom, not the other way around,” she said.
I said, “What does that have to do with anything?”
She said, “Implications. Indirectness. And suggestion.”
Was she fucking with me? I don’t even know if she was fucking with me. She’s a wiseass, sometimes, but she’s much smarter than me, too. And plus she was high. I would’ve taken a half-step forward and kissed her mouth right then, except I wasn’t also high, and that’s not kosher. Plus I probably wouldn’t have stepped forward and it’s just something I tell myself.
“Come inside with me,” she said.
She kicked off her sandals and I followed her to the kitchen. It’s a walk through a long hallway and Nancy stopped every couple steps for a second so that I kept almost bumping her. She said, “You should take your shoes off, Jack. And your socks. The floor’s nice and cold.”
That was a pretty thought, but getting barefoot to feel the coldness of a floor is not something I do, so I told her, “You’re a strange one.” Nancy likes people to think she’s strange, but she doesn’t like people thinking that she likes them to think that, so it was better for me to say than it sounds, even though she spun around and smacked me on the arm when I said it, which also worked out fine because I was flexed. I was expecting a smack. I know that girl.
In the kitchen, Cojo was drinking beer with Tina and Mr. Christamesta. Mr. Christamesta was standing. He’s no sitter. He’s six foot five and two guys wide. I can’t imagine a chair that would hold him. He could wring your throat one-handed. If there was a black-market scientist who sold clones derived from hairs, he’d go straight for the clog in Mr. Christamesta’s drain whenever the customer wanted a bouncer. That’s what he looks like: the father of a thousand bouncers. Or a bookie with a sandwich-shop front, which is what he is. But it’s a conundrum after you talk to him, because you don’t think of him like that. You talk to him, you think he’s a sandwich-shop owner who takes a few bets on the side. Still, he’s the last guy in Chicago whose daughter you’d want to date. Him or Daley. But a father-in-law is a different story.
He said to me, “Jack Krakow! What’s with the grapefruits?”
I didn’t want to think about the grapefruits. The grapefruits made me sad.
I said, “They’re for you, sir, and Mrs. Christamesta.”
“You’re so formal, Jack. You trying to impress me or something? Why you trying to impress me, now? You want to marry my daughter? Is that it? My Nancy? You want to take my Nancy away from her papa? You want to run away with her to someplace better? Like that song from my youth? If. it’s. the. last. thing. you ev-er do? You want to be an absconder, Jack? With my daughter? So you bring me grapefruits? Citrus for a daughter? What kind of substitute is that? It’s pearls for swine, grapefruits for Nancy. Irrespectively. It’s swine for steak and beef for venison. You like venison? I love venison. But I also love deer, Jack. I love to watch deer frolic in the woods. Do you see what I mean? The world’s complicated. It’s okay, though. I am impressed with your grapefruits. You have a good heart. You’re golden. I like you. Just calm down. We’re standing in a kitchen. It’s air-conditioned. Slouch a little. Have a beer.”
He handed me a bottle. I handed him the grapefruits. He’s got thumbs like ping-pong paddles, that guy. He could slap your face from across the country.
What sucked was, grapefruits or no, I was trying to impress him, and I did come for his daughter, and he wouldn’t be so jolly about it if he knew that, so I knew there was no way he knew it. And since he didn’t know it, I knew Nancy didn’t know it, because those two are close. So I was like one of these smart guys like Clark Kent that the girl thinks of like an older brother. Except I’m not smart. And my alter-ego isn’t Superman, who she loves. At best I’m Smith, who no one knows his name but Cojo.