“What am I going to learn in a week?” asked Will.
“That’s like saying it’s no use saving a penny,” said Maggie. “Every little bit helps.”
“Your mother’s right,” said Jimmy. “Love does much, but money does more.”
“My point was about education, not about money or love,” said Maggie.
“Anyway,” said Will. “I know all of the test-taking techniques. Mr. Quick has been drilling them into us for weeks.”
“Say, I’ve got an idea,” said Jimmy. “Will can bring his book in the car. I’ll quiz him on the way up.”
The next morning Jimmy tooted the horn when it was still dark. While Will settled into the back seat, Lyle stowed a cooler full of sandwiches and drinks in the trunk, along with the SAT review book. As they drove into the rising light, Jimmy switched on the radio looking for the top-of-the-hour news and weather. “They do the weather last,” he said.
Just over half of the thirty thousand additional troops being sent as part of the so-called surge have arrived in Iraq, yet political pressure at home calls for quick results and a firm pullout date, said the radio announcer.
“Firm pullout,” said Jimmy. “That’s the problem right there.” Then he called back to Will. “‘Oxymoron.’ There’s an SAT word for you.”
Poor construction has resulted in generators that don’t work, overflowing sewage systems, and unreliable distribution of food and fuel, said the radio announcer.
“We’re supposed to build their country for them?” asked Lyle.
“If you break it, you own it,” said Jimmy. “I guess that’s the thinking there.”
After the weather, Jimmy turned the radio off and said, “Okay, Will, now for the quiz like I promised your mom.”
“I might have put the review book in the trunk,” said Lyle. “If you pull over, I can get it out.” Outside the car window, the landscape heaved and buckled. Scrubby pine trees clung to the rocks and a stand of post oaks pushed out their soft new leaves.
“It’s not that kind of quiz,” said Jimmy.
“What kind of quiz is it?” asked Will.
“Multiple choice,” said Jimmy. “Here’s the first question. If you’re interested in a girl, do you (a) tell her how much you like her; (b) wait for her to make the first move; (c) invite her on a romantic date; or (d) ask out someone else?”
“Let’s see,” said Will. “I’m guessing A might scare her off, and I can eliminate D, so I’m guessing the answer is C.”
“B worked for me,” said Lyle, and Jimmy and Will laughed.
“Even if that’s what you did with Mom,” said Will, “it wouldn’t work with most girls. Most girls like to be pursued.”
“Correctamente,” said Jimmy. “And what if the girl doesn’t think she’s interested in you? In that case, you have to change her mind. So B is out, and telling her how much you like her not only scares her off, but it makes you look weak. Women like strong men. They like men who have options, not some sad sack who’s mooning after them like a sick dog. I suppose you could ask her out on a romantic date, but that isn’t as good as D.”
“No way,” said Will.
“You’ve got to establish yourself as a player. Then the women will come to you.”
“Jeezus, Jimmy. That’s not how it was with Maggie and me.”
“You have to keep them guessing. It crossed my mind that all that weirdness up at the plant is just because Maggie needs a little excitement in her life.”
“What weirdness?” asked Lyle. “All she did is quit her job.”
“But why did she quit it? That’s the buried question. People are curious if all that do-gooding talk was just a smoke screen for something else.”
“Who’s saying that?” asked Lyle. Then he added, “And what would it be a smoke screen for?”
“Forget I mentioned it. It’s just rumors, anyway. The point is that a romantic date is good too. The strategy has to fit the man. No percentage in acting like a player if you can’t pull it off.”
Lyle had never been a player, but now he wondered if he had let Maggie down in some way, if he should have worked harder to keep their romance alive. And then he wondered if she had let him down too, if they were missing a crucial part of life because of something she had done or failed to do. Nah, he told himself. It was Jimmy who was missing something. “There’s more to life than dating,” he told Jimmy. “You’d figure that out if you had a wife and kids.”
“I won’t try to tell you your business,” said Jimmy. “But Will here has a chance to learn from a master.”
“A divorced master.” Lyle laughed before turning in his seat to look at Will. “Consider the source, son. Always consider the source when people are giving you advice.”
“Love and war,” said Jimmy. “Or, rather, love is war. Specifically, it’s maneuver warfare. You have to feint and circle, and then you overwhelm. Women like a show of force — nothing over the line, that’s not what I’m advocating. I’m just saying, who likes a pussy? Frankly, about the only thing more fun than seduction is war.”
“And fishing,” said Lyle.
“That goes without saying,” said Jimmy.
Lyle hadn’t been fishing in a long time, and now he remembered what it was like to feel at one with the world around him instead of looking on from the bleachers while other people made the plays. As a young man, he’d had a vague notion that when he was called upon to provide for a wife and family, he’d do it by casting his line out into the world and reeling whatever he caught back in. That wasn’t the way things turned out to be, though, and he’d been silly to think it. Still, he liked the way his hands knew what to do without his brain having to tell them. He liked knotting on the shiny lure and flinging it toward a far-off shore and then feeling it tug against the water and trying to spot it beneath the murky surface of the lake as he jigged it in. He settled into a soothing rhythm: the buzz of the line stripping off the reel as he flung it forward, the musical plunk when the lure hit the water, the ratcheting purr of the reel, the smooth arc of his arm and flick of his wrist for the back cast, the cool spray of drops against his skin as the lure whizzed above his head, and finally, the shooting line and agreeable plink as it hit the surface of the lake. He liked watching the water smooth over it and imagining a whole mysterious world roiling beneath the surface, filled with creatures that would live and die without knowing a thing about Lyle’s world, just the way he wouldn’t know a thing about theirs.
3.8 Maggie
By April, Maggie had changed her mind about the prison, not only because the idea of helping the prisoners filled an important requirement for her new life, but also because of the adrenaline rush she experienced when she found out shocking things — that Tomás might be innocent, that profit-driven private prisons relied on a steady stream of bodies for their cells, that “growth” was an industry buzzword, that she suspected her boss was cheating on his wife.
“Do you think DC is having an affair?” she said to Valerie one day when the director was out of the office.
“What makes you say that?” asked Valerie.
“He’s been so cheerful recently, and he’s lost a bit of weight.”
“Good lord!” said Valerie. “You seem to be just as eager to convict the innocent as you are to let the guilty go free. That seems to be a thing with you.”
Maggie had hoped she and Valerie could be friends the way she had been friends with True and Misty, but whenever she made overtures in that direction, Valerie would find an excuse to remind her who was the first assistant to the director and who was the second. “Let’s not forget who you work for,” she said.